Iban Parang

Humans have been using weapons since the beginning of their existence, and for good reason. Weapons provide a massive advantage in both attack and defense.  Every martial arts practitioner interested in self defense should learn how to use weapons both to better defend against their use, and to gain an advantage in a serious self defense situation. You can see how I categorize weapons and their use on my self defense weapons page.

Although people in most 1st world countries no longer carry swords, practicing with them (or a stick of a similar length) can provide very valuable lessons in self defense. The methods of attack and defense that work with a sword also work with a stick, cane, hammer, wrench, knife, machete…even a household iron. You can learn to use a “stick” or any other long blunt or sharp object through the curriculum and videos on my single stick page, which I plan to add to in the very near future.

Parang Handle

Aside from the usefulness of sword and stick training for self defense, swords from different cultures can be fascinating. I recently posted a review of the Filipino ginunting, one of my favorite swords for functionality, and thought I’d add a few pictures of another favorite, an Iban parang from the island of Borneo. I purchased this parang in the state of Sarawak on the Malaysian side of Borneo. It’s about 100 years old, and decorated with human hair. The handle and scabbard are the most beautiful of all the swords I own.

As beautiful as the parang is, it’s hard for a modern westerner to imagine they were used on head hunting raids.  Up until the late 1800′s or so, several tribes of Borneo required heads for all sorts of ceremonies, from those related to the rice harvest to weddings. Imagine having to cut a person’s head off before you could be married…or walking through the jungle where people were looking for heads! In any case, the parang is an amazing sword, very similar to others used in Indonesia and the Philippines.  It’s designed for one handed use, fast, well balanced, and the design of the handle prevents the parang from slipping out of your hand.

Parang Scabbard

I’ve asked a few older Iban about their sword training, but never really gotten any detailed answers. They do have dances that involve the use of the sword and shield, but it seems that their “martial art” was lost when the practice of head hunting was abandoned.  If anyone reading this has information on the martial arts of the tribes of Borneo, I’d love to hear from you! I can’t imagine people like the Iban wouldn’t have had their own martial art. If you were living in a jungle at a time when nearby tribes wanted your head, wouldn’t you?

Mekong

Martial arts have always been about much more than fighting to me.  I started seriously training after reading the Tao of Jeet Kune Do.  The ideas expressed there were immensely appealing to me, as a person who never quite fit in the boxes society builds for us.  And, coming from a relatively dangerous city, my interest in what really worked in a no rules environment, where there are no limitations, also helped me avoid getting stuck in the cult like groups that so many styles produce.  Finding the best material for self defense was more important to me than loyalty to any particular instructor or style.

Many martial arts claim to draw from “eastern philosophy”.  They talk about the concepts of Zen, having an empty mind (mushin in Japanese martial arts), etc., etc.  But most of this is just talk.  It’s leaving one box to enter another.  Rather than becoming awake, they end up more like this:

Buddha?

It’s really a shame, because martial arts have so much more to offer than fighting skills…or worse, becoming another box for practitioners.  Matt Thorton says it best in two excellent posts that go into far greater detail than I will here: The Sacred and the Superstitious and Carving Nature at the Joints.  Honest, unlimited martial arts practice breaks down walls.  It puts truth right in your face.  What you’re doing either works or it doesn’t, and it’s plain to see.  Dishonest training and thinking, along stylized lines, doesn’t do this.

And the same is true in life.  You can live within the walls of social expectations, or you can choose not to.  They’re not real.  And even if you do break down the walls, you can still live within their former borders.  But you don’t have to.  Open and honest thinking, never just believing, leads to freedom.

A Path

There’s no single path.  Martial arts will teach you this better than most pursuits, through experience.  And that’s a great lesson to learn.  To be good at martial arts you need to become an explorer.  You need to see through the walls that were never really there in the first place.  When you apply the same free thinking to life, you’ll inevitably find happiness.  As Bruce Lee once said, “ultimately, martial art is self knowledge“.  You can only do what you need to do if you know what you need to do.  You need to know yourself.

Vasco and I

Really, the same can be said for playing the piano, painting, dancing, or even running a business.  Honest thinking and exploring will make you a far better martial artist, a better person, and a lot happier.

Self defense shouldn’t only be about protecting your physical body from an external attacker.  I’ve written a bit on digital defense in the past, and after reading this  excellent post on Jarlo Ilano’s True Aim Fitness blog I thought I’d also share the video below on the dangers of sugar.  I consider myself to be pretty healthy, but this video was a shocker.  It’s going to change the way I eat and drink, and it should change the way you eat and drink too!  It’s a long video, but highly worth watching, especially if you have children:

Stop Kick

After yesterday’s post on the default/flinch response, I’d like to make a couple points of clarification.  The crash (our primary default response against a surprise punching attack) and the spear (Tony Blauer’s default response against a surprise attack) are both excellent responses that really work.  They’re far better than the vast majority of defenses that require a person to match a specific defense to a specific punch.  When you’re attacked by surprise you need a single, gross-motor-skill-based-response that works no matter what punch the attacker threw.  In such a situation your mind and body will not be fast enough to determine exactly what’s coming and pick a particular matching response before you get hit.

However, ideally you should not be in a position in which you are attacked by surprise.  Ideally you should be aware of your surroundings and maintain a safe distance from any potential threat, so you have the time to see the attack coming without being surprised…without having a “jack in the box moment”.  If you are aware of your surroundings and maintain a safe distance (distance = time), you can intercept an attack using a variety of methods from the stop kick shown in the image above, to a preemptive attack if justified, or even better, escaping before the attack occurs.  You can also use a technique such as the crash or spear if you prefer.  But it is better to be aware and have a greater variety of options.  So while techniques like the spear are brilliant and very effective, you should aim not to be in such a position where you have so little choice.  This is why we emphasize awareness first, and then the Fundamental Five in Hertao…five default responses/strategies for a greater variety of situations…one of which is the crash.  Of course you never know what situation you may end up in, so having such a flinch response in your arsenal is a must for self defense!

Here’s an outstanding video by Tony Blauer that every self defense practitioner should see:

Although we use our own default response, the crash, rather than “the spear”, the concept is the same. Both techniques are a bridge that utilize natural physiological reactions instead of an attempt to unnaturally react to an attack with a complex response.

His points on the “jack in the box” effect, not knowing which particular attack is coming, etc., are all excellent. They explain why so many self defense and martial arts techniques will fail in a real assault. The majority of attacks on the street are going to be surprising, violent forward pressure assaults. You need a simple default response to deal with such an attack, and the spear is another great option.

See the follow up post: Default Response Clarification.