I Want to Believe in Fairy Tales

There is no doubt that I want to believe that you could simply touch somebody and knock them out or manipulate their force in such a way that you could dance them around with the ease of a puppet master and emerge from a confrontation without even breaking a sweat or sustaining injury.* A note on this before I get started. You can train to sustain physical injury and endurance but it is only through hard work, NOT the magic secrets I refer to in this article.

How the heck, in this day and age do methods like Aikido, Systema, various forms of Chrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Kung Fu and other mystical and unbelievable methods of defense exist? The answer is easy. People believe because they want to avoid the pain of reality.

Fear forces them to ignore the harsh truth: physical contact comes with a certain degree of discomfort and if you haven't played a contact sport over the age of 12, you're in for a rude awakening. If the last time you were on a football field or a wrestling mat was in high school, you tend to forget over the years. One of the things our mind does is forget pain and focus on the good. It's a survival mechanism, if your mind didn't do this, you would see a lot more single child families in the world.

How did this all start?
Originally styles like Aikido were developed to study the movement of force and manipulation of power through harmonizing with the force. It's an abstract study not a literal translation. Aiki literally means "joining spirit" and "do" meaning "the way of". If it had a "jutsu" at the end as in Akijutsu, it would refer to the technique and skill. Over the years these terms have been twisted and perverted to meant the needs of whoever decides to use them for marketing but in the beginning "do" was a symbolic form of fighting like judo and "jutsu" was the combative system like "jujutsu".

Enough of the history lesson. Over time people started throwing the term self defense around like it was going out of style and it soon became the punchline of the martial arts world. If you look at every martial arts advertisement under the sun you will see self defense as a benefit. And sure you an use a combat sport as self defense though there are a lot more efficient means of saving your own ass, but this isn't a sales pitch, it's a blog so we'll save that for the SDTS website. Listen, when they learned they could make a buck teaching self defense (present company included) a lot of systems BECAME self defense.

Over time styles like Aikdo and other forms of martial art have evolved or more to the point "sprouted up" claiming unbelievable benefits to the practitioners. You see these types of systems claiming Chinese, Japanese, Filipino African and even Native American origins.

And why not? Who doesn't want to have super human powers? Who doesn't want to be able to poke a man and watch him flip all over the place.

I submit to you two video samples of new Russian Martial Arts.






I know what you're thinking "How could he just throw those people around, they are attacking him?" Listen, faith healers appear to cure the incurable. When people want to believe something, they believe it and react accordingly. They do this because their desire to possess that skill is so great, they abandon all sense of reason. I offer this classic:



Hey, I'm sure the majority of his students were like "WTF?!?!" I'm sure the Chi Master himself didn't expect it either. The power of suggestion combined with a willingness to believe is an incredible combination capable of great things, until a non-believer walks into the room.

Just ask yourself one obvious question, if all of this was really what it was cracked up to be wouldn't you thing you would see it in MMA, Football, basketball or any other professional sport. Imagine giving the ball to a guy who just waves his hand and clears the field.

Finally I present George Dillman who has perfected the bullshit into a multimillion dollar a year business. This is a segment that was presented on the discovery channel.



Quote "The skeptic was a total non-believer". No shit Sherlock, I guess it works if you get into a fight with a believer?!?!? Are you serious?!?!?! How the hell does this guy say that with a straight face. Damn he's good. If it only works on "believers" WHAT GOOD IS IT?

Personally, when it comes to saving my ass (and more importantly, the asses of the people in my life who matter more than me) I really don't give a damn what some scumbag rapist believes in. Listen, the reality is that attempted rapes, homicides and assaults are brutal and they hurt. That's life, get over it. There isn't a magic pill, potion or mystical technique. There is hard, honest to goodness work. Listen, I'd like to believe that I could knock somebody out without touching them, maybe after I some chili I could knock you over without touching you, other than that, I'm going to go to the what has been proven to work. Hit hard, it fast, hit often (repeat as necessary).

I would like to believe you could knock a guy out with out touching him, I also would like to believe that a fat man with a white beard and a red suit is bringing my kids presents on December 25th, but he's not and I have to pay for them anyway.

PS. Never underestimate the stupidity of the general public.
Scary thought 1: A person of average intelligence is not that smart.
Scary thought 2: Half of the people in the world are dumber than that guy.

Damian Ross
The Self Defense Company
Chi
The Self Defense Training System
Martial Arts
Self Defense
Death Touch