Category Archives: Hock’s Blogs

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WHAT’s YOUR FAVORITE AMENDMENT? By Hock Hochheim

I am again hearing the start of Presidential nominee campaigns and that one cute repeated question, “What is your favorite Constitutional amendment?” I sometimes wonder how I suddenly would answer that question. In a strange way it’s like asking,

“What is your favorite baseball rule?”
“Well Mr. Stephanopoulos, it’s the Infield Fly Rule!”
 
Strange? A baseball rule. When ball pops up, the event happens and you really need to know the rule. But in fact, it’s all the working rules of baseball that make the game function. The big picture.
We, growing up in the United States, have the usual elementary school and high school briefs on the rules of the Constitution. In many colleges these days it is probably abused by detached-from-reality eggheads, but it’s still in history classes. So, I leaned me something more about the Constitution. Then in the Army military police academy and Texas police academy, I was dosed with more Constitutional law. Tested on it in detail in exams. I knew the overall ballgame rules but then I had to then memorize phrases and the numbers of them–
 
“What is the 6th amendment, Mister Cadet? Write an essay.”
 
Yikes! Then working as a patrolman and certainly as a detective the Constitution became, well, like playing baseball. You know the rules in action when the ball is hit. What you can and cannot, should not do in action. Living it. You live it. Live and learn. It embeds. Still, The numbering system and phrases gets a little hazy through time. If someone asked me a deep dive question about the Constitution now after all these years, my answer would be a working feeling about what is right and wrong in the big picture. Then I would have to go read-remind that subject from my favorite specialist for decades – Allen Dershowitz. On the Constitution, say what you will, the guy was and is a straight arrow on ye’ old Constitution.
 
Which leads me to the second amendment, the debated-hated gun one. To me, a law class should also be a history class, but they aren’t. First, you must make a good study of the humanity, of history on this topic, of countries, of humans and nations marauding and raiding and enslaving each other consistently since the caveman club was invented. This is where stupid and-or uneducated or thinking-disorder young people fail. And distorted, bias, old folks too. They lack the emotional and intellectual I.Q. to realize the length and breadth of human history and pretty much – how it all sucks. Be afraid.
 
Be very afraid. Might be ten years. Might be 50 years…just as big horrors have happened before, and something horribly big will happen again (and again). People now living on their isolated detached, cupcakes of life are now seeing Ukraine invaded by the Ruskies. Now ALL of Europe is worried. And still, everyone misses all the smaller pictures, the less newsy battles in many parts of the world that never seem to end. But there’s cupcake night on Tuesday! Hmmmm.
 
The foundation begins with guns. The defense of the foundation starts with guns. It maintains with guns. There is that old story about Japan in World War II and how it worried about invading the USA – “There is a gun behind every blade of grass.” Some liberals like to debate the validity and source of that quote because it’s just too smart and “gunny” for them, but the quote is out there. I heard a version myself. Decades ago, on a security foot patrol with ROK Marines near the DMZ of South Korea, the Korean war and Vietnam vet, ROK sergeant said to me, “America will never be invaded. Too many guns.” I don’t know if he knew the Japanese version or not, but he understood the blood and guys of history, its breadth. Its width.
 
So, my favorite amendment has to be the 2nd amendment, the first foundation of security, the gun one. From which all others were protected enough to spawn. Yeah…I know. We suffer horrible collateral damage with it from the insane and criminals. It too is a war within a war and the war on the insane and crime will never end. I have worked the murders and the suicides. Hands on. My friends have been shot and some killed, but I still must maintain the big picture of world history within me and beside my grief. My emphathy. My grief and empathy is small compared to world history.
 
The 2nd Amendment must prevail in the big picture. In this country of some 340 million people and some say 500 million guns, if you believed the anti-gun liberals, we should all be dead by now, years ago. We ain’t. Gun crime, suicides and accidents remain a teeny-tiny sliver of events, of life in the big picture, and usually, laregly in Democratic Party run cities which distort the statistics. Each incident is still a tragedy. Also, in the big picture, I believe that every government now and in history, should have been and still should be, a little afraid of its people. The proliferation of weapons helps.
 
If you disagree with me on these opinions, that’s fine. Please ignore me as you have ignored human history and return to your shortsighted cupcake. The cupcake just appears before you and many refuse to see the ingrediants. The recipe. The parts don’t taste good.
 
 
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The “TABLE-SETTING” OF YOUR SEATED SHOOT-OUT?

Your “table setting” and “know your table” have big meanings, in the self defense shooting world. Ever shoot from a chair, behind a table at the live fire range? Not often I’ll bet. When done, the seated, range training set up, the “table is set” this way – it takes-makes the assumption that you are the “Lone Ranger,” seated alone, shooting an unidentifiable, abstract somebody (the paper target imagined threat) always shooting straight forward from your seat.

I still some see gun courses on film and in photos with people sitting at tables and drawing and shooting while seated, (even reloading there in the chair! And at times doing really awkward 360 checks while seated.) Or shooters fully stand up exposing most of their bodies. Does the table ever get flipped over in this ‘Lone Ranger’ model? Think about all the calibers out there and the fickle deflection angles and how some flipped tables might help. 

But this essay is not just about flipping tables. Sometimes you can’t, but rather about all the probable table situations and responses. “Know your table and the table-setting” shooting training via the “Who, what, where, when, how and why” question checklist.

  • The WHO questions. Who are you? Who else if any is at the table? Nearby tables? Who is the enemy? 
  • The WHAT questions? What is going on? Robbery? Domestic? Crazy guy? What kind of table? May it offer you some level of protection, even concealment. Shape? Heavy? Metal? Plastic? What’s on it? What kind of gun does the enemy have? What kind of chair are you in?
  • The WHERE questions? Where is this happening? A home, restaurant, conference, meeting? Gun show? Trade-days? Thanksgiving dinner (don’t laugh!)  Where exactly is this armed enemy? Where do you carry your pistol? In a booth – probably some 50% of the time you are in a booth not a table. Where is this table anyway? The table? Where are you seated? Is there space to do this between the table and the wall?
  • The WHEN questions. When exactly should you shoot in this situation? Or not shoot at all? Flip a table? Stand up? Dive? Finish dessert?
  • The HOW questions. How do you react?  How close are you seated to the table for your draw? Will the chair move easily on the carpet? Maybe flip this table? How do you shoot around it? Will the table completely turn over? How often are you seated alone to flip a table over? 
  • The WHY questions. Why did you go there? Why are you still there. Why are you still seated? Why reload while seated? Why stay seated?
  • Continue asking and exploring and answer these “Ws and H” quesions.

Set the real table with questions and answers. Hopefully in these live fire range classes, these samples of the “Ws and H” Questions checklist was-is mentioned in the opening lecture to introduce and remind the bigger problems of the table-setting shooting?

I do wonder, do the table-chair courses ever finish the live fire range segment with any of the best training experiences? Doing the simulated ammo situations with actors (just other attendees) in common makeshift table settings. (Sim-ammo is all I do.) Real, vital “shoot-don’t-shoot” decision making, interactive experiences.


Yes, you must shoot some live fire from the chair and table a bit. Yes. And then hopefully, in this ‘Lone Ranger’ range set-up, practitioners might practice a segment of oh…flipping tables over and shooting too, and also worrying about where Tonto is, and work on all the other probable things in simulated ammo situations, rather than completely ignore all the training of many other chair-table probabilities.

How do you set the table for table-related gunfights?

_____________________________

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A TAKEDOWN – DEEP HIP STYLE ROLLOVER THROW

A DEEP HIP STYLE ROLLOVER THROW (Or a standing “Fat Man’s Roll?)
This application of an “arm” takedown I have done once in police work in a domestic disturbance. While sorting things out in a house, a man charged me from the rear, having escaped the verbal control of another officer nearby. I heard the officer yell “Stop!” Before he could wrap my torso with two arms (to do what, did he know?) I was able to react.

This reactive move is found a few places but was based for me from high school wrestling from back in the 1960s! (Back then was only some 10 years earlier.) In such wrestling, there are “neutral starting’”positions and “referee positions.” One of the common “referee position’ starting points inside a match was one person was down on their knees, the other atop and somewhat beside him with one arm wrapped around the bottom guy’s torso (rules can differ). No clasping “bear hug” allowed yet at this point. This is not a collegate wrestling course so we will leave it at that.

One of the series of moves we practiced back then was the bottom guy grabbed that wrapped arm and rolled him over. When just freestyle practicing, this also happened when the bottom guy partial stood up at times. I frequently did and saw this work. This complete standing version starts looking a bit like like a classic hip throw, at least in part. Anyway from high school I still had this move, this concept embedded in me.

I remember that the guy rushed me to the point that I might fall over forward anyway. I tried to turn and then this old move from inside me busted out. Stepped back, dropped and rolled. His feet smashed into furniture. We arrested this man and the jailer told me the next day that the man begged for aspirin from a bad headache all night long. I think he hit his head on the floor, possible like in these photos.

  • Note in photo 1 the one arm grab.
  • Note in photo 2 the arm blocking his second arm from coming in and clasping me.
  • Solid grab on his arm in photo 3, which includes capturing his elbow.
  • Note in photo 5 the man landing on his head (in a perfect world).
  • Note small photo 6…keep rolling! As you roll over him to get up, an elbow strike oportunity might arise.

I am a proponent of the “double the force” concept – a late phase counter when being taken down. Can you grab the attacker, hang on, join with and add to the force of falling maybe with a turn? Putting him at a disadvantage 1) upon, during impact, or 2) after impact? Sometimes. Yes.

If you are going to practice it, try it a few times about knee high like some Judo (this known as Soto-makikomi) and wrestling does. Watch out for your partner’s head! Don’t forget to hit him at every opportunity, which Judo, BJJ and wrestling does not.

(I only did this one “for real,” one time in my whole life, but I ain’t dead yet.)

_____________

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MARTIAL STUDIES – ARE YOU ALSO GOING TO “JAIL SCHOOL?”

Do – Don’t do.
Should do – shouldn’t do.
Are you also going to “Jail School?”
 
 
What you don’t do in a fight-combat, helps define what you should do. With or without weapons. In a fight-combat there are 4 barriers to consider. They are very situational. They are-
  • 1: Strategy
  • 2: Morality
  • 3: Legality
  • 4: Ethically
Some say that Morality and ethics are the same. On the differences – Professor Google says “A lot of people think of them as being the same thing. While they’re closely related concepts, morals refer mainly to guiding principles, and ethics refer to specific rules and actions, or behaviors.”
 
In some martial arts, one of the sales points offered by some and usually directed at children is their martial arts build respect, character etc- and various good stuff. Exactly what I don’t know, varies, and I never have taught kids and officially never will. I don’t know how much and what is injected into their programs. Bully programs seem to vary. I do recall some “values-injection” in Japanese martial arts for adults and kids, but in very broad ways, good, but not very down to earth such as, “you know, if you do break this guy’s leg? You could go to jail. Here’s a quick 3 examples where it might be legal. Now let’s kick…”
 
Take a look at Thai Boxing (TB). If TB is studied strictly for TB competition, then why bother with any such categorical worries. True. Same thing with BJJ. But, if TB and BJJ are totally or partially sold and-or studied for self-defense and there is never, ever a mention of these 4 categories, their doctrine has a problem. If there is a knife guy just stabbing and stabbing away (sometimes at unarmed people) without ANY segments-mentions of the 4 categories discussed, the doctrine has a problem. If you are cracking skulls and bones with sticks without the 4 categories ever mentioned, the doctrine has a problem. If all a combatives guy does is growl macho-tuff-stuff, ear-biting, eye-squashing, endless knees and throat punches, etc. there’s a doctrine problem. In other words, in all cases…their total or partial self-defense class is now a bit of a “go-to-jail school.” And YOU are the potential cell mate. Blind, muscle memory is an unguided missile.
 
There are so many examples of this routinely  happening. We are probably all familair with misguided use of martial material applications. Look at the May, 2023 case, poor, well-meaning, former Marine case on the New York Subway, choking a crazy guy accidentally to death. Recently again in May, 2023, a woman was attacked by an immigrant in Denmark, an attempted rape. As he tore off her clothes, she sprayed him with pepper spray. Now she is under arrest for illegally carrying pepper spray! The rape suspect escaped. Too many examples to list.
 
Decide well. Think about it. Think ahead. Build this into your training. There’s a chapter or a book on each category, which we cannot get into in the limited space here. Screw these 4 categories up and you will wind up “wanted,” or in prison, or dead? Or a pariah. Or maybe you’ll ignore this advice and remain an ignorant, immature, senseless knucklehead, which means you will ignore this warning, and just be another negative drag on humanity.
 
When challenged in court, your system-art will be examined. This does come back to the “What” questions. An instructor-practitioner of any art or system has this responsibility and should answer these “What” questions.
 
  • What is your mission?
  • What is your doctrine?
  • What is your end-user product?
  • What are you trying to “make” of yourself and students advertantly and…inadvertantly?
Today’s gun training world is chock, chock full of these 4 categories. They avoid jail school, and such injections are certainly possible for all in the hand, stick, knife and gun genres.  For one example, my knife course has always been chock full of these “use of force guidelines,” to include a big segment on “less than lethal knife” applications. (These worries come to me from years of police work).
 
Guided not unguided missiles. Practitioners – are you also going to “Jail School” and don’t know it?
 
 
________________
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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WHAT IS AN ORDERLY RETREAT?

An Orderly or Tactical Retreat, (safely walking or running away!) Stay or retreat? A retreat has several definitions, like “retrograde” movements or a more modern “tactical retreat.” Usually, these definitions suggest that one retreats from a superior force in battle. Military.  In today’s civilian world, remaining to fight and take action, may become a physical, legal (criminal law and civil law) nightmare and monetary problem. Winning and the law are often at odds.

Whatever the terms, retro, orderly or tactical, it still means you leave, escape, withdraw, whatever, with the best plan to do so. For a smaller, personal situation an orderly retreat is leaving a confrontation, safely and without being chased, at all, or much.

“Just run away!” these pseudo experts will say. But, just how far can you run? How fast? How long?

The law will ask, if there’s trouble, why did you go there and why are you still there? Can you leave people behind? Will you be leaving family, friends and comrades behind? Can you leave? Should you leave? Sometimes you can’t leave. Your choice is highly situational. Think of any violent situation from a fistfight to a crime, to an active shooter, on to war and ask these questions about staying or leaving?

  • Who are you and who will you stay or retreat from?
  • Who will you leave behind?
  • What is happening that causes you to stay or retreat?
  • Where is this happening that might cause you to stay or retreat
  • Where will you retreat to?
  • When is this happening that might cause you to stay or retreat
  • When will this be over?
  • How will staying or retreating unfold?
  • How will this end?
  • How far and fast can you run? Can he run?
  • Why is it important enough to stay or go?

How exactly will you retreat? If you stay, there will be violence. If you go? Best go in an orderly fashion. When you add the term “orderly,” it speaks of significant specifics. What is this “orderly” version? An orderly retreat?

For one classic explanation, we can learn from Alexander the Great. His army suffered very few casualties and inflicted death upon some say 1.2 million soldiers more in comparison. The differences in death tolls were remarkable.

In his beginning battles he had some large causalities usually from chaotic retreats. When his troops hit their perceived “breaking point,” hey turned and they scattered, most were killed from behind, running in disorderly retreats. Long known, psychological factors reveal that it is easier to “kill from a distance” and to “kill from behind,” without seeing a person’s face, without seeing a “personality.” (This relates to crime also.) Then, Alexander adopted he Macedonian Phalanx, an infantry formation some historians say developed by his father Philip II, then some say the Sumerians. It consisted of blocks of heavily armed infantry standing tightly shoulder to shoulder in files several ranks deep. The blocks advanced. The blocks retreated by remaining in a tight Phalanx, still facing the enemy and moving backwards in formations, rather than splitting up, turning their backs and running away. This organized or orderly retreat principle has held true in crime and war.

Simply turning and running away, sounds like good advice, but how far and fast can you run, and such may make you easier to be killed, and may ignite an anger, and/or ignite a hunter-chase mentality in a criminal or a enemy soldier. Departing, withdrawing as smartly as possible is better choice.

Turning and leaving. In the martial word, just turning from a too close opponent standing or down on the floor-ground, is “giving up your back” and means something specific to martialists – exposing your back is an invitation to be choked. In crime and war your turned back make you easier to be beaten, captured or be killed. When you turn to leave, it should be done by first backing away in some manner to a safe distance and then turning to leaving.

When you turn to leave, it should be done by first backing away to a safe distance and then turning. That’s about the best universal advice we can offer for an orderly retreat, everything else is ever so situational. How do you do this retreat all the time? There is no one universal answer. It is highly situational. After studying the Ws and H retreat questions, then examine these options.

  • 1: Back away, still facing the opposition with de-escalation words? That may work sometimes.
  • 2: Back away, still facing the opposition saying nothing? That may work sometimes.
  • 3: Back away, still facing the opposition with threatening words? That may work sometimes.
  • 4: Pre-emptive strike. Then back away, still facing, then turn. That may work.
  • 5: You are thrown down. You get up, then pick one of the four choices above. That may work sometimes.
  • 6: You beat the holy hell out of the opposition. Then pick one of the choices as to if and when to leave. That may work sometimes.
  • 7: Your draw and presentation of a knife or a gun has a good success rate of freezing the opposition. How about any expedient weapon? Then pick one of the choices above to leave. That may work.
  • 8: This course is an unarmed course but pick up a nearby expedient weapon. This has a good success rate of freezing the opposition. Then pick one among the choices above to leave. That may work sometimes.

If no physical contact is made yet, we are still in the Stop 1 parameters and leaving the projected fight scene before it starts, is a quintessential Stop 1 situation-problem. But the option to leave may occur in any of the Stops, Stop 2 through Stop 6.

My old friend and advisor Colonel “Hack” Hackworth, vet of WW II, Korea and Vietnam, and at one time, the most decorated U.S. Army soldier, always had a “go to hell,” plan – for when things went to hell and that plan always included the best escape under the worst circumstances. He told me,

“Hock, sometimes you gotta’ blow the horn,” (the horn being thetrumpet of retreat.) “Always have a go-to hell plan, and another one when that one goes to hell too.”

“For he that fights and runs away, May live to fight another day.” This is attributed to Demosthenes, an epic Greek orator. Sometimes even heroes with the most hardcore, “never say die,” mottos are smart to retreat. Every stand-off, showdown and ambush is different. There is no one equation to retreat It’s all situational. All we can suggest is that if you can, if not escaping an active shooter or a bomb, you conduct an orderly, smart retreat should you decide to retreat. Face the person with words and command presence, a knife, or a stick, or a gun and back away. When a considerable distance is achieved then you might turn and leave. Sometimes with a weapon, you might even successfully order the aggressor to leave and he might comply under threat. 

There is no one way to prescribe any one universal orderly retreat, but it is important to understand the concept, teach the idea, and develop and practice some real, “go to hell,” plans.

___________

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MIMICRY IN PERFORMANCE

My first Guro Dan Inosanto seminar was in 1986 and he told a story about his high school football team. (I forget the pro players he mentioned). He said that he was a running back and kept crashing into the defense. The coach asked him why did he run the ball that way? Inosanto replied,

  • “I want to be like my hero ‘Joe Jones.’”
  • “Dan you’re 5’5.” Jones in 6’3”. Pick a smaller hero,” the coach said.

Dan did pick and with that advice and he broke many state-wide, California high school running back records. He also added once that his coach made them run up and down steep hills in practice and to run down the hill as fast as possible. Since it was a hill, you ran faster down than on flat ground. Inosanto said it was “a bit like flying.” The coach told them to “remember that feeling of that speed. Mimic it.”  (You usually learn a lot of related things at an Inosanto seminar.)

There are dreams of advancing, then there are tools to become advanced. Who knows those tools? I’d never thought much about these things before then. I also, needless to say, wanted to mimic Dan in terms of his knowledge, teaching and overall “cool.”

Improving. I mean, we all knew back then to weight lift to “get stronger,” and to run for endurance. What else? Well, repetition was important. But then who or what were we repeating? Mimicking? What of dedicated inspirations, guidance? Sure there was the Bible and Zig Zigler back then, but I’d never thought about codifying these diverse training ideas, inspirations and tools before 1986. They came very scattered. I was not alone. 

I grew up in the New York City area where one could play baseball and football endlessly through countless organized leagues of all ages. I was playing baseball until I was 18 years old, among guys in their 20s and 30s in money-sponsored teams. (I left the area at about 18.)  During these times, I and all others were under the influence of numerous coaches, and none had any real savvy about serious, performance coaching, a “teaching I.Q.,”even in high school where baseball, football and wrestling were big. Sure there were tips and some mistake-fixing yes, but not like today.

They’d say, “Playing is learning,” and we hear similar with martial expressions like “Learn to fight by fighting.” But that tops out too at-with your natural level of athleticism. Remember the prematurely athletic teen that was always the superstar high school quarterback? But 99.999% of them end up working in a factory. They topped out in high school. How to advance? Most coaches back then could not perpetuate such advancement. It seemed like much “mimicry” was a main teaching tool back then. “See how ‘so-and-so’ does it. He’s successful.”  

One of my goals was to play third base – “the hot corner” –  in baseball. A place known to receive a lot of fast ground balls and line drives. The throw was long to first base. It was a hard position, but I wanted to play there. And I did, especially after my long and lanky teen self had troubles as a catcher, because I was very long and very lanky. Many sports and spots depend on your size and shape. Fact of life. I then mimicked 3rd baseman Clete Boyer of the Yankees and I did well enough. One day I saw Boyer dive full-out to catch a fast foul ball. It was foul! Why not let it go? I realized that inside Boyers mind, at the crack of the bat, he was going to catch EVERY ball that came his way. Every one. He couldn’t stop to think at the hot corner, just – BALL! CATCH! He couldn’t help himself that the ball went foul. He HAD to get it. That idea inspired me. Moved me. An epiphany.  No coach ever told me that stuff, told us this stuff. So, I mimicked Clete Boyer, but without step-by-step “teaching technology,” I would never surpass a certain level. It seems epiphanies – those rare emotional, intellectual touchstone, inspirational moments – are rare.

Teaching I.Q.? Teaching technology? Take Willie Stargell for exampIe. I also followed Stargell of the Pittsburg Pirates. I stumbled upon a book about Stargell – there were several – and for the first time this particular writer discussed a performance shift in his aging career. He’d had an amazing career but suffered the usual slowdown with age. The Pirates were looking to move him to first base and maybe even benching him some. But that winter, many, many decades ago, Stargell attended one of the first baseball training camps, which at the time, way back when, were new and ignored, but Willie paid in.

The coaches and Willie identified every single thing in baseball he might face, every little episode, every event. Catching a ball this way or that way. Running from first base to second base, first to third, etc. To my memory they identified some 30-40 specific events, very big and very small. And, during that off-season at this ground-breaking camp, Willie did every one, 100 times each, almost every work day, under their watchful eyes. As a result, he had a rebirth in performance and played several more years successfully. He went back every off-season until other factors, mostly age, interfered. Wow. Another epiphany for me. Tools. Steps. Skill exercises, big and small. Set me to thinking about diverse applications in teaching. Teaching technology, so to speak.  

Thank goodness since then, this skill development, this training methodology really caught on, widespread, even down to grassroots, neighborhood league coaching. Officially! (When I coached my kids’ baseball teams I made it a point to take players aside and work on specifics in sessions.) For the last few decades we see this influence in every sport. Records of almost every sort have been broken. The talented continued to improve, The mediocre became better. The lost became at least, found. I also noted such advancements in high school, college and pro football. In the last decades we hear professonal football players talk about the difficult leaps in training from high school, to college to the pros. These methods are all another good form of mimicry too. Mimic the pros’ training methods, not just performance.

Are you way too lanky, tall and skinny to be the baseball catcher? There are reasons most succesful catchers are shaped as they are. We have to remember we are all different. Basic boxing is much the same, but Mike Tyson should not fight like Muhammed Ali, and vice-versa. Dan Inosanto should not run the football like Joe Jones. Don’t over-train in tennis to be a basketball player. Reduce the abstract. Isolate the skill steps and build them. In the Who, What, Were, When, How and Why questions I live for, this is a big “who question.” Who are you? Shape, size, age, strength, etc. Who do you mimic?

Who are your heroes and to what end? Coaches and teachers in these essentially cookie-cutter, sports and martial arts programs must be careful and recognize these differences. Is your “ku-roty” or combatives or self defense teacher a super-star athelete, power-lifter that oh-so does-looks the part? And…you’re not…can you recognize these reaities?

This is why I am obsessed with identifying and teaching the universal, versatile, achievable, core, survival basics foremost. What can most people do? Grasp? Get that stuff done. Work on the probable problems first, then the improbable. Then with good coaching I.Q., recognize natural attributes, steer developments and push people to their private mission success. Its one thing to play a lot of “baseball,” it’s another to excell at third base. At some point, customization must step in.

There are dreams of advancing, then there are tools to become advanced: Two very different things. A major way one advances is  with speed, flow and skill drills-exercises. You can’t over do these as many do, else you become a “drill master.”  Ask these classic questions:

  • Who are you and who can help you?
  • What is your push about and what methods exist for your push? What should you realistically expect?
  • Where can you work on this push?
  • When can you do this? (Willie did off-season!)
  • How far and fast can you, should you, push the envelope?
  • Why are you motivated?
  • Continue to ask and answer these and related questions. 

I am 70 years old now. I have been training and teaching all over the world, meeting with and working out with all kinds of people. Listen to me for a great and important tip. Your “who” changes with time…oh…what…every 5 years or so? Can you still do your once favorite moves? That high kick? That sacrifice fall on the mats, lest of all on cement? Can you still clearly see that front sight on your gun AND-OR your target as well, or are they blurry blobs? Can you still hit that fast ball? Do you need to alter-evolve, dismiss some of your favorite things? Can your 50 year-old self, mimic your 20 year old self? Take stock every 5 years or so of what you do.

There’s a lot to this “mimicry” subject.

______________

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How Do You Define Grappling? It’s Important!

 

Part One: Definitions

In an era of “words count” and “language precision,” how one defines “Grappling” today is indeed important for system doctrine. Does the noun “grappling” officially and unofficially mean as it once did – “all close-up, hands-on struggling standing and ground?” Or is it now just ground… wrestling? Is all grappling just wrestling now? Is all wrestling just grappling now? Can you punch and be “in” official grappling or not? Does “old school Jujitsu” – full of stand-up moves – still count as grappling? Apparently not…

For many decades, perhaps centuries in some cases, the definitions for “grappling” have remained in place. Grappling was once defined in the books and history as a:

  • “close hand-to-hand struggle” or,
  • “to take a strong hold of somebody-something and struggle with them,” 

Both standing and grounded. Anything goes, like hand strikes and kicking. Sports, point-scoring and arts were hardly mentioned, and if so in some cases, were not mentioned in the opening generic, dictionary lines but down a bit like in an addendum with samples.

But today! Thanks to the popularity of many modern martial arts, the word grappling has been redefined in many sources only as a “wrestling submission contest on the ground.”

Soooo, grappling is now nothing but a wrestling submission contest on the ground? What does this mean for ground n’ pound (Gn’P)? As a general rule, you can’t punch in wrestling, Judo, or Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, whether it’s in a competition or a training session.” So, that’s it for grappling? Just wrestling?

Sure, scholastic and Olympic wrestling has helped reshape this definition. And we can assume that the latest widespread rise in Brazilian Jujitsu (a BJJ school every three blocks, which is an overall good thing) has also influenced this redefining. In a way, “Brazilian Jujitsu” has hijacked the word “Jujitsu” in popular consciousness. Ask anyone remotely interested in martial arts and under the age of 40 years-old what “Jujitsu” is, not just Brazilian Jujitsu, but just Jujitsu, and they will automatically think of Hispanic wrestling. I don’t since I am way older, and since I did Jujitsu-Jujitsu, and Aiki-Jitsu, well before the marketing miracle of the UFC. (Say “UFC” and I presume people think “MMA.”) 

Nowadays, many schools advertise and call themselves just plain old “Jujitsu” when they are actually “full-monty,” Brazilan Jujitsu. The two have become so synonymous. In fact, if you ask Sensei Google any question about Jujitsu on the net, or if even quantifying a Japanese Jujitsu question, Google will usually respond with lines starting, “In Brazilan Jujitsu…” Search on Jujitsu images and I would estimate about 95% of the images are wrestling on mats.

Thats what you might call a martial monopoIy and brilliant advertising added to the fact that pure wrestling is very addictive. And that BJJ domination, along with wrestling and Judo runs deep, and has effected the term and understanding of “grappling” today. But, this redefinition to “ground submission contest,” has shrunk the original meaning. The word has evolved or actually de-evolved, into a fraction of what it once generically was. Bigger picture to smaller picture. One subject in the shrinking is about takedowns. Do you always fall with the person being dropped? Or not?

Sacrifice Falls and Accidental Falls. Wrestling of all kinds start with Stand-Up fighting-grappling, even if Stand-Up isn’t found within most popular definitions anymore. Inside these old and modern submission-wrestling based approaches, they must have ways to get opponents down on the mat to begin their ground, sport submission contest. Some BJJ folks just drop right on their backside now to start fights “at the whistle,” but ordinarily there’s a few stable takedowns and throws. How one takes down is a tribal definer – do you fall down willingly with the opponent or try to stay up? The fall-withs or “sacrifice falls” are easier. The stay-ups to remain standing or knee-high are a tad harder. They’re called by me “Sacrifice Falls” and “Accidental Falls”: 

  • Sacrifice Falls: The submission-school of takedowns use what we all still call, and we worry about – survivalists try not to do – “sacrifice falls.” Falling together, takedowns that involve the thrower using his or her own bodyweight with or without a little tripping and “sacrificing” their own balance to take the opponent down to the mat. Willingly falling, because well…. this is wrestling. They need to be on the mat. The submission is down on the mat. It’s what they live, and are, and what they do.
  • Accidental Falls. We survivalists don’t “sacrifice fall,” instead we try to remain up or at least knee high as we try to avoid the cement, glass, swamp, Astroturf, asphalt, tile, carpet, rocks, furniture and human accomplices of surrounding life. Having arrested people outdoors and indoors in urban, suburban and rural areas for many years, I-we know even untrained people can freak out scrap and and scramble, powered by isometrics and adrenaline and be a problem, all shapes and sizes of them, on the floor-ground. Here, citizens and soldiers should instantly resort to some or all of a ground n’ pound – MMA , priority-mentality. (There are always situational exceptions, some discussed here later.)

Both “Sacrifice Falls” and “Accidental Falls” can go three ways. For what you do, what fallen, follow-ups would be best for what you do?

  • 1- Wrestling. Of course for wrestling, they will only wrestle, or,
  • 2- ground and pound (GnP) or,
  • 3- a mix of both if open-minded and free.

Back to the Definitions. I use the older, bigger definition for my Force Necessary: Hand course, the unarmed course. In my doctrine, “grappling” is the “close hand-to-hand struggle standing and on the ground”  with no rules, just the laws for crime and war. And “with, without and against mixed weapons,” priority. The study will partially remain in the “MMA-like, kick-boxing-like, stunning set-ups via strikes and kicks, takedowns and throws, and primarily MMA-like, ground n’ pound, (and with choke finishes). (MMA really is the closest sport to reality.) Joint lock-cranks are certainly studied, standing and on the ground for general “martialist’ knowledge, and of course much joint-locking is inside takedowns and throws. All martialists must know how all joints of the body twist and bend, no matter what system they do, this knowledge breaches into ground fighting. They are also used to keep people “still” for awhile, like your drunk uncle…

Still For Awhile? – Submitting Drunk Uncles... In survival combatives, we look at and dissect a few, super basic, simple submissions for those times when our “drunk uncles, other relatives and-or nutty friends” must be contained temporally. Captured, not hurt, because you will see cousin Charley again at next year’s bar mitzvah. But, submissions (other than chokes) for us, are not the over-emphasized-main mission. Not… “king.”

In wrestling, the submissions are king. The end game. The mission. In combatives, these self defense submissions are… well… the prince? Or maybe the spare prince after the prince, like Prince Harry. The backup prince to the prince. Obsessing, over-prioritizing sport submissions for tap-outs are off-mission for us in fighting crime and war. They’re fun. Interesting. Athletic. Addictive. Great exercise. Great folks. Proud hobby. But off-mission. So, what then about law enforcement?

Submissions in Police Work. When you get a bruise on your ass, from the badge in your wallet, in your back pocket, you know you’ve really been real ground-fighting. These experiences, investigating cases have worroied me, helped me “set a bar” a stage, for reality in ground doctrine. What’s works? What’s sports-art. I’ve had to arrest some people. Best records I can amass since 1973 is about 900 people in the field as a patrol officer and detective. Not too many arrests really in all that time. Some resisted, some fought, and a rare few tried to kill me.

Checkers versus Chess. My physical end “checkers move” was to handcuff them. A very large majority of submission-tap-out material were “chess-like, sports-art” and not a priority ending. Handcuffing was. The fight doesn’t end with a tap-out, and you cannot go about your life breaking everyone’s bones to end fights. First off, you should not toss EVERYONE on the ground, all the time. You don’t have to. But standing or ground, if you joint crank-lock someone, and they cry “Ouch! You got me!” when you let them go, they continue fighting or continue to run away. Trust me on this. If down and leg locks? Too far away from handcuffing and not a police priority, In general, I have found old school Jujitsu with a lot of Stand-Up grappling way more valuable. 

Chokes were always an intrical part of early police training and “street” use. I have choked out about 10 people or so, maybe 9 or maybe 11? Not exactly sure how many, That’s not many. Standing and downed chokes are a survival priority for all to use (and a prominent place in the Force Necessary: Hand curriculum.) 

I scratch my head every time I hear that “all police should be purple belts in BJJ.” Ahhh…no. A world of sacrifice falls? Submissions? Leg locks, Chokes (remember chokes are now taboo)? Wrong world. Maybe an orbiting moon? But not the planet. Just…just no. Reduce the abstract. Police need a customized, unbiased –  repeat UNBIASED – course of 100% mixed-weapon, police stuff, dressed in police uniforms. BJJ? Just…just no. Police ground fighting is very different animal and it is a mistake to think pure BJJ or any art should be police-mandatory. Remember the Gracies even started a G.R.A.C.I.E. Law Enforcement course, seperate and much different than BJJ, further proving that pure BJJ is not suited for police. (I hear only mixed reviews and am ignorant about it. I plan on attending someday to investigate. Take note that there are numerous police grappling courses “out there.” Don’t take one given by martial artists. Take one owned, operated by cops or ex-cops who were-are also martial artists.

The military needs it’s own highly customized courses too. Don’t get me started on that fiasco.

Submissions in Civilian world. How does all this blend with civilian self-defense-survival? When civilians wrestle on the ground with unarmed and armed rapists, robbers, muggers, drunks or bullies, I wonder, “What is their perceived end game?” The bad guy says, “Ouch! Okay, I quit!” You then…let go? The once controlled thug will re-continue fighting. Or, will you lay locked on the ground indefinitely until help arrives? If help does or can? Again, the real fight doesn’t end with a tap-out, and you cannot go about your life breaking everyone’s bones as some half-wits might suggest. It’s all very situational and legal-problematic. A very large majority of submission-tap-out material were “chess-like, sports-art” and not a priority ending for normal people, in our real world and circumstances.

So…No More Striking? If grappling means “ground submission contests” and ground submission contest systems deny striking…one-plus-one-equals-two…are strikes and kicks (knees too) no longer allowed in official “grappling?” For me, no. I stick with the older definitions and “ground n’ pound.” Speaking of Gn’P, remember the old Gracie quote?

GnP is a mandatory priority for ground survival. Roger Gracie once said that, “80% of BJJ is usless in MMA.” Rickson Gracie said it was 75% useless. Many people think I am useless and dumb, but in all my years of doing, watching, investigating, experimenting, classes, seminars, working out, arresting people, I agree with these icons’ opinion. I am not alone.

(Quick mention: My old friend and Green Beret Greg Walker said – “While editor of Full Contact magazine I interviewed, did some training with Rickson Gracie. One of my questions of him was this. “What is your favorite technique?” His reply, which we published in our ground-fighting issue was this. ‘My SIG 220.’ “)

 

Looking at the UFC, ESPN reports the headline: “How MMA Fights End: Submission Victories Way Down” “Less time is spent on the ground overall,” they report. Gn’P way up. Chokes are catagorized in the submission category numbers, so how many of the vanishing submissions were chokes? Take away the many choke stats and what’s left in the shrinking submission sucess category?

There are of course splinter groups with some strikes, “grappling” with wrestling-only problems and trying to introduce realities. Like Eddie Bravo’s Combat Jujitsu that allows for hand strike slaps. “Strikes can only be done with an open palm. Palm strikes to the body, the face and the side of the head are considered legal. No closed fists allowed. Standing grappling is only permitted for 1 minute maximum. After 1 minute of standing, a horn sounds and the referee enforces the “Get Down” rule. There is then a coin flip and the winner decides whether to be on top in their opponents butterfly guard with double under hooks or on bottom in the same position reversed. If the one standing has clearly been the aggressor then they automatically win the coin flip.”

Okay! That’s kind of complicated, but as I said, there are splinter groups. Even the Gracies had to start “Gracie Combatives.” Why? If it was so perfect in the beginning as advertised, Why? Just…just stick with today’s generic MMA, I think. It’s the closest you’re gonna get. It is interesting that when wrestling systems add so-called “self-defense,” offer self defense versions, they start losing their origin dogma-doctrine, their original “look,” and become… well… combatives. (Ahhh – that’s my planet.)

Speaking of the UFCs of the world, I must quickly mention that I have a process in my evaluation of a hand-to-hand tactics-techniques. I have two questions in that vein…

  • Question Test 1: Have I seen this move work consistenly, full speed in the UFCs of the world?
  • Question-Test 2: Should I even consider the UFCs because they have rules. They are not the end-all test, crime and war are.

In summary, fighting system doctrine, not dogma, guides the system. Mission. Martial I.Q. studies the ways and mean to develop doctrine. Definitions really count. They they might change “right under our feet” (yes a pun). People do what they do for a variety of reasons. Know your reasons, the definitions and the doctrine. Be happy. Be educated and content on your planet. Know why you’re there. Or? Hop a spaceship.  

 

Part 2: Smart Ass, Dismissive, Gaslight Remarks

BREAK! OKAY! STOP! You Can Stop Here If You Wish! Now This Essay Has a Two-Fold Mission. One mission with this essay is to examine the meaning of grappling and how it’s changed to suit marketing and the times. And the other subversive mission is using the public definitions for – well – a long, long awaited response to the occasional ignorant criticism of me and what I chose to do, my courses. My mission. I usually ignore these biased critics, but when some reach arrogant, ignorant asshole levels it just becomes harder to ignore.

Though I have worked “hand-in-hand” with Catch (my favorite) and BJJ people, I do still seem to aggravate a small percentage of doofuses. I sometimes hear the smart ass, dismissive remarks that…“Hock knows nothing about grappling.”  Another classic retort is the advice that since I am so utterly dumb and blind that I just need to join a BJJ school to finally understand what real “GeeeRAPPLING ” is. (As if I have never had explored all this.) These critics rely on their smaller, definition of the word “grappling,” the “submission ground contest” version, and they have no idea about me, my past and my mission. They read a short something I written or said… and… assume I am dumb.  You see, for them, I haven’t joined their tribal church, seen “their light” as they know it. But, I am not quite as dumb as you think.

The occasional half-wit, hyper-sensitive assholes even type this, “You wouldn’t last 5 minutes in the UFC MMA ring.” Dear Idiot-boy, I am 70 fucking years old, I wouldn’t last one minute with 30 year-old, 6-day a week, fight-athletes in the ring. But here’s another secret your peanut brain hasn’t figured out. About 95% or more of martial arts instructors and students in the whole planet wouldn’t last 5 minutes in the UFC – MMA ring, young or old.

I am rather familiar with their matted landscape. In police academies and waaay back when in, in-service training there was much control and contain ground fighting, with strikes, kicks and chokes. Once very brutal, the police doctrine got paranoid by around the 90s and the more rough-stuff disappeared. As I said, chokes are pretty much gone. The old police stuff was Catch, Judo, Jujitsu, even old-school Karate. I enjoyed the regular Police Judo classes the military police offered, which were all of the aforementioned, but much situational police-problem-solving also. (They called it all police JUDO back then because “Judo” was a popular word.) In the 80s I started with Jujitsu, Aiki-Jitsu and JKD which was always “up and down.” In 1986 I started up with a deep dive into the Inosanto Family which was already hooked up with Gracies and Small Circle Jujitsu. I was a Larry Hartsell fan and regular attendee of his chock-full-of-Catch-Wrestling and other “grappling” moves. I got to a Level 5 in the Inosanto Family system which included Nakamura “Shooto” shootfighting-shoot-wrestling. Fantastic stuff. High grade MMA. Also luckily for us, there was a famous clan of BJJ guys in the DFW area that put on seminars and open mats in the 1990s. Great people and great stuff. Meanwhile, I studied Aiki-Jitsu (A.J.) to Black increasing my time at throws and takedowns. (Once an A.J. uke was grounded though, A.J. hits or stomps him, as with Parker Kenpo which I started out with in 1973. Little ground time-stuff there, and all stand-up grappling and throws-takedowns… which I guess, doesn’t count anymore? In the newer, “contest-ground-submision” grappling definition?)

The Resisting Opponent…Thing. The nice advice also comes in. “If you just would wrestle for “a year” against resisting opponents, you would build your “Spidey Sense.” This “resisting opponent” is a sales pitch thrown out to others and to me and my presumed dumb self. (My accumulated experience in this subject is already well beyond “the theoretic year.”) My “resisting opponent” in “combatives” is also trying to punch, elbow, face maul and possibly kick me too. Their resisting opponent will not, does not, won’t punch, maul, elbow, kick or cheat. In the end whose “spidey sense” will be smarter for survival? Whose muscle memory will be “better?” 

Muscle Memory- The Lost Strike – Forgetting Ground and Pound. Through all the wrestling-related materials I worked on, I worried about “muscle memory.” That if I just did that too much, I might forget striking, blocking and kicking. I had numerous friends in Judo and later BJJ, who, essentially, literally, forgot to punch, to hand strike. I’ve seen this type of loss many times over the years. Striking is not in the doctrine-dogma. I worried about me missing survival opportunities and would from, well, brainwashing forget striking and opt instead to roll and roll around.    

 I recall one time when a batch of “new kids on the block” were doing a seminar involving unarmed fights inside cars. These guys are biased BJJ-ers. Car fighting is logistically hard to teach-show because car interior wrestling destroys the insides of cars or they have to “hold back” from reality to save the cars. After a few sessions, I commented that there was not a punch, elbow, or palm strike, head bouncing off window-dashboard or door post in the whole somewhat, cooperative car wrestling match. None were taught either in isolated, outside-the-car possibilities. One of the hyper-sensitive instructors responded, “You know nothing about grappling!”

Oh? Huh? In 26 years in police work I’ve had to climb into and remove and fight people inside cars. Palm strikes, hammer fists and elbows were VITAL. That gaslighting angry instructor? He sells insurance and has a commercial BJJ school.  So as not to embarrass him, I said little in reply. I so wanted to say though – “And YOU know nothing about fighting inside cars, bubba.” Shoulda. But I didn’t. As I am not that type of public asshole. (And you know otherwise, that guy is great BJJ-er and a very nice guy, but I guess, just hyper-sensitive.) But, there was that classic line again. Make a comment about the limited, inherent inefficiencies of wrestling muscle-memory? Bingo! You get the standard gaslighting remark. It’s like a rehearsed line from a passed around script. That line the best you got?

Simulated strikes on friends in training aren’t felt or recognized at all, and these things become worthless in “pressure testing” and “resistance experience.” You always end up in wrestling matches because ignored simulated strikes don’t count and slowly, innocently, disappear, de-evolve away. The ignorant, shallow person with a low martial I.Q. can’t recognize this training problem-conundrum. In MMA matches, this is not a problem. They strike “when the iron is hot” for real. When the hole is open, and the hole opens a lot. In combatives this concept is not a problem either. If there’s a hole? They hit it. We must recognize and reward these in simulations to ensure proper doctrine. Real reality training can at best, sometimes, involve acting. Say that last line aloud twice.

One flippant daushbag said once that he bet I’ve never had someone really grab me around the neck. Well, Ding-Dong, I have. The guy damn near broke my neck and killed me in South Korea. I broke his finger to survive. I have been put in the hospital and I have put people in the hospital. But ding-dongs don’t know me. 

Seemless Fightng, Not Segmented. In my hand, stick, knife and gun courses, I have a motto, “everything you do standing, you should try and do on the ground.” Constant experimenting. We are constantly, consistently doing combatives on the ground. Striking, kicking, trapping-pinning, choking, drawing weapons, shooting, slashing, stabbing, even taking this or that joint lock-crank…on the ground. I am committed to the seamless application of all good moves, from standing through the ground.

I still work closely with Catch and open-minded BJJ guys in seminars, seeking, searching for any aspects of self defense and escape material I can use and teach. Look at my schedule. Look at who I ask to appear with me. Who I ask for help and admire. These people will vouch for my looooong time interest and investigation in….”GERRRaaapling.” I REALLY want to learn the 20% and 25% that Roger and Rickson Gracie mentioned above.

In my hand, stick, knife and gun courses, I have a motto, “everything you do standing, you should try and do on the ground.” Constant experimenting. We are constantly, consistently doing combatives on the ground. Striking, kicking, trapping-pinning, choking, drawing weapons, shooting, slashing, stabbing, even taking this or that joint lock-crank…on the ground. I am committed to the seamless application of all good moves, from standing through the ground. What do you think I’ve been exploring-doing for the last 51 years? I do know something. I am not as dumb as you think.

But gaslighters? It’s just I don’t look like you, dress like you, think like you, act like you, seek what you seek, we don’t start like you, or finish like you and our middle is different. I… have… a… different… mission. Just because I don’t worship at your church, doesn’t mean I’m a heathen.

Summary. So in a world where “words count,” precision language is important.  If your only definition of a grappling expert is just being a dedicated master of tap-out, submission ground contests? Then maybe you are right about me. I do not know the tons and minutiate about your fractional, smaller definition of “ground sports contest grappling.” Maybe in that regard, you should get all uppity-superior on me. Go ahead, but try not to be too much of an asshole? I might just agree with you. I am always looking for tidpits I can alter, process, use and teach. And counters. Counters to everything. When I am there to learn, I am not there to replicate systems, I am there only to learn how to beat systems.

Oh, and to the asshole, hyper-sensitive commenters with ignorant, snap, gaslight judgements, with no internal filters bordering Tourette Syndrome…who really don’t know shit about me. Fuck you. Fuck you and the horse you road in on – remember in the very big picture of hand, stick, knife, gun crime and war? Your horse is really defined as a very small, one-trick pony.

______________________________________

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Hock's Blogs

ODD BROKEN FINGER WHEN PUNCHING?

Usually, one breaks their hand when punching the “Bicycle Helmet,” top area of the head. The opponent ducks or ducks-and-turns his head and you, whether thrusting or hooking, when your bare fist hits the “helmet” area, your hand gets jacked up. But here is an odd story of my busted-up finger not near the helmet. (Here, Tom McGrath of the UK is helping me demo this underarm delivery uppercut in Belgium, the centerpiece move of the essay.)

One night I was arresting someone, and he decided to fight me. And in the tussle he threw a pretty lame thrusting punch or push, or perhaps a bad blend of both at me. Anyway, I wound up in this underarm uppercut position – which is a popular training position – and I punched him in the chin. Pretty decent shot as he was bewildered enough for me to yank that arm around his back and handcuff him.

BUT…I remember the sharp pain in my middle finger. While booking him into the jail, it swelled up and of course I knew the lump wasn’t cancer. I knew it was from the guy’s damn, pointy jaw and the solid position his head was in. Well, the swelling went down in a day or two. Pain went away. Another come-and-go.

Through the years though, cysts appeared and disappeared in that space in the space between the middle finger and pointy finger and up the middle finger. Small-sized and medium-sized. I thought it weird, but they eventually came and went away too. Then one month, one lump got so big that I really couldn’t do much with those fingers. When I couldn’t put stamps on envelopes, I decided to see a hand doctor.

Diagnosis? That punch from many years back put a hairline fracture in my finger bone from the knuckle to first joint. The fracture edges were rough with growing bone spurs and the spurs caused cysts. Cure? Hand Operation! Remove the growing octopus of a cyst and shave the bone. Nothing to fix with the hairline fracture which I gather was naturally, “glued” somewhat together from time. (Yes, the cyst in a jar he showed me looked like a min-octopus.)

We hear a lot about broken hands-fingers from fights, and I have had a few classic hand swellings from punching people on the job, but when punching I never had common breaking problems many other cops (or people) had, which was kind “blind-concept punching,” I guess you could call it. From training I just aimed lower and held a tighter fist (tips from old ku-roty). I just had this lasting one problem, one I think rather uncommon for me, from an uppercut, down below the “helmet.”  

I don’t want to start a long scientific punch vs. palm strike dissertation here, nor create the martial hand damage medical list. I am not against bare-knuckle punching. Other than the “helmet area,” heads usually do “give” when struck, jaws give, necks allows for movement, but there’s much less give in that bicycle helmet area. People see…INCOMING! and reflexively drop their face. Where the nose once was is now the “helmet head!

Fists must be tight, not loose as bad habits create inside boxing gloves. (Bad habit, ask Tyson.)  When we fight for real, we won’t be wearing gloves and a mouthpiece and bare knuckle fighting is a real-deal, end challenge. Prep for it yes, but I don’t think we should destroy our knuckles and hands hitting hard things that don’t give-way somewhat, as done for decades like with old school karate-kung fu people. (I know old-timers that cannot hold a cup of coffee in their hands today from makiwara boards and the like. There were times when monster knuckles were badges of honor.) 

  

Tone that down! You don’t want to meet the “Situs Brothers – Arthur and Burr” in your 50s and 60s. Rather we have to “strike” a compromise, pun intended.

I also think instructors should take a look at their practitioner’s hands and inspect the size, shape and potential for real-world punching. Some people ae structured to punch tanks, others have little thimbles for fists and should not trust punching anything, despite the endless focus mitt and bag drills they are forced to do. In the end, your job is to build customized, personal success as a doctrine, not replicate cookie-cutter dogma results. One size does not fit all. One system does not fit all. One sized fist training does not fit all.

Anyway, all’s well with that finger now. Hey, remember the bicycle helmet area advice! Aim lower. Tight fist.

________________

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WHEN CPR FAILS!

I have been lucky I guess, having done CPR on a few folks though the years and they all lived. EMTs are doing it all the time. with mixed results. But citizens? Adam Gent of Real First Aid in the UK wrote this important consideration. 

“There are two traps that prevent us from having difficult conversations in educating First Aid:
Dark humor.
Ill-founded optimism.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of dark humor.  But if we create an environment where only dark humor is allowed, we do not allow any space for difficult conversations – every opportunity for a meaningful conversation is deftly deflected with an automatic joke and crippling bravado.

What do I mean by ill-founded optimism?   Telling people “CPR saves lives” as though it is a given.  Because it doesn’t.   The absolute vast majority of people who go into cardiac arrest stay there.  Forever.  But I get it.  We want to foster optimism; we want candidates to go out there and do their best.  Why wouldn’t you try?  But to tell people that CPR can restart a heart or that it can ‘bring someone back from the dead’ is just cruel.

I have lost count of the number of people I have met who have told me about their experience of having to do CPR, and it predictably follows the same format “…so I did CPR…but they died.” With a look of absolute desperation, blame and guilt.  All because they were told that CPR saves lives, but in their case it didn’t.   How unfair is that?

I know people who have performed CPR on their family or friends who are clearly dead, because the Call Handler told them to.   Their last memory of their loved one is brutalizing their body and the taste of their vomit in their mouth.  Because they didn’t have the confidence to accept they were dead and nothing could change it, because they were told “Only a doctor can declare someone dead” or that “once you start CPR you can’t stop” or some other nonsense.

Make time for difficult conversations about how woefully unsuccessful CPR is without a defib or within a reasonable time frame.   About accepting that dead people tend to stay dead.   They were dead when you found them, they were dead while you were doing CPR and they stayed dead afterwards.   Nothing changed.  It was not your fault.   Make time to talk about loss and grief.

Difficult conversations are worth having precisely because they are difficult.” – Adam Gent  of https://www.realfirstaid.co.uk/

Hock's Blogs

BLACKJACKS and SAPS, ETC.  

With advancing age and advanced age, one’s reliance on “kuraty” wanes. Someday I know I will be limping around with only my snub-nose, hammerless revolver in my jacket pocket as my only and last resort, despite all the years of training. And what of those who’ve never done any “kuraty?” These inevitabilities make one think about handy support, self defense weapons. Like the small handgun and one might be…the mysterious, intriguing…blackjack.

Andre Wong of Police One defines: “The sap, slapper, or blackjack is a heavy leather pouch, eight to twelve inches long, filled with lead and sometimes a flexible steel rod. Unlike a baton, a sap’s size and shape allowed it to be concealed inside an officer’s pocket. Saps may not look as intimidating as a gun or a baton, but thinking they’re not dangerous would be a mi stake. A sap is dense enough to break bones when the user has room to swing, and the leather edge is rough enough to cause a dull, ripping laceration to the face when used as a jabbing instrument. Slappers would be ideal for use in ultra-tight quarters like a fight on the ground against a large suspect.”

I noticed a number of folks selling and teaching these tools of late. And numerous training videos. I see a lot of artistic, photo displays of weapons on Instagram, and most include saps laid amongst knives and pistols, etc. Given the laws of most states in the USA and countries around the world, I am not too sure you want to be “caught” carrying one, or using one. I am not too sure many of these teachers, photographers or makers have ever used a blackjack in a fight? Not that, that is a mandatory rule. Smart people can invent and teach smart things. Or, have they considered the vast legal ramifications of wearing and using a blackjack?

The law? Here’s just one example, from the People’s Republic of California and the many states that swap legal weapons lingo: California Penal Code 22210 PC makes it a crime to manufacture, import, sell, give, or possess leaded canes or batons (or other weapons in this category). The offense can be charged as a misdemeanor or felony. A conviction is punishable by up to 3 years in jail or prison. A leaded cane is a: crutch, staff, stick, or rod (later defined as any blackjack) that is weighted with lead so it can be used as a weapon. The statute also applies to short and weighted objects that can strike a person.”

Okay! Then, well, so much for California. You heard it’s illegal, but it sort of “brings it on home,” when you read the actual laws. I fail to see the word illegally “teaching” in there, though. Exponents, fans and sellers say that in most states you can own one (at home), but warn not to carry one or use one. ETSY sells them as “novelty paperweights.” Others advertise them as “change purses with stout handles,” with coinage inserted via a zipper on the striking end for weight. This fools no one. 

Police carry. I was officially issued and carried one in Texas policing for many years in the 1970s and mid-1980s, though I rarely hit anyone with it as I was trained and training in empty hand systems so much, I used that first and foremost whenever I could. I noticed that others less trained, whacked the crap out of people with them. I have seen people stunned and knocked out by them, and upraised fists smacked by them – instant, significant reaction. In the U.S. Army Military Police and in Texas we were also issued batons, which again, I didn’t actually use much, though rules were pretty “stick-free-wheeling” in the MPs. (We were even taught to quick-search a body with a stick, rubbing it all around the potential weapon-carry spots, which now…would probably be considered rape of some sort.)

Where did we tote that thing? Believe it or not, in the golden, olden days, usually in our back uniform pocket! Able to be easily yanked out by any miscreant! In my small world I’ve never seen that happen, although stats tell us that lots of resisting people did and do like to grab our stuff and it has probably happened. I have had some attempted gun grabs (one on the ground) and handcuff grabs. Some uniforms had sewed-in sap pockets on the thighs. I hear that some uniform companies still add these “sap pants pockets” (costs more) as a matter of routine…but remain empty.

Empty? Many police agencies, mine included, decided one day in the 1980s to collect up all the blackjacks and hide them away in dusty closets. Night sticks also slowly de-evolved into expandable batons, then for many agencies all “sticks” also completely disappeared (along with those BIG flashlights).

Blackjack Training Issues and Problems. I sometimes consider slipping a “Blackjack Module” into my Force Necessary: Stick course, because it is an impact weapon. I often consider too, changing the name of Force Necessary Stick, to Force Necessary: Impact Weapons. But, it doesn’t “sing” so well as the core, four single nouns, “hand, stick, knife, gun.” Imagine that added, elongated song title of nouns – 

“Hand, Stick-Flashlight-Blackjack-Sap-DanBong, Knife, Gun.”  That makes for a long album cover name. Even adding the term “impact weapons” replacing the solo word “stick” rambles on, “Hand, ‘Impact Weapons’ (instead of just ‘Stick’), Knife, Gun” is still too long for me. It is hard to replace the simple, message “impact” (yes, pun intended) of single-syllable caveman, “Hand. Stick. Knife. Gun.”

With blackjacks I have other reservations other than just too many syllables and nouns in the title. Mostly those weapon laws, yes, and then “supply and demand” problems. First off, they are illegal to run around with almost everywhere to begin with, lest of all a box of them. But then so are samurai swords and that hasn’t stopped classes on them! Just don’t walk into a Walmart wearing a katana. People like to study all kinds of stuff from esoteric to practical.

If I taught the sap subject, I would need to travel worldwide with a supply of, a bunch of actual saps or training saps at seminars for attendees. You see, no matter how much we ask, people do not show up with the subject gear. Local schools do not have a boxloads of saps in their closets either.

In my world I’d need like…25 or 30 of them. And do you now much stuff I already fly with? Boxes of stuff. Why so many? There’s not much worse than having a specific, weapon-topic seminar, or a session within a seminar, showing up and no one or almost no one has that specific training weapon. I could tell you stories. You are talking to a guy who’s been stopped in Australian airports because I had a box of wooden pistols. What safety, look-a-like, substitute could I fly and drive around with such a box of stuff, that would be blackjack-like and yet, not get me tossed in TSA or the local hoosegow for illegal weapons? Just one real one in my luggage or to and fro the seminar could be legal trouble.

Making the blackjack subject matter a mandatory part of the FN:Stick course, makes these support accommodations on me mandatory too.

The padded knife-dueling tool shown here is an option but it is not perfectly shaped, removing the nuances of the weapon. (This is also a knife problem when trying to emphasize the knife’s edge with a rounded replica.) And…no strap! You have to experience the scenarios with the straps-lanyards. 

In the spirit of “reducing the abstract,” Nok – Tak Knife sells a soft cleaver knife, with flat top that might better substitute for a sap. About $40.  Again, no strap. And I am quite sure, someone reading this will supply a photo of replica training blackjack, with the quote like, “Dracula’s Obscurities sells foam saps for training!” And of course, more news that John Doe can make them in his garage. Great news for the sap training world.

If I did teach this topic, I would not replicate the mediocre police blackjack material of yesteryear, but rather teach the subject through the basic and advanced “Combat Clock,” I’ve used for 27 years now. The basics? “Slash and stab” at 12, 3, 6, 9 or high, right, low, left. Advanced? All numbers of the clock, standing through ground. And then the nuances, the nuances of that particular weapon. One such nuance would be sap-targeting, another is if you turn the standard, flat top, blackjack sideways, it is more stout and less “giving.” Another is suddenly grappling with one strapped to your hand or wrist – one must experience the “judo” and “jujitsu” moves of the world with one strapped-wrapped to you. I might also add that a blackjack handle within your closed fist helps reinforce your hand a bit when punching. There’s more of course. 

Fad or Fad Not? In the big picture, I suspect that the subject matter is a fad. I am not a passing-fad-boy. And, I don’t mindlessly replicate fads or fad makers. Fun, but a fad and at this point, I can’t see it as much of a big, crowd-drawer or a big, crowd-pleaser in the big picture of the so-called “civilized world” – in that the damn thing is illegal most everywhere. Of course, I could be wrong and blackjacks and saps might sweep the globe. And in a “free state,” if asked I guess I would cover the topic. 

Despite the legal hassles, still the lore and the look of these little scrappy, tough bastards are intriguing enough to stay alive for “free staters,” collectors, gawkers, historians and self-defenders.

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Hock’s email is Hock@HocksCQC.com

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SHOOTING IN, OUT AND AROUND VEHICLES: Parking Lots and Road Rages

Moving. Still. Parking lots and roads, all involve cars, still and moving, and both places are potential hotter spots for U.S. crime, not necessarily super “hot” spots as you might assume, but “hotter” spots. Parking lots and roads are places where all kinds of people of all types, pass by each other and interact in some fashion, if only visually.

In Part 1 here… I have tried to collect a lot of info on parking lot crime and related shootings for years now. For those of you reading this outside the United States, I hope you can glean some security ideas that may or may not relate to your country, but may help in developing equations for safety. For one universal problem, we all fall prey to the “frequency illusion” which leads us to believe that some things we focus on, or the media focuses on, happens more than others because…because we are looking-focused for that one thing, such as in crime in general and for this topic – crime, shootings, in, out and around vehicles on parking lots.

Usually, in reality, most all research is shallow and fallible. Experts take small samples and extrapolate them into bigger results. Keep this elusiveness in mind when reading what I have collected here. And I warn, this essay is NOT about auto burglaries, or auto thefts, or advising lot owners how to build safer parking lots. It’s about people in, out and around vehicles and shootings. There are attached areas like hallways, stairs and elevators, and if a person has left the immediate area of their autos on lots to these attached  locations, they have left the scope of this essay.

Big Pictures. Big Pictures. You can open up any news page or search on the topic “parking lot shootings” and a lengthy list of individual crimes appear. Every shooting is a drama and trauma (and probably a lawsuit). Is this as rampant as this seems? The list is long and if you don’t recognize and dismiss the Frequency Illusion you’ll probably decide to cart a machine gun to MacDonald’s, as all parking lots (and life) are a war zone.

First, as a skeptic, I like to examine the big picture in any topic, so often neglected either by bias or ignorance, starting with the necessary topics to help define the subject:

  • total teen and adult driver population, (this gives us a comparison, crime versus populations, and numbers of drivers)
  • total retail transactions, (this tells us estimates of how many people might drive to and park at a retail location.)
  • total car ownership, (suggests parking lot potential use.)
  • local gun legal and illegal gun ownership laws.
  • types of parking lots, residential, restaurants, retail, etc….  
  • reported parking lot crime (actually, parking lot crimes, and out and around cars and shootings.
  • there are other local, nuanced factors of course…
  • According to laws in every state in the U.S., an area of the law known as “premise liability,” businesses have a duty to protect its customers from violent crime while they’re on store property, crime that can reasonably predict.

Next, the actual numbers so we can see the big picture. In 2020, the U.S. Census Bureau counted 331.4 million people living in the United States and more than three-quarters (77.9%) or 258.3 million were adults, 18 years or older. Out of this figure, in 2023 there are a projected 243.4 million licensed drivers in the U.S., which includes 89% of US adults. Hedges and Company, a popular marketing firm reports that in 2023 there are a projected 243.4 million licensed drivers in the US. In many states, teens under 18 are also driving. The CDC says there are over 8.3 million teen drivers.” Finally, the Federal Highway Administration estimates there are 275,913,237 vehicles in the U.S.. Not all folks drive of course, but can we say so many if not most do.

That’s a lot of big picture numbers so let me list them out:

  • 331.4 million people living in the United States in 2020. (More in 2023.)
  • 243.4 million adult licensed drivers in the US. (in 2022)
  • 8.3 million teen drivers. (in 2022.)
  • That’s about 252 million total drivers. (in 2022.)
  • There are estimated 275,913,237 vehicles in the US.
  • Pew Research reports there are approximately 77.5 million adult gun owners in the U.S.. There are some 436 million guns.
  • Summary – Lots of drivers, guns, cars and lots of parking needed.

And They All Park, Somewhere. Parking lots and parking garages – do we really need to define what they are? I think not. I think we all know the full range of parking options, those covered and uncovered. How many lots? There is no way to really collect business parking lot and garage numbers in the US with accuracy, but we can surmise there are a lot of them. A whole lot. All these cars, drivers and passengers park and walk to and from vehicles every day. I hesitate to suggest precise, parking lot attendance numbers, other than it must be enormous.

Walmart Parking Lots. One Crime Case Study. The big store system everyone brags they hate…yet go to and and park. Let’s look at one of the most popular retail locations in the U.S. as a big sampling, case study, and use it as a means, an equation and method to consider how we might evaluate all parking lot crime in general. Handily for us, Walmart-haters have produced articles on “Walmart crime.” The numbers sound scary. Sounds like a lot, but the authors never compare crimes to total sales transactions or customers counts – again – the typical ignorance of the big picture, which will ruin their biased message about Walmart crime.

in 2022, Walmart reports on average in their 3,573 Supercenters in the U.S., each serves about 10,000 customers every single day. These numbers come from sales transactions. That rounds out. to 10,000 sales times 3,573 stores = to be about some 3,650,000 sales a day – over 3 and half million customers a day. 

Dare we then cipher out 3,650,000 daily customers times 365 days? 1,332,250,000? So many of them equal a vehicle trip and parking as I think we can safely judge that almost all Walmart transactions probably represents a car and parking. That’s a lot of parking on Walmart parking lots. A lot of people and no matter how we crunch those numbers, we can surely assume a whole lot of people parked on Walmart parking lots. Then, were there 5 million crimes? 2 million? 1 million? Millions of shoot-outs? Thousands maybe? Hundred? Murders. Kidnappings, rapes and robberies? Lions and tigers and bears? Not hardly. Read on…

Now…crime at, and-or on, Walmart property? (2016 must have been a bad PR year for Walmart as the haters jumped on for a lot reasons…)

  • Time Magazine reported in “2016, police in many communities get more calls to Walmart shopping centers than anywhere else. For some stores, police are called multiple times a day. The problem appears to be far larger for Walmart (open 24 hours) for competing retailers like Target. And the crime ranges from mostly standard shoplifting and petty theft to the occasional rape, stabbing, shooting, murder, or meth lab hidden in a 6-foot drainage pipe under the store parking lot.”
  • This Week magazine reported that “Impoverished communities are more likely to be afflicted by crime in general, and these days a Walmart store is often the biggest retail hub.”
  • In 2016, Tulsa Oklahoma PD described the violent crimes over several year period – “Most of the calls to the northeast Supercenter were for shoplifting, but there’s no shortage of more serious crimes, including five armed robberies so far this year, a murder suspect who killed himself with a gunshot to the head in the parking lot last year, and, in 2014, a group of men who got into a parking lot shootout that killed one and seriously injured two others.”
  • Bloomberg reports that in 2016 there were “More than 200 violent crimes (coast to coast), at Walmarts, including attempted kidnappings and multiple stabbings, shootings, and murders, have occurred at the nation’s stores.

Note the highlighted word, “occasional” above. Those occasional violent ones are the ones that could, might involve a potential gun defense. And the… “More than” two hundred violent crimes? When you dissect the “more than” line…is that one more – 201? Five more – 205? If it reached fifty more, 250 would they still say “more than 200″? This bias verbiage to shock you, but whether it’s 200 or 300 crimes, that’s nothing much within 3,650,000 customers in 3,573 locations a day from coast to coast. Is this a real parking lot crime wave?

You can start to see how parking lot crime is reported and presented, minus the big picture numbers. And, in the Tulsa story, armed robberies (parking lot or inside registers?  As the interior registers would not officially be parking lot crimes, but fleeing suspects on a parking lot are indeed a problem – they almost always have getaway vehicles desperate to escape.)

  • 3,573 stores X 10,000 sales-customer a day per store = 3,650,000 daily sales-customers.
  • 365 days X 3,650,000 daily sales-customers = 1,332,250,000.
  • 1,332,250,000 = how many cars on the lot?
  • Bloomberg says 200 violent crimes in 2016, parking lot or otherwise?

What of Restaurants, Businesses, Residentials and “other” Then?  Finances On Line, report that 163 million people eat out once a week. Times that by 52 weeks. That is… 32,760,00,000, which includes a lot of varied parking, couldn’t we assume? We can’t say exactly for sure how many, but there are a lot of people parking on parking lots to eat out. How about all the other business parking lots? And we cannot forget the private parking lots of businesses, houses, and apartments.

Statista.com reports that In 2021, that is within this total of millions and millions of parking events, around 16,617 robberies took place in parking garages or parking lots in the United States. No related report if they involve or justify parking lot shoot-outs, being robberies an armed victim, might be motivated to produce a gun.

Finally, The U.S. Department of Justice reports, “it appears that the risk of being attacked in a parking facility, is 4 in 1 million, and is really quite low. Interestingly, about 20 percent of violent crime in parking facilities is committed by persons known to the victim.”

This violent “20% known” involves gang wars, revenge, co-workers, affairs, domestic violence and all the other related “known” crimes we see in the news. By the way, where do you fit in this 20%? Is such a thing brewing in your life? Increasing your odds?

(Note: I’ve come across various sources with confusing odd, numbers that didn’t add up and deleted them from my number lists. Some were inflammatory as they sold courses and parking lot safety gear.) 

So, On the Subject of Shooting? My purpose with boring you with these massive numbers is simply to remind you that there are lots of cars, drivers, guns and parking, and not a lot of lot crimes in comparison. Miniscule in comparison to many millions of daily parking events. With the Walmart parking lot study and the U.S. Department of Justice’s “4 in one million” chance, parking lots in general are actually, pretty darn safe and there is a lot of daily, safe parking, and safe to-and-fro walking, every day in the U.S.. Can we extrapolate the DOJ and Walmart examination to all parking lots? Somewhat…a bit, for example, there is anecdotal information that in some places like Memphis, TN., or in like some Chicago neighborhoods, parking lots that are extra dangerous. It seems most cities have problem spots. So local geography, local crime and time can certainly be situational (see below advice). But in the big picture and with the below preparation list, odds are greatly in your favor you will not be in a parking lot shooting.

 When “Four in a Million” Becomes “One in One.”? Crime numbers change every year and in every location, that includes the numbers I have produced above. If a bunch of lot crime or not, people will still have guns on them and-or in their vehicles. Also, as I asked a few lines above, “Where do you fit in that “known to 20%” category?” What’s brewing in your life that will change the odds? Well, as I like to remind folks, if it is YOU attacked! The “one-in-four-mill” odds no longer count! Then it’s a “One in One” and the word “chance” is gone. It’s happening to you. Are you armed? Can you get away? Can you scare away? Duck, cover, move? Shoot? Shoot to kill? 

The “fortune favors the prepared” classic quote was not said by Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Patton, nor Dick Tracy. It comes to us from a French chemist, Louis Pasteur, who said fully, “Fortune favors the prepared mind.” In summary, one should go about their parking travels with healthy preparation and real, local intelligence information, not an unhealthy, panting, hypervigilant paranoia. I always resort to the “Ws and H” questions for preparation. Here are some sample questions…

  • WHO are you and who do you think will attack you on a parking lot you? How might these elements prevent or become a shooting?
  • WHAT is going on, on the parking lot, and district and city you are visiting? Crime rates? Problems? What is “brewing bad” in your life? What will he do to approach-attack you? What will you do? What are you wearing? What is your job? What are the local self-defense laws? What gun? What and how might these elements escalate into a shooting?
  • WHERE is this lot, and where on the lot will you park? By the front doors? Under lights? Where are the attack points? Where do you fit in that ‘”known to” 20%” category that you might be “hunted?” Where exactly is your gun? Where might errant rounds go? Where and how might this turn into a shooting?
  • WHEN are you parking, holidays? Daytime? Nighttime? When and how might this turn into a shooting?
  • HOW exactly would you be approached-attacked on the lot? How will he act? How will you react? How will this turn into a shooting?
  • WHY are you going there? Is it worth it, given the questions above? Why and how could this turn into a shooting?

Each “W and H” question is a book chapter, too much to burden this small, generic essay here. I lecture on these in my “Shooting In, Out and Around Cars” seminar. You must continue to answer these big and small, vital, “Ws and H” questions for yourself, your life and locale. Use these and make up your own list of answers. I have been using the “Ws and H” questions for over 27 years to investigate and teach potential problems in crime, war (and life in general). They’ve never let me down as the best way to plan, but you need good intel.

Live Fire and Vehicles. You can train live fire methods in, out and around cars, shooting paper targets. In the end, given some “in-to and out-of” vehicle shooting nuances concerning things like vehicle construction, ricochets, and glass issues, the physicality of shootings with all opponents outside of cars will be much like shooting anywhere else, with the exception that you will be somewhat surrounded mostly by cars.

Live fire – if so, are you training for the realities of your life? I see a fair amount of vehicle-related, live-fire courses were citizen attendees are outfitted as if for a two-week war in Cambodia with auto and semi-auto rifles, pistols, training knives, knee and elbow pads, and gear full of ammo. Such military, SWAT, police, etc. courses are absolutely ten times the fun. I have run some sims ammo ones and everybody just reveals in the experience. But unless you are on the far side of some special operations team or the Secret Service, this will not relate to your trip to the Dairy Queen and the small, hammerless .32 revolver you carry in your pocket.

All the live-fire, vehicle-related courses are a one-way street of early preparation. Vital, core work to experience. And it is also vital to train with interactive, simulated ammo, shooting at enemies who are shooting back at you. It is horrible and shocking for some to see how easily you can be shot, foot, ankle, knee, leg, elbow, arm, head and torso, even after working the best live-fire, range shooting methods in, out and around cars.

United States parking lots seem to be quite safe, when one considers the big picture. But when you or yours are victimized it is hard to respect and swallow the big picture evidence. I understand this, but there is a bigger picture that blankets the realities, training doctrine, laws and policy making. Within all that, within an amazing safety record, bad things can happen. I hope you will never be involved in vehicle-related gunfight.

Road Rage and Shootings, Part 2 of this investigation, coming soon.

_________________________

Hock’s email is Hock@survivalcentrix.com

Here is a training film on this subject with some tips and exercises on car-related training. Click here

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FROM WHIPLASH TO PARALYSIS

From Whiplash to Paralysis.

The Dangers of Escaping Standing Chokes and Standing Guillotines, A Martial and Military Perspective

The world today is innocently obsessed with wrestling (okay, well, actually it’s BJJ with its own special, great mythology and the important, “tribal” uniforms, etc, and which is an addictive, terrific, fun, sport-hobby). And within the grounded, wrestling world, there are about a ton and a half of grounded chokes, cranks and escapes to study. All terrific to mess around with. If you are new to all this then go look the moves up, but most folks, smart enough to be reading this, know what I am writing about.  

This essay is NOT about those things on the ground, but rather specifically, ONLY, stand-up neck wraps and some of the classic, dangerous, commonly taught counters to them. This is a safety briefing about the neck and martial studies. 

Standing, your neck is grabbed in some sort of arm wrap. But in the arms of an experienced enemy or a stumbling inexperienced rookie, the grabs with a step or a misstep, can quickly damage and even kill you. And worse…with some of the innocently practiced common escapes, you can damn near kill your own self too in the very same ways the bad guy could do it to you. How? It’s all about the neck.

Physio-Life reports that “Even to a completely inexperienced grappler, it would come as no surprise that grappling can be problematic for the neck.  In a sport where the aim is to control, strangle and submit your opponent, the neck is often a key pillar in a wide range of attacks…whiplash to permanent paralysis.”

In the study of mixed martial arts “Risk of Cervical Injuries in Mixed Martial Arts” by T Kochhar, D L Back, B Mann, J. Skinner, they list the guillotine drop as one of the 4 most dangerous takedown maneuvers. Dr. Google says – “What does a neck crank do? A neck crank (sometimes also referred to as a neck lock, and technically known as a cervical lock) is a spinal lock applied to the cervical spine causing hyperextension, hyperflexion, lateral hyperflexion, hyper-rotation or extension-distraction. This happens either through bending, twisting or elongating. Neck cranks-locks can cause spinal injuries. Many martial arts prohibit use of this technique given the potential for student injury.” Many do prohibit and of course, many don’t.

“Yup, already tried to escape one of these standing guillotine chokes, which ended up as a severe prolapse C5 C6 C7 followed by followed by muscle wasting in the left triceps and total loss of pectoralis minor.” reports Bjorn Wagner as one personal anecdote.

 

What I would like to put under the proverbial microscope here are potential injuries one does to oneself in escaping standing choke chokes and guillotines, as taught by many of the martial arts.

I had the accidental, Youtube experience the other day of watching the Gracie Wonder-Team-Twin nephews run through, oh, like 15 common escapes in 30 seconds from stand-up chokes and stand-up guillotines. My, such experienced, athletic kids the super twins are! They are indeed great, dedicated kids. They live this life daily. Full-timers. I ask quickly – are you? Do you? And yet, about half of the escape moves could get the escapee’s caught neck whip-lashed, broken and-or get them killed, especially the ones where escapees, in layman’s terms, “judo-ize” – flip-throw the chokers’ bodies over them and around into an array of sacrifice takedowns where they both, choker and escapee, happily, willingly, fall down to the mats (not onto the furniture or the hard ground or floors or cement of the real world).

 

Military Quicker Kills. Rarely taught. Rarely known. Rarely respected. Well, if you flip (or drop down) versus a guy whose got a death grip on your neck? You could hurt or break your own neck. Do most practitioners know how easily the standing choker can kill you, accidentally or on purpose? Or then, how you can damage  yourself? It is obvious that these art folks and so many others do not know the list of the old school, rarely-taught-these-days, military quicker-kill, neck breaks. Folks seem to not realize how close their escape moves resemble military neck breaks!

Military Infantry Veteran James Brown adds-writes: “As our host Hock writes: Not many people are taught the really nasty ways to do choke-breaks. In the military, it’s pretty limited to infiltration units. When simply shooting someone in the head with a suppressed weapon isn’t advisable. Or sneaking up and zip tying their neck or stabbing them somewhere isn’t optimal, either. Most knife stuff I learned from military instructors was about sneaking up and making death quiet. A rear choke variation example: Ambush from behind. Arm sinks in around neck. Knee or pelvis lifts targets feet from the ground as second arm sets in. Then a fast and violent body drop by attacker. Target is out in about 3 seconds. Had it done to me. The air lift is critical. It takes away a second of possible response time while allowing a nasty body drop. It can also be done with a rear drag. There are also some front naked choke to neck brake patterns that are basically: One of these 6 breaks should work or buy time to get to a knife.”

These martial arts escapes can work so well “in the dojo” demos and training because:

  • it’s only learning-training.
  • both parties know what is going to happen.
  • There is no radical, chaotic motion that accompanies a real grab.
  • the martial chokers know how to roll, go with the flow and protect the escapees’ necks as choker is flipped.
  • the choker loosens-lets go of the trapped neck at a key moment to save his partner’s potential neck damage.
  • even in freestyle, the trained choker remembers what to do, “not to break the rules.”
  • when necks are legally caught tight enough, those caught know when to tap, even when standing, and they remain standing once tapped.

Rough Necks. Serious MMA and wrestler competitors’ necks can take a brutal beating. These are dedicated “pros,” are awesome athletes, and most both stretch and work on neck strengthening exercises. Neck strength is well known to be critical! Serious wrestlers have serious necks. Do you? Probably me – no, your instructors – no, your average military – no, police – no, the citizen taking self-defense courses – no. We will be in the 99.99999% percenters that are NOT thick-necked, professionals. (Still, “big” necks or not, there are plenty of “pro” neck injuries with takedowns and wrestling on the mats.)

Killing the Neck! These Military Neck Breaks. In the big picture, unarmed military combatives in general was and is rarely taught to the military. The in-the-field military is a weapons-based, explosives-based, equipment-based, teamwork-based world and very little time is spent on the one-versus one, unarmed topic in comparison to these other vital, more probable topics. This training time, prioritizing reality goes all the way back to the Samurai.

Why are the “military neck killers” somewhat ignored in the military? In a name-game twist, many militaries call anything close-up as “hand-to-hand combat” even with close-in weapons versus weapons. Still lots to do with weapons, just very close-in. Within today’s military combatives, neck breaks are still rarely taught percentage-wise. The methods exist of course if you can find them. Also, insiders know that for many recent years now, the militaries of the world have been hypnotized into a sport, martial arts priority. Plus, there is a real underlying mission-mandate for safe training (!) – not to get the troops hurt in any training, lest of all in the rare, short, combatives training courses.

Still, unless you are capturing a prisoner for interrogation, the military needs to kill the enemy as quickly as possible, and should you get a hold of his neck, you kill him there. There are many quicker ways to kill someone with neck grabs. For example, once a neck wrap or a choke is obtained, the choker can jump-drop back, forward or to the side and pretty much “kill-crack the neck” of the caught enemy. Needless to say a citizen or a cop fighting for their life would need these quicker kills too for survival. Briefly they are:

  • choker crushes windpipe (this will take a bit longer).
  • choker very suddenly, violently does situational-positional-directional snapping wrenches and yanks.
  • choker suddenly does situational-positional body drops.
  • other than in war, the choker had better be, logically, explain-ably, understandably in fear of their life to execute these moves. Or play dumb?
  • these can happen with stumbling mistakes in training and sports.

It would be smart for all to learn the military quicker kill ones for critical self-defense, yes. And no matter who you are, learn them also so as to avoid the possible mishaps in training. And when taught escapes and counters to this problem, you must assess these moves to see if they are indeed dangerous to your neck and your people’s necks.

These same devastating moves can happen accidentally in class, in competitions and real world fighting when you don’t seek such severe body damage and death, to your drunk friend or relative. Or, to someone you are arresting! (There are numerous accidental and incidental neck injuries and deaths in police work. You know this from the news.) Unlike in some advertised courses, not everyone you scuffle with is a Nazi commando to be executed!

Solutions to these standing choke-neck problems is a Training Mission 5, Stop 5 problem, neither of which I have filmed or written yet in book chapter form, like a chapter in a TM 5 book with 40-50 photos or more. It will be (I am only amassing TM 3, Stop 3 right now). Can’t do it all here. I got the outlines. Come to a seminar.

 

By the way, holding a blood choke for too long, standing or ground can be deadly. “How long can the brain survive without oxygen? There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. For example, if the brain is receiving a limited supply of oxygen, it can survive longer than a brain receiving no oxygen. According to Medicine Plus a resource of the U.S. National Library of Medicine: “Brain cells are very sensitive to a lack of oxygen. Some brain cells start dying less than 5 minutes after their oxygen supply disappears. As a result, brain hypoxia can rapidly cause severe brain damage or death.”

Oh and lastly and again? Size and strength really does matter, especially when you are flippy-dippy, tossing people around. I know the esoterics like to say they don’t matter, but they matter. As with clothing, “one size does not fit all.”

All martial training can be dangerous. We persevere. I am not and you are probably not a full-time, 5 days a week, “Wonder Twin” – so take a hard look at standing choke and guillotine escapes “out there,” and in your classes. I am only suggesting that when presented with martial moves in and around the neck, see how they might be dangerous and see how many flippy, counter throws, takedowns and ground crashes could damage your neck and the necks of all those non-professional, non-super, non-wonder-twin athletes that you know, which is probably, just…about…everyone. 

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A Weeks Later, An Addendum: This essay is only about safety issues concerning grappling in and around the neck, and how some of the often suggested escapes might be neck-dangerous especially to the new and medium trained people. This is not about ALL “Judo”-BJJ-wrestling-grappling, not working.” This essay was dispatched a lot of places, very well-sheared, re-shared with thousands of likes. Very well-received. But a rare few hyper-sensitive, hyper-defensive people just “blew up.” Instantly they distort this safety issue and ignorantly leapt to protect their overall, “wrestling,” superiority when obviously, partially reading this essay and jumping to ignorant conclusions. I then, of course am an untrained idiot, a fake with no grappling experience.

Why do I think a bit about the neck? Some of my personal experiences, four for examples.

  • First: As explained in the essay, I am just not fond of Seoi Nage, the shoulder throw, the over the shoulder throw versus the standing choke. One time, experimenting in class, years ago, being 6’2” I have been grabbed by a 6’7”-er, working on this throw with a big heavy-set, guy and when I dropped a bit, butt extended back, to start this off, he repositioned and he “refused” to bend over. And the blood choke on me only increased. I essentially “hung there” in a worse choke than before. He chuckled. His size and weight and my size and weight absolutely mattered. Plus, I do have trouble with this move versus shorter people too. Height and weight-size is always an issue. (And a strong hesitation to turn my back to an opponent.)
  • Second: In South Korea in the 70s, I was tricked, and jumped from behind with that single arm wrap choke. He pushed the small of my back, then leapt backwards. He landed on his chest and fortunately for me, I landed on my side, NOT on my back because I am sure he would have broken my neck. We ended up in a north-south sort of position (on a frozen muddy, village road.) I escaped this by breaking his pinky, of all things, which he let go right away at the snap. I later knew this was a trained move, I’d seen it before somewhere and later found it in a 60s, 70s military combatives manual, back then called the “Ranger Takedown.” It is a neck-breaker. A killer! I was very lucky. My left side was severely bruised and sore from that frozen ground landing the next day. Oh, and my neck really hurt. I am not suggesting that all muggers know the Ranger Takedown, but I started thinking that chaotic moves and drops could hurt the neck. Drops like this (or accidental falls) could be dangerous to the neck.
  • Third: Teaching many years ago in Delaware, I was showing a frontal takedown, a pull-down. A classic. You kick and-or strike the guy to bend over, then grab his neck in a Thai-style forearm-like, clinch. Then yank him face down while stepping back. Since I had spent time with a Chin Na Chinese guy, one thing he showed us was a wavering, side-to-side, of locks and cranks, which really enhanced a bunch of them. In this pull-down, if you yank-jerk the head side-to-side in the takedown, it really accentuates the pull-down. I showed this application, THEN I warned everyone not to do this! For not even half-real, because of the neck damage. If so, try it once in very slow-motion. Well, two guys walked off to their corner, and did it too hard and too fast. The uke guy dropped to the floor, and…knocked out, had some sort of a spasm-seizure fit. Luckily, there was an EMT there training with us, and he took over. It looked really bad. The guy recovered but nis neck was killing him. He was done for the day, sat on the floor pale-faced and watched. He was a no-show on Sunday.
  • Fourth: In 26 years of police work, I have only choked out, oh maybe…9 or 11 people. Not many at all. The blood choke. Some of them were on the ground – as on floors (well, one was atop a couch and a coffee table, we were flat but not on the official ground-ground) and some standing.  People snake around when neck-grabbed and the blood choke intent can become the wind-pipe choke by accident and they are the subject of many injuries and even death law suits. So much so, many (if not most) police agencies have disallowed ANY such neck contact, blood choke or otherwise. Holding these blood chokes for too long is also dangerous. A lot of this info is above, in the essay.
  • Fifth. Of note, a long-term neck injury. A well-known, international martial instructor (to name one) is getting a stint in his windpipe, having had it partially crushed and crushed too much in all kinds of training for many a year.

Anyway, my only point is – there are safety issues with neck grappling. In a world of early-phase, mid-phase and late phase, counters-escapes, there is little chance of late phase, choke escapes. Plus, research shows plenty of neck injuries exist. This is why I think about the neck and martial arts training.

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Hock’s email is Hock@SurvivalCentrix.com

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The Fallen Drill! Live Fire and Sims Fire, Standing, Falling and Fallen Target Practice

The Fallen Drill, Live Fire and Sims Fire, Standing, Falling and Fallen Target Practice

 

He moved! A universal problem in many martial arts, mixed weapon fighting, combatives and survival firearms training is that people move. When people are struck, kicked, stabbed, slashed, shot, etc., they…move. They move from your set-up for the first strike, – yes, just the perception of your first attack be it facial expression, words, stance, chambering, drawing a knife, stick or gun, may cause them to move on cue just before you strike. Or they move after the first hit, the second strike or the third…

In many systems you’ve been trained for a set of attacks or shots. Sets of two? Sets of three? Stop and reload? These reactive movements on his part are often ignored or forgotten in training drills. Still we hit, stab or shoot the mitts, or a heavy bag, or a paper target in sets. In many of these sets the body targets are vague and not well defined.  

These routines are organized by you, or by an instructor of a system. How smart are you? Are they? Is it? What is your-their “martial IQ? Do you or they ever calculate logical probable. post hit movements? 

The faster you attack, the better chance the second strike-shot on the target might be where you planned it, such as maybe with a super quick, two-punch combination to the nose-face? Or say, two or three very quick trigger pulls on a gun? Yes maybe, and no maybe.

But as an instructor we must warn our practitioners about these reflexive-reaction, spoiler-movements, and advise them that many of the elaborate focus mitt drills, martial art combinations and shooting drills might be SNAFU-ED when the enemy naturally, reflexively, responsively moves. Warned that their first or next designed target spot may well move and you might have to chase it a bit. Or, ignore it and adlib something else.

I constantly see long, complicated focus mitt drills that have zero relation to realistic body reactions of those hit. These long drills become like demonstration dances to impress onlookers and make one sweat for a workout. I am not saying they are all worthless, no, just that they could be planned smarter. They could be composed to guess where the opponent might be after step 1 actually landed. Where then should step 2 logically be? In the unarmed world, good sparring gets this chaotic introduction done. You learn to chase targets. Adlib to take what you see, get..

I have been in numerous martial arts where we memorized 3, 4, 5 or more moves on an attacker who is just standing still like a statue after his own first punch at you. You block and respond, beating the statue-man to death in many moves. But the opponent is not reacting to the 1st, 2nd or 3rd strike or kick, the training partner-uke remains upright and still, until the scenario calls for his takedown. You then takedown, trip or throw the statue enemy. In this regard, it was an old school concept that the takedown you chose, is the one that best facilitates the direction he is already falling in after you’ve cracked him some great strikes. You don’t or shouldn’t change or stop his falling direction. You…facilitate his falling direction. So in this old-school rule of AIki-Jitsu and old Jujitsu, they recognized the opponent was…moving after being struck.)

I was always flabbergasted at various knife systems through the decades that memorized numerous elaborate 3, 4 or more body template, patterns of stabs and cuts. “Stab the heart, then deep cut down to the kidney, then stab…” First off, dear detached-from-reality person, the body has bones in it and second, the enemy…has probably…MOVED after your very first stab! His kidney is no longer where it was in your splendid, one-dimensional, flat, frontal template. Your 3-4 step templates are basically, misleading, distracting…BS.

 The enemy movements will be…

  • frozen for a second?
  • arms up in your attack path,
  • turning,
  • stepping forward, sides or back away,
  • leaning, (slipping, dodging)
  • falling,
  • fallen down.

Frozen? Yes, he might be frozen in place, especially if your first attack alone isn’t strong enough to move him. We all know about the “flight, freeze, fight” studies, so to be thorough we must list it. But he probably will move.

In short, you probably have to chase the targets. The solution is to construct training responses that try to predict with some certainty where said enemy will move in response. To counter these practical problem in doctrine, an instructor with sufficient “martial IQ” must prep the students with these realities. This does sort of ruin and-or, de-emphasize the whole list of required, memorized 4-5 step statue fighting some martial arts demand. The instructor should warn – “After this strike, it is possible, probable that said person might not be where you expect them. His jaw is not there anymore. His liver is not there like in the set…he moved.”

Guns! Wrong End of the Barrel. I hope by now I have established the idea that people will move and may not be were you expected them to be from training drills? Since I teach hand, stick, knife and sims ammo GUN, I have to ponder this problem in the pistol and long gun world, which is what I really want to dissect-remind here.

The Gun Blast! Yes it is true, some people. somewhere. sometime will absorb some fast small caliber shots and keep approaching or freeze? Will they? And for how long to overcome the elements of just the gun blast alone? I mean, just stand beside someone shooting a firearm on the range without hearing protection. Take note of the force and sound expelled. Now imagine that aimed at you. I would like to mention that the sheer sound and blast of a gun would-could cause people to…MOVE, cringe, startle, curl, bend, jolt, shut eyes, dive, fall…

Will Bullets Move People? A number of gun folks like to discuss and argue about the force of a landed bullet. Science tells us it must land with about the same force as the recoil in your hand. Yet bullets landing on certain anatomical parts into certain positions seem to make people move more than recoil, and flesh and bone destruction can make them fall, least of all from multiple, successful bullet impacts. These reactions may ruin your second or third shot plan. Shot folks, or shot-at folks will also and quite probably move. These movements differ from the standard flat, full-frontal target picture you have been practicing your marksmanship on.

Handgun (and rifle) Combatives. I believe that people are not fully, really learning firearm combatives unless moving, thinking people are shooting back at them, or at very least threatening them close up in a deadly force situation like with a knife or tire iron. This experience absolutely requires interactive, safe, simulated ammo training.

Some old gun hands have called the shooting range a “one-way street,” and you need a “two-way street experience” to maximize your combative skills. It is somewhat horrifying to learn how easily you can be shot, even with the best one-way street instruction. I mentioned earlier “Good sparring gets this introduction done.” Interactive simulated ammo scenario exercises get this two-way street done too.

“It is somewhat horrifying to learn how easily you can be shot…”

Since I almost never teach live fire marksmanship and leave that to the patient experts, I concentrate on simulated interactive shooting. In a perfect world seminar, I always prefer to partner up with live fire experts whenever possible and ask them to do a live fire version of what I will teach later with simulated ammo, but I have a few live fire drills for a predicted response to shooting an enemy that moves and-or falls. Here’s one – thus the “Fallen Drill.”

The overall premise is, you shoot the armed bad guy and he begins to fall. He’s still armed. Still looking at you. You shoot him on the fall, and you shoot him when he’s grounded, should he seem cogent. The live fire version featured in the top photo above requires a little rigging of targets and the target stands.

By the time they get to my turn, practitioners have already done their important marksmanship training, and now we are shooting real people with the sims guns. We are shooting real people and the “scoring” is “miss or kill,” you might say.

Bullseyes or human figures? Since some instructors do obsess about scoring, scoring, scoring any and  everything, we have the mode on the left. Note these have no weapons. Me no “likey.” I prefer folks shoot at armed human, photo, figures. And these bullseye targets are full, frontal flat and I am uncomfortable with that too.

For combatives, photos of real people, (not drawings) angled and holding weapons on the targets, is “reducing the abstract.”

I and a few others have written through the years about the sheer stupidity of forcing police and military shooting training to shoot unarmed, non-human shaped targets, to be politically correct. This is counter-productive and ignorant. This is a giant step backward in combat shooting. The training rule of “reduce the abstract” applies. While typically round, and-or non-human shaped targets are used for pure marksmanship development and competitions, when you get into the combatives training, human-shaped figures (photo pictures of real people are better than drawings). It is also not good to shoot at targets like this photo below, that are unarmed and threat-less.

We should not be practicing to shoot unarmed people! (About 99.9% of the time, as it is situational. And next we should not be shooting at unarmed people targets. It’s not good training for the brain and reflexes. Firearm combatives training targets should always include a weapon to prep-instill the instantaneous, mental recognition, justification for lethal force. It’s bad enough we spend so, so much time shooting at bland, non-human-form bullseyes and various odd shapes. When doing combat shooting training, at very least “arm” the realistic target!

Anyway, I invented this “Fallen” live fire and simulated fire exercise in isolation. You and others may have something like it already too, as most inventions are made in isolation. If so? Good for you. Now let’s pass it on…

Oh and remember, he moves, but so do you! Which is a whole other subject essay.

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Hock’s email is Hock@SurvivalCentrix.com

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KNOWING “WHERE” YOU ARE IN A FIGHT

IT’S PROPRIOCEPTION!
Who, what, where, when, how and why? The BIG “W’s and H” questions that one answers in a fight (and life).
 
“Where?” There are so many “where” questions to answer. One is knowing where your body parts are when you are not looking at them or can’t see them. Oh, I know the word is more technical and diverse than that, and normal people deal with the subject to improve normal activity, rehab injuries and surgeries and fight back age. But we? Oh we…we here, worry about…fighting. Where are your body parts when you are not looking at them in a fight? Especially a ground fight? Horizontal, not vertical?
 
“Proprioception is an important sensory function for all normal movement activities, including the ability to maintain dynamic balance and move accurately. All exercises elicit proprioceptive responses to some extent.” 
 
The subject is teaching ground-fighting and one of the challenges for practitioners and teachers is not-knowing, not-seeing their body parts in a “horizontal world,” and of course moving in “flat” unfamiliar movements.
 
I often have to tell grounded practitioners to “FREEZE! Freeze right there!” I step in and grab their legs, knees, feet, whatever into the advantageous position. Lest of all have them freeze and say “take this elbow and strike this face right here,” because they are: a) brainwashed wrestlers, or b) new to the horizontal world, and cannot make the proprioception connection. Out of sight, out of mind.
 
Ground fighting to a combatives person is, (or certainly should be):
  • Ground maneuverings
  • Knee-high versus standing.
  • Knee-high versus knee-high.
  • Knee-high topside versus those below.
  • On right side versus all…
  • On left side versus all…
  • On back versus topside.
  • On back versus kneeling.
  • On back versus standing.
  • (I include “seated” in this grouping.)
  • All strikes and kicks included.
  • Use of force laws & military rules of engagement, if any?
  • Hand, stick, knife, gun (pistol and long gun).
  • The vital W’s and H questions.
  • This is the 6th Stop, the Stop 6 of the Stop 6 “The Ground Fighting Collision,” my outline list.
 
Horizontal time in grade, reps, experience, coaching, all contribute to proprioception exercise. While wrestlers (including BJJ-ers) are developing or have developed this ground-fight awareness, combatives people and “stand-up-only-arts” who only dabble in ground fighting don’t, won’t, and haven’t achieved similar awareness.  Modern MMA people work on it, (but without weapons and cheating). You can see the importance of organized doctrine timetables.
 
Another term for this, a bit more heard of, but not by much, is “Kinesthetic Perception.” I would suggest searching on the word to get the fullest understanding of it. Here’s one link, but continue the hunt.
 
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Hock’s email is Hock@SurvivalCentrix.com
 
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IN DEFENSE OF FMA STICK FOLLOW-UPS

If you are a FMA “stick versus-stick-fighter,” I think, about…ohhh…80%…85% (?) of the stick material typical taught, thee so-called by many – “fancy stuff,” fancy follow-up stuff is meant for the seconds AFTER your opponent is busted in the head (no soft sticks and-or no helmets) or busted somewhere painfully vital, that will diminish his speed and brains. The head shot (or any real diminishing blow) is the missing link between sparring and the follow-ups.
 
Do you know this, realize this, can you articulate this as doctrine to the shallow naysayers who belittle follow-ups? I think this “diminished fighter” message should be one of an FMA system’s “Ten Commandments.”
 
Lots of folks prioritize sparring as the initial, most important encounter (I think it is very important) but then many belittle a lot closer quarter stick moves (the 80%) like disarming, stick grabs, trapping, grappling, etc. as impossible because “oh, you can’t do that when actually stick sparring.”
 
Some follow-up material examples:
  • Checking the guy’s other hand, or maybe-
  • Catching his stick, or maybe-
  • Disarming with any of the 5 big disarms, or maybe-
  • Going 2, 3 deep to finishing blows or kicks, or maybe-
  • Any takedowns-throws, or maybe-
  • A standing to ground capture or finish, or maybe-
  • Etc., etc.. 
A stunning blow or two sets up everything in the martial world, why not here too? A good stunning, crack on the bare head changes everything, opens up the follow-up world. Stick sparring with protective safety gear does protect against a real, full diminishment. A head shot from a soft stick to a helmet or say – to a hockey-gloved hand is not a real-deal, it’s a practice deal (unless you are playing for points?). And such protected play probably won’t replicate the damage you really need to move in and do the 80% stuff. Folks want to believe that stick sparring is the “realest of deal-ests,” but it fails here at the missing link point. This “diminished fighter” concept must be recognized in FMA stick doctrine so that you can indeed do some of the 80% material against a wounded opponent. Wound him enough you might even tie his shoe laces together.
 
 
Some of our great, super-athletic, gifted, obsessed FMA-ers can go deep at “Superman speed” and execute some of that 80% collection without a head shot (of course this depends on the skill of the opponent, a rookie might be easily invaded). But fighting the diminished fighter is an important step to winning-surviving. I am not so gifted, not Superman and probably most of you aren’t either so we would need to (theoretically-simulate) bust some heads to move in and trap, catch, disarm, stick-grapple, etc.
 
 
FANNNNN-CY! This missing link which usually allows for a range change and finishes is just common sense but I am not sure all FMA-ers, new or old, know, teach, and proudly pontificate on this commandment. We cannot really hurt our friends in training. We SIMULATE the head shot (or whatever serious blow)! We segment the training. We don’t emphasize or fully recognize enough the missing link between segments that makes the second segment…work.
 
(Yes, that is tissue in my ears in this photo above. Sometimes I get stuck teaching without hearing protection in a room full of banging sticks. Decades of this banging contributes to a hearing loss, which I have. Warning! Hey, keep score of your ears.)
 
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Hock’s email is Hock@ForceCentrix.com