We live in violent times that a reality that a fair amount of people in certain places around the world don’t have to deal with. However, the truth is that thousands of people live a hell on earth every day. The saddest part is that this endless suffering is cause for our own kind. It is truly amazing to be witness that in this so called “peaceful times” murder, slavery, rape and many other twisted and sadistic behaviors are everyday on the local news of every town everywhere. So don’t be mistaken, sooner or later you might need to fight to defend yourself. So, what is fighting all about?

There are many reasons to engage into a fight, from a person who is about to get killed because a thief want to get his old worthless watch to an enthusiastic of martial arts in a tournament. Now, there is an abysmally huge difference between recreational fighting and fighting for life. On one hand you fight only to fulfill your desire of competition, to be the number one; on the other, you do whatever you have to do to keep yourself alive or to protect those who you care about, in this last situation you fight with “spirit” which is ultimately what dictates who is going to be the winner in most cases. Those are like the 2 sides of the spectrum but there are infinite degrees in between.

In the following articles I’m going to try to describe the fighting style that I practice, which is sort of a compendium of martial arts and self-defense techniques that I have learned along my path. It is not meant to be used in competitions or to take advantage over others.

Let’s begin with the basic theory. As I mentioned before the spirit in a fight is probably the most important quality that one can have in order to win. This noble feeling has been widely known since ancient times like in the biblical history of David versus Goliath. It has been subject of movies like the famous “Rocky” movies; however, I find particularly more interesting the real life cases, like when a small size mother moves objects (that 3 grown up men would have trouble in moving) to save the life of her children. Unfortunately that can’t be taught, that is awaken with the conservation instinct that we all have but many have it sleeping due this “peaceful times”. This is a funny example of that:

Now to more serious business, in order to become a good fighter, one needs a balanced combination of 3 basic qualities: speed, technique and strength.

Different people develop different combinations usually based on their physical constitution. Big people tend to be more adept to develop stronger attacks, and smaller people use to rely on lightening attacks. The best fighter is the one who knows the technique and has trained countless days in order to execute it fast and overwhelmingly.

First thing first, the basic training should be the main subject for the time being. Know yourself is the key to improve your physical boundaries. The human body has around 206 bones, most of them are too small to be the focus of our attention; however, the ones in the arms and legs would become part of our training. Many people belief that the bones are rock solid, when in fact they are pretty fragile. Each bone is built for a compact bone shield that wraps a soft spongy bone and the yellow bone which is a sort of a blood vessel. The key of training the bones, especially for the fist, knees, shin, and elbows (which are the most commonly used during any given combat), is to kill the nerves inside the bones and to inflict a certain amount of damage to the spongy tissue of the bone.

Why would anyone delivery hurt his own body? The answer is that we are organic beings, and so, our organism is constantly healing itself, repairing what is broken, and every time a minor injure like this is fixed the soft part of the bone become stronger and thicker. Plus you would feel less pain, due the nervous terminals would be less active in this areas. In fact, in martial artists, due their training like breaking bricks, usually have a density of bones way bigger than a regular adult, and also due this density their bones weight around 25% more. The outcome, a thicker thus stronger skeleton that would definitely be an advantage during a fight.

Along with the bones, the muscles should be also enhanced. There are basically 3 kinds of muscles, skeletal, cardiac and smooth. The first one is the one that concern us. This is in charge of the movement of the bones and thus the limbs. Skeletal muscles consist of long cylindrical cells similarly to a rope. Through training the fibers of the “rope” snaps and also with rest when the body recovers from the injure the muscles would grown larger and stronger. This muscle tissue could be divided into 2. The one with red color is the one that gives its faculty to compress, which ultimately leads to what we know as strength, and the white one, gives the endurance. No need to say that we would need both.

As a final comment, there must be a balance between “injuring” your body and the recovery. Remember the idea is to work out enough to force the body to repair “superficial” damages not to provoke injures that could potentially leave you handicapped. The rest is very important, along with the alimentation so the healing process can be optimal. In my humble opinion it works best to if you have large periods of rest (sleep included).