"The Magic Pill" short story

With the smell of incense and stale gym bags, another brutal training session ends with the familiar gruff Asian voice saying "Ok, let's have a seat and talk about yack about." The hard, worn out, blood red industrial carpet not the most comfortable seat but still a welcome break from the grind as we sat cross-legged on the floor. The Richmond Kung Fu and Muay Thai school was packed with about 40 guys and girls with boxing gloves slung over the necks, shirts and shorts, soaked in sweat. Sifu Hon Lee, cousin of Bruce Lee and generally bad-ass old Chinese man, occasionally had these sessions where we would talk about "street smarts" - his version of self defense. He would often encourage people to chime in with their questions and that there were NO stupid questions. (Picture a rated "R" version of Mr. Miyagi.)
During the discussion, a student who was pretty new to the class asks a question that earned gasps and muffled snickers from the veteran students. I'll skip the question but here is the reply that all the older students knew was coming next:
"Ok, I tell you what, go down to London Drugs and walk all the way to the right side of the store. Go strait to the back and on the second shelf, right beside the vitamin C you will find a special vitamin call 'How to stop a guy try to choke me'." Of course, the whole class starts to laugh at the kids stupid question and Hon continues. "You see, my point is that you don't even know how to do a jab and you want me to tell you how to defend against somebody choking you?! It doesn't make sense!"
The moral of this tale is:
You must put in the time with the basics! Being tight with your basic BJJ positions and having strong take downs and take down defense are a must! The stuff I talk about being on autopilot, footwork, head movement and jab have to be mastered before moving on. I see fighters who have quite a few fights under their belts and are still shaky on these things. When you get to a higher level of fight competition, you better believe that they will have their shit together with these basics! So before you move on, thinking that you are the protege everyone has been waiting for, drill the crap out of your basics. Keep those hands up - you aint no Carl Froch or Roy Jones jr. yet and you aint that fast!
Stay tuned for some upcoming video on basics and drills to build skills!