The Fightin' Side of Me

I'm not a fighter. I'm not a tough guy. Many days I see other guys and think, Man I wouldn't want to tangle with the likes of HIM.

But back in '05, I started training to fight.

For those of you who have read my blogs and known me a while, this will be old news.

I still never know how to answer the questions though. I make no secret of the fact that I train, but I feel positively embarrassed to admit it sometimes. After a confrontation with an unbalanced man a while back, a coworker said, "You know you could have taken him down." This person was serious. At that point, I usually joke about how I'm qualified to shriek and run, or how I can defend myself with a JUDO CHOP!

(That's Whit's phrase, and if you know anything about Judo it's awfully funny).

***

It started with Judo, in fact. Starting in January of 2005, I took a few weeks of Judo at the local rec center. It's run by a fifth degree black belt, it's cheap, it's close... and it didn't work out. All the breakfall drills and tumbling gave me bad equilibrium problems. And honestly, the class was often run by scowling black belts who had no interest in or use for the newbies, except for the purposes of throwing us around. I lasted all of five weeks. I retain no useful skills from it.

***

In March of 2006 I started training in Krav Maga.

This was a much better fit for me.

Krav Maga is a fighting system that originated in the Israeli military. It was created by Imi Lichtenfeld.

It is primarily a standup fighting style. If I had to use one word to describe it, I'd just call it kickboxing.

That's really a terrible oversimplification though, as it includes gun, knife, and blunt weapon disarms, escapes from holds (chokes, joint locks, etc), and a fistful of ground work. The addition of ground work is a necessary evolution of the style, as the popularity of MMA (mixed martial arts) means lots of people--good and bad--now have some idea how to fight on the ground. Still, the aim of KM is to get back UP, as there is often more than one attacker, and the ground is a poor vantage point from which to defend.

And there's more. KM teaches eye gouges, head butts, scratching and more. It's dirty.

I think that's fine. I've been the victim of enough random violence in my day to know that there's no honor code at work when someone is trying to injure you. If I am attacked by someone with no weapon, the chances of me standing there and trying to trade punches are pretty slim. I'm not the biggest, strongest guy out there, and though I punch and kick just fine, my training philosophy dictates that the shorter the fight is, the better. I will do something nasty in a hurry and be done. Some bad guy might get to think about me with every limping step he takes for the rest of his life (and I'm not joking).

I'm a guy. We talk like that sometimes.

***

Thing is, that's not really who I am. I have a couple years of good, hard training in a useful self defense system. This means I can take a hit, I can defend myself, I can counter, and I can do so without panicking. I'm not awfully versatile, but I've got some really good techniques. I also have a bit of Muay Thai training. KM basically nicks its standup from MT, though I like the mechanics of the MT kicks better. KM nicks techniques from lots of styles, in fact, including Judo. While training in my garage some months back, I slipped in some grease. I caught myself in a perfect KM/Judo front breakfall without thought or injury. Heck, I wish I'd done the technique that well on belt tests. So some of this stuff certainly does get hardwired into us.

(Nothing takes the place of training though. Period.)

***

I struggle to talk about this when asked though. Like today, when my coworker asked if I'm a black belt. I can usually mutter some bad joke and hope it goes away. I mean... look at me. I don't look tough. I don't FEEL tough. I think if I were of a mind to take a deep breath and speak like I'm the baddest thing since the "Thriller" video everyone would laugh. Heck, I would too. It's simply not my character to do that. I'm not a tough guy.

But I'm glad to have some tools. For whatever reason, sometimes the dust settles and I end up being the man to have to confront some random aggressor. That's fine. People who pick on innocents really @#$% me off. I've been the victim plenty. Now I'm glad to be able to be the guy to stand up, and to back it up. I just can't make myself talk about it.