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 a stationary enemy to move, and then strike them at a different (preferably diagonal) angle. Drive takedowns using the enemy’s momentum, not yours.

Baiting. Present an obvious, seemingly unguarded target to provoke an enemy attack. When focused attacking, the enemy will not think of defense; allowing your to evade and counterattack.

Positioning. Don’t run away from danger, move towards a place of advantage. 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 at all times think that you are one piece. As you move yourself, you will move them.

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

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 his centerline.

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

Springing Away. Counter the enemy's strength with equalystrength, 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 away from their center will make everything they do weak.

Appearing

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

Threatening. By posing a threat, the enemy will momentarily lock up as their mind transitions from peace to war. Figuring out how to counter the threat can extend this delay. (This technique only works on untrained people, and when there is a clearly-defined goal.)

Transferring Emotion.Foster certain feelings between you and the enemy, and then quickly change your demeanor. (i.e. Make them feel tense, then lighten up and strike. Make the enemy feel safe, then strike.) Hard and Soft Be equally skilled at hard and soft approaches, starting with one and finishing with the other. The enemy must now fight two opponents contained in the same man.

Professional Appearance. Maintaining good posture and a neat appearance will make enemies think you are a trained professional -– even if you’re not. This will weaken their spirit.

Changing

The Mountain and the Sea. If the enemy resists strongly, 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 the new strategy, and will hesitate while adapting to it.

Flow or Bounce. Create additional attacking power by working with the momentum, or the recoil, of the previous attack to setup the next attack.

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

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

Variation of a Technique. By changing the ending of one of your standard techniques, all of the standard defenses against that technique will no longer work.

Concealing

Mirroring Movements. If you don’t know what to do, copy the enemy’s strategy. While this will never solve anything, it will delay the enemy’s plan from working, buying you some time.

Stomping on a Sword. Constantly attack the enemy while 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 make them move. The enemy will then be forced to 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. Use an attack to distract the enemy from noticing another attack from a different direction. Unlike a feint, pressure is maintained on both attacks, which are both meant to hurt.

Focal point. Do not look directly your at enemies, look past them, as thought you were looking at a faraway mountain. This forces you to use use your peripheral vision, which is more sensitive than foveal vision. Additionally, defocusing the eyes defocuses the mind, allowing you to 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 be immediately countered.

Free of All Thoughts and Plans. Train to the point where you can automatically react in the best possible way. Be a sword wearing a man, not a man with a sword. This is not running on "autopilot." There is a stage beyond of devlopment beyond "autopilot" where reflexes will generate 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 in order to inflict a major injury on the enemy.

Accepting Death. Accepting your own mortality robs the enemy of their ability to frighten or intimidate you. By making peace with the worst-case scenario, you are rendered completely unstoppable. By being willing to get hurt in order to hurt; to be killed in order to kill, enemies with anything < 100% commitment will become overwhelmed and try to flee (and get killed in the process).

Responding

Broken Rhythm. By constantly varying the speed, intensity, and duration of attacks, the enemy cannot develop a counter-strategy, because they cannot discern a pattern.

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 cannot make a decisive attack, make the enemy flinch; then attack. (This will not work on skilled opponents.)

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

Striking the Heart. Fixating your mind on defeating the enemy grants the inner strength needed to let you recover from failure and then win. As long as the enemy’s heart beats, they are potentially dangerous.

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.