Tag Archives: hock

Hock's Blogs

Drop It! What’s in YOUR Gun Hand?

Drop it!
In police work we are told to never have anything in our gun
hand, in case we suddenly have to draw our pistols. But we
know that is impossible. Even when writing a simple traffic ticket, both hands are busy. Fortunately, citizens do not live by this advice, this constant edge, as they go about their daily business. But, dear citizen, what if…?

Much later, police trainers then passed around the idea, the realization, that when you drop your hand to pull your gun, you have to open your hand to grab your gun anyway. So, police, military or citizen, if you have something in your hand? Clip board. Grocery bag. Cup of coffee. Cheeseburger. You are going to open your hand anyway. You just have to learn to drop the item as your hand descends to your weapon carry site. 

This actually takes a bit of “dropsy” practice. Practice while holding what you think you might hold, then drop and draw. Use live fire first, then switch to safe, simulated ammo of course versus a real live person, but you can make some live-fire reps on targets at the range first, (providing you are somewhere you can draw from a holster, as those no-draw, range rules are increasing. If restricted, all the more reason to at least do this with simulated ammo and dodge those cumbersome range rules.)

Oh, and when making an emergency call? Always use your off-hand to run the cell phone. (I have a simulated ammo scenario for that process too.)

Sometimes we discover that we can chunk the item at the bad guy’s face. But, that option is not always available due to time, space and situation. Lots of people ASSUME they know what their first or next confrontation will be like, and think that a good guy should always throw their hats, coffee, etc. at the bad guy before they draw. Such is an idea with a pre-emptive draw, maybe. It is very situational. But if the bad guy is drawing first, you are already behind the eight-ball of action-beats-reaction, and taking the step of tossing something first, then drawing makes things worse for you. Don’t believe me? Check it put with simulated ammo training.

(The Mexican Hat Toss is a “chunking” old-school classic. I learned this from old FBI agents who were taught to toss their mandatory fedoras at a suspect when appropriate. As the hat flew as a distraction, the pistol came out. They were never photographed doing this, nor was the method in any “public release,” to keep the trick a secret.)

So in your “Drop It” scenario training, have a holstered pistol on your carry site. Hold something in your gun hand. Drop, draw and shoot. Get the drop routine running in your head and hand.

Then it is vital to eventually, as quickly as possible, have a real person in front of you, doing something dangerous for you to properly draw your simulated ammo weapon for the right, justified and legal reasons, not a bell, not a whistle or timer, not flash cards, nor a paper target. A person! (One example of trouble? He crouches for a draw! Hand going to a primary, secondary or tertiary weapon carry site. Anyway, remember an opponent suddenly crouching is always a bad indication of trouble!). Learn, experiment and make a list as to what moves would cause you to legally draw.

Thus, the desperate need for more interactive, safe simulated ammo training. (Simunitions NOT needed here because why would you hurt your training partner 25 times with painful Sims, while he is trying to help you train! Safer methods and ammo required and smarter.)

Live fire is always half your training battle. The other training half is shooting moving, thinking people who want to shoot you, or who are in the act of shooting you with safe ammunition.

______________________

Hock’s email is HockHochheim@ForceNecessary.com

Training Mission One! Training Mission Two! Thousands of how-to photos. The new, second edition-versions! Click here to read more

  • Get the oversized paperbacks.
  • Get the color textbook hardcovers.
  • Get the streaming ebooks.

 

Hock's Blogs

My Mistakes in the Knife Teaching World.

.This is where I have fallen down. Where my knife course has fallen down. Before the fall, in the 1990s there was a “resurgence” if you will, a re-look, re-examination of older knife material (which essential was a lot of knife dueling). Some might call it “knife fighting,” but I don’t like that term. But you are still indeed, fighting with a knife when you are…fighting with a knife. Still, I don’t like many terms, images, messages, logos relating to the knife and knife fighting. By that time in the 90s, I was in police work for quite a while, 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 knife and ax.

I know the depressing, dark side, the wet side in juxtaposition to all the smiling people having fun, slap-dashing around in gyms playing tag with wooden and rubber knives. Knife training is often treated quite cavalierly. This doesn’t have to be the case as very serious cultures exist, like the culture of pistol training is quite serious and full of foreboding and legal scares. Careful, mature training cultures do exist, and this must certainly become true in knife training also.

In the early 90s, this edged weapon resurgence was sort of an international turning point in knife training. A reboot if you will? It first resurrected the old military knife courses and the semi-legendary names of yesteryear. They weren’t “kuraty” superstars. A sophisticated look at them however, revealed, they weren’t so sophisticated. So several of us, using the newer sports training methods of the time, and bolstered by years in Filipino martial arts or other historical backgrounds, stepped up and made “new” knife courses. Gone was the martial arts uniforms, belts, etc. We wore jeans with pockets and regular clothing belts. Street clothes.


Some of the 90s knife pioneers? James Keating. Tom Sotis. Kelly Worden, Bram Frank, Bob Kasper, yours truly, to name just a few, but there really were only a few of us. Paul Vunak is a late 80s pioneer in many areas. (Still, some of these guys were overdosing on knife dueling.) We wore shirts, jeans and shoes. I even taught at times in a suit and tie. Skeptical, we didn’t trust the old stuff and we didn’t trust the established martial arts either, even the Filipino applications of the knife are often tricky and  too “duely”. (Do you want to walk around wearing a vest with 12 knives? Seriously.) Be free. Think free. Be skeptical. Are you a replicator? Or an innovator?

Still, the old just helps the new. This was also part of a bigger “breakaway” from establishments that was going on in that decade. The world was seeing MMA (or at least ground wrestling) on TV like never before. And somehow a collection of old stuff, dressed in athletic pants, painted in the “Israeli mystique” – Krav Maga – was really shoved down the throats of Tae Kwon Do schools as mandatory, by clever (and insidious) shaming,  business groups, like NAPA in the 90s.

The “Mixed Revolution” was in the 1990s martial air! Jeet Kune Do was spreading into a heyday. Inosanto JKD/MMA was already doing Thai and ground, and so much more. Ever hear of “Shoot?” But, I guess the Israeli mystique was greater than the Bruce Lee mystique?

Mystique? Yes. Ever so important in advertising, sales and manipulation. That’s how we pick shoes, cars, purses and pistols (politicians, religions and…) Manipulation. More on that later…

My knife course had a few odd, infancy names in 1990 and 1991, but it was quickly called “When Necessary? Force Necessary: Knife!” But that 5-word title was a little long and clunky and it was shortened to just 3 words – “Force Necessary: Knife!” I do prefer the longer, clunky name, as it completely explains exactly what I mean to say. Only use that force necessary when absolutely necessary. But I got around the country and quickly, the whole world doing that knife material. Lots of traveling, lots of seminars.  It lead to being voted Black Belt Magazine, Weapon Instructor of the Year and also into their BB Hall of Fame. (back when readers actually mailed in votes.) I also “scored-very well” in the non-arts, growing “combatives” world.

Black Belt. Tact Knifes. Hall of Fames. TRS. Such was the jargon and the martial/political stage of the 90s. Today, it’s hard to grasp that the total, martial world communication back that existed was with a mere 6 or 8 international, martial arts magazines. That’s it! Try and list them. Yes, Black Belt, Blitz, Martial Arts Illustrated, Inside Kung Fu, Inside Karate. Think of some more. Try and list them. They were the filter for us all. Talk forums developed slowly later and now, like the magazines, are almost all extinct.

Now? Nowadays, I don’t know where the martial arts communication filter exists, specifically. The…web…the gazillions of webpages? The gazillions of podcasts? The gazillion of….Instagrams? Facebook? Yesterday’s business card is today’s webpage. And any dipshit can pay to have amazing looking webpages. The battle for exposure takes a business up and down many extremely, frustrating, costly roads.

Of course with all businesses, this 1990s knife movement kicked off a new interest and a fair number of new knife courses popped up through and to, by 2005-ish, 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. 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.

So, when did I fall? It happened slowly and then one day you are down looking up. How’d I get down here? Not enough Instagram pictures? 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. Of course it was named something super-spiffy like “Armageddon Instrument Production,” but it’s just knife quick draws. Brand new, Biblical-worthy advice Swift  preached, and published in the new amazing world of web-jargon magazines called something like “Organic Micro Evolution of Edged Prophetic Dynasty.” (I just made that magazine name up, but how far am I off? Have you seen these seminars names lately? Aren’t you impressed, or can you see right through the pretentiousness?) Twenty and 30 year-olds salivated! 

I read Swift’s ground-breaking, testament as featured in “Retrograde, Skill Supremacy, Fusion 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 1992, Knife Level 1 outline.”

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” and up to their beards in mystique, and lost in the gazillion web world, they’d never even heard of us older guys from the 90s. 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. I get that. Sure. That happens. (That level 1 outline is/was free to the public and has been distributed for literally 3 decades, and my knife books have been for sale since about then too.)

I reminded the guffawers that the spread of education is a good thing and that at very least, I only partook in that process. I said that the old just helps the new, and you have to remember the old, so history doesn’t repeat itself. As a great gun instructor Dave Spaulding likes to remind us, “It’s not new. It’s just new to you.”

One guy was clever enough to say, “Well, sorry I missed you when I was 5 years old.” Ha! I told him that was a pretty damn, funny retort. It was. But missed me? Dude, I never left. But actually he never knew I was around to begin with. That is part of the mysterious “fall.” 

I added in that discussion with Mr. Wise-ass that the spread of education was a good thing, and I only partook in the process. Seriously, I frequently read as new, many old catchy terms, ideas, expressions I published and advertised decades ago.

My really big mistake in the knife world, training business is…I think, not emphasizing the knife training course only. Alone. My obsession was/is with covering the bigger picture. Hand, stick, knife, gun. That’s “where it’s at” for me (is that phrase too 90s? Yikes, maybe too beatnik 60s?). The 1990s evolved into the 2000s and my step-by-step into what I really wanted to do all along since the 90s. My goal is to create the best hand, stick, knife and gun courses. It’s a mixed weapon world. Each subject I have is a carefully constructed 4-pillar, foundation. But I think when you shoot for this holistic picture, each separate pillar seems to get a little lost, a little less appreciated, a little less noticed. It also makes me appear to be less specialized. This ain’t true. There’s a big mixed weapon matrix:

But anyway, back to the knife! Inside a comprehensive knife course is:

  • * 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 developing exercises.
  • * Knife combat scenarios and situations.
  • * Legal issues and smarts.
  • * Who what, where, when, how and why questions
  • * Criminal history knife stories.
  • * War history knife stories. 

I do get a kick out of the occasional lame-brain who pipes up and says, “Knife training? Just stick the pointy end in the other guy.” Especially when these same complainers spend about ten thousand $$$ a year – plus – shooting at gun ranges. Why not just stick the pointy end of the bullet in the other guy, too, Brainiac? Is it all really that simple?

But, not focusing just on the knife is a marketing problem. I don’t advertise or highlight “just the knife” like other courses do. This is one point where I have really fallen down and why my knife course has fallen down through the years.

Another problem for me? No “flags.” I have no crutch system, no flag to fly, like Pekiti, JKD, Brazil-Mania, Krav. Silat. Arnis. Bruce Lee. UFC. It’s just little ol’ me flapping in the wind. I can’t draw in extraneous-system-people, capture super search terms, as some of those are obligated to attend, even arm-twisted by “the system” they’re in. Brand names are…brand names.

Plus, I avoid and dodge macho, death messages, grim reapers, and death images mystique. I would never advertise that I am “always bladed.” And I am not in any “mafia.” I am life-long cop. I fight the Mafia. I am not in any “cartel,” or a “cult” etc. Look, I can make the distinction between something that is a little fun and ironic and something/someone that is sick and weird. It takes a little investigation too, to not jump to conclusions, but sick and weird is sick and weird.


Various other ultra-violent, whack-job messaging should be reserved as a primer mentality for very serious, military, combat groups. THEIR psychology. Their prep. 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 cop gun 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 use a knife. We the police, the prosecutors search your history when you are in an assault, knifing or shooting. Mature survival is enduring the end game – as in the legal aftermath, is a big part of a well-thought-out, course. (Again, mature gun easily people understand this.)

Not like this silly fucker in New York for example – I read one New York City, very popular, international knife “cartel-liberty” group headline paragraph:

“I love it when I carve someone’s balls off and put them in his empty eye sockets.”

Shit man, you probably work in a fucking supermarket. And you think and talk like this? You need to be on watch list. These idiots 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. (After my public complaints and comments on this, this moron took that line down.)

No Mystique? Which leads me back to the first paragraph. We 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? I appear to be just a bland, white guy with some info. I don’t even have any tattoos!  Many well-known knife people are Filipino, just cause, because…they are Filipino. They may have never been to the Philippines, but they have an exotic sounding name.

And the serious military angle? Even with them, take a look at the most sophisticated, revered, respected, top-flight, Special Forces vets and most play it quiet cool like a gray man.

Lackadaisical about making rank and instructors. I don’t really run the classic franchise business as seen in self defense, BJJ and Krav, other combatives courses, and Lord knows, classic martial arts. I am often lackadaisical about promoting people and making instructors. Other systems do this like precision clockwork, where I fail to emphasize this. It does hurt the proverbial martial, business model.

In the same vein, I shun all titles like guro, grandmaster, sensei, etc. “It’s just Hock,” I say, which also does not fly well with some organizations who base themselves on this structure. Also, street clothes please. It’s almost like I am insulting them? I’m not trying to. You do whatever you need to do to survive.

After the fall. However boring, I still do see some “knife people” all around the world. There are “normal” people, martial artists, historians, survivalists and hobbyists, gun people out there, interested in generic, evolved, knife material. There are. And that is who I mostly see when the knife topic comes around. Since I disdain the crazies and the fringers, they usually avoid me too. I know they know, I don’t like them.

I always do a few hours of knife in every seminar and I do have the occasional knife weekend seminars when and where I realize I need to catch up with people’s rank requests. And, normal people can always, sort of, hide their knife interests inside a classic martial arts name. To me the knife is inside of, part and parcel of, hand, stick, knife, gun crime and war, survival education.

So, me. Boring. No mystique. Not isolating the knife enough. Not promoting people fast enough. No skulls. No flags. No carved out-eyeballs. No macho. Just generic methods. Here is where I have shot myself in the…well, stabbed myself in the foot, in the knife training business, even though just a few of us are those innovator pioneers and turned the tide in the 1990s into what it all has become today. For better or for worse. Maybe you young fellers will learn from my mistakes?

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 again (and Kelly and Bram, et al?) Keep in mind…your modern instructors might have “peeked” at all my and our long, established materials, and would not confess to it. I might just be your grandfather. Our materials have become such standard doctrine that these young guys don’t even know of us. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hock’s email is HockHochheim@ForceNecessary.com

Get what is still called the greatest knife book ever, 1000s of how-to photos in the topics above, click right here. (Now in a second updates edition.)

 

Hock's Blogs

Who Do We Fight? Drunk Uncles, Criminals and Enemy Soldiers!

 

I worry about the “who, what, where, when, how and why” questions.  In my courses and should be in your courses  too, part of the “Who Question  is “who do we fight?” Well, we fight three “enemies.” 

  1. Your “drunk uncle”
  2. Criminals
  3. Enemy soldiers

1: Who? Drunk Uncles:  “Drunk uncle” is a metaphor that means all your relatives, near and dear, near and far. Kin folk or those close enough to be. It is very common in life to fight people that you do not wish to really hurt. Like your drunk buddy or uncle/relative. In police work we are also expected to fight but not really hurt people unless things get really “out-of-hand” and the situation escalates. But in person-to-person, poke your buddy’s eye out, bite off his ear, hammer-fist his throat or neck, smash his face, break bones, shatter his knee, and then see what happens to you. Usually, often, jail and lawsuits. Lots of money and problems. There is a whole lot of domestic violence out there, and violence on, and from, “who you know” is a big problem. (Remember, there are many intricacies in the complex laws of family violence, lest of all assaults and self defense.) 

2: Who? Criminals: Essentially speaking, a stranger, (or for that matter even a friend, uncle or not, officially becomes a criminal when they assault you. You could just lump your uncle into this category once in a while too.  But, what crime is being committed? Who, what where, when, how and why? The level of crime, the exact situation takes the exact temperature of your hot, lukewarm or cold response. Crime by the way often starts out with a trick ambush, which is a deep dive study also into the “what, where, when and “how” questions.

3: Who? Enemy soldiers: We know what those are. We usually like to kill them from as far away as possible, but often can’t do that either. Consider the military “rules of engagement.”

Civil law, criminal law and the Geneva Convention, as well as human ethics – look at fighting these three “bad guys” categories differently. Our responses and solutions confronting  said “uncles, criminals and enemy soldiers” are very situational and may be:

  1. Surrender.
  2. Bargain (talk, show weapon, etc.).
  3. Escape (orderly retreat – you leave or he leaves).
  4. Hurt, on up to maim.
  5. Kill.
  6. Detain, arrest and-or take prisoner.

Of course, not necessarily in that order. All are worth exploring in training through the “who, what, where, when, how and why” questions. All have happened and will happen. I make it a point to cover all of the above in the Force Necessary courses. 

Since we are Force Necessary and not Force UNnecessary, I have done sports and arts for decades. I investigate sports and arts. I only borrow and raid from sports and arts for practical applications to solve these “uncles, criminals and enemy soldier” problems. Sports and arts are great laboratories, but it takes constant vigilance to know where to draw the line between art-sports and survival.

*****

Hock’s email is HockHochheim@ForceNecessary.com

Get the book about all this and more, Fightin’ Words, click here

Hock's Blogs

Dukes up! Another Kind of “Boom Stick.”

     For decades now, I have spotted “sloppiness, bad structure here and there in training, be it during my old Texas school of the 80s and 90s, or years on the road in seminars. Dropping hands. Sloppy finishes of strikes, or striking sets. For some people this is not a problem as they return to integrity after each move.

    Others? Not so much. I have taped a boxing glove to a stick, stood behind a feeder and clobbered trainees that don’t cover themselves well when punching and kicking mitts, pads, shields. The recalcitrant, seeing me behind the trainer, seeing this pending boom, suddenly seem to cover well, but often when I walk away? The sloppiness might return?

     I can only hope that when before a real threat, they also worry not about a boom stick, but about a real punch, and they also cover so well? But, boom stick or not, in training mitt drills, in kicking shield drills, they/you must maintain good integrity and structure for good habits. 

Dukes up!

Email Hock at Hock@hockscqc.com

Many free Hock, one hour training films, click here

Hock's Blogs

Breaking Hand and Fist Bones When Punching

     Just about everyone knows by now, that “bare-knuckle” punching upon parts of the head can be damaging. Specifically I like to remind people that it is the “bicycle helmet” area of the skull, especially prominent, especially manifesting, when an opponent naturally ducks or ducks-and-turns versus your punches. You hit the “helmet.” Broken hands. Split knuckle breaks. Etc. (Boxing gloves hide all this angst.)

Otherwise, lower, the jaw moves and the head can move when punched, helping to “cushion” your punches – jeez – is cushion is a good word for it? “Gives,” maybe? The head “gives,” or “gives-way” with lower punches. (Think about why we wear mouthpieces.)

     There are just times when the neck gets solid, coupled with the ducking “bike helmet zone” and punching folks break their hands. I really don’t want to dissect this, you know, start the tiresome, age-old debate about palm-strikes versus punches again here…what I really want to specifically mention here is, tell a simple tale about uppercuts to the jaw. What if the head, neck, jaw, even shoulders tighten up versus an incoming uppercut, punch?

Decades ago I had to punch a guy I was arresting. An uppercut under his arm like in this photo. My hand hit his particularly sharp jaw and instantly hurt my “middle finger.” While I was booking him into jail, I looked at his jaw. Real pointy, for what that’s worth. Years later? I had surgery to fix this finger. I have hit a few “heads though time,” closed fist punches and had no other – zero- hand injuries. (They can be done.) Once, a swollen ring finger. But nothing serious. Then, a middle finger problem on my right hand seems to have gone away with time. But this one uppercut caused years of on-again/off-again discomfort. Then surgery.

So, way back then, I began to consider and list uppercuts as a tricky head punch along with hitting the bicycle helmet area of the head. I would be remiss not to mention while on this subject that that the uppercut usually/often causes the head to whip back and forth, not leaving the head back for follow-ups, such as a high hook, unless you are super fast. A number of combatives people, trying to set up scenarios, often do not know this.

Recently one of my friends, a pro-fighter whose name you’d recognize, wearing the regulation MMA gloves, threw an uppercut to a jaw in a pro fight. He broke his hand. Here is his x-ray. He passed it to me for educational purposes and I now pass it to you. But we are not sure yet if we should release his name for a host of reasons. Maybe later. He does hit really hard. Word is the other guy saw it coming and “hunkered” down. SNAP!

File under: Uppercuts to the jaw. 
File under: Punches to the “bicycle helmet” area of the head.
File under: Head, jaw, neck, even shoulders when punched

Hock’s email is HockHochheim@Forcenecessary.com

Get Hock’s Book, Fightin’ Words for way more of these “Fightin'” subjects. ( Click here)

About Force Necessary

To Sumbrada, or Not to Sumbrada, THAT is…

First off that’s me and the “Irreplaceable” Tim Llacuna in March, 2018’s  big Central California Stick seminar weekend at Ron Esteller’s Kaju. Though the Bay Area, CA seminar that weekend was listed as Force Necessary: Stick, I also promised a little segment on Filipino stick too, just to round things off. And, as a result, we got a request for…Filipino Sumbrada. And since I “sing for my supper” as Sinatra use to say, so we, by God, did us some Sumbrada.

Which…can be complicated for some folks to do such things. I am not a fan of Sumbrada, per say. I certainly do not believe it should be the foundation format for a system, as it somehow is for some, which I find short-sighted. It is but one drill in a bunch of skill drills/exercises. It has been declared a “dead drill,” blah, blah, blah and yes, to some extent I agree with these naysayers. But it is still a very universal drill for many, many Filipino systems and I…in good conscious, cannot put a PAC/Filipino practitioner out on the street that doesn’t know about Sumbrada and hasn’t fooled with it. I just…can’t. I’ve been forced, more or less, to mess with it since 1986 and that is why. It does develop a few healthy attack recognitions and mannerisms.

I first learned Sumbrada from Paul Vunak in the 1980s. Sumbrada means a few things, like “counter for counter” and sort of like “shadowing.” Sumbrada range is when the tip of your stick can touch the opponent’s head and your hand can touch the opponent’s hand. That hand contact is a very deep subject. People tend to forget that on the end of all these drills, you break the pattern. Like the Bruce Lee example, folks get busy looking at the finger and not the moon, people get too busy worrying over the pattern and forget you are supposed to free-style fight.

In that FMA-PAC course I require folks do hand sumbrada, single stick sumbrada, double stick sumbrada, Knife sumbrada, espada y daga sumbrada. And, we make folks do at least three inserts/interruptions for each, all in Level 7 of the PAC course. Sumbrada is just another  exercise, among many exercises, which include wind sprints and chin-ups and beating tires and war posts, etc. Doing too much of one thing and not enough of other things is the real problem.

But the Force Necessary: Stick course is NOT Filipino martial arts stuff. There is no sumbrada in FN: Stick. The FN: Stick course is laid out this way:

  • Impact weapon vs hand
  • Impact weapon vs stick (rare, huh?)
  • Impact weapon vs knife
  • Impact weapon vs gun threats

Level 1: Impact Weapons & their Stress Quick Draws
Level 2: Stick Retention Primer
Level 3: Stick Blocking Primer
Level 4: Single Hand Grip Striking Primer
Level 5: Riot Stick (Double Hand Grip)
Level 6: “While Holding,” Supporting the Stick
Level 7: The Push Series Grappling & Spartan Module
Level 8: The Pull Series Grappling & “Chain of the Stick”
Level 9: The Turn Series Grappling & “In the Clutches” 
Level 10: The “Black Belt” Combat Scenario Test
Level 11: Intensive Stick Ground Fighting
Level 12: “Crossing Sticks” Stick Dueling Expertise
Level 13: …and up…levels upon Individual request

Much of the FN: Stick course material is over-viewed in this best seller Axe Handle Combatives.  See it for free on Hock’s Combatives youtube Channel

man with stick

Hock's Blogs

The Ten Deadly Errors

I can’t say how old this list is. I saw them all in the 1970s in police training. This list. It’s not in any order.

The list was distributed in a police-only textbook in 1975 called Officer Down, Code 3, by Pierce Brooks. The list also applies to the military. One might think that this doesn’t completely apply to citizens? But it does. For example, some civilians might think that Number 9 doesn’t apply, but there are situations, concerns and applications about controlling suspects while waiting for police arrival. I have taught those “arrest, control and contain” methods for over 26 years to people because I think they need to know them. They can be important. I have always said,

     “I’ve never learned anything as a cop I didn’t think citizens needed to know too.”

If a person will stop and think about it, every point can apply to their safety.

Many of you out there think some of these topics are “new” and recently invented by young “geniuses.” Like the pre-fight indicator lists which has reached new fad-like heights of late. None are new. I do think they have some merit as I have seen them unfold before my eyes. But they are not as important as one might think when you add criminal and military ambush into the equation. But the police spend an inordinate amount of time intervening, interviewing, investigating and prowling into areas regular people shouldn’t do or go and interacting with people. So too do soldiers and Marines going to house-to-house, village-to-village in the last 20 years. Knowing these, essentially biological tip-offs and learned tricks like sucker punches and so forth, can be helpful. I have a while chapter of these pre-fight tips in my book, Fightin’ Words. I started collecting them in 1973 from a class in U.S. Army military police academy.

Numerous tips are instinctual for many, but the list attempts to stick a label on it – which is fine and can be educationally important. New people are learning old stuff all the time and “old,” “been-around” people need reminders, maybe through new ways (as well as learning new things too).

People are constantly ridiculing police actions and police training. The root, the backbone, the steering for quality has been present for decades and decades. Apathy, manpower and budget problems get in the way. It’s left to the individual officer to spend, train or to stagnant. As with a citizen. Learn, train or stagnate. Use it or lose it. Ignorant and or, Perishable.

People – cops, may tire of seeing the list and their eyes might brush right over the poster in a blur after awhile, as it appeared on many a squad room wall decades ago. All of the “fatal mistakes” are important. All are old pieces of advice you can live or die by. May all good people live by them.

Get these combatives books, Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle, E-book, click here

 

hocks books

Hock's Blogs

Not Now…While Being Beaten in the Face

When someone is on top of you, beating the snot out of your face, you are not thinking about “why” he is doing it. Not the psychology of why. Not then. But when?

But later in the “drawing room,” it might at least be interesting?

In my courses, in the “genesis chapters” of them, if you will, I place major league importance on the “who, what, where, when, how and why” questions. I…we…need this mandatory outline to properly prepare for the interviews and ambushes in our lives. And so, securely fastened in the formula of this “bible” is the “why question.” Why is he, she, they committing this crime? This war? There are other whys also.

I think that some people in the pursuits of fighting or self-defense – whatever you want to call it – may find this “why” too interesting in the wrong place and time, so to speak. Often at the expense of the vital, physical fight training time. I cover the subject briefly in seminars, but not too much, because it is a “drawing room study” and not something to over-dwell upon in action, physical seminars that I and most people conduct and attend. If you are teaching in a room full of sweaty guys and gals with mouthpieces, that is not the time to start a psychology session.

When? For example, I cover the “why” extensively in my book, Fightin’ Words, for one avenue because I too am overly interested in all these “why questions.” They are fascinating. I just find them fascinating. “Why” covers a wide berth of psychology, culture, history, economies, brain maladies and disorders…on and on. Why? Why? WHY! Why also helps you unravel the other “who, what, where, when and how.”

     The “Ws and the H”- the genesis of fighting, crime and war. The biblical questions. Not to be ignored. Just remember the best “where” for the “why” questions. Best mostly… for the drawing rooms, I think.

Get Fighin’ Words! The paperback, Kindle or e-book

Hock's Blogs

Where’s Your Gun, Rambo? In the Car?

“Guns stolen from cars! This is outrageous.” – civilian

“How can police be this stupid to abandon their guns unprotected in a car?” – civilian

“I’m wondering why you would ever leave a gun in the car if you’re not there?” – civilian

“I never leave my gun in the car.” – civilian

“My gun is on me 24-7.” – civilian

Outraged, critical citizens. Panties in a twist because awhile back, a police officer’s squad car was burglarized and stolen from within – an AR-15 and some pistols. I can’t recall why it made the national news, but it did and the auto burglary report was passed around Facebook. The car was legally parked while an officer ate dinner at a restaurant. Many righteous, indignant citizen comments, even cusswords were made about him by the Facebook gun experts, rampaging about these guns “left” in a car. (Remember that the horrible, negligent, police officer himself was still armed while eating.)

I too am guilty of leaving guns in my police car. I confess. For the record, someone burglarized my unmarked, detective car one night in my driveway, first breaking the window glass to find nothing quickly removable, then prying open the trunk and snatching a back-up revolver and a shotgun. The good news was that the very next day while I was stewing over this personal violation, I had a midnight-shift, worker- a “snitch/informant” in a factory contact me, saying that a guy was snooping around the parking lot of the factory, trying to sell some “police guns.” He said someone he knew in the factory was interested in buying them. I told my guy to help massage the sale and keep me posted. That night, myself and another detective, Danny McCormick observed the night shift transaction on the lot from afar. We swooped in and “fell” upon the suspect. The two guns were indeed mine. I was very lucky.

Hey, it was a lucky recovery, but that loss only happened once in all my years of cop guns, cop cars and crime, over some 10,000 nights of parking. When you think about the overall total 40 some-odd, years that various and multiple guns have been inside my cars off and on,  20,000 nights? The odds were and are pretty good that they remain safe. (There are indeed some pretty goofy news stories about cops forgetting their big and small guns. )

What about the rest of the US cops? There are some 2 million law enforcement officers (depends on the definition) in the US. And there is no sure way to know how many take-home cars there are, but we can safely guess are thousands and thousands and thousands of patrol, detective and admin cars are take-home, on the drive-ways and streets of America at night. “Abandoned,” as some civilians might critique. Some car salesmen in a news article suggested a quarter of a million police cars are take-home cars. Some in garages? Two main ideas for the take-home programs are visibility (parked outside) and quick response. There are some studied that police cars parked in residential areas deter crime.

Do you think that each and every night, every single officer carts every single weapon into his or her home? I’ll bet not. And still there are hardly any police car burglaries in comparison to the big national, picture. I know for a fact that hundreds of agencies in the US “assign” a shotgun to a patrol car or detective car. Take-home cars or not. Those guns are in those cars on government parking lots all the time too. (Alarms today do help.) 

So, Dear, Panty-Twisted, Rambo, do you not realize that every time officers leave their cars on a call, and lose sight of their cars when inside a mall, a business, a house, where ever, they are leaving a car with guns in it? Every single time. Shotguns. Rifles. Pistols. Like that officer did when eating on his dinner break. Brace yourself. Armed police cars are left unattended ALL THE TIME, everywhere.

How about you? Do you leave some guns in your car for even a few minutes? An hour? Overnight? Once in a while? Think they are safe in the trunk? Mine weren’t. And for this indiscretion I too, will be called all these derogatory invectives by these Rambo, virgin, gun-toters, the same denigrations as the ”holier-than-thou” disparaged on that hungry officer on a break mentioned earlier.

There are no reliable numbers for guns stolen from US cars in general. But the best guess is thousands. Locked cars and even unlocked cars. But the theft issue is one thing, the other is the lack of a handy handgun when you need one, because it’s, “out in the car.”

But this essay so far is just a round-about way to get me to pontificate about, and for you concealed carry people to think about…guns, cars…and…the gym. Yes the gym? Yes, the gym and your cars on the parking lot of the gym. Or how about parking on a lot and taking a jog?

I was and still am a gym rat. I was and am in a gym 4, even 5 days a week if home. My dilemma was what to do with – first decades ago, storing my big-ass .357 magnum Colt Python, then storing my .45. Oh, and my badge too? Leave them in the car? The trunk? You know the lockers in the gym were burglarized regularly and the idea of leaving them in one was too dangerous. So the lockers were out of the question. Could I…wear the big-ass Springfield Armory .45 while working out? What about those extra magazines for when MS 13 invaded the weight room? (Have there been any mass shootings in gyms? I don’t know.) Should I be one of those people that hauls around a gym bag with my hand chalk, lip gloss, shark repellent, tourniquet, 3 mags and…my handgun? Those gym bags also had a knack of disappearing off the gym floor too. Could I absolutely keep track of that bug-out/work-out bag, 100% of the time?

“Dear Chief…I was star gazing into the aerobics room and someone grabbed my gym bag, with gun and badge inside.”

“Dear Chief…I was bench pressing and while concentrating on my max, someone grabbed my bag with my gun and badge inside.”

…or how about this crime report from a citizen “Dear Officer, some one peeled that cheap gym locker open and stole my Desert Eagle.”

Should I wear one of those “fanny packs?” (Watch out with that term around the world because it means different things in different countries.) And then worse, I also ran both inside and outside the gym when possible for a portion of the workout. It’s no fun running with a Colt Python or a .45 bouncing in a fanny pack. But there are tighter “spandexy” kinds of fanny packs and drawers (underwear) body holsters. Do you carry a smaller gun for these gym workouts and runs? If so, where’s your big main gun? Whoops….in the car?

I did a casual, little survey back in 2016 on this subject with a whole bunch of cops I know from around the world. Know where their guns were? Especially when at the gym. Locked in their cars, for most. I only found a few officers that wore a smaller gun in some manner in the gym or running (yeeessss, primary gun was – back in the car). And there were a few who did the gym bag thing. One officer got in a bind with some bad guys he’d once arrested and pulled a gun from his gym bag for a threat while in the gym. That incident was the single, gym-gun-pull incident I could find in my gossipy, non-scientific study.

But never mind the police. What about concealed carry people? What do they do with their handguns when at the gym? They have the same problems. Police and citizens! Where is that gun or gun-tottin’ gym bag when you take the shower? In that flimsy locker? In a safe in your car? Just in the car? In the trunk? If you will listen to some zealous, gun guys? That’s a no-no unless its strapped on you. Some sound like they shower with their pistols on them, or have them resting on nearby soap trays.

A whole lot of people leave their guns in their cars, even the Rambos, even if they refuse to admit it. The clever line is, “a car is not a holster for your gun.” Many states have business locations that forbid carrying guns. Does Rambo walk up, read the legally posted sign, then…leave his gun in his car?  

Look, I don’t care where your gun is now. I am not preaching about grafting a pistol to your body. I don’t really care what you do. But, just ask yourself – when you’re at the gym, or for that matter a restaurant? Or on a quick shopping or business visit? Work? A jog? Or, sleeping in your beds at night? Where are all your guns, Mister Rambo? Honestly?

 

Watch full, free training films at Hock’s Combatives TV Channel

man with stick

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hock's Blogs

Hey, You Can’t Grab That Stick! It’s a Machete!

Play it again Sam…
“You must remember this.
A stick is just a stick.
A stick is not a sword.
The fundamental things in FMA, changed as time….goes….by…”

Filipino stick training. Filipino martial arts. When it comes to the FMA stick, it’s kind of schizophrenic. As usual I write about things as they “come up.” And last weekend’s seminar was another example of the routine question I hear once in a while – “Hock, I study Escrima, and the instructor told me you can’t grab the other’s guy’s stick because it’s supposed to be a bolo.” (Bolo being FMA for the sword or machete)

“Yeees,” I say. “True,” I say. “But what we have here today is…just a stick.”

The fact that this question continuously pops up, is reason alone to write about it. A Filipino stylist should know about this sword/stick thing and be able to explain and articulate on the subject. A stick is a sword? A sword is a stick? Not really. Can’t grab? Shouldn’t grab? As a person doing Arnis/Kali/Escrima since 1986 as an obsession at first, and now as a curious hobby of sorts, let me sketch this out for you.

There are MANY Filipino systems, way more than you have heard of. We just know the lucky-break ones. And systems are being invented all the time. In most of these old and new systems, practitioners have replaced the “wooden” (rattan) stick for the machete, sword as a safer training device. This replacement causes the confusion.

Do Filipinos carry sticks around? No. I’ve been to the Philippines several times, in some big cities and out in the provinces like the Negros Islands and whether it be the municipal areas or the isolated jungles, no one is walking around with a rattan stick on their belts. Plenty of machetes though. Plenty of sharp knives and sharp farm tools. No sticks. In the Philippines, or say, in Mexico and just about any farming culture locations anywhere really, if you are to be killed with an edged weapon, it will probably be a nasty old, rusty farm tool. In Mexico I am told, the expression is, “you will be killed by the $5 knife.”

Remy Presas would tell me stories of his youth and how he watched men with crop machetes fight and die for sport and money on the Negros. But there was a safer way to do this! And they used the round stick instead, which Remy Presas did for money also. So, a sporting/betting alternative to the machete was born. The stick! (And by the way they did have dulled “training machetes” to use also, but the round stick caught on better. Oh, the lucky breaks.)

I guess for some I should introduce or remind folks the difference between a round stick and a flat sword/machete. You see, one is round. One is flat. There ya go! But really, they swing different, weigh different and if you are limited to flat edges, one should really be applied differently. A stick is an impact weapon that strikes with the tip, the staff of it, and the handle.

On the subject of the stick and sword handle – the sword handle can be round so to speak, but often very contoured and form-fighting for the hand. While the Filipino stick is usually just round with no designated end for an official handle. In fact it might be a little taboo to have a designated handle on your FMA stick? We sometimes grimace a bit when we see an over-taped or customized baston handle, don’t we? While FMA swords have all kinds of admirable, customized grips. And proud of it, too.

     Many of the machetes around the world are single edge, and the swords are not necessarily single edged, and can come in all kinds of interesting and elegant shapes, but FMA swords usually that not big and wide like…like say, European broadswords. (Please do not send me photos of giant, Filipino broadswords – I know they exist – I used the word “usually.”) But with the “roundness” of a stick, you lose the very vital, flat-edge-ness of the sword. Oh yeah, and swords are more deadly, faster finishers and need less power application than sticks.

To accept the stick hand grab is too ignore sword tradition and perhaps believe that in our next street fight, we would be stick-dueling with some thug? The designated thug will use the exact same-sized, designated stick we have! Then again, will you be sword or machete dueling? Outside of a few big “civilized” countries? Well…yes.

Somehow the sword shape-shifted into the stick so deep in our hearts and minds. Oh, for the love of sticks! For decades, the FMA lover just used sticks, stick, STICKS! The art, the tricks of STICK fighting, stick-centricm alone developed. Many lovers do not know, or do not care that the sticks are supposed to be swords and machetes. And with the stick, comes a lot of double-hand grabbing and opponent stick grabbing. Look at Tapi-Tapi and Balintawak, for just two pop examples. We all accept the rules that sticks are sticks, sticks have become embraced in FMA and by God, we’ll grab them whenever and where ever we want.

So, in the 1990s stick enthusiasts came out of the traditional closest and started declaring “you must remember this, a stick is just a stick, a sigh is just a sigh. The fundamental things of living, as time goes by.” And I agree! Just understand you are using a stick. The round stick acceptance was easier for me perhaps because, being a cop, I always thought of the rattan baston as a police stick (or an axe handle). My interest in the FMA stick was not an esoteric, artsy pursuit. People are not “Kung Fu fightin’ – fast as lightning” with matching 28-inch sticks in the alleyways of London (I hear they are throwing a lot of acid these days) or on the south side of Chicago. I wanted to know stick/baton stuff.

     Then, I somehow eased into decades of fun, hobby, certainly social, Filipino stick fighting/dueling stuff. I actually run TWO kinds of stick courses. One, the main big one is Force Necessary: Stick which explores blocking, striking and grappling with an modern impact versus hands, sticks, knives and gun threats. There is zero implication that this is based on any swords. And if you want me to? Ask me to? I will do the Filipino stick vs stick materials I have learned since 1986. Granted I have cut that down too. I play stick-checkers not stick-chess, seeking the essence of it all and not mindlessly, endlessly replicating established – and often BLOATED systems. Or while away my time, seeking out the next stick system, and oh the fascinating magic that THEY do. I don’t run a stick museum, and hell…it’s just a damn stick. (As Remy would often say – “of course, you could just hit the man in the head with the stick.”)

Isn’t it odd that a round stick is chosen to replace a flat bolo or sword? That is like replacing a flat katana with a round broom stick. Isn’t it? katana practitioners would never accept that.

So we learned that legions of FMA-ers picked up their rounded sticks, sewed on their Filipino patches in revolution and clickety-clicked onward. As though machetes and thin swords never existed. It really is amazing how many FMA-ers blindly accepted the rattan stick as the real-deal McCoy when you think of it. I mean what would Japanese Katana fanatics think of waves of people using broom sticks and calling themselves Katana experts? Would golfers use hockey sticks? Would Chinese fan fighters use tennis rackets? Would a carpenter use a file instead of a saw? Thus the odd, FMS Stick, schizophrenia I suggested.

     Everyone seems so happy with their sticks and stick bags. But still, you can hear these darn spoil sports complain that you should not and cannot grab your stick with two hands, nor can you grab your opponent’s stick with your free hand because it’s a sword! You fool! How dare you! It’s a sword! A bolo! A machete!

     The stick is just like the sword? Is this an excuse? That the universality of FMA weaponry makes them ever so interchangeable? Swords, sticks. Hands. Thin lamps. Rolling pins? “Who throws a shoe, honestly?” I don’t know because while some elements are the same, there are differences bigger than mere nuance. A sword…is kinda’…just like a sword.

     In the last few years I have noticed an increase in…Filipino sword fighting! Yes. Haven’t you seen it? Hundreds of FMA folks have picked up the thin sword. FMA sword grandmasters have arisen from the ashes. I applaud their interest and their understanding that the whole FMA shebang really comes from swords and machetes. My old friends like Chris LaCava and Christof Froehlich, just to name a few, have jumped deep into the roots, understanding the big picture.

     And listen up you “grab-complainer instructors!” If you are so damned offended by people grabbing sticks and forgetting the stick is a machete? Look what’s in your hand! Look what YOU teach with! PUT DOWN THE DAMN STICK AND PICK UP A TRAINING SWORD INSTEAD! That will straighten things out. You know, you can buy dull, safe training swords and plastic swords and machetes too. You are NOT limited to the round “wooden” stick as an abstract facsimile. If you are going have hissy-fits about it? Then practice what you preach and use a damn sword! Pick a theme! A direction! Seriously! If you think the stick is a sword? Don;t confuse your people. Just use a training sword. 

If you use a stick? It’s a stick. Grab it.

So, play it again Sam…
“You must remember this.
A stick is just a stick.
A stick is not a sword.
The fundamental things in FMA, changed as time….goes….by…”

+++++++

Hock’s email is HockHochheim@ForceNecessary.com

Strike! Thwart! Thwarted! the Single Stick 35 Essentials. Get this DVD or Download

 Get the DVD. Look Here

 Get the download. Look here

Hock's Blogs

The “Mister Freeze” Finish – and Are You Training to Shoot Unarmed People?

See something interesting about this photo from a gun magazine? Anyone? Can you spot it?

Two guys. Apparently a fight has started. But some readers and viewers haven’t spotted it yet? The bad guy is…unarmed. No knife. No gun. Your eyes may glaze over the fact because we see the likes of it so often. Unarmed, yet our hero has decided in this unarmed scuffle, to pull his pistol. Will he threaten or shoot the unarmed man? We don’t know? Because so many published demonstrations end with the gun pull, like this as the last frame. But, in several ways, pulling a gun is a new beginning, not an end. Pulling a handgun is a “last resort” option. You shoot an unarmed person and now all the ugly “after” of the “before, during and after” begins. Is the gun pull on an unarmed man the end? Or the beginning? Why “freeze” there.

Many gun and martial magazine photos, web films fail to tell us what happens next. Did this able-bodied man decide to…to draw and shoot this unarmed man? This is a particular problem in modern police training films also – as we commonly see barefoot police on mats, wearing gun belts and drawing rubber pistols on unarmed people in arrests scuffle exercise. The scenario ends with the pistol pull. Ends? Who? What caused this? Where? When? Why for? How come? What happened next? I don’t know. You don’t know. We often just get the gun-pull photo or short film flashed ending in our head, working its way into a subliminal “okay” ending.  I have had to arrest a lot of people, struggling with many, they were unarmed and I never dreamed of pulling my pistol unless something really drastic happened, like him pulling a weapon.

Questions unanswered. Where is the real finish to the fight? I have worked many shootings and murders through the decades as a police investigator. I’ve attended dozens of schools on this subject. I’ve also been “taken to legal-reality school” by vet prosecutors, vet criminal defense attorneys and courtroom testimony. We investigate, indict and move to prosecution, (no matter what country the process is in) and I learned the cracks, the elements, the loopholes and yes, the distortions that can exist in each case. The simple becomes complex. The small-big. The big-small. Shooting someone is a financially and emotionally expensive rollercoaster ride. Trust me when I say that the gun pull is a last resort move for you, for who you are.

Oddly and interesting, many gun magazines and youtube films, the better ones, spend a lot of time discussing self defense, legal issues, yet there is this unfinished detachment found when exercising, drilling. 

The “Mister Freeze” Finish – If you have been “around,” I think you’ve seen this draw- and-freeze, in training, books, magazines and videos. Think about it for a moment, the photo spreads and films of standing or grounded folks ending with a pulled rubber gun pointing at an attacker. The attacker is often unarmed. And if the attacker is armed with say – a knife and about to plunge down? The knifer still just freezes at gunpoint like a statue when the rubber gun is pointed at him. Even if a charging knifer was shot, (see below photo) he could still fall down on you in a gurgling, wounded mess. The knife still very much an after-shot  danger, something the shooter needs to experience in training. Freezing is not good realistic, legit finish. 

Part of the confusion begins with using rubber guns. You know the typical “force-on-force” training, right? The term? The idea? This innocent, thoughtless “Mister Freeze Finish” is not just a police problem anymore either. Citizens do this constantly now too. As a result, this mysterious sort of “freeze” ending appears in magazines and videos even more. This was and is unfortunately often practiced without verbal commands – yes – unless the instructor insists. Man freezes. Set done. Photo series over. Film clip over. But, what happened next to Mister Freeze? Was he shot and wounded? Or shot dead? Fled? Surrendered? Arrested? Controlled until authorities arrive? If so? How? If an instructor only wants to teach the raw movements of a stress draw, isolated from beginnings and endings, this should be explained.

Beginnings Through Endings. Where does this stress draw fit in the bigger situational picture of a shooting? Here are the big events of draw decision, far more from just shoot-don’t shoot.

  • Event 1: There-Not-There. Why are you there? Or then, why are you still there?
  • Event 2: Draw-Don’t Draw. Getting the gun “out.”
  • Event 3: Aim/Don’t Aim. The gun can be drawn out but not pointed. Threaten off? Scare away? How do you do this? Another whole essay.
  • Event 4: Shoot-Don’t Shoot. Now you are aiming. Threaten off? Scare away? How do you do this? Must shoot? Another whole essay.
  • Event 5: Stay-Don’t Stay. For many in certain circumstances this might be an option, or sometimes the only option. The “orderly retreat.”

Every one of these 5 events requires a full lecture and a physical exercise or two, three, to actually experience, with safe, simulated ammo. You might conjure up some live-fire-on-target versions to support them.

This Shoot-Don’t Shoot Conundrum. In the who subject of “who are you?” My friend and very smart, NRA Texas gun Instructor Karl Rehn, owner of KR Training reminds, “One of the flaws in the presentation of this all this unarmed combatives material (and people’s perception of it) is that all the demos in magazines and films involve young, fit, male people fighting other young, fit, male people. To those that are martial arts enthusiasts, it’s easy to believe in the outcome of winning in an unarmed fight. That’s not true for all gun carriers, many of whom are older, weaker or simply do not have any training or confidence in their skills.”

Fighting like this is not golf or tennis, maybe a bit like football, rugby or Australian “Footie.” Certainly more like MMA (which is superior to BJJ in material and intent). It strikes. It’s rough. It’s tumble. People can and do get hurt in training. The vast majority of gun owners worldwide can’t, don’t and won’t work on this…this sort of “Gun-MMA” for a variety of reasons most won’t-can’t do any exercising at all. 

In this same vein, one of my long time students years ago was very successful heart surgeon. He was about 55 years-old and in moderate-to-good shape. He always worked out in our hand, stick, knife, gun materials. He does well enough with it all, but routinely proclaims aloud that, “if some young punk tries to rob me, unarmed or not, I can’t fight with him. I’m an old man. I am shooting him dead.” What can you say to that? It is all very, very situational. He’s already heard all my speeches, warnings, advice and worked through the shoot/don’t shoot exercises. I just say, “Well…okay, Doc, I hope that works out for ya.”

 Old friend and attorney David Kenik wrote in Shooting Times “Bubba is heading right for you, smacking his fists together and yelling that he is going to beat you to death. You are scared for your life and rightfully so, but the advancer is unarmed. Can you you use your firearm to defend yourself? The answer is 100%, unequivocally, positively…MAYBE!” 

 

Remember the Treyvon Martin-Zimmerman case in Florida to name just one? Shooter shoots an unarmed man that’s on top of him, punching down on him. Zimmerman, losing, pulls and shoots. Seems logical, but LOTS of legal and social, situational problems. Zimmerman was set free in the end. Of course there are some situations where a person can legally justify shooting an unarmed attacker. Situational as it’s a who, what, when, where, how and why study.

Mister Freeze Summary. I do not want to create the doctrine, artwork (photos and films), and the muscle memory of people indiscriminately drawing on, or indiscriminately drawing and shooting, unarmed people. Nor should you. I am just here warning you to watch out for the “Mister Freeze” imagery from some popular magazine articles, books, photos spreads and videos “out there,” that show folks mindless pulling training guns when they shouldn’t and about to shoot attackers when they shouldn’t, or not explaining the various important things that happen before or next. Art imitates life. Life imitates art. You might know better, but still do it impulsively anyway from brain imagery, oh those nasty Mirror Neurons in your brain! If you draw, if you draw and shoot an unarmed person, you’d better have great and understandable reasons. 

Solo Pictures and Series of Photos. It will always be difficult trying to convey a big lesson, and the context of such, in one single photo, or even a photo series. It’s a real challenge for authors, magazines, books, even short films. Because of this, we must be careful of the unintended consequences from these words and images being scattered around. Are you inadvertently training to shoot unarmed people? 

  • Read up on the precise laws of “fear of life,” “lethal force,” “self-defense,” “imminent, bodily injury, “stand your ground,” “retreat,” etc, with examples, click right here.
  • Read the great Massad Ayoob’s coverage of some of these cases: Click right here 

____________

Hock’s email is Hock@hockscqc.com

Watch free, full training films at Hock Combatives Youtube Channel. Click here

man with stick

Hock's Blogs

Kathump! A Painful Look at Tomahawk and Axe Training.

Tomahawk, hatchet, axe, Pick a noun. Tomahawk sounds cooler.  The last few years, my Facebook and Youtube pages have been peppered with various superstar guys doing/teaching theee….Tomahawk! Or Axe! I absorb the clips with some amazement, confusion, trepidation and distaste. Am I seeing an audition for Flash Dance or real-life, “Axe Combatives?”

The fad goes viral. Seeing the videos, geared to make ignorant jaws-drop. Mistakes? Before I start with this somewhat satirical, tongues-inside-cheeks review, I will state my “bona fidis” that qualifies my twisted opinion. In police work I have had an hand axe thrown at me. I was also attacked by a man rushing at me with a full, big axe. I have worked an axe murder, and several criminal investigations involving axe attacks. For many years I attended an annual “Death and Violent Assault “week long training school, where medical examiners from big cities flew in to discuss, show and explain their major cases for the year. Slide shows and narrative. Synopsis. These included reviews and slides on the occasional axe/hatchet murders and autopsy reviews. I am also history buff and have made several deep-dive studies into edged weapons in modern combat. 

I have co-instructed a few seminars with the late-great, Dwight McClemore doing “historic tomahawk.” Dwight has spent a lifetime studying this very subject. And after hanging out for years with full-blooded Apache, Snake Blocker – an obsessive American Indian researcher and Apache, these guys might be 100 times greater than most of these other folks parading the globe with this-or-that axe/tomahawk course. I therefore, offer my sardonic observations…So, what about “axe-ical” training in war, crime and the martial arts? Well, sir and ma’am, it’s all about the “KATHUMP!”

In short, for starters, with the fads, I am asked about my own tomahawk, axe program. I have none and here’s why. if I were to dare initiate my very own, axe fighting course, I would officially call it, yes  – Kathump! “Kathump” because when you actually hit a human being with an axe/tomahawk it goes…kathump. In fact, it might go so far deep, a kathump, it might take a foot on that body part to work, wiggle and pump the axe out. I am bedazzled by the flowing figure fours and multiple-step, follow-ups that the axe masters demonstrate when showing their moves in combat scenarios. Most of all that should really stop at the first good, kathump.

Axe

For example, there’s a video clip of an art-axe-man teaching a seminar, showing a sweeping, replica blow to head (simulated of course by going over the head because we can’t really hit the head) then he majestically sweeps down with the weapon and hits the Achilles tendon or at very least, hooks the ankle and pulls in a successful foot sweep, and said stuntman/uke cooperates and is pulled down. The mouth-watering, viewing masses, watching with their various rubber and plastic facsimiles in their hands cannot wait to simulate this two step, axe attack! I said to myself upon viewing this,

“Hold on a minute…wouldn’t that vicious swing into the head…just go…kathump? Thereby ending the flow, thereby stopping at step 1, thereby no cool step 2, ankle chop-chop or ankle, sweep-pull?”

Two steps? What of the three or more step sets they do? I have seen 3, 4 and 5 step, fake-axe moves taught, which clearly couldn’t be finished because of the step 1 or step 2 kathump. I watch and I just kept spotting motion-stopping kathumps. Doesn’t ANYONE realize the folly of what they are doing? Do they care? Should they care? Do they not know they have to remove-wrestle with the many embedded axe strikes? More on these problem steps later. Right now, who can claim rights to the tomahawk-hatchet-axe heritage?

The Universal Axe.  there a culture, or a country on the planet that in their early history, didn’t need and develop an axe of some sort for work or war? Axes were and are everywhere. Thus, it becomes easy for any martial arts maestro to whip a cool, axe-axe, choppy-choppy, course because…because who in hell will actually research-challenge their info, especially those folks enveloped in fads and  “system-love” and “system-leader” love.  You just follow the leader with the exotic premise that, “the martial grass is always greener elsewhere,” one can conjure/invent/claim any axe course from anywhere.

Different countries. For example, here is a brief, McLemore-ian history of the tomahawk. USA. “The term tomahawk was derived from the Algonquian words “tamahak” or “tamahakan.” The Native American Indians regularly used tomahawks made from stone heads which were attached to wooden handles secured by strips of rawhide. They used tomahawks for general uses such as hunting, chopping, cutting, or also as a weapon.”

It would be odd, at least an eyebrow-raiser for me if a guy in Norway suddenly started teaching “American Indian Tomahawk.” Who from? Viking Tomahawk? Well okay. I also have my suspicions about lifelong FMA teachers who suddenly conjure a hatchet course from thin air, from say, ohhh… “Mindanao (?)” swinging…American tomahawk trainers from Cold Steel? All because it’s a fun fad they want to cash in on. 

But exotics aside, having a simple, flat hammer head on one side stout rubber coated ergonomic, handle like a worker’s tool, seems very useful, unlike these classic 1776-like hawks. After all, as with knives, soldiers use axes in the field for all kinds of lifestyle chores. Modern axes tech evolved for problem-solving. (How about those hand axes with the hollow handles? Inside – fishing line, hook, compass, Hersey bars, toothpicks, condoms, whatever!) 


Tomahawk-ian  Figure Eights? All these flows and motions? Look, I know it’s important to spend time holding a tool, a weapon, swinging it around. Hitting things, etc. Bonding with the weapon. I see films of people by themselves, just doing that work with axes. A lot of things like figure 8s in the air, etc. I get the idea. I also see that the axe or tomahawk is used in hooking-trapping-moving the limbs of an opponent. I get that too. But to me, they seem to do and expect way too much of a performance. When the expert stands before an “opponent” and does 9 steps of buzz saw, figure 8 magic, that would really have ended at step 2 because of the…ka…thump. Jeremy Mayes calls it, “the tomahawk ballet.”

Axe versus axe? We live in a very mixed weapons world, would you always be fighting axe-to-axe? Ever? Nope, I don’t think so. That duel expectation is a little crazy and off the crime and war kilter. But if just a hobby? Who cares, as long as they know it’s a fun hobby. Have fun and exercise with your hobbies. Just don’t forget the kaaaa-thunk reality!

As a European friend and life-long martial artist told me recently – he questioned a martial arts axe teacher at a axe seminar, with these same kathump doubts. “You couldn’t continue after that first chop!”  The internationally known instructor actually replied to all present – “but where’s the fun in that?” I once asked a guy about his axe god/hero and how the demos and training would be cut by 2/3rds if they recognized the kathumps as real. He actually said, “Then there wouldn’t be enough material for a seminar.”

And you know, people like to throw axes-tomahawks for fun, sport and hobby. Okay. Fine. Fun hobby. And who knows someday you may have to toss one like our Mr. Tomahawk here, America’s favorite frontier hero! 

The soldier’s story. “The Tomahawk was a popular weapon in Viet Nam. Some Spec Op teams still use it today,” is a common, loose comment we hear today. I say loose because of the choice of the words “popular weapon.” It’s a misnomer as opposed to better terms like “popular tool” or “popular carry.” Of course it could be a weapon, and has been used as such within the vast variety of events in the modern combat, firearms age. I think military history proves the hatchet-axe has been carried-used all over the world by ALL of the world’s soldiers for centuries, but I remind, way more enemy soldiers were killed by bullets and explosions in modern combat. And more fires, construction and deconstruction jobs were done with axes. A very brief, short-list of war weapons, use-continuum for combat (not chores)  –

  • explosives,
  • firearms,
  • in comparison, rare use – knives,
  • in comparison, then rarer use – axes. But when it’s down to “axe time?” It’s axe time.

“Some argue that hatchets aren’t practical, while others defend their usage — and, of course, the image associated with it. ‘While I appreciate the history of the hatchet, I wouldn’t carry one for any practical purpose,” said Alex Green, a former U.S. Army Ranger who deployed four times with 3rd Ranger Battalion. “For jungle or dense vegetation, machetes are much more practical. For urban warfare, hoolie tools (fireman wrench bars) and bolt cutters are much more useful. In today’s world, I honestly don’t know why I would carry a hatchet.’ ” -Coffee of Die”

Sergeant Wayne Capacillo said. “I used it more than I thought — mainly breaking into gates, doors, and locks.” – Coffee or Die

The axe-tomahawk-hatchet is handy in the field for a multitude of chores. Surely many, many special ops folks carry one today when heading out to the field for whatever comes up, within the weapon’s continuum and the other mission requirements.

Okay. Hang on! Let’s Make Some Ax Courses! What I would do if I invented an axe course? If truly pressed into the fad? The course would be much shorter. So short, the course might only be 60 minutes? No chance for a whole day or a two-day seminar. The scenarios would absolutely include the deadly, flow-stopping, kathump realities. Basically, I would process the axe through the classic Force Necessary formats, with nuance changes specific to the axe, and add mixed weapon fights.  And, I wouldn’t call it “Texican Axe Fighting,” just because I am from Texas. Here are some great names for axe courses I’ve invented to catch the attention of fad martial artists…

  • “Secrets of Monte Carlo Axe Fighting.”
  • “The Bali Tomahawk.”
  • “Sudanese Axe Combatives.”
  • “Tai Chi Axe.”
  • “Axe Maga.”
  • “Krav Axe.”
  • “BJJ Axe Combatives “(taught by nephews)
  • “Shit I Made Up, Tommy-Hawk Course!” Well, if it kills people (the whole point right?) I guess it’s okay.
  • Navy SEAL…Something! (ANY SEAL deal will sell like mad.)
  • Or, mine – “Kathump!”
  • Or… I reserve the right to “Toma-HOCK!” You know, just in case someone really-REALLY wants me to convert the SFC foundation to a tommy-hawks.

In Summary. Back on Target. The unrealistic training distortions invented by fad martial artists bugs me, not that people should ignore axes. I support the axe! For fun? For history? For exercise? For hobby? For…self defense? The next time you see one of these axe or tomahawk martial masters do their flash-dance-ballet thing in scenarios? Stop and take a hard look, an examination of exactly who, what, when, where, how and why that edged weapon goes…kathump and ruins the flash dance.

(And that is my somewhat, tongue-in-cheek review of axe fighting courses. Axe-on, axe-off, amigo.)

Interesting article on some history of Filipino axes, click here

__________________

Hock’s email is Hock@hockscqc.com

Check out Hock’s free training films on his TV channel, click here

 

Hock's Blogs

Frigid to Red Hot Fighting – Cold Shooting? Cold Fighting?

Frigid to Red Hot Fighting – Fighting Cold from Red Hot
No, fighting cold is not about being mugged in Alaska or just a concern for the 10th Mountain Division. “Shooting cold” is a term thrown around here and there by smart people in the gun training business, but also relates the ambush in hand, stick and knife world too. It should be a major concern for all, because generically, it’s really about the ambush, the surprise attack. And you must respond – cold. Usually you hear the term with snipers or hunters. Folks who have to suddenly shoot a long gun from a distance. And from a clean barrel. Once in a while you will hear of a “one-shot” competition-

“Participants will be allotted a single shot, cold-bore (unfired rifle) @ 1000 yards. (30 Caliber & under) Time & hit determines the winner.”

fighting cold

They have those things because, they are challenging. The sin weighs heavy with that icy-cold rifle, but what of the shooter? There’s also an important concept of “cold bore shooters.” I guess you could remove the word “bore.” Cold shooters. I think in terms of training and then real life crime and war ambushes, there might be a nickname, “Frigid Bore Shooting,” or “frigid shooting.” Here’s what I mean.

Chilly? Cold? Frigid?
After all, who wants to fight cold or shoot cold in competitions for scores, trophies, money and bragging rights? Who doesn’t want to take a few warm up shots? I know I often like to do a few dry-fires before live-fires. I use to participate in some police shooting competitions and they were often complicated paths, chores and obstacles involved. You had to be briefed on your routes and goals, and this would include a “walk-thru,” or a dry-run,” or even a live-fire run before the official run. Same with police training courses and qualifications. It could be safety issue.

How cold is it, though? Completely frigid? Cold? Or chilly? They call it “cold shooting,” or reverse the phrase, “shooting cold,” and it kind of’ is, in a way. Sadly, oddly, some of the best shooters I know, don’t do as spectacular in their first set, as they wish, and this is one reason why they keep score of this process over time. And often they do about as good as I can when we all start, and I do not shoot as much as they do, nor do I labor and belabor and ponder the art, science, love and dedication to trigger pressure and bulls eye, pistol, target shooting as they do.

They admit, fighting and shooting cold is challenging for most. And, it frustrates some. Then they very quickly get much, much better after a “warm-up.

The subject of cold shooting comes up on the web once in a while. Some regular, range shooters I know and hear about will always keep score of their first set, their “cold shooting” when they first step up to the firing line and shoot a set. A virgin experience of the day? Was it completely virgin? They want to keep track of how well they do after they:

  • set the time and date, pack their gear at home,
  • drive to the range,
  •  get out of the cars,
  • get some gear from the “back” of the car,
  • maybe sip some coffee, talk about guns,
  • chat with the “range masters,” and course instructors,
  • carry their gear to the spot/stand/table/shelf,
  • If at a class? Listen to the instructors intro, lecture and in some cases.
  • shuffle up to the target and paste up a new,
  • wander back to the shooting line and shoot…”cold.”

So a cold shooter on gun day is not “frozen-solid-ambush” when they shoot at a range. Neither are folks starting a gym workout or a hand, stick , knife class. The mind and body are cooking just a little to go train. A hunter has worked on the trip, sometimes insanely so, before departure, going over equipment and plans in his or her head. 

I became interested by this idea of shooting and fighting cold. What does it mean in the bigger picture? How does it relate to self-defense, in crime and in war? You know, all the “who, what, where, when how and why” questions I like to kick around.
Subliminal preparation? Years ago it was common knowledge in the fitness field that if you packed for the gym and drove to the gym about the same times, your body/brain knew the routine as we are such creatures of habit. You drive, park, walk the lot, climb the stairs. All the while your body/brain is saying, “Okay, okay, we’re coming. We’re getting ready.” Once in the gym, is this moment a true zero? Or, maybe 10? 10 to 60? Last month I parked on my gym parking lot and saw another guy, a bit older than me, park too. He got out of his car, got a gym bag and stopped. He took his ball cap off, looked to the sky and said a prayer. I spied his lips moving. Then he donned his cap and made for the gym doors. He really pre-prepped for a work-out! What did he say in prayer, I wonder?

“Dear Lord, let me crush everything?”
“Dear Lord, don’t let me die of a heart attack this morning?”
What would your prep prayer be? Have one? Need one?

Routines. Preparation. Getting ready. Not always short term. We have all gone to a shooting class, or a martial tournament that we anticipated and our inner engine was revved up more than just the morning before. Even the night before. Even longer than that. I once took a shooting course, to prepare for the tougher shooting course the following weekend.

How powerful can mental preparation be? Surely you have heard of, or read the studies about how positive this mental approach can be. It is important. I recall even back in 1972, in Ed Parker Kenpo Karate, teachers and students gossiping about another martial arts system and how the system sequestered students in dark rooms, assigned them to imagine the moves over and over in their heads as a basis of performance. 1972! None of us could fathom this being successful. Yet, quite a number of studies say this works! It somehow works for some. So, does the simple act of going to the range to shoot on gun day, mentally prepare you for the target/bulls eye process? I think so. A bit. It is one step back from dry-firing if you think about it.

Just getting dressed for work, be it a guard, or police, lawyer, truck driver, or an accountant starts churning up, the work mind, whether you realize it or not.

Frigid? How about being asleep?
It’s especially cold-cold when you consider the old attempts at testing the responses of police when THEY WERE ASLEEP! Yes. They would bed down a series of state troopers in a sleep clinic environment and tell them that they would be harshly awakened at some point and they would have to wake up, grab a nearby gun and shoot a target near the foot of their bed. The results were not so good. Often bad in fact. Another similar sleep-study let tested police wake up on their own and they had to remember this assigned chore of immediately shooting. They were groggy-slow to remember the assigned chore, but most did grab and shoot…and also not too well, but they did remember. Where does this information fit in the “chilly, cold and frigid” charts of our considerations? Frankly, I don’t exactly know, but it’s interesting.

It starts in the mind.
When you actual started doing physical stuff on your jogging route, or at the gym, or at the “dojo,” or the shooting range, you are not really, fully working out “cold.” The same is true with getting your uniform on for work, or slinging your vest on in the military. You are not cold-cold (unless of course, much time passes between the prep and action and you “chill out,” which is a whole other set of study we talk about in other essays). And the same mental prep is true of the drive to shooting range, the lugging of gear, the chat with the range master. The inner gears are working. This type of first round scoring, cold shooting is not as frigid as you think. Not like a zero-to-sixty ambush frigid. (Think for a moment about all the mental and physical prep before SWAT arrives on a scene.)

Life is either…
My old catch phrase is – “life is either an interview or an ambush” that people hear each week that I teach. I hope they never tire of it. The greatest armies in the world have been defeated by ambush. The simple element of surprise. The greatest fighters too. I get a kick out the internet comments when location cameras around the world catch a criminal jumping a victim in the most “ambushy” types of locales.

It does come back to the element of surprise and the ambush, doesn’t it. There is always a wise-guy, arm-chair-est that comments “that person was not alert!” and the sage advice, “you must always stay alert.” As if he, she, or we all, walk around with enough cortisol scarring our veins and heart, to be scanning EVERYWHERE, ALL the time. We always hear the expression “you don’t pick the time and place of your attack, the enemy does,” so as everyday walk-around folks, or someone on common police and military patrol, you will probably, suddenly be fighting chilly or cold. It is certainly a good idea to worry about and consider “cold-fighting” and “cold shooting,” in your training, even though we simply cannot really replicate that “zero-to-sixty” frigid to red hot, encounter. I don’t think we need a chart the size of a doorway like the new OODA Loop demo diagrams have become, to explain this simple “Boo/Surprise” idea. The element of surprise and reaction to it, can be as simple as a foot fake in football, rugby or soccer.

There are many startle responses to the sudden boo/jump, (one modern textbook counted 30 responses) not just one or two, hands-up, as you might have been sold to believe by martial and gun marketeers. Let’s hope you don’t fall right down or feint, which are two of the startle responses! You instead, have to deal with the attack.

Immediate Action Drills
The element of surprise has defeated the greatest militaries of the world. I first learned about all this Ambush/Counter- Ambush in the U.S. Army in 1973, and it was a big deal. They trained us in what was called back then, “Immediate Action Drills,” things done so many times that you may well jump right into that response groove when ambushed. Hopefully. It is reinforced by many, many repetitions. Here are some of my old Army manual notes (minus the small and large unit suggestions they offer) on the ambush drill idea that relates to citizens and police.

“Immediate action drills” are drills designed to provide swift and positive reaction. They are simple courses of action, dome immediately. It is not feasible to attempt to design an immediate action drill to cover every possible situation. It is better to know few immediate action drills for a limited number of situations that usually occur (in a combat area.)

1- Can be designed, developed, and used by anyone, (any unit)
2- Are designed and developed as needed for the anticipated combat situation.
3- When contact/ambush, is at very close range and maneuver may restricted.”

This does work often, and then…sometimes not, because you might be too frigid, or too cold to respond well. Just some notes. As I have stated many times before, when students approach you with concerns about “how-fast” and “will-they” react properly to an sudden attack, you can honestly shove them back on the floor and tell them to do more reps, and explain why. “Fortune favors the prepared.” Build confidence, yes, but darn it, cold is still cold, and frigid is still worse.

But, back to the shooting guns cold subject. One of my friends said after reading this when first published in 2011-

“Hock is right about this. I suck shooting cold, but that is how I am going to shoot, cold, stepping out of the Waffle House and suddenly in trouble, on any given night.”

So, it’s hard to replicate shooting cold or fighting cold in training, because you are never completely cold-cold when you plan, dress and travel and lug-in and gear-up for training. Maybe they should call a real ambush response “Shooting Frigid?” or “Fighting Frigid” instead of just being cold? Frigid bore shooting?
Am I getting warm, yet?

FacebookSDMS book

   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Hock’s email is Hock@hockscqc.com

 

Get the paperback set, click here

 

Hock's Blogs

Personality of the Knife

Knives have personalities. The generic look. The generic history. Military look. Kitchen look. Slashing look. Stabbers. Think of some more! Even the personality of the person carrying or holding the knife changes the…personality of the knife. The personal attachment look. What is the personality of your knife? I think there are several factors in knife personalities. 

Knife circle 1

I think there are several factors in knife personalities.

Culture of the knife Personality – One is the culture of the knife. Certain edged weapons have a history, a geographic flavor. Just think of the Japanese Tanto. The Kris. The Bowie knife. The Italian stiletto. The medieval dagger. The double-edged, commando knife. One in the martial business, or the knife aficionados, or makers recognize the aura/genre of many knives. This cultural attraction alone might be a main reason someone buys to collect, or buys to carry a knife. Somehow, some way, the look captures one’s fancy, imagination, expectation or whatever connection to books, movies, TV or past affiliation. Sort of a mysticism we mentally project upon a simple inanimate knife. After all, what makes us select the cars, pants, churches or sports teams we do? We are tribal, particular and peculiar from our hats down to our shoes. Hats and shoes as in style that is, not in size. We can’t change the size of our head or our feet. We can change the size and shape of a knife, but will the size be appropriate for our…”heads” and ”feet?”

Knife circle 3 med

Slashing, hacking and stabbing personalities – The shape and size of the knife tells an experienced handler what it can do best. Some are better hackers. Some long, thin ones are better stabbers. Some are wide and are better shaped for slicing. Like a carpet layer needs a certain angle for exactly what is needed, so do all knife users. A novice to so-called, knife “fighting,” a new-be to say, construction work, will not know what kind of knife does what best. Experience and education is called for.

Personal, knife personality examples – I knew a Green Beret, Vietnam vet who passed on standard Army/government issue knives and preferred his old own Bowie Knife, replete with a carved stag handle. It was a family heirloom you might say, and therefore more important to him than any generic, legend of Jim Bowie. He said it gave him a certain power, a certain mojo from which he garnered mental and physical strength. This is a personal touchstone, reminiscent of many cultures, such as some of the native Americans might carry a medicine bag of mojo. Same-same. 

Another friend of mind sought an old-fashioned, traditional looking (and hard to open) pocket, folding knife with stag handles, with multiple blades, because his dad had a similar one and it was lost through time. Both, more “personal, private” personality, touchstone selections. Still, with game points awarded for symbolic and personal mojo, on the battlefield or for back porch whittling, the knife size, shape and handle must fall within a scope and range of usable practicality and common sense. Switch this over to a parallel concept – you wouldn’t a pack a flintlock pistol around for self defense, just because you love the early American history era. Extrapolate this idea over to other weapons and survival.

Knife circle 2 med

What personality knife do you really need? – Not just want for whatever abstract reason, but need? I think we have to return to the classic, Who, What, Where, When, How and Why questions I use all the time to best determine this.

  • Who are you to need a knife?
  • Who are you to carry a knife?
  • What do you really need or want a knife exactly for?
  • What do you exactly expect to do with this knife?
  • What training do you have to make this a wise choice? What are the local laws for such a knife? What state and, or country do you live in?
  • What happens next? You use the knife and what will the police and prosecutors think of the name and look of your knife?
  • Where will you carry this knife? Job? Protection? Handiness?
  • Where on your body will you clip, or sheath or cart your knife?
  • When will you need this knife? Work time? Off-time? Daytime? Nighttime? All the time?
  • How will you acquire this knife?
  • How will you use it? Do you know how?
  • Why will you select a specific knife?

Another, longer “what” question. The chicken or the egg? What came first for you? Or, what will come first, if you are just now thinking about knives? That mysterious adulation of …“the knife,” and then a knife training course? Or did you need a knife first for a task first, then seek a training course? This consideration might help clear a path for your knife selection and proper training. The collector, the historian, the practical user, the adulator? Who are you?

But that last line of questioning…the “why.” Why will you select a specific knife? I suggest that you do not make a selection based on looks, genres, eras and or culture alone. I think you should select a knife on its ultimate practicality. Of course if you are a collector looking for this or that showpiece – “I own one! It’s a beauty!” –  have fun! (I am not much of a collector of things so I cannot relate to this, but of course, I do understand a hobby.) Or, if you are fanatic about say, old European sword and dagger fighting. Whatever. Get those weapons and mess around with them. Have fun and exercise. Shoot flintlock firearms (just don’t carry them as a self defense weapon).

Knife circle 4

Knives have personalities – The generic look. The generic history. The personal attachment. If you plan to actually carry and use a knife? Whether on the job as a telephone lineman, a surgeon, a soldier or a cop, or just a citizen with a hankering for a knife, think of them as tools and well…think of them as shoes. You’ll be wearing them too, and like your hat and shoes, you can change the style, but you can’t change the size of your head and feet. Get the appropriate tool/knife. See clearly, be fleet of foot for the trails and paths of life, Kemosabe. Don’t stumble around with the wrong size, else you’ll trip, fall and fail. And like “running with scissors,” running with the wrong knife can be a minor or costly mistake.

__________________________________

Hock’s email is Hock@hockscqc.com

The Knife Combatives book, click here

 Over 300 pages.

Some 1,000 how-to photos

Oversized, hardcover with color photos 

Or, oversized black and white paperback

Or, e-book. 

 

Hock's Blogs

Escalation! “I PULL, THEN HE PULLS!”

Trauma and drama. Years ago in a seminar in Kentucky, USA, an attendee, someone with zero martial or martial arts experience, just a regular guy attending a gun and knife seminar, asked…

“Someone confronts me over something. Maybe there will be a fight. It’s – you know- getting tense. If I pull my knife to…to scare him away or defend myself? And he is carrying a gun? Or a bigger knife? Will this cause him to pull his out? Have I caused him to escalate the fight?”

“Aahhh, yeah, that could happen,” I said.
“That’s pretty messy,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said.

And everyone stared at me for follow-up, words of wisdom and some “magic bullet” solution. I have none, except to remind, “Violence will almost always suck.”

People want “magic bullet” answers to a lot of complicated, situational, self-defense questions. There’s always big talk in the self-defense industry about “avoidance.” If too late to avoid, then next up in the event list is what they call “de-escalation.” Avoiding and de-escalating a common knucklehead before a fight physically starts is a small cottage industry of money-making. Some instructors confidently dole out magic bullets and solutions to confrontations.

  • “Say these things!”
  • “Do this!”
  • “Do that!”
  • “Stand like this!”
  • “Don’t ever….“

Now, I think it is certainly good to be exposed to all these ideas and methods. Sure. Why not? Do so. But as an obsessed skeptic, I see the false positives of the advice. I have investigated a whole lot of crimes through the decades; and while there are identifiable patterns and surprises, chaos can sure still reign supreme. But let me summarize by calling it all “situational.”

In the end, solutions are situational. Like calling plays in a football game, it depends on the situation. How you stand and what you say or do should be situational. Custom-built. 

Other than an ambush, there’s an argument-confrontation. Then maybe a fight Given you have already performed all your pop/psych, lingo-bingo, avoidance and de-escalation steps, is it legally time to pull the weapon? You are armed under your coat or in your pocket with a knife or even a gun, and this verbal voodoo just ain’t working! “I’m singing the wrong song!” “Calling the wrong play!”

The mean man won’t leave! Or worse, the men (plural) won’t leave. Do you pull that weapon out? There are some situational concerns with doing this; and these concerns certainly do involve the overall escalating ladder of weaponry, violence, and legal problems. Even a facial expression and certainly striking a fighting stance can escalate the problem.

Here are a few facts and related ideas on the subject to kick around:

  • Fact: Some people do leave. You have the lingo-bingo and dodged the fight, or you have vamoosed yourself! (It’s the old, “why did you go there and why are you still there”?) On the flip side- will he leave? Will your pulled weapon make him leave? For many a year, 65% to 70% of the time when a knife or a pistol (sticks, by the way, are not in these study figures) is pulled in the USA, the criminal leaves you alone (old DOJ stats, old as it became harder and harder since the 1990s to find these numbers, as I don’t think the liberals like the message.) I have often heard the easy average of 67% used. But investigating crimes, I must warn folks that this is not as clean and simple an escape as it sounds. You pull, he walks away? Not so simple. There are many emotional, ugly events that happen in this weapon presentation-confrontation, even if the bad guy eventually leaves. In my experience and study, if the criminal is alone he might be quicker to leave, but if he is in or around a group, “his” group, he puts on more of a show before leaving to save face. We discuss these details in certain topical seminars and other specific essays. But a command presence while holding a weapon is worth looking into a mirror and practicing. I am sure Clint Eastwood did. And like actors practice their lines, it’s good to practice some lingo-bingo. Oh, and by the way Gorgo, you can’t shoot everybody. 

Fact: Some people don’t leave. The good news with the 65%-35% split that if he will leaves 65% of the time, then you may only have to fight about 30-ish% of the time! So 30% of the time, 3 out of 10 the opponent does not leave and the fight is on, whether he is unarmed or armed, alone or with a pack. The bad news is when you are now in that “unlucky 30%,” or you might say you are now a 100%-er. You are 100% there and stuck in it. A hand, stick, knife, or gun fight! Your 6 out of 10 wins has turned to a 1 to 1 because, it’s you. You!

Fact: Yes, Some people are armed. You read it here! 40% to…gulp…90%? If you pull first, will he pull a bigger one next? General USA stats quoted for many years past say that 40% of the time the people we fight are armed. A few years back the FBI upped that anti. One retired state trooper deep dove into the stats and declared that NINETY percent of the people we scrap with are armed. Wow. 90%! That shocked me and I can’t imagine that. And another gem to add in is that 40% of the time we fight two or more people. Hmmm. So 40% (or 90%?) or more armed times 40% multiple opponents. Not a healthy equation. Lots of people. Lots of weapons. Lots of numerical possibilities. Lots of situations. The “smart money” in the USA or anywhere else is always bet that the opponent is armed.

Facts: Times and reasons to pull weapons. Back to the Who, What, Where, When, How and Why foundation questions I harp on. Time to pull relates to when? And reasons to pull relates to why? Logical and physical. Time and reason might seem the same, but defining times and reasons in your mind and for your training is smart. Be a legal-beagle. You may as well check into the de-escalator cottage industry and evaluate the material. Even I have suggestions on the subject as I know there are “scripts” to life, and criminal-victim exchanges often follow a script. Dialogues. Good to ad-lib. There is a script book to violence and you don’t want to be in that movie. Their movie.

Hock’s email is Hock@hockscqc.com

A free, full training film a month on Hock’s Combatives TV Channel. Click here.