The guiding principle that underlies all fight training is to train as you need to fight. That means mentally and physically preparing to take on someone who can fight in the multidimensional sense of the term, and not training to beat up some legless drunk on a Saturday night, or to touch someone in a game of tag—where's the challenge in that

I get my representation of men who can fight from among the top fighters within the MMA. Why? Simply because MMA, even though it has rules, regulations and conventions, is the closest sporting representation to the real thing. And, as I've said before, although you can bite, gouge, and attack the groin in a life and death situation, you can't execute such moves in competition or on the training mat without someone being seriously injured or suffering some form of permanent damage. If you can't try out a move at full power in a competitive way in an arena or on the training mat, you can't gain that instinctive familiarity with the move that is essential to using it effectively in a real fight. So, for my purposes, MMA is the best source of information about fighting. And personally I'd rather trust what my eyes and common sense are telling me about what a fight is, what works and what doesn't, by watching an MMA video than by entrusting myself to the claims of some master of an Oriental tradition, or some self-proclaimed self-defence guru.

Having said that, when it comes to accurately replicating the fight in training, you encounter the problem of needing to train specifically, realistically, and at high intensity without somebody becoming seriously injured—a problem that I've continued to address over the years with varying degrees of success. An effective training method needs to duplicate within its workouts those same psychological, physiological, physical, technical, tactical and strategic demands that will be made upon the fighter. It must do so within the violent, chaotic exchanges you anticipate will take place on the feet and on the ground, against a specific opponent or psychological, physical, or stylistic type, and it must train the fighter to last for durations of anything from 30 minutes to 90 minutes of high intensity fighting. And, even without biting, gouging and attacks to the groin, it isn't easy to accomplish this without training partners incurring serious injury.

Although over the years I have successfully processed from every conceivable angle all of those components that need to be addressed within fight training, I have never been able (to my satisfaction that is) to organize these components into a definitive training method that I could easily pass on to others. That is, never until just over a month ago, when, parked up in a layby in the Shropshire hills with the kids asleep in the back, a notebook on my lap and looking westward toward the land of my fathers, I suddenly saw all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place with absolute clarity.

Using certain psychological/physiological training principles, specifically devised technical and situational fight drills, conditional and playfighting methods and exercises both specific to fighting itself as well as to the conditioning of the neuromusculoskeletal structure for fighting, what I've come up with is a method by which the fighter can work out with a specific opponent or psychological/physical/stylistic type in mind, within any fight scenario or situation, on the feet or on the ground, at full power and intensity. This training is so specific and so intense that it doesn't require vast stretches of time to have an effect. If you train for 4-5 days a week (30-45 minutes in the morning, 90 minutes to 2 hours in the evening) over a 21-30 day training cyle plus 3-4 days recovery, you will at the end of this process peak in performance for a fight (or, if not a fighter, take your level of performance to the highest possible level). You can repeat that process over and over again without serious injury or the debilitating effects of overtraining, and without boredom.

Once the principles and concepts that underlie it are understood and applied within my suggested workouts, my method provides the means by which the fighter/martial artist can in a relatively short period of time acquire that mindset, level of aerobic/anaerobic fitness, functional strength, speed, agility, core stability, reactive power, dynamic balance, hand/foot/eye coordination, timing, fighting rhythms, body/weapon conditioning, fundamental skills, key offensive/defensive/counteroffensive moves on the feet and on the ground, tactics, strategies, and ring craft necessary to fight. What I've come up with are ways of overloading the neuromusculoskeletal structure over a 21-30 day training cycle specific to fighting on the feet and on the ground. I have designed this program for fighting and not, say a game of rugby or football. It utilizes the phenomenon of overcompensation, so that following a recovery period at the end of the training cycle, you come back mentally and physically stronger than you were before.

From a fight training perspective, this is the best thing I've ever done. Not that it invalidates everything I've ever done before; on the contrary, it draws on everything I've done before to produce a definitive way of training for a fight. I'm so confident that if accepted and applied, this method could revolutionize fight training, that I've decided to dub it 'The Morris Method.' And the sessions, although challenging and punishing, are fun. Judging from the enthusiastic responses of those who sampled it at the LSE late in 2005, I've hit bull's eye dead center. Dennis Jones and Bob Allen, both experienced martial artists, were high on it afterward--you'd think Bob had just jumped out of a plane. Mark Perry, who has appeared on previous films I've made but whom I haven't seen in 3 years, commented that I'd taken training to another level.

My method is more of an approach to training than a system, and it is one which, once understood, can be adapted to the personal requirements of any fighter or martial artist, irrespective of his denomination. It can also be adapted and applied by members of the Armed forces, police, or security services. After all, a fight is a fight.

Now: that's the good news. The bad news is that in my haste to document my method, I didn't take into account the acoustics of the training hall at the LSE, and as a result there is an echo on some parts of the recording*. However, that doesn't detract from the overall content of the DVDs, and as compensation I have included a comprehensive overview of my method in a separate forward in case some of the audio is difficult to understand. I have also reduced the price. Because it's going to take some time before I can produce a more professional recording from a technological point of view, I decided to release this now. I want to go on record with this method as my own. I've had enough past experiences to know that I need to associate my name with this method before someone else claims it as their own.

Never in my life have I put my name to a specific method. The fact that I'm naming this The Morris Method shows how confident I am in what I've produced. All of the parts have been there before, and you will recognize elements from the other DVDs. But in this case, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and the result you will see on these dvds or experience if you come to a course, represents the culmination of a lifetime of research and practice.

There's nothing like it out there.

Steve Morris, January 2006