Ever heard the term know your enemy? Does any effective law enforcement team ever raid a suspect’s location without information concerning any occupants who might present threats to their safety? No, because casualties teach hard lessons. How much do you know about the modus operandi of your personal potential threats? I class a real threat as being one that has three key elements present, namely capability, opportunity and intent. To constitute a threat all three elements must be evident. Effective threat management revolves around greatly reducing or removing one or more of these elements, usually opportunity (as this is the element that the threatened party usually has the most control over). Of the three, the element that scares me every time is intent. Where real intent to harm is present, capability and opportunity can usually be found nearby. Actually facing a man, or woman, who has a fully determined and highly committed intention to harm you, is unlike anything that can be accurately expressed in words. Some of you know what I’m referring to and I salute you, for you too have been in the wrong place at the wrong time!
Do you study and compare relevant incidents of violence? No? Why not? How do you know what to train for? It’s important to do your homework; never just assume to know the real deal about the nature of this particularly ugly beast. Compare the sterile conditions demonstrated by countless book / magazine / video sequences, to available footage showing incidents of football thug violence and CCTV scenes of petrol station robberies and so on. Ask yourself, and others, if your system, style or method would stand up to be counted upon in these circumstances. More importantly ask yourself the most damning question, regardless of your expertise, would you stand up personally under these same conditions? This is the crux of many a real fight. When the heat is on full, do you melt, or do you set? Incidentally if you really are serious about training in self-protection it is well worth setting your VCR to record as many Crimewatch / Cops type programmes as possible, even better if you can edit the relevant footage onto one tape for easier analysis. Such material is invaluable to get a feel for what you might have to face worst case. Know your enemies and their capabilities, before they get to know you and yours.
Never overestimate your chances of survival in someone else’s world, especially if they happen to be further up the food chain than you! Sounds bleak? It is. Real fighting is not a game, there’s no winners or losers, that’s for sports. In real combat you have only those that live to tell the tale and those that do not. Know your limitations and work with them, they in turn will highlight and guide your strengths. Certain factors will always assist survival in combat; surprise, aggression and commitment are to name but a few. Again, combat is combat, it is a simple horrible affair in essence. Look for training that has its roots in combat, not art or sport. Real contemporary combat that is; not ancient warfare, competition, or creative expression (no matter how martial it may be).
I can sense the scorn pouring forth from the outraged martial artists, but art is art and war is war – martial arts are no longer the military skills they used to be or the term wouldn’t have changed would it? Bear with me on this point; I am only referring to combative methods, not martial arts. I have absolutely no criticism of any classical system in its pure form; my only concern is with those that advertise ‘street self defence’ or the like, in an attempt to hop on the ‘realistic’ bandwagon. All classical and sporting styles can be made to work for real, but this is often down to the individual, not the style.
During my time in the military, I was heavily involved in the teaching of restraint and arrest techniques, and various close combat tactics. These I taught to select personnel within the UK and US armed forces, and a variety of non-military individuals and groups, ranging from nursing staff to police officers. Too many times, I observed guest instructors attempting to ‘teach’ experienced operational personnel seemingly amazing methods of unarmed and armed deadliness. Such lunacy was often jokingly referred to as ‘Nocandu’ as a direct derogatory reference to its impracticality! More often than not, the ‘students’ had forgotten far more about the subject of combat than the guest instructor would ever know. Generally they were actively involved in regular live encounters, whereas the ‘expert’ probably never left the safety of his or her own students and syllabus. True military close combat training isn’t simply khaki karate. It’s another base military skill, like shooting, map reading or first-aid, and this is how it should be developed and taught. The same can be said about the blue kung fu that used to be promoted by some ‘self-appointed’ police instructors, though thankfully this practice has ceased with the implementation of modern defensive tactics training. It is worth mentioning, however, that close combat training is still not widely conducted within the military, contrary to common perceptions.
Arguably, the busiest ‘users of force’ these days are the various personnel involved in law enforcement, true front-line troops. The current defensive techniques and tactics taught to, and utilised by, such individuals and specialist teams really are excellent. Why? Simply, because the stakes are so high, they have to be. If a technique or tactic doesn’t work for real – guess what? Nobody uses it and nobody teaches it. This is true reality-based training, nothing is presumed, and everything is either proven operationally or discarded. Can you say the same about the methods that you train in?
My closing advice? Keep training realistically, keep cross training in all the essentials of close combat, and constantly drill your techniques to become razor-sharp conditioned responses. Learn to fight from the ground and the driving seat, and more than one aggressor. Apply everything using weapons and against weapons, hone your instincts, heighten your awareness – do everything possible to train as completely as possible. Nevertheless, during all of this intense and complex training, you must never lose sight of the real issue. The true nature of combat is the brutal simplicity of thought and action. If you really are training for the protection of self, or others, you cannot afford to overlook this, or the training becomes worthless, without real purpose, and worse still, likely to fail when most needed. And that really wouldn’t do, would it?
