The Importance of Aggression

I wrote a post a while back titled “The Importance of Explosiveness” and discussed the psychological and physical importance and how-to’s of being explosive in our defenses and combatives. If explosiveness is the violence of the action itself, aggression is the precursor, the intent to be violent in order to protect oneself. It is also what will sustain us in the fight long after explosiveness has been sapped by exhaustion and/or injury.

Explosiveness is a physical attribute. Aggression is a mindset. You can take an untrained person and make them physically powerful with just a bit of training, as I outlined in the explosiveness post. What is much harder is to train a non-aggressive person to “unleash the beast”, but it is possible with the right drills, the right coaching, and the willingness of the student to go there. It’s amazing to see it happen for the first time.

Everyone knows what aggression is, but how should we define it in terms of self-defense? I could do something hackneyed here like, oh I don’t know, “Merriam-Webster defines aggression as…” but this isn’t a high school term paper, and, frankly, none of the definitions fit our meaning. Instead, let’s use a different cliché; a quote:

Maybe the only thing I can do is just take everything he’s got. But to beat me, he’s going to have to kill me. And to kill me, he’s gonna have to have the heart to stand in front of me. And to do that, he’s got to be willing to die himself. I don’t know if he’s ready to do that. I don’t know.
—Rocky

There are many characteristics you could ascribe to that. I think it distills to aggressiveness. Aggression, for our purposes, need not be an overt action or provocation. We’re not trying to start a fight, right? Aggression in our terms is also not pent-up anger ready to boil over with the slightest cause. If you’ve spent any time in public, you can attest that some people, whether by nature or nurture, are more easily provoked to confrontation. This should not be our analogue. Let’s define aggression as the drive to fight and keep fighting until we’re safe.

We need to be aggressive for the same reasons I touched on in the explosiveness post under the bullet point “The physical and psychological effects on the attacker”. Perpetrators of random violence are often looking for an easy victim. Many are not expecting their target to fight back. Some criminals are the opposite, or the attacker might be specifically targeting you. Particularly with attacks that threaten your life (e.g. chokes, weapons), you must out-aggress the aggressor if you want to survive. Try as we might, some of us are not built like linebackers, but we had better believe we can charge straight through a brick wall when our internal red light goes on. Ultimately, aggression is the driver and will manifest itself through your physical actions (defenses and combatives). Don’t discount the effect of vocalizing (yelling, grunting, growling, giving loud verbal commands) on both you and the attacker. Oh, what would be a good illustration…?

How can you train to be more aggressive? We instructors take care of some of it for you by putting you through drills designed to elicit an aggressive response. Classics like “belt drill” and the “interference drill” require participants to get angry and fight. If you’re not aggressive, you’re not going to be successful in the drill. Also consider changing your mindset during training. There’s nothing wrong with having fun in class, but realize that how you train will carry over into real-world application. Note that being aggressive in training takes a like-minded partner. If your partner doesn’t like being roughed-up, respect that and ratchet down your intensity accordingly. This isn’t to say that aggressive training need involve dings and dents, but there is a time for it and you better make sure your partner is on board! Of course, whether you’re on the giving or receiving end of an unintentional knock, keep the apologies post in mind.

Outside of training, it is very important to be vigilant; have situational awareness. If something doesn’t sit right with you, if some guy is giving you the heebie-jeebies, you need to a) leave (create distance), or b) stay alert and begin playing out scenarios in your mind. “If this guy makes a move toward me, I’m going to x-y-z, and there’s the exit.” It will be much easier to send the Aggression Meter to 100 from a starting point of 50 than from 0. This doesn’t mean you have to always be “on” or be constantly preoccupied with The Fight. Walking around like a tough guy and giving everyone the stink eye might just have the opposite effect you’re looking for!

Photo credit: Eneas, on Flickr