Just recently, I found myself on the SS Queen Mary, which is moored alongside the Embankment adjacent to the City of London. As a Professional Design Engineer, I have to regularly attend seminars. This colloquium was about contract law, which was as boring as watching a sports centre Karate class.
During one of these, mind-numbing debate's I started to meander off, to give my self some sort of mental break, by admiring the scenery outside the window.
Directly opposite the Queen Mary is the millennium wheel, a marvellous piece of exceptional engineering. After some careful observations, and consideration of the structure I concluded that the wheel is unique. There are other ferrous wheels in the world, but only one of this size and magnitude. However like other wheels, they all share one common denominator, and that is that they are all constructed using standard manufactured components.

This concept, of using standard manufactured components, is utilised as a standard rule of thumb in any design program. You don't have to re-invent the wheel every time you start a project, if you pardon the pun. The same logic can be applied when looking at designing training sessions, seminars and fighting methods etc. For this article, I would like to concentrate on individual Fighting Design.

Fighting Design
For years I have been telling people to just be themselves, and not just blindly follow the pack. To become the best person and athlete you can be, you must eventually break free from your structured training program (which everyone initially needs) and develop your own product or method, which will suit your own personality and individual objectives (which are different for everybody). When you reach this point in your life, it is a momentous occasion and one you should be very proud of.

After starting out to produce your own fighting design, the first thing to obtain is a brief, i.e. what is the objective? In addition, what are you trying to achieve? In our case, it is probably functional Street Fighting and Self Defence.

The following criteria should always be applied: -

     Always apply top level commitment
     Strive for consistent quality standards
     Have a willingness to change
     Be prepared to walk the walk
     Design technical methods through collaboration and dialog
     Establish leadership ability
     Positive attitude and competence
     Commitment to training
     Design for through life performance
     Train in new skills
     Continuous elimination of waste products
     And the most important: UTILISE AND APPLY STANDARD COMPONENTS

There is another important design area if we are clever enough to realise it, and that is to look back in the past for the future. We can learn from other people's mistakes and failures, which will prevent us going down the same route. From this knowledge, we can take control of our own destiny and develop our own unique brand of fighting.

Standard Components
When selecting components for whatever the design, they must be compatible, it is the individual components that when assembled make the design functional and work together harmoniously.
That was the skill of the design engineer used when the millennium wheel was constructed. The skill of the fighter/coach has to be selecting those components, techniques, training methods etc, which will make up his unique creation. Seen on their own he may not appear any different to any one else, i.e. a jab is a jab, but it can be expressed a thousand different ways.
So how do you know which components, techniques etc to use? Well that is where the secret is. It all comes down to experience, and how do you gain experience? Well you have to serve your time, whether it's as an apprentice, or studentship at college or fighting arts school etc. The bottom line is you can only really design if you have working knowledge of the theory and more importantly the practice of the subject matter.

Why Change Things?
You may be asking yourself what's the point of changing something which is already functional and seems to work all right? Well the answer is, if there is no change there is no future.
People are reluctant to change, no one likes change for changing sake, including me, but it is necessary to improve ourselves for the better outlook and performance, which can be passed on to aid the development of others, who with luck will also reach a point of design and change themselves.
You must not stand still in time, you must be in a constant state of positive dynamic flux, always looking to improve and become more efficient in both performance and approach.
If there had been no change in the last 30 years by people like Dave Turton, founder, Self-Defence Federation we would still be wearing white pyjamas trying to imitate some oriental puppet, stood in some deep horse stance punching the air, while chanting - head, gut, kidneys, nuts!
Did we really do that? Embarrassing to think of it now isn't it. However, look how far we have come since then. Change happens gradually, so gradually in fact that you hardly notice it. I can guarantee that in 25 years time you will look back to 2001 and you will be saying did we really do that? What's right now does not mean its right twenty-five years down the line.
My friends from Ruislip Combat Club (SDF members) recently told me that their original Japanese Karate instructor is still teaching guys the same methods that they were doing fifteen years ago. It's just like the magic boomerang, when it flies all time stands still, (that's giving my age away?) Quick, catch that boomerang! …….

As a final thought, you must always question what you are doing, never take things as they are, ask questions, research, experiment using empirical standards, find out for yourself what works for you and go from there.
This is the way of the Scientist; this is the way of the genius.
All for this issue, and as always...