Learn Offense 1st

[YouKnowWho]

If you train

- iron palm, you will always hit others.
- iron vest, you will always be hit by others.

It makes sense to learn offense first before to learn defense. When you train knife skill, first you should train how to mug people with your knife. You then learn how to use open hand to deal with your opponent's knife. This way you know exactly where your opponent may come from.

When you train joint locking, you should

- not train how to deal with your opponent's arm hold.
- train how to deal with your opponent's reaction when you hold his arm.

It's a complete different way of thinking. You should 1st put yourself into the following group in order to understand what they may have in their minds.

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=...B6&FORM=IQFRBA

What's your opinion on this?

[jdhowland]

What's your opinion on this?

I completely agree. Kung fu is based on aggression and delivering force, not on defense. I think even beginners should concentrate on offense. A purely defensive strategy only works in movies.

Loved the link, John.

[PalmStriker]

You should be able to deliver in order to defend. AGREED.

[Kellen Bassette]

Offense is a better strategy than defense. Just makes sense to begin there...

[RenDaHai]

Disagree.

I don't claim to be very experienced with street fights, but I have fought a bit and I have seen enough.

The vast majority of people cower during combat, not because of fear of being hit, but because of fear of hitting the opponent. Fear of escalating the fight, there is a strong psychological barrier to hitting someone. I have felt it myself before and seen it in many others.

Staring into the face of someone who hates you for no reason, a stranger, someone you have never seen before, then hitting them... its not easy as you all seem to think.

But guarding? Everyone can do that without fear.

If you are a good person you will never want to hurt him as much as he wants to hurt you... from this situation how can you win with offensive tactics? You have more to lose and you want to fight offensively? How?

A good strong defence, one that physically hurts his fists to penetrate... Thats the starting place. We are not teaching soldiers, we are teaching normal law abiding people.

My method? Train defence by getting hit a lot and defending. Never say what punch is coming, really try to hit your opponent, hit in combination. This way, you have trained defence and your partner has trained offense by default, by hitting you.


I am sure most of you disagree with me... But why not post an anecdote about a time when you really physically hurt another person and the consequences of that action, then maybe I can see the value of offense over defence for a civilian.

[YouKnowWho]

when you really physically hurt another person ...

Offense doesn't mean that you have to "physically hurt" your opponent. It may be hard to do for a pure striker though.

What will happen when your opponent attacks you 3 times and you move back 3 times? Will you allow him to attack you the 4th time? Do you want your opponent to use your body as his punching bag, or you don't mind to use your opponent's body as your throwing dummy? If you take your opponent down 3 times without hurting him, he may not want to attack you the 4th time.

What if you have spent a great deal of your training time to counter "single leg", but all your life nobody ever used "single leg" on you?

[YouKnowWho]

I find this interest clip. This is "not" what I'll consider as proper offense. But where to draw that line is not clear. You definitely don't want to wait until your opponent has knocked you out.

Mike Vallely Fights against 4 guys - YouTube

[RenDaHai]

What will happen when your opponent attacks you 3 times and you move back 3 times? Will you allow him to attack you the 4th time? Do you want your opponent to use your body as his punching bag, or you don't mind to use your opponent's body as your throwing dummy? If you take your opponent down 3 times without hurting him, he may not want to attack you the 4th time.

Its worked for me in the past. Most of the time there are other options, other ways to win. After 3 defences there may be a chance for escape, your opponent may be disheartened after failing in his attack and then it is time to counter, in public there is a good chance someone will intervene by this point, the opponent may stop trying and may have used up his anger, you have given yourself time to assess the situation and get angry, there may be a second chance to talk him down etc etc.

He is most likely attacking you for a reason, if he fails quickly he may abandon this reason.

Even if you do have to counter, it doesn't need to be as well trained as the defence. If you defended well you will have created an easy opening for an attack even if it is an under trained attack.

If you can take him out without hurting him (i.e Qin na, shuai jiao) I still consider this defence not offence.

[MightyB]

This is why I like sport.

What's the sense of training for what if's that never happen?

With that being said, the guy with the strongest offense usually wins because they're dictating the pace of the fight and action is always faster than reaction (plus judges score you better if you're the offensive fighter). You do need a good defense, but you can't win using defense only.

Since we're including vids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3y3e1mnbtc

[bawang]

in longfist, in almost every single application you are the attacker and throw the first punch. now think about all these demos u seen at tournaments. yes, they are all fake. mind blowing isn't it

[SPJ]

from street melee to nuclear warfare

yes. we deliver first strike or strikes.

however, we do need to spend time on defense with no less effort.

how to survive first nuclear strikes and counter attack or take shots from fists and legs

why DOD or department of defense

spent so much money on anti ballistic missile system or ABM

DOD thinks, too.

should not we ?

First strike

http://youtu.be/jlPEBROvR9w

http://youtu.be/l6W6WqQkM_0

ABM

http://youtu.be/ARx2-wRn9-Y

[jdhowland]

Disagree. ...

Good considerations for civilian self-defense. But, in general, CMA have little to do with self-defense.

[bawang]

Good considerations for civilian self-defense. But, in general, CMA have little to do with self-defense.

you have to excuse ren da hai, he lived in china as tourist for too long. he forgot the power of angry chocolate men.

[YouKnowWho]

you have to excuse ren da hai, he lived in china as tourist for too long. he forgot the power of angry chocolate men.

China is the safest place to live for a foreigner. My American friend dropped her walet in a Taxi in Beijing. The police got it back within 24 hours (there is no way that we can reach to this kind of efficiency in US). I talked to that police and he told me that if a Chinese steals anything from a foreigner, that Chinese will be put in prison the same class as a "murder" would be treated.

[bawang]

China is the safest place to live for a foreigner. My American friend dropped her walet in a Taxi in Beijing. The police got it back within 24 hours (there is no way that we can reach to this kind of efficiency in US). I talked to that police and he told me that if a Chinese steals anything from a foreigner, that Chinese will be put in prison the same class as a "murder" would be treated.

among the chocolate men, there is a saying "your resistance only makes my penus harder".