Offense and Defense. Attack and Counterattack. These basic concepts of combat are familiar to even the novice strategist. Perhaps too familiar. Have you ever taken the time to analyze the fundamental meaning of offense and defense?
Offense is generally viewed as forward movement against the opponent. Defense as the retreat and regrouping. Attacking quantifies the actions taken during the forward moving offense and counterattacking encompasses the actions that fortify the retreat.
At the beginner and intermediate stages of fighting, these concepts are useful for their simplicity. They give the fighter a clear sequence of actions necessary to defeat the opponent.
As a fighter becomes more skilled, he begins to find offense that moves backward and forward, that side steps and even stands still. He finds defense that doesn’t retreat.
To define the total concept of strategy, without the preconceived notions of offense and defense, think of it in terms of the primary response and the secondary response. The primary response is the segment of combat in which you neutralize your opponent. Neutralizing the opponent means destroying any advantage he has over you and establishing equal ground from which you can prevail. The primary response uses the conventional defensive tactic of stopping the advancing attack combined with the additional step of selecting a skill that will create a weakness in the opponent’s strategy for you to exploit.
When you have executed a successful primary response, the secondary response will follow naturally. It will take advantage of the neutralization and the vulnerability created by the primary response.
The primary response extinguishes the immediate threat posed by the opponent and the secondary response removes any further potential threat.
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