I once had a teacher who told me, ‘You can not prepare for when combat starts, you can only prepare for when combat has begun.’ His meaning was that combative violence is fast, unpredictable, it can happen with little provocation and little notice.

I’ve put a lot of thought into this concept – that you can not truly prepare for when combat starts, only for when it has begun. To simply be a good fighter and not worry about seeing a fight coming – or one would simply not enjoy life waiting for the next fight to start. But when it does, you would be ready in mind-body-spirit.

Just like violence.

The MMA people would tell you sport can prepare you for the street – that testing in sport with real impact and injury, not point sparring and bowing will prepare you.
The traditional martial art guys would tell you that discipline and courage, with sparring will prepare you for the street….and those MMA guys are jacks of all trades, masters of none.

And then you have the super secret ‘the Army doesn’t want you to see this’ group. These people crack me up – teaching Fairburn Sykes and pretending it’s something never seen before – when someone simply could save themselves the money and buy a Cestari video. They sensationalize and then dramatize violence to a level rarely seen.

The TMA, traditional martial artist would tell you that your training will carry you through – most people don’t have training, so just by training in something for a long period of time you have an advantage…it’ll all come back to you, but first you must avoid the fight and commit to the way of the warrior.

All three would ask you for money to get to the next level.

I started this article 2 months ago while on a plane flying to somewhere. I start a lot of writings like that – I go back and forth, start them, file them in a folder within a folder on my desltop, and then come back to them to see the growth. This article has been, honestly, rewritten twice now and worked over. The reason being is that this article isn’t about fighting, martial art, being the ultimate killer, having fast hands – it’s about balance in life.

Something we far too often lack. Fighting is about survival – but is survival not the ability to internalize bad news you’ve recieved – to cope with the death of a loved one – to get over the psychological fear of reinjury by ‘getting back up on the horse’ – by overcoming your environment to achieve – and overcoming those in your environment that don’t want you to succeed.

This can only be done through balance. Balance between the mental, the physical, and the spiritual.
The mind to test and know the limits of the body, and the spirit to know the limits of the both. Life pushes us psychologically, weakening the body and testing the resolve of our spirit. Physical injury tests the patience of mind and the willingness of the spirit to overcome time away.

I know a lot of martial artists who lack that balance, or can only attain it through chemical dependency. I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit I have had my bouts with this outside of the recreational idiocy of college. The true, gut-wrenching, difficult dedicated study of any martial art system pushes one through many limits and some simply can not function without a crutch of some sort – be it alcohol, pills, the momentary yet false acceptance of meaningless sex, making God into something it’s not. I’ve seen some of the greatest martial artists I know unable to function without a drink or a pill, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t face the same demons and still do.

You’re probably wondering – ok, Matt, where does this end?

We can not walk around waiting for a fight – there is no point. But, we can take precautions in our interactions with the environment, we can stay in shape, we can train realistically and often, we can stay in the shape required by our style of self-defense, we can get intelligence on crime trends. So when it does happen – we are ready.

Just like in life – we can do certain things with our lives to prepare for the eventual crushing blows life brings us. We can live at peace with others. We can recognize our quirks and habits of laziness that annoy us and fix them. We can strive to reduce the debt load we have, not only to banks but to other people. We can eat better, work a little harder to stay in shape. We can live a life where when we go to bed – we are exhausted from living, not tired because it’s late.

It is in preparation we find victory over the enemy – and in balance we lessen the initial onslaught of life’s ambushes. In both, because of the precautions we have taken, we are capable of taking the initiative and driving the situation as we wish, instead of flailing wildly against it.

And 2 months after starting this article, I see that what began as an article about MMA and super secret solider moves – becomes an article about balance and happiness.

Quick Shop