Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Mexican Subway Shooting

This originally started out as an e-mail to Bradley J. Steiner. As happens with my e-mails probably far too often, it's come alive and turned into a blog post...




A lot is being read into this clip: much about how the majority of people did nothing, or ran away when they could have responded quickly and likely ended this attack before anyone was killed. At the beginning of the attack, there are probably over a dozen people immediately adjacent to the shooter. That crowd could have beaten the bastard to death within a matter of seconds and it's likely that none of them would have been injured to a life-threatening degree.

However, the video camera has a better angle than any of the observers. It's away and above the action. Roughly 90% of the panicked bystanders likely never saw the shooter initially and were simply moving away from the sound an dalong with the rest of "the herd". Think... if you were standing there and were five or ten people deep, (scratching yourself, picking your nose or reading a newspaper) would you stand there looking for the shooter when you heard the first shots or do your best to GTFO?

I was looking at how restrictive ones options would have been. If I were not close enough at the inception of the shooting, I'd be deciding whether or not I could still manage to rush (or even FIND)the shooter while tripping over the stampeding bodies around me. Once the crowd clears, he's moved to a significant distance and the "hero" gets killed attempting to close that distance unarmed and without any element of surprise or advantage. In fact, the hero has already been shot at least once. The others who attempted to intervene did so in a half-hearted and non-committal fashion. None of them actually make an attempt to attack the attacker but instead close while maintaining just enough distance to allow him to continue putting bullets into them.

So understand that if you're in the target zone... YOU ARE A TARGET and running towards or away from a nearby doesn't do much more than change the impact point from your chest to your back. The officer shot in the first seconds ran away... and he died. If you're ten feet away from the shooter but 75-feet away from cover... RUSH AND KILL THE SHOOTER! Accept that you're going to get shot but not necessarily die. Don't think about dying. In fact your chances of surviving are a hell of a lot better if you do everything within your power to take that worthless SoB with you. The survival ratio for gunshot wounds is actually quite good. Fighting back increases your odds of survival.

Honestly... it's easy to talk about rushing the shooter... but we MUST remember that we're looking to GO FERAL! Summon the ABSOLUTE MOST HATEFUL, BRUTAL, BLOODTHIRSTY RAGE that you can possibly muster... try to multiply that 1,000-fold and GO FOR IT! Can't imagine that? Well, if you're a parent, imagine someone attempting to abduct or harm your child. Hopefully... your response would be something akin to what I'm describing. If not... then please consider giving your children up for adoption. Your unfit to care for the innocent.

Two things that occurred to me after watching this multiple times were 1) initially he's almost TOO CLOSE for someone to draw and use a firearm. Anyone with decent hand-to-hand skills could hit him half-a-dozen times in a vital area before most people can draw, acquire and pull the trigger. Probably better to simply start wailing on the guy, beat him to the ground and kick his skull in. 2) Once the crowd clears he's now almost TOO FAR AWAY to shoot at with a handgun. Your backstop is the crowd at that point and he looks to be in excess of 50-feet away. I suppose some IDPA commando will claim to be able to easily make that shot while hunching, clenching his bowels and fighting tunnel vision. You also have incoming rounds and people running across your field of fire.

You cannot escape the instinctive body responses and you cannot "train them away". You CAN train to recognize, accept and compensate for them somewhat. You'll feel the fight-or-flight, the adrenal dump, the visual and auditory exclusion to a degree whether shooting, running away or towards, or standing still. It's one reason that witnesses can see a violent scene point-blank and not recover critical and obvious details in a conscious state.

If you train to expect this, you're less likely to freeze... which is the one thing that likely WILL get you killed.

Friday, December 17, 2010

Learning Techniques Is Not The Same Thing As Developing Them

© COPYRIGHT 2010 BY BRADLEY J. STEINER - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Sword and Pen – November 2010 Issue

[Reprinted With Permission]

www.americancombato.com
www.seattlecombatives.com

IF you had a mind to do so, you could purchase a manual that would teach you the information you needed to know in order to fly a plane. Or you could buy an instructional medical text that would explain the procedure necessary for performing open heart surgery. Or — you could probably “learn how” (theoretically) to fly a plane or do open heart surgery within a day or so of personal classroom lecture by an expert. The problem is not learning how to do such things; the problem is becoming able to do them.

It’s very similar with close combat and self-defense.

It is probable that we could explain and describe with sufficient clarity to convey a full intellectual understanding of the contents and particulars of our System to any intelligent adult in less than 50 hours. However, it would be a very prodigious individual, indeed, who could pass from white belt to green belt — our first two promotional levels — in only 50 hours of combined class and individual practice time.

It’s not that the techniques or tactical and strategic concepts are complicated or difficult to learn. Quite to the contrary; they are easy to learn. That’s why they are so practical and effective. However, they must be acquired through practice. Only repetitious drill imparts physical ability. Combat techniques are motor skills, not mathematical formulae which, once read and remembered, remain forever available in your mind. You have to spend time in physically practicing and drilling in order to make the techniques of personal combat, with and without
weapons, “yours”.

Although we cannot speak for other systems, styles, schools, or instructors, we will offer our opinion that most if not all would be in agreement with us. Assuming that the acquisition of any form of physical skill is in question, then it stands to reason that practicing it sufficiently to achieve the capability to do it would be axiomatic.

And more. The art of close combat and self-defense is a CRITICAL skill; it is not a “recreational” or a merely mundane, utilitarian skill. If and when you ever need to employ unarmed hand-to-hand combat techniques, a stick in personal defense, or a knife or a pistol, etc. in military or other desperate close combat, it will be a grave matter of life or death, and you will need your skill very, very badly, indeed!

If you really want to be able to use the techniques of close combat then reconcile yourself to the need for practice, practice, and still more practice.

One of the reasons we wish to emphasize this point is precisely because quality techniques are easy to learn (if they weren’t, they’d be useless for emergencies) and this can be misleading for the novice. Upon seeing how readily he can understand and begin to perform the skills that he is taught he mustn’t get the idea that that is that, and now he’s ready to go to war! He is far from ready to do anything after he is taught a new technique, except begin hard and regular training on that technique.

Though few will actually do this, we recommend the following in order to
experience and really feel what we are talking about in regard to mastering a technique and becoming able to DO it, as well as “knowing” it:

Take your favorite unarmed combat blow. It could be a hand strike, an elbow
blow, a kick, or whatever you wish. Now set aside fifteen minutes every day, seven days a week, for the next two months and religiously work to your absolute limit on that single technique. Focus mentally and physically. Go all out. Visualize. Go for as hard and intensive a fifteen minute workout on that single technique as your mind and body will permit you to perform. After two months of doing this DAILY (no days off, seven days a week for two months straight) see for yourself the results. That technique will be YOURS. And you will know it and feel it. The impulse to do the technique instantly and automatically will spring forth in a crisis, because you have subconsciously internalized and motormemorized it. Now . . . you can DO it.

You can follow this same procedure with a counterattack that you are especially keen to learn, or with an attack combination, etc. You can (and should) follow it as well with all weapon training.

The unbelievable “Jelly” Bryce (check him out on the internet) was a combat
point shooter whose abilities would never be believed if they were attributed to a fictional character in an action/adventure novel. Yet he was REAL. His “training”? He repeated endless — hour after hour — drill with his draw and point action, in front of a mirror. Result? This man actually DREW ON, AND THEN SHOT AND KILLED, TWO CRIMINAL GUNMEN WHO HAD THEIR WEAPONS IN THEIR HANDS AND POINTED AT HIM! Talk about phenomenal ability.

Bryce was an anomaly. Without the hereditary factors that made Bryce what he was no one could duplicate the man’s capabilities. However, without the hard, relentless practice and drill that this hereditary anomaly willingly and devotedly put in daily, Bryce would never have risen to the heights of incredible combative handgun proficiency that he did in fact rise to.

There is always a price to be paid for anything worthwhile. In the case of close combat and self-defense ability and confidence, the price consists of first coming to appreciate what you need to learn and master, and second, settling down and into the hard, disciplined course of serious training.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Are You A Grappler Or A Hitter? — And Ought You Consider Transitioning?

© COPYRIGHT 2010 BY BRADLEY J. STEINER - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Sword and Pen – November 2010 Issue

[Reprinted With Permission]

www.americancombato.com
www.seattlecombatives.com

JUST as there are individuals who, intellectually, are more
“scientific/mathematical” and other individuals who are more “verbal/artistic”, so it is the case in combative inclinations that some people tend to be more inclined to favor a grappling/throwing type of combatives, and others who prefer a striking/kicking type of combatives.

If you are involved in the martial arts for competition and sport, fitness, esthetic satisfaction, cultural fascination, or any combination of those reasons, then it makes not the slightest bit of difference which type of martial orientation you elect to pursue. All are excellent, all offer enormous benefits, and each one is as “real” and as “authentic” as the other. Let no commercial goof ball who is after your money tell you any different! Follow and train hard in that which you enjoy the most.

However, if your purpose in training is to acquire the ability to defeat an enemy in hand-to-hand combat and/or to defend yourself and your family against determined and dangerous physical attackers, it DOES make a difference — a big difference — what approach you decide to pursue in acquiring the skills, tactics, and knowledge that you will need to satisfy your objective. That which works in real combat is known, and has long been objectively established and proven. War, and the application of various approaches to self-defense in various “urban
jungles”
throughout the world for over 100 years has taught us without doubt and beyond question what is required to meet the requirements of actual man-to-man close-in armed and unarmed combat.

Primarily, it is a “hitting” (or, to use a more substantial term, “percussionary”) approach that close combat and self-defense requires. Fully 90-95% of effective close combat is striking, kicking, butting, biting, kneeing, gouging, jabbing, and clawing. The rest is simple throwing and strangulation/choking skills. These lastmentioned techniques are not the same as the throwing skills commonly taught and advocated in judo and wrestling.

That blows and not throws comprise the last of combative work is an uncontested and axiomatic truth in professional circles. Even in Kodokan Judo — an Art that is largely to be classified as a grappling/throwing type of art — the advanced and most trusted senior students are made privy to atemiwaza (“body smashing”) techniques, so that they will be able to defend themselves under deadly, extreme conditions and in circumstances where their contest-oriented methods are insufficient.

We are not suggesting that “hitting is better than grappling”. We are insisting that, in real combat, it is largely striking and kicking and gouging and related actions that need to be emphasized.

So what is to be said about those whose orientation and inclination is toward grappling/throwing, if there are any in that camp who seek to train for practical purposes? Simple: Insofar as they perceive their need to be self-defense and actual hand-to-hand combat, these individuals need to reorient their training so that they work at and on more combatively-functional skills.

There is no reason why any martial art study cannot be drastically modified — if self-defense is what the participant is now seeking — so that combative effectiveness and practical realism is achieved. Transitioning from whichever art form one has been training in (i.e. classical/traditional or sporting/competitive) to
combat can be accomplished — normally within a period of only two to three months training time. The same thing applies insofar as the more specialized transitioning from grappling to hitting, is concerned.

It is not desirable to attempt to do both one’s former mode of training and a combatively-oriented form of training. Attempting to depart in two directions at the same time is never a good idea. Make up your mind what you want.

“Hitters” who hail from sporting/competitive venues (i.e. competition karate, kick boxing, Western ring boxing, or bare knuckle type boxing) may have a slightly easier time transitioning to combat training, since they are already “hitters”; but make no mistake about there being a real need for drastic alteration in the curriculum! One neither utilizes the clenched fists for punching as a primary “natural weapon” in hand-to-hand combat, nor does one limit oneself to the kind and style of match hitting (i.e. sparring) that typifies all percussionary sporting methods. Blows and related impact actions that comprise the repertoire of the hand-to-hand fighter are considerably more dangerous, brutal, ruthless, and underhandedly foul than are even the most “aggressive” sporting approaches. However, having learned how to properly generate speed, power, and accuracy, while at the same time having mastered balance during the delivery of strikes and the ability to follow up and keep on hitting does give a “hitter” some degree of advantage when he transitions to hand-to-hand combat.

One advantage that a grappler often has is his familiarity with close-in contact and body-holding; in addition to having some familiarization with how the human body moves when in violent close combat contact. A grappler has a “feel” for body movement up close, when grabbing and holding contact has been secured by either or both parties in the encounter.

One thing that all— hitters, grapplers, and “in-betweeners” — who are involved in a competitive/sporting venue MUST begin afresh to acquire, is a proper degree of COMBAT MINDSET. No competitive sport involves this mental conditioning (nor should it), and until the trainee gets his psyche around the mental aspect of the matter, he will not be an optimally effective all-in hand-to-hand combatant. In this regard, at least, hitters and grapplers have the same task when training for hand-to-hand combat.

So . . . if you’re hitter or a grappler you have a job ahead of you if you wish to transition to close combat and self-defense. You’re already far along the way to possessing the physical fitness and agility, and understanding of body mechanics if you’re good at the hitting or grappling art you’ve had training in; but you do need a new repertoire of skills and a deep revision of your attitude and mental set, so that you’re prepared for combat, instead of a “combat sport”.