Continuous Improvement in Self defence

Sensei Ryan Nicholls here, owner of, and head instructor at RKD Martial Arts, welcome to my Blog, Martial Arts Perth.


There are many aspects to self defence that I teach my students, but I wanted to look at one particular aspect for when the situation has escalated and fighting is necessary. The one aspect I stress with all my students is the strategy of continuous improvement. Given that the situations that could require self defence are too numerable to count, and that there is no ultimate technique or ultimate style to rely on, the one "perfect" strategy is that of continuous improvement. While the approaches to this strategy will vary as much as the situations themselves, the over-arching strategy of continuous improvement is the only way to ensure success in any self defence situation.

Continuous improvement simply means that from one moment to the next in any self defence situation, you are looking to upgrade your position relative to your opponent(s). If each movement you do succeeds in improving your position relative to your opponents, you are increasing the chance of your ultimate goal succeeding – that of survival.

A simple example is probably the best way to illustrate this strategy at work:

A situation escalates and I find myself in a straight line with two opponents - one directly in front of me and one directly behind me. They are currently out of range but close enough that if I engage one, the other will be upon me almost immediately. This is obviously a bad position for me to be in as I am unable to monitor ahead of me and behind me, meaning I could be blindsided with a king hit to the back of the head by the opponent I can't monitor. Rather than going for a one hit knockout and therefore only having to fight the one remaining, I choose the safer option of moving sideways, turning the straight line into a triangle. From this position I have line of sight to both of my opponents, and unless a third opponent jumps in, I can no longer be blindsided. 

The example above depicts something fairly simplistic and a simple movement has shifted me to a less vulnerable position. Assume I did something else, say going for that one hit knockout. As I throw my chi-focused, super-awesome, one hit knockout punch, my opponent does something unfathomable - he blocks it, and grabs me! I respond immediately and throw a second strike that catches him, but as I go to move something collides with the back of my skull and the world goes blurry, then dark. 

In the second example my strategy did nothing to improve my position - as I advanced forward to strike the opponent in front of me, opponent 2 closed distance. Even if my initial strike had been successful, chances are that opponent 2 would still be on top of me and I would have been struck. This wasn't a strategy of continuous improvement as I hadn't changed my position - I was still between two opponents facing one, with my back to the other.

Now if in the first situation there had been a door in that direction, and I had exited and ran, I have achieved everything a successful self defence strategy should. I had started in a bad situation. From one moment to the next I had upgraded my relative position, by getting out from between my opponents. Then by continuing out through the door (assuming they didn't chase me), I had achieved my ultimate goal - that of survival.

Regardless of the style of martial art you learn, continuous improvement should be the cornerstone of your strategy. Whether on the ground in BJJ or wrestling, in the ring in muay thai or boxing, knife fighting in eskrima, or a combination of the above in jujitsu, continuous improvement must be the strategy that formulates what you do next. While it seems a basic concept, a poor decision resulting in a downgrade in your relative position will usually be the reason that you lose. In competition, a loss is just a loss, and may provide motivation to train harder. In self defence however, a 'loss' can have far reaching consequences. 

Thanks for reading – until next week make sure you subscribe to the blog, and if you have any subjects you would like to see covered, post them in the comments section below.