Читать книгу Modern Hand to Hand Combat. Ancient Samurai Techniques on the Battlefield and in the Street (Downloadable Audio Included) онлайн

8 страница из 24

As we began, I immediately felt like I had been thrust into a selection phase of a special school rather than a combatives class. For the next 40 minutes, we were ordered to perform a series of physical exercises designed to completely diminish our strength and energy. Although the others did not understand how this was related to combatives, I knew what was happening. I knew the cadre wanted us to be at a point of muscle failure so that when we were taught the techniques we couldn’t rely solely on our physical strength. With fatigue gripping our bodies, we’d really have to mentally focus to accomplish the techniques and achieve the desired results. I had seen this tactic used in several schools before, but never at such an early stage. I certainly thought that the techniques I was going to learn would blow my mind.

After the “smoke session” (an extremely high-paced and demanding work-out) was over, we formed a circle around the cadre. Finally, the cadre members started to demonstrate the techniques that we would be working on for the remainder of our PT time. As they started the demonstration, my mouth almost dropped to the floor. I wasn’t amazed at all. On the contrary, I was shocked. What I saw was very rigid, unrealistic, and unstable. The rigidity wasn’t much of a problem in my mind; I expected some of this, because it is sometimes easier to convey combatives this way when teaching to a crowd of people. The main problems were the unrealistic and hypocritical aspects of the techniques.