DIRTY GROUND-FIGHTING AGAINST THE KNIFE…

Author: Odhinn Kohout

Gross motor skills…we hear that term repeatedly used in Military/Police training but is the message getting through. When it comes to combatives it is your responsibility as the Instructor to ensure that it does and not your students.

Many of your current students will have some type of sport ground-fighting background and you need to ensure that complex and fine motor skills are not being used when you partner your Officers up with each other and have them start to get their reps in.

Autonomic body responses to threat stimulus and pain:

1.       Have you ever noticed that when you get hit you automatically grab the spot that is injured?

2.        When you have been startled you may find yourself “grabbing” at the threat in order to try and control it in some measure

This is a gross motor-skill response that is pre-programmed and as such hard wired into our brains. The grab can therefore be incorporated along with a reflexive flinch as part of a natural bio-mechanical process into our CQC.

Testing this Theory:

Any of your combatives techniques should follow scientific rules and principles or…they are based on your own OPINION of what will happen when you take a tactic from the classroom to the field of combat.

 I have observed with some of my very experienced students who have studied with me for many years that they will regularly try and grab the weapon hand of the Attacker when their partner has gone too fast and startled them (flinch) while practicing. They will not do this at a practice speed OR after they have become accustomed to the specific technique performing multiple repetitions.

Because of this I have incorporated many new “grab” tactics in our knife defense portion of training to address this. The measurable result for my group is that their learning curve improved dramatically as the “grab” is an innate subconscious response to a perceived threat.

The “grab” and ground-fighting:

From the back I have seen many programs teach to deflect the weapon hand from the initial block/flinch. But, you should also add a component where your Officer controls the Attacker’s weapon arm with a grab. We know from science that time distortion occurs with an elevated heart rate of 175 and above coupled with extreme stress so this “slowing down of time” can be used as an advantage in the fight. It is not difficult in point of fact to grab the weapon arm after it has been blocked so that it can be controlled which is crucial when dealing with the subject of edged weapon defense.

Dirty Ground-Fighting:

  

 

 

From the picture you will notice all the steps that we just discussed above and broke down into the reasons underpinning WHY they occur from a scientific perspective.

From the Flinch in the first frame I immediately grab the weapon arm while still maintaining the block position using my forearm bone (ulnar side/pinky). This not only controls the direction of the vector of force but keeps you from getting slashed or stabbed as the arm can now be safely re-directed.

The last picture shows that from the double handed grab position the forearm of the Attacker is now pinned to my chest as I do not want him to re-engage me with the knife and be forced to start the whole process over…

Your legs can now be used to further pin his weapon side shoulder using your foot to push off his hip bone (Iliac Crest) at the same time driving the side of your knee into the shoulder. This keeps the limb taut making it susceptible to breaking at the fulcrum points (elbow, wrist).

We can now use these opposing directional forces to break the joint at the affected fulcrum in this case the elbow. The more that you can break down WHY something works for your students, The easier it will be for them to absorb it and reproduce it when their lives are at stake.

Appropriate Training Equipment:

It is crucial that any professional training curriculum can be validated so the “proof is in the pudding” making believers of your students that the tactics they are practicing WILL WORK…

UZIELcp is using and endorsing a new “marking” training knife developed by PDT Tech so that our students can see visible signs if their technique was successful or not(leaves a red mark). You can check these knives out at their website here: PDT Tech

Be Safe Guys, Train Hard and Train Smart!