Constant Attack

The reality of fighting is that you are probably fighting to get something while hopefully not getting hurt. There is constant analysis to see if the fighting is worth it or not. Sometimes, you have no choice if you can't get away or if someone's life is on the line. At that point, you have to attack, attack and attack some more. You have to win the fight.

Most of us hopefully won't be facing this kind of situation in our lives, but I believe that fighting is about attack. If you are defending, you are not fighting. Doesn't mean that is bad, just that you aren't technically fighting.

I teach that if there is a fight interaction, you must be attacking at all times. The points where you contact the opponent must be moving toward the opponent in terms of pressure at all times. If you back off or change position without attacking pressure, you are not attacking. You have to attack even when you are changing position.

Ok, that sounds like I am saying that if you fight, you just stand up to an opponent and start throwing non-stop punches and kicks. Not exactly.

Think of it like this. You are a body with extensions (arms, feet, head, shoulder, or whatever). You use those extensions to attack the opponent's core. They are your weapons in a manner of speaking. The opponent has these extensions or weapons too. If you bypass his or her weapons, they can attack your core as you attack theirs. If you chase the weapons, they can avoid your attack and still attack you.

In order to avoid this problem, we reach out and attack the opponents core through their weapons. The "weapons", usually the arms, are forced to resist in order to protect the core or the body. Now, here is the trick...the whole reason for chisao training, we try gain better position and collapse the arms, find holes or interrupt balance through constant attacking pressure. There is no need to keep upping the pressure when the opponent uses their arms to defend, you just have to put enough pressure to keep the opponent defending or holding you off. You must always be moving and improving on position. The situation is always changing so you have to have non-stop intent to improve position. To be  honest, there is no room for thinking about defense. The defense has to be built into your strategy.

When you do this, you keep the opponent from being able to develop attacks since he is busy dealing with yours. You are also going to where the opponents attacks originate so they are much easier to deal with than they are at full extension.

So what if your opponent is doing the same thing you are? That is where chisao really comes in as you have to learn to take advantage faster than your opponent. You must make faster decisions. Someone can teach you the strategy, but how well you execute it is all on you.

What if the opponent has grabbed your core or you are grappling on the ground? The short answer is that the same rules apply. The long answer is to look at the way good bjj players are interacting. I will try to get into this more later.