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.

D

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.

D

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...
D

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.

D