This started as a joke between Kane and myself, though as I thought about it more, I realized it should become an article.
To win any fight you need to do 3 things. These three things may seem super simple and stupid to think about, but these are the basis on how to win any and every fight.
- Don’t Die
- Attack
- Don’t Die
Starting with the first one, Don’t Die. This can be either in your head or on the field. If you believe you are going to die even before you step into the fight, you have just killed yourself. Your opponent didn’t kill you, you killed yourself by just giving up mentally. Once you get past that and get into the fight, you need to live. This is where using your blocks and range to stay alive come into play.
Attack; this is the second step, when you see an opening you need to take that opportunity to attack. If you never throw a shot you have no hope of killing your opponent therefore ending the fight.
The third step, Don’t Die is simply just like the first. Don’t allow their follow up attack to hit you. This can be by blocking it, or jumping back to step 2 with a follow up attack, forcing them to defend.
These steps do not need to go in order, but all of them are required to win the fight. Now a lot of people are more focused on the killing than the staying alive, this tends to leave openings for return attacks. The whole goal of the fight is so you can go back to your family after it. You do not want to die, which is why I have “don’t die” in the steps to win any fight twice. Not dying is the most important thing you can do in a fight.
I’ve already read through this once before as an initiate, but I’ve started to study a bit more on my own and decided to re-read. I never realized how much your mindset in a fight helps you in the fight. Not only having a positive attitude, but having a plan in place for fighting your opponent. Saying “I’m not going to die in this fight,” and “I’ve noticed this about this fighter, I should do this when I attack next,” helps put a lot. This is not a skill that I picked up on easily, it’s taken a lot of work to analyze my opponent as I’m fighting them, and when watching them outside of fighting.
What has helped you learn how to analyze a fight? What did you do to learn this skill?