Local Travels

Last Thursday, Sayaji Osborne asked me to come with him to another martial arts school about an hour from Cincinnati, one that was not of our system. We spent the ride up talking about some of his history in the Bando system, as well as my ideas for expanding in the Greater Cincinnati area.

We made it to the school, and spent the hour we were there going over one simple move. It amazed me that it took that long for the older, more experienced students to pick up on this. It was a simple block to stop a very wide variety of attacks, and led directly to a trap/attack from our Python system. This block is taught to brand new folks. Basic.

What I noticed in the students of the other school was one major thing: The concept of evasion was not in the mind of any of them. Bando is an elusive system, which appeals to me because I'm not exactly a large guy. I'm 5'10" and 165 lb. with a small frame. I can take a hit, but I don't like it. So Bando immediately appealed to me because it teaches the fighter to be elusive and to stay off the center line of combat, therefore you theoretically get hit less and can deliver some nastier strikes. In nature, predators attack from the side and the rear, not the front, because the prey has more defense at the front, as well as the element of surprise.

Over the course of the hour, I watched in detail how the students had been taught to move, and looked for instinctual movements. As I watched their stepping and hand positions, I realized that all of this was instilled through training, not instinct. When I trained previously in another martial art system, I had been taught not to dramatically move my head as I moved the strike away from my face. This is a problem. Instincts tell you to move. Training should compliment instincts.

During a dagger training seminar a few weeks ago, I realized that an evasion from our kicking drill was perfect for avoiding a slash to the legs. Herein lies another problem. You could just as easily start punching and elbowing at the lower body with a little bit of training and finesse, which will not only devastate your opponent by shattering his foundation, but add confusion as you start to attack multiple levels of the body, all the while moving in such a way that strikes from your opponent do not land or simply slide off.

The more weapons in your arsenal, the better prepared you are.
A wise warrior defeats his opponent with his mind, not his fists.