Tag Archives: stick sparring

RESPECTING THE HEAD SHOT IN STICK SPARRING

June 11, 2022 Hock

Respect the Head Shot? Do you? Really? One of the conundrums in FMA stick sparring is figuring out the realistic importance of the head shot and emphasizing it in a training doctrine. Ignoring the strike (as in “pretending” it didn’t happen and “sparring-on”) because you have a helmet on is training doctrine mistake. Making it “count” in a helmeted world is important and should be a mandatory training doctrine mission.

Quick example. My friend Raoul is power lifter. A brute. In the 1990s, he so wanted to attend one of these stick fight events because…well…just because. He was also an agile guy and total, FMA “nut.” So, he did travel and attend one. The rules? Rattan sticks (Big Raoul has quite a war club). Fencing helmet. Hand gloves. You could wear elbow and knee pads. It’s a world were serious injuries abound and most people over 40-ish have to quit doing it.

Raoul’s fight begins. And within 20 seconds he bashed the other guy in the head so hard…so hard it ‘crinkles-caves-in’ the helmet a bit at the forehead area and the receiver is stunned. The ref stops the fight and asks if the guy is okay. He says yes. The fight continues and in a short time, the fight ends the typical wrestling match on the grass, which is so typical because with gear, rules and CRIMINAL and CIVIL LAW, you really can’t maim-kill off the opponent, no matter how rough-tough the fights are advertised to be. True reality is always gone. Raoul is choked! That is to say, he has to tap out. Losing, he was pissed. They peeled the helmet off the other guy and his face was bloody from the crosshatch pattern of the mask down the left side of his face. Blood.

Raoul shouts: “Who won this fight! I did in first 20 seconds with that head shot!”

Of course he had, but the rules….the rules! These rules affect training doctrine, whether the individual fighters, the instructor or the entire system-art realizes it. It became obvious to me in the 90s that if you train with gear, many people, most people probably, sort of ignore or misread the head shot as if it is any other body shot (they’re all bad), especially when helmeted. The sparring just goes on and on. I do not wish to name names and systems but I studied with a big, organized outfit that routinely stick sparred at the end of every class, No gear, but with rattan. Just for about a minute or two. Light sparring, NO head shots. Over time, this removes the head-shot-methodology from your “muscle memory.”

International competitor, Arnisador Teresa Cronin adds, “Well said Hock. I’ve seen a man get his head split open from a shot to the top of a WECAF helmet, blood pouring down, but the sparring continued like nothing happened. I also noticed in my own sparring I would sacrifice my head, because it didn’t hurt, to close the range.”

And get this – I recall a crazy competitor who tried to develop – follow me now – a way to crash his metal helmet into a stick head shot, so has to cause a painful vibration in the hand of the striker, essentially head butting the stick strike. Dreaming of a disarm?

All this eventually, subliminally de-values the head shot and distorts its importance in a “real” stick fight.

A “real” stick fight? What’s that anyway? Well, it is unlikely that most people will be in an actual life-or-death, stick-vs-stick duel-fight. If so, the head shot is still VITAL. It is instead, more likely in crime and war, that you will use a stick-like object vs. unarmed, vs. knife or vs. some gun threat. Needless to say, the head shot is still VITAL.

The challenge is to create a sparring system and competitions that values and embeds important strikes like the head shot. I organized it all out with the “Killshot” stick fight system since the 90s. If a fighter got clubbed in the head? Bubba, it’s over! The stick arm gets significantly hit? Whistle! “Switch hands!” And so on. But then you are sort of managing a tournament (point-style?) style fight, which of course, also sucks. I know, I ran these Killshots for years.

“I got him! No you didn’t!”

But in training and the organized fights we ran in the USA, Germany and England, a clear club to the head means the receiver officially LOST and “sits down, sits out.” In training, take a break for a second, reward and recognize what just happened and discuss went right or wrong. You have to think of ways to memorialize proper performance like head shots, even with small, training tricks.

“You sit down. You let your head get smashed.”

Or,

“Stop! Hey, you did good. You got that head shot in. Continue.”

The head striker is rewarded for getting the head shot. This builds the training structure to recognize and respect the head shot. With this sort of structure, fighters begin to develop head strike strategies and conversely head protection strategies, as a priority.

Remy Presas would frequently when teaching, stop and turn to us and say-remind, “Of course, you could just hit de man in de head with a stick! But, I want you to learn the art.” I found this admission, oddly perplexing, but he wanted to remind us…the difference. It made me think about what I was and was not doing.

(For the record, I don’t run these competitions anymore as they were a pain in the neck to do, and I haven’t made-sold these Killshot shirts shown above for decades. But when occasionally teaching FMA these days, I do cover these head-hunting, stick methods. I am 70 years old. If I sneeze too hard? I might wake up in traction, so I do not stick spar any more either, other than a few seconds to demo something. I can’t beat my gardener up anymore. But I can teach you how to beat up my gardener.)

Hock’s email is HockHochheim@ForceNecessary.com

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#fma #filipinomartial arts #stickfighting #sticksparring #whockhochheim #stickfights #remypresas

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The Quandary of FMA Training Stick vs. Stick, versus Stick Combatives

March 10, 2022 Hock

A Bigger Picture. In the martial arts world, stick versus stick fighting is most closely associated with the Filipino Martial Arts (FMA). A huge chunk of many FMA systems is indeed about the stick-versus-stick duels-events.

(Using-hitting a stick is an easy and fast training target, as with developing the smart fanning strike shown here – the abaniko. This is not necessarily learning how to stick duel, but rather learning to strike with a stick versus anybody with or without anything with a one-two-there fanning spin.)

To establish my opinion here, I remind that I have spent decades in FMA and decades in very generic combatives. Some people around the world think I am knowledgeable on the subjects, so here goes.

The best FMAs I’ve found spend equal amounts of time in what GM Ernesto Presas defined as “the 5 major areas of play” –

Hand (Mano-mano)
Single stick
Double stick
Knife
Stick and knife

Equal time for the five? I find that some FMAs spend disproportionate amounts of time with sticks. Just look at all the group photos of FMA seminars. Everyone is always holding sticks. Sticks, sticks, sticks. Sticks have become the avatar for FMA. Sure it’s fine for some hobbyists, addictive even, whatever, but I “stick” with the Ernesto Presas “Big 5” format.

I am so often reminded of the classic Ernesto Presas quote, “The cane is the extension of the hand,” suggesting that the hand comes first. Dan Inosanto, so often pegged an a consummate FMA-er always does a plethora of other arts than being stick-centric. Too much stick gets FMA redefined to the “stick-only art.” It ain’t! It’s so much more.

Is this dueling calculus necessary in the real world? Through my decades of policing, training, cases and rather obsessive research, I have personally run across a few impact weapon “duel-related” battles like drunken, softball bat fights at tournaments, or crowbar versus tire iron fights. Things like that.

Stick dueling.Otherwise No. Almost all of us are highly unlikely to get into the proverbial 28” stick versus (coincidentally?) another 28” stick fight in a real world, dueling “street fight.” A study of the stick in common self defense should not-would not be centered around a mirror-image-fighter, stick-versus-stick dueling material. Secondly then, all this stick-trick trapping after longer range contact? No. Not this much. Obsessing with stick dueling and stick trapping should be relegated more into a category of fun, art, sport, hobby or exercise, with only abstract benefits to self defense.

While dueling helps various abstract attributes, there are indeed smarter things to do, to prep for a fight in crime and war. When you remove stick-versus-stick dueling and the calculus of stick trapping from FMA systems, there is so much less to worry about and train for survival. While It is vital to FMA, but even in FMA, there is always other stick things to work on like stick-versus hand, stick-versus-knife, even stick-versus-various, gun threats. Now we are looking like self defenders.

I am asked to teach FMA with some frequency and I do so with a great big smile as it is one of my fun interests, but I always make this quick lecture. As readers know by now, I preach the “mentality, hand, stick, knife, gun, mixed weapon, matrix.” And while my Force Necessary: Stick course must touch a bit on the impact weapon duel – because it has and can happen – in no way do I emphasize it. And a great many folks emphasizing self defense and combatives agree with me on this.

Watch out! These “reality” people are “window-peepers, peeping in your school windows, watching you on Youtube.” quick to judge what you are doing and pigeon-hole you as artsy and off-mission Arnis versus reality. Which leads me to the name-tagging quandary.

For self defense combatives, the trainer and trainee, the work-out partners should still both often hold sticks sometimes. Sometimes? In stick training, it is much easier and faster for both partners to hold sticks for various goals. You do, I do, You do, I do. Ease, target practice and stick blocking to name three.

Ease – You do it. Partner does it. You do it. Partner does it, whatever you are working on. This probably is best done when the attack is with any weapon, could be a stick or a knife, or many empty hand attacks. Just be aware of the purpose of the exercise. Easier and faster with both holding sticks. Both are holding sticks. It looks like stick versus stick training.
Target practice – As displayed in the photo above and below, often stick strike training is best done by hitting another stick. You can use a kicking shield, yes, but it might be faster and easier switching sides by both partners using sticks. And you can hit his stick hard. There are great survival, stick drills using the other guy’s stick. Again, when both are holding sticks. It looks like stick versus stick martial arts training training.
Blocking practice. Learn to block just about ANYTHING coming in with great force, the force that a stick can produce.

(Target practice! And you can hit hard. He can learn to block well too In the FMA world other Arnis-Kali things happen.)

So even if you are a self defense, combatives person you might find yourself looking like an FMA-er when both the trainer and trainee hold sticks and appear to be doing “too much stick versus stick” to these short-term window peeper-complainers. But still, dueling is not your real, end mission.

In summary, a few quandary warnings to think about…

Will reality-based “window peepers” blasphemy you as artsy? (Hey, I know I will hear from many of you that you don’t care what others think. But, I am “just sayin”…)
Is a “reality” person getting too use to seeing too many stick attacks? Remember to replace that attacking stick with an attacking knife. A lot. (It’s still FMA to go stick versus knife and it is very self-defensey’!)
Use the other guy’s stick for safe, quick target practice.
Once in a while, worry about impact weapon dueling in combatives. It’s great for footwork for one thing. It could happen, but rarely.
Be “on-mission” in your practice, doctrine and mission. Doing FMA? Do FMA. Doing generic combatives? Then do that.

Obviously I use an impact weapon emphasis in my Force Necessary: Stick course (details listed below, the self defense, stick matrix,) but I do not overdue the stick versus stick aspect when covering that course. FN Stick looks like this: