Welcome to Lesson #2 in your Self-Defense Basics Course! This time, let’s talk about fighting spirit!
You might think that you can’t defend yourself without years of training… but that’s not true!
As the founder of Shotokan Karate, Gichin Funakoshi wrote, “Spirit first, technique second.”
So, here are a couple of simple drills to help you build your fighting spirit every day. I think you’ll be amazed at how easy it is to tap into your full power!
SELF-DEFENSE BASICS COURSE
Lesson #2 – Transcript
Howdy. Ando again from Happy Life Martial Arts. I said in Lesson #1 that physical fighting techniques—punching, kicking, biting, gouging—are actually the easiest part of self-defense. So, what’s the hardest part?
Ah. The hardest part—especially if you’re a good, kind-hearted person—is hurting someone on purpose… even a bad guy.
Of course, if your safety is threatened, you’re going to try to escape first… and you should.
If you can’t escape, you’re going to try to talk down the bad guy… and you should.
But if your efforts to escape or prevent an attack fail, and you suddenly find yourself with two hands squeezing your throat, you can’t say—
“I can’t believe this is happening! I don’t want this to be happening!”
“Hey, he’s not stopping. I might need to hit him. But I don’t want to hit him. I’m a nice person.”
“Oh, BLEEP. Now, I’m dead.”
Bummer. When you’ve trained your whole life to be patient and understanding, there’s a good chance you’ve also trained yourself to be a little slow to fight back when necessary. There’s a good chance you’re a little slow to give yourself permission to do whatever it takes to survive.
But make no mistake—training to flip that switch from no to go, training to unleash holy hell on a bad guy in a life-threatening situation is crucial to the self-defense project.
Part of the problem is that good people think that fighting is rooted in hatred and anger, but that’s not true. Fighting, in the context of self-defense, is rooted in love.
You’re not seeking to destroy the bad, you’re seeking to protect the good. Remember that—fighting for a good cause is noble and beautiful… and you, my friend, are a good cause.
YOU ARE A GOOD CAUSE!
So, if we can agree that the root of self-defense is love, that you have every right—dare I say the duty!—to fight back against bad guys, then we can now move forward to figure out how to develop our power.
You should know what it feels like to commit 100% of you to a task. So, here come two simple drills to help you flip that switch and build your fighting spirit.
Drill #1: Sprinting
No, I’m not going to ask you to go out in the street or off to the track. Just go from here… to here. Six to eight feet. That’s it.
Start off tall and relaxed, like you’re hanging out at someone’s birthday party. Ah, but then they bring out a tray of hot pies.
I know that looks easy, but it’s not. Going from nothing to everything as fast as you can will make you feel like a big bag of potatoes.
This super short sprint is a great drill for self-defense because it’s all about exploding forward.
You have to commit yourself physically and emotionally the moment you make that decision to go.
Just like if you’re under attack in real-life. You don’t have time to warm-up. You don’t get 50 yards to hit your stride. You have to pick the moment when you decide to fight back and then BOOM—it’s all you, right now.
So, that’s your sprint challenge—how fast can you turn on all of you?
Now, you might be thinking, “Hey, good-looking guy—I just want to learn how to punch and kick. I don’t care about running six feet.”
I get that. But here’s the thing—learning self-defense techniques is a complete waste of time if you don’t have the fighting spirit to back them up. A wild five-year-old with a knife will kill a 50-year-old Black Belt if the 50-year-old Black Belt doesn’t fight back. (Not me—I’ll drop that kid!)
Once you tap into that feeling of exploding, once you feel your full speed and power, well, then you can funnel that feeling into ANY movement you want to.
If you want to throw yourself at a heavy bag with elbows and knees, go for it. But if you don’t have a bag or you can’t make it to the gym, that doesn’t mean you can’t train.
I recommend that you pick a task—at least one task every day—that you can attack as if your life depended on it.
Like what? Okay. How about lying on the ground and seeing how fast you can stand up and throw two punches?
How about tearing apart a cardboard box? Just go after it.
How about picking up a chair and carrying it across the room?
How about just making the bed?
I know these tasks all sound really easy, but they’re not if you attack them with 100% of your speed and power.
You’re not convinced. Attacking the bed still sounds pretty silly, right? Just don’t lose the big point here—the better you get at flipping that switch from no to go, from freeze to fight, the more successful you’re going to be in a self-defense situation.
It’s all about exploding and committing. Commitment is the secret sauce of self-defense.
DRILL #2: POUND YOUR PILLOW
If you want to practice some simple self-defense techniques, well, then Drill #2 is for you.
After you make the bed, try pounding your pillow. You can use hammer fists like this or you could even throw some elbows.
Now, if this is newer for you, then obviously, start off slow to make sure your body feels good when you’re hitting the pillow. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.
Got it? Good. Now, flip that switch and attack. I know, it’s going to feel a little crazy, but that’s the point. I want you to tap into your crazy so you can bring it up and start to control it.
Now, I’m going to be straight with you—if you feel a little weird or uncomfortable attacking your pillow, get over it!
Your life may depend on your ability to do this. I mean, if you can’t give yourself the permission to attack a pillow with 100% of your fighting spirit, then how the heck are you ever going to give yourself the permission to fight back against an evil human being?
Think about this—bad guys have no magic powers. The only difference between the bad guys and the good guys is that the bad guys have no problem hurting good guys.
But once we—the good guys—allow ourselves to go after the bad guys, well, well, well…then things get a lot trickier for the bad guys.
So, don’t worry about being bigger, and stronger, and faster, focus on committing 100% of you into any task. Focus on building your fighting spirit. It ain’t how much you got, it’s how much you can use.
Now, I’m not saying that committing 100% of you will make you invincible, but it will make you the best you can be.
That’s important to understand because if you think you can’t defend yourself until you’ve been training for years and years, that means you’re walking around every day thinking, “Oh, my God… if somebody attacks me, I have no chance,” but that’s not true. Not at all.
The fact is every day there are good people fighting back and surviving. They’re not black belts, they’re not experts in self-defense, they’re just good people who said, “Hey, that’s not okay,” then they flipped that switch and fought back.
Please, remember this—it can take years to earn a black belt, but it only takes a moment to change your mind… to flip that switch from freeze to fight.
No matter who you are, you can go from scared to scary in the blink of an eye. You are transformed into a powerful, effective fighter the moment you decide to fight back.
Okay. So, between Lesson 1 and Lesson 2, you now have a simple self-defense workout you can do every day.
Wake up, sprint to the bathroom.
Then use the mirror to practice telling someone how you feel.
Then sprint back. Make the bed as fast as you can.
Then beat the hell out of your pillow.
Crazy… or genius? Give it a try and let me know.
Hey, if you liked this video, if you’re finding value in this series of self-defense videos, please share them with someone you love.
Until next time, keep smiling, my friend, and keep fighting for a happy life.
Thank you for sharing these lessons with someone you love!