Morné Swanepoel, President of JKD High Performance Street Fighting, conducted a High Performance Personal Protection Seminar in Potchefstroom on September 15th, 2007, at the invitation of Johan and Adélle van Heerden, Association representatives in Potchefstroom.

The most constant thing in life is change. Everything that has been mummified belongs to the past. Mummification is a blockage in the body, there is no spirit. We are all alive and need to progress and go beyond…In all of my training and experiences, the one area of the martial arts or realistic combat that frightens me the most is the knife. It is hard to convey the ugliness of the knife as a weapon. Anyone, trained-untrained, man-woman, is at a significant advantage with a knife and a great disadvantage against one. So, how do we prepare ourselves for this fatal encounter?REALITYis the key here, as most martial artists train primarily to defend against a face to face ‘Hollywood’ type knife attack. We need to distinguish between that which looks good for demonstration purposes and that which will work in actual knife fight. Look at the way you are training. You need to develop your training to gain the necessary skills and attributesto deal with high-speed aggressive blade attacks. Training with edged weapons is virtually useless unless it is balanced out with experience or realistic training methods and functional techniques. Research has shown that fine motor skill techniques require a certain degree of awareness, skill, proximity sense and exact timing to pull off, quite a bit to ask in a real self defence situation. The best Techniques are those you have tried and tested over and over again in as close to reality environment as possible. Make things simple so it works under pressure and ensure you incorporate functional training methods to compliment your techniques.We get this experience via resistance training or through actual sparring. Reality knife fighting occurs at combative speed and this is where we need to be functional and effective. This doesn’t mean that you should neglect the various drills that allow for creative, relaxed and playful training. When you are in a confrontation that can cost you your life, you have no excuses for not having prepared as thoroughly as possible in your training. This means that your training exploration has to involve everything that works in a full resistance environment, and that you have to thoroughly prepare yourself for these defensiveand offensive tactics. So why then should you train in offensive knife fighting skills? You need to understand the offensive elements in order to develop defensive tactics for any offensive techniques you might encounter. Knowledge of weapons working will give you an advantage if you must defend yourself against one. Improvised weapons are often available, so we need to practice fighting with a weapon to develop those skills. One needs to also focus on Knife vs Knife and then working empty hand againsta weapon. You must always consider surrendering whenever a weapon is used, unless you believe that doing so will place you in greater danger.When training with weapons it is also important to understand the various levels of confrontation one should implement.1. Avoid.Improve your awareness and avoid. There are various ways to improve ones awareness towards violent crime. From the training you do to studying the criminal mindset and statistics and cases relating to the topic.2. EscapeSet up various scenarios in your training and learn to always look to escape. Mentally ‘create’ various situations in your mind and plan how you would escape from it. One can also create a situation in your training where you need to ensure the escape of a loved oneetc. 3. Use EnvironmentThrowing objects or putting a obstacle between you and your attacker or using and objectto hit weapon hand or attacker. One can set up various training methods to simulate this i.e. using focus mitts, boxing gloves etc. which will represent the difference between objects one can throw and those you can use as a weapon.

When Lee Wiltshire passed the man loitering in the subway he was convinced the character was up to no good.

The end of the last century saw the birth of a new era in the Martial Arts world. With the advent of events known variously as ‘Ultimate fighting’, ‘No holds-barred’ matches and ‘Mixed Martial Arts’, martial artists across the world learned the value of learning more than one art, and becoming complete in what does work and what doesn’t in the real world.

I am often surprised by how much the word ‘practical’ or ‘effective’ is used to describe a certain Martial Art system.

I HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN MARTIRL ARTS FDR MORE THAN 35 YEARS. DURING THIS TIME I HAVE SPENT MORE THAN 15 YEARS IN THE SECURITY FIELD WORKING THE DOORS AT THE WILDEST NIGHTCLUBS IN JOHANNESBURG AND DURBAN,

Sadly, this statement rings true when you consider that a rape occurs every 15 seconds, and this figure does not include child rapes, to average out at a horrifying 60 rapes per day, and more than 60 people are murdered every day in South Africa due to violent crime.