In any sport people always say that if you know your basics better than anyone, you're probably going to win.
I agree with that.
You can know a lot of fancy things, but if you don't have the basics down.
You'll get your butt kicked by someone who does.
So let's go straight into lesson 1: ranges of fighting.
Range one is kicking range.
Kicking range is where you would use all sorts of different types of martial arts like: tae kwon do, karate, Thai, and Savate.
Now not all martial arts that use the kicking range are of equal value here.
Some aren't as fluid as others and some are very aren't economical.
For example, some arts ask you to do weird strikes after kicks.
What you want here is a functional art that doesn't require you to follow a set pattern.
For example, the Dog Brothers put out of the funniest things I've ever seen; here's what they did.
They were showing a series of pictures of techniques and a basically called it defense against a man in a three-piece suit.
The reasoning behind this sequence of pictures and techniques (and why was so funny) was because that you hardly will ever fight a man in a three-piece suit especially following that set pattern they just showed.
And that's the trouble with most martial arts especially in the kicking range; they expect a certain set of movements to actually happen during a fight.
Now, this would be a good thing if fights weren't actually "alive", and what I mean when I say to be alive is to say that it's constantly changing.
This is one of Bruce Lee's biggest revelations that fights don't set follow a set pattern; may morph, they mutate, and they always change.
So it's near ridiculous to have a set pattern of overtaxing blocks (they take too damn long to learn) to work in the street.
So what you're looking for here again isn't economical style that doesn't do away with the fact (and the truth) that fights are never pretty...
And they are never predictable.
The next range is punching range.
This is a pretty obvious one, when the best things you can do is to learn Western boxing.
The style itself does have a few loopholes because as I mentioned in some my other programs.
Here is the reason why, if you choose to slug it out with a guy or girl in boxing range and they are bigger than you, they'll probably win.
Why is this? Easy, is because their fists are bigger.
The reason this matters is because they have more weight than you therefore they can hit much harder.
So if you're fighting and with a guy who outweighs you buy 100 lb...
That's like being hit by a bowling ball when you're hitting him with a baseball.
What you must know, though, is what to do here so you are playing "You hit me, as hard as you can, in the face and I'll hit, you as hard as I can, in the face and we'll see who wins.
" But, like anything else there are limitations to this range.
Yet, the best thing you can do is to learn Western boxing for this range.
Of course there are other arts you can use inside this range, as you can with any other range, but it's the economy of the motion that really counts.
And how well you understand timing, rhythm, how well you fake, and a myriad of other things that are too in depth to mention in this guide.
So the third range is trapping range.
This happens to be my favorite is not many people fight and it and a lot of Jeet Kune Do people actually have abandoned this range for favor of Brazilian jujitsu.
Which may or may not be a mistake, it depends on the person you're fighting so how your body is set up, where your hands are during the fight, and so forth.
For me this range works really well because not a lot of people understand it or know how to use it.
But, getting something in this range is like hitting a home run.
But..
..
Hitting a home run here is so damn cool.
Knowing trapping range and using it on someone who doesn't know it is like running a hot knife through butter.
It's just too easy, and it's fun.
The arts that fight this range are Wing Chun, tai chi a little bit, and the Filipino martial arts.
There are more but I can't think of them off the top of my head.
Most fights for end up going here, and in a lot of fights, if people just knew how the fight this range, the fight would be over very quickly.
So if you're looking to get in and very quickly on someone you might get into fight with, look to learn some trapping.
So let's not get a microscopic view of the trapping range, this range is not only just trapping the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu does fit into there also.
The idea behind trapping is that you're trapping limbs so anytime you're doing that you're in trapping range.
But, there are times when Wing Chun is the most effective thing and times when Brazilian jujitsu is the best way to do it.
It all comes down to training.
The last range of combat which I will go into is grappling range this is the Brazilian martial art range or ground grappling.
This could be shoot fighting, pancration, or any type of grappling art.
This art is very necessary to learn for a martial artists or anyone trying to defend themselves on the street.
You must learn this range because it a lot of fights will end up on the ground, but again you don't want to solely focus on this range because it's just one range.
So what you do when you have a mass attack? Remember, fights always mutate, they always change.
So you must have different avenues to go to when the fight changes.
That's what Jeet Kune Do is about.
It's about changing with the environment when it changes.
That's why Bruce Lee always talked about how water always changing to the environment it's in.
As a martial artist, as a person, you want to do this in your life you should always be changing to the environment to best suit how to survive in.
That's why you must learn all 4 ranges in order to be as effective as you can be in combat.