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One of the most important things you can have, if you want to be a good fighter, inside the ring or out, is the gunfighter mentality. The best fighters, like Chuck Lidells and Anderson Silva, have this intuitively in their personality. The losers don't.
Interestingly enough, the Gunfighter Mentality used to be central to learning the classical martial arts. I remember training back in the sixties, and everything we did was pointed towards building this ability. While there were many factors involved in the death of the Gunfighter Mentality in training, people like Bruce Lee probably drove home the spike.
Bruce Lee added circling and bouncing to the martial arts. The Gunfighter Mentality depends on stillness, being coiled like a snake, and here was this fellow acting like Mohammad Ali, circling and jabbing and destroying the mindset of the Gunfighter. Now Bruce Lee would have won most any fight anyway, but a generation copied him, and they gave up the deadly zen stillness of the Gunfighter.
Now stillness is the heart of true fighting, when it comes to the martial arts, and there are several good reasons or this. There was much interchange between karate and zen principles in Japan, and people who sat in the zen position for long hours began to see the benefits of sitting, waiting, and cultivating silence. In the silence one could better perceive, could empty themselves enough that their intuitive nature would take over.
When one is silent, just sitting, when one just relaxes, the senses begin to work better, and the world begins to open up. Try it, just sit in a chair comfortably and just relax for a while. The world will start to make itself known, tell you things, and you will become brighter, sharper, calmer.
Once the student begins to appreciate that his perceptions, and thus reactions, will work better, the real work can begin. In the silence we used to corkscrew our stance downward, into the ground, and search for the best set of the leg, the best position to spring from. In the silence we would examine the angle of the hip and the turn of the foot, trying to make every single part of our bodies into totally responsive and explosive mechanisms.
Freestyle matches, instead of moving all around and wasting energy, would be subtle shifts of the body and edgings toward the opponent. Instead of throwing a hundred punches, most of which missed the target, we would set up to throw one punch, but every ounce of our might would be instilled in that one punch. Most important, we left the training hall as different people, aware people, patient people.
The Gunfighter Mentality in the martial arts has fallen by the wayside, and it is unfortunate. I believe that if the fighters of today began developing the attributes of a good Gunfighter the Martial Arts would take a turn for the better. This might not be good for mixed martial artists in such places as the UFC, however, as the techniques might become too deadly for the ring.
Interestingly enough, the Gunfighter Mentality used to be central to learning the classical martial arts. I remember training back in the sixties, and everything we did was pointed towards building this ability. While there were many factors involved in the death of the Gunfighter Mentality in training, people like Bruce Lee probably drove home the spike.
Bruce Lee added circling and bouncing to the martial arts. The Gunfighter Mentality depends on stillness, being coiled like a snake, and here was this fellow acting like Mohammad Ali, circling and jabbing and destroying the mindset of the Gunfighter. Now Bruce Lee would have won most any fight anyway, but a generation copied him, and they gave up the deadly zen stillness of the Gunfighter.
Now stillness is the heart of true fighting, when it comes to the martial arts, and there are several good reasons or this. There was much interchange between karate and zen principles in Japan, and people who sat in the zen position for long hours began to see the benefits of sitting, waiting, and cultivating silence. In the silence one could better perceive, could empty themselves enough that their intuitive nature would take over.
When one is silent, just sitting, when one just relaxes, the senses begin to work better, and the world begins to open up. Try it, just sit in a chair comfortably and just relax for a while. The world will start to make itself known, tell you things, and you will become brighter, sharper, calmer.
Once the student begins to appreciate that his perceptions, and thus reactions, will work better, the real work can begin. In the silence we used to corkscrew our stance downward, into the ground, and search for the best set of the leg, the best position to spring from. In the silence we would examine the angle of the hip and the turn of the foot, trying to make every single part of our bodies into totally responsive and explosive mechanisms.
Freestyle matches, instead of moving all around and wasting energy, would be subtle shifts of the body and edgings toward the opponent. Instead of throwing a hundred punches, most of which missed the target, we would set up to throw one punch, but every ounce of our might would be instilled in that one punch. Most important, we left the training hall as different people, aware people, patient people.
The Gunfighter Mentality in the martial arts has fallen by the wayside, and it is unfortunate. I believe that if the fighters of today began developing the attributes of a good Gunfighter the Martial Arts would take a turn for the better. This might not be good for mixed martial artists in such places as the UFC, however, as the techniques might become too deadly for the ring.
About the Author:
Al Case has examined martial arts for forty+ years. A writer for the magazines, he is the originator of Matrixing Technology. You can get his free ebook at Monster Martial Arts.
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