© COPYRIGHT 2011 BY BRADLEY J. STEINER - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Sword and Pen – January 2011 Issue
[Reprinted With Permission]
www.americancombato.com
www.seattlecombatives.com
THERE are those who love firearms (“gun nuts”). There are those who love
knives. Both interest groups enjoy an abundance of monthly periodicals that cater
to their interests, just as “martial arts” aficionados enjoy a ton of monthly appearing mainstream “literature” (albeit 99% of which is of highly questionable value, if not outright bullshit — precisely as is true in the case of 99% of that which appears in the gun and knife rags!), Oddly enough, the overwhelming majority of those in any of those three categories think of their little niche as exclusive, and they disdain involvement in and mastery of that which the other categories offer.
Fatal mistake, as far as practical defense and actual combative preparedness is
concerned.
This much is true: There are times when you need a firearm; times when you need
a knife; and times when you must rely upon your bare hands. If you are thoroughly prepared and competent in but a single approach to individual combat, then you are two thirds unprepared! (We should also consider the stick in our discussion, as stick work is certainly essential in the individual’s total scheme of defensive preparation. And we might thus legitimately assert that by possessing expertise in but one of four necessary areas of training you are three quarters unprepared). You hopefully get the drift of where we’re going with this.
Combat handguns, shotguns, and shoulder weapons certainly occupy an important
place in self-defense training. So do knives and stick implements. However, good
as any particular fashioned and manufactured weapon may be, it is not only
inappropriate to resort to the use of weaponry in all instances, it is often not possible. Those who spend time practicing quick draw at the range because they wish to be able to speedily access a sidearm in a close quarters crisis when, say, they are suddenly jumped in a street attack, have no idea of what real world violence entails, and what — realistically — they will be able to do about it, if it comes unexpectedly to them.
It takes a relatively long time to execute a “quick draw” from a maximum
concealment holster that is worn under normal daily attire (quite possibly attire
that includes a coat), as opposed to simply driving a powerful leg-breaking kick
into an assailant, or chopping him across the carotid artery! More: While you are
attempting to execute that quick draw, your attacker (or attackers) will — a) Have a great opportunity to seize, punch, and beat you into unconsciousness, and b) Be made plainly aware that you are armed, and no doubt will take that gun away from you, either while in the process of carrying out, or shortly after accomplishing “a”.
We have seen and heard of absolutely ridiculous “techniques” being taught — using folding knives (and in the case of law enforcement officers, their
“expandable batons”) — where, having been seized from behind in a mugger’s
strangle, the defender acquires his weapon(!) and executes some technique against
his attacker that frees him from the hold. Again — unarmed action is the only speedy action that stands a chance of being speedy enough in such a situation . . . (unless of course the “attacker” is a practice partner) to actually work. One’s concealed weapon — or one’s holstered sidearm, if one is a uniformed officer — cannot be brought into play quickly enough. That mugger will have snapped you backward and perhaps choked you out before you can even get your folding knife or expandable baton in hand!
We are 100% in favor of the use of modern weapons in personal defense and close
combat. We regard weapons as integral to the overall program that we ourself
teach, and this has always been the case. But make no mistake about it, weapons are not enough.
You must have unarmed combat ability.
Often, in situations where you are not only justified but well advised to access, say, a loaded handgun, you will be unable to do so until and unless you secure sufficient distance, time, and space. Well executed blows of the hands and feet, and practiced maneuvering that works in hand-to-hand situations will enable you to do this — and will enable you to save your life and quite possibly the lives of others. Your “target” in a close quarters combat situation will not be a cardboard outline, conveniently placed ten to 30 feet away, in broad daylight, giving you time to prepare ahead of time for the event, and giving you plenty of distance, time, and space right now to enable you to draw from your range rig, and place two neat holes in the kill zone. Get real.
Gun trumps knife, right? We have heard potbellied, beer-drinking, gun buff
“yahoos” who “roll their own” in their garages assert that, in a situation where a punk pulled a knife they’d “just shoot him”. Really? You think so? Well, if you had a handgun positioned and leveled at the “punk”, and if you were all set to pull the trigger, and if that “punk” was perhaps 25 to 30 feet away, and had not yet drawn his knife, but was seen by you in time to be undertaking to do just that . . . maybe you could “just shoot him”. But in the real world, if you lack unarmed combat skills, any determined would-be killer will get you first. He will get in close and he will have stabbed and slashed you ten times before you can even think of reaching for that holstered sidearm under your jacket.
Not that you could be certain of defending yourself adequately even if you were an unarmed combat expert. The knife attacker still has a great advantage. But if your body is trained to move correctly and to make ferocious and immediate use of your natural weapons, you stand a chance of surviving.
Real world, people; real world.
And the idiocy that is advanced as “self-defense use of the folding knife” would
be comical, if it were not presented seriously, and in a tone that suggests the
advocate of this crap is some kind of “combat expert”!
Yes, certainly a stoutly constructed folding knife can be an excellent weapon in a
defensive emergency. However, it is nowhere near as effective a weapon as a fixed
blade combat knife, and all of those who believe that their “combat folders” make them bad news for muggers are fools.
It takes time to access and then open a folding knife. Time is what you have
precious little of in any violent emergency, and “going for your folding knife”
sets you up exactly as going for your holstered handgun does, in any predicament
where you are attacked by one or more street bacteria up close. And face it: This is how it generally happens.
Again, unarmed skills are instantly available, and will clear the way for your being able to access that folder. What’s more, hitting your attacker — jabbing, smashing, and pounding him real hard in his vulnerable target areas — with the ends of your closed folding knife in hand is often the best preliminary tactic that allows you the time to open the folder, in the first place. Unarmed combat training teaches you how and where to hit your attacker with that closed folding knife, and this is important.
Few weapons are as effective for practical defense as a good, strong walking stick
(or, for a police officer, a simple hardwood baton — NOT one of those damn “expandable” pieces of s—t that deserves to be discarded along with pepper spray and mace). Still, one might find that an attacker seizes one’s walking stick (or baton), and a struggle ensues in which unarmed combat skills will prove essential for achieving dominance over the aggressor.
Quality training in unarmed close combat provides the key foundational elements
for success in all close combat — armed included:
√ It teaches you to have self-confidence (as opposed to confidence in a hand held
weapon).
√ It teaches you how to move, position yourself, and interface with potential and
actual troublemakers.
√ It teaches you how to strike and how to kick, and it trains you in the enemy’s
vital target areas . . . areas as susceptible to weapon as to unarmed trauma.
√ It teaches you attitude and mindset, without which no weapon on earth is of any value; and with which, even some random object-at-hand will serve well and lethally in a dangerous emergency.
√ It trains you in general self-defense tactics and strategy, in the principles of
protection, and in the realities of close-in individual battle.
√ It enjoins you to establish a serious routine of personal physical training, so as
to get and stay fit, strong, conditioned, ready, and confident that you are able to
meet whatever comes.
The modern student of self-defense, as we have been emphasizing since the late
1960’s, needs unarmed and armed modern combat skills in order to be a rounded, balanced, ready-for-anything combatant.
The word to all of you weapons buffs: If you keep those weapons for self-defense, then make certain you’ve got a solid capability with unarmed combat to
bolster and to back up their use!
Monday, March 28, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
How Much Do You Know About Psychopaths?
© COPYRIGHT 2010 BY BRADLEY J. STEINER - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Sword and Pen – December 2010 Issue
[Reprinted With Permission]
www.americancombato.com
www.seattlecombatives.com
IF your answer is “Very little, if anything,” you are in excellent company. Most practicing psychologists know very little if anything about psychopaths. And, truth be told, there are almost certainly more psychopaths teaching the martial arts than there are martial arts teachers who know anything meaningful about psychopaths, per se!
In unfortunately too brief and encapsulated an explanation, the psychopath is an individual who possesses no conscience, for whom the person and property of
others means nothing (save that these others represent “things” for his use,
manipulation, and consumption), and who apparently exists in a kind of “world
consisting solely of himself” and in a universe in which “only the gratification of his own personal impulses” holds any motivational power over him. The psychopath may be defined as being, in his philosophy and behavior, antisocial.
Not all psychopaths are violent offenders. Most violent offenders, however —
certainly the horrific violent offenders — do tend to be psychopaths.
Rent or purchase the motion picture FUNNY GAMES. That is a chilling and
outstandingly enacted presentation of the psychopathic victimization of, for want
of a better term, “normal” people. IN COLD BLOOD is another motion picture
that you might wish to search out, as is the documentary HELTER SKELTER. Of
course you could always read those last two books, as we require our students to
do, but if you’re more inclined to sit back and watch and listen than you are to
read (as many people seem to be, today) then rent the two movies.
The psychologist Robert D. Hare is certainly one of the world’s great authorities
today on psychopaths. In fact he may be considered to be the authority on the
subject by many. His books are highly readable by lay people, and we recommend
them strongly.
TWO OF Dr. HARE’S GREAT WORKS ON THE PSYCHOPATH. WE RECOMMEND
THAT EVERY STUDENT OF SELF-DEFENSE OBTAIN AND STUDY BOTH THESE
OUTSTANDING BOOKS.
Alan Harrington authored a wonderful book, PSYCHOPATHS, which has been on
our students’ required reading list for decades. In fact, one of our students, the
late psychiatrist Gary Tucker, MD (who was head of Psychiatry at the University
of Washington School of Medicine, and who appeared in the “top 100 physicians
in America” book) knew Harrington, and agreed with us that the book is
excellent. Unfortunately it is out of print; but it is well worth hunting for.
THE MASK OF SANITY, by Hervey Cleckley, MD is the classic text on
psychopathy, and has long been on our students’ list of required readings, but
many find this valuable tome to be too onerous a task. We think that tackling it is
well worthwhile.
Some visitors might ask: “I am studying self-defense. Granted I need to know how
to recognize and handle potentially dangerous violent threats, but why would you
recommend my studying psychopaths per se in such depth and detail?”
Our answer is: The martial arts is inundated with mystical and fanciful, and also
with utterly irrelevant B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T. Your objective, whether you realize it or not, requires that you become a hardheaded realist and focus upon learning about whatever constitutes the real threats in the real world; and psychopaths — especially the violent ones — are your greatest potential problem. Learning about them, getting to understand how to identify them, coming to grips with the serious life-threatening danger that the worst of them may pose to YOU and to YOURS is critical. Do not think that “you can tell” if someone is or is not a danger, merely by his appearance, his initial behavior, or whatever stated beliefs and convictions he might express. Mundo nulla fides (“trust no one”; at least no one who you do not know, personally and well, and for a long time!). Nothing can achieve the necessary cautionary mindset and — if required — mercilessly aggressive and decisive offensive mindset that you MUST POSSESS for self-defense better than coming personally to grips with a serious understanding of how predators think, feel, function, and will gladly strive to violate and injure you in the worst possible ways.
Some unfortunate innocents believe that we exaggerate or embellish when we
speak of the pure evil and the ferocious danger posed to them by would-be
assailants and trouble-making violators. The cure for this — for them — may well be their independent exposure via a careful study on their own of the works of
psychological and psychiatric professionals, to an explanation of the hideously real
threat that the psychopath presents to all decent human beings in modern society.
Our advice: Throw away the books on fanciful nonsense and the macho crap about
how to be the baddest dude in the world of challenge fighting, and start educating
yourself in that which you really need to know about the very real enemy whom you are likely to face if you are ever attacked, and against whom you will also want to be able to defend those you love.
If you know little about psychopaths, correct that as soon as possible! Study this subject! If you are a self-defense instructor you have an obligation to become educated in this area.
Sword and Pen – December 2010 Issue
[Reprinted With Permission]
www.americancombato.com
www.seattlecombatives.com
IF your answer is “Very little, if anything,” you are in excellent company. Most practicing psychologists know very little if anything about psychopaths. And, truth be told, there are almost certainly more psychopaths teaching the martial arts than there are martial arts teachers who know anything meaningful about psychopaths, per se!
In unfortunately too brief and encapsulated an explanation, the psychopath is an individual who possesses no conscience, for whom the person and property of
others means nothing (save that these others represent “things” for his use,
manipulation, and consumption), and who apparently exists in a kind of “world
consisting solely of himself” and in a universe in which “only the gratification of his own personal impulses” holds any motivational power over him. The psychopath may be defined as being, in his philosophy and behavior, antisocial.
Not all psychopaths are violent offenders. Most violent offenders, however —
certainly the horrific violent offenders — do tend to be psychopaths.
Rent or purchase the motion picture FUNNY GAMES. That is a chilling and
outstandingly enacted presentation of the psychopathic victimization of, for want
of a better term, “normal” people. IN COLD BLOOD is another motion picture
that you might wish to search out, as is the documentary HELTER SKELTER. Of
course you could always read those last two books, as we require our students to
do, but if you’re more inclined to sit back and watch and listen than you are to
read (as many people seem to be, today) then rent the two movies.
The psychologist Robert D. Hare is certainly one of the world’s great authorities
today on psychopaths. In fact he may be considered to be the authority on the
subject by many. His books are highly readable by lay people, and we recommend
them strongly.
TWO OF Dr. HARE’S GREAT WORKS ON THE PSYCHOPATH. WE RECOMMEND
THAT EVERY STUDENT OF SELF-DEFENSE OBTAIN AND STUDY BOTH THESE
OUTSTANDING BOOKS.
Alan Harrington authored a wonderful book, PSYCHOPATHS, which has been on
our students’ required reading list for decades. In fact, one of our students, the
late psychiatrist Gary Tucker, MD (who was head of Psychiatry at the University
of Washington School of Medicine, and who appeared in the “top 100 physicians
in America” book) knew Harrington, and agreed with us that the book is
excellent. Unfortunately it is out of print; but it is well worth hunting for.
THE MASK OF SANITY, by Hervey Cleckley, MD is the classic text on
psychopathy, and has long been on our students’ list of required readings, but
many find this valuable tome to be too onerous a task. We think that tackling it is
well worthwhile.
Some visitors might ask: “I am studying self-defense. Granted I need to know how
to recognize and handle potentially dangerous violent threats, but why would you
recommend my studying psychopaths per se in such depth and detail?”
Our answer is: The martial arts is inundated with mystical and fanciful, and also
with utterly irrelevant B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T. Your objective, whether you realize it or not, requires that you become a hardheaded realist and focus upon learning about whatever constitutes the real threats in the real world; and psychopaths — especially the violent ones — are your greatest potential problem. Learning about them, getting to understand how to identify them, coming to grips with the serious life-threatening danger that the worst of them may pose to YOU and to YOURS is critical. Do not think that “you can tell” if someone is or is not a danger, merely by his appearance, his initial behavior, or whatever stated beliefs and convictions he might express. Mundo nulla fides (“trust no one”; at least no one who you do not know, personally and well, and for a long time!). Nothing can achieve the necessary cautionary mindset and — if required — mercilessly aggressive and decisive offensive mindset that you MUST POSSESS for self-defense better than coming personally to grips with a serious understanding of how predators think, feel, function, and will gladly strive to violate and injure you in the worst possible ways.
Some unfortunate innocents believe that we exaggerate or embellish when we
speak of the pure evil and the ferocious danger posed to them by would-be
assailants and trouble-making violators. The cure for this — for them — may well be their independent exposure via a careful study on their own of the works of
psychological and psychiatric professionals, to an explanation of the hideously real
threat that the psychopath presents to all decent human beings in modern society.
Our advice: Throw away the books on fanciful nonsense and the macho crap about
how to be the baddest dude in the world of challenge fighting, and start educating
yourself in that which you really need to know about the very real enemy whom you are likely to face if you are ever attacked, and against whom you will also want to be able to defend those you love.
If you know little about psychopaths, correct that as soon as possible! Study this subject! If you are a self-defense instructor you have an obligation to become educated in this area.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
On The Need To Be Ambidextrous
© COPYRIGHT 2010 BY BRADLEY J. STEINER - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Sword and Pen – December 2010 Issue
[Reprinted With Permission]
www.americancombato.com
www.seattlecombatives.com
WE have said it many times before, and it is a truth that bears repeating frequently: Any form of competitive match “fighting” or sporting contests actually train you to do the wrong things, as far as self-defense and close combat is concerned. There is nothing wrong with sporting competition per se, but you are making a huge mistake if your interest is in personal combat and defense skills, and you believe that you can attain your objectives by becoming a competition fighter.
Remember Bruce Lee? Remember the Bruce Lee fad? One of the notable things
about Lee’s teaching is an excellent representative example of precisely how
misleading it really is to confuse that which prepares a man to spar and to compete, versus that which prepares a man to engage an enemy or an adversary in close combat.
Bruce Lee introduced the idea of the STRONG SIDE LEAD in a fighting stance. Unlike the boxer’s weak hand lead, Lee advanced the idea that leading with your strong side made the most sense in serious self-defense (as Lee erroneously imagined “serious self-defense” to be). The truth is, of course, that the practice of consciously leading with either hand or side makes sense only when referring to competition and to sport. Otherwise, for personal combat in self-defense, the idea is nonsense.
If the speediest and most natural position from which to face an approaching
stranger is your left side, then a left side “lead” position makes sense. If the speediest and most natural position from which to face an approaching stranger is your right side, then a right side “lead” makes sense. And here, of course, when we refer to a “lead” we mean in that which we call a RELAXED-READY STANCE — i.e. off-angled, facing the individual at a 45-degree angle — we most certainly do not mean any sort of formal and obvious “fighting stance” per se.
YOU CAN CANCEL A SPARRING MATCH OR CONTEST IF THIS HAPPENS, BUT
YOU JUST MIGHT BECOME A MORE LIKELY TARGET FOR ATTACK! IN A
SITUATION WHERE ONE ARM IS IMMOBILIZED, YOU MUST BE ABLE TO USE
YOUR OTHER ARM T MAXIMUM EFFECT IN AN EMERGENCY!
Being steeped in the absurdity of “competition-as-preparation-for-combat” it is certain that many will not comprehend in the slightest the idea that a fighting stance per se is not needed for self-defense. This is because only two possibilities exist as far as self-defense is concerned:
1. You will be aware of the troublemaker’s
approach, or
2. You will not be aware of his approach.
If you are aware of the approach of ANY STRANGER you will (if properly trained) assume a relaxed-ready stance. You will be off-angled, distanced just outside of arms’ reach - where you will stay - and your eyes will remain on the stranger’s face, as your own hands rest unobtrusively at your own sternum level. Whether your left or right side “leads” will of course depend upon which side most expediently faces the stranger at his approach. Now, you are ready. You will maintain your relaxed-ready position, and you will keep yourself properly distanced until or unless this stranger initiates aggression. If he does, you will ATTACK, and you will keep on attacking until he is no longer a threat. No assumption of any other “stance” is required. In relaxed-ready you are in as excellent a “fighting stance” (and you telegraph NOTHING) as you would be in if
you were in the most exotic “martial arts pose” imaginable.
If you are not aware of the approach of anyone who attacks you, then he will get his initial action in against you, at the very least (assuming that he does not kill, cripple, or knock you out). While such a predicament is not always or necessarily hopeless, it isn’t good. You will be able to cope with such a situation if — and only if — the attacker’s action fails to neutralize you and if you are capable of generating an effective counterattack. But you will certainly not attempt to assume a “fighting stance” after an attack against you is launched, and you have been seized, struck, or rushed.
Is it really that simple? Yes.
There is NO correlation between close combat and self-defense and competition or sport. None. Nada. And one of the great myths (perhaps cons would be a better term, in some instances) is that notion that there in fact is such a correlation, and that if one wishes to be ready to defend himself or handle an enemy in hand-tohand combat then he’d better become some kind of a contest fighter.
When people face off for a contest (or for a “fight” per se, which only morons agree to) then and only then do they utilize “stances”. And only then might it make some sense to suggest that a “weak side” or a “strong side” lead is more or less desirable for the encounter.
BEING “RIGHT HANDED” OR “LEFT HANDED” AND ASSUMING A “FIGHTING
STANCE” THAT REFLECTS THAT PREFERENTIAL METHOD OF EXCHANGING
TECHNIQUES MAKES PERFECT SENSE IN BOXING, KARATE, AND IN ALL FORMS
OF PHYSICAL CONTEST AND SPORT. BUT THIS IS A MISTAKE IN PREPARING FOR
PERSONAL DEFENSE OR UNARMED CLOSE COMBAT.
But back to ambidexterity.
No hand-to-hand combat student can afford to have a weak side. Preparation for real world personal combat requires that both hands/arms/elbows/legs be equally capable of generating decisive force — and that they be equally able to render accurate and speedy actions under the stress of an emergency situation.
There is a corollary to the above: No hand-to-hand combat student can afford to have a strong side! If you do feel that you have a “strong side” then you will be influenced accordingly in how you attempt to manage a confrontation. This is an unnecessary impediment to simply attacking and destroying, and in serious self-defense and close combat you cannot afford ANY impediments.
Remember that the first awareness you might have that you are in fact under
attack is a sudden injury to, or immobilizing seizure of, your “strong” arm. Then, consider how your ability to resist and your personal confidence at the moment might be affected. But if you are ambidextrous and function with equal efficiency and strength on both sides with all four limbs you will stand a greater chance of effective retaliatory action.
You may have something in your “strong” hand at the time of an approach.
Obviously, if what is in your hand is a weapon, and if you are holding it properly so that an attack can be initiated by employing it, you will not likely be attacked or approached in the first place (except perhaps by a police officer!). If what you are holding is an object that can serve as a weapon, then you will be obliged to employ your “weak” hand to assist in what you do with that improvised weapon. If the object in your hand will not serve as a weapon, then you will throw it into the adversary’s face if you are attacked, and your followup will likely be with your “weak” hand. Should the weapon/object be in your “weak” and not in your “strong” hand, then you will want to have the ability to use that weapon/object with the same authority as you would, had it been in your “strong” hand.
You cannot afford to have this “weak” and “strong” hand dichotomy
operating in a potentially hindering way against you in any emergency! You want both hands/sides to possess the speed, strength, and capacity for accuracy, so that regardless of whether you are unarmed or armed, and no matter how you may be approached or suddenly find yourself confronting anyone, you are ready.
The attainment of ambidexterity in developing close combat and self-defense
skills is not difficult. Mainly, it is something that you must simply be aware needs doin.
Left-handed people, in our experience, tend to be much more naturally capable of using their right hands well than are right-handed people able to use their left hands. Still, except in the rarest of cases, both left and right-handed individuals need to address the matter of cultivating what we call “bad side proficiency” when they come to training in this subject.
The following suggestions should be helpful:
• Obviously, never fail to practice any technique or action on both sides when you learn them and when you train in developing them. At the very least do an equal amount of training on whichever side and for whichever limb initially tends to be weaker than the other.
• It is very often helpful, especially during the first six to twelve months of training, to devote more time and effort to whichever is your weaker side. It does not follow, by the way, that because you are right-handed you will therefore be “right-legged”, etc. Some people do initially favor, for example, their right hand and their right leg (when hand striking and when kicking), but some people do not. If you find that your right-handedness is accompanied by left-leggedness, do not feel that you are abnormal. You are quite normal, as people do tend naturally to vary in this regard.
• During your daily activities consciously make yourself use whichever hand is your “weak” hand. Carry things in your weak hand. Open doors with your weak hand. Turn on faucets with your weak hand, and turn them off with your weak hand. Lift things with your weak hand. Etcetera.
• Until you feel ambidextrous with any given action, do more repetitions of it with the side that lags behind. This will not be necessary for very long. However, it is a truly valuable way to speed up the process of ambidexterity in combative skills development.
• A most valuable training method is to allow yourself only the use of your “weak” hand and arm when drilling in counterattacking and attacking techniques. This forces you to rely upon what would normally be your weaker side, when training in skills that normally allow you the use of both hands.
• If you have access to a chinning bar, practice simply suspending your weight while holding onto the bar with your “weak” hand. This is an excellent strengthener.
• Going through a normal training class or practice session, use a light (2-1/2 or 5 pound) ankle or wrist weight on your “weak” side limb. Caution: Do not do this more than once a week.
• Aside from the attacking and counterattacking (i.e. “self-defense”) techniques that you must drill in, remember always to train both sides when working on the assumption of a relaxed-ready stance, moving in the relaxed-ready stance, and when executing the various evasive steps (“taisabaki”) of side-stepping, pivoting, turning, etc. that play a critical part in reacting to many forms of physical aggression.
We also want to mention this: Insofar as weapons — stick, fighting knife,
tomahawk, handgun, shoulder weapon — are concerned, it is surprisingly easy to develop ambidexterity. You will see this for yourself as you learn and train, and as you are introduced to the use of weaponry, in the course of your combatives development. We mention it now to round out this discussion. It is mainly with unarmed skills that the matter of developing both left and right sides equally requires serious attention and merits concern by teacher an by students.
Sword and Pen – December 2010 Issue
[Reprinted With Permission]
www.americancombato.com
www.seattlecombatives.com
WE have said it many times before, and it is a truth that bears repeating frequently: Any form of competitive match “fighting” or sporting contests actually train you to do the wrong things, as far as self-defense and close combat is concerned. There is nothing wrong with sporting competition per se, but you are making a huge mistake if your interest is in personal combat and defense skills, and you believe that you can attain your objectives by becoming a competition fighter.
Remember Bruce Lee? Remember the Bruce Lee fad? One of the notable things
about Lee’s teaching is an excellent representative example of precisely how
misleading it really is to confuse that which prepares a man to spar and to compete, versus that which prepares a man to engage an enemy or an adversary in close combat.
Bruce Lee introduced the idea of the STRONG SIDE LEAD in a fighting stance. Unlike the boxer’s weak hand lead, Lee advanced the idea that leading with your strong side made the most sense in serious self-defense (as Lee erroneously imagined “serious self-defense” to be). The truth is, of course, that the practice of consciously leading with either hand or side makes sense only when referring to competition and to sport. Otherwise, for personal combat in self-defense, the idea is nonsense.
If the speediest and most natural position from which to face an approaching
stranger is your left side, then a left side “lead” position makes sense. If the speediest and most natural position from which to face an approaching stranger is your right side, then a right side “lead” makes sense. And here, of course, when we refer to a “lead” we mean in that which we call a RELAXED-READY STANCE — i.e. off-angled, facing the individual at a 45-degree angle — we most certainly do not mean any sort of formal and obvious “fighting stance” per se.
YOU CAN CANCEL A SPARRING MATCH OR CONTEST IF THIS HAPPENS, BUT
YOU JUST MIGHT BECOME A MORE LIKELY TARGET FOR ATTACK! IN A
SITUATION WHERE ONE ARM IS IMMOBILIZED, YOU MUST BE ABLE TO USE
YOUR OTHER ARM T MAXIMUM EFFECT IN AN EMERGENCY!
Being steeped in the absurdity of “competition-as-preparation-for-combat” it is certain that many will not comprehend in the slightest the idea that a fighting stance per se is not needed for self-defense. This is because only two possibilities exist as far as self-defense is concerned:
1. You will be aware of the troublemaker’s
approach, or
2. You will not be aware of his approach.
If you are aware of the approach of ANY STRANGER you will (if properly trained) assume a relaxed-ready stance. You will be off-angled, distanced just outside of arms’ reach - where you will stay - and your eyes will remain on the stranger’s face, as your own hands rest unobtrusively at your own sternum level. Whether your left or right side “leads” will of course depend upon which side most expediently faces the stranger at his approach. Now, you are ready. You will maintain your relaxed-ready position, and you will keep yourself properly distanced until or unless this stranger initiates aggression. If he does, you will ATTACK, and you will keep on attacking until he is no longer a threat. No assumption of any other “stance” is required. In relaxed-ready you are in as excellent a “fighting stance” (and you telegraph NOTHING) as you would be in if
you were in the most exotic “martial arts pose” imaginable.
If you are not aware of the approach of anyone who attacks you, then he will get his initial action in against you, at the very least (assuming that he does not kill, cripple, or knock you out). While such a predicament is not always or necessarily hopeless, it isn’t good. You will be able to cope with such a situation if — and only if — the attacker’s action fails to neutralize you and if you are capable of generating an effective counterattack. But you will certainly not attempt to assume a “fighting stance” after an attack against you is launched, and you have been seized, struck, or rushed.
Is it really that simple? Yes.
There is NO correlation between close combat and self-defense and competition or sport. None. Nada. And one of the great myths (perhaps cons would be a better term, in some instances) is that notion that there in fact is such a correlation, and that if one wishes to be ready to defend himself or handle an enemy in hand-tohand combat then he’d better become some kind of a contest fighter.
When people face off for a contest (or for a “fight” per se, which only morons agree to) then and only then do they utilize “stances”. And only then might it make some sense to suggest that a “weak side” or a “strong side” lead is more or less desirable for the encounter.
BEING “RIGHT HANDED” OR “LEFT HANDED” AND ASSUMING A “FIGHTING
STANCE” THAT REFLECTS THAT PREFERENTIAL METHOD OF EXCHANGING
TECHNIQUES MAKES PERFECT SENSE IN BOXING, KARATE, AND IN ALL FORMS
OF PHYSICAL CONTEST AND SPORT. BUT THIS IS A MISTAKE IN PREPARING FOR
PERSONAL DEFENSE OR UNARMED CLOSE COMBAT.
But back to ambidexterity.
No hand-to-hand combat student can afford to have a weak side. Preparation for real world personal combat requires that both hands/arms/elbows/legs be equally capable of generating decisive force — and that they be equally able to render accurate and speedy actions under the stress of an emergency situation.
There is a corollary to the above: No hand-to-hand combat student can afford to have a strong side! If you do feel that you have a “strong side” then you will be influenced accordingly in how you attempt to manage a confrontation. This is an unnecessary impediment to simply attacking and destroying, and in serious self-defense and close combat you cannot afford ANY impediments.
Remember that the first awareness you might have that you are in fact under
attack is a sudden injury to, or immobilizing seizure of, your “strong” arm. Then, consider how your ability to resist and your personal confidence at the moment might be affected. But if you are ambidextrous and function with equal efficiency and strength on both sides with all four limbs you will stand a greater chance of effective retaliatory action.
You may have something in your “strong” hand at the time of an approach.
Obviously, if what is in your hand is a weapon, and if you are holding it properly so that an attack can be initiated by employing it, you will not likely be attacked or approached in the first place (except perhaps by a police officer!). If what you are holding is an object that can serve as a weapon, then you will be obliged to employ your “weak” hand to assist in what you do with that improvised weapon. If the object in your hand will not serve as a weapon, then you will throw it into the adversary’s face if you are attacked, and your followup will likely be with your “weak” hand. Should the weapon/object be in your “weak” and not in your “strong” hand, then you will want to have the ability to use that weapon/object with the same authority as you would, had it been in your “strong” hand.
You cannot afford to have this “weak” and “strong” hand dichotomy
operating in a potentially hindering way against you in any emergency! You want both hands/sides to possess the speed, strength, and capacity for accuracy, so that regardless of whether you are unarmed or armed, and no matter how you may be approached or suddenly find yourself confronting anyone, you are ready.
The attainment of ambidexterity in developing close combat and self-defense
skills is not difficult. Mainly, it is something that you must simply be aware needs doin.
Left-handed people, in our experience, tend to be much more naturally capable of using their right hands well than are right-handed people able to use their left hands. Still, except in the rarest of cases, both left and right-handed individuals need to address the matter of cultivating what we call “bad side proficiency” when they come to training in this subject.
The following suggestions should be helpful:
• Obviously, never fail to practice any technique or action on both sides when you learn them and when you train in developing them. At the very least do an equal amount of training on whichever side and for whichever limb initially tends to be weaker than the other.
• It is very often helpful, especially during the first six to twelve months of training, to devote more time and effort to whichever is your weaker side. It does not follow, by the way, that because you are right-handed you will therefore be “right-legged”, etc. Some people do initially favor, for example, their right hand and their right leg (when hand striking and when kicking), but some people do not. If you find that your right-handedness is accompanied by left-leggedness, do not feel that you are abnormal. You are quite normal, as people do tend naturally to vary in this regard.
• During your daily activities consciously make yourself use whichever hand is your “weak” hand. Carry things in your weak hand. Open doors with your weak hand. Turn on faucets with your weak hand, and turn them off with your weak hand. Lift things with your weak hand. Etcetera.
• Until you feel ambidextrous with any given action, do more repetitions of it with the side that lags behind. This will not be necessary for very long. However, it is a truly valuable way to speed up the process of ambidexterity in combative skills development.
• A most valuable training method is to allow yourself only the use of your “weak” hand and arm when drilling in counterattacking and attacking techniques. This forces you to rely upon what would normally be your weaker side, when training in skills that normally allow you the use of both hands.
• If you have access to a chinning bar, practice simply suspending your weight while holding onto the bar with your “weak” hand. This is an excellent strengthener.
• Going through a normal training class or practice session, use a light (2-1/2 or 5 pound) ankle or wrist weight on your “weak” side limb. Caution: Do not do this more than once a week.
• Aside from the attacking and counterattacking (i.e. “self-defense”) techniques that you must drill in, remember always to train both sides when working on the assumption of a relaxed-ready stance, moving in the relaxed-ready stance, and when executing the various evasive steps (“taisabaki”) of side-stepping, pivoting, turning, etc. that play a critical part in reacting to many forms of physical aggression.
We also want to mention this: Insofar as weapons — stick, fighting knife,
tomahawk, handgun, shoulder weapon — are concerned, it is surprisingly easy to develop ambidexterity. You will see this for yourself as you learn and train, and as you are introduced to the use of weaponry, in the course of your combatives development. We mention it now to round out this discussion. It is mainly with unarmed skills that the matter of developing both left and right sides equally requires serious attention and merits concern by teacher an by students.
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.
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.
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”.
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”.
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