Faith In Our Training

By Bart Scovill

Martial artists are forced to have faith in their training, because if we’re lucky, we’ll never be forced to prove its validity. Instead, we must have faith in the system and teachers we have chosen. This is not to say our faith should be blind. We must constantly evaluate for ourselves as our knowledge increases and situations change. I would like to relate a story that I believe helps illustrate these two points.

I began training in karate at the age of fourteen. Although serious, I had the same distractions and limitations of focus that most teenagers have. I entered the army at the age of seventeen, after about three years of training. While stationed in El Paso, I got my first test. While hanging out in a parking lot at night with three buddies (18 year olds don’t always have the best judgment), we found ourselves surrounded by about twenty locals. We were being assailed with stories of how we had shot at a member of the group with a rifle. Through our repeated denials and offers to let them search our cars, it became apparent to them how ludicrous the story was. It also became apparent who the instigator was. Soon this fellow felt the attention of his cohorts waning and decided to continue on his own. As the smallest of the group, he singled me out to approach.

He began to place his hands on my face as if to shove me. Without any forethought, my right arm shot forward and punched him in the nose. It happened before any thought occurred and I never even knew I hit him. Well, apparently it was enough to stun him, and he fell forward onto me, knocking me onto my back. I hit him a couple more times before I realized he wasn’t fighting back. At this point, I had no idea what to do. I just held onto him. Some of his friends started to yell at me to let him go, but I said only if someone grabbed him first (I didn’t know how stunned he was). When we got up, I was covered with blood. My friends thought it was mine and asked if I was ok. I told them it wasn’t my blood and realized they hadn’t even seen the punch.

I had trained as a stand up fighter for three years, and it worked! It worked better than I had ever imagined. But I also knew it was not perfect. Despite doing everything right, I ended up on the ground and on my back. Had he not been knocked out, I would have been in a very vulnerable position. Also, if some of his friends had decided to attack me, I was at their mercy.

This is what I meant by faith. My faith in my training paid off. But that faith had been somewhat blind. I believed if my standup was good enough, I wouldn’t need to know how to fight from the ground. It could have cost me dearly. This was before the Gracies came to America and taught us what a well trained ground fighter could do, but even so, wrestling and judo have been around a long time, so I really didn’t have an excuse.

So chose your art and your teacher, and have faith that what they are teaching you is valid. But once in a while, look around and make sure it’s still valid for where you are, and always be honest about where your vulnerabilities lie. Also, never forget, what we don’t know can hurt us.