As I mentioned in the previous post, everything you do should be a covered blast. You’re either blasting your opponent like a high pressure fire hose, or you’re crashing, which is also blasting! If you’re beyond contact range when you realize you’re going to need to act, begin your entry by throwing things at your opponent if you don’t have any weapons that are designed to function as projectiles. Hum your change, books, phone, or whatever it is you’re carrying at his face, and nail him as he’s covering. Pick up a chair and ram your opponent with it, slamming him into a wall, and stomp kick his knees/shins, and continue your overwhelming blast.  Whatever you do, overwhelm your opponent(s).

Covered Entry

In the image above you see the beginning of a defense against a left hook, using a palm stick (flashlight in this case) to crash in and ram the attacker in the face with the edge of the light.  This is a covered entry that works against any punching attack.  It doesn’t matter whether the attacker throws a left jab, right cross, left hook, right hook, etc.  Exactly the same covered entry still works, because my attacking motion simultaneously deflects or covers the attack while ramming the opponent in the face.  You can see the same principle in the smack and hack, low jab intercept, and crash, as additional examples.

Each of the attacks and defenses above include a “covered entry” followed by a blast until the opponent is no longer able to attack.  In the past I’ve used the phrase zone theory to describe the simultaneous use of distance and position with trapping/checking/blocking/covering and attacking to minimize your opponent’s options while maximizing yours.  In my self defense book I cover zone theory in much greater detail, and it can come across as rather complex.  In order to use the concept in fighting, it needs to be simple.   To simplify it, the application of the concept I call zone theory can be summed up with the phrase: covered blast.  No matter what your opponent does, you launch a covered blast.

Unarmed vs. unarmed, single vs. multiple opponents, unarmed vs. knife, stick vs. stick…it doesn’t matter.  Launch a covered blast.

I recently updated my single stick page with a new training matrix I call the 4-step.  The four steps include a covered entry, follow ups, and a covered exit.  Again, this is a covered blast.  It can be helpful in training to identify various ways of using distance and position combined with attacking, trapping, jamming, checking, blocking, covering, and controlling to make an entry that limits your openings, followed by various combinations of attack, followed by various types of safe or covered exits. But you should aim to make this one thing, not many.  It should be a single feeling, a covered blast.

JKD Summit Seminar

Matt Numrich, the owner of two JKD schools and the JKD newsletter emailed to ask I spread the word about a JKD seminar he’s putting on. He’s got five well known and respected instructors coming, so it should be a great seminar for anyone interested in JKD or martial arts in general. The cool thing about this seminar, which I have yet to see anywhere else, is that it’s also being offered as a “virtual seminar”.  For only $9 you can sign up to see the seminar over the web.  In addition, he’s donating 10% of the profits to the Filipino Red Cross to help with the recent typhoon disasters.  So for a very small amount of money you can see the seminar and make a small donation. Check it out!

Elbow Strike

I once accidentally hit a student with an elbow, and heard a sickening crack as they fell to the floor with a broken temple, eye socket, cheek bone, and a caved in face. It required a metal plate to fix. Hitting someone in the face with an elbow is nothing nice. It’s like hitting them with a hammer. Unlike a punch, palm, or many types of kicks, there’s no padding or joints to disperse the force of the blow. Yet, most people seem to emphasize punches and palm strikes far more than elbows.

It’s harder than most people think to take an opponent out with a punch, especially when you’re unable to nail them completely unprepared. And if you’re not the one attacking (which you generally won’t be in a self defense situation) your opponent probably won’t be unprepared.

In self defense you need to use the most powerful tools at your disposal, and if you’re unarmed, elbows are very high up on that list. Of course no one is going to stand still and wait for your elbow. You’ll need to get control of them first. The smack and hack (offensive) and the crash (defensive) are two great ways to do that. Using either of those “entries” you should end up with either an arm-control that you can use to pull your opponent into a vicious elbow (or knees and elbows) or a head-and-arm-control leading to knees and elbows. If you’re not already, consider putting a real emphasis on getting in close and nailing your opponent with an elbow.

The video above is of Maija (Sword and Circle) and her teacher Sonny Umpad, the founder of Visayan Eskrima. I’ve seen Maija’s posts on forums and blogs, but didn’t realize she had a blog of her own until a few days ago. Her blog is excellent, and I’d highly recommend subscribing. Although all of the posts are great, two are particularly interesting to me at the moment: Forms and Ego, Death and Progress.

In the post on forms, Maija starts out by asking if forms are valuable for people who don’t know what fighting feels like and/or don’t know how to visualize an opponent. She brings up Sonny’s feelings that forms are “inherently glitchy” and that the patterns within them can override reactions, and then comes to her own conclusions that there are benefits, especially if “you have felt the problem they were created to solve or the skill they were meant to refine”.

For the last few years I haven’t been teaching, and have only been training with my partners/students a couple of months each year due to travels. I’ve been attending classes at other schools, but the techniques and training methods are usually very different from what I’d prefer to be doing. So I find myself doing more solo training than I’ve ever done before, and I find myself creating prearranged forms as a convenient way to drill certain techniques and strategies. I’m also thinking these new forms would be great for former students who seem to have trouble practicing on their own, as they can be a guide to techniques and strategies. But Maija makes a great point that without knowing what a fight feels like and without being able to visualize the opponent, they’re probably of very limited value (so possibly not so great for beginners or those who don’t have some experience fighting).

I’ve also had an experience recently with Sonny’s point about patterns overriding reactions. At a new school I’ve recently been going to, when learning a stick vs. stick drill I repeatedly found myself reverting to counters I had done most often in drills I used to teach. To some extent, my ingrained responses slowed my ability to learn the new drill I had never done. But is that really a bad thing? I imagine it can go both ways. I’m a big believer in having a few solid “default responses” you can rely on, and ingraining them through repetition. There are two sides to that coin. On one hand prearranged partner drills (and possibly solo drills to a lesser extent) do ingrain reactions. If they didn’t, I wouldn’t have had such trouble not reverting to them automatically.  On the other hand, might it be better to simply “flow”?

This brings me to Maija’s next post, Ego, Death and Progress. I love this post for many reasons, and I love the “flow training” in Visayan Eskrima, which is something I’ve done very little of. In my upcoming trip back home I’ll certainly incorporate it into my training. The progression she details in the above post is great because it seems it may counteract the disadvantages of prearranged form training through a free flow as in the video at the top of this post, with structure to help practitioners win without dying (in the case of sword training at least).

The idea that forms training does ingrain responses to such an extent that those responses could be harmful is an interesting one. I like prearranged solo and partner drills because they’re a great way to work on perfecting body mechanics, training with full speed and power with little chance of injury and no gear, AND they ingrain responses like ramdon flow training cannot, in my opinion. I’m not sure yet exactly what I think of the downsides of ingraining those responses, or the possibility of using flow training to counteract those downsides, but I’m interested in exploring it.

Facing Violence

I came across an outstanding self defense blog today, Chiron, which led me to the author’s website and to purchase two of his books: Meditations on Violence: A Comparison of Martial Arts Training & Real World Violence and Facing Violence: Preparing for the Unexpected. Rory’s blog and website have such great information on them that I wanted to share them here. (I don’t know the guy and have never communicated with him.) Anyway, check out his stuff. It looks great. I’ll post more on his books after I read them.

UPDATE: I’ve finished both books and they’re excellent.  Anyone who practices martial arts, especially if you’re at all interested in self defense, should read both books.  They cover the different types of attacks you might face, from an idiot in a bar to a real predator, rapist, etc., how to recognize which type you’re dealing with, how to avoid trouble or deescalate when you can’t, and what you should realistically expect.  They portray violence as it really is, and explain in detail why most martial arts and self defense training will fail in the face of a committed, brutal, and chaotic attack.  The books are also a fascinating study on human nature.  In terms of violence and social interactions, we’re not all that different from the animals we evolved from.  Fortunately, understanding these interactions that Rory breaks down so well, can seriously increase your odds of avoiding or coming out of a conflict in one piece.

I was very happy to see Rory explaining why matching specific defenses to specific attacks is generally a recipe for failure.  In a real violent assault you won’t know if your opponent is stepping forward with his left foot and throwing a straight right or stepping forward with his right foot and throwing a sloppy hook.  You’ll most likely be facing a barrage of chaos, and complex, fancy techniques will not work.  In “Facing Violence” he covers a few of his preferred default responses.  While I prefer those in our Fundamental Five, his responses, the techniques he demonstrates, and the principles that support them are solid.  I very highly recommend both of his books.

Street vs. Sport

I very rarely read or participate in martial arts discussion forums these days. But when I did back in the late 90′s, when forums were becoming popular, everyone was arguing about “street vs. sport”. (Matt Thornton and Burton Richardson were two of the biggest contributors arguing for sport style training.) With the first UFC in 1993, people saw how grapplers and mixed martial artists were wiping the floor with traditional martial artists. Most TMA practitioners either closed their eyes and pretended their traditional styles were more effective than they were, or adapted. Those who stuck with traditional styles often used a “street vs. sport” argument claiming their style was designed for the street where there are no rules, and was too deadly to be used effectively in the ring. These arguments went on for years, and the TMA crowd mostly lost.

Why MMA Wins

Since that time MMA has become hugely popular and most people regard traditional martial arts with a bit of skepticism to say the least, usually rightly so. There are two primary reasons most MMA fighters easily beat TMA practitioners. First, training methods. MMA training and the training in sports that typically make up MMA (boxing, Thai boxing, wrestling, BJJ, etc.) is the best there is. In these styles people train against fully resisting opponents. Most TMA training on the other hand involves doing solo drills and prearranged partner drills. This training does not prepare you for real fighting. If you want to learn how to fight you MUST train against uncooperative, fully resisting opponents. You have to spar in all ranges (stand up, clinch, ground, and the three together). The second reason TMA practitioners were easy for MMA fighters to beat was their poor technique. When training is unrealistic and practitioners are only training with members of their own style, very ineffective techniques evolve that don’t work under real, uncooperative pressure.

This Won't Work

Both the punch and the block above are great examples of the horrible techniques that evolve as a result of unrealistic training, not to mention the complete lack of footwork. So MMA is the best, and the street vs. sport argument is BS, right? Not so fast! Just because many of the TMA people making the street vs. sport argument didn’t know how to fight doesn’t mean the argument isn’t at least partially valid. Like everything, it’s not black or white, but something in between.

Why Street Is Different

Street self defense requires several components that sport fighting does not, and these make all the difference in the world. The most important of these are awareness, deception, dirty tactics/techniques, and weapons. Awareness isn’t taught or trained in sport fighting or MMA, but it’s extremely important in self defense.

Deception is hugely important in self defense, and when combined with the use of more damaging techniques and weapons, it can give a smaller, weaker, less skilled person the ability to beat a larger, stronger, unsuspecting sport fighter. MMA fighters can of course learn to be deceptive and use more damaging techniques, but because their training doesn’t require it they generally don’t, and generally aren’t prepared for these to be used against them. You fight how you train.

There are rules in MMA, and in every specific combat sports competition, but not so in self defense. The quickest, most effective self defense techniques are illegal in sport fighting, and this changes the way people fight. The footwork that can accompany an eye strike or a groin slap for example isn’t very effective or useful in MMA. In MMA there are weight classes, and a 150 lbs woman has very little chance against a 200 lbs man largely due to the technical limitations of sport fighting. Typical sport style training completely neglects the most efficient and effective techniques, along with the set ups and footwork that makes them work best.

Possibly the most important distinction however is the use of weapons on the street. In MMA there is not only no weapons training, but the techniques and positions that are trained would often lead an MMA practitioner to be more vulnerable to weapon attacks. In self defense the use of and defense against weapons should represent at least half of all training. It’s highly unlikely a person will ever be attacked by a single opponent who is smaller, weaker, and unarmed. The use of weapons in self defense leads to a massive advantage, and the ability to defend against them is essential.

The Solution

MMA training is top notch, and all self defense practitioners should adopt the same approach to training. But MMA is severely lacking in the areas of awareness, deception, dirty tactics, and weapons. The solution is to combine the two, ending up with the most efficient and effective armed and unarmed techniques, realistic training, and a winning strategy involving awareness and deception. That’s reality based self defense, and the aim of Hertao.

Oveready Triple XPG Surefire 9P

I’m a big proponent of flashlights for self defense. My first quality self defense light was an Inova X03, a very solid light plenty bright enough to blind an opponent with night adapted vision. But after getting my first Surefire, an LX2, I was hooked even further. The beam on the LX2 is so bright that shining someone in the face with it at night is physically shocking. Not only that, but it’s an excellent light to carry. Later, the Surefire 6PX Tactical came out, which is a terrific option for someone not wanting to spend as much on something like the LX2.

Then I discovered Oveready, a company that makes custom flashlights with the highest quality parts…Surefire hosts (bodies) with custom coatings, tail caps, bezel rings, and LED emitters. Their Triple XPG Surefire C3, which uses a triple LED emitter from Torchlab, in a Surefire body coated with a ballistic grade ceramic, bored to accept rechargeable batteries, and with a metal rather than plastic bezel ring, was too hard to pass up. Not only is it an extremely high quality set up, but it’s advertised as a 1,100 lumen light. My other Surefire lights were advertised at 200 lumens. If those numbers don’t sound like much, here’s a comparison photo:

LX2 vs. Triple XPG

The image above is of the LX2 beam (at left) and the Triple XPG beam (at right) placed about 3 feet from a wall. It was the best way I could demonstrate the difference in a photo, but the photo doesn’t do it justice. The beam on the Triple XPG looks like something you’d expect from a helicopter search light. It’s astoundingly, shockingly bright. The beam on the LX2 does project further due to the lens and beam pattern. But up close…maybe inside of 30 yards or so…the Triple XPG throws out a monster wall of light, capable of blinding a small group of people with one flash.

I chose to get my light with the Surefire 9P host rather than the C3 host, as I figured the 9P may be better to quickly grab. Since it’s round, the grip is the same no matter how you grab it. However, I’ve also ordered a C3 host to see which one I end up liking more. I chose the single level Triple XPG rather than the one that has a high, medium, and low mode, so for self defense it would be very simple to operate…without concern for using the wrong mode accidentally. I also picked the smooth bezel ring instead of the one with “teeth”, so it wouldn’t look like a self defense light.  Thus, I can travel with it on a plane, etc. This set up, in my opinion, is not ideal for an everyday use flashlight (it’s too bright), but makes an incredible self defense tool. While the 9P and C3 are on the big/long side compared to the LX2 and 6PX Tactical, they are still easy to carry in a back pocket or deep front pocket. Here’s a comparison image:

Self Defense Lights

The Surefire 9P is at the top, followed by the LX2, 6PX, and an Inova X5 (which I would not recommend as a self defense light due to the relatively weak beam).

Oveready custom lights are expensive, there’s no doubt about it. But the product you’re getting is top notch, as is their customer service. Their lights are made in the US, and if you email or call you’ll be talking to someone in the US. If you’re considering a self defense light and want the best you can possibly get, I’d highly recommend Oveready.

For more information on using a flashlight for self defense, see our pages on the palm stick and self defense flashlight.

Galle Face Green, Sri Lanka

My wife and I took a trip to Sri Lanka for a few weeks at the beginning of this year.  Other than the delicious food and some nice natural scenery, the trip was unfortunately a real disappointment.  People attempted to scam us several times a day, there were incredible numbers of stray dogs on the verge of death at every turn (hairless, missing legs, crushed paws, open sores, etc…very depressing), and overall there just wasn’t much to see.  We travel a lot, and this was the first trip I remember where we were ready to get back home well before it was over.

Train Ride

We traveled from Colombo to Galle on the same train line that was made famous by the terrible tsunami in 2004, and did see some pretty beaches:

Sri Lankan Beach

But most of Sri Lanka looked more like this:

Sri Lankan Road

Anyway, one of the only cool things I managed to find on the trip was this beautiful antique Sri Lankan knife called a piha kahetta:

Piha Kahetta - Sri Lankan Knife

It was very rusty when I bought it, but I spent this morning cleaning it up and I must say it’s a very nice looking knife.  It’s heavy, and extremely solid.  I love the carved handle:

Piha Kahetta Handle

Here’s a picture with the wooden scabbard:

Knife with Scabbard

The last post I wrote on the palm stick was about a year ago, when I explained why I didn’t like it as a self defense tool. After spending the last year experimenting, I’ve changed my mind. What I don’t like is the way most people I’ve seen use the palm stick, striking targets that have relatively little impact, using inefficient entries, flipping the stick around in their hands, etc. As I wrote in my new section on the palm stick, people shouldn’t be asking themselves how they can use a palm stick in a given position, but what the best technique for a given position is. That might involve using the palm stick, but it might not! The problem is when people get into the “everything looks like a nail” mindset because they’re carrying a hammer.

In addition to the main palm stick page I’ve added pages with a palm stick attack, palm stick defense, and another on the flashlight for self defense. I hope you find them useful!