The way we normally walk minimizes the amount of energy we use to move. It is efficient. It is a kind of controlled falling. It is subtle, but you can see it if you look for it. We shift our weight onto the supporting leg, put the opposite leg forward, lean toward it and land on it. That is what we do with each step, and it works well enough under normal circumstances. But our “normal’ circumstances are highly predictable and have been designed to be. They are not natural in the least. When we walk, we walk on built surfaces — paved streets and interior floors — which are uniform, and mostly free of obstructions. It has distorted the way we move, and we are conditioned to it.

If you were walking along an unfamiliar path in the dark, you would not walk with this controlled falling method. You would tend to leave your center over your foundation, so that if the foot you are extending to take your next step encounters an obstruction, you are able to adjust your step. If you were in a “controlled fall,” with your weight already extended over the front foot as it encountered the obstruction, your fall would no longer be “controlled.” You would just fall.

In combatives, we need to assume not just an irregular surface under foot, but unpredictable disruptions of our balance by our opponent. The opponent will move unpredictably, in a violent way, and will be striking and grabbing at us. We will be at once vigorously avoiding him and emitting energy toward him.  Our defensive and attacking movement will tend away from the stable center of our own body.

The dynamics of a combative interaction require that we not use our mobility in a way that can be easily upset. Instead of relying on controlled falling, we need to body-shift in a way that will allow our body to remain over a stable foundation until we are committed to the new position. This kind of stepping — it works in any direction — is a fundamental principal of mobility in combative systems. It takes more energy that ordinary walking, but it is less predictable, much faster, and much more secure.

It is the rationale for the “patterns of movement”— the shuffle steps and pivots — used in police defensive tactics.

Leaders, both in the East and the West, looked to fighting skills for metaphoric guidance in the conduct of all aspects of leadership and life. The pressure and high stakes of battle stripped away speculation and provided a true efficacy test of theory. If you are right, you prevail. If you are in error, you are destroyed. Moving from the center is a useful idea.

The 14th Century Zen master Dogen taught his students that the only way we live is in this moment. The past is gone. The future does not exist. An idea as true then as it is now. To be effective, we need to live in the moment.

Any warrior can attest, that in the heat and pressure of combat, any deflection of the fighter’s attention — to the errors or successes of the past, to the plans, fear or hope for the future — risks taking the attention away from the intense, dynamic threat in the present moment.

But. We have to acknowledge that, both for trainers and for operators, we need to learn from the past – what worked and what didn’t – and we need to prepare for the future. Our lives and the lives of those we are sworn to protect depend on it.

How can we rationalize the need to live in this moment, the only moment of reality that exists, while fulfilling our obligation to the people we serve?

Dogen gave advice on that very question. In the Zen monastery of his time, the monks had the luxury of living in the present if they wanted to. But the person who was always looking to the past and the future, by the nature of his job, was the cook. The cook had to prepare for the next days’ meal. He needed to predict the number of people he would be serving, how hungry they would be, how much to buy and to prepare, a day or a week or a month in advance.

Prepare for tomorrow as the work of today.

Simple. But we often don’t do it. We often live in a kind of controlled fall. Easy going, expecting a flat, predictable path of life, falling toward the future, heedless of the dangers.

If we move in a “combative” manner — keeping our foundation beneath us as we create the next moment — we can be sure that even though circumstances may change in an unexpected way, we won’t collapse, but instead can have the strength and stability to manage the change effectively, adapt to new conditions, and prevail.

If you are over your head in debt, paying only the interest, you are in a controlled fall. Any change in circumstances can cause a collapse. If you are out of shape, unable to perform under a sudden escalation in pressure, you may get by. But you may not. That also is a life as “controlled fall.”

If you are complacent about maintaining skills you once had, if you are coasting, if you are hoping for the best but not preparing for difficulties, you are putting everything you worked for, including your life, at risk.

That only means that we need to prepare for tomorrow as the work of today. Simple. It means keep a foundation under you as you take each step. That is the essence of “patterns of movement” in police Defensive Tactics in a combative application.  Applied to other aspects of life, it is the way to assure that we all can perform in a way that will serve the people who depend on us, and which will make our own practice and careers as successful and rewarding as they should be.