Every time I see an instructor demonstrate (with their
students) a strategy for dealing with multiple attackers, I can’t help thinking
how it always looks so clean and precise. I guess they have to give the
impression that if it was a real situation they could somehow deliver decisive
strikes to multiple opponents in quick succession.
However when the student has a training experience against
fighting multiple opponents, they get a far messier outcome, and those unanswered
strikes on their opponents are nowhere to be seen. The attackers won’t let
themselves be used as shields and the rest of the group starts hammering you
from all different angles. The student can find it difficult to correlate
between their own experience and the demonstration they witnessed, but it would
be a mistake for them to believe the reason for the difference is all down to
the skill of the instructor.
Demonstrations that involve the interaction of the
instructor and the students have one thing in common; the student will always
play their part to make the demonstration work. In traditional martial arts the
instructor / teacher in any school is highly respected by their students, and
sometimes it is to a degree where their students place them on a pedestal. This
is of considerable benefit to the instructor when teaching, as the students are
extremely pliable when you are trying to demonstrate something. The student
will basically act their part to ensure the demonstration is successful.
One of the reasons students act like this might be the
socialisation process that occurs as part of belonging to that school or club.
There are behaviours that students learn from observing the behaviour of other
students and the newer students tend to copy the ones who have been there for a
while in order to fit in. That is one of the reasons why it’s rare to get a
student who will actively resist their instructor and you almost never see them
throw a decent strike at their teacher or dive-tackle them to the ground as
part of group attack training.
Of course to work effectively, demonstrations are all set up
so that students are at the right distance for the demo to proceed smoothly and
the students move at the right speed and trajectory to make the choreographed
situation work. It’s important for the student to realise that even when it is
speeded up, it is still choreographed; there is no randomness to the
‘attackers’ actions. It’s a different story when it’s you verses your fellow
students, as they are your competitors. You will actively seek to disrupt the
intentions of your fellow students, whereas you would not consider doing the
same to your instructor. Basically when it’s your fellow students you are up
against then you want to win the game.
When I look at a demonstration for dealing with multiple
attackers, I imagine the group activating to really try and get the individual,
and it generally gives me a good indication of whether the strategy will fail
badly or not. Just remember that the big difference once the group is active is
that you are now dealing with behaviour that is much more difficult to control.
The more your strategy can deal with the randomness and chaos that a group
attack can produce, the better your chances of exiting the situation safely.
One of the less desirable outcomes of the student / teacher
relationship is the development and propagation of self-defence techniques that
won’t work when the group is really trying to get the individual. Don’t take my
word for it; just get a good, active group together and test those techniques and
strategies out. You will soon get an indication of the point where the strategy
will fail and it is generally based on the level of pressure being delivered by
the group. The higher the pressure, the greater the rates of failure of
strategies that you might think have some legitimacy after observing them in
demonstrations.
If you want a bit of a laugh, have a look this video of what
purports to be a Kiai master who is obviously a huge fan of the Jedi and the
Force. It is an extreme example (if it’s not a fake) that students will follow observed
behaviour patterns and have the desire to make the instructor look good, even if
it’s ridiculous.
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