You're a Crappy Fighter by Mike "Panther" Palumbo

Photo by Metron

Recently I went to a small practice and I fought with a newbie, and despite being old and out of shape, I beat him every time. I don’t say this to toot my own horn, but rather to explain something that happened next. He said he needed a break, and sixty seconds later he was off fighting his buddy. He seemed to be having more fun, and I have no evidence that he stopped fighting me because he wasn’t winning, but the fact is that some people do this:

They avoid fighting people they think are going to beat them (probably because it’s not fun to get beat).

So, it reminded me of the three rules I lived by when I was learning to fight, and still live by as I try to maintain what level of skill I’ve acquired. Rob Riley aka Rob Scarlett started me off on these rules and over time we developed the ideas and preached them at practices and to our newbies for years. As I get older and my capabilities wane, I feel the urge to pass them on to any who would listen.

For the duration of this article I will refer to lesser-experienced fighters as a Crappy Fighters, and use the term Great Fighters to refer to those who have more skill than the Crappy Fighters. It really doesn’t matter how Great or Crappy the fighters are, as long as there is a significant disparity between them. I do this for the benefit of Crappy Fighters everywhere; the sooner you get over it, and admit that you are a crappy fighter, the sooner you can learn something.

But we’ll get to rule three soon enough, let’s start at the beginning:

1. Don’t use big weapons.

They only make you think you are a better fighter than you really are.  It’s fine to learn how to use a big weapon, but if it’s the only weapon you use, then you will never build the skills you need to be a Great Fighter.  It becomes a crutch that you lean on to hide the lack of those skills. There is more margin for error the longer the weapon is, and if your opponents are always using shorter weapons than you, well now you’re just taking the easy road. There will be no advancement of skill for you. They are extremely useful tools in melee and bridge battles, but the actual fighting technique required to wait for someone who’s not looking and stick them from a safe distance is next to nothing. Conversely, dagger fighting leaves no room for error. It’s all in how you move your body, but there is no weapon technique involved. Single short actually provides the bests of both, very little room for error, combined with a moderate amount of weapon technique. Being an expert at single short makes you almost instantly capable, if not better than average with just about anything else.

2. Give strength to your weaknesses.

By that I mean practice what you are bad at. If you are really good with the right arm, then practice with the left. Odds are pretty good that you will lose the right arm in some fights, if the left never gets any practice it won’t be up to the task. In that case, your opponent only has to take the one arm to beat you, the other arm is a foregone conclusion. Why give them that edge?

If you don’t fight well against shields, make it a point to practice against them. You will only be better for it. Other competent fighters will notice when you have a glaring deficit. They’ll pick up a shield when they have to line up against you. Why make it that easy for them? If you are really game, find someone who doesn’t believe in rule number one and fight them over and over. Learn how to defeat a pikeman or 6’6 fighter with your shorter combination and you will truly learn something. It’s not easy, but the skills you will gain in timing, distance, judgment, and speed will aid you against any combination.

Everyone has that one move that works for them, and they usually lead with it. But at practice, I recommend this: don’t use your go-to move right away. Instead, practice new techniques or ones you aren’t comfortable with. Yeah you’ll mess it up a lot, and lose limbs or whole fights because of it, but you’ll always have the go-to moves to fall back on when it counts, and practice is for just that, practice. If you do this enough, those awkward uncomfortable moves will get more natural, and eventually you’ll have a whole toolbox full of moves to choose from. It makes you less predictable, and other Great Fighters learn very quickly if you always use the same shot right out of the gate.

And now the most important rule of the three, if you want to be a Great Fighter…

3. Fight Great Fighters every chance you get.

If all you ever fight are Crappy Fighters, then the best you will ever be is someone who can beat Crappy Fighters. You will never rise above that if you don’t challenge yourself.  Why limit yourself? If you fight Great Fighters, then you will eventually become a Great Fighter.

This rule is not an easy one to follow. If you make the decision to leave behind the comfort of duking it out with other Crappy Fighters, and instead seek out sessions with Great Fighters, be prepared for the most humbling experience of your life, because you just signed up for beating after beating after beating.  You may lose fourteen times in a row or more (that’s an in-joke, ask me about it sometime). It’s demoralizing, it’s grueling, and it’s hard to see the value in losing so often, but despite your seeming lack of progress, your brain and your reflexes are learning things you don’t even realize. And while you may not beat the competent fighter even once in your session, when you return to fight the Crappy Fighters that you used to feel equal to, suddenly you are much faster than them, much better than them, they seem to move in slow motion. You seem to be able to see what they are going to do, before they do it. Effectively, you stepped up and you didn’t even know it.

A Great Fighter will rarely, if ever, reject your request to fight.  They may only fight a few fights and move on, because they too are constantly looking for a challenge to increase their skill. Or they may take the opportunity to fight as long as you are willing. But one thing’s for sure: they like to fight. And not only will they accept your challenge, but when they leave you or even during your bouts, they are likely to give you some tips and pointers regarding what you are doing wrong, or how they are talking advantage of your weaknesses. This is invaluable information. Let me repeat that. This is invaluable information. You are not going to get it from fighting Crappy Fighters, the one you beat can’t tell you for obvious reasons, and the ones who do beat you simply don’t have the awareness yet to identify what you are doing wrong, they’re still focused on their own skills, crappy as they are.

I could go on about this rule in so many ways, but the best way I’ve discovered to explain it is with an analogy. Wrestling? MMA? Ancient Samurai secret?  No.

Fleas.

That’s right. Fleas.

Fleas are incredible learners, despite what you may have heard about the myth of the flea circus. Fleas jump. They jump unbelievably high for their relative size.

But if you put them in a jar with a top on it, first they will jump up and hit the top over and over again. But eventually they realize this hurts, they don’t like it, and they adjust. The fleas continue to jump, but they no longer jump high enough to hit the top.

Then you can take the top off and though the fleas continue to jump, they won't jump out of the jar. They won't jump out because they can't. They have conditioned themselves to jump just so high. Once they have conditioned themselves to jump just so high, that's all they can ever do. After they’ve restricted themselves, they think they are doing all they can do.

Don’t be a flea.

Don’t restrict yourself or you’ll never reach full potential. Don’t train yourself to limit how high you can jump. Don’t be a flea.

In case you are wondering, I don’t consider myself a Great Fighter, the minute you do that, you cease to learn. We’re all crappy fighters, as I said, the sooner you admit that, the sooner you can learn something. The trick is to seek out fighters better than you. Don’t fear them…fight them.