The power of the untrained man

[Dylan palmer]

I know this post almost parrales the recent topic on "who you are training to fight". yet this post will have differances and will be more specific on who you are fighting against and how he will fight.

now to the point. during the corse of my wma practice i have thought of my self as getting better and for the most part i have,
but if we rethink and relook at the situation not only am i moving forward but i am also moving backwards.

for example if i speand my time practicing and training for a semi skilled oppent who is commiting his attacks like those in the germananic style of swordsman-ship fast hard and commited to their taget i am going to in a real fight or spparing match assume i will be fighting this even if i know my adversery will not fight like this my training has imprerinted a certain way of thinking due to all of those practice sessions for all i think he will use against me.

ex:my oppent comes at me with a zorn but it is not a normal zorn as i am used to training against it is a defensive counter to what he knows is coiming after he throws a zorn to my head. he instead of cutting to my head pulls all his strenghth into wide deffense off to the side to avoid my triangle step.(i know this might sem like an easy thing to break but it has apoint later on as you will see.) now against this hard bind that has been so far out and struck aginst my sword what do the masters say to do well change through of coarse so i do and i either hit him or the exact same thing happens on the opposit side. yet now there is a serious flaw in my attack he is no fool and everyone has a distinct abillity to survive without any skill when there life is on the line. and know that i will change through again and he will expect this and counter quickly with what i call the peasnt stab even though it is a highly effective counter it seems. which is. as attepmt to change through again he quickly shoots his blade to the side almost like a plfug and the thrusts into the face(keep in mind these people have no training). and thus i am deffeted. that is only one example i could go on for on one on each master cut but i think you get the point.

how here is the issue sure in my training i have realized the timing disstance and all the pricaipalls of the fight but what if he did to but had yet to look into all the technigues and specail ways of attacking and deffending do you think he might have an addvatage over all of us so called skilled fencers beacuse of his unpredictiblity or his in the instant training on how to deffend against an attackt or else he dies. and has not been training to deal with fenccers who not only training to fight like there masters taught them but who fight like they are going to fight someone like themselfs. just a thought feel free to disagree in any way but try to keep it freindy and read with an oppen mind for every sytem for every thing has its week point and its strong points.

[Dylan palmer]

i almost frogot to explain that i relize this could and problly is due to the lack of signifficant practive and sppraing not only with skilled but unskilled fencers. but i thought it should be know that in truth i practice aginst unskilled people and have yet to really fight against someone with wma training.

which i hope to gain over the summer with craig peters and prehapps jon pellett

[Jake_Norwood]

Dylan,

I think I know what you mean. My best experience with fighting both skilled and unskilled fencers in one sitting was my prize-playing in 2003. The opponents ranged from a non-ARMA member to an ARMAteer that had never sparred before to some mediocre fighters to wily old men to truly skilled opponents all the way up to Stacy Cliffort and John Clements. A few things stuck out to me afterwards.

First, I was hit smack on the head by a complete novice who never sparred before. I didn't know that going into the match, so I tried a favorite feint combination of mine...he closed his eyes and swung. Bam...dead. He didn't even know that he had hit me!

Later, fighting a non-ARMA member I watched the way he fought and tried to meet it head-on, changing the way I fought. It went alright--I won 2 out of 3 or 4,--ut not nearly well enough. It was embarrassing because I *knew* that I was better than this guy...but I made a huge mistake in both cases:

I thought. I analyzed. I didn't just "fight."

The rest of my matches were awesome. I was on fire most of that day--I didn't know my opponents, and for the most part I walked in, attacked, lured, and simply, instinctively fought. And I *never* had any problems when I did that. It's what I was supposed to have done all along. It is, I believe, what the masters meant when they said to take no mind to what an opponent is doing, but to fight him with all your strength and your techniques will overwhelm him.

Yes, you need to spar more. Lots more. Against all types of opponents. You need to drill more. Lots more, using all those techniques that are "supposed" to work. You need to practice footwork and you need to focus your mind on intent and emotional content when you fight.

But don't, I repeat DON'T worry about your opponent. Just train hard and fight fight fight. The rest will fall in place.

Jake,
who needed to be reminded of these things himself.

[Stacy Clifford]

You know, I remember noticing something similar during my prize playing as well. When you jump in and out of sparring, I think a lot of us tend to stay in that cautious "duel mentality" trying to calculate the moves too much. If you're in there a long time though with people constantly coming at you, that mentality seems to subside. I distinctly remember becoming more aggressive and going after people more as the hour went on and just generally fighting better. I would call it the takeover of the predatory instinct, which that deep dark part of your lizard brain turns on to prime your whole body to make the kill. When that happens, it's the actions you've trained to exhaustion that begin working without thinking. I think the ultimate goal of all this martial training is to be able to consciously turn on that predatory instinct, which is what will enable you to overwhelm your opponent. Developing superior skill is as much as anything a means to give you the confidence and certainty that you can win and develop your perception of and reaction time to events in motion as it is to learn how to react to anything that is thrown against you. That's why sparring is so important. It's all about learning to take control of the fight. That's not to say an unskilled fighter can't take control instinctively, because he can, but a skilled fighter has the mental and physical tools to take it back, and keep it.

[John_Clements]

Silver said a skilled man should be able to play with the lion as well as the lamb. (Which is why we include opponents of all experience levels in our Prizings).

Throughout fencing history teachers have often warned of the challenge presented by an untrained fighter ---who moves unpredictably and audaciously. True skill should overcome such danger.

JC

[Dylan palmer]

i agree. not only should you be able to fight unskilled, skilled and drunks but also a wide variety of diffent martail training as well a say a street fighter.

[TimSheetz]

Great comments.

It goes to say that when in the fight, live in the moment and not worry about them or the final results of th efight, as that only interferes with the now.

I think Bruce Lee used to say something similiar to this.

Withthe untrained man, he will do things that the are inherently suicudal but he does NOT KNOW it is suicudal... and that is the biggest threat.

Tim

[philippewillaume]

Hello Dylan.

I think that has been the case for every body and I think we all have a different way to fix it.
I think I am an adequate fencer in sparing (I.E not that fantastic but not that crap either) so I am not sure how I compare with your scales of value. Usually I do not have a problem defeating people with no or little training. Some people have a relatively strong martial background so even they hold a sword for the first time their timing and distance is usually very good as well as their understanding of the fight. So they usually pose more problems and adapt much better to what you do. People coming from a different sword background are a different ball game all together.
But the way we do things should works against any of those regardless.

At one stage you need to step away from the technique to look at the big picture.
Frankly I am pretty sure that we all have or have had the same experience as you have.
My usual answer to that was hum plan A did not seem to works well, lets try plan A harder. I.e. lets try to apply the technique more precisely. But most of the time the technique is not really the problem. Yes there is some case when our choice of technique is inadequate but that seldom happens when fighting untutored fighter

What he is doing to you is de facto is a piece of schielhaw. He does not strike a Zornh he strikes a schiel (or if you prefer he change zornh into a shiel and as you try to change through he send his point forward, Exactly what Doctor Ringeck ordered.
Basically he ends up in the situation you want to be.

I know that I have a slightly different approach than the Arma (but I think it just a different way to get to the same place). So I do not know how what I am going to say fit with you system. But hopefully it should be somewhat helpfull

But I think all the point of Ringeck teachings is that you can make decision much quicker because you are in situation where the options for your opponent are limited

I do totally agree with Stacy and jack at least on principle.
You need the “killer instinct” but that just what makes you a good fighter whatever the weapons.
You do not have time to think that much in a fight (and not to sure that you can do it that clearly) so the chess game vision of the fight does not really work. So it is really lizard brain time

The only slight difference I would make
Fighting instinctively is not the solution either because if you take the sum of all the techniques you know some were not that instinctive to start with. Yes some were but not all them. Even more so if you and I were to know the exact same set of technique the instinctive one for me will not be exactly the same as the instinctive one for you.
For me the techniques are kind of the override of the lizard brain. If you want you need to convince the lizard that it is the best thing to do in such situation.
But as Stacy said it remains at lizard brain level.

All that being said, having upgraded our lizard brain to a smart lizard brain. That does not really fix the fact that he ended up in a situation where we wanted to be.
Yes the lizard brain can help you to choose the right technique before that happens or chose a more relevant technique. But the appropriate counter to our technique can be our unskilled opponent natural one as it is the case in Dylan example. So really we do not want to be in that situation to start with. Because our lizard brain can will take the appropriate decision as far as he is concerned but the decision process making required a more informed resolution.

The problem is that a lizard brain is not the best tool to make relatively complex informed decisions and the cerebral function used to do that are too costly in terms.
So we are stuck with the lizard brain.

So you need to have a generic game plan that will make the lizard brain do.

[Stacy Clifford]

Good analysis Phillippe. To add to what you said, I think what training does for our lizard brain is ultimately reduce the stress on it in a stressful situation and make it more efficient in choosing an appropriate reaction quickly. Training exposes you to a lot of different actions and scenarios and gives you a chance to develop a useful reaction to a lot of different situations. You're creating simple "if, then" statements in your brain and reducing a complex sequence of instructions to the muscles to the familiar "Execute Order 66." It's when your brain doesn't have enough "if, then" statements to cover your predicament that you get the deer in the headlights look as your lizard brain goes "****! What do I do???" That's panic, and I think training reduces panic by giving your lizard brain a new reflex to throw out instead of making it think.

I like the analogy of upgrading your lizard brain to a smart lizard brain, I think that's pretty much what you're trying to do. You spend your time training so your conscious brain can reduce complex instructions to a number, because all your lizard brain is capable of doing is calling out the numbers and saying "Do that!"

So you need to have a generic game plan that will make the lizard brain do.

Exactly. Even a lizard can learn new tricks (ever tried to catch one?), just realize its limitations and give it options it knows how to handle.

[philippewillaume]

hello stacy
I could not have put it better myself.
Either you add if then statement or you create a situation where the existing if-then are alway true.
so you do not have the rabbit in the head light or the "damned, that is not what i thought it was" in lizard
phil.

PS the lizard brain analogy is all to your credit.

[Jeremy Martin]

I think Murphy said it best. Professionals are predictable, it's the amateurs who are dangerous.

[scott adair]

Jake,

I had sparred about 2 or 3 times. Did I really close my eyes?


Scott Adair

[Jeffrey Hull]

More specifically about Silver: Was he the one who said you should be able to fare well against accomplished sober fencer and a drunken ruffian?

[Jake_Norwood]

Hey Scott,

If it was you (I think it was), then that's how I remember it. Then again, I got hit in the head right then, not you, so I'll go with your recollection of the event any time!

Jake

[Jaron Bernstein]

Does that mean we should feed much beer to some folks at a prize playing to the drunk opponent? <img src="/forum/images/icons/laugh.gif" alt="" />