Battle Drills and Decision Making

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i spent a recent weekend in Cecil Birchs immediate action class. A full review will come.  It brought up a couple of points worth discussing. The first is the danger of being a technique collector. Setting aside that those guys are usually clowns anyway it’s a problem. As a normal, hopefully decent citizen the violence you are going to be involved with is going to be defensive and reactionary. It is cute to say your situational awareness is amazing and no one gets within 21 feet without an ocular or down and eh f cleared but it’s bullshit. You might get some clues a few seconds out or you might just get jacked in he face.

For this type of situation you do not need a dozen techniques,  you need like 1-2 you are comfortable with and can do rapidly. At the beginning of a fight you are behind the power curve and need to survive the next couple seconds before you can get your head right and start making decisions.

Think of these as individual battle drills. A pre planned response to a given event which is rapidly executed with minimal decision making.

So at the start of a fight fewer decisions is better. Have a plan and violently execute it till you get your head into the situation and go from there.

Conversely at the later part of a fight you need to be more flexible. You can’t say ‘I’ll always shoot if x’ or ‘if I get in a fight that guy is going to the ER, best case.’ Aside from being machismo ish bull there is always an exception. Life has violent situations where you actually don’t want to hurt the other person, let alone kill them. The right answer for a mugger or a bar fight is different than your confused 80 year old neighbor or drunk asshole uncle.

This is a place where jiu jitsu is so handy. You can control people without actually hurting them. This gives you options that guns and striking do not offer.

So in conclusion. Have a planned reaction that works under stress. Develop the situation and be flexible about how to end it.