Objectify Your Opponent

By Demi Barbito

(From the original article with the same title, published on http://www.demibarbito.com/index.html)

(Reproduced with the permission of Demi Barbito, 02 September 2001-©2000 Demi Barbito)

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Introduction

When faced with an immediate threat to your well being, the reactive mind may over analize the situation causing an overwhelming sense of fear and self doubt. This will totally hinder your ability to get into action and protect yourself or your loved ones. If thought comes into play the emotional mind may overwhelm the thinking mind and you may be forced to decision make based on a panic response. This, at best, would be like driving with one foot on the accelerator and one on the brake. It may be someone who is twice your size or someone who demonstrates an incredible amount of hostility, spewing expletives and screaming or someone who you know has a tremendous ability in any given discipline, boxer, wrestler, kung fu stylist etc. One way to deal with this is to train to "objectify your opponent". This is a tactical manner for levelling out the playing field.
When you objectify your opponent he is no longer the 6' 5", 280lb kickboxing monster. He is reduced to a groin, a thigh, a knee or a pair of eyes. Depending on the manner in which he approaches you he will expose one of these areas. Human beings tend to react in kind when it comes to pain, so we create pain to facilitate an entry. Bruce Lee said "Psyche your opponent, phisically and mentally, by inflicting pain." After entering we straightblast into trapping range. In this range we can use the most barbaric tools the human body can deliver, headbutts, elbows, knees, eyegouges and bites. There are functional, structural methodologies for creating pain. Let's examine a few. First we use distance and movement in long range to avoid exchanging blows. Then we make a quick preliminary alaysis of the opponenets posture and prepare to intercept. Making an interception is key in avoiding an exchange of blows. Jeet Kune Do itself, the actual words, boil down to "Way of Intercepting" not way of exchanging blows.

The Shuffle Hook
The shuffle hooking kick is an excellent shot for intercepting the groin as your opponent moves. The "shuffle" is what actually allows you to intercept. The kick should be executed with your lead foot as you move-shuffle forward while your opponent is in the process of his attack. Don't wait until he's in your front door. The kick should come off as a towel whipping forward and back. This is a "speed" kick not a power kick, although it get's plenty of power from the speed, and it should be felt before it is seen. The shoe laces should make contact with your opponents groin. A kick in the groin equals instant pain on most people, most of the time, under most circumstances.

The Eye Jab
Just like the shuffle kick, the eye jab is also shuffled in as an interception. The towel snap is also the feel here only with the lead arm. You don't dig your fingers into your opponents eyes. You don't need to chase a fly with a slidgehammer. You simply rake the eyes. If you need a target, aim at the bridge of the nose. That way you will more than likely hit one of the eyes without singleing out one of them and missing it. A good shot in the eyes is like hitting the "off" button for most people. A person does not get hit in the eyes and act like nothing happened.

The Thigh Kick
Borrowed from Thai boxing, the thigh kick is a powerful chopping shot. There is nothing held back when executing this kick. This time it's the shin of your rear leg that attacks the your opponents lead thigh as he moves at you. If you pop the sciatic nerve, your opponent will recieve an enourmous amount of pain. But even if you don't it's more than enough to jolt the most determined attacker. Even when training this kick at slow speeds students must be cautious.

The Savate Knee Kick
Savate is a shoe art. This makes it truly dangerous because the shoe becomes a weapon in and of itself. The toe of the shoe is used to attack various targets on the body. Imagiane the tip of a cowboy boot hitting you fiercely in the solar plexus or the groin. How about a dress shoe in the kidney? Here we'll focus on useing the toe of your rear leg to attack your opponents lead kneecap. The object is to get the proper trajectory as to ram your toe up under your opponents kneecap in the most nontelegraphic manner possible. It's simple and direct, and it hurts terribly.


Now that we have ojectified our opponent, we take our best shot at the target he gives and borrow the moment he's in pain to do, as seamlessly as possible, one of two things. Given the opportunity, we can run. Theres no shame in escaping safely. That's what it's all about right? It's not about looking good or being a tough guy, it's about surviving. If the ability to run a block and a half is not part of your training then intergrate it. At some point, running may be your best option. The second option is to immeadiatly straight blast our way into trapping range and land a barrage of head buts, elbows, knees, eye gouges and bites. As stated above it's not about looking good and delivering the trapping range tools "never looks good" but it's wickedly effective. What we are trying to avoid is standing and exchanging blows at kicking and punching range. This is less than effective against a larger, stronger more determined opponent and not really a good option even against an opponent your same size. It is also important to try to minimize the psycological strees as well. We are trying to make things less and less of a fight and more of a surgery. Why trade blows if it's at all avaiodable? This is where the problem lies in many fighting methodologies.

It's important to examine the methodologies you would actually employ in a street fight. Do these methodologies have you swimming with sharks? After trading blows with a training partner your same size do you ever considered what it would be like to do that with someone twice your size? When facing a larger, stronger opponent one of your better options is to objectify that opponent and intercept him as he moves. Anything else is going to boil down to trading bombs, and guess what? Ninety nine percent of the time the bigger, stronger guy is going to win. Not very good odds for average evryday people looking for their best option for self preservation.

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