Basic Combat Philosophy--Necessity

For most of this blog, I will try to keep it fun and entertaining on some level, but I need to talk about dark, serious subjects every once in a while. In this case, I will discuss necessity.

When you see a situation developing, this means you need to do everything in your power to stop it from getting to such a point where you would find it necessary to fight. Attacking people for no reason or because you think they might do something dangerous in the near future is always unacceptable, as is tolerating such behavior from yourself or others. The first action you must always take is to foresee and prevent. Upon failing one or both of these, you then must resort to neutralizing the attacker. This is almost always the point at which you are attacked.

When someone attacks you, you have to respond with only necessary force. "Necessary force" does not mean that you should weigh every option and find the least damaging viable one in the middle of a conflict; you simply will not have time. This just means that whatever action you take needs to be appropriate for the threat you face. If you see that you can stop a threat, just do it. This will be much less damaging on your body and your psyche than anything you may have to do after hesitating.

Immediately causing a sore neck or shoulder and a few cuts, scrapes, and bruises  is better than having to gouge eyes and break bones a moment later.

Immediately gouging eyes and breaking bones is better than having to take a life a moment later.

Taking a life is better than losing your own a moment later.

Which brings us to the deepest, darkest depths to which I will ever delve on this blog where I shatter those childish fighting fantasies of yours and show you that this is not a game.

Killing is as far as you could ever go to defeat an aggressor. It is always an option at every point in a conflict, but it is seldom considered by most. This can be for one or both of two reasons: the person may not have the spiritual fortitude or they may not know how to kill physically.

In films and the media, people are often antagonized for killing out of necessity. Their justification usually comes down to, "I had to" or "I didn't have a choice". Even if it sounds bad on television, the fact that you have to for the survival of yourself or someone you love is the one and only moral justification for taking a life. On the battlefield, a soldier must kill other soldiers because if he doesn't, he and his fellow soldiers may be killed. In the street, if someone threatens your life or attacks you with a knife or a gun and the only viable options you see immediately at first glance are lethal, killing is what you must do. If you find yourself in a more dangerous or complicated conflict, such as an act of terrorism, this would most likely be your only choice.

It is very important that, if you ever have to kill, you do it by choice. Killing is not an easy choice to make and it is usually worse when you either do not get a chance to make it or kill after you've decided otherwise. If you kill someone by accident, it will weigh heavily on your conscience and you will be left without reason, where as if you kill a person on purpose, you know exactly why they had to die. You know they HAD to die because you HAD to kill them; there was no other option.

All of these ideas about moral and psychological reasoning are necessary for the you to understand for your decision making skills and your own mental health, but for every action you take, you should know that there is an equal and opposite legal action that takes place in your state, province, or national government. For this reason, you should study and understand the self defense laws of your local government. It also serves as another powerful reason to foresee and prevent, a protocol that makes almost everything discussed in this post irrelevant in most cases.

Basic Combat Philosophy--The Combative Mindset

Hello and welcome to my blog. In combat, it is implied that there are two or more people present, which means human psychology can be very powerful. I will start off my teachings with a very important topic--combat philosopy.

When approaching combat of any kind, be it with your enemy on a battlefield or with a mugger in a back alley, you need to use a combative mindset. Systema calls this the role of the spirit and SCARS calls it the "Offensive Mindset", but no matter what term you use, it will always be the same. With a non-combative or "defensive" mindset, you will ask yourself questions. Will this person hurt me? Is he willing to kill me? Can I really neutralize him? Am I willing to kill to neutralize him as a threat? Answering any of these questions pessimistically will greatly reduce the effect of your actions. Asking these questions at all will slow your reaction time.

There is a reason for this. You cannot consciously think about two things at once. When you think of the consequences of your actions, your mind is clouded by all the calculations it needs to give you negative thoughts and cannot put any resources towards your purpose and your actions. You overwhelm and intimidate yourself without even realizing it. If you focus yourself towards a goal (neutralizing the threat in this case) and don't think of the consequences, your reaction time will be much faster and the action will be much more effective.

Think of it this way. Go play a game of Halo Combat Evolved or Halo 2, or any first person shooter made in the era on hard difficulty or harder. First, play the game and try to keep yourself and your allies from harm. Proceed through the game and take cover whenever necessary. Try this several times. Now, use a shotgun or an automatic weapon of some sort whenever possible (or in the case of Halo CE, the pistol). Destroy as much of the enemy as you can in as little time as possible. Whenever your shield or health or whatever the game uses needs recharging, assault and take the next position of cover. Compare your performances. Did you do better with the first set of instructions, or the second?

If you analyze them logically, you will realize that these are the same exact instructions; only the wording is different. The reason your performance was likely better with the second set is because it was phrased offensively and prompted you to use a combative mindset. You pressed the enemy hard and used your melee often. Progress was very fast and you were not killed very often. Checkpoints came and went often and setbacks from death came almost without notice. 

The other set was phrased defensively and prompted you to think about the various courses of action you could take and their consequences. Your accuracy was probably slightly higher, but you were much slower which caused you to tolerate the enemy longer and therefore take more damage in the long run. Your progress was much slower and your death count was much higher. Checkpoints were always painfully far away and every death seemingly sets you back from the exit of the valley of death all the way back to the beginning.