NewsA candid interview with John D. Koeshall - Part 2

I believe you lived along side Paul Vunak for a year recently?

Well, I didn't live along side him, but I did live close enough! LOL! Seriously, Mr. Vunak invited me to move out to SoCal to train with him... I took him up on his offer and moved out to San Clemente, CA in January of 2008. I had the opportunity and privilege to train with him regularly and the honor of meeting many of the people who train with him.

What was it like to be training with him on a regular basis?

In a word... enlightening. Training with Uncle Vu is a mind blowing, eye opening experience. As I like to say, he always knows how to raise the glass ceiling. No matter who you train with, you will learn something from going to spend time with him. There are others who have recently begun claiming things about training PFS... trying to claim things that I (and others who have been around) don't agree with. I don’t want to name names or point fingers, but I will just say... train with Mr. Vunak.

There seems to be a real lack of understanding what real self defense is in many clubs and what is being taught is often unrealistic. Your thoughts?

It's true there does seem to be a real lack of understanding in some schools as to what is realistic and what is not. I believe a lot of this can be attributed to a lack of realism in training as well as a lot of insular schools with no contact with reality outside of the "reality" they find in their school or system. There seem to be a lot of misinformation being handed down from generation to generation in certain styles and groups. This is really sad. Many people are thinking that they are learning things which can save them when in reality they are learning nothing. They are living with a false hope which may get them seriously hurt. There are so many good instructors out there, and there has never been a time in history where information is more readily available. It's a travesty that these groups don't do research and find out what is available to them.

You always talk about attribute training as opposed to technique based training, can you explain the difference?

Yes, attributes are king. I like to say that you can fake technique all day long, but you can't fake attributes. I can make techniques look really nice if my demo partner allows me to. However, if I tell you I can run a marathon... I better be able to run a marathon! Otherwise when you get in your car and tell me to start running, the lack of my attribute will very quickly reveal itself. It is the same with all attributes we need to make our martial arts work for us. Speed, timing, rhythm, strength, power, explosive initiation, emotional control, educated eyes, sensitivity, line familiarization, body mechanics, foot work, etc. are all necessary attributes for someone needing to defend themselves in a real world environment. Either you have them or you don't. Either you're working to make them better or you aren't. It doesn't get much more simple than that. I have seen some boxers who could only jab, cross, hook, and uppercut... but they could do those 4 things WELL. I wouldn't want to get hit by a good boxer. I have also seen martial artists who were geniuses when it came to technical knowledge, but they also were so fat that they couldn't even see their own feet. Does all that knowledge do them any good in a real life scenario if they can't move to do one of their techniques? I don't think so.

Of course it is important that you have techniques, every art has them, and they wouldn't be an art without them. However, the training method in which the techniques are trained will, in a large part, determine if they will ever be useful or not. Is the training so wrapped up in the minutia of the technical side of the art that you never practice applying them to a progressively more antagonistic assailant? If so, you will quickly find that when you need your techniques they may not be available to you. If, on the other hand, you train in such a way that you study the tactical application of the art and progressively (and responsibly) apply stress and pressure to your training, you will have a much better chance at making your art work for you.