The Last Shall Be First

Grandmaster Keith Kernspecht, creator of WingTsun’s BlitzDefence program and the author of several books on the topic, is known for his outspoken views on what does and doesn’t work in self-defence. In this edited extract from his recently released book, The Last Will Be the First, he refutes the idea that the pre-emptive strike is faster than the reactionary strike and is therefore more appropriate for effective self-defence.

The warning brain impulses

In 1965, two German neurologists, Proffessors Roth and Kornhuber, discovered that certain brain impulses are detectable in humans between one half and one second before we start to carry out a simple action of our own volition (such as crooking a finger). This delay between readiness for action and the action itself seemed pretty long to an American
professor in the field of brain research, so he resolved to find out when a person becomes aware that he wants to carry out such a deliberate action.

How he conducted his experiments can be ignored for our purposes, but at any rate he discovered that we humans only become aware of the existence of such an intention approximately 0.2 seconds before we carry out the action. In other words, it is only after 0.3 seconds have passed that we become aware that we have decided to perform an action.

This means that the decision to carry out a deliberate action takes place without our knowledge and that the action itself begins unconsciously. That said, our brain deceives us by pretending that we have only consciously made this 0.3-second old decision just now. Our consciousness therefore deceives us at every turn.

Of what use are these research results in surviving ritualised combat?

It is no doubt interesting to know that the intention to carry out a deliberate action is already detectable in the brain as readiness for action one second, or at least 0.5 seconds (in the case of simple actions), beforehand. In practice, however, it is hardly possible for us to attach electrodes to the head of a furious adversary in a bar in order to produce several electro-encephalograms (EEGs), measure the changes in the electrical field and find out whether these represent an advance warning.

Tell-tale body language

It is only 0.2 seconds before the action that the attacker knows he intends to strike a blow. But his brain and his body already know this 0.3 seconds beforehand.

While the attacker is still completely oblivious, his body has already marshalled its forces: hormones are sent to their action stations, the guns are run out, shells are loaded into the breech and everything is ready for the command to fire. The engines are running at full power and the muscles are already preparing themselves for the recoil.

The future attacker is still unaware of this, but the defender knows more about him than he does himself. The millions of bits of information that have not yet reached his consciousness and are not accessible to him, can be read by the defender with a little experience. They are an open secret for somebody who understands body language, has the necessary experience and trusts his own intuition.

Somebody who is ready for action himself, responds to the tell-tale signs given by the body and is not paralysed with fear, now has more than a good chance of being faster than the attacker. Before the attacker himself, or at least at the same time, he can be aware that an attack is imminent.

From signals received diagonally via the left eye, and without us knowing what these are, the right (non-verbal) side of the brain recognises the attack preparations of the other party.

Since we react with a practised, pre-programmed counter-attack, it is safe to assume that we are capable of the minimum reaction time of 0.1 seconds. If we take another 0.1 seconds for the counter-attack, this produces a total time of 0.2 seconds.

The attacker has no reaction time, however he has a preparation time of 0.5 seconds which cannot be shortened. If we add an attack time of 0.1 seconds to this, the result for him is a total time of 0.6 seconds.

Even if the defender only recognises the attacker’s readiness for action at minus 0.1 seconds and immediately counters the opponent’s attack as it starts at 0.0 seconds, his reaction will be simultaneous with the action of the attacker. Thanks to the superior attacking positions and angles of the WT punch, the BlitzDefence user will control the opponent’s arm and land his own blow.

Reaction is faster than action

Again and again I hear or read about sometimes highly graded masters, including those of related styles, who assert that the action is faster than the reaction and that we should be proactive fighters who actively control the encounter and initiate the first strike. I myself only recognised the truth after decades of research and experimentation.

These people only start counting the time from the start of the opponent’s movement, and consider the attacker to be in a superior position because he needs no reaction time. However, the attacker is slowed down by a preparation time which is five times as long in our case. If the defender unconsciously registers the readiness for action with the right side of the brain, he can easily beat the proactive attacker to the punch with his reaction. But since the right side of the brain feels the effects of alcohol more quickly than the left side in the opinion of some scientists, it is better to remain abstinent during an evening out if you expect or tend to attract trouble.

It is actually very sensible for nature to have designed the reaction to be faster than the action. While the individual who wishes to carry out an action first plans, puts himself in a favourable position, calculates how he can absorb the power of the impact with his arm and with his stance, and thinks ahead about the consequences of his action, the defender as the reactor may not and must not have these thoughts. While the attacker needs to arrive at a decision, the defender only needs a semi-reflexive, conditioned reaction with minimal preparation time, like a reptile lashing out with its tail.

In the really purely theoretical case that our defender detects the start of the preparation to attack at minus 0.5 seconds (the readiness for action), he would be able to deliver a punch to the attacker’s head 0.1 seconds before the latter is even conscious that he intends to attack. Perhaps this explains why some would-be bullies stammer, “But I wasn’t going to do anything”, after they’ve been beaten to the punch.

During the course of my experiments, my opponents report that I often strike them just when they have realised that they intend to attack, therefore I feel able to assume that in many cases I already subconsciously detect their readiness for action at approx. minus 0.2 seconds and strike them just as they become aware of their intention to launch an attack.

Why the hero always wins in Westerns

No lesser man that the scientist Niels Bohr came to a similar conclusion when considering whether the makers of romantic Western films were right to let the fair-and-square hero dressed in white win the gunfight. He sent his students out to buy toy revolvers and holsters, then beat one after the other in a mock gun-fight to show them that the fair man who lets his opponent draw first must emerge the winner. This is not despite waiting, but because he lets the other reach for his shooting iron first. The baddie must decide when to draw, therefore he needs more time than the goodie. Our hero reacts to the opponent’s draw with a conditioned reflex action, for which he needs far less time than the baddie. No particular decisions (bits) are required, as the opponent’s attack does not need to be identified more closely and the reaction is to draw and shoot at the centre of the opponent’s body, something which he has previously practised thousands of times.