Sunday 28 April 2013

UZIEL Fighting Systems channel partners with PDT-Tech


I am very pleased to finally announce that UZIEL Fighting System is now an official channel Partner with the California based company PDT-Tech. The president of this company Gordon Potter, is a former U.S. Army Special Forces soldier with 15 years of operational experience. We are honored to be integrating our CQC system with PDT-Tech. More to follow...

Saturday 27 April 2013



Defense from takedown and front gun grab
Author: Odhinn Kohout

This is a very painful neck crank from the standing position. I am showing it from an attempted gun grab but it can used in a myriad of different ways from as an extraction or arrest/control. 

I am not going into the ways that the holster is protected from the initial grab as this is an open source forum and if you are in Military or Law Enforcement these initial defensive tactics should already be built into your system as they are rudimentary fundamentals.
  
 
 


 
After the Holster successfully freed from the grasp back of the neck is grabbed with a “Gable” grip and the lower vertebrae at the base of the neck becomes a fulcrum point and is pulled down and forward.

The forehead of the Attacker is locked against the chest (body armour) and secured. Keep the elbows tucked in so that the technique is core based and no arm strength is used.

The neck becomes inverted and the vector of force has no way to travel and stays at the C3/C4 location causing considerable discomfort.

Be careful in practice and do not apply this with too much force against your training partner.

Train hard Guys!

Thursday 25 April 2013



Defense from the Takedown (Head &Arm Choke)
Author: Odhinn Kohout

During practice yesterday (and filming some of this session) we worked on worse case scenarios such as getting knocked down to the ground by an Attacker who surprised you by rushing in.
The concept was to use basic compound movements that would be effective under stress. I have done a breakdown of one tactic that provides the Officer with a way to control the Attacker and then get back up to a standing position.
   
 


From the initial rush I used a double over position on a 45 deg encompassing the side of the neck and over the rear deltoid of his left arm. The grip can be “Gable” or “Chain-Link” but do not interlace your fingers as they may get broken during the takedown.
I use the body weight of the Attacker against him as I collapse the leg post and carry the momentum of the takedown (by tucking under his body) all the way through and at no point ever release my grip on the bad-guy(Both Catch Wrestling and Sambo use this duck-under position)
This ultimately puts you into a head an arm triangle or as it has been renamed the “D’Arce” choke. Practice this slowly at first and get your training partner to add some energy to his takedowns for realism.
Train hard Guys!

Tuesday 23 April 2013


Canadian Terrorists on the rise?
Are we prepared?
The recent arrest of two people from Montreal and Toronto in relation to a terrorist agenda of attacks targeting “VIA Rail” train routes is one of many over the last few years pointing to a rise of Islamic Salafist influence on Canadians.


The head of Canada’s intelligence agency CSIS Richard Fadden made a recent statement that they are aware of dozens of Canadians serving in Al Qaeda based cells abroad even though Canada itself has been identified as a target by these very groups.


2004:
 Ottawa software engineer Momin Khawaja is arrested and charged with participating in an international plot to bomb locations in London, England on behalf of Islamic extremists. He is convicted in 2008 and given a life sentence.


2006:
The so called “Toronto 18” Terrorist group plotted to bomb soft targets including CSIS, The Toronto Stock Exchange and the a national broadcasting station for television and radio the CBC. Several of their members received life sentences after a 5 year trial and recently had these custodial terms upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada.


2010:
August: Two Ottawa men, Hiva Mohammad Alizadeh and Misbhuddin Ahmed, and one man from London, Ont., Dr. Khurram Sher, are arrested and charged with participating in a terrorist group and conspiring to participate in acts of terror. The attacks were supposedly planned for Canada, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

2013:
Mokhtar Belmokhtar who was (killed March 2013)the leader of the al-Mua'qi'oon Biddam Brigade ("Those who Sign with Blood") an Al Qaeda affiliate in the Islamic Maghreb, commanded 4 Canadian youths from London Ontario Canada as part of an attack and siege on an Algerian oil refinery.


Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (“Youth Movement) is led by Ahmed Abdi Godane (Mukhtar Abu Zubair) whose attack on April 16/2013 left 12 people dead including one of the insurgents from Toronto Canada named Mahad Ali Dhore. This Terrorist group has been “formally” recognized by Al Qaeda leadership and Al Shabaab’s jihadist agenda remains that of fighting against the government (who are supported by the UN) in Mogadishu. 



Sunday 21 April 2013



Reality Based Training
Author: Odhinn Kohout

Reality based training is overused as a term from my own experience.

Today it can be seen as part of any “scenario" based exercises which tend to be "closed" (predetermined outcome) rather than "open" (spontaneous reaction to the stimulus). The debrief between the cadre and the student post exercise as an evaluation tool needs to have a marking schema which the student completely understands or there is very little context to base the performance critique. Students can be left frustrated as they do not understand WHY they they reacted a certain way other than it was not what had been taught in class by the Instructors.

An example of this was a firearms course that I attended which also included members of a Tactical team. Each students scenario was watched live by the rest of the group in an adjacent room on a large TV in real time. The scenario involved speaking with a male party ( Instructor dressed in a red Fist suit) about a noise complaint. After a brief conversation another party ( 2nd Instructor in Fist suit) appears around a corner and racks a shotgun and the student is required to react with an appropriate response.
One of the Tactical teams Officers who participated jumped back and flinched with his arms twitching upward as the 2nd party appeared with the shotgun catching him by surprise. The other Tactical members on his team laughed at him as he entered the room where we all were in front of the monitor. He was visibly embarrassed and irritated by all the comments and I am sure upset at himself that he had flinched the way that he had, particularly since it was being watched by the group.

In no part of this course did the Instructors provide any information what so ever as to how the body reacts under stress. Nothing....
The exercise could have been used prior to a lecture on the autonomic responses (hard-wired) of the human body to sudden stress and their effects I.E. Startled flinch, elevated heart-rate affecting fine/gross motor-skills etc.
Each student could then be run through additional scenarios (all with different environments and role players) to observe if the students comprehension of the information was being used as part of a cognitive response to stress inoculated training.
In this way the Cadre could obtain "measurable results" that the learned material was being applied OR that the student required remedial training.
This of course requires the necessary prerequisite work on the part of Instructors to ensure that the syllabus being used covers the essential components which make up a "Reality Based Training" curriculum. There are no short-cuts to this approach if Officer Safety is the desired learning

Friday 19 April 2013



Military/Police CQC: “The Fear State and Training-2”
Author: Odhinn Kohout

(I have received comments as to why I do not show many actual techniques, and focus on theory instead. Please remember that this is open source material. Terrorist and criminal groups use the web extensively. We do not want our tactics to be used against those in the Police and Military)

PREFACE:
In talking with a friend this week (who has a great deal of Military experience) we discussed realistic training needs in regards to edged weapons and the many pitfalls facing front-line Officers.
Many techniques have no basis in science and therefore are usually an “opinion” rather than tested to see what type of measurable result can be observed. My students are constantly saying to me; “you are always making adjustments to what you teach.” It is true, because my system remains in a perpetual evolving state as tactics are put through variables which test the validity of separate components.
In this month alone…we video recorded many NEW knife defense tactics material and sent the results to US Military SMEs of whom opinions we trust and value. For me…this approach always leads to improvement and ensures that you do not stray from the path of true “combat driven” curriculum.

FEAR STATE AND REALISTIC TRAINING:

In today’s BLOG we will look at the inception point of an attack and how realistic training provides a level of unconscious competence (A.Maslow) assisting in cognitive function during a critical incident.
 

 
In the first photo the subject is unaware and has their guard down. The Attacker comes in on a peripheral angle to inhibit threat perception and better his odds at severely injuring or killing the Officer.

The reaction is non-cognitive based purely on the bodies innate need for self-preservation. The flinch response is extremely effective as it does not rely on the dissemination of facts as they occur in real time but is hard wired into the brain as a base function of survival.
Since science tells us that there is a proportional link between performance and heart-rate the first “trained response” to be used is one based on a gross motor skill rather than those of a fine or complex nature. The picture provides one such technique in the Attacker’s arm is captured using a 2 on 1 position affixed to the iliac crest of the hip creating a core based movement rather than the need for muscular strength.

The end state has many variables and I have shown one as a possible outcome using a “twist lock” in conjunction to bending the fulcrum of the wrist.( Notice that to get to this point we incorporated the fear state as a starting point and NOT the technique itself) The Instructor Cadre are crucial at this point to observe and correct mistakes during high repetitious practice. STUDENTS ARE NOT SELF CORRECTING…

The final outcome does not have to be a control based one as I have shown in the final picture. The premise should be Officer Safety and the creation of some type of reactionary gap or getting to cover/concealment. Time is precious during a violent attack and its creation will help mitigate the effects of stress on the human body so that a rational cognitive approach can be used. If you fail as an Instructor to incorporate this into your training the chaos of violence will engulf a student who is unprepared when it strikes and they will have little but luck to turn to for hope.

The fear state can be addressed through the use of realistic and combat tested training….

Be safe Gentlemen.