Saturday 11 January 2014

CONTROLLED AGGRESSION / EMOTIONAL CONTENT

Watch Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon and listen to the speech about emotional content - remember and don't focus on the finger!  In training we talk about emotional content or controlled aggression.  This is what separates the greats from the regulars.  Simply put, you have two people working through various drills on the pads.  Both have the same ability and are rather sloppy with technique that could be sharpened up a lot.  That will all come with time and coaching though.  What puts one of these ahead of the other is that he/she has locked into aggression. Now when they confront the pads their mind set changes. These are no longer pads, these are the enemy.  The strikes will be short and sharp, and each one will be felt by his adversary. The striker will work himself up into a state of frenzy but under control.  They unleash hell on the pads and for a few seconds they become an animal. They have shifted their role as the prey to that of the predator.  Then after they have struck the pads they slowly bring themselves back down, but not too early as there may be other adversaries to deal with.  Its a pretty simple concept and one that will truly separate you from the crowd in your self defence training.  When I was training the army recently the CO was speaking to some guys who were going off to Sandhurst to become officers. He was stressing about how, yes the training is fun, but, ultimately, for those guys it is life and death. You have lost your weapon and are using your hands to end a life. You have to be able to switch on the aggression in yourself, do the job and turn it off. For those guys in particular they have the job like me of training people to be able to do it as well.  So in the New Year we will focus on some drills to make you guys more aware of this inner strength you have.  In the meantime just visualise your boss as one of those pads and rock n roll.  


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