14.01.09 CCMA Class Diary Entry
Jan 15th, 2009 by Jamie Clubb
Juniors
an example of clinch-work in the junior class
Five volunteers stepped forward to take the warm-up. They varied in ages and grades, and it was interesting to see innovation, extent of learning and also the sudden pressure of responsibility exhibited by each of them. I cannot say it was the most harmonious of warm-ups, but it was kept specific to functional exercises with more of an emphasis on groundwork than anything else - for some reason this has been retained over the more stand-up based drills. Innovation was shown by introducing exercises one student had learnt outside the class - possibly at school - but was still relevant.
We discussed the three stages of conflict - pre-fight, in-fight and post-fight. Then we looked at the three stages of the in-fight - stand-up, clinch and ground. I am aware that this is an MMA perspective, but nevertheless it serves as useful shorthand. The first official activity was the proactive pad-work, emphasizing movement. Ask any one of my junior students what your role is when you put on a pair a focus mitts and their answer is “teacher” or “coach”. This promotes self-teaching and encourages responsibility. As Dr. Stephen Covey says in his seminal work, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People“, you learn faster through teaching material because you make a conscious commitment. This has proved very efficient in the teaching of children and adults alike for two reasons: self-defence/self-protection is all about control - control of you and control of a situation - and martial arts are essentially solo activities that require independent thinking. The corporate and philosophical world of martial arts often likes to band the word “empowerment” about. They’ve picked it up from the motivation movement of the 1990s, which inevitably they have followed in order to run their classes more like a business. Unfortunately it is often given as a type of buzzword with only the most superficial acknowledgement of what it really means to empower someone. By giving a student personal responsibility by making your lessons more activity-led, more principle-centred rather than just technique-led and regimental you really are empowering people. This makes people more effective and more efficient.
This whole drill can be isolated and broken down to promote instinct-led attack and defence as well as mirroring movement and understanding range. As described last week, it is built on a boxing flash pad drill and striking only ceases once the target is covered or taken away with additional mirror footwork, physical prompts for clinching and sprawling. Today I kept it free-form with the only restriction being on the change of range, which I called out. I am not overly keen on verbal commands and, as per my senior class last week; I would prefer that the “coaches” come up with their own physical methods to prompt a change of range. However, time was short and I was keen to get an overall appraisal of the three stages of the in-fight.
With odd numbers, one student had to make up a group of three. This is not an uncommon problem for martial arts instructors. I have seen varied responses from actively organizing the students so that the group of three feel valued and work harmoniously to those who just the class get on with it and even leave a student out of the partner work! I like to think that CCMA promotes what my sometime assistant junior coach, Richard Barnes, called a “solution opportunity”. Therefore in a group-of-three situation my students automatically turn the drill into a multiple attacker exercise - one student holds the focus mitts to strike whilst the other gives feedback to promote strong simultaneous defences.
I now tell my junior students to either put on gloves if they wish to work on punching or use open hands. Punching pads bare-knuckled may be okay for mature adults who are consciously developing their fists, but children have other concerns that outweigh any possible advantages. Firstly their bones are not yet fully developed and secondly the pain from hitting a pad hard will make them reduce their impact. This latter point is worth taking on board even if you are an adult. This point first struck me when an doctor was explaining to a tough elderly friend of mine why she should take her painkillers when overcoming an operation and not just grinning and bearing it i.e. not matter how consciously brave she was being, she would subconsciously overcompensating during her recovery to avoid the pain and train the wrong sort of rehabilitation. We fight how we train is a mantra modern combative coaches have to constantly remember.
After the pad-work the students engaged in a sparring activity that represented each of the three ranges. They did a couple of rounds of Muay Thai sparring, then a couple of rounds of stand-up wrestling for the back and a couple of rounds of takedown sparring, and finally finishing with MMA sparring from the knees.
We warmed down using the breathing exercises designed to control excitement. One child told me how he had applied it recently when he was getting over-excited over something in his football training. Interestingly its main application for children is to promote focus or to delay angry outbursts, but in this instance the child had used it after he had achieved something which had overwhelmed him with joy. It is interesting to see a child emulating the least taken advice given by Rudyard Kipling in his most often quoted poem “If”, “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster/And treat those two impostors just the same”.
Discussion topics: We looked at the fence again before discussing a soft skills tactic known as “the broken record”. A way to organically teach the importance of distancing with the fence is to get a student to call out the moment they feel another student is getting to close and to then put their arm out to measure the distance. In most instances intuition proves to be quite accurate. We discussed when a situation is to become violent i.e. when the fence is touched. Then we looked at the “broken record” technique, taught in Dr. Stephen Briers’ “Superpowers for Parents”. It is a method actually used by doorman and other security officials when they are dealing with a persistent person. What you do is continually repeat a line at the end of each sentence. A doorman’s line might be “you’re not coming in”. We used an instance where someone might try to persuade their friend to allow them to copy their homework. The friend would answer with an explanation why he wouldn’t allow this, but end each explanation with the line “I don’t feel comfortable with you copying my homework”.
Seniors
It is amazing to think how much I loathed maths throughout my school years, never once recalling a happy moment connected to the subject. I was a dunce at science too. And yet, here I am admitting their importance to martial arts and self defence development. By moving completely away from the mystique that has obscured, poisoned and ultimately degraded the traditional martial arts I have moved into the rational and with that comes an appreciation of the scientific approach and, at least, basic mathematics. An understanding of angles helped me articulate two areas of training today. Firstly the 45 degree step, found as the “V” step in Muay Thai, and as a prime angle of attack from the fence. As part of my senior warm-up we covered stepping off at 45 degrees for both pre-emptive purposes and also in-fight footwork. Then we found 30 degrees to be the ideal angle of attack for the backswing strike.
An example of S1 versus S2 being demonstrated. Note: under pressure conditions appropriate protective equipment is worn. (Photo by Sonia Audhali)
We continued the agility warm-up started last week to promote better footwork and angling. There was also some partner-work to get the correct application. Then we looked at various tactics coming off the cover. Usually we get deep into the use of the cover and then explore the types of attack that can be used, but today I felt we would go backwards to actually look at and test against possible strikes and grappling applications.
First off, however, I repeated the points that I have found seem to be working for the best application of the cover. Three key points seem to come up time and again: 1. It is transitional. The cover is a responsive tactic used to crash into your attacker in order to immediately get more efficient tools on him. You do not stay locked into the cover; something will get in no matter how mobile you make your cover. 2. It is range dependent. Some arts have stylized the cover, but I see little point in using a cover anywhere other than at close quarters. 3. Rarely move backwards. I would like to say never, but my leanings towards science these days prevent me! The attitude is to use the cover as a weapon and to move forward, off at an angle or anyway that is offensive. It is not a reactive technique.
We looked at the backswing. Its been out of our training mix for a while as, quite frankly, it hasn’t really fitted. MMA and Vale Tudo rarely feature it, but it could be argued because Muay Thai and Boxing seem to have the monopoly on preferred striking styles taken on by fighters. Nevertheless, the spinning back fist and spinning elbow has long been a proven, if sometimes reckless, full contact striking weapon in competition. Likewise, it would be hard to deny that the “back-hander” is uncommon on the street (and that isn’t a reference to bribing your local traffic warden). It is often delivered blindly, which presents a bit of gamble that surely can be avoided through conditioning in even the most chaotic situations. On the other side of the coin, “classical” martial arts often teach a very stilted and precise technique known as the back fist. In fact, there are many techniques that could be applied under my rough term “back swing” such as the knife hand or “axe hand” as the followers of the great W.E. Fairbairn might say, the hammer fist or hammer-blow and the inward elbow strike. Of course, techniques like the hammer and back fist are not exclusively delivered in the offline target, which is what a backswing is generally aimed at. They are also delivered downwards. However, this was not the topic for today’s training and this complication just further reinforces my fear of following a technique path. You become obsessed with the uses of a single tool rather than focusing on the tactic. Therefore the backswing or perhaps backhand (as in the similar movement delivered in tennis) is the tactic of using any part of the arm or hand is used in a striking motion away from the striker’s body. Iain Abernethy was a prime example of a traditional martial artist who recommended using these various striking areas indiscriminately as part of the same tactic.
So when does this tactic apply? Some use the term offline strike. This illustrates the point that it is delivered most efficiently when the target is off the main line of attack. The offline comes in at around 30 degrees. To find this we did a simple drill where one student stayed rooted to the spot and his partner moved slowly around him with a strike shield. Strikes were best delivered as straight conventional punches or palms until the angle got to around 30 degrees, where it striking with a backswing was evidently more effective. We varied heights and then looked at adapting it at close range whereby the elbow was the perfect tool. This was a classic case of tracing the CCMA “Process” http://www.clubbchimera.com/?page_id=284 back to its “Common Sense” http://www.clubbchimera.com/?p=143 origins.
This was all great exploratory stuff and we could certainly feel the recoil of the strike, but it was too clinical for my liking. It needed to have some form of pressure testing; some isolation or specific work. I brought in a drill I learnt from Iain Abernethy in 2004. This was a light resistance drill at grappling range. Both protagonists try to control each others arms to secure a strike to the side of the head or neck. This is essentially the last range before grappling (and anti-grappling tactics) completely dominates in a fight situation. Interestingly the shape of the classic inside arm control and backswing application not only lends itself to a position from kata, but also a locking off position found in a Muay Thai clinch.
Enough with the academia! We need to turn the temperature up on this baby. It was thrown into the chaos we call the Strategy 1 versus Strategy 2 pressure drill. With shin guards on the forearms of the Strategy 2s who were restricted to grapple but only to obtain the backswing and the Strategy 1s with boxing gloves and full face head guards on we began a full contact test. The results were that the backswing was very much an incidental tactic. A high percentage one, but nevertheless it was more of a support method to access straight or hooked strikes. Its main strength lies in that it is the most accessible strike when you are being attacked from the side, say a carjacking incident or when someone is trying to blindside you. It definitely needs deeper testing and investigation.
We moved back to cover in earnest and this time with the grappling applications. Just to re-cap, the current rule that seems most commonsensical in a self defence physical situation is: strike when you can, grapple if you have to. Usually when we go through the cover we begin by drilling striking from the cover. The backswing was a sort of in-between stage. Now we were deep into grappling, typically administered in a self defence situation when you cannot out gun the strikes you are receiving and opt to close the person down to get into a grappling situation so that you can better strike or, if we are discussing MMA, you decide to grapple a striker.
There are three lines of attack in grappling: high, middle and low. They can overlap, but essentially the rule of thumb is the first point of contact decides the line. Rather than drill the different types we put it straight into an off-the-wall pressure test. One student faced a line up of three aggressors whose job was to overwhelm him with strikes. The student’s job was to cover, close in and grapple to a controlling position to stop the strikes coming, taking the attacker down if necessary. A multiple aggressor variant of this test was discussed whereby the controlling position would be used to turn the aggressor into a shield against the other aggressors. We have drilled this in the past (last week did it with the student against the wall taking on the S1/striking role). It is a very tough drill that highlights the importance of acting swiftly and early.
The warm-down focused on using resistance bands to drills entries for takedowns and then practicing the takedowns on crash mats.
Discussion: Re-cap on the logical fallacy of “appeal” arguments followed by a discussion on anecdotal evidence. We do not do those who pioneered, taught and brought realistic training methods into the mainstream a service by simply following their methods without question. Information is best absorbed through personal experience. We can’t expect every student to go out and find physical confrontations so that they can confirm certain methods work and others don’t, so the only answer is to devise tests where a student can discover for himself whether something will work or not. This helps establish it as a martial arts version of a fact.
Appeal Arguments: They are a subcategory under the “Fallacies of Relevance” http://www.logicalfallacies.info/fallaciesofrelevance.html
Anecdotal Evidence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence
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