For many, it is believed that aggression is the winning element of a fight. They believe that it’s this rage that overpowers the target and gives you that animal drive. Is this the same to you? Do you believe that to be truly successful in a fight you must be seeing blood and fuming?

Well, if it is I ask you to consider something else, another possibility; motive. Although when you feel so angry, that you feel the blood boiling beneath your surface that’s the winning element right? Well, maybe it’s wrong. In fact, from experience I can tell you that usually when your seeing red it doesn’t aid you at all, in fact it actually limits your skills, and crushes your techniques. Those little, minute yet vital techniques are missing from your fighting, and it is those minute little skills that will cost you your life. We all, as martial artist understand the importance of being relaxed whilst we spar, and being controlled when we fight, and we all know how paralysing fight adrenaline can be, so how come we need aggression? The idea I wish to raise here is that instead of requiring uncontrolled aggression to come out on top, it’s actually the motive that is required.

I ask you to picture the following; you are in a dark alley, walking through with your girlfriend, and suddenly, three assailants appear ahead of you, one with a knife. Now imagine, after a brief stand off, you get your opportunity to strike the knife man, and you grab his wrist…

Now, your faced with a situation. It is your fight, you have the advantage, and the price for loosing is the safety of your lover. What is more important? Aggression or motive? Picture a clumsy, ignorant martial artist trying to brake through everyone. They make mistakes: they don’t look over their shoulder, they don’t relax their arm until the second they strike, so they end up throwing slow, weak punches, they don’t twist the hips kicking, they don’t keep an eye on their sweetheart. That is the aggression. Now picture someone that wants to fight not for the fun of it, not out of anger, but purely to protect the girl he loves. Picture the controlled, focused aggression at correct points. With the correct motive to fight, there is not an ounce of his body that must condemn what he is doing. He checks his back, keeps an eye on the target, keeps a controlled fight motion, fights with honesty. Even in the build up to the fight, that passion, that winning element, even if it is just a 2% winning element, that passion is there. With that comes the extra attention, and so he does eye up every attacker, and work out who is the most dangerous, and who is a threat. The aggressive man misses this sign, just as he misses were the knife is, and ends up becoming his own worst enemy.

With hope, I have explained my opinion here well enough to make you think. Do not fight with blinding anger, because that is all it is - blinding. Do not throw needless cold punches, fight with control, pride and honesty. When I say honesty, I mean fight with a just cause. If you fight because you must, in self defence of you or a loved one, then you will not be limited. If you set upon someone with no motive, or fight back with unnecessary force, your body, maybe even subconsciously condemns what is happening, and so will hold back. When this happens you end up shooting from any empty gun, because it comes from your mind, from your heart and from your spirit.

 

 

 

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What you are saying is completely right, when I was younger, I used to be a second degree black belt in Taekwondo, and fighting with agression never helped me, it only hurt me. Passion and motive, like you said is what makes you win your fight. I'm glad someone else besides me has realized this.

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Although I am not in any martial arts classes, I agree with what you are saying. There is no reason to fight if you don't have a valid reason. There has to be some kind of motive that drives you. Aggression I think can sometimes be successful, but it blinds you from the purpose. If someone bumped into me at school, I wouldn't fight him, that would be pure aggression, but if he tossed my friend in a locker and beat him, I would either try to stop it or fight back. So, I have to say that you are bringing up a good point here. It relates to the saying "think before you act."

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I think it depends on the person. Who's to say that someone can't get the same feeling out of aggression in a fight as another can get out of any other emotion.

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Probably depends on situation and/or person. As others said, it's think before you act, examples being is that a person can be good at Taekwondo, etc. But most of them would only use the moves in defensive situations.. ie a friend of theirs being beaten and they use it to stop the fight and/or fend them off as a last resort.

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"I used to be a second degree black belt in Taekwondo"

used to be? umm... You either are or aren't. You don't lose rank in martial arts. Well... except Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

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