I have been in court a lot, military, state and federal, helping prosecutors win cases I brought forth, for three decades. I even worked for defense attorneys in the subsequent years as a private investigator. This process was an incredible legal education. I came to believe that the best patrol officers are former detectives. The best detectives are former prosecutors. The best prosecutors are former judges (especially appellate). Of course, this reverse engineering ladder of sorts, this learning curve is impossible to officially implement.
But, I feel lucky to at least have worked in these worlds. Back then, District Attorney Jerry Cobb and his top assistants were better than most investigation schools on what details gets convictions. (Two such great and dedicated staff minds were Alan Levy and Lee Gabriel.)
(Me atop the Denton County, Texas Court House, circa 1980s. In the distance is the original courthouse on the classic downtown square. )
The law makes you think about all things big and small. The who, what, where, when, how and why. A police officer asks those questions for the crime report. The detective digs deeper. In the grand jury and trial stage we must dig even deep – deeper because you never what what tiny problem might arise in court.
Law school should export critical thinkers. All lawyers should be critical thinkers. They are often not. But they should be. I know lawyers who are doffusses and some think like criminals.
Juries and Jurors: And Lord knows common jurors… your wonderful peers… have no training in critical thinking. It’s the pot luck, roulette wheel of your freedom and fortune.
When I was an investigator in the US Army and in those court martials, the juries consisted of officers, usually college grads. No guarantee of critical thinking, but on paper at least they appear probably smarter than civilian “Joe-Shit-The-Rag-Man,” juror, often was-is someone who was never taught civics in school, the law or government or unbiased history. Often was-is someone that when questioned think Abe Lincoln was the first president. Often someone who failed to avoid jury duty and sometimes even fall asleep in the jury box. (Oh yes, I could tell you stories – well, I have, in my book below, actually. Judges are supposed to “wake up” jurors. Naps never happens in military tribunals. Oh no. And in federal court the judges are VERY powerful and sleepers are awakened by “thunderbolts” from the bench. But in state and county courts, not always. To counter the snoozers, I would sometimes fake a loud sneeze into the microphone when testifying and coming to a vital speech point. I would watch the nappers’ heads bolt up. I would wait a few seconds for them to come to their senses. Everyone in the court knew what I was doing, but it was a Oscar-level, sneeze performance with which I could contest any objections.)
One of the many things I learned that for the colonel, the scientist or the carpet-layer to totally draw conclusions, they need to hear and analyze total evidence. Thus…the “Total Evidence theory.”
“There’s a crucial principle in probabilistic reasoning known as the ‘total evidence requirement’. This is roughly the principle that we should always use the most specific evidence available to us. Suppose the prosecution tells the jury that the accused always carries a knife around with him, neglecting to add that the knife in question is a butter knife. The prosecution has not lied to the jury, but it has misled them by giving them generic information – that the accused carries a knife – when it could have given them more specific information – that the accused carries a butter knife. In other words, the prosecution has violated the total evidence requirement.” – Phillip Goff is professor in philosophy at Durham University, UK. Writing in Aeon Magazine
But then, moments later, the defense is supposed to step up and clear that information up. Fingers get pointed. Phony outrage erupts, “What the prosecution didn’t tell you is, the knife was a butter knife!”
In theory, each side in court – the defense, the prosecution presents their best side of information only, Together the truth is supposed to come out. But, this “halfness” cuts both ways. It does leave a bad taste, a flavor of concealment in the process. You hear, “Well, if that’s the case, why didn’t the prosecution tell us right out that it was a butter knife?” The juror declares, usually with a little or a lot of disdain, and unaware of the give and take process of… “the show.”
“The knife cuts both ways.” Professor Google reports “The 17th-century idiom “cuts both ways” drops a hint at a double-edged sword without mentioning it directly. Once drawn from its sheath, the weapon could cut if driven forward or pulled back—like a saw. The idiom was first used in a book by Edmund Hickeringill titled Priest-Craft: Its Character and Consequences.
The dull butter knife cuts both ways? My next question in the deeper dig would be “why is this knucklehead addicted to his daily butter knife?”
(My book covers much police action and many issues like this. The title was invented by the publisher and not my choice. When you sell a book, titular things like this are out of your control. Ebook or paperback. Click here. )
Hock Hochheim: Well, that’s sort of the “Who, when, what, where, why” that I use everywhere. And I do ask that question…“Who?” “Who are you, really?” And in our business, who do you really expect to fight? There’s a psychology where older people think less of themselves, and then younger people think more of themselves, in terms of what they think they can do, and who they can fight and win against. This is so true that there are actual psychological terms for both of those categories, but they escape me now. I have to continually look them up every couple of years to remind myself.
But I’m just a former army, military, police investigator. Then Texas police, and in most of that time, in those 23 years, a detective, about 16 or 17 years of that. And since 1972, starting out at Ed Parker Kenpo-Karate, I’ve been a martial artist, other than a few rare years maybe, while in the army. I’ve just done this every day for…I think the number now is pretty much 50 years, 51 years… Fifty years, fifty-one years of thinking about/worrying about/being psychologically obsessed with these elements of fighting. To a fault, I think. I think it’s a bit of a mental sickness.
KO: (Laughing)
HH: I should be thinking about other things. Which I do, yes. I think about writing my novels, but also my mind wanders back to organizing this martial material…what’s better, what we can cut out, what we absolutely need. And in the terms of hand, stick, knife, gun, war and crime, it’s quite a challenge. It’s still a daily challenge, after all these years.
KO: Tell us more about your martial arts history.
HH: I was in Kenpo-Karate, I guess about a year, and then I went to the army. So, I had this established impression of martial arts. In the army, there was just a couple opportunities to train. Boxing. Police Judo. First of all, I was in Korea, and I wasted my time there, martial arts speaking. I say I wasted my martial arts time there because…I hate to use the word “brainwashed”…but I was so immersed in the idealism of parker Kenpo, and how superior it was, as they told us, that I really did not want do anything else. Now, I should have done Hapkido at least while I was in Korea. I’m not really a big fan of Tae Kwon Do, I like their power kicks, but gosh, I could have done Hapkido! We had opportunities. There were a couple ROK Marines there teaching military combatives classes at another base gym, So I did that.
The military police academy was kind of big on boxing as a support system, which also had its inherent problems. But since I was in Karate, as soon as I got there, I did their boxing stuff. And it’s very hard to take sports boxing with gloves and transform it into bareknuckle fighting and reality arrests. There’re real problems with trying to make those two come together.
And so, anyway, then I got out of the Army, I did Karate and Jiu-jitsu back in Texas…the stand-up, old school Jiu-jitsu. And then, in 1986, I started in with the Jeet Kune Do people. And that was just a big mind explosion. I was very happy to get out of the classical framework, as suggested by Bruce Lee.
So, we’re talking Dan Inosanto and his top instructors. Thai boxing, the Filipino martial arts, Jeet Kune Do, Wing Chun…all the things that they were doing was just a massive amount of cool investigative stuff. And that went on, probably, I guess, until about 1997. Oh, and then of course I picked up with Ernesto and Remy Presas. And that was a huge chunk of time. I got very close to both brothers. They often stayed at my house, which was a fantastic opportunity for me.
I lived in middle of the country, and they needed to stay weekdays somewhere between their weekend seminars, and I was a bachelor, and they just flat out asked me: “Hock, can I stay, you know, Tuesday through Thursday?” Or, “Monday through Friday morning?”
Then about ’97 I really decided to get free of everything, and clear my head, and create exactly what I dreamed of. Y’know, all these decades, I was in the pursuit of the “perfect martial art,” so to speak. Survival fighting with hand, stick, knife and gun in crime and war, standing through the ground. And after I’d done all of these things, I realized there was none. No one perfect thing.
And so I decided to embark on this blend…I guess the best word is “combatives.” A word that wasn’t popular in the ’90s, but I picked that word anyway. It became popular later, to a shaky extent.
KO: Before you got into Jeet Kune Do, I hear you had a run in with Kajukenbo?
HH: Yeah. So, in Ed Parker Kenpo Karate, North Central Texas…which was one of the rarest of official martial arts schools you’re gonna find back in the late 1960s and early 70s. I found one and joined. We had two private lessons a week, and Saturdays was set aside for a group lesson. A couple of hours, and that was your typical group martial arts class in many ways. And at the end of the Saturday session, they had organized…Keith See was the guy, one of the first generation Parker guys…they had organized a sort of open, sparring class with as many other schools as you could find at the time. There was Tae Kwon Do, there was Kung Fu, there were various arts. And since part of Parker Kenpo was very kickboxing oriented, we usually sort of “won-beat” everything against these other people.
It just created a “wow” factor, like some of these folks were really dramatically moving into artsy, unsafe positions (as taught by their arts), and we’re just kickboxing at this point. Not good for them. We were always very friendly. There weren’t any kind of feud problems.
But then all of a sudden, who shows up one of these Saturdays in 1972, but the local, Kajukenbo guys. And all of a sudden, they were like us. They were a mixed kickboxing outfit. And so “Wow!” we said. And so no, we did not overcome them. And y’know, it was very much an equal experience. “These guys are like us! They’re from Hawaii, they’re doing the same things…” So that was my first introduction to Kajukenbo, and these guys. And, as time marches on, we’re all going to seminars, and we get to know each other and stuff. And then of course a long time ago, early 1990s I met Dean Goldade, he was a Professor Gaylord black belt. We worked consistently together for decades. I also got close with another Prof Gaylord guy, great guy, Ron Esteller. I have done dozens of seminars at his place over the years. I’ve done a seminar with Prof. Gaylord in California, so I know all these guys, and it’s just been a gigantic friendship ever since.
KO: What was it like in the martial arts world when you first started?
HH: Those guys were super tough. I joined…I started, in 1972, just after the blood and guts era of Karate training. It was sort of an assumption that this old martial arts training style could not be a successful business, if you have to vomit or bleed every Tuesday night. So, I missed all that. However, those guys were still around with us. And I heard all the great stories, and all the stuff that happened and they still clung to a harder core training. But I think there was a conscious business decision to not be so devastating. Otherwise, you would have no students. You would not have a business, you would not have the franchise plan and so forth.
I saw the same thing happen to Thai boxing. In, oh I guess about, the late ’80s or early ’90s, where suddenly you were not beating the snot out of each other all the time in class. Before that there were just constant injuries, and business problems with that. And of course Bruce Lee had this same problem at his YMCA classes in Los Angeles, which is why he created that YMCA boxing program, which Tim Tackett taught me. There’s a lot of great, hardcore, application drills in that program. It meant that James Coburn didn’t have a black eye when he went to the movie set. And the doctors and the lawyers training with Bruce, y’know, weren’t all busted up.
So, he created this kind of program that was focus-mitt oriented…and you’ve seen bits and pieces of it in the Jeet Kune Do world through time. The little sets of things, strike/counter-strike, sets of three, sets of four…I still use those. But my mission is not to create a boxer or a kickboxer. My mission is to create a bare-knuckle, self-defense endeavor. So, I still use a lot of that Bruce Lee YMCA program.
Seminar at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, pre 9-11.
KO: Tell us more about that program.
HH: Well, everything is called “Force Necessary”. It’s based on using only that force necessary to win and survive. The definition of “winning” is different situationally and personally. I have a couple of rules about what a fight is. “Checkers, not chess” is a motto of ours, and defining what you don’t do, helps you define what you do do. Defining what you don’t wanna’ do helps you define what you wanna’ do.
Is a fight “chess” or is it “checkers”? I believe a real fight under stress is checkers for almost all people. I mean, look at the limited list of techniques you see in the UFC. So I have an internal meter in my head that can spot the chess applications. Einstein said, “Keep it simple but not too simple.” But the definition of simplicity changes with people. So, if you have a super talented martial artist, you should remember that their definition of simple, or “checkers,” is higher than the average person.
Trying to keep things simple and as realistic as possible, in the hand, stick, knife, gun realm, that is really core, essential stuff.
I am not going to create champion kickboxers. Or champion MMA people. Or champion BJJ people. And in actuality, a lot of those people that do advertise they create those champions…they don’t really create champions anyway. Y’know, they just have a program, and they do the best they can with it.
My goal is to create self defense people. And again, there’s of course that large middle realm of “normal” people. But then of course if you have a special athlete in there, you have to make sure you hit their level of simplicity, which is higher.
I can look at people and just decide what they need to work on. For example, here’s one example, I’ve tried to look into the subject matter of the density and size of fists. You can look at a person and say “You shouldn’t be punching people, because look at how tiny your fists are. Switch to palm strikes.” And then I have another friend who’s got fists like cinder blocks. And he needs to be punching everybody.
I just ran across this in Hungary last week, in Budapest. A kid wants to pursue all this information. And I can look at him and say “You need to take a couple studies of, like, how Bruce Lee moved. Because you’re small, you’re thin…ya’ know, you look like him. What’s your arm length?” Etc. “But you, Mr. Tank standing next to the kid, at 280 pounds, you should develop your own “bruiser” approach to this.
I can tell you many great stories. I mean, Dan Inosanto said in a seminar once, decades ago…and he was a high school football running back champion…he was getting the ball, and crashing into the line…and his coach said “Dan, why are you running into people all the time?”
So, he named somebody famous, but it was a giant running back…and Dan said “Well, I’m trying to be like my hero ‘Joe Blow’ (whatever his name was). And the coach says “Dan, Joe Blow is 6’4. You’re 5’ 7”. Pick…another…hero.”
And that’s a great piece of advice for people, so I try to keep everything in this system essentially “core” simple, and in the end it’s up to me and the people to make their own thing that works for them. And not try to pretend to be somebody else they can’t be. It’s the “who” question again. “Who are you, really?”
And then of course you come around to the subject matter of instructors. As an instructor, despite your shape and size or shape, an instructor must know everything. Because he or she is now in front of all shapes and sizes, and ages, and strengths. So there’s the question, is your guy, the attendee, someone who wants to defend themselves, or do they also someday want to be an instructor? Well, the instructor has to learn everything. Two-fold responsibility.
KO: Tell us more about your view on teaching punching in your system.
HH: Well, punching is cavalierly taught in martial arts without any warnings. The big problem is the “bicycle helmet” area of the head. That’s the real hand breaker. Because the jaw gives, the neck kinda’ gives, and you have some chance of surviving that without injury. But when the bad guy reflexively lowers his head…you’re aiming for the nose, you instead hit the bicycle helmet part of the skull…you’ve got a broken hand. Or say, versus a hook punch, they turn their head sideways and down, and you got the split knuckles break.
So that’s why punching is level 5 in our empty hand module, of the 9 training levels, because I think it’s taught way too cavalierly in almost all martial arts. I mean, in those schools you’re punching on day 1 and no one is telling you this could be bad for your hand and how to avoid problems. What about a palm strike instead?
I’m a puncher from day one, and my hands are not that small. And I’ve only had two real problems and one surgery, with a hairline fractured bone because of an uppercut to a jaw.
KO: How does knife/gun/stick fit into the world of martial arts?
HH: Well, I guess it doesn’t in unarmed systems. But it should. It has been connected, if you think back to the samurai. They were shooting guns at each other eventually. Because the human race, psychologically, has been built to kill from a distance. This has been proven and proven and discussed forever. Archery was the big deal way back when, and then guns. And it’s just harder, face to face close, to kill a person. Just, psychologically.
So, today, there are a lot of guns. I don’t teach marksmanship at all. I have interactive/simulated ammo shooting training. In situations. That’s all I teach.
And of course the real challenge is to shoot cold, meaning that you are suddenly attacked…at that point, what is your skill level shooting cold instead of your skill level on the fourth set-round, warmed up on the range…and they say even psychologically, preparing yourself to drive to the range…getting everything ready to go, driving there, entering the place…all results in you not being all that “cold”. All of that is starting to prep you to shoot. Warming you up. Instead of being ambushed. And being ambushed is the greatest trick of all to pull off.
So I try to have situations that are based on reality. And I have very safe, fake guns, and very safe ammo, and we are able to work through many repetitions of realistic problems. You’re not learning gun combatives unless moving, thinking people are shooting back at you. It’s just that simple.
Of course, this approach has been accepted now, by the military and policing, and some smart civilian courses. I started to do this in the 1990s, and people were hesitant about it, thinking the only solution was – “I just need to draw faster” and stuff, and now as time has marched on, anybody with any sense is exploring interactive shooting with simulated rounds.
And of course, everyone’s been fighting with some kind of impact weapon or sword, but I don’t know if these things are officially, classically, “martial arts”.
KO: How did being a police officer connect with all your training?
HH: Well, for one thing, I didn’t shoot a lot of people. Cause I could fight ’em. That was a big deal. There were circumstances where I could have easily, legally, shot somebody, and I knew I didn’t have to. And so, I didn’t. And that’s from all this training and realistic confidence. Of course, that was not popular at the police department, because it set a new standard for these other people.
I do know from the reaction of people that that was kind of a problem. I’d bring a guy in, handcuffed, that I could have shot, and some old timer would be at the police department smoking a cigarette…and he’d say “Why didn’t you just shoot that son of a bitch…?”
And I would simply say “I didn’t have to. I didn’t have to shoot him”.
So that was the biggest thing. My days, the ’70s, the ’80s, and the ’90s,…basically speaking, if you were toe-to-toe, face-to-face with a guy, and a fight really started, we would basically, legally, try to beat the shit out of them until he quit resisting. You can’t do that anymore.
Because here’s the deal…if you arrest someone and wrestle with them…which is extremely dangerous, especially on the ground…and you get them in a “submissions/tap out” hold…they’re not gonna’ tap out, because in most cases they don’t know how to tap out. But you’ve captured them. Because I’m telling you, when you let the guy go, he continues to fight. Or he runs away.
So the goal of submission wrestling in arresting people is really not good. Now, if two or three people show up…your partners…you can try to work that out…and it’s usually still an uncoordinated mess.
And I’m a big fan of catch wrestling. Because as a martialist, we must know everything about the body. And we must know every joint, which way they bend, and which way they don’t bend. It’s our responsibility to know that. That doesn’t mean I have to become a brainwashed wrestler. Judo people forget to punch. If you’re in a system that doesn’t have a complete, competent doctrine, huge chunks are out. And if you exist in that system for too long, you forget many important things.
The old school fighting ways were: you hit the guy, stun the guy, throw him down. And handcuff him. That simple formula did help me tremendously in policework.
Nowadays, it’s a whole different animal.
KO: How about the stick part of your program?
HH: I approach the knife, the gun, the stick, and the empty hand in the same way. In stick training though, if you remove the Filipino stick vs. stick fighting, there’s not a whole lot left to the stick study. A regular person is not going to be fighting with a 28 inch stick by happenstance. By happenstance, you’re standing on a street corner with a 28 inch stick, and you get into a problem with another guy who has a 28 inch stick? Not likely. At the stick versus stick part, that point the stick fighting becomes more of an art, more of a fun, abstract study, a hobby, and a martial art.
If you remove stick vs. stick fighting from the program, there’s not a whole lot of material. So, I work on that for the Force Necessary Impact Weapon: Stick course, we worry about self-defense survival. A little dueling, yes, but not at all like a Filipino course.
KO: And yet you seem to have a strong interest in the stick.
HH: Well, I started with the Inosanto world in 1986. Like so many people, Dan Inosanto changed my life. With the things that he was doing, and the people that he had. I spent a lot of time with Terry Gibson in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who Inosanto said was one of his top five people. I hosted Terry, I went to his house, I went to the seminars they did up there. I met Paul Vunak, Larry Hartsell, all through Terry Gibson. But part of the whole thing with Arnis is the overabundance of stick work, of single stick work.
As Ernesto Presas would explain, you really have five areas of so-called “play” in Filipino martial arts. There’s
1: mano mano (hand),
2: single stick,
3: double stick,
4: knife,
5: espada y daga. Those are the big five areas of play.
So, sticks appear in three of those. Just naturally there’s an overabundance of it. Espada y daga is “sword” and daga, but it’s become “stick”, mostly. Some people justifiably call it “stick and knife”.
I myself am not particularly obsessed with sticks, ya ’know. I just have a long accumulated knowledge of stick stuff. And I have a world where customers want to see “stick” stuff. They are magically so interested in it. So, I am happy to do stick material, and it’s kind of fun and so on, but it’s not my main interest or thing to do.
And I’m amazed…I see these people that have weekend seminars, three-day seminars…single stick, seven hours each day. Wow! And they’re just hypnotized, and mesmerized, by stick versus stick. These people really love it.
And as a result of that, I am happy to do stick stuff. And frankly, I do know a lot about it. And Filipino martial. I’ve had lots of exposure, time and grade. Dan Inosanto, at first he was doing Pekiti Tirsia, and then he switched over to Lameco…and in the meantime, he’s still telling you what Johnny Lacoste did, what Serada does, and Illustrisimo…
I was exposed to all these different systems, and I started going to all these others with an open mind. I started going to Remy Presas seminars. Remy was charismatic, he was the real deal…he fought in the Philippines, and had killed people, in stick challenges, that’s not very well known, but I’ve written about it on my pages. So, I was going seminar to seminar. I was just a seminar attendee to him. And then some guy calls me over and says “Do you know about his brother, Ernesto?”
I said, “Never heard of him.”
And so, he said “Well, come back here behind this curtain.” And we started to do Ernesto material, and then I started to do Ernesto material for four years. As well as all the Inosanto material. As well as Remy material.
Then I get a phone call from my guy, and he says “I’m going to the Philippines for a month. You gotta go with me.” So, I’m thinking, I have hundreds of hours of comp time saved up as a detective. And you have to take that time after a while. So I said, “I’m in.” I’m a bachelor, I sold my car, we went. And there was only like 7 or 8 of us that went. It was great. Negros Island and in Manila.
The next thing you know, after about training in the Ernesto system for five years…on the last day, a black belt test and I get this black belt “guru” title, there in Manila. I come back with this lineage and an actual list of system requirements to do that was really elusive with other FMA instructors. Most people just had to spend a whole lot of time (and money) with “Tuhon Joe Jones” and maybe…maybe…you’d get something. I had a list and a lineage line straight to Manila. I said “You do these ten things, and you can get this belt ranking from the Philippines.”
“WHAT?!” they’d say, “You mean these ten things?”
Yeah! I said “I can do that for ya. And if you do these 25 things, you can be a basic instructor, as granted by Ernesto Presas in the Philippines.”
“WHAT?!”
So I started to become popular because I was, I had this connection. Back then, everybody wanted a backyard workout, a garage workout. Some guys rented a space. But everyone had a dream that was financially hard to do as time marches on. And that’s really how I became so-called “famous.” I started touring all over, people started asking me to these 10 things, to do these 12 things.
Meanwhile, I’m still with Remy Presas. Again, at those early times I was just another seminar attendee to Remy Presas, and Remy finds out I’ve been to his house on the Negros Island, that I’m working out in the Philippines, he contacts me. Then he and I became close. He knew I cared that much to do all those things. I hosted him numerous times and he stayed at my house a lot.
Both brothers had similar systems, but they’re different. Ernesto’s is much bigger. Ernesto was obsessed with making the perfect Filipino system, in those five areas of play. And as a result of that, he was tortured, and he never could complete it. He was constantly changing it, constantly messing around with it. Whereas Remy just wanted to do enough so that you could fight well, basically.
Both these guys were Karate black belts, they’re Judo black belts, they spent their entire lives doing martial arts. So. they were very well versed. They could fight anywhere, with anything.
But, back on the stick subject, as time marches on, the obsession with single stick with people is amazing.
So that is my…not a love/hate, but a love/infatuation with sticks.
KO: You’ve written quite a few books, right?
HH: Well, I have a very popular knife combatives book…
KO: (Thumbs up. I love that book.)
HH: …It’s got about 1,400 “how-to” photos. It’s very popular, it sells regularly, and now it’s an e-book.
Then I have an impact weapon book, which is not based on Filipino stick. But it is the blocking, striking, and grappling with an expandable baton, or any type of impact weapon that you have. I’m in the middle of making an unarmed combatives book, which is gonna be another heartbreaker to make…2,000-plus photographs, as much of my knowledge on the subject as possible I can record.
Then I have to do a Force Necessary: Gun” combatives book, which is nothing but all the sims ammo, interactive scenarios that I teach.
Those are the “big four”. The idea of writing a Filipino martial arts books is just overwhelming. I get a kick out of seeing these guys who write a “Filipino Martial Arts Book”, and it’s like a 128 page book. No (laughing), it’s gotta be as big as a damn spaceship manual. Now, I could do a five books on the five areas of play, that is digestible, possible. But y’know, I’m 70, I don’t know if I’ll get to finish ’em. And then of course, I do write novels, and I have a western series, and I have a detective series, and those take up a lot of my time.
KO: With modern technology, how important are books to the modern martial artist?
HH: Well, I guess that videos are superior, because you get to see what’s happening, but historically books are still important. They used to claim there were five ways to learn something, visually, reading, doing, etc. I don’t remember the others…but I’ve forgotten them because other experts have come up with five or more, better, ways to teach and learn. The original “five ways” is kind of an old school mythology that fell out of favor. I do know that you have to have different routes to people’s brains to teach them.
So, videos are pretty important. Sometimes I wish I had a GoPro I could plant, real thin, right between my eyes, and do what I’m doing and show people my (their) point of view, our perspective. And that would be another important way to learn.
But, for many, one of the main methods of learning is a book. And that’s why when I do these combat scenarios in books, I try to do each important step in the photos.
I’ve made about 45 training films. But with the demise of training films and the shortening attention span versions of films you see on YouTube…pretty much, the one-hour training video has lost the ability to be sold. Like Paladin, once a big international martial arts video company has collapsed. Century has bought the Panther videos but they don’t seem to be selling them. Nowadays, if you have an itch to learn…say…wrist locks, you type it in, you watch 17, three-minute YouTube videos on wristlocks, and you are sated. You’re not gonna’ buy a $40 wrist lock video. So, that is the problem with bothering to make movies anymore.
Of the 45 movies I’ve made, many are now free on my YouTube channel. I’ve decided once a month, I’m gonna put a 50-minute to 1 hour video up for free on my YouTube channel. Because of how things are changing. I don’t want the videos to sit and rot. If I was rich, I’d do all this for free anyway. That way at least people can watch and learn something.
KO: Are there any martial artists/martialists/fighters that you look/looked up to?
HH: Well, y’know, I really like Bas Rutten. I wish I could spend about year with that guy. But there are others that are competent fighters. I know that Bas will tend to lean toward the MMA/combatives thing, but he’s a pretty smart guy. Eric Paulson is amazing, the JKD guy. He’s amazing. He doesn’t seem to be hypnotized into wrestling. He knows the big picture. The information in the big picture is constantly on the tip of his tongue. You can always ask him “What about this? What about that?”
Gosh, and through the years, there’s been so many, but in particular categories. Scott Reitz. A founding member of LAPD SWAT…there’s your gun guy right there. Paul Howe, former Delta Force, gun guy, teaching in Nacogdoches, Texas. I guess I tend to lean towards extremely experienced people.
And then, some of the smartest people in the martial arts that you will ever meet, will run a quiet little school in a strip mall, in “Bumscrew”, Wisconsin. And nobody knows about them, but they’re brilliant people. And that’s just the way that it goes.
KO: What are your hopes for fight training, combatives, martial arts, etc. in the future?
HH: The bottom line is that I hope that everyone will be happy doing what they’re doing. Because much of it is a sport or a hobby.
The only thing that I ask for, that I ask and dream of, is that everybody who’s doing their hobbies and sports realize where it fits in survival. How does it fit in? Does it fit in? That’s one of the “who, when, what, where, why, and how” questions.
You have to have a martial IQ. The intelligence quota, to select the right things, and keep improving. If you wanna wrestle the rest of your life, and you still realize that this isn’t the cure for all fighting, and realize you don’t have a stick/gun/knife involved in this, and notice if you have forgotten how to punch and kick, “I just know this wrestling thing, and I love it! Maybe I will do a sports tournament thing someday, wouldn’t that be fun…”
Yeah. Go. Have a blast. Just know where everything fits or doesn’t fit. In the end, I want everybody to be happy with what they’re doing. They’re off the couch, they’re exercising, they’re part of the social aspects of a good school…you have Christmas parties, get togethers, you have kinship…all these great things can happen because of a martial art class, or a combatives class, or whatever. Just have an idea, from someone, somewhere, where your art fits in real life. And then, I’m happy. If you’re happy, I’m happy.
KO: Do you have any advice for martialists or Kajukenbo people in general?
HH: Well, Kajukenbo is, to me, a wide-open system of learning. They want you to exist in those categories and keep evolving and learning. And that to me is the best advice. Keep evolving and learning.
Hawaii was an amazing place, and a transition for so much.I remember Ed Parker saying that he tried to take all the Karate and Kenpo and turn it into an art for a bigger person. To Americanize it, so to speak. I think Kajukenbo did that too. And now it’s one of those martial arts that’s all over the world.
Back then there wasn’t a lot going on. And the arts there in Hawaii were the established beginnings of things. So, it doesn’t surprise me that a lot of guys were in those two arts (Kenpo and Kajukenbo). Nowadays, the popularity to me seems to be with BJJ and Krav Maga. You don’t see the Kung Fu school so often anymore.
Pride before the FAIL (or Fall) – meaning “those people who are overconfident or too arrogant are likely to fail” – this quick, popular and easily understood saying is from the Bible’s Book of Proverbs, in a few varied words. But the same message. Now, I am far from a Biblical expert, but its general popularity speaks volumes. Here I would like to rotate the word “fail” to “fall,” – which so many people already do anyway. There are other related phrases to add to this subject, like “you fell prey to,” or “falling prey to,” meaning you have been misguided and “fell” for some such thing that you should not have.
I would like here to produce some ideas and regenerate some martial arts history. The subject? The so-called “sacrifice fall” or another version of the same, “sacrifice throw.” Same-same.
The word “sacrifice” pops up in many ways in old and new combatives, martial arts and combat sports:
You learn that you will sacrifice a lot of your free time to train.
You learn that to practice might mean sacrificing your short-term or long-term health.
You learn that that when you kick, you temporarily sacrifice your balance.
You learn that When you punch, you sacrifice your safer arms-up, shield protection.
You learn and train you very often “lose,” a lot, discovering ignorances, sacrificing your ego and pride.
You learn that entering into a new art or system, you learn that not only did you sacrifice your time with the last one, you might have wasted a bit of it too.
You learn about sacrifice falls. You should be taught about the few pros and many cons of the sacrifice fall.
Yes, lots of sacrifices in the martial arts and combat sports. And in this category of sacrifices includes the ubiquitous topic of “sacrifice falls” – defined as “purposely giving up, surrendering, your superior standing or knee-high position to end up fighting on the grounds and floors of the world.” I am here to report that once popular warning, is not at all as ubiquitous as it once was. And I would add, numerous popular arts and sports seek the very opposite. Entire systems now live on and for the sacrifice fall. I mean why else call them sacrifice falls for God’s sake! You are sacrificing,
Starting as an adult in the early 1970s in Ed Parker Kenpo Karate, I was taught the old, current and potentials of fighting. A common expression and lessons were about serious warnings on the “sacrifice fall-throw.” It was once very popular to at least warn practitioners about the few pros and mostly cons of sacrifice falls. “Now this technique is a sacrifice fall. You will go down on purpose with your opponent, sacrificing…”
Much of this early aikido, aiki-jitsu and jujitsu training was down on wooden floors or carpet. Falls were tougher to absorb than on today’s mats. This was educational. To my memory, these instructors never said, “Don’t ever-ever sacrifice fall!” There are indeed oddball times when you should, but they just warned you about the losses.
Warned you about what exactly? Loss of mobility. Multiple opponents. Hard landings. You know the drill, the usual advice, now so ignored. And like worrying about the varied surfaces of the world include the wood and the carpet, yes, but also cement, asphalt, tile, sand, dirt, water, mud, rocks all found within the vertical challenges of slants, stairs, hills, surrounded by furniture, bars, walls, trees, fences…well…the list is long and in some 26 years of police work in line operations, I have struggled with suspects in many of these horizontal and vertical mixes. (One of my “memorable” arrests was falling and fighting a suicidal guy in the pouring rain, sliding down a long, very slanted hill of mud. We weren’t standing, nor officially horizontal, we were “down.” Is that “ground fighting?) I once got a bruise on my rear end, fighting down on a parking lot, from the badge inside my wallet, in my back pocket. That’s reality. It does also stand to reason that…I have NEVER fought a suspect…on a mat. the world is not a mat, It’s a tough surface.
I know this concept-advice is old, but is it gone? It is still rather ignored by thousands, so the drum must be pounded. Recently, I saw a film of one my acquaintances-teachers jump on an opponent in a tackle and they both plummeted onto a very plush, deep (6 inches or more?) gymnastics-style mat. It was blatantly obvious that our hero would have totally shattered his elbow. I said, “damn, and he doesn’t even know that?” He must not have known because he proudly published the film clip. Finally, someone chimed in with the comment, “and you have now totally destroyed your elbow.” Ahhh, just one of the perils of the purposeful, sacrifice fall. The instructor stuttered a half-assed “yeah…we…but…ahhh…” reply. There was no getting around the mistake. He should have just taken the clip down off the web. He should have had the “martial I.Q” to realize that his “cool-breeze” move was a contradiction to the “SELF DEFENSE” verbiage on his storefront window.
I do not wish to bother you here with list of advantages of being up and mobile, with a solid expertise in kickboxing, facing the mixed weapon world of hand, stick, knife, gun. I do believe everyone knows this on some level, but they do not actualize it, take it to heart and mind. So many arts and sports these days ignore or de-value kick-boxing, and work hard to only achieve a sacrifice fall, only to wrestle on the ground for a submission. Their sport-art training mission is central to sacrifice falling. You must go down with them. There are videos for sale out there proudly titled “The Best Sacrifice Throws.” Yup, for sports and arts, but there is a certain, cancerous, brainwashing, muscle memory about all this. Recipes to fight survival are situational.
It use to be joke-videos years ago, when we saw submission fighters drop on the ground and shout “Get in my guard!” It was funny! We laughed. Now, this is actually happening in competitions! Why bother with sacrifice falls! Just jump down and get in my guard! What an abstract, rabbit hole.
Old police college researchers tried to compile a list in the 1990s on how we end up on the ground in a fight. It makes some sense. In order they advised:
1: We trip and fall (VERY likely).
2: We are tackled (and usually not by some highly refined sport takedown, but usually by a “wild man” tackle. The sacrifice fall!)
3:We are punched down (via – a: the sucker punch, b: the haymaker, c: the classic sport punches).
4: We are pulled down (when we try to toss someone, they try not to fall and instinctively reach out and grab something and that means YOU).
Years ago, like in old school ju-jitsu , the priority takedowns were those where you remained standing up or at least knee high. You tried. Even in police work arrests, you tried. These are indeed a little harder to do. It is often easier to sacrifice, to just jump on someone and both hit the mat. I mean ground. As a teacher of self defense, these distinctions are in my course doctrine. Our first line of takedowns and throws involve set-up stunning strikes (it all starts with something like kickboxing) and takedowns where the practitioner remains standing or knee-high.
A defender must fully learn ground n pound, survival, no rules, ground fighting for when one accidentally falls or is taken down by a criminal or enemy soldier sacrificer. All survivalists, all martialists, must learn every joint in the body and which direction that joint turns and bends and which directions those joints can’t-don’t turn and bend. Standing through ground. This general, body-knowledge is required.
Ends justify the means? In 26 years I have arrested some 900 people and been around for and investigated hundreds more “fight enders”. The martial arts? 51 years and counting. I can predict how these things end. Many students seek the sacrifice fall to seek the tap-out submission, a recipe for sports and arts. Fun for all to know, but when soldiers, civilians and police drop and seek a tap-out submission in a conflict, this is NOT a fight ender. When you let them go, as you eventually must, the fight (or chase) continues. Dumb martial artists claim, “I’ll break their arm then…etc.” Dumb combatives people claim, “I’ll blind them, then…etc.” Then bubba, you’ll probably go to jail, taking an arguably self defense situation into a serious bodily injury felony. By the way, police must be in a limited, somewhat submission position to handcuff. Handcuffing resistors-fighters is hard. They punch, kick and bite.
Let’s not sacrifice words, in a summary: Have you ever known of, or have forgotten the almost ancient advice-warnings on the idea of sacrifice falls-throws? The tip, the advice still does exist in smart places here and there. Recently the Evolve -MMA.com (a great resource) page warned – “Remember that the sumi gaeshi is a sacrifice throw; an unsuccessful attempt may result in either a pin or a scramble.”The advice-warning still is in existence, but not enough.
Now look – I always run this disclaimer – if you are a happy camper in your beloved hobbies, arts and sports? Judo. BJJ, tennis, golf, etc? Great news! I’m happy if you are happy. All I ask is that you know those are abstract skills relate to reality. Just know precisely what you are doing and where it fits in the real, big picture of hand, stick, knife and gun, war and crime survival. It might not fit much at all (this might mean taking down the self defense sign in your window). Don’t spread the innocent, cancer-brainwashing. Don’t advertise that your mandatory, sacrifice fall, submission, tap-out art is the superior system of the planet. The galaxy. You have then “fallen prey” to short-sighted ignorance. Your martial “I.Q.” is low. Don’t fall prey to the sacrifice fall.
And to back a bit to the bible analogy – “People who are overconfident or too arrogant (about their ground wrestling, who ignore kickboxing and mixed weapons, who ignore crime and war) are likely to fail-fall.” Pride before the fall, the fail.
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In my Budapest hotel this week, arranged by my seminar hosts, I stepped outside for the first to look around. Right across the street was the rear of a magnificent classic building. Such sights are not unusual in Hungary. Weather just beautiful, I stepped to the right a bit, and I discovered that this was an art museum and that it was across the street from a giant circle of historic Hungarian statues of heros. And I realized I had been here-there about 7 years ago, not just “I”, but “we”…with Jane. Spent hours there with Jane.
I was suddenly a bit short of breath, and a sense of “wow” and bittersweet came over me. Bittersweet is what you wish for, a sense of “sadness-mixed-with-great-memory, touch-of-happy-gratitude.” Complicated emotion, huh, once dissected. We’d been inside that museum and on the circle. I walked around the area and saw the sidewalk café we sat in for coffee and a dessert that late afternoon. The café is still there, along the way. Across. And then the bittersweet turned way more bitter. And bitter.
I walked past it, gapping at it. A musical phrase rang through my head over and over, “in that small café…in the small café…” What song was that? I knew the rest of the lyrics would pop into my brain when it cleared later.
But I had to pass the café again on the way back. I saw couples sitting there at the tables and I felt compelled, driven to approach at least one pair, and tell them to deeply SAVOR this simple, everyday moment in time, in life because…because, someday only one of them might pass it by, alone like me. Do any of them even speak English? They might think me a crazy bum bothering them? I didn’t try. I left with only deepest sadness. I returned to the hotel.
“In that small café…” What, what was that…
The next day, near the café again the full song came to me like magic. Of course! It is a harrowing song, a heartbreaker sung by many greats. Sinatra. Durante. Many. I had always thought it just a song about a failed love, but it is also truly about a death.
I’ll be seeing you In all the old familiar places That this heart of mine embraces All day through
In that small cafe The park across the way The children’s carousel The chestnut trees The wishing well
I’ll be seeing you In every lovely summer’s day In everything that’s light and gay I’ll always think of you that way
I’ll find you in the morning sun And when the night is new I’ll be looking at the moon But I’ll be seeing you
I’ll be seeing you…
These “small cafes” are everywhere in my life, in your life. As I have said before, with great love is great catastrophe. For the one left behind. The ones left behind. I await the bittersweet. Will I ever fully feel it? How many of these love-lost songs are also about death too? Can I ever listen to music again? Will I ever get to just smile at such memories and not break down? Experts and well-wishers tell me I will. I just don’t know.
I wish I could be more positive for you here, but I do know at least this, think about this message when you and a special someone sit at that simple, “small café across the way.” It’s never so simple and not so small.
With my recent promotion to 8th Dan in Kajukenbo, in the Prof. Gaylord Family and his 9th Dan Sifu Dean Goldade we have some new opportunities. Cross-ranking and getting recognized in Kaju! As you already know, all Force Necessary course testing is optional. All FMA-PAC testing is also optional. And now, thanks to the Dean of Kajukenbo, Dean Goldade we can add this Kaju option. Pick one, pick two, pick three. Pick none. Up to you.
To Kaju cross-rank, (which means you already have FN: Hand rank,) we are going to have see your own physical construction-demonstrations of the block, strike, kick scenarios, the counter to grab scenarios, and an understanding of the culture and history of Kajukenbo. The way the Force Necessary Hand course is structured, you should be able to do these scenarios virtually…”in your sleep.”I bring you news from the Kajukenbo front.
Professor Gaylord and I did a seminar together in San Francisco in 2003. He has since passed way. Thanks to the Dean I am in the Professor’s family tree.
The Cross-Over Test Process and Requirements. The cross-over will include some new demonstrations of blocking, striking, kicking and grappling, plus the understanding of Kaju culture and history.
Level 1: White Belt beginner.
Level 2 Gold practitioner.
Level 3 Gold-one stripe practitioner.
Level 4 Purple practitioner.
Level 5 Purple one stripe practitioner.
Level 6 Blue practitioner.
Level 7 Blue 1 stripe practitioner.
Level 8 Brown practitioner.
Level 9 Brown one stripe practitioner.
Level 10 Black practitioner.
Then Blacks 1- 9 Dan levels practitioners.
Level 1: White belt studies
One demonstration of a block, strike and kick takedown scenario.
One demonstration of a scenario countering any grab, headlock, choke, etc.
Plus, the Level 1 requirements of the Force Necessary: Hand Level 1. If you have already taken this test, you need not do this part again.
A grounding in Kajukenbo culture and history.
Level 2:
Two demonstrations of block, strike and kick takedown scenarios.
Two demonstrations of a scenario countering another grab, headlock, choke.
Plus, the Level 2 requirements of the Force Necessary: Hand Level 2, etc. If you have already taken this test, you need not do this part again.
More grounding in Kajukenbo culture and history.
Level 3:
Three demonstrations of block, strike and kick takedown scenarios
Three demonstrations of a scenario countering another grab, headlock, choke, etc.
Plus, the Level 3 requirements of the Force Necessary: Hand Level 3. If you have already taken this test, you need not do this part again.
More grounding in Kajukenbo culture and history.
Level 4:
Four demonstrations of block, strike and kick takedown scenarios.
Four demonstrations of a scenario countering another grab, headlock, choke, etc,
Plus, the Level 4 requirements of the Force Necessary: Hand Level 4. If you have already taken this test, you need not do this part again.
More grounding in Kajukenbo culture and history.
Level 5:
Five demonstrations of block, strike and kick takedown scenarios. Some or all can be versus weapons.
Five demonstrations of a scenario countering another grab, headlock, choke, etc.
Plus, the Level 5 requirements of the Force Necessary: Hand Level 5. If you have already taken this test, you need not do this part again.
More grounding in Kajukenbo culture and history.
Level 6:
Six demonstrations of block, strike and kick takedown scenarios. Some or all can be versus weapons.
Six demonstrations of a scenario countering another grab, headlock, choke, etc. (Every prior module 1-5 include ground applications, but FN: Hand Level 6 emphasizes the Stop 6 ground crash of the Stop 6 program and now these responses can include solving ground problems.)
Plus, the Level 6 requirements of the Force Necessary: Hand Level 6. If you have already taken this test, you need not do this part again.
More grounding in Kajukenbo culture and history.
Level 7:
Seven demonstrations of block, strike and kick takedown scenarios. Some or all can be versus weapons.
Seven demonstrations of a scenario countering another grab, headlock, choke, etc. These can include ground problems. Plus, the Level 7 requirements of the Force Necessary: Hand Level 7. If you have already taken this test, you need not do this part again.
More grounding in Kajukenbo culture and history.
Level 8:
Eight demonstrations of block, strike and kick takedown scenarios. Some or all can be versus weapons.
Eight demonstrations of a scenario countering another grab, headlock, choke,etc. These can include ground problems.
Plus, the Level 8 requirements of the Force Necessary: Hand Level 8. If you have already taken this test, you need not do this part again.
More grounding in Kajukenbo culture and history.
Level 9:
Nine demonstrations of block, strike and kick takedown scenarios. Some or all can be versus weapons.
Nine demonstrations of a scenario countering another grab, headlock, choke, etc. These now can include ground problems.
Plus, the Level 9 requirements of the Force Necessary: Hand Level 9. If you have already taken this test, you need not do this part again.
More grounding in Kajukenbo culture and history.
Level 10 Black Belt:
Ten demonstrations of block, strike and kick takedown scenarios. Some or all can be versus weapons.
Ten demonstrations of a scenario countering another grab, headlock, choke, etc. These now can include ground problems.
The Level 10 Force Necessary Black Belt Test. If you have already taken this test, you need not do it again.
I will be doing this for those interested in every seminar I do from now on. Each optional cross-over level 1-9 fee is $100 each.The optional cross-over Black Belt fee is $500.
And, a big opportunity for this cross-ranking will be Dec 9-10 seminar in Copperas Cove (central) Texas – Southwest of Waco and a bit west of Killeen, taught by The Dean, Jim Mahan and myself. Click here for more on this.
Decades ago, I was working out with karate expert friend, and I grabbed his arms. He’d never been grabbed like this, and he had the epiphany-realization in that moment he needed grappling. But he then started years of Judo. But, this was yet another sport-art. They are both sports-arts. Combining them is still two isolated segments of sports-arts, each deficient in their own categories. Adding and doubling, tripling up on more sport-arts atop each other is not going to best solve the survival problem. It complicates it. It distracts it. It needs blending, not adding.
I see a lot of Mixed Martial Arts being taught and spread. This morning I saw a school advertisement for a “Boxing and Ground fighting” school. Their attached photos show official sport “boxing” and official sport Brazilian wrestling. I get the idea that the advertisers, as well as the customers must think…
“Wow! That’s so complete. I’m getting both.” “Ready to be attacked by any and all!”
Combatives is supposed to be above all this isolation. But, once you accept the combatives mission-mindset you are faced with the next problem. Collecting and cleaning up the material, material that mostly comes from sport-arts! And you must possess the “martial IQ” to evaluate the material. This process is not as easy as it sounds. It needs blending, not adding.
Try if you must, there is still much sport leakage around. Even in some Krav Magas – present supposedly as a final cure for sport leakage, but I still see…sport leakage, naively, accidentally falling back too far into sport-art. Instructors are often brainwashed from their old art-sport systems. They still think and solve within their brainwashing when there might be a better, faster, unbiased way. Hey, I still find more of this cleansing about every week – “Why am I doing this when I should be doing that.” The process never ends.
Some things the “Ws and H Questions” for you to ask and answer…
* WHO are you? * WHO is the instructor? * WHO do you want to become? * WHAT are you seeking exactly? Precisely? * WHAT – is there a better, faster way? * WHERE do you go to seek your result? * WHEN have you really found the “it?” * HOW will you find “it?” How do you or he dissect “it?” * WHY are you motivated to try?
“Learning different martial arts is pretty much useless in modern MMA. It is now its own sport and anyone interested in learning MMA would be much better served to join an actual MMA gym. Learning separate martial arts before starting MMA would be, quite frankly, a waste of time.” – Sprawl CO.
Modern MMA as we see in the UFC etc, is the closest art-sport you will get to reality. But you still need to add weapons, cheating, delete safety rules and weight classes and worry about trying all the moves of these full time, young professional fighters. I’ll bet you are not a full-timer, young professional fighter-athlete – 99.99999% of us are not – so you probably can’t and shouldn’t try to do what they do.
(And of course people have hobbies and they want to pursue their hobbies for a variety of reasons. They should answer those questions, know what they want to do and its limitations. I just ask, do they know what they are doing? If so? Hobby, hobby, hobby on and be happy!)
Boys and girls! Another episode in the thrilling days of yesteryear Texas Policing….
When I walked onto the Criminal Investigation Division floor to start my evening shift, I could tell something was “up.” The day shift guys were scrambling to get their tactical vests and assorted personal gear and standard-issue, shotguns.
“Hock!” said one, “Hurry up here!” and they directed me up to the third floor meeting room, which was a large room constructed like a small theater.
“We will hit this house….” …and the briefing went on, conducted by a new sergeant who also was a traffic cop at heart promoted to detective sergeant in the foolish card shuffle I call the “admin police fandango.” I’ll just call him here, “Sgt Larry.”
Down in our city’s projects, in an old, two-story wooden, house bound for demolition, a local crack/cocaine dealer, ex-con named Willy Vics was running a dope house. It was a magnet for bad guys and hookers from the region. Our narc guys had a freshly signed warrant in their hands, growing stale by the minute.
“David, Benny, Jeff…you three will enter here and will move upstairs…Tony…you…” and Sgt Larry laid out the plans. There was a somewhat discreet effort to rest the SWAT team a bit in those days. Recently, a certain team had set a house on fire with a flash-bang that – once shot through a window, ignited a curtain, and the ENTIRE house burned down. And, well, there was a movement, you might call it, to tone down militant appearances. Some line operators finally started asking the question, “Do we really need SWAT to do this?”
At some point, someone in the fandango decided regular detectives should do this one, not our SWAT team. This was reminiscent, pre Sgt. Larry and of the pre-SWAT days. We detectives were once the “SWAT team.”
So, his chalkboard was filling up with tactical brilliance. White arrows were laid down aggressively, but there was a bit of a problem manifesting. Call it – “the back.”
You see, the back of the house emptied out to a big yard beside a side street and connected to a neighborhood of other yards. On the board, the arrows ran out of people to cover the escape routes! I would say there were at last six detectives assigned these arrows. Sgt, Larry looked up at newly arrived me, gearless at this point and still in the required suit and tie-
“…and Hock…you take the back.”
Huh? Famous last words. Okay. Me The back. Take it. Pretty big back “take” though. A few of us had run dozens of these deals through the years and we all had “taken the back,” at one point or another. Still, this was a pretty big “back.” Nothing new here, though. Most of the time, the suspect, and or suspects, upon hearing officers at the front door, would then peek outside a rear window, see a troop standing guard back there, and often surrender. Usually. Some hide in the house. We still had had to chase a few. I would often put something across the back door causing a fleeing felons to trip. There’s a few tricks there I won’t reveal. I witnessed one investigator throw a brick and hit a fleeing suspect in the head. Took him right down. He couldn’t shoot him! So he bricked him.
Within a few minutes, everyone hit the streets in their unmarked cars. I threw on my body armor and raid jacket and left the shotgun in my car (too cumbersome in close quarters for me on most deals of this nature). The plan was to give me a minute to park down the street just a bit and trot up to the yard. This was a corner house. Then =once I was ensconced, several cars would skid up to the house front, men bail out, destroy the door, and rush in.
I barely had time to jump the very tall, pre-demolition, chain link fence, when I heard the sound of skidding tires and men yelling out front. The usual soundtrack. It is always tricky to exactly coordinate these things.
There were about six back windows and a back door. The first floor extended out beneath the second story. This extension made for a sloping, large ledge under the upstairs windows. I tell you this now because in an instant, every hole in the back of this building had people pouring out of it, out the first floor door and windows as folks leapt, hung and dropped from the ledge to escape. And here they came!
“Halt! Police! Stop!” I yelled from the middle of the yard, my .45 drawn. HA! I recall at least 10 unarmed people ran by me as though I was not there. Fat hookers, skinny dopers, teens and old fogies. You name it. If I had actually started shooting at them? Well hell, I’d be writing this from the penitentiary right now.
BUT! One of the escapees was Willy Vic himself! He ignored me, too, so I figured since he was the subject of the entire raid, I would chase him. The sprint was on. Willy had to vault a fence, and I was counting on that slowing him down. I holstered my weapon. I couldn’t shoot anyone here anyway.
He jumped on the fence and starting climbing, and I reached up and grabbed him. He clung like bat on the chain link. I reached around, cussed and slapped his face a few times. Hammer-fisted his hands, loosening his grip. He dropped back into the yard.
Thereupon came the scuffle. Willy landed on his back and my mission was to get him cuffed, which he didn’t want either. He still had “rabbit in him” (which was Texican lawman talk for he was a runner).
He was a big guy, but in his mid-50s and these guys are still dangerous when excited, plus I was rather surrounded by his escaping customers and his gang who could double and even triple the odds in Willy’s favor. Ever try to fight a mean, angry, fat hooker while trying to handcuff someone else?
Meanwhile, the “team” was cautiously SWAT-tip-toeing through the house as though terrorists with sub-guns and bombs were behind every corner. I could hear them yelling, “Clear! Clear!” as they secured every empty room and closet in the 2 story house.
One thing was very “clear” to me, I was all alone in the yard, fighting a guy right beside all his buddies, who I hoped were all busy trying to escape. I had to toss a few snappy body punches into Willy, all the while yelling for him to give up. He quickly ran out of gas, and I muscled him into cuffs. His passing help? There was no loyalty among these thieves, and all the escapees got over the fences and were log-gone daddies. Some climbs I saw were comical. I stood alone with the drug dealer, and I was, all at once, a failure and a success in my mind.
I pulled the portable radio out of my back pocket and called Sgt. Larry. I reported that I had caught Willy Vics in the backyard. I hooked his arm, lifted him, and walked him through the house to the front porch where the dopers who were caught in the front rooms were cuffed and sitting on the steps. It made for great front page, local, newspaper photo of about six guys, now Willy among them, cuffed and sitting dejected on the front porch steps and about six of our guys in raid jackets and shotguns towering over them. What a picture. What a photo op!
I stood off from the victory photo-shoot and was a bit disappointed in myself because I had let about, oh, 11 people get away. I was about 29 or 30 years old then and had very high expectations for myself. Hell man! “One riot? One Ranger!” Audie Murphy and Sgt. York took hundreds of prisoners. I couldn’t stop ten dopers and four fat hookers?
But, it all became quickly apparent that, in the end, I had caught the big fish they were after, and there was a tactical mishap in planning. Being me alone…”taking the back” – you know, the place where everyone seems to go when the front gets raided?
This mishap became an “inside joke” with the troops for awhile. For the next year or two there was running joke with CID that anytime we would plan anything, (even a football party), it would finish with, “…and Hock, you take the back!”
Sgt. Larry really was a traffic cop at heart and no Kojack. (This is a common problem in policing, promoting football players into basketball games and vice versa. He returned to that position after much negative ado.) If he heard the rib, he took it with good nature. I guess?
There was an old 1960s comedy bit done by the now disgraced Bill Cosby about the Lone Ranger and Tonto. (I once loved Bill Cosby.) The Lone Ranger would say, “We’ve got to go to town and find out what the gang is doing,” meaning that actually Tonto himself, – alone, – would have to go to town. Whereupon he would routinely have the snot beaten out of him. Bill Cosby said he and his young pals would scream at the TV set,
“Don’t do it, Tonto! They’ll beat the snot out of you!”
Cosby suggested Tonto say instead, “Who’s ‘we,’ Kemosabe?” Which for a while back then, that line become a bit of a cultural, well know joke. You might still hear it a bit now.
But that one day? I was Tonto out back for sure. And Kemosabe was nowhere to be found.
This story is excerpted from Hock’s Dead Right There book and appears in the Wolfpack E-book Omnibus Kill or be Killed, click here for more on these books.
“Back in March of 2000, a magazine arrived in my mailbox. And even though I had been expecting it, when it did finally show up, I was somewhat surprised by my reaction to it.
It was… disbelief. Even though I was holding the magazine in my hand, I was still having a hard time believing it. Now, one reason was because I was looking at a picture of myself on the cover. And this was something I’d never seen before.
But seeing myself on the cover was not the most surprising part. The surprising part was that the magazine existed at all.
Here’s the thing, this magazine had started out as a dream. The dream of a friend of mine; Hock Hochheim. Hock and I had similar backgrounds, but in those days he was much further along in his journey than I was in mine.
Anyway, the topic first came up as we were drinking coffee in a hotel lobby in May of 1998. Not just any hotel, but the famous Elms Hotel and Spa in Excelsior Springs, Missouri. In years past, the hotel had been a favorite party spot for gangsters such as Al Capone, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, and Bugsy Moran. And it’s world-class spa facilities drew boxing legend Jack Dempsey to train there.
We were at that hotel to conduct a two-day martial arts seminar. (Since the late 90s, Hock has traveled across the USA and around the world conducting training seminars. Something he continues to do to this day.)
So it was in that hotel lobby, between sips of coffee, that Hock told me he wanted to start a magazine. A magazine for people like us; devotees of all kinds of training.
At the time, he had no idea how to do it. I mean, how DO you do it? How do you layout a magazine page? Who edits the articles? Who writes the articles? How do you pay for something like this? How do you convince advertisers to buy ad-space in a magazine that nobody has ever heard of?
I must confess that initially I had a hard time taking Hock’s idea seriously. I mean, a magazine? Magaowere produced by publishing companies, not by guys like us.
But Hock was undeterred. And over the course of the next year or so, he and his amazing wife Jane got to work figuring out how to start a magazine. He would give me updates, as they solved one problem and then the next. And as the months ticked by, it became apparent that this “crazy” magazine dream was going to come true.
And that is how, twenty-three years ago, I found myself holding a magazine with my picture on the front cover. Now, like most magazines, Hock’s magazine isn’t around anymore. But, while it was around, it was an honest-to-goodness magazine. With informative articles and subscribers and advertisers. It was even sold in national bookstore chains like Borders, Books.A.Million and Hastings Books (with 1,000s of subscribers all over the world.)
And Hock managed to do all this with a full-time staff of two. Just Hock and his wife, working out of their house. An amazing, amazing accomplishment.
So, how big is “too big” for you to dream?
I don’t think there is such a thing.” – Mike Gillette
Attacking the Neck for Restraints, Takedowns and Chokes
A martialist must have a working knowledge about the anatomy, physicality and the law when it comes to wrapping arms around the neck for any reason, a walk-away, takedown and/or any choke. Here is quick, mandatory report on what you should know on the subject in general.
First, I would like to establish my anecdotal experience. I am from an era, starting in the 1970s in martial arts and police work where chokes were very popular and roughly trained. A choke was a go-to, common enforcement move and in 26 years I have choked out about 10-12 or so people. That is not a lot, As an obsessive martial artist, training and experience has helped me use alternatives to choking. But I have witnessed and partaken in some 40 or more. Every suspect quickly recovered as we were taught to monitor the suspect’s responses. And I have been attacked by a few chokeholds, most during during arrests (read on for the worst). And in those olden training times, it was not uncommon to be accidentally choked out (and knocked out) sometimes in class. Times have changed.
Chokes were treated very flippantly in those olden times. Sadly, in the recent decades that followed, for whatever reasons – be they a lack of knowledge-training, etc., simple chokes have caused damages and deaths that have enraged into socio-political, national and international uproars. You do not want you or your students, compatriots and-or employees to be a part of such uproars. Results may include imprisonment these days, by ignoring the facts. Chokes are risky yes, but, still, a martialist must have a working knowledge of chokes and non-choke, neck grabs.
While such sport-choke and related sport neck takedown methods are useful to practice and know, they are small in comparison to self defense, crime, law and war problem-solving. So, this subject-study will include civilian, enforcement and military realities, as well as generic, applications of arm wrap, chokes and neck grabs.
Due to popularity and fandom of martial arts sports, most of the neck-related, training attention, time-hubris is spent on sport tap-out chokes down on the mats to win matches and pro fights. This sports version eats up “all the oxygen” (if you will pardon the pun) in youtube videos and internet searches. Several martial arts will claim there are “100s” of chokes, but no. Instead, there might be hundreds of chess-like approaches and situations to inch into these chokes. The choke itself is “checkers simple.” Blood and air.
And important – all neck attacks are not chokes…however, neck attacks are loosely, flippantly called “chokes” or “chokeholds” by many. We’ll be looking at the common arm-related ones not crushing-hand chokes, but crushing hand chokes might cause similar injuries as arm wraps.(It should also be noted here that choking by the hands not arms is a very big domestic violence problem. That’s another essay. But generically speaking, the injuries are very the same.)
The big two… for our rear arm wrap attack and takedown essay and yes – as well as grounded problems, here are two main neck arm-wrap-grabs for rear chokes and takedowns. See the drawings below, single arm and double arm wraps. You will find there are numerous nicknames for chokes. Some do help identify the move-position. Blood chokes are often called “sleepers” because the “chokee” thinks he is really just neck-uncomfortable and still okay… and… and… he’s out. While an air choke will probably cause the chokee to “air swim,” like he is drowning on dry land.
What are the legal and medical definitions? Law Insiderdefines a neck restraint as “the use of any body part or object to attempt to control or disable a person by applying pressure against the neck, including the trachea and-or carotid artery with the purpose, intent, or effect of controlling or restricting the person’s movement or restricting the person’s blood flow or breathing, including chokeholds, carotid restraints, and lateral vascular neck restraints.” (For the record, a “Lateral Vascular Neck Restraint® (LVNR®) is a control technique applied to the sides of the neck, using a combination of physiological factors to restrict blood flow to the brain which may cause the subject to lose consciousness.)
Dr. Google defines choking as a strangulation. “Strangling cuts off the flow of oxygen to the brain in one or more ways. Strangulation compresses the carotid artery or jugular veins, resulting in cerebral ischemia. Cerebral ischemia is caused by disruption of the blood supply, and thus oxygen, to the brain, particularly the cerebrum. Global ischemia is caused by cardiac arrest, shock, carotid occlusion,hypotension, asphyxia, or anemia. Focal cerebral ischemia is usually related to cerebral vascular atherosclerosis. Strangulation is defined as asphyxia by closure of the blood vessels and/or air passages of the neck as a result of external pressure on the neck.”
Non-choke neck grabs, restraints and takedowns can look like attempts at unconscious choking, but can be just temporary control measures. You can just remove-escort or takedown people via the neck area without choking them. Or you can follow up a takedown that includes a choke. With your decision to squeeze-choke the neck, your legal and medical strangulation clock is ticking…
Tick-Tock…. In May, 2023, a former U. S. Marine interrupted a disturbance and threats on a New York City subway with a choke, one that according to witnesses the hold lasted 15 minutes. The person died. The Marine disputes the time length and denies lethal intent, but nonetheless the man died. This caused a serious socio-political incident and put the Marine under indictment for murder. One must be very cautious when doing any neck wrap choke-contact for criminal and civil problems. Did a restraint slip into a prolonged blood choke or an air choke? Did the hold last too long?
Very Well Health reports that, a “A medical evaluation is crucial if someone’s been strangled. An injury to the trachea may not appear to be serious right away, but swelling in the tissues around the trachea can lead to a secondary restriction of airflow a few minutes after the neck is free.”
So how long can you squeeze? Police files report officers that have blood-choked suspects held for 30 seconds have died. That’s a short time. But shorter times are on record. There are other times the suspects hang on, struggling for longer. The old and general advice with a blood choke is to monitor the opponent. You can feel when someone “goes to sleep.”
How long is long then? “A 17-member panel of submission experts (including BJJ black belts, experienced grapplers, former MMA athletes, and medical professionals) analysed 81 UFC matches between 1993 and 2020 that ended in strangulation submission due to a LOC (as opposed to tapping). Each examiner reviewed each film (blinded to the other’s interpretation) to determine the time between full application of the technique and LOC. The mean time to LOC was 9.0 seconds, with a standard deviation of 2.5s. (Note: this had to have included ground chokes and this section of Level 2 takedowns is only covering standing rear arm wrap chokes. Still we can glean related information.) These results were consistent with previous studies in compliant volunteers, indicating that skillful application of a choking/strangulation technique will cause LOC regardless of defense mechanism…the triangle choke (probably down on the mat) displayed a significantly faster time to LOC of 7.2 seconds.” – Sam Gilbert
Crushing the trachea can cause death. There are incidents on police records of officers who are relatively untrained in this subject matter and they have accidentally crushed the trachea. The damage can range from minor vocal cord weakness to fractures of the larynx or trachea. These fractures can cause air to escape into the neck and chest, leading to significant respiratory compromise and even death if not treated quickly.
Basic neck structure injuries too… As I have mentioned not all neck-related, rear pull takedowns involve blood and air restraint, choke-to-unconsciousness intent. In terms of using the neck for takedowns and counters, in some cases you must worry about damaging the neck skeletal structure. But non-chokes are not without some medical, legal and civil law dangers.
The most damaging neck takedown I have seen and had done on me, thankfully incorrectly, is what was once called the “Ranger Takedown.” In the remote northern areas of South Korea, a criminal Army Sergeant snatched up my throat from behind with a single forearm across my neck and jumped back, as diagrammed here to the left. In the taught move, the Ranger lands on his chest. The enemy soldier lands on his back. Neck? Snapped or very badly broken. I landed instead down on my side, saving my neck, with his forearm across my windpipe. he continued to choke me. Since his hand was somewhat next to my chin, I broke a finger on his wrapping arm causing him to release me. For such escapes, always breaking a finger is not possible and will not always work, but it did for me that time.
I tell you this to explain the worst-case scenario of what a single arm, (or double arm,) rear neck-wrap takedown can do at its most “bone-damaging.” You can still single or double arm throat pull, slower, and NOT land flat down into this death move, but rather make space and pull him slowly down on his back, with you remaining bent-half-standing or kneeling. Blood choke if you must, but let go at the right instant.
Other related neck structure injuries? I know of a few rather world famous, life-long MMA champs that have stents placed in their trachea due to decades of rough training simulated chokes, and real competition chokes. This operation is called a tracheostomy.
Dr. Earl Morgan, Forensic medicine (and a Judo Black belt) adds…”In all of the combative grappling sports the “choke” hold rules require varying degrees of cervical spine protection. Of course, what makes repetitive chokes in combative grappling so safe (in class) is the health and conditioning of young martial artists. My college judo coach cautioned me to seriously consider allowing chokes in anyone over the age of 40. At the time I was in my 20’s and had no idea what the big deal was. He also spoke of the ‘40-year syndrome.’ This is where you turn 40 and suddenly you have all the aches and pains from all the ways you abused yourself when you were young, whether with drugs, alcohol, athletics, manual labor or other factors, it doesn’t matter. He was a much wiser man than I realized.”
Worrying about the counters… Through the decades in training various counters to chokes and side neck guillotines, I noticed that complying savvy workout partners, always let go of their friend-trainee’s necks when they are flipped or tripped. I don’t think many real-world opponent’s will let go of your neck, instead they reflexively hang on (to anything!) as they lose their balance. This means serious neck cranks, not seen or warned in training class. This innocent-helpful, classroom, “let go” practice leads to misleading and dangerous reality results. There is a lot that can happen between step 3 and step 4, in the drawing to right-above. After issuing similar safety concerns publically about this in the past, I received numerous reports of minor to major injuries from people countering chokes in classes. (I also heard from macho, low I.Q., half-wits denouncing me as a wus. Do they denounce Bass Rutten as a wus too?)
Even MMA great Bass Rutten wisely warns on record and on film, after demonstrating counter-choke flips like the ones shown on the right and above, that you might break your neck if the choker holds on as he flips. Needless to say a taller, stronger, heavier enemy probably won’t be so easily flipped over you. And, your body drop to flip him over could leave you… “hanging.” All practitioners should examine suggested choke counters for neck safety.
Banning chokes...I have been paid by some police agencies through the years to write subject-matter-expert studies on the validity of neck restraints and chokes. In some jurisdictions worldwide police agencies have continued to defend the use of the carotid restraint hold for decades, claiming that it is safer and more effective than using a police baton, taser, or pepper spray. Other jurisdictions have banned its use entirely while still other jurisdictions have ruled that it may only be used in extreme situations where deadly force is justified.
Most enforcement agencies worldwide have banned this “choke’ tactic (or any neck contact for that matter) for many years now. Some allowances exist for when the officer is faced with deadly force. Yet, in a strange Catch-22 circle jerk, these last-resort, life saving choke options are still NEVER TAUGHT, for fear of…being publically seen-caught just teaching the dreaded chokes!
There are some departments that allow these no-choke, neck-grabs and even neck-squeezing controls on unruly suspects and detainees, and a tiny percentage of people continue to suffer temporary and-or grave injury and death. Due to these virtually devastating socio-political problems from these “I can’t breathe” accidental deaths, and due to the rodeo-like wrestling of suspects, a blood choke can often accidentally twist and slip into a throat choke-crush. Because of this slipping mishap, I must warn police administrations against the common use of chokes in less-than-lethal situations. This usually translates to an admin – “leave the whole neck alone unless you are being killed” policy. Don’t blame me for my warning. Train your troops!
At least think about this...In a military context, other than when trying to capture prisoners, a choke is a strangulation meant to kill the enemy. But for citizens? These same legal-test concerns hold true for citizens. Civilians must be justified under a reasonable dire threat to windpipe choke someone. If you can’t comprehend the facts here, or be able to consider, discuss, teach and articulate them, you and yours might someday be in moral, ethical and legal (jail and lawsuit) dilemmas.
(This essay on non-choke and choke related neck wraps rear takedowns appear in Level 2 of my Force Necessary:Hand course, thus the essay here, which appears in the outline and my upcoming Unarmed Combatives book in 2024.)
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.
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?
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.)
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?
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.
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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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.
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.
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/
This reprinted as a service to the martial arts community.
Should anyone care, there is a class action lawsuit filed against the Premier Martial Arts franchise group, filed last November, that is not known about. This info-brief comes from “Law 360” and is as follows…
“A group of martial arts studio franchisees has thrown the opening kick in a sparring match with a national chain, alleging in a complaint filed in Tennessee federal court that the chain duped hundreds of people into sinking millions of dollars into money pit dojos.
Thirty-six (now over 50) franchisees have accused Knoxville, Tennessee-based Premier Franchising Group LLC, which does business as Premier Martial Arts, or PMA, of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, fraudulent inducement and breach of contract.
“Defendants have engaged in an ongoing, multi-year, nationwide scheme to defraud hundreds of people into investing substantial sums of money to buy and attempt to operate martial arts studios as PMA franchises,” the plaintiffs’ Nov. 18 complaint said. “The depth of the fraudulent scheme is still being uncovered but the devastation is already well-known: retirement savings obliterated, franchisees suffering from staggering debt, and a host of hard-working individuals and families on the brink of financial ruin.”
Founded in 2004 and franchised in 2018, PMA offers karate, Krav Maga and kickboxing lessons to children and adults at more than 70 locations in the U.S., Canada and the U.K., and it has sold 564 franchises to 228 owners, according to a news release in January announcing the company’s sale to Bedford, Texas-based Unleashed Brands.
Unleashed Brands Chief Legal Officer Stephen Polozola told Law360 on Tuesday that “Premier Franchising Group disputes the claims asserted by this small subset of franchisees.” He declined to comment further on the pending litigation.
The franchisees’ attorney, John Jacobson of Riley & Jacobson, did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. The franchisees allege that PMA founder Barry Van Over schemed with Omaha, Nebraska-based franchise sales organization Franchise Fastlane and its vice president of brand partnerships, Brent Seebohm, to downplay what it takes to run a PMA franchise while overinflating the potential profits.
For instance, the defendants purportedly told potential franchise owners that they’d only need to work about 10 hours a week at the studio when, in reality, they’d have to be there 40 to 60 hours a week to keep the business afloat.
Also allegedly said prospective franchisees would see profit margins of more than 40% and about $35,000 to $40,000 in monthly revenue, according to the suit, which states, “These numbers were simply not true.”
The complaint further claims that PMA pressured prospective franchisees to buy multiple studios, while knowing that they were “money-losing endeavors,” as a way to squeeze them for franchise fees that could be as high as $298,500.
According to the suit, PMA attempted to “cover their tracks” by fraudulently inducing franchisees to sign documents with a provision that purported to release PMA from wrongdoing.
The releases in question are unenforceable, the plaintiffs argued, because they were “procured by fraud,” among other things, but “nevertheless, they reflect the cynical and sad efforts by defendants to defraud their franchisees at every turn.”
Aside from PMA, the franchisees are suing Van Over, PMA Vice President Myles Baker, Franchise Fastlane, Seebohm and Unleashed Brands.
The plaintiffs are represented by John Jacobson of Riley & Jacobson. The case is Anthony et al. v. Van Over et al., case number 3:22-cv-00416, in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Tennessee. “
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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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 thatthe 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.
I urge you to study this pretty comprehensive DOJ report “Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design in Parking Facilities”: https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles/cptedpkg.pdf
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.
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.
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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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.
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.)
night. So, I missed all that. However, those guys were still around with us. And I heard all the great stories, and all the stuff that happened and they still clung to a harder core training. But I think there was a conscious business decision to not be so devastating. Otherwise, you would have no students. You would not have a business, you would not have the franchise plan and so forth.
Seminar at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, pre 9-11.
He jumped on the fence and starting climbing, and I reached up and grabbed him. He clung like bat on the chain link. I reached around, cussed and slapped his face a few times. Hammer-fisted his hands, loosening his grip. He dropped back into the yard.
“Don’t do it, Tonto! They’ll beat the snot out of you!”
Non-choke neck grabs, restraints and takedowns can look like attempts at unconscious choking, but can be just temporary control measures. You can just remove-escort or takedown people via the neck area without choking them. Or you can follow up a takedown that includes a choke. With your decision to squeeze-choke the neck, your legal and medical strangulation clock is ticking…
The most damaging neck takedown I have seen and had done on me, thankfully incorrectly, is what was once called the “Ranger Takedown.” 
I tell you this to explain the worst-case scenario of what a single arm, (or double arm,) rear neck-wrap takedown can do at its most “bone-damaging.” You can still single or double arm throat pull, slower, and NOT land flat down into this death move, but rather make space and pull him slowly down on his back, with you remaining bent-half-standing or kneeling. Blood choke if you must, but let go at the right instant.
Worrying about the counters… Through the decades in training various counters to chokes and side neck guillotines, I noticed that complying savvy workout partners, always let go of their friend-trainee’s necks when they are flipped or tripped. I don’t think many real-world opponent’s will let go of your neck, instead they reflexively hang on (to anything!) as they lose their balance. This means serious neck cranks, not seen or warned in training class. This innocent-helpful, classroom, “let go” practice leads to misleading and dangerous reality results. There is a lot that can happen between step 3 and step 4, in the drawing to right-above. After issuing similar safety concerns publically about this in the past, I received numerous reports of minor to major injuries from people countering chokes in classes. (I also heard from macho, low I.Q., half-wits denouncing me as a wus. Do they denounce Bass Rutten as a wus too?) 
Even MMA great Bass Rutten wisely warns on record and on film, after demonstrating counter-choke flips like the ones shown on the right and above, that you might break your neck if the choker holds on as he flips. Needless to say a taller, stronger, heavier enemy probably won’t be so easily flipped over you. And, your body drop to flip him over could leave you… “hanging.” All practitioners should examine suggested choke counters for neck safety. 
There are some departments that allow these no-choke, neck-grabs and even neck-squeezing controls on unruly suspects and detainees, and a tiny percentage of people continue to suffer temporary and-or grave injury and death. Due to these virtually devastating socio-political problems from these “I can’t breathe” accidental deaths, and due to the rodeo-like wrestling of suspects, a blood choke can often accidentally twist and slip into a throat choke-crush. Because of this slipping mishap, I must warn police administrations against the common use of chokes in less-than-lethal situations. This usually translates to an admin – “leave the whole neck alone unless you are being killed” policy. Don’t blame me for my warning. Train your troops!
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,
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.
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.
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. 
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.
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.
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, 
“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 
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 
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.
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. O
(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.’ “)
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. 
“There are two traps that prevent us from having difficult conversations in educating First Aid:
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 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 n
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.”
