(The elephant head in the photo is not real. I would never shoot an elephant nor would I advocate such a thing. That is not a tattoo on my arm, but the arm of one of our practitioners. Another one has the tattoo on his calf.)
I have used the elephant as a logo-symbol so to speak for 30 years, for the reasons I list here. You always read on the interwebs about people claiming “people have asked me…” For most “experts,” no they haven’t. That line is just an excuse to pontificate on a topic, pretending to be a sought after expert. But in this case, actually, honestly a few folks will always ask, “Hock, why an elephant?” after seeing it for 30 years on my shirts, certificates, patches and later on my webpages.
First off the elephant has a insider, tribal meaning. Veteran insiders in the military, police and hunting worlds have long used the expression when talking about experienced operators. Also “experiencing” elephants have been used in religions and philosophies.
”Work with him! He’s seen the elephant,” or… “Train with him, he’s seen the elephant.” or… “Hunt with THAT elephant hunter. He has seen (and shot) the elephant. He knows where the elephant is. He knows the elephant.” or… “The elephant never forgets.”
Professor Google says about seeing, or seen the elephant…”In 19th-century America, (some say the 1830s) “seeing the elephant” referred to the experience of witnessing something extraordinary or momentous. It was a metaphor for gaining a new perspective or experiencing something that was previously unknown.:
Leave it to Americas to lay claim to the expression. We have long heard, centuries in fact, that traveling hunters in Africa, seeking to shoot elephants, were told to find veteran hunters who had “seen the elephant.” They know them, where they are, what they do and can lead the hunt.
It is true that term that has been used in North America for cross-country wagon train survivors, and for 1860s American Civil War survivors. In fact through time, you hear the terms with war survivors of many conflicts in general.
But the 1830s? What about the classic tale from India of blind men touching the elephant. The Indian parable of The Blind Men and the Elephant dates back to around 500 B.C., appearing in the Buddhist text Tittha Sutta. The story has been adapted in many forms and is part of many religious traditions, including Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist texts. Perhaps the idea of the 1830s origin comes from the American poet John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887) who re-told and popularized the story in his poem, The Blind Men and the Elephant. It basically goes like this…
“A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: “We must inspect and know it by touch, of which we are capable”. So, they sought it out, and when they found it they groped about it. The first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said, “This being is like a thick snake”. For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. As for another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the elephant, “is a wall”. Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear.” – Professor Wikipedia
Saxe’s poem ends with the explanation that the elephant is a metaphor for God, and the blind men represent religions that blindly disagree on aspects, but no one has full experience. The poem warns readers that preconceived notions and small perceptions can lead to misinterpretation. In the oldest Indian version, between 1500 and 1200 B.C., four blind men walk into a forest where they meet an elephant. In this version, they do not fight with each other, but conclude that they each must have perceived a different beast although they experienced the same elephant.
But to me in the martial “bidness,” this is like “touching” various martial arts and declaring them the best while failing to see the big, true picture of survival combatives, peacekeeping, war and crime. It’s the elephant in the room! It’s intellectual, “small mind” and “tunnel vision.” Of course, it is a metaphor for many topics. (see the classic poem below)
Speaking of elephants in the room, that line is a metaphor for a tough problem, topic or reality that everybody is probably aware of but intentionally doesn’t get addressed. In 1814, Ivan Krylov (1769–1844), poet and storyteller, wrote a fable entitled “The Inquisitive Man,” a story about a man who goes to a museum and notices all sorts of tiny things, but fails to notice an elephant. Again for me, I think that many martial arts fail to see modern peacekeeping, crime and war when contemplating their arts.
Elephants were armored up and used like tanks in the old wars around 1100 B.C.. The first popular conflict involving Europeans was at Gaugamela in 331 bc. This battle in northern Iraq, Alexander the Great against the Persian leader Darius III. History records the downfall of war elephants from the invention of gunpowder. The explosive sounds of muskets scared the elephants. Once cannons became common on the battlefield, armies finally had invented a method to kill war elephants without having any of their own men trampled in the dangerous process. Military historians argue about the success of war elephants, but nonetheless, they did exist and did damage.
“If you want to be a forecaster, you would do well to base your forecasts on the actual experiences of real people whose been in situations you are only imagining, and the more informative their experience will be, of course “ – David Gilbert, Professor of Psychology, Harvard University author and lecturer.
Forecasting. Trainers forecast problems and work to solve them. The elephant symbol and expression has come to represent real action and real experience. If you can’t live it, then train with the people who have….kind of thing. get close, closer. The training mission is to collect this type of information, dissect, rationalize and create solutions .
And…that is why I selected the elephant as the Close Quarter Concepts emblem. We try to be a repository for as much of this type of information as possible. I am a vet, our books have true stories from all kinds of vets, these Force Necessary web pages do, etc. It is a never-ending, and ever-changing process, like education, of course. Skills are perishable, BUT, the best “elephant never forgets!” (oh, they do, but the origin of the phrase goes back to observations that elephants follow the same paths and even hand down genetic memories of directions and places-grounds across generations.)
And now I leave you with The Indian parable of The Blind Men and the Elephant
I. It was six men of Indostan To learning much inclined, Who went to see the Elephant (Though all of them were blind), That each by observation Might satisfy his mind.
II. The First approached the Elephant, And happening to fall Against his broad and sturdy side, At once began to bawl: “God bless me! — but the Elephant Is very like a wall!”
III. The Second, feeling of the tusk, Cried: “Ho! — what have we here So very round and smooth and sharp? To me ‘t is mighty clear This wonder of an Elephant Is very like a spear!”
IV. The Third approached the animal, And happening to take The squirming trunk within his hands, Thus boldly up and spake: “I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant Is very like a snake!”
V. The Fourth reached out his eager hand, And felt about the knee. “What most this wondrous beast is like Is mighty plain,” quoth he; “‘T is clear enough the Elephant Is very like a tree!”
VI. The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, Said: “E’en the blindest man Can tell what this resembles most; Deny the fact who can, This marvel of an Elephant Is very like a fan!”
VII. The Sixth no sooner had begun About the beast to grope, Than, seizing on the swinging tail That fell within his scope, “I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant Is very like a rope!”
VIII. And so these men of Indostan Disputed loud and long, Each in his own opinion Exceeding stiff and strong, Though each was partly in the right, And all were in the wrong.
MORAL. So, oft in theologic wars The disputants, I ween, Rail on in utter ignorance Of what each other mean, And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
A string! One great fake that opens a hole, then one stunning blow, then a tree-step combination…for starters. 5 parts of the string. 1 plus 1, plus 3.
What is string theory in simple “math” terms? Professor Google says: “Instead of treating subatomic particles as the fundamental building blocks of matter, string theory says that everything is made of unbelievably tiny strings, whose vibrations produce effects…”We here are not galactic physicists. We are knuckle draggers, trying to survive crime and war. Maybe win some trophies is the end game for some? I nickname small practice sets – “string theories.” Parts strung together. They are combat scenario preps, and we all do them but I would like here to interject the fake in as starters and some scientific ways to train them.
Tiny strings. The late, great Remy Presas said so many l times, “All you need you know, is one good fake.” He was speaking of a theory, a battle plan idea. Because we all know “all you need” in martial life is a whole lot more. Call the fake a “set-up” or whatever you please. The concept, this strategy is in all combat sports, and in many non-combat sports. For example in boxing – ” A mock blow or attack on or toward one part in order to distract attention from the point one really intends to attack. “The boxer made a feint with his right, then followed with a left hook.”
“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” – Sun Tzu
But a fake and follow-up string is especially important for self-defenders, a real priority to emphasize since they are not in the sports “duel,” the sports “spar,” the sports “grind” of controlled sports for as long as sports people are.
Think about it, a good fake is important. Good fakes…open things up. “How ‘sporty’ is your fake?” Trained fighters might see them coming and be susceptible to the real delivery steps. But, the ignorant untrained eye won’t see them coming. And I must ask, “How fast is your fake?” If your opponent is slow, a fast fake won’t get the reaction you seek, that opening . You must fake slower.
Brace yourself, fakes or no fakes, to be really thorough, first off you have to learn and improve these “first-line” physical events.
Understanding common stand-off problems and ambushes. (Remember fakes are like min-ambushes.) Understand common reactions to strikes, kicks and grabs.
All basic strikes.
All basic kicks.
All basic first grabs that lead to takedowns and ground captures.
All basic body movements, footworks and maneuvers.
How to fake strikes, kicks and grabs.
Appropriate follow-up combinations to finish, or at least, to start off the finishing.
Yikes, that’s a lot of stuff! Folks can’t all be super experts in all these areas. Folks can’t all be martial full-timers, yet he path of study leads through this long way. Certainly, an expert and a serious instructor must know these things, but people with busy “lives,” all of which are 99.5% part timers, (almost all normal people with jobs, families, etc.) not full timers. But they can be taught these 3, 4, 5-part strings of combatives-self-defense early on which can be helpful. A breakdown…
1-The confrontation. The who, what, where, when, how and why a crime, a battle, or a fight started. Study the intelligence info of fights, crime and war. What are the opening ways of fights, war and crime? Why did you go there? Why are staying there. This essay is not about these “stay alert” topics – which would be a whole book but must at very least be mentioned here as number 1.
2-All basic strikes. Includes hand, stick, knife! The strike alone, in an already open path, needs no fake. But opponent reflex matters. Happens. What naturally, statistically pops open when the enemy ducks, blocks or dodges your incoming strike? In training, you can also turn a whole series in your hand strike training into a 2-step practice, even with every kick. Then a whole series on reverse, as in fake kick and go to hands. Two steps in the string right there that must be formalized as a set of practice.
3-All basic kicks. The kick alone, in an already open path, needs no fake. But opponent reflex matters. Happens. What naturally, statistically pops open when the enemy ducks, blocks or dodges an incoming kick? In kicking, a very common tactic is to hand-fake high then kick low. In training, you can turn a whole series in your kicking training into this 2-step practice, making a higher hand fake part of every kick. Then a whole series on reverse. Fake kick and hand strike. Two steps of the string right there, that must be formalized as a set of practice.
4-All basic grabs. In takedowns-throws, what are the first, basic grabs on the body that set up one up. What needs to be open for such grabs? What strikes. kicks and fake grabs open the takedown throw-grab you are hoping for? In ground captures what are the first, basic grabs on the body that set up one up. What needs to be open for the grabs? What strikes and fake grabs open the grab you are hoping for? Can’t strike in your sport? Fake grabs then. What moves can set up your selected grab? (I have a whole other long essay on grabs and fake grabs and set-up grabs.)
5- Body movements, footworks and maneuvers. Where do we need to be to fake, and be in each part of the string to best execute? Standing or ground?
6-Combinations finishers. I myself believe in 2 or 3 step combinations. At least as a foundational, study method. It might take 5 or 6 things to finish a stunned opponent, in which case, I would like to package them in as yet another 3-part combination. That is just my training strategy. Long steps, 4 or more ideas in the string don’t seem to be accomplished as planned. The opponent moves, blocks, falls, etc. changing the range and breaking the long dance.
Hand fighting, stick fighting, knife fighting, gun fighting. Sports. Arts. The art of deception. String things along for training. String Theory.
One hand example?
1 High hook fake. Hopefully the enemy raises his arm to stop it.
2 His arm now raised, Low hook to liver.
3 He scrunches. A three Quick combination. Like… a) Higher hook, b) uppercut as head might descend from the liver shot,c) round kick.
4 Then whatever else might be needed. Another 3 set?
What series should you build against knife attacks, you armed or not armed? Sticks? Versus weapon quickdraws? I teach these hand, stick, knife (and gun concerning draw points) string lists, in an inspiration that eventually customize your own.
Yes, if you want to you turn these 5-part strings into katas. Yes. Many do. Go ahead. Katas and visualization-theory are not near the top of my list. I’d rather use and suggest gear, mook jong dummies, heavy bags, and of course the best – partners, but whatever. Doing something is better than nothing.
In sports you are filmed, and the opponents watch your favorite strings to prep. And,-or, you watch their favorite strings on films. In crime and war? Maybe not so much is available, but some things can be gleaned.
String Theory in fighting, Not too complicated! As the Rolling Stones said, “She was practiced at the art of deception. Well, I could tell by her blood-stained hands. You can’t always get what you want, But if you try sometimes well, you might find, you get what you need.”
Every once in a while, in my years in police work ranging back to the early 1970s, we would get a new shift supervisor like a sergeant or lieutenant, that would open his early shift briefings with some new preference standards. Often this would be a desk jockey or what we use to call a “REMF,” in the Army. Which stands for “rear-echelon-m________, f_________.” These were folks with little to no street experience, by their choice, or folks forced upwards too soon, to fill admin openings. Still a lack of experience.
And yes, some of these people were detached airheads. Several demanded that we never, ever pull-draw guns unless we absolutely have to shoot a bad guy, All other times, the gun must remain holstered. Only draw and must shoot. Must draw? Then must shoot! We would look at each other and think, and later complain in private powwows:
“Has this idiot ever searched a building or home after an alarm or invader threat?”
“Has this knucklehead never made a felony traffic stop?”
“Has this yahoo never…… (on and on with this list).”
Apparently not! How could some supervisors in law enforcement be this ignorant. But this idea transcends policing. I bring these memories up because, lately in my teaching travels, sometimes big, sometimes small, I have run across citizens who have been smart enough to attend concealed carry classes or other entry-level, defensive tactics courses. They attend my “Force Necessary: Gun” courses also. When teaching this and organizing class training to make decisions, a number of attendees are graduates of simplistic, entry-level, CCH and intro “def-tacts” from other programs. Some of these attendees have approached me and said –
“Well, they told us in _______ that we only draw our pistol in severest, deadly force situations and can only draw to shoot to kill-stop. You can’t pull your gun unless you also intend to shoot to kill-stop.”
Ooooh boy. That old chestnut again. I just look at them, flabbergasted, and wonder “who are these teachers?” And how can I undo this kindergarten, mentality message. I try to explain that I use a commandment list of “Assess, Draw-and-Assess,” decision-making based on many actual events.
Assess, Draw and Access, the big five decisions:
1: There-Not There.
2: Pull-Don’t Pull.
3: Aim-Don’t Aim.
4: Shoot-Don’t Shoot.
5: Leave-Don’t leave.
These decisions may all occur in 2 seconds or half an hour! Yeah. Situational. I am not writing this today to dissect the list of 5 materials, as I have written long essays on each, elsewhere. Each of the 5 have a successful history in situational, real-world defense, crime and even war.
I always repeat the old studies once so easily found in DOJ – Department of Justice – annual reports about firearms use. Each year there was a statistic that about 69% of the time when a gun (or knife, not stick) was drawn by the intended victim, the criminal left. Sure, each situation was ugly and scary (I report some actual situations to attendees) but this was an average end result over the years. Sometime in the 2000s this routine annual stat became really hard and then impossible to find, because it does not suit the political powers that be. This cause was then picked up by various pro-gun groups and their publications. They regularly report successful citizen, gun, crime-fighting events, but they are declared as right-wing bias and they do not carry the mojo of a government report.
Yet, these successful events happen frequently, and you are deprived of the truth. When things go unusually “bump in your house, bump in the church, bump in the school, bump in the stores-malls, bump in the wherever” you may be in a position to pull your gun and assess. Remember the best quick draw is pulling your gun out just before you really needed it. (We’ve dissected “brandishing” in detail another essay here.)
Gun instructors. Here in the United States, while I and others consider the rising plethora of non-police experienced and non-military-experienced gun instructors, their presence is still a good thing in general. Hey, it’s become a cottage industry hasn’t it? Citizens teaching gun courses and school and church-shooting courses, etc.. I still think It’s a good thing overall because we’ve noticed they’ve-we’ve achieved a overall higher level of good material. The bar has risen. Overall? Good. But for some of us, sometimes, we can’t help but wonder about some of them and ask,
“Okay, who is teaching what in these courses regularly?” and,
“That guy said…what now?”
If questionable recollections, are these students misinterpreting what the instructor actually meant or said?” That’s certainly possible. But, police, military, citizen instructors and their courses all need to vetted by customers, sure. And, needless to say within those jobs, there is job leakage that won’t fit. For examples-
Do police really need military-based shooting courses?
Do the military really need police shooting courses?
Do citizens really need police and-or military shooting courses?
To some extent? Well, yes. To some extent? Well, no. Careful! Reduce the abstract. Its my old “who, what, where, when, how and why questions.”
It might be so quick, so easy and so legally course-sue-safe, especially for the class and instructor, to declare in a very brief citizen gun course that you can ONLY draw and shoot. Mandatory! But then, you can’t just draw and assess? Scare off? Issue verbal commands? Hide and ambush? Etc. Customize survival thinking to the plethora of situations?
Quick legal message, “point-don’t point” also means “aim-don’t aim” and are legal evaluations in court and internal affairs police investigations. For a reason!
I try to explain, but what really sinks in best is classes replicating and making them do repetitions with simulated ammo. Working through actual situations where each of the 5 decision steps above have historically worked and why they are so important. From a legal standpoint, these options must be explained and must be taught. Sometimes you CAN and SHOULD draw WITHOUT shooting.
Or…How To, or How NOT To, Maintain a Popular Knife Course
Through time, the who, what, where, when, how and why, my original, once quite popular, Force Necessary: Knife combatives course “fell down,” “fell away” from pop culture. While I still get to teach it around the world, it has slipped way below the pop radar in lieu of other pop programs and my business mistakes. So, when did I take the fall? It happened slowly and then one day you are down looking up.
You see, the “new kids on the block” don’t know that before the fall, I once was “somebody.” In the 1990s I was part of a resurgence, a re-look, a re-examination of older knife material (which essentially was mostly a lot of knife dueling, and much of that based on swords). Things needed evolving. Things needed converging into performance coaching, modern law and rules of engagement.
Back then, there were just a few of us (maybe just 5? 6? 7?) on the official generic “combatives teaching” circuit, in the magazines and on video tapes. 30 years ago his January, I created the Force Necessary (FN) program, with a main motto, “Using only that force necessary to win or survive.” The program includes four main courses FN: Hand. FN: Stick, FN: Knife and FN: Gun (and I still teach FMA when asked). In the 90s, I’d been in police work since the 1970s both in the Army and in Texas, most of that time as a detective. I’d seen and experienced working on a lot of knife crime, as in aggravated assaults, rapes, attempted murders and murders. I myself have been attacked by both a knife and an ax. I won’t fail to mention here for the new kids, I’ve also been rather obsessively doing martial arts since 1972. Fifty-three years next January. From the military, police and martial arts, I hold certain perspectives in the use of the hand, stick, knife and gun that your friendly neighborhood Spiderman might not have…or know.
Studying and teaching “knife,” for 30 years comes with its own inherent, stigma problems and limited interest, we all struggle with. The knife world is also very small. So small, one might ask, “Why bother?” Why not just sell Italian shoes? What is this knife world? Who then prioritizes the knife and in what ways? My thoughts –
Group 1: Hobbyists(think collectors and martial artists.) One interest group are people who “hobby.” There is something historically and visually appealing about the knife and the certain shapes, construction, sizes and history of knives. People collect anything and everything, that includes knives. Think about the simple collectors of knives. To collectors, practicality and use does not factor much into knife collector’s minds. Just the aforementioned make-up. Most collectors never train to fight with them. A very rare few are “doing. The category of hobbyists includes martial artists. Filipino martial artists place some priority on the knife but seem to overdo the stick. Just look at all the FMA group photos and the practitioners holding sticks. Most other martial artists spend some time in sports and some work on only “unarmed versus the knife.” Just obsessing over dueling alone, is not maximizing knife survival. I am well on the record for supporting your martial hobby. Be happy. Just know where what you are doing fits in reality.
Group 2: Worriers. Another interest knife group is the “Oh no!, Oh, crap group! Knives exist everywhere! “So, we need to ‘do’ them, to survive.” This group mostly includes some aware ground-floor workers and worried citizens. Ground-floor workers? These are line operators as in “ground-floor” police and “ground-floor” military. And even then, knife studies are usually far from a priority for most of them.
Group 3: A smaller group of both. The third and smallest group include folks interested in both 1 and 2.
From a business perspective, these groups are the ones you knife folks need to advertise with. Good luck finding them all. Customer acquisition! As a teacher-practitioner, I am mostly in the above “worriers group,” dismissing anything fancy or artsy. When you worry, you worry about before, during and after the attack. None of this is a hobby for me and I don’t do cartwheels over various looking knifes, no more than I would if I examined hammers or saws. They are just tools. Your knife is nothing but a tool. But, the above 3 groups are the knife world we live in. What were my and other ‘s business mistakes?
Business Problem 1: The Knife Business is a Stigmata. I mean to say that studying knife fighting was and is still not at all popular. It might be a origin mistake to bother trying. A very rare few are “doing” it. Once teaching and learning, I don’t like many terms, images, messages, logos, etc. relating to the negative stigmas surrounding knife fighting, A rebel, thug, skull etc. persona.
Another motto I have is “Help me, help you, stay out of jail.” In short, I really worry about you going to jail. Every act of violence is both a trauma and a drama. Situational. This realistic and serious approach has outcasted me over to a non-popular, non-trendy knife course. With many existing, pop knife courses, the teachers and dogma-doctrine have a terrible persona of thug, prison shiv, skulls…basically some sort of mafia, under-sub-culture. There was recently an actual “Knife Mafia” club. Some even look like the Mexico death culture. They think it’s cool. But it is actually counter-productive in the big picture and well…stupid. If your instructor looks and dresses like a thug? Well…think about it. This macho, rebel, leaky-criminal persona does not serve you well in worldwide, criminal justice systems. I might add in this context that the gun culture of civilized countries is extremely concerned about the law and staying out of jail. The knife culture should pay close attention to this approach also. The stigma with knives is worse than with guns.
These realities are not too popular for the “new kids” that want to appear a bit rebellious? Learn and-or teach slicing, dicing and gutting people with a knife, void of situations and the law. This marketing can be naïve, reckless and immature, incomplete and a ticking, legal time bomb for you. All the legal prosecution needs to do is show a jury a few of these system names (course names and knife names are so, so important) photographs, logos, teachers and characters and you the associated user, become jailbait. I say stupid, but still they are “money smart,” and more popular and sought after than me. By the grace of God they go…until…they have to use that knife. Mature survival is surviving-enduring before, during and after a violent event. The end game – as in the legal aftermath, is a big part of a well-thought-out, course.
Various ultra-violent, “skully” death messaging should be reserved as a primer mentality for very serious, military, combat groups. THEIR war psychology. Their war prep. Their war world. Not cops and certainly not every day, walk-around citizens. Mimicking them makes you look like a wannabe punk. Look at the lawsuits filed on cops and citizens – go ahead – have a little death-engraved-logo on your gun (or knife) and see what happens when you shoot someone. Have a patch or tattoo of a grim reaper with a knife, or a skull with a knife through it, and see what happens when you have to legally use a knife. We the police, the prosecutors search your history. Take this idiot for example – I read one New York City, very popular, international knife “cartel-liberty” group headline atop a Facebook page:
“I love it when I carve someone’s balls off and put them in his empty eye sockets.”
Shit man, you think you’re Rambo? You probably work in a fucking supermarket. And you think and talk like this? You need to be on watch list. Fantasy jerk-offs like this give us all a bad name. But images and expressions like this, or near like this, this mystique, does attract a certain sick customer, usually young, or young in the brains anyway. (By the way, after my public complaints and comments on this guy, this must have reached the then Colorado headquarters and this sick-moron took that line down.)
Stigmata-wise, many still call knife training, “knife fighting,” but I don’t like that term, even you are still indeed, fighting with a knife.
Business Problem 2: Failing to Emphasize the Knife Enough. I escaped all existing systems by 1997. Just quit. I had-have a dream! I seek to produce the seamless hand, stick, knife and gun fighter, standing through ground. You do what you got to do, with what you got, where you are. So, this halfway means I do not over-emphasize a knife course or any single course. While I was once in the 1990s and 2000s well known in our small world “for the knife,” I am not now, which puts me behind the knife marketeers. I have built four great, competent individual, non-sport, survival courses which I blend. I can clearly debate ANYONE on course doctrine points. Each course stands a lone, but shooting for the big hand, stick, knife and gun fused end-user, final product has cost me in the knife marketing “ground.”
Business Problem 3: Being too Independent. Another business problem for me? No “flags.” I have no crutch system, no flag to fly, like Pekiti, JKD, Brazil-Mania, Krav-mania. Silat. Arnis. Bruce Lee. UFC. No uniforms. No 12 knives on a vest. No tribal brotherhoods. It’s just little ol’ me flapping in the wind about the knife. I can’t attract these extraneous-system-people, capture super search martial arts terms, as some of those attached are obligated to attend. Despite my avoidance, we business-mature know the established advertising fact the “the grass is always greener on the other….” side of the street? Other country? The sewers of Spain. The temples of Thailand. The monasteries of China? The borders of Israel…the…and so on. Me? My mistake is I appear to be just a bland, white boy with some info. I don’t even have any tattoos!
Business Problem 4: Rise of the Replicators. Of course, with all businesses, this 1990s and 2000 knife movement kicked off a new interest and a fair number of new knife courses popped up often by less experienced, less organized people, and in my opinion doing less comprehensive programs. But this business evolution is to be expected. Invent a new “widget?” There’s a knock-off widget. Then knock-offs with an “S.” In the big picture of training and education however, not widgets, this can be a positive thing. Awareness. Curiosity. Growth. Evolution. And then sometimes no growth. Still, the old often helps the new. The “standing on the shoulders” thing.
Some 25-odd years later, in about 2015, on a popular public forum someone asked me what I thought of Johnny Swift’s new, knife, quick-draw article in an internet magazine. Of course, it wasn’t called knife quick draws. It was named something super-spiffy like “Armageddon Instrument Production,” but it’s just knife quick draws. It was declared brand-new, Biblical-worthy advice Swift preached, and published in the new amazing world of web-jargon magazines called like “Organic Micro Evolution of Edged Prophetic Dynasty.” (I really just made that magazine name up, but how far am I off? You remember that recent trend of densely tech-naming courses and articles? Weren’t you impressed, or can you see right through the disgusting, abject pretentiousness? Twenty and 30 year-olds salivated with these techno titles though! But thank goodness that trend has been dissolving. In this case, it’s really just “stress quickdraws.” It’s not “Rapid Production of Edged Antiphon.”or other poorly veiled, douchebaggery.
Anyway as requested, I read Swift’s ground-breaking, testament as featured in “Retrograde, Skill Supremacy, Elite Magazine” and I replied on the public forum –
“Oh, I have to like Swift’s article. It is virtually, word-for-word, from my 1995, Knife Level 1 quick draw outline.”
“WHAAAAT” said the young world? My review/remark caused a lot of guffaws and a few smart ass remarks, among the 20 and 30 year old readers, most of whom were so submerged in modern “dynasty jargon,” up to their fad-beards in mystique, and lost in the web world. They’d never even heard of us older guys from the 1990s and 2000s. I mean, who am I to comment like this on their latest fad-boy genius? I added that I was not suggesting that Johnny Swift plagiarized my outline, as it might have innocently been co-opted, or the older info has become so, ever so embedded into the “knife world” it was deemed as open knowledge. Or it was invented, like language, in isolation. I get that. Sure. That happens. (That level 1 knife outline is/was free to the public and has been distributed for literally 3 decades now, and my knife book – declared as the best knife book ever – has been for sale since the 2010s.)
One guy was clever enough to say, “Well, sorry I missed you when I was 5 years old.” Ha! I told him that really was a pretty damn, clever, funny retort. It was really. But missed me? Dude, I never left. However, actually, he never knew I was around to begin with. That is part of…the “fall.” I added in that discussion with Mr. Wise-asses that the spread of education was a good thing, and I probably partook in that process. I reminded the “guffawers” that I participated. I said that the old helps the new. As a great gun instructor Dave Spaulding likes to remind us, “It’s not new. It’s just new to you.”
I also frequently read these days, what is considered catchy and new terms, ideas and expressions that I already published and advertised decades ago. For just one example – a newer knife course (populated by death skeletons and skulls and counter-culture) uses the working-man-world word terms of “Journeyman,” “expert,” etc. Tradesman titles, etc I used first in the 1990s.
Contemplating these copycat things, I consider this list:
I was pirated. Or,
I contributed and was not credited. Or,
I contributed to a base of general knowledge, of which no one knows the sources. Or,
The information grew organically and independently and by coincidence and it matches my old material.
If a “new kid” saw my knife book and rank list levels today, they probably would declare that I stole it from another new kid. Oh the irony.
But anyway, inside a comprehensive knife course should be:
Who what, where, when, how and why questions
Knife vs hand. Knife vs stick. Knife vs knife. Knife vs some gun threats.
Standing, kneeling, sitting and on the ground.
Saber and reverse grip experimentation.
Skill, flow, speed developing exercises.
Knife combat scenarios and situations.
Lethal and less-than-lethal applications.
Legal issues, rules of engagement and related smarts.
Criminal history knife research.
War history knife research.
Here’s your subject-topic outline list. What are you doing to maximize each subject-topic in your knife doctrine? How competent and thorough is it? Or do you just want to play around with this very deadly, dangerous subject?
Mistakes in business. So, me? I’m boring. No mystique. Not isolating the knife enough. Not promoting people fast enough. No skulls. No flags. No carved out-eyeballs. No macho persona. Just generic methods. No weird hats, clothes or tattooes. These are some of the ways I didn’t play the game, and have shot myself in the…well…stabbed myself in the foot in the fad, knife training business. How about you? Are you maximised? Subject to fads. Watch the market? Who, what, where, when, how and why?
Just a few of us were those innovator pioneers and helped turn some tides in the 1990s and 2000s into what it all has become today, for better or for worse. Maybe you young fellers will learn from my mistakes? Establish new standards? Flesh out topics?
It’s always good to mention and/or thank your prior teachers once in a while. I always do. But, before you young knife guys make any sarcastic jokes about me and the few other 1990s guys again, keep in mind…your modern instructors might have, probably has, “peeked” at all my and our, long established materials. Some will not confess to it. Or, our materials have become such standard, general knife doctrine that these younger guys don’t even know of us. But, guess what? I might just be your long-lost grandfather.
On a rather famous FMA page, a member asked for opinions on-about the pros and cons of Remy Presas Modern Arnis. I answered…
Three people are responsible for spreading FMA around the world in 70s, 80s and into the 90s. Leo Gaje, Dan Inosanto and Remy Presas. This reality is somewhat lost in martial history.
There are just a few of us left who remember a period of a more complete, diverse, head-banging, Modern Arnis. I hate to start naming names and not mention everyone, but people like Dieter Knuttel, Tye Botting, Dan Anderson, Tim Hartman, Chad Edward, Mark Lynn – well please, please forgive me for the too short list of names, you know who you are – that recall a hardcore, very diverse “old school” Modern Arnis.
For one example, through the years getting Remy to teach knife was like pulling teeth. Unarmed vs. the knife? Plenty. Filipino knife fighting? Disappeared with him through the years. I had to cajole and beg him to do a 2-day knife seminar in 1993. As long as it was a small group, he did it. (It was-is hard to teach knife in a giant seminar that included kids and young adults.) Some things just evolve away.
By the way, Remy NEVER looked artsy and flashy. If he ever did, it was a total accident and not his plan. He was committed to efficient, clean stripped-down movement. This was one major lesson for me. “Don’t look pretty. Don’t look stylish. No dance. Do!” THAT…is “tattoo-advice” in fighting. In that vein, he was also pretty vicious as ANY stunt-demo person will confess.
(Tattoo advice is a joking term I use about advice so important it should be tattooed on your body!)
As time and age marched on, it changed a bit into, well, more of a realm of stand-still, stick, Tapi-Tapi, which was always a part, but became a bit more prominent. For example, I recall a time when working on super-power-hardcore stick strikes were mandatory, long training sessions. He would stalk around yelling at you to strike harder. HARDER! Things like that. Ripped calluses and smoking rattan. These elongated sessions, well, can become boring, exhausting and not very “commercial.” The newer, later materials seem to be taught more today.
In the big picture (and nostalgically) I like those old days. These “old timers” know that era, that material too, and know what I am talking about. Ripped calluses, and smoking rattan.
In the last 29 years I have made certified instructors and black belts around the world from the USA to Australia. I think about 150 or so. You can see them on our instructor page. While some are inactive, many are active and frankly quite active. And by active I also mean very busy making and doing seminars. I get the news of these seminars, and some ask me right out –
“HELP ME ADVERTISE MY NEXT SEMINAR!” or,
“HELP ME SELL ____,” or
“HE KNOWS I AM GOING TO _____, WHY ISN’T HE…”, or,
“WHY ISN’T HE LISTING ME, I Will BE…”
I would love to, but with some 150 people, this would turn my Facebook pages into non-stop ads for seminars and products! (This is a similar problem I have with Presas Legacy page. I cannot allow FMA seminar announcements or stick sellers, etc.)
“But you helped Joe with his seminar! It’s not fair!” That is what I am afraid to hear from a friend. Once the advertising dam breaks, to be fair, if I start doing this for one instructor? Then I must be fair to all my instructors and the damn water floods the pages and people stop reading the page. Hey, I am actually a little uncomfortable advertising my own seminars, but I must, lest of all promote ALL of the ones of others. My name supports your name in the big picture. The more I am known, the more the instructors benefit from our affiliation.
To write this “dam” message, I use these guys in the attached photo as an example of a few of our great guys doing some upcoming seminars. Please look at their tags and see what they are doing, but I still have to maintain the “Advertising Dam.” My thumb is now back in the dyke hole.
It’s time boys and girls to rerun my knife fight story and the Superbowl player and the ring…
Our city in North Texas boasted two Superbowl player residents. And the two of them were as different as day and night and as racially typecast as one could imagine. One was a retired white guy in a very big house with many investments. The other was a black guy from what one might call our slums, or projects. He had no such monied investments. And no such home. He was older than most players but still playing ball. And every off season, he would return home to Texas. And every off-season he seemed to get into trouble of some sort. Both these guys wore the big brash and legendary Superbowl ring. I never met the white guy, but I did meet the black guy. In fact, he kind of saved my ass one Saturday morning, back in the 1970s…in a knife fight.
In one “hood” in our city we had a old drinking place called The Wine Tree. It was a bar, but not a bar. It was an open house with a jukebox and the booze flowed (illegally sold) along with the drugs. An old, crippled man named Willie lived in the back room and “ran” it with a henchman or two.
Through time you learn, either by emergency calls or by investigation that many of that area’s crimes, at some point started, ran through, or ended up at the Wine Tree. Did Willie have a liquor license? A business permit? No. It was just a house. An open house party 24/7. The neighbors didn’t care. Hell, they hung out there, too.
The attendees parked everywhere and the dancing and drinking and conniving and hustling spilled out onto the pounded-down and dry front lawn, and out onto the streets. There was even a jukebox in there.
The next mornings, especially after weekends, The Wine Tree had a hang-over. There were always stragglers still hovering on or about the property. One Saturday morning either a neighbor reported a fight in progress out front of the Wine Tree, or I drove up on this fight. I just can’t remember. I was a young turk back then and worked this district. I was just as fearless as I was dumb. As I drove up to the Wine Tree, I saw at least three men arguing and another two others apparently interceding and peacemaking. The peacemakers weren’t doing so well. In total, five knuckleheads bandied about.
Two of the arguing guys started a sloppy fight. The other three guys started in cheering or jeering. Some in the general area scattered. Some remained at a distance, on-looking, rubber-neckers in the general area.
I got out of the car and tried my hand at this peace-keeping routine too, but these men were charged up on who-knows-what-all from the night before and pissed off. My Gestalt therapy training just wasn’t working, and the two main men crashed in on each other. I dove in trying to separate them. And wild fists flew. Then a third guy jumped in, and I’ll tell you it was a free-for-all. Everybody against everybody, and I wasn’t winning. I wound up half-wrestling, half-punching with one of them as the other two, struggled off a few feet and bumped into us.
Then one of them pulled a knife. It was a switchblade. He was cursing up a storm, and this whole event was going south very badly. He was not cursing or pointing the knife at me, just the other guy he was originally mad at. Then, to satisfy the arms race, one of the onlookers passed the other unarmed man a knife!
“Put down those knives!” I ordered.
They did not. The peacemakers and a few gathering onlookers did bail back about 15 feet when those knives came out. Some onlookers got involved and grabbed my arms. I think, as if, to stop me from shooting their friends I think. They tried to keep me away. They tried holding my arms as if to protect their fighting friends from me.
HA! So that “drop it,” command of mine didn’t work and I had this gut-crushing feeling this would end with my gun out, maybe shooting somebody and it all turn, six different kinds of crazy bad. I pushed back, got free and damned if they didn’t re-grab me.
These two armed goons cursed a blue streak and were dueling as in a comedy of moves, slashing and stabbing at each other in uncoordinated, wild lunges and swings. But a knife is a great equalizer from fools to kings.
Then suddenly a stout black man charged up. From the proverbial “nowhere.” He was not drunk. He hit the guy hanging on my right arm, using his shoulder and we both pushed this pain-in-the-ass off of me. Without hesitation, he pivoted and ran up to one in the knife party dance and belted him in the side of his head, with a fist, a forearm, or an elbow? I can’t say which. It was a blind side, sucker shot. The man did not see it coming and was so stunned, he dropped the knife on impact, stumbled off and fell.
Arm now free, I pulled my Colt Python pistol. The onlookers gasped and cursed and groaned at its sight. I stepped before the other armed man and told him I’d kill him if he didn’t drop the knife. I got in such a position that the other drunk that was first fighting with me, now shared my gun barrel time too.
The guy with the knife just stood there, tip of the knife aimed at my face, his eyes all google-eyed, bloodshot and watering, his lip busted open and bloody. He was wavering before me like a heat wave on booze and drugs. It would have been funny, but for the knife, the jerks around me…well, frankly, actually I guess it wasn’t much funny at all.
“Don’t even think about it,” I warned him.
Good God, was I going to have to shoot this stumbling drunk? I decided I would if he lunged at me.
Meanwhile, this hard-charging citizen hero snatched up the loose knife from the ground and walked right up to the man before me and removed the knife from his hand while the drunk just stared at me. I ordered the two men on their knees. The first was already grounded.
The hero stood there like my professional backup! And, I wondered where my official back-up unit was, speaking of backup. They didn’t get there in time. One thing I could tell was, everyone there, knew this guy and were obviously more afraid of him, than me….me being the PO-lice! Who was that un-masked man?
Two pair of handcuffs hung on my belt, and I had three men to shackle! I cuffed the bystander guy fighting me with one pair, figuring if he were damn fool enough to fight with me before, I needed both of his hands linked up now. Then I split my second pair of cuffs with these two so-called, “knife fighters.”
“There ya go. Now go on and beat yourselves to death now,” I told the two handcuffed together slobs. “See if I stop you again.”
At this point I didn’t care if they clobbered each other down. One cuff to one’s right hand, the other cuff to the other man’s right hand. This way if they both ran off, it wouldn’t be too easy to run. In theory, one faced one way, one faced the other, (but in actuality, one of them could cross their arm over for them to run. Anyway, that didn’t happen.)
Other units arrived, and we carted the men away. I had to get the name and address of this hero for my crime and arrest reports. I thanked him profusely. He was all smiles and told me everything. I’ll call him “Ray Wilson” here.
At the station, our Patrol Lt Gene Green wandered into the book-in room and wanted the sitrep. After my report, he said,
“Ray Wilson? He plays for the _____________. Ya’ met Ray! Ya’ see his big Superbowl ring? He comes home every off-season and stays with his momma. He gets into some kind of trouble every year.”
“Well, he sure helped me out of a mess here!” I said. “He needs a medal.”
“Just wait,” Lt Green warned. “You’ll see him in here for somethin’ er’ another.” By “in here,” he meant the book-in room.
“He comes home every year and sorta cleans up after his relatives’ and friends’ bad business. He has a helleva’ family. Always in trouble.”
That Wilson clan. Oh, yeah. Those kin folk! Well, I saw his point. What a shame. The guy just charged right in and helped me.
About a month or so later we were on midnight shift, and I walked through the station to the squad room. The old headquarters was situated kind of funny because you had to walk through the book-in room of our jail to get from the front side of the station and into to the back squad room. There on the book-in room bench, sat a handcuffed Ray Wilson. My Wine Tree hero.
He was arrested for assaulting some men with a baseball bat! Some kind of a family, revenge/vendetta, just like Lt. Green had suggested would happen. Ray nodded to me as I approached and passed through. His possessions were laid on the book-in counter, ready for safe-keeping collection. A worn wallet. Some pocket change. An old watch. A belt…and a big, golden, Superbowl ring.
“Take care of that ring,” Ray asked cordially.
“We always do, Ray,” the arresting detective said.
He retired in our city, took over the family’s, older home and then years later died of old age, but a poor man. He was one of the regulars I would stop and talk to, once in a while, through the years. He was a really good feller from and in a bad place.
You’ve probably heard about the word Trifecta (three-bees,) but how about QUADfecta (four-bees?) Yeah. It exists in the Fourth Dimension, no big deal according to Dr. Strange.
Beyond the interview, beyond the avoidance, past the de-escalation, when push comes to shove, etc., in reality we struggle-fight the big three: criminals, enemy soldiers and our “drunk uncles” (a nickname I use for all those relatives who act up.) In researching solutions, I investigate the Martial Quadfecta:
1: Kickboxing 2: Ground n’ pound 3: Wrestling (I prefer Catch) 4: Weapons (modern – sticks, knives, guns, not ancient stuff).
What if any, can I use-adopt from these sources for fighting crime and war, not mirror images of one’s system in arts and sports. Some people like to say “steal” from these sources, some say “take” or “co-op.” “Borrow?” “Adopt.” Whatever. I am always on the hunt, keeping it checkers not chess. “Do it Fit – Don’t it fit?” Running it all through the “Who, What, Where, When, How and Why questions” to embrace or dismiss. Picking and choosing should be debated by people with a high 4-D Martial I.Q..
4-D? Any one of those categories alone is one dimensional. Two are two dimensional. Three? Three dimensional – and most old science discussions end with 3-D, huh? BUT we are now in the Multiverse says Dr. Strange (and so do MANY leading scientists by the way!) so we enter the FOURTH dimension, so to speak. The Quadfecta.
Lots of folks like being in their one or two or three dimensions. Great. I’m happy if you’re happy. All I ask is don’t be ignorant about it and know where your limited dimensions fit in the Multiverse, which I reckon is another way of saying “stay in your lane?”
Me? I hunt on a four-lane highway.
(I wonder if anyone will ever call their new school “Quadfecta Martial Arts. You can! I haven’t copyrighted it.”)
Many moons ago, as a young naive lad, I grabbed a guy’s hand and thought…okay, well, outer wrist throw…. I did it and the guy pretty much stood there and screamed in very anguishing way. I had ripped some tendons or something in his wrist-forearm. He just didn’t know “Oh, I am supposed to fall over now.” Next stop before jail? The hospital. Not only did I not want to damage the guy’s arm, I now had to spend hours at the emergency room, The next time – I was still naive and stupid – I tried it again and HEARD it! Like a subtle stalk of fresh celery being torn in half.
Former French Foreign Legionnaire Military and martial expert Nick Hughes reported after reading this, “Too funny. I was explaining how some twat said you guys jump for each other in Aikido, and how I told him, “you bet, for the same reason you tap for an armbar or leglock. If you don’t, shit gets fucked up. I then told them about the first time I did a kote gaeshi on some twat at a bar. I slammed it on. I expected him to do the big flip. He didn’t move an inch, his wrist did, though. Then there was a tearing noise and he started screaming”.
On this subject, with a side joke of fainting, My old patrol and detective partner Roger White added, “I did a gooseneck wrist lock on a guy (you would remember him) in the middle of E. Prairie St. To my amazement he passed smooth out in the middle of the street! I told people I choked him out with a wrist lock…”
I certainly still must show the 5 big twists and bends of the wrist (and ankle, very similar) because we martialists must investigate and experiment with these things, but I also WARN about expectations and the realties.
Standing or ground, throws (or captures,) the “Big Five Hand-Wrist Attacks” are:
– The wrist-hand turns all the way out. (Outer wrist throws.)
– The wrist-hand turns all the way in. (Inner wrist throws.)
– The wrist-hand bends all the way back. (Goosenecks.)
– The wrist-hand bends all the way forward. (Goosenecks.)
– The wrist-hand cranks side-to-side. (Center locks.)
(I learned these 5 concepts in a Judo Gene Lebell seminar, if you don’t agree me, go argue with Lebell. Yeah, I know he’s dead, it’s just an expression.)
I am full of old-school mainstays. Some I like. Some I don’t. In military training tips – I was in at the tail-end of Vietnam and went through Basic Training in Fort Polk , LA. Dubbed “Little Vietnam” for its weather, look and occasional “swampiness.” “Tigerland.” We were advised to stay a machine gun burst apart when maneuvering around. At times even a hand grenade blast apart if space allowed. Plus, distance apart opens up fields of vision and fields of fire. Ralph on the far right sees more than Jimmy on the left, and vice versa. (Jody is at home with your wife or girlfriend, there ain’t no use in looking back!) But, these very generic distance tips makes you think about moving formations of two or more troops. There was a lot of fire and maneuver with cover fire lessons to advance when seemingly un-advanceable.
In the old police academies, we were told to stay at least “one shotgun blast” apart. Okay, as they were not overly-worried about machine guns or like…bazookas. What about semi-auto pistols? They can spray pretty damn fast too, kinda like a machine gun burst.
So still, police, military or civilian common sense, staying apart if possible is a good generic plan. If you can. But in narrow hallways, passageways and tight spots of life, often there is no space to spread. Always risky.
I wonder, is the distance idea emphasized today like the olden days, though? Today (like many recent years) there seems to be a lot of clumping taught, even when there is space to un-clump. Sometimes you can’t. Take a look at the associated photo . A hallway. Not much space to spread. Narrow hallways, passageways and tight spots, no space to spread. Always risky. But now consider the guy in the back. The guy in the back might shoot the guy (or guys) in the front if the feces suddenly hits the proverbial fan. Some of these formations have the guy in the back, walking backwards! That’s some serious “6 Watching” right there. And not a terrible idea at all.
Or line-ups. Is trudging single file in a SWAT line some form of clumping? Lots of SWAT folks line up like toy soldiers to get from the staging area, say, van point A to point B doorway. It’s an efficient way to move, yeah. I could tell some interesting stories in sims classes about that. But I always wondered that in a world of planned terrorists and bad guys, after they have worked on a hostage deal or raid, or robbery, do they ever say to each other,
“Okay, now…where will SWAT park?”
“Where will the response team stage?”
“Where will the Bradley stage?”
Bombs and snipers are next to thwart the good guys from the get-go. Reminds me of the great L.A.P.D. SWAT plank member Scott Reitz recalling, when the van doors opened up once, he instantly had to shoot an armed bad guy right there at the doors! In my city, if any residents of bad neighborhoods saw the SWAT team van driving anywhere day or night, cell phones would light up with warnings. “SWATs out!”
Getting there. Getting into position. Sometimes just to encircle and guard-watch via a perimeter, toss in the phone? Or gain entry into buildings? SWAT has become very efficient “room-raiders,” perhaps at the expense of “open-field” crossing training, ignoring Point A to be Point B transit training worries? Does getting there sometimes mean crossing open spaces under sudden or known fire? Cover fire is an advancement solution but a tricky thing in the civilian world, Cover fire as in the right side laying down a field of fire so the left side can advance, then vice-versa. I’ve had a number of SWAT commanders and police admin say, “no way” to firing for such cover. Taboo. You either justifiably shoot directly at a bad guy or you can-not, do-not take any shot at all. (I do think there can be very controlled cover fire, but the generic response is no to the concept. (I still teach the concept to all with simulated ammo, and the subject of another essay.)
Anyway, citizens, police, military! To clump or not to clump? That be the question. One Shakespeare never pondered. But I wish more people would think about it.
I have been around FMA since the 1980s. FMA was very popular in the late 1980s, 1990s and growing, but there was a stutter-step that lasted years, two surprises what is called “Black Swans” and their application to the martial arts. You know that Black Swans are surprise, rather unpredictable events. Randomness.
Two main events occurred in the 1990s, 2000s that led to a decline in the growth and popularity of Filipino Martial Arts. One event was of course the cleverly orchestrated UFC and it’s “More Real” fighting. The second, separate proclamations from some “real-deal-rough-guys” that FMA was mostly full of “Dead Drills” that didn’t relate to really-real-deal-tough-guy fighting.”
These two events put FMA on the side shelf for years. The demographic of the time (what? 18 to 35 year-olds?) of macho boys fell for this hook, line, sinker. Even Inosanto-world,- which we were doing Thai and Shoot – was included in this disparaging.
But alas…“More Real” fighting, as it turned out, is-not, was-not just wrestling-BJJ, but actually “MMA” that had to evolve with an emphasis on kickboxing and ground n’ pound atop wrestling. Still though, through it all there was this lingering stigma-idea that FMA-ers were dancing, prancing around in abstract, dead drills.
But time passed. Decades. A new crop of young macho guys appeared in the marketplace of the same demographic of old. They missed that early FMA Black Swan. They saw the evolution of MMA-UFC was not just BJJ submission fighting. They saw weapons in a weapons world, a whole new breed of folks. They ignore the FMA dead drill commentary because they understand the learning progression, the concept of…drills.
I and a few others back then, with a little influence in the martial magazines and the growing internet, spoke out against this FMA Dead stigma. I began a name-game change when I simply publicized a semantic name title switch, from “Drills” to “Exercises.” It was not speed, flow and skill DRILLS, but rather speed, flow and skill EXERCISES. All fighters run, or weight lift, or do all kinds of support exercises vital to their performance, yet such would be declared “dead” and ignored in the definition of knuckleheads in comparison.
The word “exercise.” Calling them ALL merely exercises sort of changed the “dead drill” mindset name-game and shut some of these people up. All kinds of exercises improve and in many military, police and martial worlds, lots are called “__________ Exercises.” In fact, big themes are often called “________ Exercise Week,” etc.
While the words drill and exercise are interchangeable, using the term exercise is an all-inclusive, mind-changer. Big mind, if you will. Small-minded experts would declare “FMA Dead Drills,” then turn around and introduce their own drills that were in theory and practice, essentially the same ’dead’ as what they were just ridiculing. This displays a mental and intellectual detachment. One dead drill mastermind had to publicly backtrack a bit in a film, admitting that all performance exercises were…“okay.” This had to shake up their minds with inclusive definitions.
Through the decades, the most publicly recognized stick fighters were-are the Dog Brothers started by Eric Knaus, Arlen Sanford, Burton Richardson, et al. I have been close with many of these guys and done some minimum safety gear stick sparring myself until age limits healing time. As bad-ass as that gets, in the actual classes? Skills are slowly, carefully, professionally developed in progressive drills that would-be, officially have-been, declared “DEAD” by knucklehead standards.
(Ray Medina on the left, me on the the right.)
Martial drills of all kinds are bits and pieces of a fight (or sports) that enhance individual moves and puts them in a “before and after” action puzzle piece, all with progressing levels of speed with inserts. The only 2 major things to worry about are:
Is the core movement-mission subject important enough? and,
Do not over-drill and become mere “drill-masters” unable to freestyle fight. (This is important)
ALL drills to some extents are a bit dead, even sparring is, as they are not a real fight in crime and war, but, it’s probably a good idea to ignore these few remaining, “dead drill” hypocrites. Apparently, a whole bunch, a new breed of tough guys, a new wave of FMA interest these last ten years or so, agrees.
________________________
Check out the many free, full hour training films on Hock’s Combatives Youtube channel. Click here.
Standing – Upright Footwork Routine #14: The Footwork Run
Number 14 in my Force Necessary courses. Many people just run laps, which is fine. Fighters will do their road work with shadow boxing. Moving forward. Fighting. Smart. I have incorporated fighting footwork into the process along with some balance exercises and what I nickname “gyroscopic” exercises.
First, one has to define a lap. Whats is a lap? The classic, universal track has 4 laps covering a mile. Inside and outside many gyms, with space constraints, covering a mile usually takes many more laps than the classic 4 – maybe something like TWENTY laps may accrue a mile in some places.
I find this more multi-lap-to-a-mile handy because I change “themes” on each lap and easily remember to do so. I don’t think I have the time and the mojo to do my whole workout listed below, changing themes every classic quarter mile on the big boy track. If you did one of these chores as one full lap, and four laps make for a mile…it would be a long (and exhausting) many-mile day.
If you are on such a classic 4-lap-track, you might define in your mind quarters, halves and so forth for points to change your footwork. For the purposes of this explanation I will use the simple term lap – but such is flexible based on your location, your “track” and your health-endurance.
These are for inspiring, not confining. Note that every other lap is “regular” running (intermingled with shadow boxing and wind sprints).
Pre-Lap: You might stretch a bit? Warm-up speed. Up to you.
Lap 1: Regular running with a warm up in mind.
Lap 2: Side-to-side pendulum-style footwork, facing out.
Lap 3: Regular running.
Lap 4: Side to side pendulum-style footwork, facing in.
Lap 5: Regular running.
Lap 6: Run backwards.
Lap 7: Regular running. Start incorporating segments of wind sprints.
Lap 8: Moving forward with “zig-zag” footwork, (Do you have painted lanes on your track? I usually use them to guide control my zig-zag forward stepping)
Lap 9: Regular running, with some wind sprints and now some shadow boxing.
Lap 10: Moving forward with zig-zag footwork, leap-step and turn in (with a hop) with each advancing step and shadow box a punch (one or two?) when facing inward. Very practical.
Lap 11: Run backwards with shadow boxing.
Lap 12: Regular running, with some wind sprints and shadow boxing.
Lap 13: Three lane leaps. Traverse-hop three lanes while still moving forward in a bigger zig-zag, right to left, left to right. You may turn (or hop) inward and punch again, (I’m not to sure how practical the turn and punch is after a THREE lane advance, but you can still do it. The two-lane, turn-in seems to be more practical in a fight.)
Lap 14: Regular running with wind sprints and shadow boxing.
Lap 15: Run heel-to-toe on one painted stripe to build agility and balance.
Lap 16: Experiment with some kicks while moving forward, even if you have to stop for a second to do it. See which ones work or don’t work on the mover.
Lap 17 and Beyoooond. Continue on and create variables for your laps or segments of your laps. Some people add hand weights. Whatever. Review your footwork drills and see you can do them on the move. Experiment. Customize. Improve. Swing sticks and knives on the way. Try a few steps drawing out pistols, or carting long guns. The world is your violent oyster. Just don’t get arrested running with weapons in your hands, bubba! You will freak out onlookers.
I usually do this indoors because I can’t count on the weather and as my mind wanders, the shorter laps help me remember to change. Plus, much of Texas is blistering hot for months and one should not let weather interfere with your plans to conquer the universe. On average I cover a meager 15 miles a month.
Running will always be smarter than walking. Walking will always be smarter than “couching.” Couching will always be better while watching television with a handy coffee mug full of Merlot.
I have been going to and teaching in Australia since the 1990s, a chain broken by Covid. Often twice a year. I have friends in many cities that hosted me coast to coast. I have a very special place in my heart for the people I know there and Australia in general. I knew that I had to get my then wife Jane down there to meet them and see Oz. She went with me several times for a month and one year, a two-month long trip. These trips were adventures in rental cars and sometimes we had to fly. Jane called much of it “Windshield Tourism“ because we had had drive from city to city, weekend to weekend. We “freestyled” saw…a…whole…lot.
One year we went in October and November and over a Thanksgiving. Being that far away from the USA, the American holidays don’t loom. On Thanksgiving Day, we stopped in a smaller town and stayed in a rather primitive, worker’s-style hotel that had a hot plate, a fridge and a microwave, all in the short hallway of the single room. With that were a few crappy, dishes and silverware.
We had enough time to walk about the downtown area and wandered into a grocery store where Jane got the idea that while we could not have a turkey, we could at least have chicken and some vegetables for Thanksgiving.
I said, “How can you make all that with a crusty old hot plate and that nasty old ancient microwave in the small hallway of our room?”
She knew how. She proceeded to buy the ingredients. We returned to the motel, and she started in with milk, eggs and flour she breaded chicken thighs and prepped the vegetables (by the way, the veggies in Australia are science-fiction-huge!) We bought some Australian wine, which y’all should try.
When it was all done, we had our Thanksgiving dinner in this little motel room. It was way more than delicious. It was amazing, as she was amazing. I declared then and there that this was my best Thanksgiving ever. It wasn’t turkey, but it didn’t have to be. We even had to eat in bed because there were no tables or a desk. But it was still so special, spontaneous and perfect. Years later, it was and still is my best Thanksgiving ever. A magic day in a magic time and place with a magic person.
I lost Jane last July from a sudden heart attack, after 30 unforgettable rich, adventurous, deep years. Are there enough adjectives? I’ll run out of them. I was ripped from reality. I am very close to her daughter Sherry, and we worried about the upcoming holidays of which Jane was always such a brilliant foundation. Sherry asked me was there anything special she could make for me, for our upcoming Thanksgiving. I am not a desert guy, and I just couldn’t think of anything at the moment. But a day later, I thought about this…the baked chicken memory. Of course! I told her. She looked at me funny at first, but then she remembered the story I have told probably way too many times. So, yes, at her house many are coming and there will be the usual turkey and sides, but she is also also making me breaded chicken thighs.
Thanksgiving Day will be a real tough one. Some say they all will be from now on, to some level, no matter what else happens. I could see that. And oh no, not just for me, but for so many who have lost others from age, health, crime and war.
Past, Present. Future. You know Zen is not a religion, it’s a philosophy. Zen wants you to concentrate and live in the moment as much as possible along with solving some riddles. And when folks say Grace before a meal, they are stopping time. Freezing it, slowing things down, and saying-appreciating the moment, the luck, the joy, the irony that we somehow have some damn food in front of us in this crazy world, along with…somehow…at holiday times like these, people we love, like and know around us.
We can stop the clock for just one precious moment. It might be those valuable moments that gets you through life. May you have many such valuable moments, like a simple makeshift meal in a cheap hotel, or a festive gathering, or maybe just days, hours, or minutes of “windshield tourism,” if even just a trip around your town.
And that’s my greatest Thanksgiving story. I suspect it will remain so for the…duration. And hey, do try some of that Australian wine, why don’t cha?
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.
Elephants were armored up and used like tanks in the old wars around 1100 B.C.. The first popular conflict involving Europeans was at Gaugamela in 331 bc. This battle in northern Iraq, Alexander the Great against the Persian leader Darius III. History records the downfall of war elephants from the invention of gunpowder. The explosive sounds of muskets scared the elephants. Once cannons became common on the battlefield, armies finally had invented a method to kill war elephants without having any of their own men trampled in the dangerous process. Military historians argue about the success of war elephants, but nonetheless, they did exist and did damage.
“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” – Sun Tzu
Every once in a while, in my years in police work ranging back to the early 1970s, we would get a new shift supervisor like a sergeant or lieutenant, that would open his early shift briefings with some new preference standards. Often this would be a desk jockey or what we use to call a “REMF,” in the Army. Which stands for “rear-echelon-m________, f_________.” These were folks with little to no street experience, by their choice, or folks forced upwards too soon, to fill admin openings. Still a lack of experience.
Back then, there were just a few of us (maybe just 5? 6? 7?) on the official generic “combatives teaching” circuit, in the magazines and on video tapes. 30 years ago his January, I created the Force Necessary (FN) program, with a main motto, “Using only that force necessary to win or survive.” The program includes four main courses FN: Hand. FN: Stick, FN: Knife and FN: Gun (and I still teach FMA when asked). In the 90s, I’d been in police work since the 1970s both in the Army and in Texas, most of that time as a detective. I’d seen and experienced working on a lot of knife crime, as in aggravated assaults, rapes, attempted murders and murders. I myself have been attacked by both a knife and an ax. I won’t fail to mention here for the new kids, I’ve also been rather obsessively doing martial arts since 1972. Fifty-three years next January. From the military, police and martial arts, I hold certain perspectives in the use of the hand, stick, knife and gun that your friendly neighborhood Spiderman might not have…or know.
Another motto I have is “Help me, help you, stay out of jail.” In short, I really worry about you going to jail. Every act of violence is both a trauma and a drama. Situational. This realistic and serious approach has outcasted me over to a non-popular, non-trendy knife course. With many existing, pop knife courses, the teachers and dogma-doctrine have a terrible persona of thug, prison shiv, skulls…basically some sort of mafia, under-sub-culture. There was recently an actual “Knife Mafia” club. Some even look like the Mexico death culture. They think it’s cool. But it is actually counter-productive in the big picture and well…stupid. If your instructor looks and dresses like a thug? Well…think about it. This macho, rebel, leaky-criminal persona does not serve you well in worldwide, criminal justice systems. I might add in this context that the gun culture of civilized countries is extremely concerned about the law and staying out of jail. The knife culture should pay close attention to this approach also. The stigma with knives is worse than with guns.
Mistakes in business. So, me? I’m boring. No mystique. Not isolating the knife enough. Not promoting people fast enough. No skulls. No flags. No carved out-eyeballs. No macho persona. Just generic methods. No weird hats, clothes or tattooes. These are some of the ways I didn’t play the game, and have shot myself in the…well…stabbed myself in the foot in the fad, knife training business. How about you? Are you maximised? Subject to fads. Watch the market? Who, what, where, when, how and why?
I find this more multi-lap-to-a-mile handy because I change “themes” on each lap and easily remember to do so. I don’t think I have the time and the mojo to do my whole workout listed below, changing themes every classic quarter mile on the big boy track. If you did one of these chores as one full lap, and four laps make for a mile…it would be a long (and exhausting) many-mile day.
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.