When I first started training in martial arts I was taught in all the systems I studied to move fast but stop my punch just before hitting my partner. This was done I was told for the dual purpose of training safety and teaching me control. I agree that it is safer but I’m not sure about the control benefits.

During college I and a few of my friends from the BU Football Team used to work as bouncers at a number of establishments in Boston. One night at a club down by Fenway Park there was an all out classic bar room brawl. I saw the most beautiful cross over side kick thrown at one of my friends face. He was completely caught off guard but not injured at all. The guy throwing the kick stopped it right on his nose. Needless to say things did not go well for the guy throwing the kick after that.

What’s the point? You do what you practice so stopping your strikes before actually striking may not be the best choice.

So how do you train safely? Slow down and follow through. In our art we move slower when practicing with partners but actually put the strikes where they would be only slower. If you don’t move you will get hit but it doesn’t hurt due to the decreased speed.

Your body actually learns more this way even though it is much slower because the proximity and actual alignments you will encounter are in the training. Then when we want to test the training at fight speed we pad up the attacker for additional safety. The results have been much better.

Many people in the martial arts have a habit of collecting kata. They learn the movements to a kata, say they have that one and move on to the next. In our art the idea is not to collect the kata but to experience them kind of like a car wash.

Its winter in New England where I live and there is salt and dirt all over my car. When I go to a car wash and give them money I don’t get to take the car wash home. I don’t collect the car wash.

If I go to the car wash and watch other cars go through I could explain it to you but my car would still be dirty. My car hasn’t changed.

When I go to the car wash, pay my money and actually go through the experience my car comes out on the other side changed. It is clean now.

This is what kata in our art actually are. Experiences that change you. You can’t collect them and save them. You can’t just watch them and intellectualize about them. You have to experience them and when you come out on the other side you are changed.

Many martial arts make you conform to a certain way of doing things, everyone is striving to look like the art. Taijutsu, the basis of To-Shin Do and ninjutsu, is the opposite. It custom fits to you.

Last night was a review and test for this months curriculum and the magic of this art was on display. We had a five month pregnant woman, a couple of twenty something male collegiate wrestlers, four kids all around four feet tall, a six foot seven adult male, and a number of other adults with ages in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s.

Everyone looked great but someone watching for the first time might have thought they were doing different arts. When they defended against a cross punch using a water technique our very tall student dropped back lifted his arms and looked as if he was holding off the attacker with a long stick. One of the kids did the same technique bent their legs, got real low and pulled the attacker off balance with their positioning right into a strike.

During the defense against a side headlock our mother to be couldn’t get around behind her attacker to break their balance because baby was in the way. She made an adjustment and used her new condition to swing her forward to take the attackers balance with her knees. She and everyone last night did an amazing job using taijutsu their own way.

Taijutsu is the understanding of principles of nature and survival. How you use them “literally” depends on you.

We had a question from one of our students on how to practice staying covered with the sword as they cut if they don’t have a training partner. This is a drill that may help a little with the feeling.

Take a bo or broom stick and set it up so it is horizontal to the ground pointing straight at you. You may put it on a shelf or in the branches of a tree for support. Any way you can set it up in your training area.

Now as you practice your Kihon (basic) cuts see if your weapon is moving out in front of you to keep you covered as you cut or are you moving in with your body first then cutting?

If you do it correctly the bo pointing at you will not affect your cut. If you are not you will feel threatened or off balanced by the stick pointing at you.

Its a small detail but as you practice more and more you will find that when you do get the opportunity to train with a partner that your cuts will affect the opponent much more and you will be able to move in on someone easier.

We had a question in class about rolling over hard surfaces. When teaching rolling we usually separate it into two parts.

The first part is the roll and the second is getting to ground to roll. They should be learned in this order even though they are done in the reverse order.

For a forward shoulder roll start with one knee on the ground and think about bringing a hand, your head and shoulders back and under the opposite hip to facilitate the roll instead of pushing your hips over your shoulders with your legs.

When I first started we used to practice on ice to make sure we were doing it correctly. If you push your feet will slip out and you can hit your head (speaking from experience unfortunately). If you slide your hand (palm down) back along the surface behind you it will eventually bring your shoulder blade gently down and then your hips will naturally fall over your shoulders to complete the roll. If you understand this idea of bringing the shoulders back under the hips you can actually roll up hill.

For a back shoulder roll begin on the ground rocking back and forth holding your knees with your legs and feet apart from each other. This widens the surface area on the back that is in contact with the ground so as not to put pressure on the spine. The opposite would be to hold your legs together which pushes the vertebrae out and is very dangerous.

As you rock back and forth relax your back muscles. When you want to roll pull the knee on that side over your shoulder, breath out and allow your knee and hips to fall over your shoulders naturally.

In both directions you are not rolling like a ball as much as you are allowing one part of your body to touch the ground and allowing the rest of you to ease over that part.

Getting to the ground to do a roll, forward or backward, is where most people make the mistakes that get them hurt. On the forward roll people will start to duck their head into the roll much too early, causing them to lean forward and fall from too high of a position. Instead drop your hips keeping your chin up until your hands can touch the ground. You’ll end up in a squat looking like a frog with your hands touching the ground between your knees. From there it is much easier to slide a hand and go into the roll.

On backward rolls, whether you are stepping back with a foot or sliding a foot forward, you want to lean forward with your chest as if you were doing a hamstring stretch. As you drop your hips move behind the supporting leg. If you lean forward it counter balances your weight to relieve pressure on that leg and give you more control over the drop.

When you can do these well there is little to no impact as you reach the ground, which allows you to be able to roll over many more surfaces. Remember to take it slow and safe.

Training rules at our dojo:

Rule #1   There is always more to learn.

Rule #2   When you think you have it all see Rule #1

There are many reasons schools advertise as why you should study the martial arts. The most often quoted is self-defense but in actuality very few schools teach real self-defense. There is a self-defense delusion in our industry that says, I teach martial arts so I teach self-defense but it’s just not true.

The problem comes I believe from trying to be all things to all people. In martial arts today you can get in shape by taking a cardio kick boxing class, train to win an Olympic Medal in Tae Kwon Do or Judo, compete in a cage for cash prizes with MMA, practice precise movements with Shotokan Karate to improve your concentration, or increase your flexibility and health with Tai Chi. All of these use tools of self-defense but that doesn’t mean they’re teaching self-defense.

Punches and kicks are tools like a hammer or saw. I own both a hammer and a saw. I know how to use both of them to fix things but that doesn’t make me a carpenter. I don’t have those skills.

My friend is a doctor, he learned to read and write in school, got all the tools necessary to go to college and get his doctorate. I wouldn’t want to have him operate on me his doctorate is in economics.

You need the right tools and the right knowledge to do the job right. Self-defense is more than punching and kicking. What if there is a knife involved, there is more than one attacker, it’s a surprise attack, you’re with your child, you have an injury, or you don’t want to go to jail for defending yourself? These are just some of the concerns that must be addressed if you are learning self-defense.

All martial arts offer some benefit be it health, getting in shape, competitive advancement or just an escape from your everyday toils but if your priority is learning self-defense you have to search for a school that specializes in that.