REAL COMBAT EXPERIENCE (The Nature of the Beast)

[TTEscrima]

Mick Coup on reality:

Part 1

I know I’m going to offend someone, somewhere, with this article, so I’ll say sorry now! I realise that a lot of people train in ‘real combat’ systems, but (and here’s the thing) what is real combat and what do most people know about it?

Everyone knows about real combat training, yes? Maybe not, if we’re telling the truth. Real combat is a desperate, brutal and terrifying experience, mercifully unknown to most people. It cannot be accurately simulated unless the stakes are raised to unacceptable levels. It is not just about learning and drilling technique after technique, most truly effective fighters – the kind found in dark alleys, not training halls – have extremely limited technical repertoires. What is lacked in ‘expertise,’ is compensated for with numbers, surprise and viciousness. What can really prepare you for these factors? Experience certainly can, but are you ready for this kind of experience?

If you’ve never been there, don’t kid yourself, or others, that your ultra-system is going to do the business. Sorry, but until the risk is ‘real’ you’ll never know if your capabilities are. Fact. Nothing that hasn’t been stated before, but still it seems to me that plenty of people take too much for granted as far as real fighting is concerned. High stakes really put a new slant on personal performance, there is no room for failure – it’s not a rehearsal, second chances are never guaranteed.

Surely I don’t have to remind anyone what real failure is all about, but I’m going to do so anyway. Minor physical injuries, sustained during a real attack, can create deep and severe psychological wounds, these sometimes take the longest time to heal, if they ever do. While we’re on the subject, let’s not fool ourselves with the ‘minor injuries’ concept – real attackers don’t hold with it. They are going to do whatever they can to take you out, and then some for good measure, and then some more purely out of spite. Minor injuries? Not likely. Too many people underestimate the sustained ferocity of real attacks, the lengths that attackers are more than willing to go to, and the lack of assistance likely to be available to them at the time. Very rarely will anyone these days put his or her neck on the line for a stranger, when things really get messy.

I’m not trying to say that people won’t come to watch, but don’t count on them getting involved, at least not on your side anyway. Keep this unpleasant reality in mind, it is essential to train and mentally prepare for third-party attackers. Also, try to make sure that any witnesses are your witnesses, because should you prevail against the odds there may be an abundance of spectators keen to condemn your actions - you may have actually had to hurt someone! Such is the public’s ignorance regarding effective self-protection (minimum force tends to be interpreted as minimal force, and is still expected to work regardless!). Personally, I still prefer ‘judged by strangers’ over ‘carried by friends,’ however un-PC it may be. I must state in my defence that I’ve never actually been attacked or assaulted in a politically correct manner or in any way sanctioned by the European Court of Human Rights, to this date anyhow!

I really wish that I could deal with gangs and multiple attackers like in the manuals and movies; de-escalate, evade, block, restrain and the like. Unfortunately, I live and work in the real world and when it ‘goes off’, I try to get stuck in and level all concerned, then exit stage left. Not each and every time I assure you, but I’ve seen the result, and been on the receiving end, of group attacks too many times to have any misconceptions regarding how much force really is ‘minimum’ during such incidents, and hanging around post-incident is too much like asking for an encore as far as I’m concerned.

It is always preferable to attempt avoidance or de-escalation of a potential situation, as prevention is always better than cure. Sometimes, no matter how hard you may try, a situation won’t avoid you. Likewise, you can only talk to those who are willing to listen to reason. Wasting time with rhetoric, however ‘Win - Win’ it may be, can get you hurt when the other ‘party’ just doesn’t care what you have to say. Strong words I know, but I’m sure plenty of you out there know the score. When the chips are down and your neck really is on the line, you quite simply cannot afford to f**k about!

What I recommend, most emphatically, is that if you want to learn about real fighting ask those who really have been in life-threatening situations; real uncontrolled, unprepared and unlimited encounters – no safety net, the kind that nightmares are made of. Find someone who has been there, and who is honest enough to put his or her ego to one side just long enough to recount the real deal. Watch their face, especially their eyes, when they tell you what you possibly don’t really want to know. Either as predator or prey, their experiences of real violence are certain to make you step back and take stock of your real training.

However hard the training is, nothing is comparable to a sudden confrontation with some desperate addict who doesn’t care whether you give him your money or he takes it from your body, anything rather than endure an imminent heroin withdrawal. On the other hand, a group of young wannabe ‘faces’ who have nothing to lose but their reputations, their most important asset, will not hesitate to smash you up just for sport. You see for some people violence is a way of life, either as a sport or as a business, and to them you’re just a ball to kick or a walking ATM. Don’t believe me? Please give me the names of some estate agents in your area, or maybe consider getting some stronger prescription glasses!

[TTEscrima]

Pt 2

Many experienced individuals have become complacent and underestimated the potency of ‘low-tech’ methods. Have you ever heard that old saying, “Professionals are predictable, unfortunately the world is full of amateurs.” How true, how many ‘experts’ have been hurt and humiliated by untrained, unpredictable, fighters? I certainly have, I admit it. Not often, but I’ve been taken by surprise, I’ve displayed bad judgement, and I’ve been plain careless in the past. For these mistakes and lapses, I’ve paid a bloody price indeed. Costly, most definitely, but isn’t good experience always expensive? Sadly, we can often learn the most from those who have paid the highest price; but we must never allow ourselves to follow their path through our own ignorance.

Under the acute pressure of combat, the effects of the fear / adrenal reaction are well researched and documented, and progressive exposure to stress during actual encounters and very realistic training can certainly help to prepare you for some of the massively detrimental effects on your performance. The necessity of hard realistic training is without question, but remember realistic is not real. Sorry to sound so negative, but it actually enhances combative training to recognise and remember all its limitations. However close to the bone you can make your training and sparring drills, they’re still blank-firing exercises (if you pardon the expression) and safety is always paramount. Just because you are prohibited from applying certain extremely effective practices during training, they must still be forefront in your mind, so if you are required to ‘do the business’ you don’t keep using blanks out of habit, when you really need the live ammunition!

I sometimes get the disturbing impression that some of the ‘real combat systems’ on offer these days are far too academic to be of use in real combat situations. By this, I mean that it appears that almost every so-called ‘simple effective system of self-protection’ is evolving into some kind of martial algebra, when all that is actually required is something more akin to simple addition (done on the fingers at that!). Some systems just do not seem to have the feel for the dynamics of real fighting. They do have a wealth of techniques for supposedly tearing attackers limb from limb, and counters to every possible form of assault from weapon wielding gangs, and more. Maybe I’m not seeing enough, but it seems that I’m seeing too much. One technique that will work in a thousand situations is worth a thousand that might work in only one, a bit of a golden rule in my book. A good right hand, quick headbutt and occasional low kick are about the limit of most real streetfighters, but combined with high doses of surprise, aggression and unpredictability they become truly effective.

Contemplate these following quotations, old favourites of mine that I swear by:
“The Essence of War is Violence.”
“No Plan Survives First Contact with the Enemy.”
These gems are to be found at the front of Pamphlet 45 – Infantry Tactics. This is the manual used by British Armed Forces Infantry Section Commanders when training and preparing for combat. The first is superbly succinct; it simply underlines that no matter how it is dressed up with technology and the like, conflict is no more than the application of extreme force. The second quote reminds us not to obsess too much with fine details, as introducing the human factor usually negates any too-careful preparation!

Consider taking a leaf out of the military’s book concerning combative tactics, after all, they’re the market leaders! Whether it is on a personal or strategic scale; combat is combat, the theories behind such tactics are the same regardless. Being ambushed is the same wherever it happens, regardless of who is involved. In a pub wearing jeans or in a jungle clothed in camouflage, it’s the same thing. All the basic tactical principles hold true - avoiding potential ambush sites, reacting quickly to the initial onslaught, escaping the killing zone and fighting through the ambush, etc. Whatever the specifics, the basics still apply.

Combat tactics in the military are always fundamental and generic, not specific to each encounter with the enemy. They are basic enough to be easily learned and easily taught – an important consideration. Everything can rapidly become second nature and it’s all highly adaptable. What’s more, it’s all been proven to work consistently. Unit commanders and individual soldiers are trained exhaustively in general principles of closing with, and destroying, the enemy; these basic concepts can be applied to an unlimited number of situations. The key to this process is simplicity and flexibility, not micro-managed specifics that are doomed to fail.

Proven and dependable core skills are the essentials in real combat, they must be capable of instinctive application - if you are thinking, you’re not doing. When the stakes are high, if you’re not doing, you may be dying. Seriously consider reducing your personal arsenal of techniques and tactics to a solid core of generic tools that can be applied against generic attacks, whatever the situation or environment. Just think; soldiers do not learn a hundred ways of holding and firing a rifle, just one is sufficient - so long as it’s backed by rock-solid principles of marksmanship that can be applied whether standing, kneeling or lying prone, whatever the circumstances, situation or environment.

Personally, I’m a little jaded hearing from ‘experts’ who look and act like they wouldn’t know a real fight if it punched them in the face. Not to say that such exponents are not indeed experts of their chosen arts, I’m only addressing some rather questionable methods of applying various techniques for real. This appears quite evident when observing some brands of ‘no-nonsense street fighting,’ ‘ultimate self-defence’ and ‘real combat’ training (self-protection does appear to be more fashionable than ever before). It seems to me that the dynamics, the brutality and the chaos of actual conflict are often appallingly absent, overlooked or glossed over. This is a frighteningly dangerous practice when purporting to train, and teach, for combat, as ultimately it is the basic raw violence of conflict that poses the greatest threat to individual survival, not the so specific attack formats that seem so technically researched and rehearsed.

The telling factor in combat is often experience, not expertise; a hundred training sessions are ultimately still a hundred training sessions, not real fights. Many individuals choose to work ‘On the Door’ as a means of acquiring first hand knowledge of violent encounters – very effective if done in a professional manner; the threats, the hostility and the confrontations are certainly real, plus you get an excellent, whilst disturbing, overview of the current culture of violence. Not for the faint hearted though, and doing such a responsible and dangerous job just to research conflict is rather questionable in itself.

Recently I read an article in a fitness magazine about a practical system currently doing the international rounds, it was boasting about its instructor training course, where a group of system examiners would pounce upon a prospective instructor at an unspecified time and place. If the would-be instructor successfully resisted and defended, he or she passed muster. Quite innovative I agree, but it still isn’t a real fight! Eyes won’t be gouged, throats won’t be struck, there will be no biting, and no one is going to get their head stamped on. It’s just another role-playing drill dressed up to look like it is the last word in street survival. I cite this as an example to highlight how the point is being missed – in this case, for example, if you can be surprised in such a fashion, surely your awareness is dubious and you have failed.

The emphasis of true self-protection has always got to be the early prediction and assessment of potential violence, and the necessary means of avoiding it. If you are teaching someone to cross the road, you do not focus on practicing being hit by a car! Personally, given the choice, I will always choose to find a spot where the cars are few and far between, as I am well aware of my inability to withstand vehicular impact. It seems to me that there is far too much emphasis on dynamic last-resort techniques, and far too little consideration is given to boring first-resort techniques. Good security of any description is usually pleasantly tedious – bad security can often be unpleasantly exciting!

[TTEscrima]

PT 3

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?

http://selfprotection.lightbb.com/q-a-with-mick-coup-f5/article-real-combat-experience-t5743.htm

[Hardball]

TTE, no offense but you have gone "Brewer" on us, meaning long winded and cumbersome post. Is it anyway possible you can summarize some of this stuff, I'm sure it's a great read? LOL

[TTEscrima]

TTE, no offense but you have gone "Brewer" on us, meaning long winded and cumbersome post. Is it anyway possible you can summarize some of this stuff, I'm sure it's a great read? LOL

I didn't write it, Mick Coup (a verified BTDT) did. Sorry some of them are long reads, but like most things of merit they cant be summed up with a short soundbite or a couple of dots and an emoticon.

I'd suggest you do what I've decided to do: Prioritize and spend your precious time on the things likely to enhance your life, and ignoring the time wasters, you'll find you have much more time for the useful things in life.

[jubaji]

Let me ask in the nicest possible way:

Do you EVER write anything of your own or are you strictly limited to cutting and pasting the words of other people? At least Mike's long winded screeds were his own.












That having been said, we are left with the same fundamental problem here that lots of people have been in lots of 'real' situations and still do not agree on aspects of preparing for them. So we're left with, "No, no, my experience is the real one!" and then the argument continues going nowhere.

Now, if you are talking about actual military combat in an actual war, then I for one have no first hand experience to speak from.

[mellow]

Let me ask in the nicest possible way:

Do you EVER write anything of your own or are you strictly limited to cutting and pasting the words of other people? At least Mike's long winded screeds were his own.




That having been said, we are left with the same fundamental problem here that lots of people have been in lots of 'real' situations and still do not agree on aspects of preparing for them. So we're left with, "No, no, my experience is the real one!" and then the argument continues going nowhere.

Now, if you are talking about actual military combat in an actual war, then I for one have no first hand experience to speak from.

What experience do you have?

[jubaji]

In terms of what, exactly? I've been in plenty of situations that involved just one person who wanted to test himself, show off for friends, or try out his beer muscles; I've been in more than a few that involved groups of people in a big chaotic mess, I've had doped up freaks jump at me from out of nowhere (yes, yes, masters of awareness, I saw them coming), been pulled into shit that really had nothing to do with me because I was with a friend or friends who had big mouths and/or no clue, and assorted unfortunate situations of the sort. Shit happens, and it happens to lots of people, not just those with an axe (or 'system') to grind.

Again, if we are talking about 'combat' in terms of being under fire in a war, I have no experience with that (but appreciate the fact that others have on my behalf).