Is the demonstration of techniques by your instructor successful….. every-time?
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Why this could be a problem?….…. Because those techniques will often fail, more often than you think….. and students need to understand this, and practice and prepare for failure.
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The success of any demonstrated technique is largely dependent upon having predetermined knowledge of the attack. Usually, a ‘karate style attack’. Which is often unresisting, compliant, to result in a successful demonstration.
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Unfortunately, a real life attack isn’t like that. It’s unpredictable, chaotic, vicious, and brutal….. and never a ‘karate style attack’.
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If you know an attack is coming you are better placed to secure a successful technique…… Action is always faster than reaction.
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However, you must take failure into account.
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We learn valuable lessons when we experience failure and setbacks. Most of us wait for those failures to happen to us, instead of seeking them out. But deliberately making mistakes can give us the knowledge we need to more easily overcome obstacles if things do go wrong.
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We learn from our mistakes. When we screw up and fail, we learn how not to handle things. We learn what not to do.
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Failing is a byproduct of trying to succeed. You do your research, make your plans, get the necessary ingredients, and try to put it all together. Often, things don’t go as you would wish. If you’re smart, you reflect on what happened and make note of where you could do better next time.
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But how many of you make deliberate mistakes? How often do you try to fail in order to learn from it?
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Unless you have actually ‘reset’ from a failed attack and retaken the initiative, you cannot know accurately what those measures entail. You should be familiar enough with abnormal results of an attack to recover and try something different, without having to think how.
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Don’t be rigid, unmovable. Take a step back, and think about what you are doing logically. Don’t just try to prove something, try to disprove it too, challenge what you think you know.
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How you interpret and apply information is what matters. Sometimes you have to step out of the mould, take a step back, apply logic and common sense, look at things from a different perspective. Prepare and train for failure…
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Try something a different way. There isn’t just ONE way. There is ALWAYS another way. 
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“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” – Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
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