Page 8 - Pat O'Keeffe Combat Kick Boxing

Combat Kick Boxing

If you are serious about self-defence I believe you have to experience the shock
– and I mean shock – of getting hit. For then you must find the strength of will,
for that is what it is, to overcome the opposition.
It is not being esoteric or deliberately obscure to say that you are fifty per cent
your own opposition: your fear, your lack of composure, your lack of fitness,
your unawareness, your lack of technique, will defeat you as surely as the assailant
who attacks you. Unless you are mentally prepared to be hurt, battle through and
overcome assailants, you will be beaten and probably, in today’s world, very badly.

This book will only provide some of the answers, no more, no less, for after
reading it, you must practise and at some stage that means full contact; harsh, but
true. If you do practise then some bruises are inevitable, but the experience is
invaluable.
There is an old martial arts saying that is often repeated, but it bears saying
again for the simple truth of it:

‘The iron thinks itself pointlessly tortured in the furnace and
beaten on the anvil – the sword look back and knows why.’

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