Invulnerability Strategy No. 2 - Make an Example

Definition: Show them you are not to be taken lightly. Sacrifice someone close to them to convince them of your intent

The ancient Chinese called this strategy ‘Point to the Mulberry, Berate the Pagoda’. It means that you demonstrate the lengths you will go to in the face of failure or deceit of one’s subordinates. There is an old story that the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu was presented at court and the emperor said ‘if you can make an army of my concubines I’ll believe that your skills are indeed formidable’. However, once presented the concubines could not be brought to order adequately so Sun Tzu ordered that several of them be publicly executed after which the remainder paid very close attention to his instructions. The emperor though sad to lose the concubines was convinced that Sun was the right man to get things done. On occasion one has to demonstrate to others that you will not be trifled with and that your orders must be obeyed.

Another way to use this strategy is by using oneself as the example for instance in training leaders the adage is that one must ‘lead from the front’ and the strength of this is that one’s subordinates see that you don’t ask them to do anything that you wouldn’t, or haven’t done yourself.

My father taught me when I was young that if you are faced with having to fight several opponents that you should if you can call out the biggest and toughest looking and if you can beat him his comrades will think twice about taking you on. Of course the strategy needs that you pick your target well. Part of the strategy is to make it impossible for your target to back down without appearing to be a coward. I have used this more than once and whilst I risked a lot it was a case of being between a rock and a hard place and taking the lesser of two evils. If it went badly then either way I’d get a beating, thankfully I was lucky on both occasions and managed to escape reasonably unscathed.

If you can set the example by showing one opponent what he will suffer by beating someone else you can take a significant psychological advantage. 

Part 3 coming tomorrow - don't forget to subscribe for more information on strategy and the martial arts

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Best wishes

Tony Higo

www.nat-mac.co.uk

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Invulnerability Strategy No.1 - Manoeuver

                                Definition: A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss

The Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - The law of base states that ‘a tall building needs a deep foundation’ and without a foundation it’s difficult to think or take action. Without a strong foothold we can’t generate power in our strikes and we become like a fish out of water. If you can keep your opponent moving when he doesn’t want to you prevent him from gaining leverage with which to attack you. You make his inability to settle into your advantage. Keep him under pressure, pick at him constantly. Take pot shots that cost you little but hurt him a lot.

The Spanish guerrillas in the Napoleonic wars could not hope to face the massive French army in the field, very few armies of the day could so the guerrillas would hide in the mountains and forests and do damage to the French army is it travelled by sniping at its soldiers and officers. Whilst they didn’t beat the French directly with this tactic it served to demoralise the French and no doubt added a layer of vulnerability to their ranks.

Mohammad Ali used the manoeuvre strategy throughout his early career, the Ali shuffle and his ability to punch whilst going backwards made him a difficult target to hit. Few of his opponents had his skill in manoeuvrability allowing him to pick them off with fast jabs and crosses until he wore them down to a knock out or a points decision. The brilliant Ali also reversed the strategy when he fought George Foreman, standing his ground whilst using foils, fakes, feints and draws (see Martial Arts Illustrated April 2013 issue). Ali’s skill was to do the opposite of what his opponents needed or expected, which is the very core of all strategy.

If your opponent is a flat footed powerhouse puncher then ‘get on your bike’ and manoeuvre around him. Following Ali’s famous rhyme ‘float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, your hands can’t hit what your eyes can’t see’. If he is a great mover then don’t fall for chasing him, instead play the waiting game with a tight defence using foils and draws to nullify his attacks, tiring him sufficiently to allow your own targeted attacks.

look out for my next blog on Invulnerability strategy no. 2 - The Example Strategy 

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Best wishes

Tony Higo

www.nat-mac.co.uk

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The 5 Strategies of Invulnerability

Part 3 of Tony Higo’s FLITE or Fight Strategies

Last month we continued our examination of the FLITE stratagems looking specifically at the 5 Leverage Strategies of: Tire them out, Recruit them, Isolate them, Align with them and of course to Depress or in other words, overwhelm. I hope at this point that our analysis of strategy in both combat and life has given at least some pause for thought on how strategy can be used not only in combat but also as part of one’s game plan to improve one’s life.

Invulnerability strategies deal with vulnerability and provide us with the ‘I’ in the acronym FLITE which is the mnemonic we use to remember the strategies. One thing to consider with any goal is that every goal has some part of it which is most vulnerable, like the Greek warrior Achilles whose mother sought to make him invulnerable by immersing him in the river Styx, however the heel by which she held him was not immersed and was therefore the only part of him that was not rendered invulnerable. Consequently he could only be killed by striking his heel and which his enemy Paris did exactly that with a poisoned weapon.

The point is that any goal at the outset can appear invulnerable to our efforts to achieve it but every goal can be made achievable through the proper application of strategy. As martial artists we must consider what we hope to achieve through our studies to set and monitor the purpose and validity of our goals. One thing to consider is always, how will the achievement of this goal improve my life? It’s important to always keep in mind this question when setting meaningful goals but for now let us examine a couple of reasons we might choose martial arts as a tool to achieve in our lives.

Self-defence may be one reason and one would normally choose an art which is practical for wherever you feel most vulnerable, be it the street, neighbourhood, or through an occupation which might put one in danger. One must find where one is most vulnerable in order to remove that vulnerability.

Competition success might be your martial arts motive and if that is the case then moving through the ranks of competitors in your journey to the top needs that you must find the vulnerability in every opponent you meet. Sometimes your skill may be sufficiently high to achieve this but as you rise higher in the ranks then so will the skill of your opponents. This being the case then your physical skill can only make up part of the strategy and like so many greats before you the discovery of each opponent’s vulnerability will be an essential part of your strategy for winning.

Whatever your hot button for achievement in the martial arts, in your rise through the ranks of mastery one must understand how strategy applies to your success. Strength, speed and physical skill alone may not be enough to get you what you want and it is the limited achiever who sticks with the same strategy over and over and one that has confined many a budding fighter to the junior ranks when a deeper knowledge of, and skill in the application of strategy could have been the tool they needed to achieve martial arts stardom.

In order to achieve in life we must seek new goals. In order to move forward and progress we must compromise our balanced position, and utilisation of the same strategies because we don’t have a full grasp of the strategies that are available to us leaves us like the law of predictability ‘if you keep on doing what you do, you’ll keep on getting what you’ve got’. In order to progress we can only keep doing what we do if it keeps working. But if it is not we must change what we do ‘if you want something you’ve never had before you must do something you’ve never done before’. Both of these adages are positive guidelines we need to push us forward. With this in mind, let’s take a look at the 5 vulnerability strategies so that we can add them to our arsenal of weapons with which to achieve our goals in life and the martial arts.

The first of the 5 vulnerability strategies is the strategy of manoeuvrability

Part two of this article coming tomorrow

Best wishes

Tony Higo

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