The Way and the Power

Remember, no one can master all the strategies. Familiarize yourself with all of them to sense when they are being used again you. Only take the time to master your favorites.

Distancing

Stretching. Force the enemy to stretch and/or overextend themselves past their center or supply lines. The opponent will wind-up off-balancing themselves, or they will spread themselves out to thin (like in the board game "Risk").

Sudden, Large Steps. Immediately close the distance between you and the enemy with one, great leap. This will foster a negative, defensive spirit in the enemy. Additionally, it will throw off their notions of distancing.

Standing Close. Stick to your enemy like a coat of paint, denying them the room to maneuver.

Sticking. Clash, and press your weapon against the enemy's, and refuse to disengage. The enemy will momentarily drop their guard as they disengage to assume a striking position; attack in that moment.

Expanding. As enemy inhales or expands, attack as though a vacuum is pulling your technique in. Soldiers take cover under heavy fire, but light fire causes them to seek better cover, forcing them to reveal themselves.

Standing a Little Closer than Normal. Holding your arms close to your chest conceals the length of your reach. This false boundary will give the enemy an incorrect sense of distancing.

Timing

Half-beat. Establish a rhythm, then introduce a split-second pause in the middle of a technique to strike the enemy between intervals, to disrupt their sense of timing. Also, remember that fast or complex attacks cannot go on forever.

The Method of Winning. Do not fight at the enemy’s pace; either speed up or slow down to force the enemy to fight at your pace -- and one that the enemy is uncomfortable with.

Wedge Technique. A totally committed, perfectly timed attack cannot be stopped. Even if you are being attacked, this will still be true, as your technique will act as a wedge, and automatically deflecting their blow.

Passing

The Principle of Softness. Cause stationary enemies to move, and then strike at a different (and preferably, diagonal) angle. Drive takedowns with the enemy’s momentum, not yours.

Baiting. Present an obvious, seemingly unguarded target to provoke an enemy attack. When focused on attacking, the enemy doesn't think about defense, and sets themselves up for a surprise counterattack.

Positioning. Don’t run from danger, move towards advantageous places. Pass the enemy and wind up behind them, where they can’t get you. (This is the Top Gun maneuver.)

Joining Centers. Weld yourself to the opponent, and think of both of you are one piece. By moving yourself, you will move them.

Dropping Your Guard. Completely drop your guard, so that you can be attacked in any direction. Upon realizing that you are awaiting an attack, the enemy will momentarily hesitate, since you must be incredibly insane and/or badass to do that.

Over-preparation. Through exhaustive preparation and drills, you can attack at any moment, from any position. Thus, you can always seize the initiative, since you are never off-guard.

Centering

Drawing Lines. When there are no boundaries, establish some, then control them. Invade the enemy’s personal space and control their centerline.

Parrying. When the centerline is threatened, quickly sweep the enemy’s attacks aside, to create openings for counter-attacks.

Springing Away. Counter the enemy's strength with equal strength, then suddenly stop to off-balance the enemy with a their own continued momentum.

Subtlety. By giving your enemies nothing to resist, they cannot resist you. Manipulation must be always subtle to prevent your enemies from realizing that they are being manipulated.

Countering Leverage. The enemy is strongest near their absolute center. Pushing them away from their center will weaken everything they do.

Appearing

Intimidating Appearance. By carrying yourself as though you cannot be attacked or defeated, the enemy will think the same. (This is countered by studying the enemy -- by only concerning yourself with what they can do, rather than what they can seem to do.)

Professional Appearance. You can weaken an enemy's spirit simply by maintaining a neat appearance and good posture, since you'll come across as being a trained professional (even if you’re really not).

Threatening. Making a threat momentarily locks up the enemy's mind as it transitions from peace to war. Planning to counter the threat extends this delay. (Please note that this technique is only works on untrained opponents in situations with clearly-defined goals.)

Transferring Emotion. Foster mutual feelings between you and the enemy, and then quickly change your demeanor. (i.e., Make the enemy feel tense, then lighten up to lull them into feeling safe, and then strike.)

Hard and Soft Be equally skilled with hard and soft approaches; starting with one and finishing with the other. The enemy must switch between fighting two opponents contained in one person.

Changing

Letting Go. If the current strategy doesn't work, then it must be completely, entirely abandoned and replaced with a different strategy.

The Mountain and the Sea. If the enemy strongly resists, then abandon the current strategy and immediately take a new approach -- one which is as vastly different and unrelated as the mountains are from the sea. The enemy will be unprepared for this new strategy, and will hesitate while adapting to it.

Flow or Bounce. Create additional attacking power by using the momentum or of the previous attack to setup the next attack.

Stirring Up. By making small, frequent, random changes to a strategy, to appear illogical. The confused enemy can then no longer discern -- or counter -- your strategy.

Variation. Changing the ending of a standard technique counters all of the standard defenses against that technique.

Concealing

Mirroring Movements. If you don’t know what to do, copy the enemy’s strategy. While this will never solve anything, it delays the enemy’s plan from working, buying you the time needed to implement a better solution.

Stomping on a Sword. Constantly attack the enemy as they try to set up their attacks. By countering their attempts to attack rather than their attacks, they will be constantly imbalanced.

Moving a Shadow. When the enemy’s intentions are unknown, throw a feint to force them to act. The enemy will then reveal their plan, and execute it before they are ready.

Pressing a Shadow. When you have discovered the enemy’s intentions, make the necessary changes which will force the enemy to abandon this strategy for one which they are not as good with. These changes do not have to be large or elaborate.

Flanking / Pincer Maneuvers. Use an attack to distract the enemy from noticing another attack from a different direction. Unlike a feint, both attacks are meant to hurt.

Focal point. Don't look directly your at enemies, look behind them, as thought you were looking at a faraway mountain. This forces you to use use your peripheral vision, which is more motion-sensitive than foveal vision. Additionally, de-focusing the eyes de-focuses the mind, allowing you to easily flow from one task to another.

Initiating

Rhythm of One. Drill constantly, so that you can react to anything without any delay or wasted motion. Then, the enemy cannot act, since they will immediately be countered.

Free of All Thoughts and Plans. Train to the point where you can automatically react in the best possible way. ''This is not running on "autopilot." There is a stage beyond of development beyond "autopilot" where reflexes will generate the ideal and unique situation-specific solutions.

Heading Off. Perceive the enemy’s attack, plan, or train of thought, and calculate the shortest possible path to counter it.

Sacrificing

Sacrifice. One must accept receiving small injuries to inflict a major injury to the enemy.

Accepting Death. Accepting your own mortality robs the enemy of the ability to frighten or intimidate you. Preparing for this worst-case scenario will render you completely unstoppable. By being willing to get hurt in order to hurt; to be killed in order to kill, an enemy with anything < 100% commitment will become overwhelmed and forced to flee (and likely, get killed in the process).

Responding

Broken Rhythm. Constantly vary the speed, intensity, and duration of your attacks. If the enemy can't discern a pattern, they can't develop a counter-strategy.

Leading the Target. Rather than launching multiple attacks against a mobile enemy, launch the initial attack along the enemy’s projected path. Strike where the enemy will be; not where they are.

Big Picture. Take a larger view. and treat the enemy as one large unit, rather than a complex multi-component being.

Feinting. If you can't make a decisive attack, make the enemy flinch; then attack. (This will not work on highly-skilled opponents.)

Picking Away. If you cannot immediately destroy your enemy, attack targets of opportunity.

Striking the Heart. Fixating your mind on defeating the enemy grants you the inner strength needed to recover from failure and eventually win. This is why any enemy whose heart still beats is a potential danger.

Controlling

Decapitation. A person's mobility can be completely restricted by directly manipulating their heads. Likewise, organizations can be completely hampered by attacking or controlling their officers or leaders.

Balance-Breaking. Weaken the enemy by breaking their balance, by pushing or pulling on their shoulders. The balance of an organization can be overthrown by focusing on a single branch or division.

Officers and Men. Pretend your enemies are your subordinates, not your opponents. By exploiting their conditioned responses to authority figures, you can stun them by giving simple commands, like “Stop!” (Do not use this to make threats; the enemy won't comply.)

Crushing. Be mindful that the ultimate goal of conflict is to reduce the enemy into a mentally and spiritually crushed pile of shattered bones and torn flesh. All other techniques and strategies are only steps to achieve this larger goal.

Planning

Large and Small. Large problems should not be treated in the same way as small problems. Small problems should not be treated in the same way as large problems.

Strategies for Dealing with Multiple Enemies. Turn organized enemy groups into disorganized mobs by doing the following:

• Immediately and brutally incapacitate the most powerful enemy first. This with have a chilling effect that breaks the group's spirit. More importantly, you will have to fight the toughest enemy eventually, so you should do so before the other enemies wear you out.
• Incapacitate the group's officers or leaders to destroy unit cohesion and disrupt communication. The distracts the entire group, since they must come up with a new plan, and no one knows who is in charge.
• Push your enemies into the paths of your other enemies. At worst, they must waste their energy maneuvering around themselves. At best, they become human shields.

Circumstances. Do not fight on the enemy’s terms. Battle at a place and time which stifles the enemy. Prior to the engagement, study the opponent for exploitable personal weaknesses and character flaws.

Trojan Horse. Rather than wasting energy tearing down elaborate defenses, coax an overly-defensive enemy into letting their guard down.