Violence is scary.
I mean ‘crap your pants’ and wish you were somewhere else scary.
Don’t fall into the trap of hearing people with ‘some’ experience of violence tell you that it is easy if you do ‘this’ or train in their system.
The truth is that in any violent encounter you could be seriously or even fatally injured.
And that is before you even talk about life changing injuries.
The whole subject of life changing injuries is one that has many a person, and instructor confused. So let’s address it.
Just because you survive a violent encounter and come out on top physically, it does not mean that you have not been hurt.
Let us say that you get punched in the face, and your jaw gets broken.
You win the fight, but you end up going to the hospital where they tell you that you will have to have surgery.
But hold on, you have to work tomorrow. Your boss will sack you if you don’t turn up.
It doesn’t even have to be that bad.
Your nose could get badly broken and change the way you look or in one real life example I remember seeing an 18-year-old lad whose front teeth were broken in half after being punched in the face.
He hated the way he looked and would need to spend thousands on dental treatment.
But you still see the internet filled with self-defence and martial arts instructors who talk about violence as if it was a sparring session.
The truth is that reality hurts.
The Punch You Won’t See Hurts You
In all the years I worked as a cop one thing was always clear, the punch you don’t see coming is the one that gets you.
Time after time I saw both in the flesh and on CCTV, situations where a guy or girl was knocked out by a punch they never saw.
Those single punches often caused serious life changing injuries on their own, but that wasn’t enough the attackers followed through with punches and or kicks.
Sometimes it was clear that the person knocked out had skills.
For years I often wondered what the solution was to this issue.
I mean how could a strong, trained fighter get taken out so easily by one punch?
The answer, was to come in the form of Shape Shifting
Why We Shape Shift
For those of you training in Defence Lab then you will know this, however,plenty of people do not really grasp what DL is.
When I first started to look at the mass attacks that I was seeing so often I realised one thing.
That was the need for 360-degree defence while still being able to attack. I tried several variations that failed until I met with Andy Norman and he showed me a trick or two.
The penny dropped and shape-shifting became part of my training from that day forth.
So what is shape shifting?
It is really hard to answer that without a video but you will be able to learn it all in the new online university coming soon.
But if I were to do an elevator pitch I would say this:
“Shapeshifting is the way you can protect yourself from multiple attacks while still being able to produce fast and powerful attacks.”
I appreciate this is not much of an answer but without seeing or experiencing the way shape-shifting works you just can’t appreciate it
When a DL student learns the shapes in the syllabus, they soon see that their body is a weapon and just like a jagged rock face you will see how you can resist and break someone trying to conquer you by using your skeletal structure to its most effective.
So for those of you wondering if DL is effective, worry not.
DL was created to deal with the worst situations you can face, and as such new techniques were created, tested and born from reality.
Until next time Shape Shifters