The Relative Nature of Combat in Time Part III

It's been some time since I've posted to the blog so I'll get right to it.

Perceptions In Time - 5^th Dimensional Chess

"Close combat, man to man, is plainly to be regarded as the real basis of combat."

• Carl von Clausewitz

Just as a refresher or at least for me, in Warrior Flow, as I said in the previous blog post on this, we refer to combat as the equivalent of playing 5^th Dimensional Chess where all of the pieces on the board are moving and engaging at the same time for once the battle begins they are in constant motion.

Once again, like a real fight, the movements are only limited by the laws of physics and human physiology and not based on any one technique or form for it is truly formless until the point of impact. Meaning if you train it right it does not have to take shape until the point of impact.

All with one goal in mind, “Checkmate!” This is the way you must think of how to strike and move your body. So like a real fight, there are things within the laws of physics you can do and things you either can’t do or they are problematic.

The Heart of the Matter

So…

I was speaking with a couple of Instructors and my editor, about a week ago and of course they peppered me with questions where I had to go back and think about how I wanted to answer them. And one of them asked me questions that I’ve discussed before but I’m not sure I quite summed up what I’m trying to get at with all this business about how Time works in relation to combat, etc. So I’m going to answer it as best I can here, based on how I know humans move within the way the universe works when interacting with another human being. I know I’ve discussed this before but I realize this is not the easiest thing to understand nor is it the easiest thing to discuss.

"To achieve victory we must mass our forces at the hub of all power and movement. The enemy's 'Center of Gravity'"

• Carl von Clausewitz

Listen, folks, understanding how time works and how humans move and interact within time and space for combat is everything! If it were not true, then why is it in the fighting arts people place such a premium on developing efficiency and speed?

Why do we place such a premium on dealing with size, reach, strength, etc.?

It is because each one is affected by time. You and I occupy 3-dimensional space and what we do with that space matters because it’s our space. It kills me because in the fighting arts we place so much emphasis on these things yet do not want to get to the heart of the matter and at least try to understand the one thing that influences them all.

Time!

"Where absolute superiority is not attainable, you must produce a relative one at the decisive point by making skillful use of what you have."

• Carl von Clausewitz

Once again von Clausewitz nails it so here's the deal. 

If someone is faster than you, should you move sooner, they get to the wrong place sooner.

If they are stronger than you should you move sooner, they cannot gain purchase on you because you have to be there to be available to them.

The same is true for reach and height, both of which can be considered forms of speed since they both require more effort on your part to overcome.

Since they either force you to have to move closer to close the distance to strike since their height creates the effect that they are already out of the way by their head being further away.

Or move you have to sooner to get out of the way of their reach.

Either way, you have to be able to anticipate on some level to move sooner or delay their action.

Even a person’s weight makes a difference since a person’s weight can be considered a form of strength. I mean there is a reason there are no 200-lbs linemen in the NFL. It's simple, you can’t coach size.

None the less, by developing a better understanding of how to move your body more efficiently within time and space you can learn to minimize them. I’m not saying it’s easy because after all the bad guy gets a vote! But it is totally learnable if you're willing to train to it and take into account in your training how time affects movement and the choices you can make. 

Folks, please reread what I said above because this is an entirely different way of thinking for it allows you to think about moving differently, more efficient, and better, when you take action in the body you have right now.

If you can get this understanding it will triple your ability to move more efficiently almost overnight. 

You just need to appreciate and understand "Time" and how it affects the battle and train accordingly.

The Warrior Flow Exercise

"Our men must win or die. Pompey's men have... other options."

• Julius Caesar

How it works is in this fashion.

Warrior Flow is all about moving in a way that alters another person’s perception of time (time-space) to get ahead of their movement in order to kill them if necessary.

Now I know there are people in the self-defense world who shy away from speaking like this and cringe at the thought of teaching people the dark art of death.

Not my problem…

In a real situation, you may be faced with life or death, and possibly in a situation where you must win or die... your attacker may have other options. That's not the time to figure that shit out your mind needs to be there as best you can from the get-go. 

It reminds me of Mike Tyson in his early career where he would stack guys up like cordwood with knockouts. I remember after he fought a guy named Tony Tubbs. Tubbs was a burly guy who by all accounts would never be mistaken if you saw him on the street as a heavyweight boxer but to his credit, the man could fight. However, he always had a penchant for coming into fights not looking to be in the best of shape.

Anyway… oh, you know where this is going… He gets in the ring with Tyson and basically gets knocked out in like the second round which was longer than some of Tyson’s other opponents. So, when asked by the commentator about the fight and how there were many people who questioned the caliber of some of the fighters Tyson’s defeated and in particular Tubbs, what Tyson said was classic. He said,

“Listen, a man steps into the ring in that kind of physical condition you’re supposed to knock him out early”.

Folks, I’m going, to be honest, here, there should be no ambiguity in your mind about this point. In order for your sword to prevail in battle, you need to learn to get there first. And whether striking or using a gun, knife or any other weapon you need to beat the other guy to the punch and end it.

Or, as Tyson would say you need to knock them out early!

Now you can always back off from doing so or worse, but as I told a student recently,

“I’m going to train you to have all the skills you need to take the bad guy out. What you do with it is your choice and up to you. How you use your skill is on you and whatever choice you make I’m good with it, but should you choose not to go there and take them off the planet so to speak, it won’t be for a lack of skill.  The point is if you have the skill to go there you have the option not too, but if you don’t have the skill and the will do go there it’s not a place you can automatically get to and I don’t give a shit what you know.”

Also, if they move on you first, you must make their movement “your movement” by understanding the inverse relationships of motion and crush them before they can get started. In other words, don’t let it happen in the first place.

(I'll probably cover the Inverse Relationships to Movement as they relate to combat in more depth in a later post from a training standpoint because it literally has the ability to cut down the amount of movement on your part by at least 50% percent. This is something you're going to want to learn how to do.  It is the secret of how many of the most advanced martial practitioners actually move. It is because they've developed their sense of timing to a level where what they are doing cannot be seen with the eye. This is why this type of moment has an intangible quality to it and has a dimensional feel to it when applied to you if you're on the receiving end. It creates this vacuum, this void where it neutralizes their actions in the blink of an eye. But I'll reveal this to you, you cannot learn how to do it unless you are willing to put in the work and the brainpower to understand how time works with regard to human movement and our perceptual awareness  and then practice it to the subconscious competence level.)

"Men do not rest content with parrying the attacks of a superior, but often strike the first blow to prevent the attack being made."

• Thucydides

This is why in Warrior Flow philosophically speaking we do not try to “adapt” initially to the other person’s movements, but try to get ahead of them right off the bat or at least anticipate their movement to remove much of the element of surprise and ambiguity as possible.

I’m sorry but you can’t win on the defense.  Now, this is not to say that there are not times where you have to adapt to another person’s movement but I want you to think about something.

Just indulge me here.

If you’re trying to adapt to what the other guy is doing, technically you’re already behind the power curve because by definition if you are adapting that means you’ve already ceded the first move to the attacker.

Excuse the French but, “fuck that”!

Listen, as I teach folks, if you’ve already reached the point where you feel you have to fight, you’re already in the fight. So what the hell are you waiting for?

You see for us this is not a game, a competition or a dick measuring contest we fight for life. And if you want to have a positive outcome then you need to train in the body and through the mindset to fight to win!

The Difference

"Fortune, which has a great deal of power in other matters but especially in war, can bring about great changes in a situation through very slight forces."

• Julius Caesar

I’ve given it a lot of thought and have come to the conclusion that this mindset is truly a separate way of thinking and separates Warrior Flow from virtually all other arts.

Just as push hands is different from the kind of hand manipulations you taught in many arts. So too is Warrior Flow different from the rest because we focus on developing people from day one in the proper “adumbration” to move to hit with each and every movement if possible and end the fight!

You see, we teach from a different mindset focused on developing dynamic coordination within your body because if you can’t move your body correctly you’re probably not making your stuff work anyway. So rather than “this technique” or “that technique”, we focus on the core mechanisms that make it work from the start and “that” is the difference!

In Warrior Flow to be very clear, there is no bifurcation or any other type of “flow” designations in what we do. It is all a part of “the flow”. There is no separation no distinction it just is. In other words, we’re just teaching people how to fight and win the fight of their lives and that of their family.

Through proper training, we are able to develop the subconscious attributes of total Creativity.

Warrior Flow is totally dedicated toward developing free-flowing creative movement to include striking within the movement at various speeds and levels of intensity to crush the opponent.

Well, I'm going to cut it off here and like I said before in a later post I'll try to explain this stuff a little more but I think what I'm going to do is when I actually describe this sometime in the very near future. I'll make a video so that people can actually see what the Hell I'm talking about.  

Thank you. 

P.S. for those who want to learn more about how to develop this type of movement.

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     Al Ridenhour

     CEO, Creator Warrior Flow™

Al Ridenhour is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the US Marine Corps with 28-years of service active and reserve with multiple combat tours to Iraq and Afghanistan. He has also served as a Law Enforcement consultant to the NJ State Police Special Operations Section, NJ Transit Police Operations Section, The NJ Regional Operations and Intelligence Center, the FBI Philadelphia Bomb Section, and subject matter expert to the US Department of Homeland Security's, Explosives Division. With nearly 40-years of Combative Arts experience, he is recognized as a self-defense expert worldwide and is highly sought out for seminars, workshops, lectures, and special individualized training.  He is the author of "Warrior Flow Mind" (2020), Co-Author of "Attack Proof: The Ultimate Guided in Personal Protection (Human Kinetics, 2010) and the Co-Author of "How to Fight for Your Life" (June 2010).

For more go to https://protectyourself.mykajabi.com/

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