Primer: Urgency - The Will to Kill

[MorGrendel]

Primer: Urgency - The Will to Kill

I often thought certain people did not mesh well with us, because they did not share that raw intensity that makes us Galatian. As I have grown older, my intensity has begun to wane, so has my perspective shifted. I continue to train new people, and I realize now that there is another aspect that was overlooked before, but still exist even if the intensity to get in the thick of battle fades. The word that has escaped me all these years is Urgency, or the will to kill. Urgency is the commitment to blows, the deliberate changing of pressure by closing ground or moving off-line, and the conscience decision to kill an opponent as part of a larger strategy rather than as a happenstance.

To provide a little more explanation, to charge and blow through a line is intensity. To realize you need to kill certain people to create opportunities is urgency. Charging an opponent and swinging wildly is intensity, while engaging an opponent and put pressure on them so they can not mount an effective counter-attack is urgency. Practicing to dispatch enemies quickly is fighting urgency.

Urgency is so very important. You can either bring the fight to your opponent, or let them bring it to you. However, the person with the initiative should win.

With urgency you do not need to launch an attack to be effective combat weapon. Rather fighting with urgency is a method by which to steal initiative and dictate where and how your opponent will attack and defend themselves. Changing the combat distance and throwing certain blows to lead or deceive your opponent is also practicing urgency. Your opponent will not throw themselves in front of your weapon and a defensive opponent that is not pressed need not even move, so you must make them move. Moving with urgency is the foundation of the pressure that must be applied if you expect to win.

This is not to say you can not win a defensive battle. Even if you are limited in space you can try different things (in another post) to alter the pressure of an area of combat. More so than even on the attack, a defensive line needs to move and attack. A rigid line that is willing to stand there and take a beating, will succeed in doing just that, and take a beating.

Finally, believe in what you are doing. If you halfheartedly throw your feints and shots, then they will succeed in doing nothing but opening yourself up for a counter-attack . If you flinch and sink into the line every time a shot is thrown, you concede the initiative. If you pause out of form, or fail to move and change pressures, then you create an opportunity for you and your line to be pressed and beaten. And Galatians hate to be beat.