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Brutality as deterrent
Without understanding where the
opponent's weaknesses are
you cannot borrow their strength to use against them.
(Cheng Man Ching)
Psychological
You do not have to actually hurt anybody.
It is far more efficient to make them think you are going to hurt them, than to
actually do so.
People naturally seek to avoid pain.
Body language
Your body language needs to be curt, forceful and aggressive in terms of
appearance.
This is accomplished by economy of motion.
You look determined, blank, cold and purposeful.
There is no messing about.
Smoothness is paramount.
Everything about your movements must seem utterly serious. Your body language
states "I am going to hurt you!"
Fear
It
is important to make an example of your attacker, to let them know that they
have made a mistake.
Your strike or grapple needs to be psychologically and physically disturbing;
the attacker must experience anxiety.
Other would-be assailants will pause and think twice if you are successful.
If they falter and hesitate, they are doubtful and fear you.
Water
Detachment is best - you do not want to give the attacker anything to hold onto.
Tai chi is about emptying your centre, denying the attacker any form of
purchase.
Be like water.
Cold, flowing, irresistible and yielding.
Remove any opportunity for successful counter-attack and do not show any form of
emotion.
Do not speak, swagger or give any sign of ego.
Sabaku (movement)
The key to brutality as deterrent lies in the following extract from Dave Lowry's Sword and Brush book:
The bugei of Japan are a panoply of movement. Exponents jostle and
clash... Weapons of steel, bamboo or wood, twitching and flashing... Fists and
feet flicking, lashing out... The jolt and lunge of sumo or judo grapplers in
their efforts to topple one another... The arc of the blade's draw, the thrust
of the staff, the flight of the arrow...
The key to all these motions, from the perspective of the calligrapher's brush
is found in cutting a bolt of silk for the making of a kimono. If a kimono maker
cuts with judicious care, he will get every piece he needs from one length of
silk without any of the precious cloth being squandered.
The character 'sabaku' is literally "to judge decisively a cut."
The movements of the bugeisha are imaginatively described with this word.
Sabaku is not random motion.
The bugeisha does not engage in the kind of nervous fidgeting or displacement
observed in untrained men or animals when faced with the stress of aggression.
All his movements are calculated. Energy is conserved.
Sabaku is the the movement of the predator.
Tigers never posture or roar when attacking; hawks in the act of taking their
quarry do not flutter or scream. The actions of the predator are the essence of
economy.
In the midst of chaos, fear, and mortal danger, they appear to be
almost relaxed.
Perhaps it is this ability to relax, to move without superfluity, to release a
burst of power only at the very instant it is needed that allows the expert
bugeisha to continue his practice long after an age when athletes have retired
from their activities. Indeed, the senior exponent of the martial ways moves
with a grace that is almost leisurely. While younger, 'stronger' practitioners
are exerting all their power throughout every movement or exhausting themselves
in unessential motions, the senior bugeisha's actions seem in comparison sedate
and almost parsimonious. Even so, his attacks always find their target; his
parries materialise languidly yet with stunning effectiveness. Always he is in
exactly the correct place he needs to be, never a moment too soon or too late.
(Dave Lowry)
Page created 5 August 1999