Snapshots

Against multiple opponents it is natural to want to see what is happening so that you can judge the right timing of your reactions, but the idea is flawed because the situation has changed before you get there and you cannot process information fast enough to keep up – you are always behind time. Real time means you have no time to consolidate information. Snapshots aim to find the change in content in your current internal world view.

A snap shot filters out what is important and it these ‘still moments’, which piece together a picture of the real world as you move. Instead of focusing on punches, kicks, grabs and weapons, your interest is in finding where you need to be. Snap shots in group attacks are selected for the best path ahead to find safety; they are very effective in finding the next safe zone. The survival mind takes good advantage of the fight for freedom, never letting the body stop accelerating.

The reality of Full Energisation in a group attack is that you pass through an attacker’s resistance in real time and therefore in darkness (a blank moment). It is the acceleration to the source of the attacker’s resistance that drives you into real time where your perceptions turn to darkness for a moment. It is important to realise that during acceleration it is far easier to identify attackers than the gaps between them. The world around you moves too fast when you are accelerating.

As you move through the opponent and pass the resistance, a period of light returns, and a snap shot of the surroundings is taken. The brain identifies the next safe zone for you to progress to, for another moment of safety and you accelerate to force yourself back into real time as you approach that next attacker. Your sensation of the battle becomes a series of blank moments, snapshots and accelerations.

When in darkness you are free from distractions, and when you see light you are taking snap shots. Freedom is more easily maintained when you are not caught up in distractions, so in a sense it is darkness that helps you maintain a fully energised state.

The reason you pulse between light and dark is that you always want to get back to darkness, into real time where you can handle resistance without getting entangled in it. Of course you need to see where you are going to maintain your progression to safety, and that requires a snapshot.

Full Energisation operates between the borders of minimum light required for a snapshot and darkness or real time where the senses including conscious thought are minimised. To stay in the zone you have to get to that instinctual reaction level where the battle is all about acceleration of your total body mass and a clear motivation reflecting your sense of freedom.

Stuck in the Past? Get into Real Time

What is real time and why is it important when fighting multiple opponents?

You typically only enter into real time during a life-threatening event where your fight/flight response is activated.

It’s no coincidence that ‘running for your life’ when your flight response is triggered, reduces the processing of the sensory inputs from vision, hearing, touch, etc. The logic for this is simple enough; the normal input and processing of sensory information that could distract you and slow down your headlong rush to safety is reduced. The result is that people experience a period of blankness.

In comparison, past time is where your thoughts are always lagging in relation to what is happening in the ‘now’. The more time you spend on waiting for your vision etc. to pick up information and for your brain to process that information, the more you are working in past-time. Past time is where we typically spend our time assessing the opponent's actions and making plans to defeat them.

Why are we stuck in the past? Well, we usually want the world to slow down so that we can see what is happening. We like to take control of the situation and implement our plans and strategies with confidence. The problem with measuring and thinking is that you hesitate before you act.

Hesitation is dangerous when you face a group of attackers. If you can measure your opponent, then they can measure you and the last thing you want when facing multiple opponents is for the group to be successfully measuring and targeting your progression.

When playing the part of a member of the 'attacking group' during training, you are always hoping the individual makes the mistake of wanting to battle one of the attackers. For an active group, this should be a signal to double their efforts and take the individual to ground.

As for the individual, acceleration is one of the key elements that enables you to get into real-time where you force your mind to suspend the processing of sensory information and therefore experience a moment of darkness. If you accelerate at an opponent then it is likely you will take that person into real time and darkness as well.

Taking your opponent into darkness will effectively nullify them for the rest of the encounter as you are accelerating onto the next attacker in a line of progression to an exit, and they cannot recover in time. Accelerating through opponent's rather than going around them will disrupt the rest of the group member's measuring and targeting of you.

So the key to dealing with multiple opponents is to disrupt the group's focus on you. If you can do that, then your chances of success start to improve dramatically. Real time is one of the concepts to help you achieve this.

A self-defence technique is born

The question you should ask yourself when training how to fight multiple opponents is ‘will my strategy work against an activated group of attackers’? A lot of self-defense strategies are born out of half-activated training, which means they have a high failure rate when the pressure from the group increases. Shielding is a good example of this.

I can remember a particular group attack training session in my days as a student of the arts. Someone figured out that they could use their opponents to change direction and cause a lot of disruption within the group at the same time. As they were going past the opponent they would hook a wrist or a forearm on someone’s neck while using their other hand to stabilise themselves, and move off in a direction that would spin that opponent into on-coming attackers. They did this in a way that still enabled them to move with a reasonable speed within the group. As onlookers, we thought it was fantastic to watch, what a great strategy, members of the group we going everywhere.

However, when the individual in question attempted their strategy against a group of seniors playing the part of the attackers, he got taken to the ground in seconds. We quickly realised it was delusional, and once again the technical solutions failed once the pressure from the group became high enough.

Basically, the attempts at manipulating people worked on the weaker group members but the seniors knew how to absorb people and they weren’t going to be manipulated by anyone; they had real determination and intent to stop the individual from escaping the group. It was a loss of face to allow the individual to get to safety.

The lesson we learned at the time was, just because something works for you once or twice, does not mean it is a good strategy. You need something that gives you the highest chance of success regardless of the situation, as you don’t know what kind of opposition you might have to face. As the opposition gets tougher, the fancier strategies will fail, as will your chances of getting safely out of the situation.

Some of the things you see put forward as a practical self-defence strategy will work to a degree, but that is mainly because a lot of fights are half-hearted affairs. However if the group truly activates, then expect it to quickly fall apart.

As always with group work, train safely and under the supervision of a qualified instructor

Getting to the Source of the Attack

Some exponents have a strategy for a single opponent fight where they just rush the person and give them no time to measure and time their favourite strikes, etc. Dealing with multiple attackers is a bit like this but you have to take your effort to another level. The opponent can be thought of as a bomb that can go off. If the opponent explodes into action with kicks, punches, etc. then you were too slow in your approach. Time is limited, the bomb will go off if you let it, so hesitating is a bad idea. It is best to deactivate the threat as soon as possible at the source. The real danger is the person behind the attack. The kicks, punches, grabs, etc. are the secondary problem.

You have to get to the source of the attack, right up close to the attacker in order to cut the opponent’s intentions off. In a group attack you have only a moment to achieve this. Accelerating at an opponent is no easy feat, and acceleration has to be maintained up to and beyond the encounter. Rushing into the danger zone without hesitation requires a lot of trust in your reactive process.

What will your reactive process consist of when you reach the attacker? I have no idea and neither will anyone else. Acceleration means you have only a single moment in your encounter with an opponent. You simply won’t have time to think about the opponent or what you should do to them. Your reactive process will be whatever comes out in that single moment. Some of your response will be part of your natural reflex actions and a part of it will be a result of your training.

One thing you cannot afford to do is ask yourself ‘what technique do I use’ once you get to the source of the threat. To spend time on hitting, pushing or grabbing in a group attack would be the end of your progress to safety. Any technical strategy will need a degree of stabilisation of your lower body, which translates to a decrease in acceleration, and that just gives the group the extra time they need to take you down.

The strategy of getting to the source of an attack is designed to give you a constant in your approach to each attacker. It does not give you time to worry about their kicks, strikes, grabs, etc. There is good reasoning for this approach. A survival situation does not give you the luxury to practice your interpersonal skills, or the time to try out your self-defense tricks to win the day. When it comes to survival there is not enough time to prepare solutions that take time to sort out and execute, hence you look for time savers i.e. constants.

As always with group work, train safely and under the supervision of a qualified instructor.