Defining Fight

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"I will not quit. I persevere and thrive in adversity. If knocked down, I will get back up. Every time. I am never out of the fight." - The Navy Seal Creed

Fight is not just going toe-to-toe in mutual aggressive combat, it is also about the psychological obstacles we encounter ever single day or our lives. Human existence is about our ability to fight adversities. This requires a mind-set, one that is made up of the psychological traits of, “Talent, Intelligence, Education, discipline, and determination (intestinal fortitude, etc.).”

Without this core mind-set, all the other mind-sets a person needs to battle conflict and violence in all its forms is for naught. This core mind-set is what it takes to achieve the goals of encoding the other mind-sets into the disciplines of handling life, conflict and violence. You see this mind-set and the others in the professionals - daily - such as police, military, corrections officers, EMT’s, bouncers/security professionals and many others. 

Persistence and determination are the corner-stones of this mind-set. We cannot achieve success in anything without the corner-stones and the mind-set that results, we will get struck down without it. 

In self-defense outside the professional fields this mind-set is paramount to success along side the appropriate and comprehensive training, practice and teaching programs that make it all work as “One.” 

When I see fight in the Navy Seal Creed, I assume it is not just about actual combat engagements but the fight they and we must defeat in every facet of our existence to succeed, succeed whether it is at work, for home or in self-defense. 

“We rarely rise to the occasion when placed under extreme pressure. We sink to the level of our preparedness and persistence” - Brent Gleeson: A Navy SEAL’s 5 Point Perspective on Persistence. http://www.inc.com/brent-gleeson/a-navy-seal-s-5-point-perspective-on-persistence.html?cid=sf01002

Fight: A battle or combat; any contest or struggle; an angry argument or disagreement; to contend in any manner; strive vigorously for or against something; to contend with or against in any manner; to engage in battle or in single combat; attempt to defend oneself against or to subdue, defeat, or destroy an adversary; to contend in any manner; strive vigorously for or against something, etc.

To fight is to use any manner of some technique, tactic and strategy to contend with, defend against or to subdue, defeat, or destroy that something be it an adversary or a life obstacle, i.e., like fighting cancer, like contending with and overcoming a personal obstacle such as depression, a difficult project at work, the supervisor or manager who is a bully and many other life challenges standing on one’s path, etc.

Synonyms: encounter, engagement, affray, fray, action, skirmish, melee; scuffle, tussle, row, riot. Fight, combat, conflict, contest denote a struggle of some kind. Fight connotes a hand-to-hand struggle for supremacy, literally or in a figurative sense. Combat suggests an armed encounter, to settle a dispute. Conflict implies a bodily, mental, or moral struggle caused by opposing views, beliefs, etc. Contest applies to either a friendly or a hostile struggle for a definite prize or aim.

As can be seen by the various definitions as well as synonyms, the context and intent of the usage determines its true role in a conversation, or in the case of self-defense, the teaching, training and understanding as it applies when used. 

In the end one who is a fighter, unless constrained by the defining situation, is one who struggles against something with that something being a hand-to-hand or weapon-to-hand or weapon-to-weapon engagement between two or more individuals with a gaol of causing great bodily harm or death on the opponent or adversary or attacker, etc. When the defining situation involves a bodily (like cancer or a debilitating defect, injury, etc.), mental (like depression, schizophrenia or obsessive-compulsive issues, etc.) or moral (determining the right or wrong of a decision and/or action according to moral social codes, laws, requirements, etc.) usually caused by opposing view, beliefs, perceptions, perspectives and other influences usually outside the control of the individual or caused by said individual or group. 

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