Trifecta training

Once again, I am finding myself with some time on my hands, and I figure I share what to look for in terms of realistic self-defense training.

The question of what makes certain styles, concepts, or even techniques good for self-defense comes up quite frequently. However, before we can even begin to answer that question, first, we have to understand what makes a real fight... Real. While there are many aspects to consider, there are three major ones we want to focus on.

1. Real opponents
2. Real weapons
3. Real intentions

Let's quickly run down what they are and why they matter. Obviously, you don't have a real fight on your hands if you don't have an opponent there to threaten you with anything. Even if there is one, you are not really in danger if your opponent does not have any intentions of hurting you. Now, you can have a real opponent and even with real intentions to hurt you, if you guys are just training with plastic knives and fake guns, then clearly this still isn't a real fight. Even with just fists, there is a clear difference between wearing thick boxing gloves vs wielding brass knuckles.

Long story short, if you have all three elements, you have a real fight on your hands.

So why is this important? Because as far as training goes, nobody should be training like this day in and day out. The chances of injury is simply too high for both you and your training partners.

So how do we make it as realistic as possible while still be able to train safely? By splitting up the training into three parts where you remove one element at a time. Let me give you quick examples of each (in the context of typical martial arts).

1. Real opponent + Real weapons = Unarmed technique training.

2. Real opponent + Real intentions = Sparring with padded safety gear.

3. Real weapons + Real intentions = Heavy bag and maybe speed bag training.

By the way, this model will mostly work too when you scale it up to knife and firearms training.

So now, whenever you are trying to figure out whether a school, style, or concept or even single techniques will be practical for self-defense or not, just try to keep Trifecta training in mind. Also, you will want to make sure that your entire training curriculum comprehensively covers all your bases. If it doesn't, you have a gap in your training.

Submitted June 10, 2019 at 08:59PM by Gback http://bit.ly/2MEiN5L