2007-11-10T09:39:00.000-08:00

The human body is a combination of 7 different bodies altogether:

1. the nervous system:
- a vast system of nerve cells, that regulates the body's responses to external stimuli. In the context of this article, areas of the body associated to the nervous system includes the skin, as well as nervous pressure-points, as defined in general combat terminology.

2. the blood circulatory system:
- the network of veins and arteries functioning as channels for blood-flow. Blood being the carrier various substances needed for proper body regulation as well as the maintenance of body temperature, circulates within this system.

3. the muscular system:
-

-to be continued

Anatomy of Combat

2007-08-26T23:49:00.001-07:00

As with many cases in life, the evolution of a single element is brought upon by the need to adjust and adapt to the changing world. This of course as mentioned before, is all in the name of survival. Combative skills likewise exists in many forms due to the thoughts and beliefs of their founders, in accordance to the condition of their society and the way they had experienced life.

In short, we may see the establishment of a fighting system in an equation like the following:

FIGHTING SYSTEM= SITUATION + COUNTERMEASURES

Despite the simplicity of this equation, we can deduce many conclusions with regards to a fighting system's efficiency when implemented in a combative situation.

Situation & Countermeasures

All fighting systems has its techniques drawn out from its concept against what it has perceived as threats. In most cases, threats revolves around strikes like punches and kicks and also various grappling situations. For instance, the list of threats that may be perceived by fighting system A can exist as the following:

Strikes:
i) middle punch
ii) high punch
iii) uppercut
iv) hook
v) front kick
vi) turning kick
vii) side kick

Grapples:
i) wrist grab
ii) collar grab
iii) neck hold

Naturally, since the listed maneuvers have been classified as threats, the system would have been designed to effectively neutralize them. This would also mean that any other moves that didn't exist within this "directory" will be seen as unorthodox actions and working against them will pose a greater challenge to the combatant.

But what if the perception of SITUATION is being redefined? Instead of labeling threats as this punch or that kick or this headbutt and so on, how different will our countermeasures be if threats are being simplified into a set of conventions like the following?

Threats & Their Natures

Direction of Threat:
i) horizontally oriented (sideways)
ii) linear
iii) vertically oriented (up & down)

Level of Threat:
i) low
ii) middle
iii) high

Instead of having a countermeasure per threat, why not have 1 to oversee 5 threats of the same nature?

At this point, we can understand and appreciate the existence of various fighting systems as a result of pure perception of the human mind and how the total outcome can be modified by just tweaking the mental function a little. And we now know that it is possible to have a so called universal set of conventions to overcome threats of different natures. If these conventions work in all types of combative encounters, this would also mean that there is a commodity between the diverse collection of combat systems that have been founded through time.

And the universal factors of all combative skills follow a common law that is described as the following 3 points, known as the Anatomy of Combat:

Anatomy of Combat

i) Physiology:
the condition of the body and its implementation during a combative situation. This also includes the efficiency of muscle groups to execute techniques, efficient technique executions and body language.

ii) Tactics
the methods of effectively delivering the physiology onto the desired target area

iii) State
the condition of the mind and "spirit" to effectively execute Physiology and Tactics at will

For a combatant to be proficient and complete in his fighting discipline, he should be well versed enough in the above laws. However, despite the fact that all fighting systems follow these conventions, their fighting nature or concept can be vastly different simply because of their levels of emphasis in the 3 different areas of the anatomy.

For instance, Western Boxing is designed to allow the practitioner to possess great physiological capabilities of punching techniques and effective countermeasure tactics against the boxing punches. With this fact alone, a boxer is usually put at a disadvantage when he is pitted against a Kickboxer because not only a kickboxer possesses the bonus-ability of kicking techniques which is "foreign" to the boxer, but he also possesses ample knowledge to tactically work against the boxer's punches.

In the present time, the popularity of mixed martial arts (mma) competitions have significantly increased and many were able to witness combatants pit their skills against practitioners of a different discipline. To the inexperienced or more often than not, immature audience, a superiority or inferiority of a fighting discipline is commonly evaluated by the practitioner's winning or losing. Due to this, the many believe that the only way a fighter of the so called inferior system can beat the other one is only by learning a more superior fighting skill, which is good enough or better than what the opponent possesses. In overcoming this problem, the practitioner "converts" into a different fighting system, which appearantly is more superior. Sure enough, most of the time it works.

Without realizing, the "convert" fighter had essentially done only one thing: shifted his mindset to adopt a different tactical means, which happened to be effective. Could he have used his old skills changed his tactics and eventually his physiology to be effective against the opponent's seemingly superior system? Let's take a simply analogy before you decide:

How do you break a piece of wood in a martial arts demonstration? Use any of your body part to smash through it right? Well, what if after trying to didn't manage to do it? And oh, you realized the wood is called "TEAK".

Use a hammer of course! Yup, you can do that and it might just work.

But you could too use a harder body part to break it or have your body part to be better conditioned right?

So the point point of the matter is that, the invention of new fighting systems though effective, will someday be obsolete when a more superior system has arisen. But for as far as you can wrench out every single tactics and implementation of your fighting system to counter a seemingly stronger opponent, I think a change isn't necessary. And a lot of times, it's really a thing about how we think and perceive things.

We're not animals which simply distinguish "threat" and "safety" for the bulk of our lives, we're humans who are constantly deciding about what is danger and what is not.

Ya?

Welcome Message

2007-07-03T08:47:00.001-07:00

Greetings!

Ever since the beginning of humanity, the purpose of Man's existence simply boils to one point:

Survival

Like the simplest of living beings on the face of the Earth, survival is the assurance for the continuation one's kind. And to survive is to have the capability in overcoming the harshness of time and change coupled with the ability to evolve, in order to fit within the different phases of time.

The skills of combat is the skill of survival.

Welcome to The Combatants' Guild blog page. This shall be a channel to share my personal thoughts and experiences with regards to the combative skills that you and I each experience within our lives, regardless of the reason of involvement. But there's one thing for sure- as human beings, we define things in accordance to our own beliefs, hence creating a whole spectrum of opinions towards a single subject. At the same time, there are a whole lot of universal conventions about that single matter where we all can use to apply to what we already know.

Simply because there are common factors that effect our lives in drastic ways, that's what my study is about. This is my detailed study of human combatives.

-rusydi-

THE COMBATANTS' GUILD

Anatomy of Combat

Welcome Message