Martial Arts
A Lesson: Outer Leg ReapBy Sheridan Lardner
January 5, 2011
"When you reap your 200 pound, 6 foot tall opponent, he slams on his back with over five thousand pounds of force onto solid concrete. While this is spread out over the opponents entire back (so one point on the back does not get the full 5000 lbs of force),they still sustain more damage than being in a 25 mile per hour car crash."
Humans have a few evolutionarily evolved responses to aggression. One of them is the wide arcing punch, commonly called a haymaker. It lacks accuracy, proper body mechanics, and real power, but its prevalence (in bar room brawls and schoolyard tussles) demonstrates that the act of punching is an inborn skill that most humans know intuitively. The other intuitive technique is the two handed push. Most non-martial artists will initiate a fight with a solid shove and a series of offensive words, and this move too is a fixture of the bar room and the schoolyard. Like the haymaker, the push is a really ineffective technique that few warriors would use; it uses excessive force, leaves you open to attack, and does not unbalance an opponent. Also like the haymaker, it reveals a deeper, inborn combat intuition: the objective of making an opponent fall. From an early age, we learn that falling hurts a lot. Having your head drop six feet down is a scary experience, and depending on your landing surface is, a potentially damaging or even lethal one. Once on the ground, an opponent is at a decided disadvantage to the fighter standing over him. Some of you may remember my observations about ground-fighting and “going to the ground”: this is a way to put your opponent in this undesirable position, whether he wants to or not.
Martial art styles from Russian Sambo to Japanese Judo, Indonesian Silat and English wrestling, all use throwing techniques as a way to bring an opponent to the ground. Throws generally have two objectives: first, use the force of a violent fall to damage an opponent; second, gain a superior position over a downed opponent. These techniques work by upsetting the balance points of an opponent and forcing their body into a position where it has to fall. These qualities make throws particularly well-suited to extra-gym confrontations, where body-mechanics might be needed to overcome a stronger and larger opponent, and where a thrown opponent is almost assuredly unable to aggress anymore. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of throw and takedown variations used across the world. In this article, I present one of the most fundamental, consistent, and effective throws: the outer leg reap. The technique is quite short: unbalance an opponent off their leg and push them down onto their back. It is the more advanced and technically competent version of the two handed push, and it can be incorporated into any martial artists training or into any combination of techniques.
Physics of the fall
Most extra-gym confrontations that my readership will have (although I pray none) would be on concrete or asphalt. Urban pavement gives the modern warrior an advantage that his pre-modern forerunners did not have; the most damaging throwing surface that we can reasonably hope for. Falling physics consists of a few elements. First is the distance of the fall and the acceleration due to gravity. This allows us to determine the velocity that someone is falling just before they hit the ground. Once they hit the ground, they come to a stop (sort of…read on to learn more) and all their falling force is opposed by an equal and opposite force from the ground. When you fall, however, you never come to a perfect stop. Between muscle, skin, clothing, and surface, you travel a little bit further before you come to a full stop.
It is here that the urban pavement comes into play. Falling on grass and dirt is not nearly as painful as falling on a sidewalk precisely because the ground displaces a lot more. Because of this, the time of your impact is a lot higher, and with the time higher, the force is better dispersed. When you fall on a bed, the mattress displaces at least a few inches as you go into it. Concrete displaces too, but only by the tiniest fractions of a meter. This means that a fall to a city ground is far more painful and damaging than a fall on a battlefield of ancient times.
Physics is not my strongest talent, but I do want to give some idea about the forces involved in a basic outer reap throw. Let us assume that you are throwing an opponent weighing 200 lbs with a height of 6 feet. The outer reap sends your opponent tumbling to the ground much like if they had tripped while backpeddling; they simply fall on their back from their own height.
First let’s calculate their falling velocity. Using basic physics equations, we know that V(instantaneous) = (2 * A * D)^.5, where V is the instantaneous velocity, A is the acceleration (9.8 m/s^2 in this case, gravity), and D is the distance. For our attacker who is getting thrown, let us assume that the top of his back is about 4’6” off the ground, or 1.37 meters. Solving for V(i) we get…
V(instantaneous) = (2 * A * D)^.5
V(i) = (2 * 9.8 * 1.37)^.5
V(i) = (2 * 9.8 * 1.37)^.5
V(i) = (26.88)^.5
V(i) = 5.18 m/s
That’s your opponent’s velocity right before their back (which is 1.37 meters in the air initially) hits the ground. This is probably slower than they are actually moving. After all, you have given them a solid push, which has probably added at least another 1 m/s to their velocity. For the sake of simplicity, however, we are not going to worry about additional velocity from the push. Now that we know their velocity, we can calculate their kinetic energy (KE) as they hit the ground. KE is the total “work” that was needed to accelerate the body of a certain mass to its final speed. The body is going to maintain their KE unless their speed changes; if the speed stops, then the KE will all be working against it. Kinetic energy is a function of mass in kg, and the velocity that the object is traveling: KE = ½ * M * V^2. Our attacker is 200 lbs or 90.72 kg.
KE = ½ * M * V^2
KE = ½ * 90.72 * 5.18^2
KE = 1217.12 J (J means Joules of energy or work)
This is how much energy our body has when it hits the ground. Let us convert that to a unit that makes more sense and is more martially applicable: pounds of force. Now, concrete is not entirely inelastic. When we hit it, our squishy body/clothes combine to give us additional stopping distance. Concrete itself even compresses a little when we hit it. For the sake of this problem, we shall assume that your total stopping distance due to clothes, muscles, skin, concrete, etc. is 2 inch, or .05 meters. This is probably generous, but maybe your opponent has a thicker coat on.
Force = Kinetic Energy/Distance Stopped
F = KE/d
F = 1217.12/.05
F = 24342.4 N
1 Newton = .2248 lbs
24342.4 N = 5472 lbs
That’s our final number. When you reap your 200 pound, 6 foot tall opponent, he slams on his back with over five thousand pounds of force onto solid concrete. While this is spread out over the opponents entire back (so one point on the back does not get the full 5000 lbs of force),they still sustain more damage than being in a 25 mile per hour car crash (http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/carcr2.html#cc1)
These numbers are more than enough to cause serious, even fatal, damage. Falling flat on your butt on a concrete floor imparts only 1500 lbs of force, and that alone is enough to cause major back and lumbar injury (http://columbusspine.com/Slip-and-Fall-Injury-Mechanism.aspx). With more than 3 times that amount of force, you could damage both the spine and cause internal injury. Then of course, there is the head. If you fell straight on your head from the full 6 feet, you would have even more force imparted to your skull. That would be more than enough to knock an opponent out and cause brain injury, or even hemorrhaging and death.
Training on mats makes this a far safer technique. You have a lot more displacement after the impact, and you know the move is coming. So long as you practice in a safe environment amongst trusted comrades, then you need not worry about getting injured. Deploying this technique in an extra-gym confrontation, however, is a serious commitment to damaging an opponent, and you must understand that before you consider doing it.
Technique Execution
(Technique can be done left or right, but this will assume you are reaping with your right leg targeting your opponent’s right leg)
Left: A view from behind as you set up the throw
Right: A side view showing the opponent (blue) getting reaped over the executor's leg
- Set up the reap with a punch or some kind of strike. You want your opponent dazed or distracted while you move into throwing range and prepare to initiate the throw. I prefer to start with a right cross to the triangle (the region around the neck’s carotid artery), or a right elbow if I am closer.
- With your left hand, lock up the opponent’s right arm. This is similar to the Greco-Roman Clinch discussed in a previous article. You want to target slightly above your opponent’s elbow joint. Pull it into your own chest and lock it in tight so they can’t pull it away. Grab a fistful of their shirt or jacket to secure the hold, but do not separate your thumb from the rest of your fingers: this is a vulnerability your opponent could exploit.
- Plant your right hand on your opponent’s upper right chest, right above the pectoral and below the collarbone. This is going to be your pushing and unbalancing hand that sends your opponent’s upper body out of alignment with their center of gravity. NOTE: depending on the level of confrontation, you may want to apply your push elsewhere. A palm strike delivered to the chin or the nose also works to unbalance your opponent and increase injury. The same goes for a wedge-hand strike (think Tiger Mouth of the East-Asian martial arts) to the throat.
- With your hand planted, step through your opponent’s right side with your right leg. Your right hip will be passing next to, and touching, their right hip. Your step should be long enough to raise your leg up off the ground a foot or so, but not too long that you lose your own balance.
- Once your leg is past the opponent, pull it through with great force, targeting the back of his knee (just below the knee and above the calf) with your own calf. Simultaneously, push forcefully with your right hand. Your opponent’s right leg will rise up and his body will tilt back, completely upsetting his balance.
- Your opponent falls with your push helping him. Keep a grip on his right arm with your left. You can use this arm to drag him, apply a lock, and generally to control him.
- You can alternately lower your opponent to the ground instead of pushing them. If you do this, you are assuming that restraint and subduing an adversary is more prudent than injuring them. Do not develop this into habit. Let your muscle memory learn the primary technique (with a push) before also learning the lower threat-level alternative of lowering.
Throws are always an excellent option in self-defense and extra-gym engagements for two reasons. First, good throws with proper technique do not depend on the size or strength of an opponent. Given that opponents and assailants can come in a wide variety of sizes and strengths, this provides you with a decided advantage outside of the gym.
Second, throws cause damage regardless of your own strength, and regardless of the opponent’s pain threshold. Strikes and joint manipulations might not work against an intoxicated or drugged opponent, but sheer physical damage will. The forces from a reap-induced fall are more than enough to ensure this.
Given the potentially injurious nature of the technique, I am, as usual, obliged to include some manner of disclaimer. This is not a move to use on someone at the lower end of the threat spectrum, although an experienced and technically proficient person can modify the force to subdue an opponent, instead of crippling and incapacitating them (see above, point #7). Use only on an opponent who means you serious harm, and who has cut off reasonable escape routes.
Thanks again to Prentiss Rhodes, my teacher, and to the Judo Club at UChicago for letting me spar with them after classes. These contributions are always invaluable.
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A Lesson: Slashing Elbow
By Sheridan Lardner
August 12, 2010
“Imagine a broken nose with all of its shooting pain, the kind that you had broken with a schoolyard fist, a badly aimed soccer ball, or a faceplant in the grass. Now imagine that same break, but caused by the flat, steel end of a claw-hammer. That’s how it feels.”
In an excellent book on martial arts, authors Lawrence Kane and Kris Wilder describe how Mother Nature, anticipating clumsy humans falling down, hardened and toughened our elbows to prevent injury. Incidentally, this makes the elbow an excellent weapon. Many different martial artists use elbows in their styles. Muay-Thai boxers may have famously imported them into American MMA, but their usage ranges from the Jujitsu practitioners of Feudal Japan to the Pankration combatants of Classical Greece. They are versatile weapons that fulfill two important prerequisites of any martial art technique. They cause maximum damage while imparting minimal and risk to the user.
Given the elbow’s location on the arm, most elbow-based techniques are generated from angles. Whether a 30 degrees angled attack at the neck and collarbone, a straight-down plunging strike to soft-tissue, or an explosive linear blow to a charging attacker, elbows are highly adaptable. In today’s lesson, I want to discuss a particular elbow angle, its proper execution, and a suggested target for the attack. I call it the slashing elbow, due to the technique’s emulation of a close-quarter bladed slash.
Angle: 180 degrees.
Your attack is almost a horizontal blow. This depends both on your height and your target’s height, but you should think of your elbow as cutting a path parallel to the ground.
Point of contact: Elbow point
Elbow strikes get divided into two general points of contact. You either strike predominantly with the high part of your ulna, right before it becomes the olecranon process, or you strike mostly with the point, the actual olecranon itself. No matter how you strike with the elbow, you need to be careful not to damage the interior bursa (a small liquid filled sac that aids in joint mobility). That can lead to later swelling and pain in the bursa, a condition called student’s or miner’s elbow. Given that a warrior’s work should be sustainable, this should be avoided.
Make sure that when using the slashing elbow, and other elbow techniques for that matter, you strike with bone, not with the bursa. The image below shows where this particular technique should make contact on your own elbow.
Target: Nasal bone
Whenever I suggest a target for a strike, it is only that: a suggestion. There are many possible targets that you can hit with a slashing elbow. Temple, neck, jaw, floating rib; these are just a few options you have in an engagement. The nasal bone, however, represents a unique martial opportunity for the skilled warrior.
Anatomically, the nasal bone actually consists of two small bones that are triangularly articulated along the nose’s side. Unlike most of the nose, these bones are indeed actually constructed from bone; most other nasal structures are cartilage. In the hierarchy of bone strength, however, they are closer to the fragile finger and toe bones than to the solid ones of arm and leg. That makes them vulnerable to damage.
The nasal bones exist mostly to provide structural support for the airway through which your nose breathes. They are also located in direct proximity to the eyes as part of the NOE complex (Naso-orbito-ethmoid complex), the area in which your forehead, eyes, and nose all meet. This makes the nasal bone a shatterpoint for the entire face, and an excellent target for a strike.
Trauma to this region can cause either dislocation or fracturing of the bones. In both cases, the collapsed airway prevents breathing through the nose. Any concussive force to the NOE complex produces piercing pain in the forehead, watering of the eyes, temporary blindness, disrupted concentration, and impaired reaction. Basically, it hurts a lot. Imagine a broken nose with all of its shooting pain, the kind that you had broken with a schoolyard fist, a soccer ball, or a fall to the grass. Now imagine that same break, but caused by the flat end of a claw-hammer. That’s how it feels.
Technique Execution:
- Make sure that you are in elbow range of your opponent. To figure out what that is, just look at the length of your ulna from wrist to elbow point. That is more or less what your elbow range is. If you execute an elbow strike outside of that range, you must lunge to reach your target, which decreases your power and makes you vulnerable to counterattack. If you execute an elbow strike inside of that range, you will “jam” your technique, which also diminishes its power.
- In your fighting stance (boxer’s stance), raise your rear hand to shield your forehead. Your palm should be open to intercept any incoming attacks, but your fingers should be tightly pressed against each other. If your fingers are apart, you risk breaking them if you have to block a punch or elbow from your opponent. DO NOT obstruct your vision with your hand. You are trying to guard against punches, not hide from your opponent.
- With your rear hand shielding your forehead, begin to turn your body towards your rear side, pivoting on the ball of your leading foot. The pivot motion coupled with your body rotation generates this technique’s power.
- After you have turned your body for a split second, raise your lead elbow up such that it is parallel with the ground and roughly perpendicular to your neck. You should be able to see down your forearm to the tip of your elbow from your stance. Make sure that the hand on your elbow side is in a karate chop position; although it will not strike your opponent, it needs to be in proper alignment for your elbow to do its damage.
NOTE: You should feel like your elbow rotation is playing catch up to your body rotation, although it is only trailing by a split second. This generates additional power and torque as you execute the technique. - Still pivoting on your lead foot, rotate your body and elbow into your target. You will make contact with the point of your elbow on their nasal bone. Your hand on the elbow side (the one in the karate chop position) will naturally tuck into your rear-side armpit.
- After you make contact and follow through on your pivot, immediately return to your fighting stance.
No technique gets thrown alone. In fact, to call attention to any one “technique” is almost to exclude it from its fighting context. No technique exists independently, and no discussion of a “technique” can consider it in a vacuum. Before firing this elbow, you have to close the distance. Whether that involves a disabling series of kicks at long range, a salvo of medium range punches to disorient, or some combination thereof, you probably need to chain your moves together to get them to work for you. Sometimes you might find yourself in a situation where your opponent starts the fight in your close (elbow/knee) range, and if that is the case, then this is a fine opening attack.
After you strike the nasal bone, what next? Disengaging is, of course, a great option, given that your opponent will probably be stunned for at least a few seconds, and highly disoriented for a while even after the initial pain has subsided. The short elbow range is also ideal for setting you up in the grapple and takedown range. Right after that elbow connects with your opponent’s nose, you can swim your hands back around and get your opponent in the upper-body tie (discussed here). From there, any of the solid throws (shoulder throw, hip throw, reap, etc.) are at your disposal.
Thanks to my teachers, Prentiss Rhodes and Amanda Wingate, for their instruction in elbow techniques and mechanics.
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A Lesson: The Upper Body Tie
By Sheridan Lardner
April 2010
Many of my past articles concerned problems with grappling, both as it is practiced, and as it occurs in extra-gym confrontations. Today, I discuss a technique that is critical in both sport and non-sport grappling. It is the wrestling foundation of various martial arts, and should definitely be incorporated in any serious martial artist’s routine.
The upper-body tie is one of those rare, widely approved martial arts positions. It allows substantial control over your opponent’s movement, arms, and attacks. Its companion is the Thai Clinch, a favorite of MMA fighters and kickboxers in which an opponent’s head is trapped between your two arms. In my experience and in the historical record, however, the upper-body tie comes out on top. You sacrifice a little head control for a lot of arm control, or as one author puts it, a little defense for a lot of offense. Warriors throughout history have employed variations of this tie on their respective battlefields; Greek hoplites and Roman legionaries learned it for hand-to-hand engagements; Samurai and knights used it to prevent an opponent from drawing a weapon or to setup a bone-crushing throw. In modern self-defense and extra-gym confrontations, the arm and body control offered by the upper-body remain fight-winning elements. \Whether to prevent opposing strikes, stop your opponent from pushing you away, or hindering weapon deployment, the upper-body tie is an invaluable addition to any martial artists’ arsenal.
1. Square off with your opponent slightly less than an arm-length away.
2. Place your dominant hand on the same-side back of his neck. What do I mean by “same-side”? If you use your right hand to make the grab, you will be reaching to the left side of your opponent. If the left hand, then reach to the right.
3. Cup your palm on the base of his head, keeping your thumb in line with the rest of your fingers. You do not need your thumb to control the head, and it will protect your fingers from joint locks and breaks.
4. Bend this dominant arm at the elbow. As you do so, edge towards your opponent and press your forearm into his collarbone. Your own body should now only be about a half-arm's length away from his.
5. With your opposite arm, reach forward and grasp your opponent’s upper arm on that side. The top of your hand should be facing outwards.
6. Your palm should mostly cover their lower bicep, just above the elbow joint. Your fingers should curl around to their triceps.
7. Unlike with your dominant arm, you need your thumb for this grab. Without the thumb, you will not have the necessary leverage to control your opponent. Place your thumb just above the elbow joint, curling around the arm towards the inside. In the end, it should feel like you are shaking a hand.
8. Your non-dominant arm should be slightly bent as it makes this grab.
9. Extend your legs backwards so that a little less than a quarter of your weight now rests on your grasped opponent. Stand with your dominant leg (the leg under your dominant arm) forward, and your opposite leg slightly back. It should look like you are doing a slight lunge.
10. Lower your head while keeping your eyes on the opponent’s upper torso. You should be able to see their entire body without effort.
The illustration above shows the final position. Notice how both combatants are tied up, and both of them essentially mirror each other.
From the upper-body tie there are many additional techniques that you can employ, ranging from powerful shoulder and hip throws to lower leg reaps, sweeps, and scoops. Your strike arsenal is also impressive from this position, as are your weapon-deployment options. Now, some martial artists might prefer to take an opponent's back in an extra-gym confrontation, or avoid a grapple altogether. While this may be a viable tactic in a self-defense scenario, in which escape is the primary objective, not all extra-gym confrontations are of this nature. Soldiers, law-enforcement, corrections-officers, etc. People in this line of work cannot always flee, and must engage and neutralize threats on a daily basis. The upper-body tie is an excellent entry move for high-stress situations. It is instinctive, powerful, consistent, and opportunistic (that is, from this position, you have a lot of options).
In the next article, I will discuss a nasty takedown that you can execute from the upper-body tie, a high probability move that does not care about the size of its user or its victim: the ear takedown.
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Rhodes Fusion Fitness In the News
March 3 2010
The following is a video interview of my martial arts instructor, Prentiss Rhodes. I encourage all of you to watch it to see a true master and his thoughts on martial arts, self-defense, and training. Thank you for the young journalist who was responsible for filming this clip.
Go to the video
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The Rolling Dilemma
Inherent Problems with Grappling and Sparring
By Sheridan Lardner
February 2010
Brazilian Jujitsu, more colloquially known as “BJJ”, is rightly praised owing to many reasons, but it receives a fair amount specifically for just one of its training practices: “rolling”. Simply speaking, rolling is the jujitsu equivalent of sparring, except without strikes. Two training partners lock up and grapple on a mat, attempting to submit their opponent by a choke or joint lock; think of old Appalachian country wrasslin’ but with considerably more technique. It is a test for both martial artists, forcing you to apply technical knowledge to a resisting opponent.
Sparring, whether rolling or otherwise, is clearly an invaluable practice. Warriors will always fight how they train, and sparring is an integral part in any training process that wants to reasonably estimate the uncertainties of a combat situation. That said, sparring, as it is traditionally practiced, is not always optimally practiced to inform martial performance outside of the gym (self-defense, law enforcement, military, etc.). Its pacing is nothing like that of an extra-gym engagement. In a friendly bout, opponents might stalk each other at a distance, waiting to exploit an opening, gauging an opponent’s strengths and weaknesses. Such courtesy is nonexistent outside. Your martial artist attire, whether a Gi or a pair of boxing shorts, is ideal for the situation. You will never train in a stuffy suit or a poofy jacket, although you might certainly be attacked wearing those. Even the setting is well lit and familiar, and you can focus solely on your training partner. The distractions and perils of the real world are washed away. Now, an observant and self-aware martial artist can easily correct for these inherent flaws, modifying their sparring routine to better correlate with martial realities (It is with great hesitation that I use this phrase, “martial realities”; as many who know me understand, I dislike the “street-tested”, “hardcore” terminology that so often characterizes modern martial arts, and I try to avoid it when possible.) For instance, a boxer might spar both in a ring and in the hallway in the foyer of his gym, to simulate the narrow confines of an apartment conflict. A student of Tae Kwon Do might spar in jeans and a jacket, to learn how clothing can inhibit flexibility. The list of modifications is virtually endless, and all of them are directed towards the goal of improving a martial art.
Rolling, however, proves far harder to modify. It has a number of inherent aspects that are both detrimental for the self-defense or extra-gym minded martial artist and seemingly inextricable from rolling itself. I will specifically focus on three such problems. Are they insurmountable? Perhaps not, but in order to get around them, we must first know what they are and why they are problematic.
1. Mats All rolling takes place on
mats. There are lots of reasons for this, although virtually none of them are
martial. Instead, they are logistical. For one, mats are easy to clean and
maintain. This turns out to be a damn good reason to use mats, considering that
all rolling invariably leads to some abrasions and scrapes, and a sanitized
environment prevents infection. The same cannot be said of a sidewalk or a
grassy field, where the threat of dirt and bacteria is even more present than
inside.
More importantly, mats are
built for comfort. Falling on a few inches of foam and fabric might jar you or
even knock the wind out of you if you are unprepared. Crashing onto concrete or
packed dirt can break bones, rattle your brain into unconsciousness, and leave
permanent injury. Sure, wrestling around on a mat will produce some stinging
matburns, but that is far better than a grizzly and gravely cement scrape.
The martial problem: if you
were ever tackled/grabbed/knocked down and forced to fight in an extra-gym
situation, you would never have a mat. Therefore, rolling gives your body and
muscle memory an unreal expectation of how a serious and life-threatening
situation would feel. You may also employ techniques on a mat that are just too
difficult to execute, at least without personal injury, on a much harder
surface.
The bottom line: in martial
arts, safety is paramount. Mats are just so many degrees safer than anything
else that schools have no choice but to use them.
2. Familiar Ground Your gym never changes. The
mats that you rolled on yesterday are probably going to be the same ones that
you roll on for the upcoming weeks, months, and even years. They might be
replaced, but really, how different is one mat from another? As an extension of
this, it does not count that you train at different gyms and fight in a variety
of tournaments. Mats are mats, and gym conditions are gym conditions, no matter
where you go; a jujitsu school in Rio de Janeiro looks, at its core, no
different from a Sambo gym in Moscow. Simply put, modern athletic sciences have
figured out the best formula for a gym facility and safety, and all dojos will
adhere to this. On a similar note, martial
artists are prone to a lot of anxiety from competition, injury, audiences, and
so on. But they rarely, if ever, derive anxiety from their environment; you
probably know every corner of your safe and sterile gym. Unfortunately, this is
one of the most stressful aspects of an extra-gym confrontation. You might be
riding a subway car, waiting at a bus stop, or walking through a snowy and icy
park. Each situation presents unique dangers and opportunities that are not a
part of most gym training. The martial problem:
extra-gym situations happen anywhere. If you are accustomed to training in a
controlled, consistent, and sanitary environment, you might be overwhelmed when
violence breaks out on unfamiliar ground. The bottom line: gyms cannot
just move around and change locations every day just to satisfy this notion of
combat uncertainty. Similarly, safety precautions and gym layouts are globally
identical not because there is some horrible conspiracy, but because these
regulations tend to keep gyms in business.
3. Environmental Tools When you roll with your
opponent, you have few tools at your disposal. You have your body, your mind,
and perhaps your uniform (collar chokes, grabbing your Gi to exert greater
leverage, etc). Even if you are lucky enough to grapple with weapons, whether
training knives, guns, clubs, and so on, you are still limited to the tools
that you immediately have. That is to say, you are told what tools you can use
before the fight. Extra-gym confrontations are messier. In your dojo, there are
no garbage cans, building corners, discarded pieces of drywall or metal, chunks
of rock or ice, etc. All of these turn out to make excellent weapons and combat
aids in a tight spot, but none of them are available at the gym. Similarly,
your instructor will not be with you outside when a situation turns from bad to
worse. He or she cannot tell you to use the opponent’s knife or even to use the
rocks on the ground next to you. Your independent mind has to kick in, and if
you have not trained it, it might falter at the critical moment. The martial problem: the
environment offers powerful aids for a martial artist in distress. A warrior
who confines their studies to the gym will never learn to spot these
opportunities. Even if they do, their muscle memory will not be programmed to
employ them. The bottom line: It is
riotously unsafe to litter a mat with rocks, bottles, and iron rods. However
valuable these tools might be in an extra-gym confrontation, they are extremely
difficult to incorporate into a safe gym. At least, if that gym wants to stay
in operation. Furthermore, it’s hard to use
substitute objects, like a foam yoga brick or a foam bat, because it is
difficult for students to take these toy-like implements seriously while
training.
These are the three critical problems of rolling. Yes, there are other issues (some grapplers totally disallow all strikes, some never grapple with weapons, some never with multiple opponents, etc), but these issues are not inherent to rolling as a practice. They can be modified out, if the need arises. The three problems mentioned in this article, however, are features built into rolling for safety and logistics. This raises an interesting point: is this entire pursuit of modifying martial arts to better correlate with extra-gym situations seems somewhat futile? After all, gyms need to be safe or no one will train at them. Combat is not safe. It seems like a serious contradiction from which we cannot extricate ourselves.
Thankfully, there are some things that we as martial artists can do to avoid falling to these three inherent problems. All of these solutions presuppose one qualification; you train with people who you trust. Say what you will about the community of a gym. Each and every reader can name a half dozen people who they train with who they would rather not. Make sure that you have a training group that is trustworthy, controlled, intelligent, and experienced.
If you have such a group, then you can modify your rolling accordingly. For one, try to grapple on surfaces other than mats. Try out a wooden, dance-room floor, a grassy field, a snowy surface, a beach, and, eventually, a sidewalk. Go at a snail’s pace at first and stay in control, accustoming yourselves to the unique feel of the floor and the new restrictions it imposes. If you adapt to the wooden floor, upgrade to something a bit harder. Keep upgrading until you have tried a wide range of grappling surfaces. All the while, make sure you keep switching back and forth between new surfaces and ones you are experienced with, just to keep your body on its toes.
Once you are more comfortable on non-mat surfaces, you can start to vary your training environment as a whole. Try training in the hallways of various buildings, whether your gym or your apartment. Attempt a confrontation on a stairwell landing or a handicap access ramp, just to vary the incline of your environment. Even try to get some “rolling” done inside a car or (for the self-assured among us) a subway or bus. In this way, you can vary your environment and adapt your mindframe to these multiple settings. You need not do this in every single training session. Even a few visits to an extra-gym setting can give your muscle memory the adaptation it needs to prevail in a real confrontation.
As to environmental tools, it is easy to incorporate these into any training session outside, or even inside, of the gym. Owing to the inherent lethality and power of many of these tools, you should not execute attacks with them in a sparring fashion. Rather, you should employ them more like a form/kata. You and an opponent can go through a pre-determined set of movements that culminate in your deployment of an environmental tool to end the fight. In this way, the natural panic and adrenaline that always happens in sparring will not become dangerous. More importantly, however, your mind will become more accustomed to the idea of using environmental tools, and thus more likely to actually use one if the need arises.
These are not end-all, be-all solutions to our three inherent problems of rolling. Yet, they are intelligent and informed modifications that can improve the rolling experience of any extra-gym minded martial artist. Of course, all suggestions should be practiced with the utmost concern for safety and control. If this can be accomplished, then the experienced martial artist can greatly augment his training and his skills, preparing himself for entirely new arenas other than just his safe and familiar gym.
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Drills for Self-Defense
By Sheridan Lardner
September 2009
Modern martial artists say it one way. Warriors of centuries past said it another. The one, “You fight how you train.” The other, “The more you bleed in training the less you bleed on the battlefield.” By word choice alone, these are slightly different quotes; one refers to the quality of training, the other refers to its intensity. Fundamentally, however, they are quite similar. Both emphasize that training conditions should adhere closely to conditions under which the art will be used. Both uphold that a martial artist’s eventual combat performance is intractably linked to their pre-battle preparations. Taken together, these quotes, and their ensuing implications, form the core of any solid training regimen.
Both quotes, however, cannot just be taken to their logical extremes. In the modern quote’s case, that would imply all your sparring sessions should completely mirror your fights. In that of the bygone warriors’, you should train yourself to the edge of death. Even Spartans and Spetsnaz, notorious for their brutal training, do not go quite so far. While such vicious practice methods may or may not work in the long run, it would prevent any of trainees from returning to the gym tomorrow, and it would ensure that a teacher never had more than a baby’s handful of students. Everyone from the tamest instructors of today to the nuttiest masters of ages past understand this, what I describe as the paradox of training. They want their students to be fully prepared for combat, but still able to exercise tomorrow. They want to produce as many competent martial artists as possible, not pit each against another in death matches so only one student is left standing at the end of the day.
When you train to defend yourself, this is an inescapable problem, moreso than when you train for any other reason (except when you train for war, which I will discuss at the end of the essay). If you pursue martial arts for competition, you can simply beef up your padding, agree to fight at 50-60% instead of 80-90%, and go about business as usual. If you pursue martial arts for fitness, spiritual growth, discipline, and so on, you need not even worry about this. But if self-defense is your objective, you must face a serious contradiction. Sparring is not just a toned down fight, as it is in competition training. It is a pernicious dilution. If your punches must be thrown at full power with full contact and without any hand protection, and you practice them at half power with light contact while wearing gloves, you are not readying your body or mind for an actual engagement. On the other hand, if you actually do punch to inflict maximum strength injury, you, and your partner, are only going to be training once a week (if that). The simple punch is by no means the only paradoxical aspect of self-defense training. Countless others exist, including every strike and takedown you can employ, the adrenaline fueled mentality of fear, and the overbearing sense of imminent, life-threatening danger. Training’s goal is to improve students, not hospitalize them. The bottom line: self-defense is hard to drill.
Here are a number of exercises and drills that maximize their training value to the self-defense minded martial artist, without compromising safety. It is not easy to mimic the realities of an engagement, but these ideas can help. I present each with a list of equipment needed, a suggested setting, a general description, and an account of what exactly the drill seeks to train, as well as what it neglects. By knowing the advantages and disadvantages of every exercise, you can modify them accordingly to fit your training needs. Moreover, by understanding what a drill does and does not improve, you can avoid being deceived by your own training.
1. Sudden Conflict
Equipment: MMA Gloves, mouthpieces, shin guards, stopwatch..
Suggested setting: Training hall
Purpose: Ensures fighters are always ready to engage.
Description: Have you and your training partners put on your gloves, shin guards, and mouthpieces. Assign a responsible member of your group with the timekeeper role, and give him a stopwatch. Have him choose an interval between 7 and 15 minutes, and then start the clock. Now, start training as you would any other day. Work on striking, throws, a little ground survival, combinations – BAM. Once the timekeeper’s interval is up, he will shout “FIGHT!”. Drop whatever pads you are holding and attack your training partner. Go 60% for 30 seconds. If either of the partners taps out, that partner must do 10 pushups. Once the 30 seconds is over, the timekeeper chooses a different 7-15 minute interval and everyone goes back to training. Keep repeating the drill. Any time someone taps out, they will do 10 more pushups, depending on which iteration of the drill it is (first time, 10. Second time, 20, etc.)
Benefits: Keeps fighters aware and in a combat mentality. Trains fighters to go from calm and relaxed to explosive in a short amount of time. Trains fighters to fight while tired.
Neglects: Contact is not realistic. Moves that would normally ‘end’ a fight do not work at 60%. Does not train or reward fighters for escaping.
2. Ambush
Equipment: None.
Suggested setting: Anywhere
Purpose: Ensures fighters react quickly to engagements.
Description: Set up similarly to the “Sudden Conflict” drill. Begin training as usual. As you are training, have the instructor, or a responsible partner, secretly choose one person to be the “attacker”, and give that “attacker” a target. When he says “Go”, the attacker will attempt to take down his assigned target. This should be done preferably when the target is unaware. The attacker can do so in any way he chooses. The attacker’s objective is to bring their target to the ground and keep them there. The defender’s objective is to get off the ground and out of reach of the attacker as quickly as possible. Participants should fight at 60-70% with no punches thrown to the head. Strikes may be directed elsewhere. The instructor should time how long it takes to get off the ground and to safety. A good time is anything under 5 seconds (ideally as fast as possible). The defender should not try and get the attacker to tap out. His goal is merely to escape. The attacker may, however, try to submit the defender.
Benefits: Conditions fighters to get off the ground as quickly as possible. Trains fighters to take no-glove hits while grappling. Develops instantaneous reaction to attacks. Trains fighters to apply ground survival skills under stress. Lack of equipment mirrors real situation.
Neglects: Certain escapes cannot be used on training partners for safety reasons, and these will be avoided by fighters. No punches to head. If defender anticipates the attacker, he will not derive the benefit of learning to react to surprise attacks. That said, does not encourage constant awareness.
3. Blindsided
Equipment: None
Suggested setting: Not in the gym.
Purpose: Test and train muscle memory of techniques under stress.
Description: Stand in an environment that you could possibly be attacked in; a hallway in your dorm, a bathroom, a sidewalk, etc. Close your eyes. Have your training partner sneak up from a side of their choosing and initiate a choke or hold. Chokes with pulls, headlocks, and bearhugs all make excellent attacks for this drill. Immediately react with whatever defensive response you have trained. When the attacker has been dispatched, close your eyes and have him attack again using a different method. The attacker should not actively resist the defender’s movements. The defender should go at about 60%, making light but precise contact with any strikes. While the attacker should not actively and furiously resist, he should provide enough muscular resistance that poor technique cannot complete the defense.
Benefits: Tests and improves muscle memory of the attacks. Develops instantaneous reaction to attacks. Accustoms defender to making contact with accurate blows. Builds attacker’s sensitivity to ungloved strikes.
Neglects: Light contact sacrifices the realism of powerful hits for the realism of accuracy. If practiced too much, can condition fighters to hit with lower strength. The attacker does not actively resist any technique, which can lead fighters to have unreal expectations of how their techniques work.
4. Eyes on the Prize
Equipment: Striking pad (medium size: thai pad will work)
Suggested setting: Training hall
Purpose: Build awareness, develop power, maintain proper fighting posture.
Description: Have one person hold the pad and another square off against it (this latter person hereafter referred to as the ‘fighter’). The fighter and pad holder will move around employing combat footwork. Before the drill begins, the holder will select a number of techniques that the fighter is to use. Each technique will correspond to a certain way of holding the target. For instance, holding the pad low on the outside of the leg would signify a roundhouse kick target. Holding the pad at the sternum means give three punches. Holding the pad angled at the neck means throw a rear elbow on that same side. Any number of techniques can be trained, so long as each has a distinctly corresponding pad position. The fighter will engage the pad holder in such a way for a total of 3 minutes. For the first minute, the fighter will just work with the target. For the second and third minutes, they will have an obstacle. A third participant, henceforth called the attacker, will don MMA gloves and will circle slowly in the peripherals of the fighter. After 1 minute of the fighter hitting the target, the attacker will now slowly begin to engage. At first, he will just throw kicks and punches at 60%, trying to strike the fighter. The fighter must block or avoid the strikes and continue to engage his objective (the target). After 2 minutes total of the drill, 1 minute since the attacker began, the attacker will now add a new tactic. He will attempt to pin, tackle, take down, or hold the fighter. The fighter must rapidly escape the hold and continue to engage the target.
The attacker should never be at more than 60%. The fighter should hit the target at 80%, and escape from the holds at about 80%. The attacker should try to impede the fighter (With strikes, takedowns, holds, etc.) no more than once every 15 seconds.
Benefits: Fighter works on hitting a moving target with near-full power. Fighter learns to fluidly transition between techniques. Fighter learns to not get bogged down in escapes. Fighter develops awareness of surroundings while engaging objective. Fighter remembers to keep hands and guard up.
Neglects: Fighter cannot fully strike attacker. Fighter strikes target, not soft tissue. Fighter’s techniques limited to what pad holder chooses.
5. Fight-Stoppers
Equipment: MMA gloves, mouthguard
Suggested setting: Grass (initially), concrete (when ready)
Purpose: Accustom fighters to realities of engagement.
Description: This drill seeks to closely emulate a real engagement. It can be considered as a set of modifications to any of the above drills, or as its own stand-alone sparring exercise. Let us work with the latter. Have two fighters stand off against each other. They will engage at 50-70% (depending on their comfort zone) in sparring. There are no target limitations. There are no striking limitations. There are, however, a set of rules to govern “fight-stoppers”: techniques which are quite likely to put your opponent in such a position that you can rapidly end the fight. Whenever such a technique is completed, the sparring stops, and the person who executed their technique will fire a series of moves to finish their stunned or downed opponent. This accurately simulates the perils of ungloved, unprotected combat. Some suggestions for “fight stoppers” are below, although feel free to modify as you see fit in regards to your own experience.
a. Eye gouge: If one fighter can grab the side of an opponent’s head and press his thumbs into the brow of his opponent, consider this a blinding eye gouge. Allow the gouger a second or two to disengage.
b. Shoulder throw: If one fighter can successfully employ a shoulder throw to slam his opponent to the ground (light slam, especially if on concrete), that downed opponent will temporarily be stunned (indeed he might ACTUALLY be stunned for a moment). Give the fighter a second to finish with strikes.
c. Elbow: If one fighter can connect with an elbow strike to an unprotected neck, jaw, or suitably vulnerable and destructive facial area, that blow is a stunning, even knockout, blow.
d. Back of neck: If one fighter can hit the back of the opponent’s neck with, say, a hammer fist, consider that opponent to have sustained a jarring injury, if not a lethal compression fracture to the spine. Disengage accordingly (such a strike should not be any higher than 10% power for safety reasons).
e. Submission holds: If one fighter gets a submission that results in a tap, instead of just getting up, have that fighter suitably disengage from his crippled opponent.
And so on…whenever one fighter hits his opponent with a 50-70% version of one of these techniques, the fight is over, and that fighter can now disengage aggressively.
Benefits: Keeps fighters guards up. Demonstrates realistic combat conditions. Teaches fighters to be cautious of certain extremely dangerous attacks. Practices live actions with a live opponent. Conditions proper range on techniques. Develops sense of accurate targeting on a live opponent.
Neglects: Power and speed are reduced for safety. Can condition a downed opponent to just give up, even though such a technique does not necessarily cripple them in reality (even though it is likely). Aggression must be kept lower than in reality for safety.
There are many other drills that are out there to properly develop self-defense skills. Remember, all drills sacrifice one element to benefit another. If you are aware of what is sacrificed, then you need not fall victim to false confidence or belief.
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Problems of Self-Defense 3
The "X% of street fights go to the ground" Fallacy
By Sheridan Lardner
August 2009
(This is part 3 of 3 in the series)
Here is a selection of self-defense thoughts I have encountered in my training.
1. You are walking down the street when a bunch of guys jump you.
2. You get cornered and have no choice but to fight.
3. X% (70%, 90%, 95%, etc) of all street fights go to the ground.
Some readers may read the above statements and think “these are worthwhile scenarios to train for”, or “this is important knowledge.” Others may dismiss them entirely, whether for reasons of oversimplification or lack of realism. Like in most matters, there is a middle-ground, which, also like in most matters, is the safest to take. Regarding these three specific examples, however, I prefer a bit of extremism. Yes, it is too much to categorize them as wholly fallacious, whether in the thought process that conceived them and/or in conclusions drawn thereafter. It is much fairer to say that these thoughts have the potential to lead to dire mistakes in training. Not all practitioners fall victim to this phenomenon, just as not all victims’ training suffers to the same degree. Admitting this, I still find that it is more often the case that these three thoughts tend to damage self-defense training more than help it. Focusing solely on this trio of examples, and admitting that there are countless others deserving ample discussion, I offer a set of alternative perspectives for warriors to consider in their pursuit of martial knowledge.
3. X% (70%, 90%, 95%, etc.) of all street fights go to the ground.
All martial artists have personal expectations as to what a fight (whether in competition, sparring, self-defense, etc) looks like. It is an imagination informed by our personal experiences, those of our peers and teachers, and those demonstrated in books, movies, games, and other forms of media. As information gathering creatures, we assess these different perspectives and form an aggregate view of what a fight truly is. We then seek out skills and training to help us win these visualized fights. Now, depending on what evidence we drew upon, and how we graded that evidence as good or bad, we devised a suitably accurate or inaccurate portrait of a fight. An accurate portrait is one in which a practitioner takes the body of evidence and creates an expectation of a fight that more or less matches his eventual, personal reality (that is, the fight’s reality to that practitioner). An inaccurate one is where the practitioner fabricates an expectation that is quite different from the ultimate reality. If our portrait is inaccurate, we will learn skills that do not help us in any eventual engagements. Similarly, if it is accurate, our skills and training will probably be of use.
Our business here is self-defense. We will focus on self-defense engagements, and the related expectations and visualizations of these fights. Throughout my martial art experience, two viewpoints of self-defense constantly and consistently stood out amongst the rest. First, when the engagement is rapidly ended with strikes. Whether brought down with a single swift blow to a vital area, or a fusillade of overwhelming attacks, the assailant is toppled quickly and cleanly. This fight conception is prevalent in the so-called traditional martial arts (tae kwon do and karate most notably). Its accompanying techniques are often practiced in forms and katas, and on catatonically inert sparring partners with minimal contact. This sort of training, while not without value, has a tendency to lead practitioners to self-defense failure. Just because the training lacks realism, however, does not necessarily mean the strike-intensive portrait of self-defense also does. Powerful and precise strikes are invaluable tools in self-defense, and the martial body of evidence is quick to offer examples in which a threat was quickly neutralized using these methods.
At the risk of offering a crass generalization, I postulate that this strike-predominant viewpoint is one often upheld by a practitioner who has recently begun their training. Certainly this was a personal truth. Punches and kicks (and their many striking siblings) are easy to teach and easy to learn, at least at a basic level. Teachers are quick to assess their students’ skills with target striking and board breaks, building, more than strength and technique, a sense of confidence. Tests of striking through wood and drills of tapping an immobile pad validate the practitioner’s conception of their skill and ability, this validation an important instructor tool in keeping students interested and involved in their gym. Traditional martial arts schools maintain a majority share of the martial art market. When a person begins their training, they will likely seek out one of these friendly and accessible gyms. Consequently, it is natural that this striking, board-breaking, confidence-building mentality reaches most martial artists at an early point in their development. Furthermore, it does not help that most entertaining and graphic sources of martial evidence (movies, television, books, games, etc.) emphasize the bone shattering and concussion inducing power of strikes above all else. New practitioners, having little or no personal experience, naturally appeal to other authorities. Frequently, this is either the teacher of their traditional martial art, or exciting media sources.
As is clear from tone, I do not hold the above strike-dominated viewpoint in the highest regard. Yet, it is not wholly without value; more often than not, it is a problem of training, not of the view itself. The same cannot be said of the second self-defense conception. If the first inclination of the martial artist is towards a strike-intensive style of self-defense, the second is towards a grappling-oriented one. Such a shift is almost invariably accompanied with the following justification: “X% of street fights go to the ground” (where X is a suitably large and impressive number). With an overwhelmingly likely probability that an engagement come crashing to the pavement, only a fool would expect to survive one without grappling abilities. Such is the argument of the faux martial statistician.
This is a peculiar sort of fallacy. Using incorrect premises and assumptions, the martial statistician arrives at a partially correct conclusion. They are correct that it is downright stupid to consider your self-defense training complete without at least basic comprehension of grappling and the ground game (which I will discuss more at the article’s end). It is equally stupid to uncompromisingly believe, whether in its specifics or its general implications, the X% claim. Here, three dangers stand out. First, those practitioners who internalize the claim, and ones like it, blithely accept statements made from supposed authorities. Second, that the pursuit of grappling skills is often used to justify the claim, as opposed to the reverse. Third, the factualization of the X% claim is often used to mask the otherwise unwise desire to take an engagement to the ground.
I have touched on the first of these problems before (Axioms Part One: Proper Training). This regarded making a martial art your own, and not dismissing lessons merely for the sake of dismissal. Quoting from that piece, you should only modify or disregard an instructor’s words of wisdom “only if it is for a solid martial, mechanical, or mental principle.” The X% claim is one such statement that can be evaluated on two of the three grounds, martial and mental. There is nothing mechanical about the claim in and of itself, mechanics referring to body movements of actual techniques. If you accept the claim, then it must be for one of two reasons. Either you think that the percentage was accurately gathered (that is to say, looking at many martial examples, and therefore a martial evaluation) or you trust your instructor’s personal experience (a mental evaluation). Let us first analyze the possibility that it is actually an empirically correct statement. It is highly unlikely that the calculators of this percentage could accumulate a statistically significant amount of data. To do so at any level of real comprehensiveness would entail the interviewing and recording of self-defense engagements from across the entire world, many of which had few (if any) witnesses. Response bias would abound in such a survey, and the number of variables to account for would be baffling. If one were to decrease the size and range of their sample, this would compromise the survey’s ability to be representative of engagements everywhere and under varied circumstances. Any rational martial artist must admit to these statistical truths once they are offered. As such, any rational martial artist that persists in believing the X% claim must do so because they trust their instructor’s personal experience, not his surveying or research abilities of actual martial events. Thus, the martial evaluation is thrown out.
Once the martial artist admits this, they now must question the instructor’s personal experience and seek a mental evaluation. This is not a rude or intrusive interrogation, merely a sound examination of his underlying principles. Might there be other reasons that a martial artist states the X% claim aside from its absolute truth? Perhaps he operates a grappling school where it is economically prudent to justify the usefulness of his art. Maybe he worked in law enforcement, where many “real-world fights” had to be resolved without grave injury to his target, necessitating a restraining and subduing approach. It is possible that his personal experience in self-defense was all against men substantially larger than him who used tackling and submission skills in order to take advantage of their size. He could even have had absolutely no personal self-defense experience, and is merely translating a truth from his days of MMA competition. Of course, there are many additional reasons why he makes the X% claim in addition to these. Notice that only two of the four are dishonest and manipulative of his students. The others are not only honest interpretations of his experiences, but are, in and of themselves, perfectly legitimate self-defense credentials. Regardless, the instructor’s experiences may differ from your own, and the reasons for which he teaches his art may differ from yours in learning it. By examining the origins of the X% claim instead of heedlessly believing it, you can make an informed decision about whether or not it is a sound statement. If, after doing so, you still find it to be accurate, that is just as commendable as deciding the contrary.
This mental evaluation will only stand if you don’t yourself fall to the other two dangers of the X% claim. Now we turn to the second, Having established that the X% claim is personally true and applicable, you, as a result, choose to pursue grappling skills. That is a fine decision. If, however, you already pursued grappling skills, then developed a desire to learn self-defense, and only then fabricated the X% claim as a justification to continue pursuing your grappling, this is a truly pernicious cause and effect relationship, and the essence of this second danger. In regards to self-defense, the true martial artist chooses the set of skills to go with the reality. They do not create realities to match their skills. I ask you to consider any martial art and answer two questions. Who designed it and what did they design it for? If no founding practitioner can be identified, how might the art have arisen?
Your answer itself does not matter, at least in regards to this inquiry. That you have an answer at all, probably an immediate one, is what is important. For every martial art, some circumstance or condition existed from which the art arose. We martial artists understand this, which is why we are quick to answer the above questions about an art’s origins, often crafting intricate collages of history and hearsay. Whether or not our answer is correct, we fully grasp that there is an important relationship between the art and the circumstances that necessitated the art. We internalized long ago that some reality preceded some martial art. When we consciously choose to override this relationship (as with the X% claim), we are not only overriding the venerable history of martial arts. We are ignoring a deep instinct. This is a foolish decision.
The third and final danger of the X% fallacy is when the claim is used only as a mask. That which is concealed is an underlying desire to use ground-fighting abilities in a self-defense situation, whether or not it is tactically prudent to do so. In my personal experience, this is an affliction common amongst martial artists who find their primary art in grappling and wrestling. Like all practitioners (more or less), they grow tremendously confident in their art and its power. It does not matter that their fantasized applications of this discipline may be wholly incongruous with its origins or purpose. Like Narcissus staring into the pond, they are captivated with their own art. Without doubt, this is by no means a phenomenon confined to grapplers. Every martial artist from every background confronts this danger, whether tae kwon do practitioners enamored with their kicks, judoka obsessed with their throws, or kali masters devoted to their blade work. It is natural to place tremendous trust in an ability that one seeks mastery in. Only when the trust is misplaced is it dangerous. Grapplers in particular tend to uphold the X% claim as a byproduct of dangerous fanaticism in their discipline. With many self-defense scenarios going to the ground, at least by their view, they are fully justified in employing their skills. Notice this is different from the second danger. With this masking danger, a martial artist truly loves their abilities, and views them as near unstoppable in any scenario. The X% claim is merely a byproduct of their fantastic application of their skills. Again, I emphasize that this enamoring is not general phenomenon confined to grapplers (or any other specific sort of martial artist that was singled out for exemplary purposes). Rather, it is a human phenomenon that a practitioner of any skill risks falling to. I further note that for those disciplines specifically mentioned by name, I neither condemn their effectiveness, nor the trust that their practitioners place in them. I simply point out that the trust is there.
My goal in writing this is to highlight three specific dangers of the fallacy, as well as broader mentalities that lead to these dangers. It is not to belittle the usefulness and importance of grappling competency in self-defense. As I stated earlier, these abilities are critical for any practitioner truly concerned with defending themselves. Regardless of the numeric value that X takes in the claim, some percent of engagements bring a risk of sending one or both combatants to the earth. That this possibility exists at all is justification to learn both what the ground game means, and a little of its language. Avoiding and countering takedowns, escapes from mount, standing up, controlling an opponent in your guard, basic understanding of certain locks and submissions, sensitivity for the movements and muscles of ground combat; any worthwhile self-defense regimen includes training in at least these few areas. To do otherwise is a peril to the practitioner. So, while the X% claim may be fallacious as a whole, it contains a fleck of truth in its underlying notion; be comfortable on the ground. I expand this fleck as such. You should be most comfortable on your feet. Be comfortable on the ground only so you survive long enough to stand up.
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Problems of Self-Defense 2
The "You are cornered" Fallacy
By Sheridan Lardner
August 2009
(This is part 2 of 3 in the series)
Here is a selection of self-defense thoughts I have encountered in my training.
1. You are walking down the street when a bunch of guys jump you.
2. You get cornered and have no choice but to fight.
3. X% (70%, 90%, 95%, etc) of all street fights go to the ground.
Some readers may read the above statements and think “these are worthwhile scenarios to train for”, or “this is important knowledge.” Others may dismiss them entirely, whether for reasons of oversimplification or lack of realism. Like in most matters, there is a middle-ground, which, also like in most matters, is the safest to take. Regarding these three specific examples, however, I prefer a bit of extremism. Yes, it is too much to categorize them as wholly fallacious, whether in the thought process that conceived them and/or in conclusions drawn thereafter. It is much fairer to say that these thoughts have the potential to lead to dire mistakes in training. Not all practitioners fall victim to this phenomenon, just as not all victims’ training suffers to the same degree. Admitting this, I still find that it is more often the case that these three thoughts tend to damage self-defense training more than help it. Focusing solely on this trio of examples, and admitting that there are countless others deserving ample discussion, I offer a set of alternative perspectives for warriors to consider in their pursuit of martial knowledge.
2. You get cornered and you have no choice but to fight.
In the public eye, the martial arts are an antiquated, even archaic, practice. Most who study them are civilians, and of those civilians, most live in developed, policed, and ordered parts of the world. The lawless and violent realms in which the martial arts arose are, for the common practitioner, a past to be read about in books and viewed upon a screen. Danger and human viciousness remain in this modern day, but for many, it is a less perilous time. This is certainly so for a nation that treasures its martial arts. The American love affair with martial arts far exceeds their present necessity in our country. Crime and violence exist, but if you compare the number of serious interpersonal crimes to the number of crimes where well-trained martial artists fended off their attacker(s), you will find a huge, but expected, disparity. As many teachers of the arts quickly point out to eager students, concerned parents, and a skeptical public, there are many other benefits of martial training beyond combat. Get in shape, make new friends, overcome your fears, build confidence, learn balance in life, craft respect and obedience, relieve and subdue stress, pursue enlightenment; it sounds like the rhetoric of a 19th century doctor vending his new miracle ointment on the street. Yet, each of us can likely add one more unique benefit of martial training to the list, one heard from television, a friend, or a teacher. And each of us also should know that the underlying, distinctly martial truth cannot be concealed.
Martial arts initially arose as a set of skills taught to a practitioner so he could come home at the end of his day, whether in his own village or out at war. No matter how many glossy curtains we drape over them, the arts remain, at their core, combat skills. These days, such skills can feel obsolete to laymen and practitioners alike. In our lawful era where combat has been needed less and less, many feel compelled to both repurpose their art and figure out a modern day application for combat skills. This idea of repurposing the art is a monster topic for another day, but at the moment, it leads us to one conclusion. Only the most historically obtuse can ignore the violent origins of martial arts. Admitting that warrior training did not always include strictly battlefield lessons (samurai were fabulous poets and impeccable hosts), any observer must still acknowledge that combat has at least a majority share in the martial arts. Even when packaging them as modern-day cure-alls like the 19th century street vendor, most contemporary martial artist have no choice but to recognize this foundation. As such, he is faced with a problem; if martial arts are largely combat skills, and combat skills are increasingly less relevant to the average prospective student, how can he sell his art? Clearly, the answer is with pitches of self-defense.
I am the first to uphold self-defense as an excellent reason to learn the arts; even if, as is often the case, a practitioner never needs to use the skills they are taught. Those instructors who focus on the self-defense aspect of martial training are by no means inherently charlatans; the ability to defend oneself has always been a result of training. But, if, in the process of selling their art as “self-defense”, an instructor provides harmful advice and assumptions, they are no better than the 19th century trickster. “You get cornered and you have no choice but to fight” is one such assumption.
In an effort to increase the relevance of their knowledge, the teacher sets up his self-defense scenarios such that his instruction and his instruction alone is going to get you out of there alive. According to these tricksters, the present world might be better policed than it once was, and people might be less likely to act violently, but when that danger comes in the form of fists or knives, you are hopelessly screwed unless you know how to fight. This is a clever solution to the problem of martial art relevancy. Holistically, the arts may be less useful, but when you do finally need them, absolutely nothing else will be able to save you.
Before proceeding, I must acknowledge that an inability to flee is a definite possibility in any self-defense engagement. Sometimes there are other existences at stake apart from your own, and to run is to forfeit them. Sometimes your opponent desires your injury or death so greatly that escape is impossible. Sometimes you actually are physically trapped. Scenarios do indeed exist in which the statement “you get cornered and have no choice but to fight” is frighteningly true.
The charlatan instructors and martial artists, however, do not recognize the distinction between fights in which you can flee, and those in which you cannot. To them, all fights are unavoidable. Their self-defense instruction is grounded in the conclusion that an exchange of blows is always inevitable. It is evident that you fight how you train (and I will not plunge into the science behind this truth here). If you always train with the no-escape mentality, you will always fight with the no-escape mentality. You will look upon potential conflicts with the no-escape mentality, a mindset that fighting is immediately predestined and it is merely a matter of who wallops first. This leads you to exclude those tactically sound choices ranging from the classic “just walk away” maneuver that your mother taught you, to the “grab your friends and weapons from the car” option that she certainly did not. Even once combat begins, rapid escape is often the best plan, not some colossal entanglement of flailing arms and legs on the ground. The warrior that does not practice disengagement will be unable to employ it when it is required. None of this is to say that head-on engagement is not a possible solution to these problems. Merely, that it is often not the best (not even close).
When training assumes an inescapable conflict, the trainee never learns to actually escape. One might counter that this is a ridiculous statement, for it is deeply instinctual to flee from danger. True, the untrained who encounter danger will certainly make a speedy exit, but martial arts training override these instincts with new ones. A kickboxer has ingrained the muscle memory of a powerful roundhouse, just as a boxer can summon a jaw-shattering hook on command. Similarly, if a martial artist is trained and told time and time again to fight in the face of danger, he will do so when the time comes. The “no-escape” fallacy tricks its adherents into believing that they are always cornered. Whenever they train, the assumption burrowed into their head is “I am trapped and have no choice but to fight.” When a situation arises outside of the gym, they will not look for methods of de-escalation, avenues of escape, and quick plans of disengagement. Instead, they may try and justify their situation as inescapable. I am walking on a sidewalk when three young men confront me. “There are three of them and they are huge. No way I am getting out of here without a fight.” Except, I am on a sidewalk. Turning around and running is a perfectly feasible option. “I accidentally bump someone in a bar and he gets mad. What’s my defense against his punches?” Perhaps a fair question, but assuming the leap from bump to battle is absurd; if every accidental touch sparked a fight, every barroom would look like a Caribbean pirate tavern. Those who always assume the inevitability of a fight do not look to calm a situation down, escape combat before it begins, or disengage quickly once blows are exchanged.
The no-escape mentality arises from a need by martial artists to justify a supposedly antiquated art. If self-defense situations can only be solved with violence, then these practitioners now hold the golden key to survival in the world. Not only do they rise above their allegations of obsolescence, but they elevate themselves as possessing a skill that is absolutely necessary. In reality, they train themselves and their students to assume a fight cannot be escaped. They will not deescalate, they will not escape, and they will not rapidly disengage. This is bad self-defense and bad martial arts.
In the previous essay on self-defense fallacies, I discussed that self-defense should teach to avoid scenarios in which their skills might be called upon. The no-escape mentality is fallacious for a similar, but separate, reason. Now, I assume that combat was not initially avoided, and its threat hangs heavy over a practitioner’s head. If possessing a no-escape mentality, the martial artist will plunge into the fight without considering de-escalation or escape. Once in the fight, they may be more concerned with fighting than with extricating themselves from the situation. This is incredibly harmful to true self-defense.
Before ending, I must restate an earlier qualification. There are engagements that cannot be avoided. In addition to those self-defense oriented ones I mentioned, there are also those encountered on the offensive. When you attack, whether as a soldier removing an enemy sentry, a law enforcement officer executing a warrant, or a bystander interrupting a crime in progress, this is a sort of unavoidable fight. In part, the no-escape mentality remains undesirable; rapid disengagement is still an ideal tactic. Should these offensive scenarios be encountered by the martial artist, he must heed the advice of those warriors who preceded him of swift, decisive, and final action.
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Problems of Self-Defense 1
The "You are walking down the street" Fallacy
By Sheridan Lardner
July 2009
(This is part 1 of 3 in the series)
Here is a selection of self-defense thoughts I have encountered in my training.
1. You are walking down the street when a bunch of guys jump you.
2. You get cornered and have no choice but to fight.
3. X% (70%, 90%, 95%, etc) of all street fights go to the ground.
Some readers may read the above statements and think “these are worthwhile scenarios to train for”, or “this is important knowledge.” Others may dismiss them entirely, whether for reasons of oversimplification or lack of realism. Like in most matters, there is a middle-ground, which, also like in most matters, is the safest to take. Regarding these three specific examples, however, I prefer a bit of extremism. Yes, it is too much to categorize them as wholly fallacious, whether in the thought process that conceived them and/or in conclusions drawn thereafter. It is much fairer to say that these thoughts have the potential to lead to dire mistakes in training. Not all practitioners fall victim to this phenomenon, just as not all victims’ training suffers to the same degree. Admitting this, I still find that it is more often the case that these three thoughts tend to damage self-defense training more than help it. Focusing solely on this trio of examples, and admitting that there are countless others deserving ample discussion, I offer a set of alternative perspectives for warriors to consider in their pursuit of martial knowledge.
1. You are walking down the street when a bunch of guys jump you.
This is a classically templated introduction to any self-defense lesson, one that martial artists have probably encountered in their classes at one point in time. From here, an instructor can bring on any attacker and attacking implement and counter with any technique to whatever degree of specificity or generalness they want; “You are leaving a party and get attacked,” “You are walking to your car and someone demands your keys at gunpoint,” “You wake up from your bed to find six ninjas materialized in your room, each wielding a unique assassin weapon.” Many self-defense classes simply have such a statement, and its infinite variations, hanging over the seminar as a foundational martial assumption, like a malformed stone idol perching atop a hill overlooking a village below. No matter what the members of that village do, they know to do so in consideration of their idol. Similarly, no matter what martial artists do in a self-defense class, they turn to this sort of scenario as the underlying (or overlording, as is more aptly the case) heart of the matter.
As those who know me will attest to, I have nothing against villages and their ghastly stone watchers (quite the opposite, in fact). In training to defend oneself from an attack, however, the idol’s equivalent must be done away with. The “walking down the street” scenario, in any of the above forms or their alternate faces, teaches students a dangerous lesson; that confrontation is inevitable. Additional criticism might extend to the scenario’s absurd simplicity, stereotyping effects, unrealism, commonality, and any number of other aspects; for now, I focus only on this one problem of inevitable conflict mentioned above.
Common question: what happens if someone robs/attacks/assaults me? Uncommon question: why would I be in an area where I know people rob/attack/assault each other? It is not a given of self-defense that you are in a dangerous situation. While self-defense training should eventually proceed to that situation, instruction must begin in how not to be where danger occurs. This extends beyond common sense of avoiding poorly lit areas, walking on publicly occupied streets, staying out of the bad parts of town, and so on. That is civilian advice. Everyone from your mother to your college security officers has told it to you, and self-defense classes should not need to pick up the slack. Martial artists learn a greater sense of world and human awareness. Do not think of this as transcendental, Zen, praying-in-the-mountain dogma (not that this is valueless). It simply means attunement to your environment and to those that inhabit it.
Enter my eyes for a brief illustration while you join me on a street I was on the other day. Do not just see light and shadows, bustling or vacant, high crime or low crime. See the long stretch of construction fence on the right side of the road, creating a wall between the sidewalk and the street; a virtual corridor from which there is only one entrance and one exit. Observe the five people sitting quietly in the parked car only ten feet ahead. On the right-hand sidewalk, about half a block down, three men are walking in our direction. On the left-hand sidewalk at the block’s end, ten people lounge on the front steps of a convenience store. The intersection up ahead is busier than the one we just came from, and high on a lamppost, a flashing blue light indicates the presence of a police surveillance camera. About half of the buildings on the block are boarded up and covered in years of graffiti. We heard the sitting group’s shouting and conversation from almost two blocks away; now that we are closer, does it sound rowdy and prepared to instigate trouble, friendly and welcoming, or some unclear combination of the two? Look at how the three men carry themselves, and compare it to people we personally know. Do they stride with arrogance and bluster, like a cohort of fraternity party regulars, or are they casual and engaged, like high school students discussing daily gossip? About twenty feet behind us, there’s a man walking in a black hooded jacket. Is it too warm for most people to be wearing such an outfit? Or is the jacket thinner than it appears from this distance, perhaps a piece of a gym outfit?
Proper self-defense distinguishes between debilitating paranoia and enabling awareness. A truly paranoid person would be unable to within miles of any situation remotely similar to that described above. An aware person would just be ready. What is good self-defense? Good self-defense is not thinking “That guy in the jacket probably has a gun. What do I do if he draws it and demands my money” or “Those three guys look like trouble. What will I do if they hassle me?” In both thoughts, the confrontation has already been assumed. Good self-defense begins with attunement to your surroundings, in this case so as to avoid the initial conflict. Does any part of the scenario have an ill feel to it? Turn around. Take another street. Avoid the cause of your unease. Just like in Star Wars, whenever a character mentions that they “have a bad feeling about this”, the instinct turns out to be correct.
Training attunement is a matter of habituation and experience. The habituation side is easy. Whenever you enter a new setting, look for blind areas, places where you cannot see the entrance and those in the entrance cannot see you. Look for other exits, whether windows, doors, staircases, handicap lifts, or anything else. Think of the absolute worst part of the area you could be in if a situation erupted (Thinking of lots of situations? Think of lots of different parts of the area too). Some might contest that this is an exercise in wanton paranoia that’s only result is to fill you with anxiety and worry. This stance only serves to highlight a difference between the civilian mindset and the martial artist mindset. To the civilian, any degree of preparedness or perception is interpreted as laughable paranoia. To the practitioner, while there is still such a thing as TOO aware, attunement to the environment is the standard.
Experience is a bit harder. In order to know how a potential threat walks, stands, talks with friends, and so on, you have to be exposed to them on a regular basis. While some careers have this luxury, if it can be called that, most do not. Soldiers, police, correctional officers, security guards, doctors, lawyers, and many others are peculiarly positioned to attain direct experience with threats. This leaves the rest of us to extrapolate from our own lives. What do you do when you are upset? What do your friends and family do? Ignore the obvious signs (“RAWR I AM MAD”) and look at the subtler ones. If you know your friend from down the hall has a tendency to get extremely loud and playful as he works himself into an increasingly incendiary mood, make a note of that. If you know three different people who are perfectly benign on their own, but, when united, form a coalition of chaos, remember that too. While there rarely is a substitute for direct experience, extrapolation from your own vast personal history can be equally useful in describing a larger principle.
The flaw in the “you are walking down the street” fallacy comes in the assumption of conflict. Self-defense should not assume this. It should teach students how to intelligently and capably avoid scenarios where their martial prowess might be called upon.
By way of conclusion, I offer a suggestive qualification. There is a difference between attunement as used by a civilian and attunement as used by a warrior. A civilian uses their attunement in a situation to avoid conflict. While a warrior might use their own attunement to such an end, more often they direct it towards the swift and successful resolution of conflict, not to its avoidance. That is because warriors pursue an existence where conflict is an overwhelming likelihood, if not already a forgone inevitability. Such a professional might look down our previously mentioned street, see exactly what was physically described, and reach conclusions many would not consider in a lifetime. When the battlefield is your home, your home appears increasingly like a battlefield.
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Axioms Part One
Proper Training
By Sheridan Lardner
Spring 2009
The First Axiom
Make the martial art your own.
The Second Axiom
Do not dismiss a lesson as incorrect due to contrariness or discomfort.
The Third Axiom
Never train in a vacuum.
Elaborations on the Above Axioms
The First Axiom
Just because a technique or concept works for someone else, does not mean it will, or even must, work for you. Moreover, just because a teacher says a lesson means one thing, does not mean that this lesson cannot mean much more.
Nature affords ample proof of radically differing capability, both mental and material, between and amongst all organisms, humans not excepted. Consider more traditional martial arts, offering the forms/patterns/katas/etc. as veritable encyclopedias of techniques and combinations. Every movement, and series of movements, demands individual interpretation for each unique practitioner. A teacher instructs his students that the block and kick combination are a literal counterattack to a charge, but one of his pupils may visualize it as a maneuver setting up a throw. Another still might translate the block into a strike with a knife in hand, and yet another might see it as useful primarily against that same knife. Admitting that there may exist such a singularly brilliant teacher, the probability of encountering this hypothetical paragon is unrealistically low. If such a man existed, perhaps his lessons could be zealously, even religiously, followed. Until history or personal intuition reveals such an example, however, do not slavishly follow a teacher. So long as you analyze and understand his lessons with solid martial and mechanical principles, that is to say, you have a decent grasp of the matter at hand, a student’s opinion is no more or less valuable than a teacher’s. Strike a balance between acceptance and modification. Absorb his experience, but do not let it drown your own.
The Second Axiom
Should you question the lessons of your teachers? Absolutely. Should you subsequently dismiss or modify them? Yes, but only if it is for a solid martial, mechanical, or mental principle. For no other reason should you brush aside the teachings of an evidently capable martial artist.
This is a natural worry following from the First Axiom, comprised of two distinctive problems. Some students believe that in the process of making a martial art their own, they must cast away their lessons solely for the sake of appearing different. They have arrived at no reasoned conclusion to suggest there is anything wrong with their knowledge or advice. Simply, they desire to strike out against tradition. There is something to be said about upending conventions, as many modern ones are only the culmination of bad habits and meritless ideology. But students must dismiss only on the strict demerits of an idea, not on the merits of appearing different. Imagine a practitioner who does not train in grappling because it is such a common aspect of most contemporary martial arts; he wants his system to appear different. As such, he advertises it as a style so powerful in its strikes that it fells its opponents before they reach grabbing range. This false teacher cares only for facade, not for utility. The disservice he commits for both himself and, most perniciously, his students is wholly condemnable. He has not founded his actions on solid principles: for example, developing a stance that renders it impossible to be grabbed or taken down. Rather, he has fallen for the weak principle of difference for difference’s sake.
Another way that counterfeit martial artists purport to make an art their own is through the pressure of discomfort. Often it occurs that a student is too uncomfortable, physically and/or mentally, to conduct a technique or consider a possibility. It is most commendable if he works through this uneasiness. Alternately, it is folly to crumble to discomfort, ignore the lesson, and rationalize that the lesson is not important. This is a frightfully common plague in modern martial arts. I offer the following by way of illustration, admitting that neither example is any worse than another, and that many further demonstrative cases have been overlooked. Tae Kwon Do and Karate, as I have experienced them, unfailingly ignore grappling techniques in the perilous hope that their strikes guard against the ground situation. In and of itself, this is not a bad thing. A martial artist training for tournaments that specifically disqualify grappling does not actually need those techniques. Yet, when a martial art claims to be concerned with self-defense, and voluntarily ignores the ground-fighting aspect of self-defense, this is a problem. Students, and oftentimes teachers, of these specific arts are not comfortable with grappling, and thus rationalize its ignorance into their system. As another illustrative example, consider mixed martial arts (MMA) in its modern form, that presented on television and as reality self-defense. By my personal experience, MMA practitioners are woefully unequipped to handle weapon deployment. They are eager to go to the ground with their formidable jujitsu abilities, but do so without worry or consideration of a possible weapon. Again, if they are training solely for competition, this is not an issue. If, however, self-defense is an ancillary goal, as often it is, then must reconsider going to ground against an opponent with a knife. Dismissing this possibility solely because it is a scenario that invalidates much of their training, philosophy, and confidence is a truly dangerous practice.
The Third Axiom
Insulation does not aid martial artists. Students seek out masters, so as to expand their experience and broaden their knowledge. Do not stop at that first expansion. Train and learn without limitations, whether physical, intellectual, environmental, or any other.
Generic self-defense scenario: you are walking down the sidewalk on a warm summer day when two guys jump you. Ignoring the absurdity of the situation, its absurdity admittedly a topic for another day, consider your possible reactions. Every single martial artist on this earth, student and teacher alike, has advice to give regarding this encounter. Some have enough advice to give for ten of them. Maybe you kick one to get distance and start punching the other. Perhaps you grab one, using him as a shield from the other. You might just run away, or you might whip out your knife. Whatever you choose to do (this author is curious how you got in this situation at all), you will probably train this reaction in class. Improving muscle memory, reaction, stress-coping, and many other qualities is done through training, training, and more training. But too often it is training conducted in a vacuum. Given this opening scenario, what deviant logical process caused you to drill your reaction, regardless of what it is, in a gym setting? Yes, it is wise to begin your training process in a comfortable and familiar setting, but too many martial artists imprison themselves there. Practice on the sidewalk in hot weather wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Give yourself a backpack, replace your shoes with sandal, put some sunglasses on. Try it in the rain, at night, in the wind, and in a crowd of people. Will you touch on every possible variation of the scenario? Likely not. Will you have drastically broadened your experience beyond the vacuum of a gym, and thus be far more prepared? Certainly.