Beginner Kung Fu Lesson 1 The Vital Pyramid

As I’ve mentioned, the Practical Kung Fu curriculum was developed to fill a few gaps among traditional martial arts training, self defense training, combatives training, and general health and fitness training.

The majority of martial arts schools in the United States tend to focus on martial arts as competition while billing themselves as self defense schools as well.

On the other hand, self defense training tends not to focus much on actual skill development.

Lastly, none of these approaches to self protection focus much attention on overall health and fitness principles.

The Vital Pyramid provides a significant bridge between traditional martial arts, modern self defense training, and combatives.

The Vital Pyramid is a concept of self defense and combatives originally conceived by John “Lofty” Wiseman, a former member of the British Special Forces.

The four components of the Vital Pyramid include Mindset, Tactics, Skills and Kit.

Mindset

Most instructors in combatives will tell you that success in any combative situation is 90% mental and 10% skill.  In order to survive a life threatening assault, an individual MUST have the willingness to WIN, and not just survive.

Therefore, during any life threatening assault, you must have the mentality of win at all costs.

Mindset is therefore the foundation of the Vital Pyramid.  Without the proper mindset, no matter how skilled you may be, you may not prevail if your opponent is willing to do anything at all to destroy you.

Mindset also includes walking about in public alert and aware.  If you are alert to your surroundings, you will have a better opportunity to avoid most unwanted situations.

Tactics

Tactics are the daily gameplan you should employ.

Whenever we leave our homes, it’s time to switch on our antenna and become alert to our surroundings.  If something unusual or suspicious catches our eye, we watch and observe that activity.

We then assess whether or not the person or activity is a threat to us, and we then react by considering an appropriate course of action.  Once we’ve developed our plan of action, we execute.

For example, if we are walking down the street and we notice an individual hanging out who appears to be quite observant themselves, potentially looking for prey, we may simply react by considering it best to cross the street and walk away from the individual, and then do just that.

Skills

Our skillset is effectively our toolbox of physical skills that will allow us to prevail during an altercation.  These can include both soft skills that allow us to avoid, or de-escalate a situation, and our hard skills, or fighting skills.

Soft skills involve our ability to spot potential danger when we are out and about.  Hard skills are what we need to escape a violent altercation.  Hard skills are the primary focus at any martial arts school or self defense training school.

Kit

Last of all is our kit, aka, tools.  Many people focus on this alone, as our kit can include weapons.  Your kit can also include the clothing you wear when you are out in public.  For instance, if someone attacks you with a knife, your clothing may offer some protection.

Kit can also include any equipment you train with, such as heavy bags, focus mitts, strength training equipment, etc.  Anything that helps you become more able to defend yourself is part of your kit, or toolbox.

However, if you don’t have the proper mindset, a good tactical plan, or enough skill to deploy a weapon effectively, then your kit will be worthless.

Final Thoughts

The Vital Pyramid is the foundation of your training going forward, and it all starts with Mindset.

Not only must you do what you need to do to prevail in an altercation, you must develop the proper mindset for training.

Whether you are working on your striking skills, learning a form, or hitting the gym for a workout, you must have proper focus.

Simply going through the motions will not allow you to develop as a martial artist or human being.

Practical Kung Fu will show you the way.