The Reality Of It

Was clearing out some odds n sods on the computer and came across a blog piece I wrote for Combat Ready a while back.
Seems relevant to repost it with the rugby world cup being on and all.

The Reality Of It 

       
          http://youtu.be/fiv4EEH79cA

So I came across this clip online, its from a game of Aussie football, think of a weird mutated version of football and rugby.

Anyway, in the clip we see two players have a bit of a scuffle during a tackle and then something goes wrong.

One player attacks the other and as you can see in the video its pretty clear what his intent was.

Now I'm not sure why he decided to attack and strangle his opponent but the ensuing attack is a fantastic example of how volatile and raw an attack can be and how quickly a simple tumble can escalate. 

These guys are professionals, they train to be hit and take a bit rough and tumble they also need to have situational awareness as they play a team sport and need to be vigilant of where other team members are and you can see how easy it is for them to be taken unaware, as the clip shows the two hit the deck and theres about a 5 second "stand off" then the player in blue&white stops struggling and theres about a 3 second gap where he does nothing and then BANG player 17 slams that choke on and has it on for about 15 seconds and thats including when the other FIVE players are literally trying to drag him off.

Now depending on the type of choke, your looking at between 7-12 seconds on average for pass out time, even if you round that down to a 20 second altercation theres almost enough time to be choked and knocked out 3 times.

Now our blue&white player has obviously been involved in these types of back n forth and thats why he puts up his little struggle during the "stand off" period then he feels number 17 back off slightly and he thinks "ah thats it over with" and you can see his arms physically drop in a completely defenceless manor, that in turn allows number 17 to slam that choke on. You can see our boy in blue wasn't expecting the choke to come and even when he realise's he reacts to slow to accomplish anything, its a frightening clip and it shows violence in action in a fairly brutal way.

As with any clip like this try to watch it and think "what would i have done? how could i have got out of that? I'm i training sufficiently enough to be able to handle a situation that violent?" everythings a learning tool.

The clip shows that it can happen anywhere regardless of location. 

Michael

First Post

Right or Wrong

So in class regardless of what system/style i’m teaching theres something I see almost every session, its the brain fart, that moment someone and their training partner are running through a drill and BOOM one of them stops with a bewildered look and will mutter “oh thats wrong isn’t it”

they’ll have stepped left when it should have been right, they’ll have hit with the right hand when it should have been the left, they’ll have done something that they know isn’t the drill they watched me demonstrate and they stop n stall and start again.

Obviously if your drilling a technique you want it to be right and you want the technique/combination to be as picture perfect as possible BUT in reality nothing you do will look like a drill, it won’t look like a technique or a pad combination and it certainly won’t work out like it does with a complacent partner. When we drill things in class we’re going through a make believe scenario, theres far too many variables involved in a real situation to ever say “you’ll definitely be attacked like this” or “this technique will work no matter what” We set up these drills and scenarios so you have context in which to place the technique, the technique is just a rough blueprint, a operating procedure for you to follow to get to a end result, its not gospel, you should be able to adapt it to suit you and your ever changing position and you’ll only gain that skill and confidence by not stopping during the drill and thinking you got it wrong, keep going until the end of the technique or until you get to a position of safety. It might not be exactly how the drill was shown but you kept going, you kept fighting, you adapted, you reacted and you didn’t stop. If you stop mid drill/fight then your attacker will get the upper hand because your not doing anything to stop them, you need to continually be defensive, counter offensive or offensive, the moment you stop any of those you give opportunity for your partner/attacker to gain the upper hand.

Once the drill is over then you can stop and think “i think that bit was wrong” or “i could do that bit better” but make sure you stop after the technique. So you stepped the wrong way or you moved to the inside instead of the outside, the main thing is that you kept going and made yourself as safe as possible during the situation. In reality you won’t have time to stop and worry if the technique was picture perfect and in reality thats not what matters, what matters is your safety. given the variables of any physical altercation it’d be impossible to train for every single variation in every type of scenario, we take from the highest percentage and work from there, if you get a bit wrong deal with, adapt and over come.

Don’t think of things as right or wrong way, think of it as  “No Right Or Wrong Way Just A More Preferred Way”