Four Essays on the Martial Arts

by Michael Robertson
Martial Arts and Alcoholics Anonymous: Complimentary Opposites

The Use of Force Continuum and Self Defense

PAFOOPDA: An Eight Step Situation Guide

An Analysis of the Chuang Tzu Parable Duke Hwan and the Wheelwright

Martial Arts and Alcoholics Anonymous: Complimentary Opposites

Before I begin, I shall make the disclaimer that this is in no way a full explanation or analysis of either practice announced in the title. I am not attempting to assert the superiority of one over the other; merely observing the merits of each and, like yin and yang, showing how they may exist in harmony.

The martial arts and the program of Alcoholics Anonymous both espouse systems of living that depend on the cultivation of spirituality, moral character, self honesty, and maintaining individual worth in an imperfect world. For all their similarities however, they remain radically different in scope, focus and the means by which these qualities are attained. The major difference between AA and MA can be stated respectively by the following two sayings: Spiritual and emotional growth is not a journey of a thousand days or a journey of a lifetime, it is a journey of one day at a time and Our art is life, increasing levels of mastery in an endless journey. Both of them, however, share the ideal objective of teaching a person to live with life on lifes terms.

It is a basic truth that an alcoholic, an addict, an overeater and all other people with addictions are fundamentally the same. The focus of the individuals addiction is symptomatic of one or many larger life issues that this person is unable or unwilling to confront. The focus, whatever it may be, is initially a support to help stabilize or decompress. Over time, usually quite quickly, this support becomes a crutch and then a wheelchair. Almost all self-help groups are modeled on the original AA twelve step program. Through peer counseling and support, they help the addict to accept that they are incapable of controlling their self-destructive desires. They begin to build a spiritual way of living by letting go of pride and the urge to micro-manage their lives by accepting the existence of an undefined higher power, which functions as a psychological touch-stone, an enlightened substitute, to transfer worries and stress to. The key word for both the previous statement and the saying in my opening comments (Spiritual and emotional growth...is a journey of one day at a time) is Acceptance. It is vital to understand that the AA program is designed as a tool to help people deal with everyday problems and accept the world as it is on a day to day basis.

The martial arts, in contrast, are perhaps the ultimate form of self expression. It is an unparalleled tool for developing the body, mind and spirit. Over time, simple sequences of physical movements may evolve through levels of understanding into profound insights on the practitioners life and role in society. Note that I am referring only to martial arts, not martial sports or combative arts. Martial sports are rulebound and artificial, existing only for the purpose of competition. Combative Arts focus exclusively on the most basic, angry level of hand to hand, kill or be killed combat with no room for higher contemplation. In any mature martial art, one that regards the mind/body/spirit trinity equally, the advanced stages of learning teach balance and moderation in ones personal and professional lives. Even a beginning student must cultivate the discipline and responsibility necessary to counterbalance increased physical attributes and the capability for harm. Over years of training and contemplation, these qualities evolve into a respect for life and human worth that is almost universal among all systems of MA; from the Confucian roots of Ba-gua to the neo-samurai code espoused by some of the odder schools of Karate.

At this point I will introduce a practical situation to argue in support of my opening statement that both may be practiced without conflict. It will be agreed upon by any experienced mind that drinking and fisticuffs go hand in hand. Some of the more foolish may extend this logic to drinking and martial arts. The aftermath of any bar fight involving some black belts vs. a few Hells Angels will be proof of the saying: Bottle-fu translates as bottle-flu, not drunken master. If this person had been a member of AA, he would likely not have been in that bar in the first place. Indeed, many members of AA were once regularly familiar with this rough sort of pastime and would know by experience to avoid it. If this person had been any kind of decent martial artist, he would have: 1.) Recognized that he would be hopelessly inept when inebriated; 2.) Sought to avoid conflict entirely, especially in that environment; 3.) Seen that these were the worst enemies he could possibly make. Its clear that, differences in rationalization aside, the reasoning of both systems are so similar that I feel any further comparisons are unnecessary.

There are those who make the mistake of believing that a long-time commitment to AA should have a corresponding level of understanding or achievement as would be found in MA. This misunderstanding is common for people who have known only competition and increasing achievement. While a person who has studied MA for twenty years will have great depth and proficiency in their art, a person who has a similar amount time in AA will need nothing more then the satisfaction of living another sober day. This is the single great difference between them: that over time MA increases manifold

in the complexity of its teachings and rewards, while AA remains at a fundamental level that both the newcomer and the old-timer can share. In the end, it is this one difference that proves that they are NOT, in fact, mutually exclusive. On the one hand there is long-term growth; on the other, daily survival. Yet, having many of the same strengths, they can exist in a true Taoist form, as complimentary opposites.

References: -The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, AA World Services Inc., New York City -Infinite Insights into Kenpo (vol. 1-5), by Ed Parker, Delsby Publications, Los Angeles

The Use of Force Continuum and Self Defense

(Does this fool deserve blades, boots or the brush off?)

A large part of my interest in the martial arts is being able to know the appropriate level and type of force to use in a given situation. Whether it be an interview, a relationship, or an argument escalating towards violence, a sense of when to be yielding or unyielding, soft or hard, can rapidly turn any situation in your favor. Beginning martial artists understand the physical difference between tension and relaxation from katas, techniques and sparring, but it takes experience and insight from outside of a dojo to appreciate that same Yin/Yang give and take in every part of life. Because a full exploration of this topic would fill several volumes, I am narrowing the subject of this paper to the Use of Force Continuum, my interpretation of it and its relation to self-defense.

The Use of Force Continuum is a training guideline (similar to the militarys Rules of Engagement) used by law enforcement to simplify the legal and moral complexities of use of force

policies. Developed in the 1980s, it is most often presented in a stair or ladder format; as a situation escalates, the officer will step up to a more appropriate means of getting a suspects cooperation. -The first rung on the ladder is Command Presence. Most situations do not escalate past this point; the mere arrival of a uniformed officer can impart sufficient authority and threat of force to stop things before they get out of hand. -The second step is referred to as Soft Hands; the use of nonviolent physical contact. -The third step is for the officer to deploy Mace, Pepper Spray, Tasers and other non-lethal devices to subdue a suspect without having to cause permanent harm. K-9 units would also fall under this category. -The forth step is Hand to Hand (or Personal Weapons) submission, using strikes, jointlocks, chokes and takedowns to neutralize the suspect with a greater risk for injury. -The fifth step would call for the use of the Police Baton or some other force multiplier; serious injuries are now a certainty. -The sixth step would be for the officer to invoke the Threat of Deadly Force, either by deploying his sidearm or by some other means. -The seventh and final stage is for the officer to use Deadly Force against the suspect.

Even at first glance one can see that this specialized Force Continuum may work for law enforcement responding to a call, but requires drastic modification for civilian use. Although the scenarios and responses that a cop, a soldier or a civilian may plan for are worlds apart, the basic principle behind the Use of Force Continuum can be utilized by anyone: Preset guidelines and responses will substantially decrease reactionary gaps in times of stress. In laymans terms, when the shit hits the fan and your brains leak out your ass, you wont have to stop and think about what to do because youve thought it out beforehand.

Besides that, the Force Continuum was designed to function primarily as a legal tool. A well reasoned argument describing how and why you reacted when defending yourself from an attacker will go a long way towards swinging a jury to your side. In the fallout of an altercation, there are several prime questions that the court will ask when determining whether you were in the right: the reasonable person test, who struck first, and was the level of force you used appropriate for the situation? The reasonable person test asks: would a reasonable person in the same situation believe that there was sufficient imminent danger to require the use of force to defend themselves? The next question, who was the

aggressor, is important to keep clear for the obvious reason that its hard to claim self-defense if you are the one who started it. The final question is what the Force Continuum directly addresses. In an ideal law enforcement setting, the amount of force an officer should employ is directly proportional the subjects resistance. For a civilian who may not have that level of training or confidence, this should be modified to: Increase the necessary level of force until you know you can neutralize the threat under the circumstances.

Through my own experience and studies in the martial arts, I have devised a Continuum of Force that is better suited for my own needs. It consists of twelve steps and is broken down into three parts for greater flexibility: preparedness, confrontation, combat. -Preparedness: The first three steps actually start long before any trouble does, although they are only effective if practiced continuously until they become second nature. Conflict does not happen in a vacuum and there are usually signs leading up to it. 1. Attitude: A healthy mental state (e.g.: not slouching or looking down, projecting an aura of confidence) is not the message that criminals like to see. Even if its only an act, remember that criminals prey on the weak, not the strong. 2. Awareness: Be aware of your surroundings and notice trouble approaching before it gets to you. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the one that gets you will be that thing you never saw coming. 3. Avoidance: If you are aware of potential danger, actively take steps to avoid it entirely. Dont keep walking and hope for the best; never take risks you dont have to. -Confrontation: The next four steps take place in the time between when a threat reveals itself and when combat begins. Criminals are businessmen. If you can convince them that you will cost them more then they will gain, they are going to look somewhere else. 4. Posturing: Sometimes words arent needed to get a message across. A strong, nonverbal show of force or the implication that you are ready to defend yourself may be enough. 5. Negotiation: If the other side is open to reason, there is a good chance you will be able to talk your way out of trouble. Convincing them to take your wallet while letting you walk away unharmed is a perfectly valid tactic. 6. Intimidation: Verbal posturing is the other form you can take when negotiating if conciliation isnt an option. The advantage of speaking in a language criminals understand is slightly offset by the danger that

the dumber ones may take it as a challenge. 7. Disengagement: When all else fails and you have an escape route, there is nothing wrong with running away. Using feet-fu to either your car, a public place or for help, preferably while screaming bloody murder, is almost always better then sticking around. -Combat: While the previous four steps can usually prevent a situation from going south, dont rely on them exclusively. An opponent who wont listen, or a psychopath who doesnt rely on reason, will not be affected by pleas or threats. Remember that a verbal confrontation is dealt verbally and physical confrontation is dealt with physically. If it gets physical, you must be prepared to give it two hundred percent without hesitation. 8. Soft Hands: Submission techniques such as jointlocks, chokes, throws and pressure points may be enough to dissuade further use of force. Causing pain but not actual damage may be risky; a serious attacker could just shrug it off and keep coming. 9. Non-Lethal Weapons: Mace, pepper spray, tasers, etc. are not really takedown tools in a self-defense context; they are meant to distract or incapacitate someone from range, giving you time to run. 10. Hand to Hand: If it comes down to fists and feet, be sure that you get it over with fast as possible. No fancy moves, no stopping until the threat is completely neutralized and definitely dont pause to admire your work. 11. Force Multipliers: These include sticks, bricks, 2x4s, bottles...anything you can lay your hands on to even the odds. If it comes to this, play it safe and assume that you are already using deadly force. 12. Deadly Force: This top step is usually thought of as involving guns and knives. While they are the logical options and should never be deployed as just a threat, deadly force is a possibility in any serious physical conflict; weapons of any kind only multiply the danger. -Even though you may have a wealth of options available to you, remember that as the defender you must stay in the right. Only go as far as necessary to neutralize the threat, and then stop. Anything more than that and you will be seen as the aggressor in the eyes of the law.

It is important to remember that the steps in a Force Continuum are not rigid tab A into slot B directions. Any situation is fluid and impossible to precisely predict; your responses must be just as fluid, not cramped by scripturalized guidelines. Your appropriate response may move up and down the ladder depending on changing conditions. The sex, conditioning and stature of you and your opponent(s), if they

are armed or intoxicated, your environment, do you have friends or are you alone and a hundred other details must be factored. To simplify things, there is a rule of thumb that I follow called The Rule of Ten Percent. All but ten percent of confrontations you can talk your way out of and all but ten percent of the remainder you can run from, leaving only one percent of total confrontations which will get physical.

In conclusion, the Use of Force Continuum is a helpful and versatile tool whether you use it to prepare for a possible self-defense situation or to deal with the legal aftermath of one. To paraphrase Bruce Lee however: It is only a tool, to be used and discarded when it no longer serves a purpose. I further quote Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.: Rational detachment cannot be demanded in the presence of an upraised fist. Take it or leave it as you see fit, but dont let it stand in your way when the chips are down; remember its better to be tried by twelve than carried by six. With that disclaimer in mind, I will close by saying that the Use of Force Continuum is well worth studying and, with a little imagination, can be adapted for nearly any role.

References: -Bartletts Familiar Quotations (13th Centennial Edition). Little, Brown and Company; Boston, Mass; 1955 -Tao of Jeet Kune Do by Bruce Lee. Ohara Publications Inc; Burbank, CA; 1975 -Meditations on Violence by Rory Miller. YMAA Publication Center Inc; Wolfeboro, NH; 2008 -Continuum of Force article by Zarc International Inc; www.zarc.com/english/nonlethal_weapons/continuum -Use of Force Continuum article by Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_force_continuum

PAFOOPDA: An Eight Step Situation Guide

(And it's not as stupid as the acronym makes it sound!) I like lists. A concise and simply laid out list is, for me, the best way to make sense of something. For this past year I have been working on applying what I've learned in martial arts to real life problem solving. My last paper (The Use of Force Continuum and Self Defense) explored some thoughts on conflict resolution by this method. With that done, I've moved on to exploring how situations other then combat can be dealt with by these same means. PAFOOPDA is not the name of a childrens cartoon character; nor is it a nonsensical French phrase used to make yourself sound pretentiously educated at a cocktail party. It refers to a powerful and highly successful method of meeting and dealing with situations head on. So far as I know, this variation of the STOP (Stop, Think, Observe, Plan) acronym is entirely my own. 1. Preparedness There's a reason this is step number one. Preparing for possibilities provides a bedrock of resources to work with in times of crisis. Already having thought through your possible scenarios and responses (mental preparation) or just getting the body into shape (physical preparation) can give one a decided advantage. It can be an all engrossing task if carried to extremes; it's important not to confuse planning or training with doing. 2. Awareness Recognizing the situation as, or preferably before, it's going down will give you a tremendous head start. Being ahead of the curve gives one time to prepare mentally and hopefully to be a few steps ahead of the action when it starts. 3. Focus Managing to remain calm and present is a difficult task for most people at the best of times. When everything suddenly goes to hell, clear thought is usually the first thing to go out the window. There is an acronym used to good effect by EMS personnel: SSS (first stabilize Self, then stabilize the Scene, then stabilize the Subject). 4. Observation Being able to quickly and accurately assess a situation is not something that comes naturally. Acting on incomplete information, making snap judgments or interpreting what we take in incorrectly is a failing no

one is immune to. As every cop and lawyer knows, an eyewitness is the worst source of evidence. 5. Organization Developing a plan in what is often the heat of the moment is a tall order, but is usually a better option then rushing in blindly. This greatly increases one's chances but don't get married to it; situations can change in the blink of an eye. Likewise, changing a plan for no reason will only create unwanted confusion. 6. Patience Wait for the right opportunity! Buck fever doesn't just happen in hunting; jumping the gun will ruin just about any plan instantly. On the other hand, there is such a thing as being too cautious. Even if it wasn't perfect, don't let a good opportunity pass you by because of it. 7. Decisiveness Hesitation has killed more well made plans then any other single cause. Whether it was from being too patient or from insufficient resolution makes no difference; the commitment necessary to survive a dangerous scenario must be 200%. In the words of the samurai philosopher Tsunetomo Yamamoto:Any crucial decision should be made in the space of seven breaths. 8. Acceptance All actions have consequences. Whether being taken to jail for lawful self defense, freezing because you decided to ignore the rain coming or having your teeth loosened for interfering in someone elses fight, accepting the ends of your means is a mark of maturity. To be entirely truthful, neither the inspiration nor the mindset behind this list is my own. I don't think I've met anyone as calm, self aware and hard core as survivalist guru Cody Lundin. The mindset that he espouses for survival situations has had a tremendous influence on my thinking and I could not improve on his words. I quote here from his book 98.6 Degrees (The art of keeping your ass alive!): I like to listen to listen to loud, heavy metal music. At some point, headphones blaring, I was given a revelation about cultivating a survivor mindset. The term that came to me was Rational Insanity. During a survival episode, you'll be taxed to the limit on all levels. In order to prevail and mitigate the panic factor, you'll have to be as cool as a cucumber. You'll need to approach your situation in a somewhat detached and rational manner, while gearing up your mind and body to accomplish the insane if necessary, thereby

smashing all self-imposed limitations. Funneling the intense energy of insanity and uniting it with the cool soundness of rational decision making creates a potent force in emergency scenarios. Condensing this potency can best be summed up in one simple statement: the clarion call Party On! I chose the topic of this paper mainly to clear up the concept in my own mind. Looking at it laid out, it's easy to see now that each one of these steps leads into the next by logical necessity. Preparing will help you become Aware, which allows Focus so that we can Observe and then Organize. Patience leads to a moment of Decisiveness, at which point it will be necessary to Accept the outcome. Whether we call it STOP, PAFOOPDA or something else, the theory behind it is certainly sound. Party On!

An Analysis of the Chuang Tzu Parable Duke Hwan and the Wheelwright

Duke Hwan of Khi, first in his dynasty, sat under his canopy reading his philosophy; and Phien the wheelwright was out in the yard making a wheel. Phien laid aside hammer and chisel, climbed the steps, and said to Duke Hwan: May I ask you, Lord, what is this you are reading? The Duke said: The experts. The authorities. And Phien asked: Alive or dead? Dead a long time. Then, said the wheelwright, You are only reading the dirt they left behind. Then the Duke replied: What do you know about it? You are only a wheelwright. You had better give me a good explanation or else you must die. The wheelwright said: Let us look at the affair from my point of view. When I make wheels if I go easy, they fall apart, if I am too rough, they do not fit. If I am neither too easy nor too violent they come out right. The work is what I want it to be. You cannot put this into words: you just have to know how it is. I cannot even tell my own son exactly how it is done, and my own son cannot learn it from me. So here I am, seventy years old, still making wheels! The men of old took all they really knew with them to the grave. And so, Lord, what you are reading there is only the dirt they left behind them. (The Way of Chuang Tzu, by Thomas Merton, New Directions 1969.)

Upon first reading, the literal lesson that this story teaches is quite good. Books are written to learn from, but book learning is not the best way to learn about the world. Books can impart knowledge, but wisdom is only acquired through time, experience, and the occasional screwup. This wisdom of experience cannot be imparted by mere words, and so the best of philosophers and sages often have nothing to say. This being a Taoist parable however, a literal interpretation misses the point entirely. The wagon wheel is, of course, a metaphor for the Tao. Phien doesnt know how he crafts the wheel, he simply does. The lesson is presented in story form for the precise reason that I have stated above. The Tao is unnamable and unknowable, mere words cannot describe it because it is indescribable. Wisdom, gathered by experience, is intuitive. By writing about the lesson as an experience, the author avoids a futile description of the Tao and imparts understanding of it as intuition. This interpretation calls nearly the entire system of western philosophy, Platoic and onwards, into question; not only its organization, but both its most traditional questions and answers. Perhaps the only western thinker of the classical era who recorded some understanding of the Tao was Socrates. He believed that that this world was only a shadow and all named things figments. Behind our so called reality was a world of true substance, where the tangible was understood directly and had no need of names. Recognizable, but his description was given to ironic self defeat in the act of describing. My interpretation and understanding of these concepts are limited by my lack of wisdom of experience. Other meanings may be taken from this story by other minds, but this is mine and Ill leave it as written.