From: ras@athena.mit.edu (Richard A Shandross)
Newsgroups: rec.martial-arts
Subject: Re: Model Mugging (long)
Date: 15 Sep 92 00:24:57 GMT
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

When I was a child, being beaten on by my mentally ill older brother, I "dis-
covered" the power of ground techniques for situations when one is clearly
no match for the strength of the assailant.  I have no doubt that they are
strong.

This was still of no avail to me for a couple of reasons.  The only way to 
stop him was to hurt him.  Suddenly, I became "the aggressor", a situation 
which was actually more difficult for me than being a victim...  I had so much
hatred for him and his actions that "becoming like him" was a horrible thought.
It didn't help to have a strong sense that hurting a family member was an 
awful thing to do.  Furthermore, being older, he had a thousand ways to wreak 
revenge on me, physically and otherwise.  And also very importantly, my father 
would side with him.  So I would lose by winning; in short, I was up the 
creek.

But being a boy, I had an option that most girls don't:  I could get angry at 
him.  Even my brother expected that, though sometimes I kept it inside because 
he was indeed pretty "crazy".  Because I could get angry, I retained my fight-
ing spirit.  Fighting spirit makes 1000% difference in your ability to protect
yourself.  If you lose that spirit as a child it is very hard to get it 
back, hence Dakin's observation about the difficulties women have in self-
defense classes (article 22477).  

I don't claim to be as experienced or well-studied as many of the readers of
this newsgroup, but in my exposure to the martial arts world, within and 
outside of my art, I have seen little understanding of this.  (I was clueless 
myself until a few years ago.)  The fact that the MM concept seems so alien to 
posters here confirms that to me.

Fact:  I've seen more fighting spirit in a MM graduation than in many 
       MA students of 5 or more years of study.

Oh, I've seen plenty of devotion and plenty of meticulous attention paid to 
their art, but not always fighting spirit.  There seems to be more concern over
which art is better or which technique is better or which teacher is better,
who is missing what essential detail that *really* is important, and whatever
other nonsense they can think of to keep them from facing their real fear that
they couldn't really cut it if they had do.  

Fact:  Model Mugging was founded by a guy who was an experienced MAist, after
       a fellow instructor (black belt) was raped.

Yes, she had studied years and had *not* achieved her rank by sending in a 
check to Master Cheat Yoo Too.  She taught, sparred, etc.  But she didn't know
how to deal with the fear when that time came.  The fear didn't raise the
fighting spirit to the fore.  

The first version of MM involved no suited "mugger" until the graduation (last
class - open to the public).  Not one of the students could defend herself 
against the (male) teacher.  Back to the drawing board.  The next time, after 
the women got to practice with full contact, the instructor was knocked 
unconscious during the graduation.

It seems to me that this is the way that truly good things are developed:  
be dedicated to the truth, swallow your pride and back to the drawing board if
you need to.  It's a lesson to *me*, that's for sure.  I don't know quite how
they are re-instilling that fighting spirit, but I intend to find out and
incorporate that in my teaching and practice.

	Rich Shandross
Newsgroups: rec.martial-arts