Winning Fights

Phillip M. Stephens

Description

Winning Fights focuses on 2,500 years of proven fighting principles originating from Eastern concepts and proceeding to the modern era. This book is for pugilists seeking an edge in competition as well as soldiers and law enforcement officers facing conflict. Like The Art of War and The Book of Five Rings, however, many of its lessons also apply to the world of business and negotiation.

Dr. Stephens looked beyond the technical to the conceptual and found that winning fights requires twelve core principles: preparation, awareness, commitment, lethality, efficiency, discipline, power, focus, fierceness, surprise, timing, and fortitude.

This book features:

• Twelve principles for winning fights


• A survey of Eastern and Western traditions


• An intelligent yet accessible discussion of these concepts

With this book you will

• Learn to see beyond fighting tactics, which change, to fighting principles, which endure


• See your training in powerful new ways

“Winning Fights is based on principles, not techniques,” Dr. Stephens writes. “Technique is important, but techniques change, adapt, and evolve. Principles are timeless.”

Sujets

• Parable of the Good Samaritan
• Military
• Virtue
• Character
• Warrior
• Business
• Entreprises de taille humaine, indépendantes et de croissance
• Moral
• Protection
• Musashi
• Compétition
• Police
• Bruce Lee

Informations

• Publié par: YMAA Publication Center
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781594396014
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

WINNING FIGHTS
12 PROVEN PRINCIPLES
FOR WINNING ON THE STREET, IN THE RING, AT LIFE
Dr. Phillip M. Stephens
YMAA Publication Center, Inc.
Wolfeboro, NH USA
 
YMAA Publication Center, Inc.
PO Box 480
Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, 03894
1-800-669-8892 • [e-mail] • www.ymaa.com
ISBN: 9781594396007 (print) • ISBN: 9781594396014 (ebook)
Copyright ©2018 by Phillip M. Stephens
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Managing Editor T. G. LaFredo
Cover design by Axie Breen
This book typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro
Typesetting by Westchester Publishing Services
Publisher’s Cataloging in Publication
Names: Stephens, Phillip M., author.
Title: Winning fights : 12 principles / Dr. Phillip M. Stephens.
Other titles: 12 proven principles for winning on the street, in the ring, at life.
Description: Wolfeboro, NH USA : YMAA Publication Center, Inc., [2018] | Subtitle on cover: 12 proven principles for winning on the street, in the ring, at life. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: ISBN: 978-1-59439-600-7 (print) | 978-1-59439-601-4 (ebook) | LCCN: 2017961573
Subjects: LCSH: Fighting (Psychology) | Martial arts—Philosophy. | Martial arts—Psychological aspects. | Combat—Philosophy. | Combat—Psychological aspects. | Boxing—Psychological aspects. | Sports—Psychological aspects. | Conflict management—Philosophy. | Negotiation—Psychological aspects. | BISAC: SPORTS & RECREATION / Martial Arts & Self-Defense. | SPORTS & RECREATION / Sports Psychology. | PSYCHOLOGY / Leadership.
Classification: LCC: BF723.F5 | DDC: 303.6/9—dc23
Disclaimer
The authors and publisher of the material are NOT RESPONSIBLE in any manner whatsoever for any injury which may occur through reading or following the instructions in this manual.
The activities physical or otherwise, described in this manual may be too strenuous or dangerous for some people, and the reader(s) should consult a physician before engaging in them.
Warning: While self-defense is legal, fighting is illegal. If you don’t know the difference you’ll go to jail because you aren’t defending yourself. You are fighting—or worse. Readers are encouraged to be aware of all appropriate local and national laws relating to self-defense, reasonable force, and the use of weaponry, and act in accordance with all applicable laws at all times. Understand that while legal definitions and interpretations are generally uniform, there are small—but very important—differences from state to state and even city to city. To stay out of jail, you need to know these differences. Neither the authors nor the publisher assumes any responsibility for the use or misuse of information contained in this book.
Nothing in this document constitutes a legal opinion nor should any of its contents be treated as such. While the authors believe that everything herein is accurate, any questions regarding specific self-defense situations, legal liability, and/or interpretation of federal, state, or local laws should always be addressed by an attorney at law.
 
When it comes to martial arts, self-defense, and related topics, no text, no matter how well written, can substitute for professional, hands-on instruction. These materials should be used for academic study only.
 
T ABLE OF C ONTENTS
F OREWORD
I NTRODUCTION
SECTION 1: TWELVE PRINCIPLES
PRINCIPLE ONE
P REPARATION
PRINCIPLE TWO
A WARENESS
PRINCIPLE THREE
C OMMITMENT
PRINCIPLE FOUR
L ETHALITY
PRINCIPLE FIVE
E FFICIENCY
PRINCIPLE SIX
D ISCIPLINE
PRINCIPLE SEVEN
P OWER
PRINCIPLE EIGHT
F OCUS
PRINCIPLE NINE
F IERCENESS
PRINCIPLE TEN
S URPRISE
PRINCIPLE ELEVEN
T IMING
PRINCIPLE TWELVE
F ORTITUDE
S TRIKING T HOUGHTS
SECTION 2: PARTING PRINCIPLES
F IGHTING WITH T ACTICS
F IGHTING WITH H ONOR
F IGHTING WITH W EAPONS
F IGHTING WITH W ORDS
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
I NDEX
 
F OREWORD
by Massad Ayoob
W HEN I MET Dr. Phillip Stephens, it wasn’t in the dojo or on the range or in the classroom. It was in the emergency department of a hospital where I was the horizontal patient, with a leg swollen to twice its normal size and a potentially life-threatening blood clot therein. One of the nurses told me reassuringly, “Don’t worry, you’re getting Dr. Stephens. He’s the best there is. He’s famous.”
The nurse nailed it.
When I walked out of the hospital that night on my own two feet, I knew that I had indeed been treated by a master medical professional. Only later would I know how much else Dr. Stephens had mastered in his highly accomplished life.
By turns a champion fighter in competition and a vastly experienced instructor of others in dojo, ring, and cage, and one of the top medical professionals in his specialty and a role model for others in the same discipline, you are about to find out that Stephens is also a master communicator.
In Winning Fights , Dr. Stephens draws from philosophers and kings, from generals and heroic “grunts,” from fistfighters and swordfighters and gunfighters, from statecraft and religion and more to clearly delineate universal truths of human conflict.
Deeply researched and up-to-date physiology and psychology figure in Stephens’s insightful advice. Certain truths of human conflict are universal, and are equally applicable on the street, on the battlefield, and in wars of words, whether they take place in the courtroom or Debate Society, in a dark alley with no witnesses or on a podium before a vast audience.
Dr. Stephens has fought in the ring against powerful men capable of killing him with a single blow. He has fought disease and trauma countless times, with the trusting patient’s life and limb on the line. He has spent his life studying the history and the mind-set of others like himself who fought against sometimes overwhelming odds, in righteous cause. He has prevailed in those endeavors so many times that his thoughts on such things absolutely compel attention.
Human conflict is a vast and multidimensional topic, each subdivision of which can be a life study in and of itself. Phillip Stephens has the education, the experience, and a lifetime of broad-based research to tie those elements together into basic truths that serve across the wide spectrum of arenas in which they take place, often so suddenly that only someone who is prepared for them beforehand will be able to cope, and win.
He understands that a healer of men facing a fast-breaking medical crisis, a General Patton facing Field Marshal Rommel’s dreaded Afrika Korps, a petite woman in a dark alley facing a hulking rapist, or a debater in righteous cause squaring off against a silver-tongued devil will all need the same resolve, preparedness, determination, and wherewithal to bring the conflict to a just conclusion.
And, most important, he shares the tools, the formulae, that have been proven to prevail in such circumstances.
Perhaps the greatest value in Winning Fights is that it applies to a wide range of stages upon which conflict takes place. In four-and-a-half decades of working within the justice system and teaching people how to win fights, I’ve learned that you can be wearing a hat that says “Defensive Tactics Coach,” “Shooting Coach,” or even the currently popular “Life Coach” and find yourself recommending the exact same strategies and tactics. It’s about principle, not technique.
It has been an honor to write this foreword for Dr. Stephens’s book, and I hope you benefit from his wisdom as much as I have.
 
I NTRODUCTION
Winning fights is based on principles—not techniques.
T ECHNIQUE IS IMPORTANT . But techniques change, adapt, and evolve. Principles are timeless. Bruce Lee recognized this truth, and advised to “absorb what is useful, discard what is useless and add what is specifically your own.” 1 To Lee, there was no single superior style of fighting. He even referred to his methods as the “style of no style.”
All fighters face the same challenges. Whether just two people fighting in a ring for sport or two armies engaged in geopolitical conflict, a fight is a fight.
Eastern and Western military strategists throughout millennia have agreed on the principles that overcome the challenges faced during a fight, whether between individuals or nations. The basic principles for winning fights simply do not change and are like laws of nature ignored at one’s peril. But the knowledge is often lost in the noise of literature or the static of techniques, tactics, and form. The average fighter then loses sight of these foundational principles, which are required to win and must be applied before any other strategy.
Winning fights, surviving conflict, and successfully engaging in combat rely on these principles. Specialized skill and technique are important, but it is foundational principles that win any fight regardless of scale or context. Basic principles are essentially laws that govern the success of survival from personal to global conflicts.
These same principles have many parallels and applications in life and business affairs. If these principles are understood and a warrior code is adhered to on a daily basis, the succes