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Combative
Instructors’ Golden Rule
Fighting takes heart, and heart comes from believing in what
you do. Because their very lives depend on it, soldiers must
have confidence in the validity of their training. If a soldier
does not feel confident to trust his life to it, he deserves
the right to challenge an instructor for proof that said material
works.
Soldiers then attack with full intention and the instructor
is expected to handle it. Such a challenge in martial arts is
rare and highly personal, whereas such challenges among combatants
are routine and impersonal, a necessary occurrence in that arena.
Because a combatives instructor can expect to be challenged,
he must not only be able to perform the given material himself,
he must also be able to counter/defeat any skill he is teaching
or he will have his head handed to him. So the golden rule of
combative instruction is: you should only teach that which you
can counter.
Hierarchy of Tactics
When combative prioritization and the golden rule are imposed
upon the entire spectrum of tactics, it produces a combative
hierarchy of tactics that is both simple and profound, and reconciles
the dilemma presented by the short vs. long-term methodologies.
The AMOK! Hierarchy of Tactics is defined as “the spectrum and
natural order of actions and counter-actions that comprise effective
knife fighting tactics; where each new tactical dimension presents
a whole new set of principles designed specifically to counter
the principles taught in the previous set(s) of tactics.”
This quick-to-function counter-layered hierarchy provides the
highest degree of functional skill during the path of development.
And herein lies the most insightful and pivotal point of this
paper- how to more efficiently maximize the ratio between time
and effort to skill development.
The AMOK! hierarchy deserves an in-depth investigation by serious
knifers and maximizes one’s skill development when learned via
the methodology of “guided discovery”, which presents another
radical departure from the conforming presentation and learning
curve of most martial arts.
The No-Pattern Rule of Combatives
Any knife fighting art that wants to shift toward combatives
can begin by discarding patterned flow drills in favour of more
realistic practices. AMOK! practices more closely resemble fighting
than drilling, and to the untrained eye, it is often difficult
to discern between the two. Let’s examine, using knife combatives
as our vehicle, why abandoning patterned flow drills is so crucial. |
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