False Confidence. Is Your Martial Arts Instructor Letting You Down?

I totally get that everybody has their own way of teaching. Even if you have followed a style and/or instructor for many years, you will inevitably start to add your own take on stuff. These may be based on many things, your own physical makeup, your attitude toward certain things, outside influences and any history you have had in competitions etc, but (I think) most importantly for self-defence training, real-time experience or at least putting your skills to pressure testing is a must.

I am not for one second suggesting deliberately setting out to get involved in a street altercation just to prove your worth, but I am saying that if you want your technique to stand up under duress, it has to have some reality to it, especially for people higher up the ranks.

I’m not going to drop names here, but I do remember training on a small seminar with an excellent, world-class instructor who had quite a simple criterion for taking (taking, not necessarily passing) a black belt under him and there were three of these criteria. You had to have done at least one of the following.

One was to have had a street fight that could be verified, not one you made up that happened in a galaxy far, far away. Number two was to have had a full contact bout, either Boxing or Martial Arts (again, had to be known as in it actually happened) or finally, if number one or number two couldn’t be established, you had to do at least one night on a nightclub door with him.

Now I am realistic and accept that those three conditions may not suit everyone, but certainly at Fight Fortress, my brown belts and above will all have taken part in heavy sparring, they will all have grappled (or bulled as it is sometimes known) and they will have worked their self-defence/unarmed combat drills under non-compliant pressure. It is the latter I wish to address here.

I was recently made aware of a black belt whose overall skills were of a sufficient standard. Basic techniques were good, and they conducted themselves with respect and courtesy.

Where it all fell apart was when they started working on holds and grabs, mainly chokes. They simply didn’t know a basic escape, and this was by no means their fault. They had been taught to escape a hold in such an unrealistic fashion that I honestly felt that they had not been shown a duty of care by their instructor. The escapes they knew would quite honestly not stand up to a decent test, let alone a street attack. Sadly, they had been given a false sense of confidence and this is something that should not be tolerated when it comes to personal safety training.

In fact, I was also made aware that they were honest enough to confess that they realised what they had been taught would indeed fall short of surviving a confrontation.

Again, not their fault but imagine getting to black belt, usually a four-to-five-year journey and then finding out what you have been taught is the equivalent of having an ashtray on a motorbike. Useless.

Sometimes bad instructors slip through the net and sometimes they don’t. They are found out on the mats, in the dojo etc or sometimes they simply unravel. It was refreshing to read of a particularly bad and underqualified instructor be banned for life from teaching his Martial Arts, but it is a rarity.

So if you are on a Martial Arts/Self Defence path, don’t just check out your instructor’s certificate and insurance, be honest and check out their technique. Does it work under pressure? Would you be comfortable going into a situation equipped with what this guy/girl had taught you? And the big, big question. Would you teach it to your own children, regardless of their age?

No need for answers on a postcard, just take on board what I say. You can either agree or disagree, we can still have a cup of tea next time we meet but remember this, false confidence is as bad as no confidence at all.