Move

Constant motion holds the beginning, middle and the end of all fencing according to this art and  

teaching… Motion, this beautiful word, is the heart of swordsmanship and the crown of the whole

matter... – the teachings of Master Liechtenauer, c1389

                                                                      

(http://www.thearma.org/essays/StandingStill.html)

So over 600 years ago they knew this, wrote about it, and tried to impress upon students of swordsmanship how important it is ... In fact I'm sure there are even older texts saying exactly the same thing, yet, why is it, SO many hundreds of years later, that this still seems to hard to ingrain?

Intellectually, I'm pretty sure that it makes total sense that avoiding getting cut by a lethal edged weapon is a good idea, but put one in someone's hand ... and immediately they seem rooted still, and if not that, then compelled to only bounce up and down on a line, going forward and back.

We all know about getting out of the way of things, about stepping out of the path of something hurtling towards you, so why is it that we forget it when facing another human being?   

Rory Miller had the idea that it is related to the Monkey Dance paradigm. As a game of dominance, it assumes that the challenger must be absolutely sure who the person is that they are trying to beat in the status game .... and they can only know that if they are standing face to face.

Also, status fighting generally involves someone giving up, losing, running away or saying 'stop, enough', so these fights are technically not won, but lost.  I think on some level we are constantly looking for the other to give up, not at ways of taking them out, and this has the side effect of tying our feet to the ground. Gotta 'show them who's boss' - literally.

However ... as teachers of De Fence have known for hundreds of years .... swords are unfortunately lethal ... which means that fighting with one in hand has far more serious consequences than a brief bumping of chests or trading of fist blows. Technically it is much harder to choose to lose in a non lethal manner when death is so close, and you certainly can't be blase about trading a few blows as the price of your own victory.

History is littered with the corpses of duelists, despite the best advice of their sword masters. The subconscious tribal behavior runs deep and, more often than not, trumps the training unless a mental shift is realized.

Gotta stop trying to be the strongest Zebra and start thinking like a Tiger.