Fighting like your grandfather: the meaning of "style"
Many years ago I had the good fortune to meet and train under Professor Bata Milosevic of the Belgrade University, a researcher of medieval Balkan fighting methods and the founder of "Svebor" - an attempt to collate these fighting methods into a modern system. I recall Professor Milosevic making the following statement: "When you fight, you fight like your grandfather fought". By this, I think the professor meant that when you are faced with the pressure of a real attack, any semblance of "style" goes out the window and you fight according to your primeval instinct. While I greatly respect the professor, I disagree with him in this regard. I see any default to "instinct" under pressure (and a corresponding abandonment of any sense of "style") as a sign of insufficient training . Doubtless, Professor Milosevic was drawing on his own lengthy experience as an aikidoka, noting how differently some practitioners of that martial art react w...