SCA Combat: Fighting Philosophy, Part I - The High Cost of Living

My current audiobook is Dave Lowry's Persimmon Wind.  Lowry, as a modern student of largely extinct martial arts (koryu, or traditional Japanese martial arts, as opposed to modern martial arts developed post-19th Century), has very much in common with the SCA fighter, though I'm uncertain that he'd recognize it as such, and many SCA fighters probably don't think that far either.  Perhaps a better description would be that he has much in common with, say, Guy Windsor or other modern reconstructionists, but the subject of how much of SCA heavy combat is SCA-ism is not my purpose today (hint: most of it).  Instead, my task is to discuss what is common and effective in fighting in general.  To steal a phrase from an SCA knight I admire, "fighting is fighting."

The biggest takeaway from Lowry or Musashi or even Ignatius of Loyola is that combat is fundamentally mental, not physical.  Proper mental preparation for combat is central to success.  Lowry's most-apt phrasing of this (in this, I haven't read his other writings) is early on, where he discusses the difference between dilettantes and more serious students - dilettantes often regard martial arts, or the dojo particularly, as an escape from reality, where the cares of the real world can be put away for a while.  The serious student, meanwhile, recognizes that combat is not where reality goes away, but where it is confronted most directly.  This matches my experience - if a combatant is anywhere but in the combat, they have already lost.  It is absolutely essential that a fighter, be they an SCA fighter, an infantryman, someone working through Loyola's Spiritual Exercises, et cetera, be focused on their particular fight if they want to have any chance of success at their aim.

It is important to note that "their aim" is often diametrically opposed, at least potentially, with their own survival.  The best formulation of this is probably Hagakure's famous and oft-misunderstood "the way of the warrior is death," which even in Japan resulted in a death-cult mentality, and can be seen also in the Falangists' cry of "Viva la muerte!" during the Spanish Civil War.  For this reason, and because I enjoy life, my personal favorite interpretation is from Ken Theriot's "Agincourt."  I've been lucky enough to meet Theriot half a dozen times and fight him once, and he also doesn't strike me as a death-seeker, but there's a line in the song that speaks to this understanding that combat potentially means death - "I've asked forgiveness from the Lord/So take my soul, and bring my sword."

"For the low, low price of fifteen dollars per adult, $60 family max, this could be YOU!"

This acceptance of possible loss or injury in combat is part of the mental training of every fighter.  This is not to say indifference - it is absolutely natural that we do not want to be hurt, or to die, but its possibility is ever-present.  A refusal to accept the risk of injury is absolutely fatal to a fighter.  I don't merely mean in the sense that you sign the waiver, you step on the field, you might get hit; because this is an inherently visceral and physical activity it is difficult to describe in words so I will use an example instead.

The same knight I learned "fighting is fighting" from is exceptionally good at the mental game of fighting; his first move in combat is simply to blank his face and act utterly bored.  I've come to recognize that this is actually pinpoint focus, but one of its consequences for new fighters is that it conveys the immediate impression that he's already so confident he's going to hit you, and not you him, that he's bored before you've even started.  His ability to win the mental fight is far greater than his considerable ability to win the physical fight.  A fighter who takes the field, any field, with anything other than the achievement of their own aims in mind has already, to some extent, yielded the field to their opponent.

The solution in this particular case is not to announce before the fight that you are going to run the field.  Focus on victory to the exclusion of all else, ironically enough, is its own failure to focus on the fight because it doesn't give any consideration to the existence of an opponent, so it is a brittle and fragile focus.  This is why so many televangelists seem to fall prey to the same things they rail against - they have missed the possibility of their own temptation entirely, and thus when it happens they are unprepared for it (remember - fighting is fighting, so fighting against temptation is still fighting).  Instead, the ideal is a belief that a path to victory exists, however narrow that path may be, and that one merely has to find and follow it, and an acceptance that there are paths that don't lead to victory, and that it is entirely possible to fall off the path.  If one falls off the path, that is regrettable, but it was possible from the beginning, and in the next moment there will be another chance to find the path.  To use the same knight as an example, I suspect that the way to win the mental battle with him is simply to fight so much, and to fight so many people, that he becomes just one more fight, and thus deny him that opening move (note - in the extended twilight of 2020, this is easier said than done, but I am confident that it CAN be done).

This is at the heart of all sorts of "warrior ethos" sorts of codes - improvise, adapt, overcome focuses on achievement of the mission of the moment by whatever means required, as does I will always put the mission first.  These are obviously far different from I will always win - but it always requires a belief in a path to victory.