I just finished reading Marc “Animal” Mac Young’s, “Taking It to the Street: Making Your Martial Art Street Effective,” and found it to be the best book that Marc has written. This book focuses primarily on the principles behind the techniques in order to take that which you have already learned and either adapting it to practical use as a legitimate street effective self-defense technique, or discarding it altogether.
If you’ve read any of Marc’s previous books, you can tell that he has really progressed in his writing and philosophy concerning the martial arts and their benefits, compared to a lot of his earlier works. A lot of what Marc discusses in this book is a direct reflection on one of the primary principles that the late Bruce Lee was so adamant about, “Absorb what is useful and discard the rest.”
One thing that should be made clear is that every martial art and “almost” every technique is effective within the context of its purported purpose. Just because a technique is taught in a certain systems curriculum, does not mean that it was intended to be used in a self-defense encounter. This is one point that Marc and I tend to agree on. This is not so much the fault of the student, but more often the instructor who either doesn’t know or fails to realize the importance of teaching the principles behind the technique instead of just teaching the technique itself and leaving its use up to the uninformed minds of the students or at best its historical context.
Marc is arguably one of the best people out there to learn the nuances and subtleties of the street and the ability to operate within it with a minimum of problems. His grasp of the intricacies and principles behind the execution of a lot of techniques is superb and well worth your time and attention. My only complaint and this is and always will be a sore spot with me, is his seemingly lack of regard towards the use of kicks in a fight and kickers in general.
Now I know that a lot of that stems from my own personal passion for kicking and my own ability to use it effectively on the street. I have used kicking countless times in numerous situations with great effectiveness. In all the years that I have been in situations where confrontations occurred, I have only used kicks in maybe 1 out of every 4 encounters. Not that I couldn’t have used it in more, it just wasn’t practical or necessary. I suspect that this will probably always be a point of contention between Marc and I, kind of like the old Lite Beer commercial, “Tastes Great, Less Filling.”
Marc covers so much solid and pertinent information that it would be almost an insult to try and review everything that this book has to offer in anything less than several pages. Therefore, I am going to keep this review short and to the point. This book should be required reading for any and all martial artists regardless of style, purpose, or affiliation. This book and the information contained therein are invaluable to anyone who wants to improve their abilities to survive the realities of a violent encounter on the street.
I highly recommend this book and am proud to include it in my own personal library.
Immobilienmakler Heidelberg Makler HeidelbergSource by Shawn Kovacich