Counter Ambush Training

In a previous post I mentioned I would share tips on how to adapt martial arts training (dojo) to deal with real world violence.

Please read the article above for an example of real world violence

Do you train for attacks from the rear (I know that is illegal in competition)?

If so do you practice against ambush attacks? (the way attacks happen / knives are used in the world)?

Or do you only work defenses against attacks in your kata after your partner announces exactly what attack he will do?

I don’t care if you are a 15^th degree black belt in Ninpo (that’s ninjutsu [art of the ninja] for you civilians), A Jedi knight or a level 7 laser lord, you cannot predict an ambush attack especially form the rear

Insert link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLvOZ1O96Jo

Violence happens harder,closer,faster, than in the dojo and by surprise

Action is always faster than reaction.

An attack (action) is instant.  A defense requires:

Observe – Your senses perceive an attack

Orient – Your brain has to take the information from your senses and recognize that as a threat.  Oh he is throwing a punch

Decide – Your brain has to search through al your training to pick the best block for that specific attack

Act – actually do what you decided

To get caught up, get ahead in the OODA loop you need to ingrain a counter ambush response

                        Threat                                                  You

                        Attack                                                Observe

                                                                                  Act(ingrained counter ambush)

                        Observe                                             Take what ever is “gifted”

                        Observe                                             End confrontation(It’s over in 3)

                        Orient (What the fuck just happened?)

So how do you develop your own counter ambush training?  Let’s start with counter ambush from front attacks.  Take your favorite / best block or evasion from an attack from the front kick, punch, grab, whatever. The technique should protect your head, ribs, and groin.  For example if the move is a kick defense make sure your head is protected as well.

Make sure it meets the “building codes” of delivering force into your attacker

http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/Power.htm#maritalarts

Then make sure that technique meets Rory Miller’s Golden Standard.  The technique should

Improve your position (That means you have to move dumb, dumb)

“Best way to block, no be there” Mister Myagi

Worsen the their position

Protects you from damage

Allows you to damage them.

Once you have a technique that does all the above and can be done in one motion (thought).  You need to test it.  Have a training partner stand closer than you are accustomed to and attack with out warning any attack from the front.  As soon as you perceive his attack do the move.  It won’t be perfect but it should defeat the majority of what ever they throw at you.  Train for what happens most and you can handle most of what happens.  This technique has to work with out modification to any specific attack because you won’t know what they are throwing at you. 

Now do the same process for an attack from the rear.  Yes you may get stabbed in the back like the kid in the story.  But it is better to get stabbed once and put the threat down than to get stabbed 5-8 times in a blitz attack because you did nothing.

After you have adapted the technique that works and passed the tests you need to condition yourself to respond that way automatically to any front attack stimuli.  And to respond  automatically to any rear attack stimuli (effectively narrowing down your response choices down to 2) But that is a blog for another day (or just read Rory Miller’s “Meditations on violence”)

Boy attacked at random with edged weapon

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=7715218

Please check out the above link for the video.

WESTBURY (WABC) -- It's supposed to be a place to play. Instead, a child became a victim of violence at a Long Island Dave and Buster's. Evan Sachs, 23, of Merrick was arraigned on charges that include attempted murder Saturday.

Police say Sachs attacked an 8-year-old boy with a hunting knife inside a Dave and Buster's restaurant in Westbury, Long Island.
It happened around 8:30 Friday night.

Witnesses say the boy was stabbed while playing a game at the restaurant.

Authorities say the 23-year-old attacker picked the boy out at random and stabbed him five times in the back.
"The boy staggers away from this man back towards his mother and says that someone just hit or tapped him on the back and then he collapses," Lt. Kevin Smith from the Nassasu County Police Department said.
The boy, who is from North Hempstead, remains in the hospital with stab wounds and a punctured lung. Police say he is in stable condition.
The boy had been at the restaurant with his father.
Police wouldn't immediately say what provoked the attack.
At Sachs' arraignment, prosecutors said he confessed and even had a note on him Friday night describing how he intended to commit the crime.
Sachs' attorney says his client was on at least five different medications and needs psychiatric evaluation.

Dave and Buster's said in a statement that it is cooperating with investigators regarding the incident.

(Copyright ©2010 WABC-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)

Bud Light™ The Raid • Here We Go 2010 This is an example of not covering your areas or responsibility

Different perspective

Today's blog I'd like to discuss some training concepts that have worked for me with the SWAT team.  For operational security I can't get into specific drills or tactics but the general training concepts can be applied by anyone interested. 

On Thursday I had the team break up into three groups.  Instead of having each team work different scenarios or a specific critical skill I had all three groups working the scenario.  Team 1 as operators, Team 2 on deck / recovery.  Team 3 were to be the physical representations of an unknown threat.  I told team 3 they were not role players per say.  They would not be arrested nor were they to attack the Operators.  I told them play the role of a former SWAT Operator, or returning military vet.  For what ever reasons the SWAT team was called to arrest you.  Knowing what you know about urban combat tactics how would you kill a SWAT teaming coming into your house.

This is where operational security kicks in ( guys on the team tend to get pissed if you give explicit instructions on how to defeat their tactics and kill them on the interwebs :) )

The training effect was that things became more "real".  If an operator didn't cover an unknown threat in his area of responsibility there was an a teammate there ( physical representations ) to tell him dude, you're dead and so is he because he counted on you to clear this area.

The scenarios were ended with a peer review de-brief.  Instead of me correcting the new Operators, the observation team and their own team gave feedback.  If necessary "ground hogs day" was conducted (the exact same scenario again right away) to eliminate negatives from training and inculcate successful responses to that scenario.

Training went very well and good progress was made.  It was also very helpful to have lots of senior Operators at training to role model good tactics and act as mentors.

So how is this applicable to you good reader???

A couple drills / training concepts you can take from this:

How would you fight you?  Ever play one of those fighting video game where eventually you have to fight the character you are playing?  That has all the same moves, powers, and knows all your tricks, that round always sucks right?  So play that game with yourself - AND BE HONEST.  How would you beat you?  Your thought process might go something like this :
A) My kicking is really strong to to beat myself (if you just made a masturbation joke please grow up :) ) I'd need to get in close where my kicks don't have room to generate power.

B) My grappling is really strong, I'd never want to get into a wrestling match with me so I would try to keep distance and end me with striking

C) I have never trained on the ground ever If I had to fight myself I'd put me on the ground

That exercise will expose your weaknesses.  It is your responsibility to strengthen those weaknesses.  If your school /Dojo doesn't train in the area you have weakness you will need to supplement your training.  If your Sensei / Instructor does not allow that seriously consider a new Dojo.  Also remember this is 21 century America not Japan 1890.  Your Sensei is not your  master nor your feudal lord.  Your Sensei has no control of you outside the time you spend in the Dojo.  If they try to extend that control outside the Dojo something is wrong with that relationship.

I'm starting to creep off topic here.  I promise I'll get back to what you can learn from SWAT training but 1st an important distinction.

Do not be a Jack of all trades master of none.  To play the how would I beat me game you need some frame of reference.  If your answer to that question is I have no training I'd fight me.  Your answer is to do research on the different training available in your area, test out those schools and see which one you like.  Spend 3 years training regularly.  Then play the game again.  You can't address your weaknesses until you develop some strengths.  What I mean by  Jack of all trades master of none is a guy who takes a month of Tae Kwon Do, thinks he knows every thing about it then moves on to take a quarter of Judo at the community college, thinks that makes him Kano jr so goes on to yet another usually the buzz word art of the month that is far superior to every art he has spent 30 minutes mastering.  Jack is way different than someone who finds an art that fits their body type, personality, and they enjoy doing.  (Side note when people ask me what is the best art my 1st answer is Keishoukan Budo / Taihojutsu because that's how I roll - then my more honest answer is any art you will enjoy training in the rest of your life)  After training in that art for years then you can make an educated decision about supplemental training.

OK back on topic
Predator vision
In the movie Predator or many other horror movies sometimes you get to see through the killers eyes.

The drill  - go where there are lots of different people.  Ask yourself who would you attact? why?where?

Then practice doing the opposite of the whys, and avoiding the wheres.

Real World Violence - Why we train

http://kstp.com/news/stories/s1777625.shtml


‎"I'm going to kill you, you're gonna die today" - Cop Killer
Hear that voice every time you don't feel like:
Going the range
Going to the Dojo
Working out

Real World Violence

Before I get into today’s Budo Blog let me start by stating that I am not second guessing, judging or questioning the victim.  I was not there, I received this information from a news article.  I don’t know the whole story.  I hate when people second guess cops and I will not do that to others.  Having said that please read the following article from the New York Times

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/man_stabbed_during_early_morning_u1casI14SfLzOR0wotz7mM 

There are questions you must ask yourself

Are you training – Avoidance, Running (Escape / Evade), De-escalation?  Or only how to fight, and if so do you consider earning points in a tournament fighting?

Are you training how violence actually happens?  Or are you training only attacks from with in your system that you have defenses against in your kata?

Are you training in the world?  Or does all of your training take place in a Dojo, on mats, barefoot, and in a Gi?

If the answers are no, then what are you going to do about it?

If the answers are no, do you believe you have done any better? 

Would the headline read: “Martial arts super hero kicks ass and gets laid”?

There comes a time in the life of every martial artist when these questions must be asked.  More than likely the answer is going to be no.  That is fine, but it is your responsibility to change those no’s to yes’s.  There is no one superior art.  I am not telling you to abandon what you have learned.  I am however, saying with out a doubt you need to adapt what you know to work in the “real world”

Having said that, my next several posts will be on how you can make those adaptations to your own training so you meet the “building codes”

The art of fighting with out fighting

I had the honor of reading an early copy of Rory Miller’s book “7” (I think it has a different title now).  Fantastic book, which really got me thinking about how martial art is taught.  I want you all to buy the book when it comes out and I don’t want to give anything away or step on Rory’s intellectual property.  But as the name of the book indicates there are seven basic principles to dealing with violence.  As I see it most training programs (mine included) focus almost solely on one and pays only lip service to the other six.  Again not to give anything away, lets use an often quoted verse from “Meditations on violence” to make my point.

“It is better to avoid than run, better to run than deescalate, better to deescalate than fight, better to fight than die”

Good programs spend a lot of time on fighting and not dying.  But what about the rest?  I have quoted that line above 100’s of times but I have never had my students practice avoiding, running, or de-escalation.  It goes something like this:

“It is better to avoid than run, better to run than deescalate, better to deescalate than fight, better to fight than die…O.K. so when you get into a fight you do this, that, the other  - Hiyaa JUDO CHOP!!!!”

If we tell our students to Avoid, run, deescalate, but never practice avoiding, running, or de-escalation and we teach them they shouldn’t get into fights but spend a ton of time teaching them how to fight are we really giving them permission to run?  Are we conditioning them to see fighting as the only option?  People will always believe actions over words.  The way I see it, that is like talking to your daughter about abstinence, then handing her a condom and some KY.  “Have fun on your date be home by 10, I love you honey.”

Well that is about to change.  I am developing a series of 3 seminars using “7” as a text book.  The goal is not only to have a better understanding of the seven concepts academically, but to actually practice those concepts tactically to supplement regular Dojo training.  While not a prerequisite for training at my Dojo, knowledge of the material will be on all kyu / dan tests making it mandatory.  Although geared for my students I will make these seminars open to anyone who wants to attend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_Ycw0d_Uow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JncalcWHTNo&feature=related

I have included two you tube videos for illustrative and entertainment purposes.  The first, Bruce Lee is a true pacifist.  He chose not to fight in order to spare the other dude’s life (when two tigers fight one dies…the other is injured).  The second, Johnny is forced into pacificism because if not he would get his ass kicked.  In the web, whom does God favor more the spider or the fly?  Who really needs to master the art of fighting with out fighting?  Bruce Lee or Johnny?  We all need to master that art but I would postulate that it is even more critical for beginning  / inexperienced students.  The art of fighting with out fighting will allow them to live long enough to avoid violence because they want to not necessarily because they have to