It seems the U.S. Army, after interviewing 900 soldiers involved in hand to hand combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, has decided to change it’s close quarters combat program to de-emphasize ground fighting.Starting next month, soldiers will focus more on stand up grappling and weapons control more useful in the urban combat scenarios they find themselves [...]
Kuzushi (崩し) is a Japanese word for unbalancing an opponent. It comes from the verb kuzusu, meaning to pull down or demolish. You’ll find it commonly used in jujutsu and derived arts such as judo and aikido. Normally it is the act of taking an opponent’s balance rendering them incapable of counterattack. In most schools [...]
All martial arts and systems of self defense will, in some way deal with range. Range, in this sense, means the proximity of your opponent, his ability to attack you, and your ability to attack him. Many systems have a ton of different ranges, kicking, grappling, striking, weapons etc. While there is nothing wrong with [...]
I’d like to share with you a couple of important discoveries I’ve made with regard to teaching martial arts, which may be translated into other areas as well. An important lesson is that you are not good at anything you need to do in your conscious mind. When you first learned to tie your shoes, [...]
If you’ve been involved in martial arts, combatives, or self defense training in any way you’ve undoubtedly seen many programs touting the secret techniques or principles of self defense. There are a lot of very impressively marketed systems out there and, if one is to believe the hype, the Navy SEALS, Special Forces Commandos, hit [...]
There are two basic self defense scenarios that I like to characterize as ambush or delayed. In an ambush attack, the assault happens immediately, the attacker leads with violence. Delayed is where there is some interaction prior to the violent act. In both cases, awareness of what’s going on should be your first tool to [...]
Here’s a video from Turkey showing a man fighting off multiple attackers (warning: somewhat graphic violence). While every encounter is definitely different, I’d like to use this video to illustrate a few points relevant to preparing for self-defense.
Since I don’t speak Turkish, I really don’t know the context of this video. I don’t know who [...]
Mushin is an interesting concept in the martial arts, a Japanese term meaning roughly “no mind” or “empty mind”. It references a state of thoughtlessness where a practitioner merely acts appropriately to an attack or situation without the intercession of thought. It all sounds very Zen-like and spiritual, but there is a practical side as [...]
Let me start by saying that nothing here is meant to denigrate BJJ or MMA in any way. As a rule, I do not criticize other systems. The BJJ guys I know are amazing martial artists and great athletes. My issue with the name Brazilian Jiujitsu (or Jiu-Jitsu) is a personal hangup, but bear me [...]
A few years ago, while on vacation, a man grabbed my mom’s credit card from a restaurant table and dashed out the door. My mom realized what had happened, jumped up and chased after him. Probably luckily, she didn’t catch him. “Mom, what if you ran after him into an alley and he had a [...]
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