Why you should learn how to fight
Even if you will never fight..
Purpose of martial arts
I first heard of this quote as I was taking my first self-defense class years ago. The instructor overheard some of the students lamenting and groaning over the lack of advancement of techniques. They argued that the techniques learned in this specific class won’t be applicable to the “sport” version. I’m talking about the beautiful art of Jiu-Jitsu.
To be fair, the students were right.. well sorta. In the “sport” version, there isn’t any striking and there are rules to protect the competitors i.e. eye gouging, groin attacks, etc. Simply put, they wanted to learn the fun and flashy stuff they saw on Youtube. The fun gets you the likes, the comments, and all of the addicting social media dopamine.
In my honest opinion, it doesn’t matter too much if the sport version is better or worse than the street version. The point is to start the process of learning how to defend yourself.
WHY should you learn?
First and foremost, is confidence. If you have the confidence to separate your ego from a situation, you’ve eliminated 90-95% of fights. Just knowing you can walk away from a situation saves you from many things: injuries, lawsuits, money, time, energy, and so on. People are always so eager to prove how much of an alpha they are that they forget the dire consequences that follow. Consequences that also affect everyone around you. If you have nothing to lose, you’ll fight, but if you have nothing to win, it’s easier to walk away.
Another big belief of mine is that knowing how to fight is the awareness you develop. Whether if it’s knowing what to do if you are in the fire fight or recognizing that there will be trouble and avoiding it all together. If you don’t have the awareness, the only thing you know how to do is retaliate. Mutual retaliation is often mutually bad for both parties. Avoiding fights or even finishing a fight quickly (if needed, this should be the last option), will reduce unnecessary damage.
Probably looked past upon, but learning martial arts or how to fight, gives you the necessary conditioning and stress tests you’ll need if there was a fight. People don’t understand how tiring a fight gets, and most fights last under a minute. If you’re tense, the energy you exhaust is like forcefully squeezing out all of the water out of the bottle instead of letting it leave naturally. Putting yourself in a control environment develops a calm mind and gives you the necessary stimuli so that you can stay under control instead of swinging like a madman.
The answer = run away?
I believe that if your hand isn’t forced, there’s no need to fight. If you can run, use all of your might to leave the situation. There are only lose-lose scenarios any time you enter a fight. It’s easy to get riled up when you know that the opponent isn’t as skilled or in the right state of mind to compete against you. This is where the training you partake will give you the clarity to step back and choose the smarter answer.
There are many more things I can write about fighting (and I will in the future). But the number one thing about fighting is that we learn it to never need to use it. Afterall, it’s better to know it and to not need it, then to need it and not know it.
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