Waterway wrote:
Endurance/Sprint Training
Parkour
Strength Conditioning/Bodybuilding (strength is a great assist IMO, and sometimes if some looks bigger that can act as a deterrent to no good hoodlums lol!)
Studying Criminal Psychology (e.g. why do people commit violent crime?)
First Aid (you might not get attacked, but you might be able to save someone who was)
Dog Education (mans best friend, and learning more about how to care for and train a dog can have many benefits for owner and dog, and dogs can help spot danger that you might miss)
Weapons Training (depends where you live and what the law allows, but it may be worth looking into).
There are aspects of these elements and others we try and incorporate into what we do, though for some time now I've shied away from describing it as "martial arts". It's a convenient label but not one I feel much affinity to. I've often thought it odd in a way that people can devote so much time to "self defence" yet not know how to fall safely or react in a crowd, for example, both in many cases more likely situations than being in some duel.
I fully understand peoples' interest in studying an art form, or of keeping certain types of practice alive, be it rapier fencing or monkey boxing and I also understand there can be cross-over benefits from that in self defence (perhaps self protection is a better term?). Or of using their practice as a path to spiritual or health study.
"If you can fight, you can defend yourself."
Against what? And in what circumstances? So many MAs seem geared only to a certain set of conditions
Another question is - what self are we defending when we learn this stuff? And I was as green and naive as anyone when I first started. There's an attractiveness to being the lone hero, the quiet good guy who eventually kicks bad guy ass, the righteous warrior. However that's all part of the heady fantasy of martial arts. There's also a darker side of bolstered egos, unhealthy practices, exploitation and plain old dishonesty.
So how much appeals to the ego and encourages the fantasy, or builds a big shield to hide behind? A lot of RBSD training in particular seems built around building fears. How much training does something to dispel fear rather than propagate it?
Learning to fight shouldn't take long. Unless you are a professional it's not likely to be a skill you call on so much. It's just the start of something interesting.
cheers
Rob