People start training in the martial arts for many reasons – to improve their fitness, to get stronger, to take on a new challenge, to meet new people, for personal development, or just out of curiosity. One of the most common reasons for considering studying a martial art, however, is for self defense.
Some martial arts styles have a very obvious self defense focus, and others do not seem to emphasize self defense applications much. There are schools that claim to teach effective techniques against all kinds of attacks in a relatively short time, and others that seldom mention how a practitioner might use the skills they are learning against an actual attacker. There is no one “right” martial art style, no single “correct” way to teach martial arts. Ranking various styles or schools against each other to see which one is “better” is not a particularly useful thing to do, because which style or school is best for any given person depends on a lot of things – most importantly, it depends on which style is the best match for each individual's needs and goals.
That can be tricky to determine. Most schools will say that they offer every good thing, which is only natural. They want to attract students and the instructors will obviously think that their chosen art, the one they have devoted themselves to, is the best. What is important is to be clear on what one is looking for, and also to determine what aspects of the training in a particular style are likely to give one those specific things. Eizan Ryu Jujitsu has always had a strong self defense focus. It was founded in the South Bronx in the 1960s, and it has, from those early days, been taught and practiced by corrections officers and law enforcement officers. That origin and history has colored the development of the style, ensuring that we maintain that focus, even as we seek to offer many of the other elements for which people train in the martial arts.
Are we the best possible style to train in if you are only looking for self defense skills? Not necessarily. We teach a very well rounded martial art that can, in time, change you for the better. The training offers many benefits – physical (strength, stamina, flexibility and coordination), mental (knowledge of body mechanics and principles of kinesiology, ability to assess a threat, increased awareness), and personal (improved self confidence and courage, relaxation skills, and an ability to work with others). That means that some of our training is not self defense specific, but is geared toward making very real improvements in the practitioner themselves.
Does that mean that Eizan Ryu practitioners do not learn how to defend themselves in a real situation? Not at all. Our training includes all of the elements that make for solid self defense skills (more on what those are in Part Two), but it also encompasses other elements, less obviously applicable to defending oneself.
In truth, though, those “other elements” are useful both in encounters with violence and in the rest of one’s life as well. We teach how to fall safely, and most of us are more likely to take an unexpected fall than to be attacked in a dark alley. We teach coordination and controlled movement, and the ability to move well can help one survive an encounter with an assailant as well as make one a better dancer. We develop an understanding of body mechanics and body awareness, and that understanding is vital when controlling an attacker, but also in moving through our daily lives. The work builds awareness, self-confidence, and self-control, qualities which can help one avoid danger on the street and also help one have better relationships with the people in our lives.
Training in Eizan Ryu Jujitsu will, in time, give one solid self-defense skills. This has been demonstrated a number of times over the years. But the self-defense training is just one aspect of what our dojo has to offer.
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