How to Win Any Fight

admin — Sun, 28 May 2006 18:47:44 -0400

"The victor will be the one who finds within himself the resolution to attack; the side with only defence is inevitably doomed to defeat"

MV Frunze (Soviet Military Theorist)

Here are the first five of 10 principles of war and if applied, will greatly enhance your ability to fight. In fact, they are relevant in all aspects of your life whether you are training, planning boxing strategy, fighting, working, or raising a family. While they can never provide you with a mathematical or intellectual formula for success, comparing them against your activity will ensure nothing is ommitted when you consider one principle against others. The violation of any involves risks, but in some situations those risks will be worthwhile.

Selection and Maintenance of the Aim

Everything you do must have a single, attainable, and clearly defined aim which remains the focus of your activity and towards which all efforts are directed. Every step must be a means to an end. Every day in the gym must fulfill some aspect of the ultimate goal. If you're aim is to fight INSERT NAME HERE on INSERT DATE HERE, then every activity and waking minute should be focused on that.

Maintenance of Morale

On the moral plane of conflict, morale is the most essential element. The will to win can overcome nearly any obstacle. Morale is nurtured through discipline, self-respect, and confidence of the fighter in his coaches, trainers, equipment, and ultimately himself. They instill a sense of purpose and turn the fighter from man to immortal. Field Marshal Montgomery once said "Morale is probably the most important single factor in war, without high morale no success can be achieved - however good may be the strategic or tactical plan or anything else."

Offensive Action

One cannot win a fight without offensive action. Fighters will adopt the defensive only as a temporary expedient and must seek every opportunity to seize and maintain the initiative. To force an opponent to react rather than react himself will propel a fighter to victory. Initiative means setting or changing the terms of the fight by action -- it is what you do that will dictate what happens in a fight. Forcing your opponent to react will give you freedom of action and the ability to control the tempo and conditions of the fight. Seizing the initiative requires audacity and the need to take risks.

Surprise

Surprise breaks your opponent's cohesion and leads directly to his defeat. Feints and unexpected movements will produce short lived surprise in your opponent and will serve to degrade his reaction. It's effect can be enhanced through the use of speed, secrecy and deception, though ultimately it rests on your opponent's susceptibility, expectatins, and preparedness.

You don't have to catch your opponent completely off guard, just enough to make him aware of what is happening too late to react effectively. Surprise can be achieved through use of tempo, tactics, and the various ways you can fight. Most effective is deception where you lead your opponent down a path in order to react in a manner not in his best interests.

When you enter a fight, you must mask your main effort, your strategy. Deceptions must be simple, believable and not so costly as to divert resources from your main effort. For instance, dropping your hands and allowing your opponent to nail you may deceive him into thinking you are incapable of fighting, but it also likely destroys your ability to prove otherwise. A more feasible plan would be to feint a jab to the head and instead deliver it to the body... Deceptions will be more successful if they encourage your opponent to pursue an already defined pattern. If he likes to hit you in the head, present your head, then move and counter attack...

Security

Security protects your ability to fight. It maintains your cohesion and assures you have the ability to respond to or initiate an attack. It results from measures you take, within calculated risks to defeat your opponent. They can be as simple as keeping your hands up or deciding to block punches with your arms instead of your head. One must not associate security with timidity. Therefore, moving away from an opponent and looking for an opening or covering up under a flurry of punches must not define the fight. Movement around your opponent will reveal things about his abilities. In and out fighting will reveal more information. All of this leads to a clearer picture of your opponent's strengths and weaknesses and how to best exploit them while protecting yourself.

Learn how to apply these principles not only in your fights, but in your everyday life and you will be ten steps ahead of someone drifting from day to day. Five more principles round off the list and will be part of the next article.

If you have any concrete examples of these principles in action - please share...I'm sure someone would benefit from them.