Don't Get Stabbed

The last couple of weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind, and whilst I've been thinking about stuff to write, I've just not had the time to write it properly, yet. In place of something from me, here's a post from another blog entry about Krav Maga by the science fiction author Andy Smillie. It's well-written - as you'd expect from somebody who makes their living as a word-smith - but he also captures much of the "flavour" of combatives residing beneath the technical surface. Andy is a very experienced martial artist in his own right, so this is praise indeed.

I do have to declare an interest, however. Andy is one of my students.

Don't Get Stabbed - by Andy Smillie

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Another Knife Murder

As the parent of a near 11 year old boy, this fills me with dread. Yet another tragic lethal stabbing in the UK, this time in Essex. Not a wayward lad or anything, by all accounts, but a decent, sensible kid from a good background just on an evening out that went terribly wrong...

Sky News Story

I've spent my whole adult life (and my teenage years) preparing myself for eventualities such as these, but still feel impotent when it comes to the safety of my son in such situations. I guess all parents do. I wish I could take my knowledge and experience and transfer it to him. But, that experience only comes with age. He has to make his mistakes and learn. Heaven knows I made lots, but that's what got me the experience and knowledge. Kids think they know best. Often this is a false sense of security; a feeling of immortality guides them and influences them. They don't recognise impending danger or repercussions. Everything feels like a game. Fighting is something that looks like what they saw at the movies.

In this case the result was the ultimate price being paid. How very, very sad.

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Musashi #3 - Weapons (part two)

Back to the subject of weapons – the second part of Musashi’s list of things that we must understand if we are to study the sword (or in our case, combatives generally). Last time we looked at the softer weapons of voice, appearance, disposition, and running away – all options at our disposal in a combatives situation. This time I want to concentrate on the more familiar weapons of striking and the like. I shall do so with a series of distinctions.

The first distinction is that between armed and unarmed tools. Unarmed combatives, as our modern founder W.E. Fairbairn once said, is for those situations when we’ve been caught without a weapon. Humans are tool-bearing animals; they make us more efficient. This is true in combat too. It’s easier to nullify a threat if we can use a tool to do so. Things are somewhat different in civilian contexts today, especially in countries such as the UK where the carrying of any weapon is illegal, and the use of an improvised weapon would have to meet extremely tight legal constraints. The vast majority of instances will be unarmed combatives.

The effective combatives practitioner should possess a primary arsenal of strikes – knock-out blows – that are capable of being delivered from different ranges and angles, and with either hand and from positions of restriction. This is the main artillery. To that should be added a series of secondary tools, such as close weapons (biting, gouging, etc.) or throws, to get back to our primary weapons for ending the fight. To this we should add supplemental tools for different situations – choking, restraining, and so forth.

The unarmed tools, properly structured and trained, are our primary focus and we should spend the vast majority of our time training, learning, honing, perfecting them; using them in simulations and scenarios; making them second nature.

Yet, we should not think this is the limit of our list of weapons. Using our weapons is one thing – we become more efficient – but we also need to understand weapons that may be used against us. Not everyone trains the same. Learning how others do things – from the street goblin with his deception and right hook, to the athletic, conditioned and skilled MMA competitor – is crucial to being combatively effective. Musashi appreciated this aspect. His weapon was the sword, but he learned how to use all the weapons of his day – scythes, staffs, spears, bows – not for proficiency to the level that he pursued in the sword, but to learn how to deal with those weapons in the hands of adversaries. Knowledge really is power. Someone who takes combatives seriously (and I don’t mean the hobby trainer or person that just wants a few skills from a year or two of training) needs to cross train. They need to study the current weapons on the market and in use. Here I would suggest Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), boxing, muay thai, judo, Brasilian Jiu Jitsu, and maybe some Kung Fu and Karate. The first are becoming increasingly popular with the explosion of MMA events such as the UFC, and more and more people are training in them. Get to know the weapons and methods of the enemy.

The same goes for armed combatives. To be complete, the combatives expert needs to be versed in the usage of an array of weapons. Knives and other blades, impact weapons (sticks or stick-like objects), firearms, sprays (CS gas, pepper spray etc), and improvised weapons, should all be added to the mix, and competency sought in all areas. The use of such weapons may be heavily restricted in certain areas – in the UK we cannot carry any of the above in public nor fashion anything with that intention – but, we may find ourselves in circumstances when such skill would be useful. Many people travel to parts of the world where such weapons are permitted. Home invasion or burglaries are increasingly common in parts of the UK and such weapons might be more readily available to use (though they still come with legal restraints). If states continue to “fail” – as places such as Greece appear to be at the moment – a more general lawlessness might follow where such constraints are lifted. More importantly, however, the criminal element pays little attention to legal limitations and carries and uses such weapons on the lawful. Like Musashi, we should seek to know and understand any weapon that might be used against us in order to improve our chances of overcoming an attack with one.

To these we should add some other critical tools or skills that the modern combatives exponent should possess. First, a basic First Aid qualification (available as a 5 day course in the UK) that covers the vast majority of emergency cases we will ever likely face. If a trauma course can be added to this, then even better. (And don’t forget, this is one tool we should be carrying with us all the time, a small first aid kit). Second, some advanced driving qualification, and, even better, a defensive driving course or two. Being able to use a vehicle in an emergency is critical. Most people’s driving standards are awful, especially under pressure and at speed. Some basic training available from commercial companies is good fun and saves lives.

Beyond this we might think about generally available survival skills (urban and otherwise), if we have the interest, but here we are expanding the spectrum beyond the combatives.

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Musashi Adenda - Peyton Quinn's Take

A quick, but related, aside that fits with recent posts about Musashi's Book of Five Rings. This time it's a quick plug for a nice little e-book (for Kindle) by none other than reality-based combatives legend Peyton Quinn.

Peyton is a pioneer of adrenal stress training, and has been doing this stuff for decades. He runs a unique facility in the Rocky Mountains call RMCAT, where he provides short courses on adrenal stress training combat using the Bulletmen. RMCAT developed alongside FAST (Peyton and Bill Kipp have always worked closely together) and grew out of (among other things) the Model Mugging programme created by the incredible Matt Thomas. Peyton's stuff, like FAST, is cutting edge. And it uses that edge to cut away the crap to get to what's crucial and useful in self-protection.

Peyton appreciates the brilliance of Musashi's work and insights - the work of a man who's survived numerous duels and battles - and breaks down some of the more pertinent passages of the book and analyses them. Unsurprisingly, much of what Musashi was writing about was the overcoming of fear in much the same way as Peyton has done at RMCAT.

The e-book can be purchased via Amazon here:

Musashi in Plain English by Peyton Quinn

Back to my take on Musashi next, promise...
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Musashi #3 - Weapons (part one)

So, what does Musashi mean by the “weapons” element of his statement that to train the sword we have to understand war, weapons, and men?

Perhaps this is the most straightforward of the three variables to combat; at least it’s the most familiar – it’s what martial arts traditionally focus on. For Musashi it meant the kinds of weapons that the Samurai was likely to use or to face: swords, bows, spears, knives, guns, sickles, flails, staffs, and the like. What does it mean for us, here and now?

Again, I want to disaggregate things slightly; to go into more detail. First, weapons – in the case of modern civilian combatives – is not simply the physical tools of punching and kicking. We have lots of “weapons” at our disposal. How we look (our appearance), how we carry ourselves (our deportment), how we speak or use our voice, can all be effective “weapons” for avoiding, forestalling, diffusing, or winning a physical confrontation. If we look like a “hard target,” or we remain calm and confident if tested out by a would-be assailant, then we have employed a “weapon” at our disposal. These things need to be worked on and practiced by the vast majority of people. How we walk, address others, clothe our bodies, and the like are crucial elements of the combative spectrum to own for ourselves. Perhaps they would be better labelled as “tools” in modern parlance.

Other tools include running, of course. The goal of self-protection is to get home safe and sound, free of legal hassles or any other post-event stuff, at the end of the day. The goal isn’t to knock some guy out, or (worse still) to kill somebody with our deadly secret ninja dragon-beak-to-the-wisdom-tooth strike. Such ends are erroneous, misguided. They may be a means to achieving the goal of getting home safe (though there’s more effective ways than the dragon-beak strike), but they’re not ends in themselves. Therefore, we have no business hanging around in a physical confrontation any longer than we absolutely have to (in the cases of security, police, or military operatives this clause of absolutely have to may be different to the civilian exit point). Running is therefore a major tool, and it needs to be practiced. I know of so many martial artists who run. They do it for cardio. Good. But do they do it as though they’re being chased? Do they run as though their very life depended on it? Few I’ve met do. The vast majority plod the streets or treadmill, perhaps looking for a better time. Run differently: choose your course or end-point. Get there as quickly as possible. Imagine someone chasing you – 5 of them armed with knives and bats. Take whatever short cuts you can. Hide in places for a minute or so. Sprint in the open, jog when you’re in an area that’s hidden from view. It’ll put a whole new inflection on things!

Like all things, running, using our body-language, making our image congruent, using our voice are skills. We develop these attributes by practice. If we don’t practice, we won’t have the skills when it comes to the crunch. I want to be as combatively efficient as possible, so the whole spectrum needs practicing. I’m not so good at running these days – back, knee, ankle, and age put pay to that – so I have to rely on other things. But for those still in one piece, practice running. It won’t be something that simply happens under the stress of a violent attack. We never rise to our expectations, we always fall to our lowest level.

An anecdote to ram the point home. A relative of mine once said that all this martial arts or self-defence stuff was just BS. All he’d do, and all he’d told his 16 year old daughter to do is run away. Everything else was just money-making crap that didn’t work. There are a few obvious problems with this approach – do you know where you’re running to? Can you actually outrun your assailant? Can your daughter actually run in those platform shoes she’s got on? – but I leave these aside. I simply stood up and “woofed” him just like we do on a FAST course. I got closer to him and told him what a jerk he was, and that he’d just insulted me. He continued the argument by firing back; I had spiked his adrenaline and he was angry now. The rest of the room was quiet. I let him carry on for a few seconds and then pointed my finger in a gun shape and said “pow!” and smiled. He didn’t see the significance at first and got more angry. I simply said, ‘why aren’t you running?’ He, like everyone else had either frozen in place, or (in his case) started to fight (if only verbally). He didn’t take flight despite his earlier claims. Why didn’t he? Well, probably because his sentiment wasn’t genuine, but most likely because he’d NEVER practiced running away from that sort of situation.

Part two next...

Musashi #2 - The Context of War

Following on from my previous post about Musashi’s Book of Five Rings, and in particular the quote that if we are to study the sword, then we must study “war,” “weapons,” and “men,” I want to look at the war aspect.

Musashi’s insight is equally applicable today as it was in his. War, weapons, and men cover the entire set of variables in physical conflict; they are specific terms for what we might call context, tools, and actors. Like every good play, we need actors and a stage. The stage is the context against which the story is set and acted out.

Musashi’s context included the medieval Japanese battlefield – mass ranks of swordsmen, mounted and on foot, and firearms (early firearms), set against each other in open conflict. The other context was the individual duel, usually with razor-sharp lengths of steel, and governed (on the whole) by a certain etiquette. To study the sword, Musashi tells us, we have to understand the dynamics of battle, and the dynamics and rules of duelling.

Our context is different. If we are military operatives or law enforcement officers we will have conditions and rules of engagement and contexts that, perhaps, resemble some of Musashi’s stage. If we are civilians, things will be different. We will be more likely to face potential muggings, assaults, ego-fuelled attacks, gratuitous violence, rape and sexual assault, abduction, home invasion, road rage, and the like. Yet, Musashi’s point holds. If we are to prepare ourselves effectively as combatives practitioners, then we must understand these contexts; we must understand the dynamics.

Our training – both in class and via our own research – should include learning about the different types of violence – broadly: social violence, and predatory violence, and how and where these are perpetrated. Social violence – pecking order violence or the “monkey dance” – is usually ego-fuelled and for dominance; the kind of thing that takes place in the bar or in the street after too much alcohol. It has a very different dynamic to predatory violence such as robbery or rape.

Do you know the warning signs, the things to look for, the things and places to avoid in each of these situations? Do you know what predators look for when they select a victim? Do you know how those who would do us violence interview their victims to see if they are suitable? Do you know how to give yourself the best chance of extracting yourself from such situations should you find yourself in one?

Understanding the method of operations of the criminally minded is crucial to being combatively efficient and safe. Not being in the wrong place – being judicious about the places we choose to go – is a good start. Watching and being aware, not in code white and switched off. Understanding what criminals want and how they will go about getting it – the tactics and deceptions they will use – means that we are forewarned; and we all know what that means. Predators give “tells” just like poker players. Sideways glances to check for witnesses. Distractions to draw the attention. Nervous ticks and touching the face (no bare-faced lies). Dialogue and deception to occupy our brains and get close. Invasion of our personal space.

If your training does not include learning this, practicing this, and reacting to it, then, sorry, but you’re not training properly.

One way to up your skills is to play the predator in your mind. Take a couple of hours, go to town, sit yourself in a coffee shop or wander about, and look for people who would be potential victims to muggers, scammers, and rapists. Why would they be selected? Try to adopt the predatory mindset. Who wouldn’t you select? Why? How would you get close to them? Where would you put yourself and how would you approach?

Do this, along with reading as much as you can about and by criminals, and you will have some idea about their MO, and stand a better chance of spotting it before it happens. Train it in simulations and scenarios so you get effective responses.

Remember, violence doesn’t take place in a sterile empty room with no one around except compliant, quiet attackers who announce their presence and intentions in advance. Your training should reflect this. It should be down and dirty. It should build in criminal attack patterns and dialogue as standard. It should be practiced in places that are dark, cramped, dirty, uneven, and unfavourable to you. If not, you’ll be surprised when it happens for real. Take my word on that.

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Never too Young

This post is prompted by a comment I read online by someone who'd attended a seminar with one of my colleagues on the IKMF Global Instructor Team.

The person expressed surprise that my colleague taught his young children anti-abduction strategies. And then went on to express thanks that we don't live in Israel, where such things might be necessary.

This is a sentiment I hear quite a lot. We should protect our children from such knowledge about abduction and the like. They are too young to understand. We will just scare them.

I don't think this could be further from the truth. If you're not teaching your children simple skills and strategies for possible emergency situations, then you should be!

I can't recall the exact figures, but it's a no brainer; virtually all families who have a plan in the case of fire in the home survive. Virtually none of those who don't, do. Just a simple plan. Where to go if the alarm rings. How to get there in the dark. How to bring other children or siblings along. How to escape.

This plan doesn't have to be scary or paranoia-inducing. We don't need to make our kids tremble in their beds at night through fear of burning to death. From a young age these can be practiced as games. Sound the smoke detector and practice walking or crawling to the special room. Do it blindfolded.

The same with other areas of personal protection such as anti-abduction. Put the music up loud, close the windows and doors and get the kids to shout "you're not my mum, leave me alone." talk about running from cars that stop. There's lots of ways to get simple messages across without being frightening. Do it occasionally, not all at once too.

Is this paranoia? Well, perhaps we don't have the levels of kidnapping that other parts of the world have, but we do have sexual predators. They're always moving amongst us. The recent uproar about evil-personified - Ian Brady - is a sad and tragic reminder of this, if we really needed one.

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Musashi #1

 ‘To study the sword you must study war, weapons, and men.’

Miyomoto Musashi, Book of Five Rings.

Something a little more esoteric. Like many long-term martial artists I enjoy reading the Book of Five Rings penned by sixteenth century Japanese swordmaster Musashi. It’s enjoyable in-and-of-itself for its literary style and as a cultural icon. But it’s also valuable for what it tells us about violent combat. Stripped of all its trappings and adornments violent struggle is pretty-much founded upon timeless truths. What Musashi writes about – what he uncovers – is as true today as it was then.

There are lots of choice insights in Musashi’s little book – about mindset, tactics, technique and so forth – but for me the most profound and enlightening insight is the above quote regarding what is necessary for studying the sword, which, for us, is our self-protection system of choice.

At its very basic level Musashi’s statement tells us that a martial art or self-defence system cannot be studied in isolation; it is not something that stands alone or apart from the world. Just waving a sword around – however beautiful the action or perfect the technique – is no more than a set of body movements if it is dislocated from the enterprise of using a sword for its intended purpose – as an instrument for killing an opponent. Similarly, punching a set of pads, or practising strikes in thin air is no more than aesthetically pleasing movements if disconnected from its intended purpose of striking another human being; it is just a dance-like enterprise.

Musashi’s context for the study of the sword is war, weapons, and men. Little has changed in today’s environment. Musashi’s terms are specific examples of more general notions of context, tools, and actors. If we undertake the study of self-protection then we must study the context in which the need for self-protection arises, i.e., violent situations; the tools by which such situations are perpetrated and successfully resisted, and the systems of their use; and the actors who take their various parts in the situation, including their motivations and methods.

Context, tools, and actors are necessary components for the full study of self-protection and, collectively, they are sufficient. They may even form an exhaustive set, for I can think of nothing else that falls outside this set which would be relevant.

I'll look at context, tools, and actors in relation to modern day combatives in forthcoming posts.

D

 

White Belt Mentality

Last night I had the pleasure of attending a Krav Maga class as a student. It was the first time in a while. Ordinarily I'm either teaching Krav Maga or I'm training with one or two other people in Krav Maga or various other combatives systems. Ocassionally though, I get the opportunity just to attend a public group class. It was the class of one of my instructors here at Krav Maga Nottingham, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Not only do I feel very lucky to have two other extremely talented instructors working with me, but I just enjoyed being a student again. I didn't know many of the people in the group so it was like stepping through the front door of a club for the first time again and having to adapt to what I saw before me.

From an instructor's perspective it's good to be reminded how difficult that step is for students. Often the most difficult thing to do is to walk through the door. Many people get defeated before they even turn up. Nerves get the better of them, and they rationalise it post hoc as not being for them, not what they wanted or what they're about.

From a personal perspective however I got to train as a beginner again, to do what the beginners do. T be a white belt. This is so important. Many people see being an instructor as the holy grail. Once you're there, you've "made it." That couldn't be further from the truth. Often being an instructor is a distraction from what brings us to training - the training itself. Most instructors don't train as much as when they were students themselves. Many also see it as the end in terms of learning. It's not. You have to grow. As an instructor or long-term student, you can't sit back on your acquired knowledge; you have to push on. It's why I've studied so mant martial arts. The need to go back to the beginning. Not only to learn what others are doing - which is vital as an instructor (we need to study what is useful and what we might face in an adversary) - but to challenge ourselves to be better, and to remind ourselves that we don't know everything and that there's always someone who either knows more or knows different.

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I'm Still Standing...

There’s a lot written about it already, but I keep coming back to Musashi’s Book of Five Rings. It’s a masterpiece that benefits from re-reading time and time again; the insights of someone who’d survived hundreds of real fights where death was the only other outcome. The insights are timeless, because, although weapons change a little (though not that much), men and strategy remain the same. From time to time I'll set down my various thoughts and reflections on this greatest of works.

One of Musashi’s insights is that there should be no difference between practice and performance, and our whole lives – every bit of them – should be practice. There’s no difference between walking or running in battle, and walking and running in our daily lives. Train how you intend to fight, and make every bit of everything you do a part of that training.

This insight helped me out in my own life several years ago. I was talking to my boss at work. Not my immediate boss, but THE boss. A powerful, perceptive, very forceful character. Everyone was wary of him. I’d given a presentation and we spoke a few words as we were leaving. He asked me a few questions and probed me a bit. And then he said: ‘Stand still man! You’re hopping around like a damned chicken!’ or some such thing. In retrospect I’ve never felt comfortable just standing and talking – a bit self-conscious – and, admittedly, I would always be shifting position whilst doing so. He’d picked up on this and had obviously found it annoying.

If the person I’d been talking to was an attacker the feeling he’d be getting is not one of annoyance but a clear signal of my discomfort. Uncomfortable equals not confident; a clear sign of weakness, which adds up to the perception of being an easy victim. Even if everything else had been perfect – my eye contact, hand positioning, voice, intonation, all the rest of it, my shifting about would have been totally incongruent and betrayed the lie that I wasn’t really confident. I had, what we call in the FAST system, "happy feet."

This really bugged me. After all, I’d worked for a long time in an area where doing this was required, and I’d done it. I’d reflected on it, practiced it, honed it in the mirror, and used it successfully night after night. What was the difference? The answer is, there really is no difference. I’d made a separation between life and work; between the different spheres of work. I’d not taken Musashi’s insight to heart and made the way I stand in battle the way I stand in daily life, and vice versa. Standing is just standing.

So, I brought the two into equilibrium. I use every single conversation I have with others as the opportunity to practice my situational control position. Standing firm, feet bladed, hands in front (talking Italian), making eye contact (another thing I find really difficult), intoning in a certain way. My colleagues and others don’t realise it but I’m training when they talk to me. Now, I don’t even realise it; it’s second nature. It’s just standing.

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