Taking A Shot

Just how important is it to train yourself to be able to take a hard strike/blow?,ie in the street you may miss/lose the ability to be pre-emptive and the management of the situation and the person/persons you are facing pre-empt you? and can this be taught without being 'hands on' with people?

Marc

you cant dish out what you cant take in my opinion
people often 'go to pieces' when hit hard, and if they have never been hit before, it can end the 'fight' there and then.

some form of impact conditioning (mainly mental ) is essential in my book

Totally agree with Dave Turton. As Mick always says, some times you're the hammer, sometimes you're the nail.
Unfortunately, there's no real way to condition yourself for getting whacked in the head without being whacked in the head.
You can make your training tough physically, psychologically, add fear, adrenalin inducing drills. Push your fitness to the limits and test your endurance and will power but as for taking a shot - there's no substitute for getting used to being hit.

It depends what you're training for - ie, outside for the rare event of being attacked, or for the ring/cage where you are most definitely going to be stopping shots - as to how much of this type of training you should include in your program - but it should be there.

As I always say, you can't learn to swim without getting wet - and you can't learn to fight without getting hit and getting used to being hit.

Good points,there's no good in being a dry land swimmer.
Geoff Thompson covered drills to practice regarding this area in the '3 Second Fighter' with the ambush training drills etc and also in the 'Animal Day-Part 2 Video' with the 'Three Second Fight Gone Wrong' drill (where you lose the option of being pre-emptive and you are only able to react.
Question is how can this be taught in a female self-protection class without having to ask the fine ladies to 'glove up'!
(Maybe NLP does have a place after all?)

Marc

There's no substitute

This is my whole issue with alot of "ladies" self defence classes - the techniques being taught are not being taught in an environment that is going to prepare them for the reality of attack.

Worst still, they may be encouraged to leave the course feeling far more confident at these new found skills and as a result - place themselves more in danger through having a exaggerated confidence of their own abilities.

NLP can certainly work to help teach the mind how it will feel in fearful situations - if you want to try that kind of thing.

But there is absolutely no substitute for dealing with the physical pain and shock of being whacked in the face!

you CAN get this across with the ladies, but it takes more time
Also many women are not punched by a man in a self-defence scenario

grabs, muggings, sexual assaults etc are 'percentage-wise' greater on women than are the big swinging, head-butting assault young (ish) men inflict on other men.

This is one reason why Judo or good Ju-jutsu can be good for women. They get 'mauled' around and this toughens them up a bit

however, taking impact should be MENTIONED to the female students early on and then work gently and sympathetically within their OWN constraints

If they are already invoved in something say like Kick-boxing etc, then they always make better self-defence students in my book