THE BEST MARTIAL ART (FOR SELF-DEFENSE) — Jesse Enkamp

Imagine if there was a martial art that took perfect advantage of your natural instincts, hardwired through millennia of evolution in your brain and body. Wouldn't that martial art be the most effective one to use in self-defense? Well, there is one such martial art. It's called karate. And today, I wanna teach you two specific ways that karate takes advantage Check it out. All right, so the first natural instinct that karate takes advantage of is something known as the flinch response. And this is something you would experience when you're defending yourself unexpectedly. So let's say I'm just out here walking and my brother Oliver comes here and tries to just smack me in the face. Did you see what I just did? My natural instinct is to try to lean away or move my body sideways to cover my center line, right? And then bridge the gap using my arms. And this is what any human being on the planet Earth would do when something comes shooting towards their face. That's why it's an instinct. If you look at these famous photos of baseball games, sometimes the bat flies into the crowd of people and everyone goes, whoa, like this, because it's a natural response. That's the flinch response and it's a startle reflex from your brainstem, which basically tells your body to get away from danger. But just standing like this is not really productive, right? There needs to be something happening after that if I really wanna get to safety. And the old masters of karate knew this. So they designed specific ways to transition from the reactive state of the flinch response to an active state of a trained attack. This is why almost every basic karate technique uses both arms together, whether it's a block, strike, or punch, not just one hand at a time. Because when I'm being attacked, both of my arms are already up. So why would I wanna bring one down to evade the attack and then counterattack, right? Instead, I would just ride this momentum and then go in and do my technique, right? This is the old way of doing karate and the Okinawan masters call it mi-o-to-de, which means husband and wife hands. A good couple, husband and wife, should always stay together, right? Unless they're getting divorced. Can you untrain the flinch response? Yes, you can. If you are a trained fighter, you can respond with a spinning flip, super-duper kick whenever you're being attacked. But in a self-defense situation, you don't have that luxury because you don't expect to be attacked. When somebody comes and just smacks your face in, this is what you'll do. And you have no other choice but to ride the momentum of this move or this situation right here to keep going with your techniques, which is what karate is based on, right? Using your natural flinch response and then extending that into a technical attack or defense, whatever you wanna call it. All right, so that was the defensive part, the flinch response. Now let's talk about the offensive part. And this is something known as the pain withdrawal response, which you wanna take advantage of in your karate techniques. So let's say that I wanna stimulate the pain receptors of Oliver here, and I'll just apply a simple arm bar. What happens? As I apply the arm bar and he feels pain, he wants to stand on his tippy toes and his shoulder will go up to try to alleviate the pain because I'm triggering a sensory reaction in his body and his brain tells the muscle neurons in his body to kind of recalibrate his center of gravity and realign his joints to alleviate the pain. Look, let's say I take Oliver's fingers here and I bend them this way. What happens? He becomes Elvis Presley again and stands on his toes. But if I do it the other way, he becomes a Catholic, right? So why not take advantage of this? This is exactly what karate does. That's why when you look at the forms, the kata of karate, you'll usually see different types of combinations of blocks, kicks, and strikes, and punches because every technique sets up the next. For example, let's say Oliver grabs my jacket here and wants to punch me with the other hand. A simple way for me to elicit this pain withdrawal response and use it to my advantage would be to strike down right here on this bundle of nerves. His natural reaction would be to bend his arm and shoot his chin forward to alleviate the pain. Bam, bam! And that's my response, of course, to use the opening created by the previous technique. This is the exact reason why techniques in kata have a certain pattern or order. And that's why the old masters always said that you should never change kata. They are in that order for a very specific reason. Or let's take another example. What happens when you get attacked in the groin? Like this. Well, either he gives me his phone number or his hands shoot down to try to avoid the pain, right? Grab, twist, and pull. So, now I know that his hands are down there and my next move is simple. Again, this is why the techniques in the kata have a very specific order because they build upon each other. And this is how karate was designed. And that was just two basic examples of how karate extends your natural primal instincts for survival and self-defense so that you can both protect yourself using the flinch response appropriately and attack your opponent by using his pain withdrawal reflex to your advantage. Now, you tell me, isn't this the smartest way to build a self-defense system? Well, that's what the old karate masters thought. That's why karate is designed the way it is designed. Because instead of trying to override your natural instincts or untrain them, you extend them, you use them, you build upon them to do something that comes from the authentic spirit of your humanity. Self-defense, self-preservation, and survival. And with those words, I wanna finish this quick presentation on why I believe that karate could be one of the most effective martial arts for practical self-defense. Train hard, good luck, and have fun.