TECHNIQUE; SUB-PRINCIPLE: Compliment

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This one as explained by the author takes on the usage of a sound-bite from Bruce Lee, i.e., “Your technique is my technique.” First, sound bites are simply inspirational but should not be assumed stand alone teaching philosophy but rather as keys, keys to open up the mind to more. In the further explanation the author of “The Book of Power” that I derive the fundamental principles of multiple defense methodologies advocates that one must allow an adversary actions to manifest and to dictate our responses according to the action. At face value, in a street attack of a predatory nature, you are not acting but reacting and often that means you are succumbing to a sudden and fast assault that is hard and close, immediate and explosive and finally, aggressive causing surprise, pain and fear - you are in a OO bounce mode and your mind is frozen unless you train to break the freeze. You are at a huge disadvantage in this instance.

It may be a very good teaching tool for the novice, to learn the nature of attacks and then choose options, goals and tactics to combat those but in the end you will have to deal with the nature of chaos. You will have to deal with all that is violence and all that it requires for self-defense. 

The author goes on to say, “The nature of our defense must compliment the nature of the attack.” In a basic way this is true as long as you're making the appropriate distinctions as to what that is, i.e., is it sport oriented? Is it fight or combative oriented? Is it self-defense oriented? You must compliment that which is used against you. In that way the novice can use this to learn the fundamentals toward development of goals, tactics and options. 

Sometimes it is necessary to achieve your goals and that means not adhering to what your style teaches. You will need to learn so that you don’t fall into applying inappropriate actions that come from practicing a style that requires you practice a form over long periods of time or taking up a trend due to advertisements, movies and other emotional driven money making schemes. You have to compliment your actions with reality rather than sound-bites and promotions. 

When the author mentions “the context of the fight” it might better serve to address the situation with appropriate goals. When it is said we must take into consideration the adversary’s technique it might better serve to address the adversary’s goals, i.e., social or asocial, predatory resource or process and so on. Finally when he speaks to the factor of the adversary’s anatomy that is only relevant dependent on all these other factors as described here and elsewhere in this book. 

When I speak to the sub-principle of compliment I tend to lean toward the more esoteric and leave the Lee-esque sound-bite to its purpose, to inspire one to continue looking outside that box. 

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