Ever since I took up training in martial arts at the age of thirteen, I was training for "real life" situations. I think most of us did. We visualized fighting "real" enemies before we visualized title belts.

We read about the old masters from Okinawa who fought invaders with makeshift weapons and bare hands – hence the term "karate". In the 1960's karate exploded into popularity with tough contact-karate tournaments. These fighters fought bare-fist and full contact. Sadly, this era waned quickly with the popularity of martial arts movies that erupted in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Martial arts suddenly developed a mystique due to some clever plots, written by screenwriters. Suddenly there was magic.

All kinds of martial arts masters and studios popped up that was ruling their little roosts with myths about the power of their arts and techniques. Most of the mysticism was buried in "ancient secret techniques" taught only to special students. These arts were believed to be so devastating that even the tough boxers and wrestlers would be no match for these fighters. It is the best thing for defending yourself in real life. Or so they thought.

In 1993, the first Ultimate Fighting Challenge took place and a little guy beat some big guys with a relatively simple game plan – eliminating the adversary's strengths by going down. Suddenly his art was the best thing going around and everybody moved the title "Best Art for Reality" to the new fad. It was short-lived. Shortly thereafter, the MMA fighting game was dominated by wrestlers, boxers and almost any art imaginable. The focus on specific arts diminished and shifted to the athletes. The athletes made the difference – not the art.

Also in 1993, Pancrase started similar events in Japan. Their reality soon discovered that punching people with bare hands hurt, so they resorted to palm strikes. Not pretty and it wasn't pleasing to look at. And it's power wasn't the same, it was said. True. But have you ever studied the boxing texts of the days of bare-knuckle bouts? Anybody who did will tell you soon that those fighters had their hands broken continuously and that their careers were very short in terms of numbers of fights.

So most events suddenly introduced gloves. The grapplers protested and the strikers smiled. Suddenly things were even again. Strikers could strike, by being allowed to punch harder and more often than they would in a real street fight. They could throw more punches than a bare-knuckle fighter, as the latter can't risk punching into an elbow or the forehead.

However, the grapplers didn't have it bad either, they could pull a fighter in a guard and remain on the ground throughout an entire fight. They wouldn't dare doing that in a street fight, or in a bar, risking not only broken glass on the floor, rocks, curbs and so forth, but also being soccer-kicked in the head by others.

So the title: "Best Art for Reality" never truly belonged to any art. Those we call so should actually be called: "Best Art for Competition, Given Certain Rules and Certain Situations."

The karate of yesteryear, forged in the heat of battle (so we are led to believe) appeared to be gone forever.

So, the quest lives on. I remember there used to be a martial art named : "Survival Combat" or something like that. Apparently these exponents "graduated" based on performance in street fights. Well, that's all hearsay on my part – can't remember much about it.

So the quest for who trains for real fights continues. If martial arts magazines' back pages are any indication, the world is full of people who are "reality experts". People who are teaching "secret fighting techniques" of the KGB, or some African mountain tribe or something like that. Real? Probably not. As real as the kung fu expert who trains in secret and then getting his brains knocked out by the Muay Thai fighter who trains in public.

There is nothing secret. Many martial arts schools have a routine of new enrollments who leave after a few weeks when they've realized that it takes a lot of push ups and lots of sparring to become good – no secret will take you there. Real fighting is where you find it and there are no secret techniques.

I thought I had a tight grip on what reality fighting was in my nine years as a bouncer. I fought some tough men who were bent on killing me with fist, foot, blade, gun and anything you could think of. Yes, I was young, my fists were quick and my kicks were reliable, but I relied most of all on my wits and my ability to talk people out of it – i.e. psychology. So as I get older and I slow down and my power goes, can I still depend on my art? Can I depend on what I've learnt?

So what do we learn in martial arts? Fighting with our hands – in gloves mostly. We don't train bare-fist or with broken bottles, rocks and knives. Well that's how people fight in real fights. Weapons? Yes, we learn about staff, tonfa, sai, swords and so on. But in reality, this skill is just about useless. In real fighting those weapons are outdated by about two thousand years! We get shot at, people throw rocks at us and people run you over in cars! I don't care how many black belt levels you have or how many fight titles you have – one little handgun pointed to your face will stop your trash talk in your throat. How about a handgun pointed to your child?

When you think about it, can you really defend yourself? Suddenly I want to throw my Kobudo set in the fireplace! And add to it my martial arts books!

I've decided to look at the only groups of people who know how to fight for real in this world. My options were: security people, military and paramilitary and criminals.

As a bouncer, I knew about the security side, but I wanted to go back to the roots of martial arts.

And then I found it! Real combat. If you win, you live, if you loose, you die! Those are the only rules. It doesn't get more real than that. I went down to New Zealand to look up Tank Todd and train with him.

Yes his system is up to date! He trains in guns, knives and bombs and so, his students can defend themselves by recognizing bombs and booby traps, foil muggers and beat the snot out of anybody trying to get physical. Actually just break them to pieces and walk off.

Yes, the same training given to the likes of the elite of elite in Special Operations close combat. So I trained with this guy. Training was simple. Techniques were deadly. No high kicks, no acrobatics, no only going down if you can't help it. Just break his leg and get it over with! So I asked him: "Why don't people trust this anymore?" He said that this type of combat was popular after the Second World War, but since then, people forgot about the reality of combat and got blinded by popularized movie martial arts. Those arts which have been labeled as most effective and most dangerous by the marketing budgets that went into it. They are what Applegate called the "Flowing Robes Brigade" – all hype and marketing.

The flowing robes brigade just takes their old styles, karate, tae kwon do, etc, and repackage it and call it "real fighting" systems and then sell it to anybody who doesn't know better. Like the one who asked me if CQB was a kind of kickboxing from the clinch! I can't blame him – it's the Flowing Robes Brigade's doing.

You want reality? Try real CQB (close quarters battle) on for size. These guys don't muck about. CQB was forged in the trenches, on the battlefields and is as old as man. And it is effective – deadly effective. You wouldn't want your country's secret service agents to be trained by some useless system would you? Sure not. If you want to check your own system's realism, ask a Special Operations soldier or a secret service agent to check your moves. Most of them know CQB. They'll tell you what matters. Real fighting isn't pretty, it has no acrobatics and it has no style. It is about winning in order to live, or not get raped. It's about not being grabbed; about not going down when you are grabbed; about hitting him over the head with a brick when you did go down; its about jumping on his vitals when you get up; its about being able to go back to your family in one piece at the end of the day.

At the Todd group, CQB is the main menu on the table. There are no national combat sports champions, no world contenders and no black belts around. But they do have a level testing – with a difference. The difference is that some of the candidates are taken to hospital straight after that. And the injuries vary from scratches to broken bones. Those crazy Kiwis!

But I must say one thing. After milling with some of them (yes, bare-knuckle altercations), they have a pretty solid defense. Well, if you were going to get punched in the throat, your defense would probably be solid too! And try to put a gun in their face – it'll be out of your hand and in theirs in a whiff. Put a knife against a friend's throat and you'll have it sticking out of your own in a millisecond. These people can truly say that they understand the real meaning of self-defense.

Yes, I can already hear the "traditionalists" scream in tandem with a lot of lobbyists about this kind of training. But think about it – a few centuries ago, swords were the weapons of choice and martial artists trained with it. Now that guns are the weapons of choice, why don't we train with that? The weapons are both deadly, but the delivery has changed and the criminals are seemingly the only civilians who are up to date! Talk about taking a knife to a gunfight; man now try to take your nunchaks to the terrorist who's shooting kids at the local high school with an assault rifle!

Todd Systems have been taught to Special Operations for decades and while other kiwi styles of martial arts fly their masters down under, hundreds of military, police, and martial arts instructors come down under to train directly from Tank.

Some people will get absolute value from their arts in terms of an ability to take care of themselves and their families. Others will remain in the entertainment industry – wittingly or unwittingly.

Clearly make the distinction between competitive fighting and real fighting. There are no rules. The only one who can protect you and your family is you. Don't play with their lives.