Last evening I saw in the news the Pope had been attacked and knocked down as he was going to deliver Christmas Eve Mass. Recently a couple attended a White House dinner without invitations. Ex-President Regan was attacked in 1992 while receiving an award. It is likely very few people in the world have security as that of the President of the United States, or the Pope in the Vatican. But these few instances show that even effective security can be breached.
There are underlying principles behind those occurrences that can work be used to craft a more effective attack as well as be used for a more effective defense. A consideration in our martial studies should be the study of strategy and tactics in both offensive and defensive situations. They’re really flip sides of the same coin.
Article 13: The Eight Precepts of ChaunFa from the Okinawan Bubishi (1) states: 7. See what is unseeable and 8. Expect what is unexpected. I would restate it for this discussion as: what you don’t see or expect can get you. Offensively you want to find a way to be unseen, to set up your attack so it can’t be countered, Defensively you want to extend your awareness to see the attack coming and drive through it to end the threat.
Considering the assault on ex-President Regan April 13, 1992 when an anti-nuclear weapons protester accosted the former president
I remember reading about this when it occurred. It was discussed that the attacker moved through the auditorium and across the stage to first grab the award from it’s perch and throw it to the floor and then step forward to dislodge the President as the video shows.
I think what happened is he never paid any attention to the President, such focus would have drawn the attention of the President’s guards. If he was just keeping his focus on the award, nobody was guarding it and slow measured movement would have been unconsciously ignored. Then reaching the award the rest comes into play.
The couple slipping into an un-invited White House event is another example. They were known, some plausibility for their presence must be assumed, as they looked the part of attendees, and in the end they got close enough to shake the President’s hand.
Take a look at last night’s assault on the Pope where A woman jumped the barriers in St. Peter's Basilica and knocked down Pope Benedict XVI as he walked down the main aisle to begin Christmas Eve Mass on Thursday.
Surely everyone in attendance was reviewed as to their carrying obvious weapons, and of course her being a woman was probably a threat discount in some of their eyes too.
On the plus side none of the above carried out serious violence in those incidents. But the potential was clearly there.
Now it’s time to go to work, what are the underlying reasons their entry into each situation worked, how could it have been stopped, how was it unavoidable?
When facing an attacker if we assume they’ve been properly trained and prepared, it is likely we will be unable to respond. If they are improperly trained and prepared, that doesn’t make them less dangerous, but they’ve entered our event horizon so that we can choose to respond. Can we turn the table and not raise our hands to begin ‘fighting’ but find a way to be a target and use that opening when they attack to in turn make our response below their perception horizon?
So how do we use this?
More to come.....
Notes:
(1) Bubishi – the Classical Manual of Combat – translated by Patrick McCarthy page 187
This also became the Isshinryu Code of Karate adopted by Shimabuku Tatsuo.
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