No.

Really, this is a matter of worldview. At Fortify we are looking for students who will always be willing to put their white belt back on, who will always be studying something. Truthfully, leaving – largely to explore the applications of the art (muso shugyo) – is an important part of our study. We don’t necessarily expect everyone, or even very many people, to stick around for the rest of their lives. Some of us will, but we all have individual journeys. I trained a guy once who came to me to tell me that he was going to med school in another state. He actually apologized for leaving for medical school. I had to laugh at him. I couldn’t have asked for more from a student.

Simple Answer: Yes.

“So, how many fights have you been in?” That’s the more common question. “Hundreds,” is my typical response. “I mean outside of a dojo,” is the normal retort.

The idea which generates this line of questioning is that fights outside of the dojo are ‘real’ fights, which is legitimate. Inside the dojo one is usually either fighting with an experienced student – skilled enough to restrain themselves from doing injury, or someone with very little experience – which can be more dangerous, but is generally less challenging. (note: We don’t let white belts free spar with each other at Fortify.) Outside of a dojo one may have to contend with individuals seeking to do unmitigated harm. However, in twenty plus years of martial arts training I’ve actually found that the few fights I get into outside of the dojo are pretty simple. This includes knife fights, fights with bigger guys, opponents with military combat experience, and a couple fights with multiple opponents. (I’ll try to get some of those stories in here soon; they’re worth while lessons.)

Instructors in a serious school will do everything they can to continually increase the degree of challenge that a student faces. That pressure is aimed at challenging a student to get past their own personal barriers, and that kind of pressure can be tremendous coming from someone who has watched you train for years. On the street an attacker usually has an agenda not personally related to the person they’re attacking, and also not usually centrally about harming that person. – obviously not always. An attacker who is trying to prove a point, steal something, or express anger, will frequently not present the same degree of combative force or capacity that senior students and instructors in a martial arts school (or at least a Kurai Kotori school) will aim to put advancing students through. That being said, it should also be understood that the study of the martial arts very quickly transcends the goal of self-defense. See below.

The answer to the previous question – if it still maters – is probably around a hundred or more. I’ve had a kinda rough life. In the last decade or so almost every one of those fights was one where I stepped in on someone else’s behalf. So maybe I just choose bad places to hang out.

The world we live in is dangerous. It’s worth noting, though, that it is getting less dangerous all the time. We’ll address that point separately. I chose the Kurai Kotori Ryu specifically because it provides a wealth of techniques, stratagems, and challenges that prepare the student for a vast array of battles. Life presents a lot of challenges more frequently than muggings and drunken louts. I’ve not found any superior venue for fortifying the traveler than the Kurai Kotori Ryu.

For some reason, at least one person asks me this question every week.

I had a student’s older brother ask me a bit ago what I would do if someone was sitting on my back holding me in a full nelson with my face to the ground. I responded, “um . . . bargain.” Then I asked him how many mistakes he thought it would take to get into a position like that in the first place. His response, he started explaining something he’d seen someone do, implying that we ought to have this waza in the Kurai Kotori system.

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