Training for life and death
Published: Wed, 09/11/24
Self-defence is rather like first aid. I have done a lot of first aid training over the years. My scout troop was very keen of introducing its members to the skills of managing minor injuries. I remember we had one quite elderly scout master by the name of Wilf. (Actually anyone over 40 years old seemed ancient to us, so he was probably quite a bit younger than I am now.) Wilf took on a lot of the first aid teaching, especially at camps. On one occasion I was having a one to one session with Wilf when a boy limped over with a minor cut on his knee. I was given the job of cleaning and dressing the wound although I am pleased to say that such ‘reality based training’ was a rare opportunity.
As a teenager there was a member of my church was a very senior consultant anesthetist who was always referred to as Doctor Gardener. Gardener had realised that outside of a hospital or surgery context most medical professionals had no idea how to actually manage a medical emergency, that kind of thing was left to ambulance drivers (before we called them ‘para-medics’.) So, Dr Gardener started teaching first aid to other doctors, and anyone else who was interested, including some people at the church. Looking back, I doubt the esteemed anesthetist knew as much about real first aid as Wilf. However, Dr Gardener’s lessons were informed with a deep and extensive medical knowledge which few other people would have offered to a teen ager like me.
I did combat first aid in the Territorial Army for almost a decade, and this was one of the skills we were were tested on each year in order to qualify for our bounty. Later, I would do a course every three years to comply with insurance requirements for adult education. I would ask the instructors if anyone ever took a first aid course for their own interest? It always seemed that everyone attending was there to comply with a ‘first aider at work’ requirement or similar reason. Of course there are people who are passionately interested in first aid for its own sake. Individuals with with such an interest will join organisations such as the St John’s Ambulance and provide a first aid presence at public events, and a valuable service it is too.
Most people, most of the time, would rather just not think about situations where people get hurt and hope that it never happens to them, or anyone relying on them. To be fair, such an attitude seems to work out just fine most of the time. The prevalence of mobile telecommunication has changed the challenge of rendering first aid dramatically. We used to be trained to care for someone for as long as it took for someone else to find and use a public telephone to call for an ambulance. Now, we could be talking to a dispatcher in seconds after an injury has occurred and (in an urban area) an ambulance may arrive within minutes.
The similarity with self-defence is that some people are martial arts enthusiasts who like to believe that their training is equipping them for ‘real’ situations which may involve violence. Other people are required to take appropriate training for working in potentially dangerous environments, mental hospitals, door work, prisons, and law enforcement generally. The vast majority of the rest of the public just prefer not to think about the possibility of violence coming their way, and for most people, most of the time, nothing too bad ever happens to them.
So, what is the best way to offer self-defence training? People who already practice martial arts should be a potential market in that they have skills and abilities and may benefit from learning how to use their existing skills for actual self-defence. However, as Marc McYoung put it, there are two problems with using martial arts for self-defence, the problem of it not working, and, the possibly much bigger problem, when it does work. As Dr Gardener discovered with highly qualified medics and first aid, a great deal of what the experts know has little relevance in the ‘real’ world.
Training for specialised environments is more about compliance with policy and regulations than about what I would consider effective self-defence. I am not suggesting that all official policy or established regulations are inappropriate, just that such bureaucratic requirements are beyond my experience and expertise.
As far as everyone else is concerned, opportunities are limited. At camps I may find people who are keen to work with the Stav stances and I will bring in some animal exercises and explore how these might be used for self-defence. However, I am not sure how to translate such a situation into everyday life.
What might help in promoting self-defence classes is actually clarifying what I actually want to teach and ‘self-defence’ is a rather narrow and misleading label for what I would really want to do.
There are three issues that I would want to address: Firstly, inner and outer awareness of ourselves and the world around us. Pretty much any problem can be solved if we know what the cause is. Problems we are aware of and can’t solve can usually be avoided.
The second issue is personal responsibility, if we have genuine awareness then there are no victims. Other people may behave badly. However, it is not our job to control or punish them. If we have taken full responsibility for ourselves then we will see a way through any situation, if our ego will let us.
Thirdly, there is a limit to what we can learn from anyone else. The only the lessons we can really rely on are the ones we learn from experience. However, although real life might be the best teacher, sometimes the consequences of failure are such that training drills are a better starting point. Systems, culture, prior experience are all useful for sharing knowledge. However, what is most important is not what we learn in terms of rote techniques, but what we learn from training and practice. As a teacher I can do my best to share what I consider to be of value to me, but what is of value to a student at that moment in time and place is up to them.
Please see links below for opportunities to see what I mean.
regards
Graham
Self-defence classes in Beverley https://iceandfire.org.uk/selfdefence.html
Day course in Salisbury 16th of November 2024 https://iceandfire.org.uk/salisbury16112024.html
Graham Butcher
21 Beaver Road
Beverley East Yorkshire HU17 0QN
UNITED KINGDOM
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