One of the biggest misconceptions with defensive handgun use is what is appropriate extension and compression of the gun in relation to the attacker. Unfortunately, in 99% of square range live fire work we are taught to automatically extend the gun and our arms to their maximum all the time without any thought to what the bad guy is doing and how close he may be. That is a good way to get your gun fouled up in a fight, and we see this not just in Force-on-Force training, but in the real world as well. There was a case just a couple of weeks ago where a private citizen confronted a burglar and had his gun taken away because he did not understand this critical issue. In this picture from a recent Close Contact Handgun class, you can see the student fairly close to the outstretched arm of the bad guy so she has the gun compressed and can put rounds on target and keep control of her weapon. This is something that cannot be done without proper instruction and a decent amount of training
For a lot of people, 2020 was a disaster of differing levels. For me, it was pretty bad. I lost my Mom, the matriarch and the voice of wisdom in my family, and while recovering from that, I lost one of my closest friends. And normally my training is a refuge and sanctuary that renews my energy and my mind, but because of covid shutting so much down, that was not available for many of the times I needed it last year.
There were days where I just could not keep up with my regular actions –daily reading and daily training. I also was not much of a good friend or good husband, or good father at times, being distant and hiding from contact. And both of those things fueled the negative feedback loop that I would find myself in. It became easier to beat myself up and stay in that bad place rather than fixing it. And I don’t believe that is an uncommon reaction. We all fall down, and then we look at ourselves as a failure.
Here is the truth. We ARE NOT FAILURES. We failed, nothing more. We have failed in the past, and we will fall short at some point in the future. And so what? That is not us. It is just something that happened and it can serve as a guidepost for those actions in the future.
Don’t beat yourself up for screwing up. Get back on your feet, rub some dirt in it, and get back to it. Smash that goal on the next attempt. Every great person who accomplished monumental stuff failed as well. Take solace that you are on the same level as them and get back to the grind.
You did not go to the gym last week and feel bad? Just go to the gym today! Only worry about what you are doing in the moment. If you don’t feel up to going to the jiujutsu academy, or lifting heavy iron, or doing a long run, or sweating out an intense dry fire session, just go simple and small. Do 10 goblet squats where you stay in the hole for a few extra seconds each time. Or just get ten trigger presses from a low ready position. Or five technical standups. The sky is the limit. Not every training session needs to be a world beater. Just get some work in and feel good that you did so.
Constant daily little bits add up to a lot of work capacity over a long lifetime. That is a worthy goal. And you can do it. Just like I can, and also like me you can be a little less hard on yourself.
I tend to be known as “the jiujitsu guy”. And that is fine because I do love jiujitsu, and I heartily believe in what all can be gained from training in it. However, while I have been doing BJJ for 32 years, I am about to enter my 42nd year of training martial arts and hand-to-hand fighting. I tend to not throw my resume in people’s faces all the time so it is a bit understandable if they can be lazy about how they think about my lane. And every now and then I need to let others know that the depth and breadth of my experience is more than just rolling around in pajamas with sweaty dudes.
Case in point is my long love, study of, and training in Boxing. I was championing boxing as a martial art and a great fighting system in the early 80’s, and I have spent a lot of time working that methodology. I have even fought in a couple of smokers (essentially unsanctioned “gym” fights for pay) when I was at a gym called Top Level run by a great coach named Paavo Ketonnen. I have had a deep love for this system for a long time.
I have a big collection of boxing books including of course history and stories and biographies of fighters, but the ones I have read the most are the instructional. I have a ton of them, going back a long time. My earliest edition is form 1887, and I have some original first editions of instructional from 1903 and 1906. I have spent a great deal of time going deep into them all, and hands down the best one I have ever seen, is Boxing by the US Navy from 1943.
It is one of the very few that actually teaches the concepts behind the punches and truly gets the principals and techniques across as well as can be presented by the printed word (there will always be things missing that can only be seen in actual movement) and is pretty comprehensive.
Unfortunately, as with many great books, it is long out of print. However, it has been reprinted multiple times and sometimes a copy of one of those can be found online used. If you get the chance to own or even just read an edition, take it! You will not be disappointed.
There are a lot of things to remember about what we have to do in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. Hundreds of techniques, different positions, thousands of counters, a large number of principles and concepts that we have to be doing at all times; in short, a long list of things to not forget, and all of it can be altered in the blink of an eye by what our partner does. It can be daunting, especially to the beginner, thinking about all of this and trying to figure out how we are going to remember any of it in the heat of the moment all while another person is trying to choke us into unconsciousness.
There are a number of mantras that try to help us put this into understandable chunks. Perhaps the most famous in Jiu-Jitsu is “position before submission”. All of these are good and useful but what I have found as an instructor that works particularly well even with complete beginners are three simple words. They are: grips and hips.
What I mean by that is that most things in Jiu-Jitsu are only accomplished when you have good and superior grips and your hips are dominating the fight (i.e. can exert more control over your opponent’s hips and base). It doesn’t really matter how good you are at a particular technique if your opponent has his grips and he is shutting down your hip movement. Conversely, if you have superior grips and you can use your hips in the manner that you want to, you will find that you can make a lot of techniques work even if they are not your particularly best performed ones.
Techniques are not the important part of the fight. Techniques are only guidelines to physical action. The key factors are what are the drivers that allow those physical actions. Base, posture, position, pressure, are some key ones that are not attribute based, as well as the idea of keep breathing (it may be shocking but beginners forgetting to breath is a chronic event). Similarly, the simple focused idea of always fighting for the best grip possible, and always fighting for the best hip position is easy to remember and does not have to be tied to a specific way of doing it. My methods of using my hips and establishing my grip may be best for me, but for you, another method may be superior. Think of any technique that shows those things as guidelines and suggestions, but don’t get bogged down in them and go into mental vaporlock trying to remember them in the middle of training.
Watch this short video of a master of grips and hips. Note how Mateus always makes the adjustments on both that keeps him in control. Every successful attack is preceded by a solid control of these two things (also take VERY careful note that after each attack he takes the time to stabilize his post-attack position by making sure he has new established grip and hip superiority so he does not get reversed or countered):
To sum up, don’t try to remember every technique all the time. Remember the principles and framework of jiu-jitsu. If you can consistently do that, you will learn to see the appropriate time for the technique.
When it comes to being a good instructor we can talk about a lot of things. We can discuss not having your ego in the way and that it’s about your student and not you, or we can talk about being enthusiastic about the material, or we can discuss truly caring about making your student better, or we can talk about being a good and continuing student yourself. But perhaps the most important aspect to being a good instructor is something that is little discussed.
That little discussed part is the inherent belief in your own fallibility. We have to always assume that we don’t know everything and that we can be wrong at any given moment. We have to remember that we’ve been wrong in the past, we are probably wrong about something in the present and we will certainly be wrong at some point in the future.
It is easy as a successful instructor to start to believe your own hype. You most certainly will have students who are very happy with your teaching and will pat you on the back. Perhaps your peers and even people you look up to as mentors will also compliment you on your prowess . While this is something that makes you feel good it can also be Insidious and lead you to believe that you are perfect. And none of us are. Ever.
All of us , from the newest teacher to the instructor who has been doing it for 40+ years, are susceptible to the same things. We can be wrong. We won’t know everything at all times. We may not have the depth of experience to be able to properly instruct every single student that comes across our threshold. Understanding that is key to making sure that we are always testing ourselves and our material and our instructional capability by diligent study and making sure we have people who can help keep us in check.
This is an important aspect – i.e. apprenticeship – that is lost on many people in today’s modern society where apprenticeship is not really followed or understood in most areas. Unlike most of the centuries past where all the important skills in society were passed down from Master to Apprentice, today people, thanks to the internet and even more so social media, can start to believe they know things before they truly KNOW things. Having a mentor or mentors who can guide you on your path and help to steer you correctly as well as having peers and friends who care enough about you to call you on your own BS when appropriate is a key part of ensuring that you are always going to be doing your best as a teacher to your own students.
Don’t believe your own hype, assume you may have stumbled and made a mistake, and find trusted people that you can rely on to keep you moving forward in the best way possible. Only then do we deserve the title of teacher.
