Combat Strategy And The Art of War

From Ancient Battlefields To Modern Urban Jungle (江湖, jiāng hú)

What is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy’s strategy. Next best is to disrupt his alliances by diplomacy. While all else fails, attack his army. And the worst policy is to attack cities. — Sun Tzu

A martial artist is a fool without strategy, a strategist is handicapped without martial arts. - 1989
You have to get a hit on the target, but it's not just about hitting, you want to get an ultimate control the dimension of combat itself. - 2011-06.22

By acquitting with military history, strategies and tactics, the modern pugilist not only trains to be faster and stronger, but also school to be smarter and adaptive. Instead of becoming a brainless fist slinger, pugilists must learn to become a living weapon. His arena is not merely physical, but also psychological and spiritual.

Warriors with merely strength and skill, not matter how refined, without wisdom and virtues, they are no least hollow and ultimately useless.

The sparring arena is the battlefield of the modern pugilist. His mind is the general and his arms and feet are his armies. A general who signals his left battalion to initiate a diversionary skirmish is the same as a fighter feinting a left jab. Strategy, herein, provides the winning edge over the opponents.

There will always be someone stronger and faster, and even if you are the fastest and strongest, it can only be ephemeral. Every athlete knows that the peak performance is hardly maintainable. All the corporal punishment only provides a few weeks worth of combat advantage. This is just too nugatory of a gain to be relied on exclusively. What transcends beyond the somatic realm would be spiritual.

Zhuge Liang once stated that battles are often won not by the biggest or fastest army, but by the wisest commander and best strategies. Similarly, a slower and weaker fighter can beat a faster and stronger fighter if he is adept at using strategy.

First rule of survival and self-defense is to have a plan. Without a plan of action, confusion and panic will result. A plan is an outline of possible responses to a situation. Tactics are the details of the plan, the individual components of a strategy. These are empowered by the techniques of the combatant.