Evolutionary Self-Protection

On our Facebook page today I made a tongue-in-cheek reference to the eclipse this morning, saying that they’re a portent of epic things to come.

I wasn’t wrong. This week’s session was phenomenal.

A warm welcome to another new member who is already experienced in Filipino martial arts, JKD, BJJ and KFM. We love it when people come who are already experienced martial artists, as they always have something new and fresh to bring to the table. By the same token, it was great to have our friendly neighbourhood Samurai with us again showing off some incredible Jujutsu skills on the ground!

This week, we’d been double-booked by our new venue. As there was an annual event going on in the hall, we were told we couldn’t train. This, of course, is not how we roll so I asked if we could use the small back room instead. The result was a very enjoyable shake-up to how we normally train!

The funny thing is, I’d planned a session focussed on close-quarters stuff!

To start, we warmed up with some partner work:

• Pushes and strikes for relaxed movement and footwork.
• Positioning for control: controlling a partner’s arm and following up with strikes and takedowns.
  • Recap: forwards and backwards fall absorption and efficient takedowns by manipulating the spine that we looked at last week.

Then we got onto some more in-depth partner work in close quarters:

• Person A grabs Person B’s shirt and punches him in the face. Classic angry man outside the chippie style.
  • Person B uses positioning, footwork and parrying or blocking (depending on angle) to move IN to the attacker and gain control of their posture.
  • Person B takes Person A to the floor.
  • Progression 1: Person B then tries to kick and stamp on their partner, who climbs up them (as we did the other week) in order to prevent this rather unpleasant treatment and maintain control in the process.
  • Progression 2: Person A takes Person B down. Person B climbs up Person A and takes him down. Continuous with quick changes of partners at unexpected moments!

Of course, as always we respect the reiterate the Force Continuum: we’re using the stamping and kicking here as a tool to explore how to deal with that kind of assault, not necessarily as a recommended followup once you’ve taken an attacker down!

Padwork in close quarters (ranges 2 and 3):

• Hook punches, palm strikes and hammer fists starting with the striking hand on one pad, enforcing a short distance within which you can accelerate.
  • Relaxed movement and footwork to generate power.
• Short elbow strikes from a reference point:
  • From the fence, front hand is the reference point.
  • Collapse the arm and step forward quickly, striking with the elbow.
• Proactive targeting: Don’t just wait for a target to present itself! Make your own opportunities. Grab the pad and move it to where you want it. Grab the head and turn the face away, etc.

Don’t be reactive. Be proactive.

Edged weapons:

• A common modus operandi for stabbings: grab and stab (linked to the previous grab and punch).
• Using this as a framework (lead hand grab, frenzied stabbing with the rear hand towards anywhere in the torso), we explored how to increase our chances of surviving.
  • Drill 1: knife acclimatisation. 
    • Moving parts of the body away from the blade in order to limit the chance and seriousness of injury.
    • Awareness of which parts of the body to be particularly wary of protecting.
    • Awareness of where the knife is and what it’s doing.
  • Drill 2: grab and stab, grip and control development.
    • Person A grabs Person B as before and stabs towards the stomach with their rear hand.
    • Person B responds the moment he’s grabbed – immediately – and moves his torso away while intercepting the other arm. It could be a stab or a punch, or he could be reaching for a gun, or anything – right now, it doesn’t matter. Intercept that arm.
    • The stab comes, but is parried by that intercepting arm. Person B grabs onto the attacking arm and controls it close to their chest using both hands. The knife is pointing away from them and the arm is secure.
      •  …or is it? Person A tests the grip by violently shaking their arm and trying to free it. Maximum force, absolute ferocity.
        •  With a high COM (Centre of Mass), you can be moved around easily. The further you are from their shoulder, the easier you are to ‘rag around’ and take off-balance. It takes great footwork to keep up with this. Drop your COM a little with a slight bend in your knees (keep good posture though) and sink yourself in close to the attacker’s shoulder and you can resist their efforts much more efficiently.
          • Today’s (O_o) face goes to Dave for full-on picking me up in the air in the process of demonstrating this!
      • If you don’t get stabbed and cut up, you secured the arm. If not, you didn’t!
  • Drill 3: grab and stab, followup from control.
    • Once we established how to achieve and maintain control with a non-compliant partner ragging you around, we looked at what to do from there.
      • Striking options: quickly striking when opportunities are present and returning to controlling the weapon.
        • Striking without letting go: using the shoulders, head and feet to strike while keeping full control of the armed arm (pun intended).
      • Takedowns: risky but potentially viable. Take their balance by manipulating the spine.
      • Disarming: keep it simple and stupid. Smash their arm until they let go, or keep two-handed control of the arm and smash the back of the hand into a wall if there’s one there.
        • If you end up on the floor, smash the hand into the floor. You can also pin the arm using your leg while you do what you need to.
    • Again, the Force Continuum has to be reiterated. Don’t just default to grabbing the knife and carving your name into their chest! If you can avoid using excessive levels of force, and this is entirely dependent on the situation and all its infinite variables, then you should.
  • Drill 4: exploring parrying and striking simultaneously.
    • Person A stabs Person B as before, but wears a focus mitt so Person B can strike while simultaneously dealing with the blade and going for the control, etc. A useful little drill.

To finish, we did some basic breathwork drills (which we’ll return to next week…) and tension & relaxation work, along with percussive massage.

This week’s session was incredible. An awesome turnout, another new member and the return of recent new members as well as our seasoned warriors. The atmosphere was fantastic, the skill and effort I saw in everyone was unbelievable, and it was incredibly enjoyable to train with you all as it always is.

See you next week! We’re back in the usual hall from next week onwards, though that room is always there if we want it…

-Josh Nixon

All the details of this class are on the Public Classes page up at the top. Your first session is FREE and all are welcome to come along and take part. Every session is beginner-friendly.