Damn that looks like it was painful!
Only other thing I have to add is training for a few sessions, a few weeks, or even a few months will not make you proficient enough for combat.
In fact, training for a few years might not make you proficient enough for combat, but you'll probably be able to at least not get pummeled badly in a self defense scenario. Hopefully, by then, your situational-awareness will be up to snuff and you'll actively avoid confrontations as a rule. The best fight is no fight at all; and anyone who's ever been in and later documented a hand to hand, knife, sword, or gunfight will state that simple fact with certainty and truth.
I was attacked with a knife once, and count myself very lucky that I was sober and the attacker was not. If he was just a hair faster or I a hair slower, I'd be dead. As it turns out, elbow strikes do have a great terminal effect when done properly; he was unconscious and missing a tooth. But he got inside my guard, and did it fast - faster than I could THINK. Elbows aren't my first choice when sparring, but I responded on reflex with one.
You have to train until whatever art you are studying becomes integrated in to YOU.
THEN - and only then - is it effective. Because fights don't happen at the speed of "if you do, this I do this". You don't have the luxury of time or thought. Fights happen at the speed of RIGHT NOW.
While I haven't been in a gun fight, and I hope to hell I never am, I imagine those aren't much different. So I practice, practice, and practice some more. No thought required anymore.
Only other thing I have to add is training for a few sessions, a few weeks, or even a few months will not make you proficient enough for combat.
In fact, training for a few years might not make you proficient enough for combat, but you'll probably be able to at least not get pummeled badly in a self defense scenario. Hopefully, by then, your situational-awareness will be up to snuff and you'll actively avoid confrontations as a rule. The best fight is no fight at all; and anyone who's ever been in and later documented a hand to hand, knife, sword, or gunfight will state that simple fact with certainty and truth.
I was attacked with a knife once, and count myself very lucky that I was sober and the attacker was not. If he was just a hair faster or I a hair slower, I'd be dead. As it turns out, elbow strikes do have a great terminal effect when done properly; he was unconscious and missing a tooth. But he got inside my guard, and did it fast - faster than I could THINK. Elbows aren't my first choice when sparring, but I responded on reflex with one.
You have to train until whatever art you are studying becomes integrated in to YOU.
THEN - and only then - is it effective. Because fights don't happen at the speed of "if you do, this I do this". You don't have the luxury of time or thought. Fights happen at the speed of RIGHT NOW.
While I haven't been in a gun fight, and I hope to hell I never am, I imagine those aren't much different. So I practice, practice, and practice some more. No thought required anymore.