Keep Your Distance!

“Distance: a space or interval between two things”.

That’s the definition of the word in my Oxford English Dictionary. But I am concerned in this article with something slightly more combat specific: ‘fighting distance’. A working definition of this concept might be:

“The space between you and your opponent at any given moment in time.”

The space between you and your opponent is effectively your ‘field of play’ and it is never fixed. In fact even at its greatest it’s a pretty short ‘court’ – nowhere near the length of a tennis court or cricket wicket; and shorter than a table tennis table, where at the closest your opponent would be 9 feet from you. At it’s shortest of course, there is no space between you and your opponent at all – not even the width of a net!

Because your opponent is actively trying to kick, punch or grapple (or any combination of the three) the living daylights out of you, it’s imperative to start with this premise:

once the space between you and your opponent is such that he or she can hit you, in other words you are in range, expect them to try – and succeed if you are not already dominating that space.

They are likely to succeed because the space between you at this point will be so close, that unless you are one step ahead of them and anticipating what they will do,  you will not be able to prevent it if they do it. Or rather when they do it.

Too many fighters ‘drift’ into this hitting zone without realising it and then wonder why they get hit. It’s like an unwitting soldier wandering into the range of a sniper – the outcome’s inevitable.

So the starting point has to be keeping out of the hitting zone using agile movement until you decide to enter. But here are a couple of issues to think about: the first is that you are not in total control of the space between you and your opponent. It’s very fluid and can change in the blink of an eye. So you may be out of the hitting zone now, yet slap bang in the middle of it…now! The second is that you can’t stay out of the hitting zone indefinitely unless you are possessed with super-human powers and can deliver effective blows without touching. I certainly can’t do that and I approach things on the basis that you can’t either; the upshot of this then is that you will need to enter the hitting zone at some point in order to, well, hit your opponent.

The crucial thing is that when you enter the hitting zone you need to be the one doing the hitting; so you must be in the ascendency, dominating proceedings, taking the initiative in some way. If you’re not, you have to expect that your opponent will be.

Here’s an interesting observation: once you’re in the hitting zone (unless there’s a referee enforcing the rules of engagement as in competion kumite, or boxing) either one of you can effectively frustrate the hitting by eliminating the space between you by taking hold and clinching. Once in a clinch not only is the space between you and your opponent essentially zero, it is also no longer fluid; you are now grappling, the better grappler has enormous control, and fluidity is only likely to return if both of you decide it’s in your interests to allow that to happen. So what conclusions can be drawn from this? In reality you can’t ‘dwell’ in the hitting zone for any length of time, like you are at liberty to do to some extent when the space is greater. You either deliver a decisive blow or blows which ends the fight; your opponent does that to you; or you are grappling (I won’t entertain the other option where neither of you are able to deliver effective blows and the encounter is decided either by exhaustion or boredom!).

The space between you and your opponent also has a massive impact on the effectiveness of the hit. Quite literally. If the space between you isn’t right at the moment of contact, the blow will fail. It might fall short of the target, hit the target but lack penetration, or it might be stifled.  Of course, the space between you at the point of contact is dependent on your control of the space beforehand and your ability to recognise when the moment is right to strike (your timing).

 You have a variety of different types of blows available to use, from strikes using the elbow, to kicks using the foot. At the moment of contact the space between you and the opponent needs to be such that you are able to deliver the technique in a mechanically sound and effective way. This can be achieved in two ways: either you consciously decide the technique you wish to deliver and engineer an opportunity to deliver it by controlling the space between you and your opponent; or the space between you and your opponent tells you without conscious thought which technique to deliver. The latter is more instinctive and associated with more experienced fighters. Great fighters do both.

So understanding correct fighting distance is about appreciating the dynamic nature of the space between you and your opponent, controlling it if you can, and seizing the moment!