“Practice like you are 70 years old, because hopefully you will be someday.” A Friend.
Is self defense only for the young? When you hit 50 or so, are you now off limits to attack?
Recently, I was asked by a friend about an instructor in another art. My response was that the teacher seemed legit in that he had no lies and was very upfront about what he did and what his background was. But he founded what he did early in life, he was still barely in his 30s from the look of things and what he was doing wouldn’t work unless you were still young and full of vitamins.
A few weeks back, I saw a video giving tribute to a “master” that didn’t impress me. There was a section in black and white where a young man tosses around his attackers. Then there was color video where a man in his 60s is doing techniques, but it is obvious that his attackers are letting him throw them, since he is relying on arm strength and not good body mechanics. Go back to the black and white and you see the guy was just using his arms and not his entire body. So now those are his habits when he doesn’t have the youth and strength he used to.
I remember back on ebudo.com, one of Frank Dux’s ex-students that went by the screen name “Nomad” said that back in the day, Dux was young, strong and big and he could rely on that to make some stuff work. But now, he can’t rely on anything other than his size and so he does not dare actually do anything on anyone but the most compliant student.
Meanwhile, there is the image of the little old asian man tossing around people like they were nothing. That image is based on fact. I have met some of these guys, trained with them and had my face pressed into the mat a few hundred times at their hands.
In a world where most athletes are finished by the time other professions are just getting into the swing of things, what lessons can we learn to make sure we can defend ourselves past middle age?
In talks with the teachers I had in Japan, it kind of came down to the advice of, “Don’t do what we do, do what we did.”
In short, don’t try to copy the movements of the teachers in their 70s. It is too difficult to catch the details. Take a video of Soke Hatsumi Masaaki of the Bujinkan and analyze it frame by frame. You will see that his stance is fairly normal in how wide his feet are and such. But when he hits, his knees move a little bit, his hips turn a little big, his chest, arms, etc all work together so that everything works in unison and it isn’t just his arm strength, but his entire body knocking the guy across the room.
He didn’t get there overnight. Look at the pictures from earlier days and you will see wider stances, slow training and a lot of things that he doesn’t have to do anymore because over decades of training he has internalized the principles.
Larger movements are easier to see these sort of things going on. When you try to emulate how Soke Hatsumi is moving now, your arm probably will hit before your hips and such are these to support the blow. If you are 20 and covered in muscles, you probably still will do a bit of damage. But your youth and strength will not be there forever. So if you don’t get the habits down now, you will never achieve his level of skill.
And when you get old, you just won’t be able to take those deep stances and such anymore. It is best to get the principles down while your knees still are perfect and not after a life of abuse.
And abuse is another thing you need to be aware of. A lot of sports and military do things that gain great results in the short term, but have long term problems. I have a friend who was in the military, doing some pretty awesome things. He is younger than me, but has a lot more problems with his body than I do. In his case, if he didn’t abuse his knees and such at the time, he wouldn’t have gotten to the age he is now. But what excuse does a factory worker have to abuse his body during self defense training to justify what will happen when he is in his 50s?
I would rather have strength and not need it. But if you train so that you rely on that strength, then when it eventually goes away you are good and truly screwed. And the thing is, you probably will fool yourself into thinking you are not relying on it unless you take a lot of care to avoid it. Big guys need to make big movements in training even more than little guys. When a little guy tries to rely on his strength unconsciously, he gets immediate feedback on it because it won’t work. Big guys don’t have that advantage.
I remember one night in Japan I was training with a huge guy that used his body weight and strength to good advantage. He didn’t have the subtle movements the teacher was famed for down, but I was hitting the mat pretty hard. I didn’t say anything, because I hate the games of dominance some people play by pretending to give correction.
The teacher came over and the student asked him to critique what he was doing. After watching, the teacher gave a Japanese smile (one that doesn’t quite reach the eyes) and proclaimed, “Oh yes, very strong.” Then he moved on.
I knew what the teacher meant. But if he wasn’t going to be direct, it wasn’t my place to say anything. I stood there waiting for us to resume training, assuming that the guy would let it go at that. Instead, my partner looked like he smelled something bad for a few seconds, then approached the teacher and asked, “Sensei, how do I do it so it doesn’t have to be strong?”
This time the smile made it to the eyes and the teacher took the time to point out the small points needed to do things exactly as he showed them. And I hit the mat for the rest of the night even harder.
I envy those that are born huge, are young and have muscles that make things easier for them. But if you are like that, then you have to take extra care to make sure you don’t train in such a way that you rely on these things that won’t be around in a decade or three. Too many people are fantastic in their youth, only to be nearly useless in later years. To do well in your advanced age, you need to lay the correct groundwork while you are still young. I am in this for the long run. I am more likely to be attacked by some meth head when my hair turns grey than now. I am not going to give up on the idea of defending myself as a senior citizen. I may never make it in the Octagon, but I do hope to keep myself safe until my eventual death in bed, either of old age or in the arms of a red headed nymphomaniac- preferably both.