INJURY
Injury is a crushed throat, a broken knee, a torn out shoulder.

I got an email this morning from one of our instructors getting ready to do a 15 minute TFT presentation in South America. An interested group sprung the opportunity on him at the last minute and he asked me if I had any ideas for the 'closer', i.e., the One Idea to get across so that if you get nothing else out of a TFT presentation remember This One Thing.

Here's my response:

Get them off of the idea of 'technique' (which is what they'll see & try to compare to other techniques they've seen) and into the idea of injury. Most people think about 'fighting' inside their own body, or, at the most, at the end of their fist. In violence they need to shift their focus outside themselves and deep into the other guy's body. What's getting broken? How will that effect him? What does that do for me?

This is the difference between technique and injury.

• Technique is a punch, a kick, a cool joint lock.
  
• Injury is a crushed throat, a broken knee, a torn out shoulder.

While techniques can cause injuries, injuries can happen sans technique. You can break an ankle by stomping on it, dropping your knee on it, even falling and sitting on it with your butt. The technique is immaterial; all we really need is bodyweight driven through vulnerable anatomy. If it's precise and 'fancy', fine. If it's haphazard and 'ugly', that's fine, too--as long as it's bodyweight through anatomy we'll end up with injury.

Injury changes everything in your favor.

When people see and think 'technique' they see coordination and think difficulty. They see the need for years of practice to perfect that technique. They do not expect themselves to be able to do it until they've spent that time perfecting it.

When people see and think 'injury', well, injuries happen all the time, and often due to nothing more than clumsiness, whether on the part of the injurer or injured person. (As an aside, a simple fall is a great example of this: how does someone break their wrist when they fall? They throw their hands out to break their fall and if they land just right we get bodyweight (their own) through vulnerable anatomy (the wrist joint at its pathological limit, meaning it doesn't bend backwards any further without tearing something). All of this is braced and driven home by the planet, resulting in a broken wrist.)

Injuries are less mysterious and easier to 'get' than techniques. While very few people have experienced 'good technique', most everyone has experienced injury.

So, if you can get them all to make the mental flip outside of themselves and into (through!) the other guy's body, replace the idea of technique with the facts of injury, you're well on your way. And so are they.

Chris Ranck-Buhr
Master Instructor
Target-Focus Training

http://www.targetfocustraining.com/

Labels: fighting, injury, technique