Category: Tactical Smarts

More on Risky Business – Maija Soderholm

They say you should imagine the scariest opponent you can think of, and that your training is valid if only if it works against them.

I get this – Certainly if your training only works against an inexperienced, clumsy, compliant, half-wit you are indeed doomed to failure. But is the opposite true for the other end of the scale?

Who would you most fear to cross swords with? Not in a sport context, but in an imaginary lethal encounter?

My personal nightmare is a bigger, faster, stronger, insane person. (Let’s not go into multiples/ambush/unarmed vs armed etc. Just keep it simple, to a one on one see ’em coming both equally armed context). And for me, the ‘insane’ part is the part that makes them the most scary. If someone is insane and does not care if they live, what options do you have? Not many. There is no potential harm you can threaten them with. They cannot be reasoned with, and the height/weight advantage means they outmatch you once contact is made.

When the odds get this bad, you have to risk everything to stand even a small chance of prevailing. Your options narrow down to the smallest of windows of opportunity, where the risk of injury or death is almost a certainty, and your only option is to ‘go’. Once. Win or Lose.

You could argue that this is the most important place to train because it matters the most. But it is also extremely rare. Many people might outweigh or outreach you, and there are certainly people out there who are more highly skilled, but insane? Not so much. For someone to care less if they ‘die’ just for the pleasure of taking you out? This takes a very particular type of individual with a very, very, personal grudge.

Why does any of this matter?

Because this is the opponent most people seem to fight, all the time.

Is this ‘wrong’?

There is a logic that says that if you have the answer to the most difficult problem, you also have the answer to all the easier problems, because the only thing that is changing in the equation is the threat level the opponent presents. As the threat level goes down, so the winning should become easier and easier. Right?

Well, kinda … yes, the technique might be very effective, but no, because the risk to self is left extremely high.

Remember, in training smart, we are looking for maximum gain for minimum risk. When you have no time or space, you have to judge everything, from range, to timing, to angle, perfectly. Even if there is only half an opening, you hope for some luck to add to your slight chance of surprise and you take it. Because you have to. And if nothing else, it never hurts to increase the chaos if you are losing.

But what of mere mortal opponents? I would argue that here, you actually do have the luxury of space, time, and especially rationality, to play with. You have choices, and those choices actually increase as the RELATIVE level of the threat decreases.

Rory once said something to the effect that time is a commodity, and one of the differences between a veteran and a rookie is knowing when you have it, and when you do not. If you do have it, it is far better to spend it gaining intel, rather than rushing straight into an unknown chaos without understanding what you might be facing.

Same can be said for sword play. If they are not insane, gain some intel first. Don’t risk yourself unnecessarily. You do have the time and the space. Use them. Make a smart decision.

I found the quote below on the internet. I have no idea if it is a real Native American saying, but I thought it was quite good. It speaks both to the difference in attitude whilst training versus in ‘reality’, but perhaps it also applies in a dueling situation, to the one who controls the game versus the one who does not?

“The huntsman can make many mistakes, the hunted, only one”.

Be the hunter.

 

Comment by Erik Kondo

Here is my interpretation of what you are saying. Please correct me as you see fit.

A person has both the ability and willingness to do you harm. If he is insane and determined to kill you at all costs. His will is not a point of weakness. It is fixed. Only your superior ability or your superior response will stop him. In this case, a category of response with a high degree of self-risk is acceptable under the circumstances.

But when a person has the free will to stop his attack at any time, then there usually exist multiple lower risk options available that target his Will-to-Continue. His Will-to-Continue could be his point of weakness.  In this case, the previous category of response with the high degree of self-risk is now not the “best” option. You could first explore other categories of responses with lower self-risk.

Therefore, the responses do not exist only on a linear continuum. They also exist in different dimensions.

Response by Maija

I think your phrase ‘Will-To-Continue’ is great, because that gives us the only question that matters –

“What will make them stop”?

Realizing that this is a question that can be answered to alter the outcome in most cases (apart from with the rational or irrational crazies) now gives you time to find out what that answer might be.

Sometimes the answer IS me, physically forcing them to stop, at other times it could be them deciding not to continue due to external circumstances, or perhaps realizing that they have made a big mistake by miscalculating the threat posed to them.

I can influence their decision by how I act, what I say, how I move, what I do.

Everything I do has to swing the risk reward equation towards risk (for them). And it’s important to note that the equation needs to stay in risk/reward mode, and not win/lose mode. People emotionally hate to lose, and make very risky, and often irrational, decisions to avoid doing so.

If they are in survival mode, they need to feel like prey.

In social mode, they need to feel like they made the decision to not continue for themselves, to avoid feeling like they are ‘losing’.

In rational mode, you have to show them that the risk is not worth the reward, but have to worry less about it being a personal insight than just showing it as it is.

Finally, just a reminder that this is a piece about swordplay, so what I say comes from a limited view. It has ‘edges’. I do not speak from a self-defense perspective, but admittedly, the cross overs in tactics are obvious.

Handling a Haymaker Punch – Marc MacYoung

The simple answer is ‘See it coming and move.’

The not so simple answer is I just finished writing a 150 page e-book that covers this subject. It will be available next month. It’s called “Writing Violence IV: Defense” and it will be available for a whopping $2.99. I specifically go into some of why this kind of attack is so damned weird.

It’s weird because it’s both
a) the stupidest, most ineffective, amateurish, wasted movement, my grandmother hits harder attack, and
b) the one that freaks people out the most (and in freaking them out, THEY make the damned thing work)

Wait. What?
I’m not BSing you when I say that it is a stupid, clumsy and ridiculous attack — UNLESS the target does something specific. Then it works. The problem is that untrained people DO THAT SPECIFIC THING!

The power in this attack — and by that I don’t mean the force of the attack, but the psychological — is that it will make an untrained person freeze like a deer in the head lights.

Let me say that again and in a different way. The reason this kind of attack works is because untrained people STAND THERE and watch it come at them.

Any attack is designed to deliver maximum aggravation at a specific location (think GPS). This kind of wild swing, yelling, and bug eyed nonsense spooks untrained people into staying rooted to that spot. If they DO try to move, they try to back pedal. Which is unfortunately like seeing a train coming at you and trying to backpedal down the tracks. You’re still going to get hit by the damned train. Why? Because it can go forward faster down the tracks than you can go backwards down the tracks.

When I say move, I mean get off the damned tracks.
Wait until the guy gets close, then jump off the tracks. That is the fundamental strategy. Pretty much everything comes from there. If you can’t get off the tracks, you’re going to get hit. So pay attention to overcoming the natural reaction of deer in the headlights.

Second thing… well wait a minute, two things you have to know before the second thing not only really makes sense, but you can use the second thing when someone is trying to punch you.

Stand up and measure the distance between your eyebrows and the floor. Now lay that same distance down on the floor in front of you. That is your ‘attack range.’

That’s to say it’s the distance you can attack someone (barehanded) WITHOUT taking an additional step. Now I tell you about that because that is absolute distance someone can attack you at. And that’s someone who knows what he’s doing. From that distance and with his feet in just the right way he can land a kick. He moves and WHAM!!! Outside of that range the guy HAS to take extra steps to reach you.

In reality, most people can’t attack from that far out. So cut that distance in half and you get most people’s attack range. If they aren’t that close, they’re going to HAVE to walk over to being that close. You’re NOT fighting Reed Richards from the Fantastic Four who can stretch his arm and punch you across the street.

The other thing you need to know is a professional/experienced fighter will establish attack range BEFORE he launches his attack. An amateur will try to establish range AS he is attacking.
Putting that in other terms. An experienced attacker will slide into attack range and then WHAM!! He’ll nail you. This guy is actually MORE dangerous than the other guy because he doesn’t look scary until it’s too late.

An amateur will start his attack and charge into range to hit you. He’s relying on you freezing because he’s got this whole booga-booga-boo act going on.

So from a fighting perspective. You’re not looking at the guy’s fist. You’re looking at his feet. IS HE IN PUNCHING RANGE? If not, he can’t punch you. If yes, then you’d DAMNED well better be on the look out for him swinging on you.

Being able to recognize attack range gives you ALL kinds of time to spot when someone is about to attack. OR if he’s doing the booga-booga act to realize you have time to break the freeze because you haven’t been hit yet.

THAT’S the second thing of see it coming.
Start by keeping him outside of his attack range. (From his eyebrows to the floor.) This is where most inexperienced folks screw up (at least in the US) they’re so busy huffing, puffing and wagging their dicks around that either they let the other guy develop punching range or they’re the ding-a-ling who steps up INTO the other guy’s punching range to tell him to get out of their face. Then they’re caught with their dicks flapping in the wind when ‘unexpectedly’ get punched.

EXCUSE ME?! How can you be surprised that you got punched when YOU got up in his face? DUH!!!! Where it goes into sheer stupidity is “I didn’t see it coming.” Well if you weren’t so busy trying to scare him with how big your dick is, might have noticed you’d walked INTO his attack range.

Kinda hard to react in time when you’re busy doing the dumb.
That’s why I say “see it coming and move” are your two fundamentals. If you can’t accomplish those two fundamental requirements, then nothing else is going to do you any good.
Or as my favorite Mountain Man Rabbit Stew recipe reads. Step one: Catch a rabbit.

If you don’t have that first step, everything else that follows is meaningless.

Nine Basic Strategies – Rory Miller

There are seven natural ways for living creatures to deal with conflict and danger: Freeze or Hide; flight; fight; posture; submit; hunt; and gather intelligence.

Everyone has heard of the “Fight or flight” response. The supposed animal response to immediate danger. Biologists call it fight, flight or freeze. That’s not the natural order, however. Generally animals freeze when confronted by a danger, only flee when freezing fails and only fight when flight fails.

1. Freeze or Hide. One of the best strategies in the natural world is to never be noticed by the things that might want to eat you. Predators key on motion, so freezing is a natural reaction. Freezing is often presented as the bane of self-defense instruction, but it works a large percentage of the time. There is a reason why it is still the first instinct when surprised or overwhelmed.

In the natural world, hunters see motion. And predators, whether human or animal, often have an instinct to chase the things that flee. So, in nature, the tiny spotted fawn relies on stillness and natural camouflage to not be seen by the coyote. In the modern social world, freezing often works. In a social challenge, sometimes one of the participants will freeze. Under the freeze, the person doesn’t say or do anything that would give the other the social excuse to attack. It works. In property crimes, there is rarely a reason to injure a passive victim. Freezing works.

Until it fails, and then it fails catastrophically.

Freezing is often involuntary. Hiding is the conscious corollary. Hiding keeps the predators from finding you. Until they do. Again, hiding works until it fails and then it fails catastrophically. This is one of the dangers of “lock down” policies in schools. If there is an active shooter and all the kids hide in a locked room they are safe. Until the shooter decides to kick down that door. Then, well, there is a reason why “shooting fish in a barrel” is a cliché.

2. Running is the second natural strategy. In prey species it tends to trigger only after freezing has failed. And it can trigger in you as well. When you are stalking people or scouting, it can sometimes take immense will not to break and run when the enemy gets too close or is looking right at you. Sometimes our own instincts make the freeze fail.

In self-defense, if you have no duty to act, getting out of the danger zone is almost always a good idea. Run early and often if that option is available. The biggest inhibitor to this good choice is our own egos. Someone too proud to run will get stuck with the third natural strategy, the fight.

Freezing is a zero-cost option. When it works, there is no downside to it. You are not harmed, you haven’t expended energy. Running is a very low cost strategy. When it works, you’ll be a little out of breath, but there are no other costs– no injuries, no paperwork.

But, like freezing, when running fails it tends to fail catastrophically. When you are caught, you will have your back to the threat and most people, psychologically, can do more damage if they can avoid seeing a face.

3. Fighting. In nature, fighting is the last option. It has the highest cost and is the least certain. Fighting is the worst option in almost every case. It’s losses will be catastrophic, but unlike the previous two, fighting also offers the possibility of a catastrophic win. You may prevail, escape and lose too much blood to survive.

Fighting is a valid option, but a poor choice. If it is all you have left, fight with everything you have. But if you have time to think of another option, take it.

Freeze, flight and fight are the defaults outside our species. If a tiger came in the door right now, you’d freeze. If he advanced anyway, you would run. And when he caught you, you would fight with desperation.

Within our species, we have different strategies– Posture, submit and negotiate. There are some crossovers, in that certain people will run or freeze or fight when presented with a social challenge. And people have used or tried to use posturing, submission and negotiation outside their species.

4. Posture is the attempt to get the threat to back down by looking big or mean or dangerous. In a Monkey Dance you will see both fighters square up and get up on their toes, trying to look as big as possible. The appearance of size may decrease injury by heading off violence and the poor base decreases injury should the encounter turn violent.

For the most part, in any serious conflict, you are trying to break the other person’s will, not their body. Posturing is designed to do that without injury. It is the essence of the “Presence” level of force as described in “Scaling Force.”

Posturing is part of the threat display and usually a sign that there is little immediate danger. It is completely incompatible with hunting and the hunter’s mindset (see below). Even in nature, predators try to NOT be seen.

Occasionally, posturing does work cross-species. Being big and loud, moving, especially rhythmically and in groups, tends to frighten away dangerous animals.

Posturing can be successful, and can fail. When it fails, the consequences can range from mild to catastrophic. I have postured (as a 5-foot, 95 pound sixteen-year-old) on a group…and they responded by laughing and leaving. It is also possible to posture and trigger an epic punishment: beating, rape or murder.

My personal policy is rarely to posture, only when it has a good chance of preventing a force incident, and never to posture without the skills to back it up. Bluffing is dangerous. Getting your bluff called in a violent situation can be deadly.

5. Submission is acquiescence. Sending a signal that you are no threat. It can range from passive to truly groveling. Like fighting, even the wins can be catastrophic. This is hard to write, because our society has so fully indoctrinated people to the idea that violence (fighting or hunting) is evil, that… welll, I’ll just straight up say it:

Fighting may be bad, but submission is worse. There are times. When facing overwhelming force by an honorable enemy who follows the law of land warfare, there is no dishonor in surrendering to save the lives of your men. If you are lucky enough to meet an honorable enemy that follows the rules.

Without that, as a group, slavery is the best of the possible results of submission.

When dealing with predatory crimes, if the man with the gun demands your wallet, that’s a negotiation. A cost/benefit analysis on your part. If the man with the gun demands that you go with him, that would be submission and there is no good outcome.

Understand that sometimes the cost of refusing to submit is death. Don’t ignore that. But sometimes death is the cost of submission as well. And in some cases, death is far from the worst option.

Submission, as a general strategy also has two bad long-term effects. The first is that submission becomes a habit. Some evil people are careful to cultivate the habit of submission in their victims, punishing any attempt to take a stand while rewarding signs of obeisance. Soon, victims become victims down to their core.

The second effect is that submission encourages exploitation. Tactics of non-engagement or appeasement empower the vicious. Man, as Maslow pointed out, is “the perpetually wanting animal.” Giving a bad guy what he wants does not decrease his desire, it merely emboldens his actions.

There are two other strategies that need to be discussed.

6. The first is simply walking away. It is flight without fear and disengagement without submission. Immature and stupid people see walking away and running away as the same thing. Experienced operators walk away from every fight they honorably can. It’s not a game, it’s not fun and there is always the possibility of dire and unpredictable consequences.

7. The second strategy is negotiation. It is the basis of the modern world, whether political discussions or trade. If there is one thing that has increased the possibility of peace, it is the fact that we can get things that used to be won in battle– land and goods– by trade, and do it more safely. And trading partners are more efficient at making our lives better than slaves. Trade, capitalism, commercialism, whatever you want to call it, has done more to make peace possibly that all of the altruism and activism in human history.

Negotiation has become so successful and prevalent that many people assume it is part of the natural order of things. It is not. It is a human innovation and takes will and foresight to work. It works because the alternative is force. If one side of a negotiation has no line where they will be pushed to force, it is not a negotiation but merely a drawn out, formal, act of submission.

If both sides cannot imagine a mutually beneficial outcome, if, for instance, one side’s definition of a win is to see the other side broken, bleeding and begging (or dead) there is no “win-win.” In that case, negotiation is futile, unless you use it as a ploy to buy time to prepare for the inevitable.

There are two other natural strategies for dealing with conflict: Hunting and Gathering Intelligence.

8. Hunting is the most pro-active of the strategies, in my experience the most effective and often the safest. If and only if it is badly bungled will it turn into a fight. What is hunting? In this context it is giving the target absolutely no chance to respond.

You gather your resources, choose your time and place and execute. You give the target as little warning as possible. Slaughtering a steer, hunting a deer, sniping, or putting someone on the ground and cuffing him while he is still deciding to resist are all examples of hunting.

This mindset is very difficult for amateurs. Their default is to think of hunting and fighting as the same. They are not. There is no element of game, sport or contest. You do not fight, you execute. And a hunter will take a fighter almost every time.

9. Gathering Intelligence is unique of all the strategies because it can be combined with any other. Freezing/hiding and gathering intelligence is the essence of scouting. Every second of a fight should be giving you information about your opponent.

Unlike any other strategy, there is no failure, no downside to knowing more about what you face. Learning should be a basic default of life.

Managing Organizational Conflict – Rory Miller

One of the most frequent and entrenched forms of conflict in a large organization stems from an element of group dynamics that is largely invisible. Usually, the organization is actually composed of two different groups with different languages, cultures, values and social rules.

We’re not talking about obvious divisions within an organization, like Human Resources, Production, Logistics, Public Relations and what-have you. This goes much deeper.

Almost any group can be categorized as either goal-oriented or longevity-oriented.

Goal-oriented (GO) groups exist to accomplish a mission. Your status with the team is based entirely on your contribution to getting the job done. Hard work, intelligence, and creativity are valued and rewarded.

The ultimate goal-oriented groups are task forces or teams of specialists brought together for a single mission. Next up are tactical teams, like SWAT or special-operations groups.

Longevity-oriented (LO) groups exist to perpetuate the group. Status is based on rank and service to the group. Hard work and intelligence may be rewarded, but they are secondary to making others comfortable. Creativity almost always threatens the status quo, and is almost always discouraged in a longevity-oriented group. Social ritual, whether hazing and initiations or policy and protocol are the lifeblood of the LO group.

A pure group type is very rare. Even an extreme GO team, unless they are assembled for a single mission, will have to deal with training, logistics, and the day-to-day issues of work between missions. Even the most bureaucratic LO team still has some kind of job to do, some mission. They will also occasionally have crises that will require at least a few mission-oriented thinkers.

These types of groups can and must exist within the same organization.

Line staff, be they cops on the beat, emergency room staff, or factory workers, have a job to do: areas patrolled, patients triaged and treated, units off the production line. Failure at the job is measured by what didn’t get done. Line staff tends to be a goal-oriented group.

Administration needs to be longevity oriented. It is their responsibility to make sure the organization survives into the future. Getting the basic job (patrols, patients, product) done is important, but other things can do much more damage. Big lawsuits, lack of funding, negative media exposure can all damage the organization quickly and brutally.

The jobs that administrations must do are very much about relationships. Coordinating or making deals with other organizations and businesses, arranging a budget in a government entity or fighting for a piece of the budget in a company, handling company image.

This naturally extends to a relationship-oriented outlook within the organization as well. The policies and procedures, the meetings, the organizational charts are rituals to identify and maintain a group identity.

Most large organizations will find a profound cultural rift between management and line staff.

The two groups have wildly different ideas of what is important, different ways to communicate. Both groups think they are carrying the entire organization. Line staff know they are getting the job done, and the job is the only reason for the organization to even exist. Administrators know they are the ones keeping the big wheel turning, fending off threats the line staff isn’t even aware of.

Have you ever seen someone promoted who was terrible at the job? From the goal oriented perspective, a promotion is a reward and you reward good behavior and effectiveness on the job is how goal oriented groups define good behavior. When an ineffective worker is promoted, his former colleagues see it as a mistake in management, a sign of managements ignorance of who their good people are, or even as a direct insult to the good workers.

But the people who decided on the promotion were likely longevity oriented. In their mind, a promotion is not a reward. Their job is not to reward or punish anyway, but to balance the dynamics, to put people in the positions where they can best benefit and protect the group. They do not promote Helen because they think she was good on the factory line, they promote Helen because they think she will be good supervising the factory line and interacting with other branches of the organization.

Think about it. Many of the people who were poor at the basic job did well when they were promoted. And many of the hard workers floundered.

This is common and causes a lot of missed opportunities and grief in the business world.

There are individuals who are goal oriented and others who are relationship oriented. Though most will be happiest in a group that matches personal preference, there is extreme value in having a mix.

Goal-oriented people tend to ignore feelings and let a lot of basic relationship maintenance slide. They don’t need company picnics or set up parties to mark big transitions, like promotions and retirements. A purely goal-oriented team can feel pretty sterile. Having a few relationship-oriented members can help build relationships and keep things running smoothly during quiet times. Often a goal-oriented group runs best in crisis and can become very aggravating when things are going well.

The relationship-oriented people who run longevity-oriented groups often need a few goal-oriented people. Why? Partially to keep them on track and remind the team of the need to get the basic job done, but primarily because goal-oriented people tend to respond to crises much better. Solving the problem is usually a better strategy for dealing with disaster than maintaining relationships and protocols.

Often longevity- or goal-oriented people in a group of the other orientation do not understand and can be alienated from their own group. It does no good if you are a manager who can communicate with line staff if you have trouble understanding other managers.

It also helps for each group to have some members that can relate to the other group. Having goal-oriented people in your management team helps facilitate communication with goal-oriented teams.

These two types of groups almost always exist in the same organization. They have different values, and so sometimes they work at cross purposes. They interpret language differently— one of the highest compliments to a GO group is simply to tell them they’re doing a good job. According to “Richard Conniff’s The Ape in The Corner Office to senior administrators, “Good job” is a veiled insult, implying the person needs outside validation. The differences are that profound— an insult in one group is a compliment in the other group.

And, because the organization is a single entity, the presence of two very different groups is invisible.

The dynamic between the GO and LO levels within an organization can be extremely positive or toxic. It is a symbiosis and they need each other. Generally, the organization exists for what the line staff, GO people, do—whether that is fighting crime or producing steel. The customers come to the organization for this.

But organizations exist in a complex community of trade, public opinion, politics, reputation, and relationships. In order to thrive and survive, the organization needs specialists to work these dynamics

At their best, the two levels respect each other.

It becomes toxic when the groups become enemies, when they treat each other with contempt. The most toxic I have seen was a law enforcement agency where the line staff universally believed every member of administration had sought promotion because he or she was afraid to do the job . . . and the administration thought no one would stay on line unless the officer was too stupid to take the tests.

The British Army officer William Francis Butler once said, “The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards.” The toxic version of the LO/GO dynamic exemplifies this.

Be A Good Witness: Describing People – Toby Cowern

Often, in the ’back room chats’ here in CRGI we find a number of contributory concepts throw up interesting and useful little ’nuggets’ of information. I often find, these ‘nuggets’ come in the form of something one or more of us founding members deeply ‘know’ and are (pleasantly) surprised when we realise that this maybe ‘new’ to people. It’s a balance between ‘how can people not know this?’ and ‘well, we can share this because it’s really good to know’.

I was recently re-reading some of Marc MacYoung’s and Rory Miller’s work as well as back issues of this publication, and while walking with my daughter Christmas shopping this weekend, suddenly a little ‘nugget’ came too mind. Clint talks clearly about the importance of ‘Witness Coaching’ as do Messrs. MacYoung and Miller. In a previous issue of CM Magazine I wrote about the concept of ‘Left and right of Arc’, thinking about the nuance, details and extremes of any given subject.

My youngest daughter is now 10 years old and is insightful and curious about many things. This has seen a great opportunity to increase her observation and awareness skills of late. We previously have been looking at behaviors and ‘things that stand out’, but I wanted to move now to memory and recall.  The game we played, was she had to describe someone nearby and I had to point out who it was. My wife played also and it was interesting to see who picked up on what ‘descriptor’ details. Then a flash of recall…

In many ‘follow ups’ and investigations I’ve conducted both in military and civilian occupations, I have used, with very good effect, the British Military ‘Descriptor’ Template. Anyone who knows anything about the Military, knows they have to have reports in a ‘standardised’ formats. A quandary was reached in the early 80’s when military housewives, while being encouraged to ‘stay vigilant’ and look for suspicious activity in and around military accommodation (due to the escalating terrorism threat) made regular reports to barracks police who then had to try and make the (widely varying quality of) details given, not only ‘fit’ in the reports, but be of any use.

Thus was born the ‘A-H’ system. A simple, easy to remember list of ‘Key headers’ that people could use to identify and remember details (of use) and provide comprehensive and consistent reports. The Key Headers are as follows:

  • A – Age
  • B – Build
  • C – Clothing
  • D – Distinguishing Features
  • E – Elevation
  • F – Facial features
  • G – Gender / Gait
  • H – Habits

We can expand on each of these with a little more detail:

Age – if you can’t be specific then try and ‘bracket’ within (ideally) five years e.g Between 25-30.

Build – Athletic, Obese, Skinny as some examples, but I’ve also had ‘sexy’, ‘curvaceous’ ‘muscly’ and ‘rugged’ used as well. If people struggle to define a build, I’ll often ask ‘Who are they built like?’, sometimes it’s easier for people to give a specific (normally celebrity) example and then get further detail from there. We are trying to build an overall profile and description and build is an important header.

Clothing – I encourage people to be methodical here, either describe head to toe or toe to head. So type/colour of footwear? What clothing items on the lower party of the body? On the Torso? Gloves? Items around the neck? Headwear etc. Here we can also think about ‘presence of the abnormal’. If it’s warm summer weather and the person was wearing a heavy or bulky jacket that is potentially useful information to follow, but then we digress to investigative procedure…

Distinguishing Features – What stood out about this person? Scars? Tattoos? Tribal identifiers (e.g. Uniforms, Use of Gang Signs)? Prosthetics? If you were closer enough to hear or engaged with them, Accent? Use of Slang? Etc etc

Facial Features – Of most use here will be the shape of the face, details on eyes, nose, mouth, ears and skin tone. Distinguishing features also cross over here, along with specifics such as if facial hair is present etc.

Gender / Gait – So here we are squeezing two descriptors into one heading.

Gender, either actual or assumed.

Gait is something people very rarely think about. To clarify ‘Gait’ is referring to ‘locomotion achieved through the movement of human limbs’, or to put it simpler ‘how people move’. While appearances can be masked, clothing can be discarded, even facial features to a point can be changed it is very, VERY hard to change the way you move. In fact, many of us could pick out a spouse or loved one from a distance on this alone, so this shows how useful a header this is… Ambling, unco-ordinated, uneven, lop sided, powerful, swaggering, are just some of the many ‘Gait’ descriptors I’ve heard, but there are many more.

Habits – There is a very wide range here. Do they smoke or similar? Any facial ticks or twitches in the limbs? Use of certain actions or phraseology (Rory mentions recognizing ex-cons by how they interact face to face, to give just one example)? These would be some of the ‘broad headers’, all the way down to the detail, what brand of cigarette? They drink, what were they drinking? Presence of religious symbols also fit nicely into this category.

We are, by nature, creatures of habit and many a person has been caught because of a habit they could not break.  

Ultimately, all of these descriptor details present the authorities the greatest opportunity in being able to identify people that may have had involvement or been witness to an altercation or incident you were involved in. Imagine being involved in a situation or even a ‘near miss’ and the frustration you would feel in not being able to give a clear concise description of those involved. Being a good witness is about not only observation, but remembering relevant details. It is hard to know what may be relevant at the time, but we can safely say accurate descriptions of people involved will always be useful information.

A central tenant here in CRGI is helping ‘make people better’. I particularly enjoy writing on subjects that may be of use to students and instructors alike. So, Instructors, consider for your next class having your students spend a few minutes trying to describe someone in the room and see how well others can guess who they are referring to. If you are finding a low success rate, consider introducing your students to the ‘A-H’ system and see if it helps. I know I have benefited from it greatly not only as an investigator but also as a witness.

Would this “Move” Work on the Street? – Erik Kondo

This innocent sounding question followed by a short video clip that highlights the “Move” in question is common in groups and forums related to self-defense and/or the martial arts. What follows usually a multitude of back and forth comments aimed at “proving” that the answer to the question is either YES, or NO.

BEWARE! The question is effectively a TRAP. It is a trick question designed to see who will take the bait and run with it. In fact, the more detailed explanation someone provides to “prove” his or her case, the more he shows he has been duped.

It seems like a simple YES, or NO question. But let’s deconstruct the question.

Would this Move work on the street for WHO against WHOM?

Using the MMA as an example there are 14 weight classes. Which means given two opponents, this question actually contains 91 different combinations based on weight class alone.

For the sake of discussion, each of the two people involved in the conflict have a different level of psychological motivation on a scale of 1 to 5 from low motivation to very high motivation. Similarly, each person has a different level of previous experience with dealing with these types of “Moves” from low experience to very high experience (1-5). And a different level of natural ability for accomplishing or defending against these “Moves” from low to very high (1-5).

That creates 91 x (2×5) x (2×5) x (2×5) = 91,000 variations to consider.

The Street represents the particular environment where this Move takes place. Streets vary in type of surface from hard dry pavement to soft wet and slippery. Sometimes, there are companions/friends on the Street who may become involved. There are improvised weapons on the Street such as bricks, rocks, bottles, sticks, sand, and more. Either party could bring weapons to the Street such as knives, guns, impact weapons, and more. The lighting is varies on different Streets. The weather is different. Clearly, there are many different types/varieties of “Streets” possible for each person. If we limit both people to a total of only 25 variations. We now have:

Would this Move work on a wide variety of Streets/Environments/Situations for WHO against WHOM?

91,000 x 25 = 2,275,000 possible variations of whether the Move works.

Now we have the question of what does “Works” actually mean? In some cases, “Works” could mean your opponent is dead, in other cases, you opponent is momentarily distracted. What is considered to “Work” is dependent on the desired outcome of the particular situation. Therefore, there could be easily be another 10 variations of what is deemed to “Work”.

2,275,000 x 10 = 22,750,000 possible variations.

If your answer is: YES, it works – You are saying that it works in all 22.75 million variations.

If your answer is: NO, it doesn’t work. – You are saying it doesn’t work in any of the 22.75 million variations.

Those people in forums and groups who tried to definitely answer this question without taking into consideration or acknowledging these many variations have been duped. And if those people don’t understand the question, should they really be answering it with such certainty?

NOTE: When calculating combinations and permutations the numbers get quite large and the formulas get tricky. In the event my math is off, the concept still applies. The concept is that there is a huge amount of variation involved in determining the viability of any particular “move”. So much so, that it is not possible to come to a definite determination of either “YES, it works” or “NO, it doesn’t”.

 

Vital points – Kevin O’Hagan

When I was a child at school one day I got into a bit of a playground scrap with a boy who was bigger than me and a bit of a bully. During this struggle he was attempting to apply some sort of crude strangle or headlock upon me when I managed to pull free and swing around and quite by chance I ‘clocked’ him one with the back of my fist on the side of the neck.

I saw the shock register on his face (he must have also seen the bigger shock on mine!) I then saw pain register and that closely followed by fear. He held his neck and mumbled something about ‘next time’ and wandered off. I never really had much more trouble out of him after that episode. I didn’t realize then that I had used an attribute so often taught in Martial Arts systems.

When I hit him it wasn’t because I had suddenly become bigger, stronger or harder, that wasn’t the reason that made him back off. It was because I had hit (totally by accident) a vital point on his body that hurt and confused him and he didn’t fancy getting another! What a stroke of bloody luck for me!

Years on in my Martial Arts journey I began to learn about weak spots, vital points, pressure points and began to understand that no matter how big or muscular a person can be, these areas are vulnerable on everybody.

I was curious and enthusiastic to learn as much as I could on this topic, as most of the people I began to encounter in my life were larger than me.

The more this area of skill was tried and tested the more things I learnt and the more myths I dispelled about the subject of vital points/Atemi, waza etc. Some areas of the body as soon as they are struck give an immediate profound and instant reaction to an attacker, i.e. eyes, groin, throat. By attacking these areas it also opens up other vital points, i.e. finger claw to the eyes, knee to the groin. Other areas are highly sensitive but very difficult to hit accurately. Accurate targeting is a big factor, knowing exactly where and how to strike and knowing what potential effect and affects the strikes will have is also essential.

Here is a short test, do you know where these following points on the body are if you had to strike or attack them? Clavicle, spleen, patella, cervical vertebrae, mastoid, coccyx, femoral artery, sciatic nerve, liver, sub-clavical artery?

How well did you do? It is important not only for your own self-protection but also for your ability as an Instructor.

‘Play a mind game’

I used to play a little mind game with people that I came into contact with. I would play the ‘what if’ game. What if this person wanted to attack me then how would I go about striking them? What are their obvious strengths or weaknesses? How big are they? How tall? How heavy? Etc. I still use it now and it’s a great way of running through planned pressure point strikes and routines. Learn to study people’s body shapes and think where best would it be to attack them.

There are basically three body types: Mesomorphs, Endomorphs and Ectomorphs.

  1. Mesomorphs are naturally athletic build with wide shoulders and narrow hips. They tend to have thick bones and muscled readily.
  2. Ectomorphs have naturally slim build with long, lean limbs, little muscle and narrow shoulders and hips.
  3. Endomorphs have a stocky rounded build with wide shoulders and hips. They tend to have an even distribution of fat and muscles.

Body types and physical characteristics can affect how you may attack the various vital points. Confronted by a tall opponent, who is slim, you may decide to attack their legs with kicks and sweeps to bring them down to your size. A smaller person you may decide to grab and grapple and hold them in place while you pick your strike.

Attempting to attack the neck area of someone like Mike Tyson for example may not be the best of strategies. His bull-like neck and heavily muscled shoulders protect his windpipe and carotid arteries. These things can be considered when studying potential opponents.

You can have a situation when there are two people who have strikingly different body structures and characteristics, by looking at this you can see how a strike can be instantly effective or not.

Again for example the chin/jaw can be a great KO target but if you are 5 foot 2 and your opponent is 6ft 6, how the hell are you going to reach the target without help of a stepladder (more details of this in my book ‘I thought you’d be bigger’). So you will have to go for something else first. Punch the opponent in the groin and bring him down and forward and you can then execute a perfect blow to the jaw.

If you are faced by a 17 stone body builder, whaling punches at his chest or abdomen isn’t a smart tactic but if you strike the sternum (breastbone) with the point of the elbow it would have an effect. Just by targeting and being accurate you get a result. Again faced by the same opponent and you ‘kicked off’ with a hard stomping kick to his shinbone, no amount of pumping iron can protect this vital spot, then followed up with a thumb gouge to the eye you could be on a winner! There are no muscles in the eyeballs.

But these things have to be practiced on a daily basis to work. The difference between gouging an eye and a cheekbone can be a matter of whether you win or lose.

In my training and teaching I have noticed how people, even senior black belts, have an idea where vital points are but not the exact spot and that makes a big difference to what works and what doesn’t. Time spent studying and practicing Atemi to vital points is time well spent. Don’t just throw something in the general direction, but try and hit the right spot. Remember my little story at the start?

As a training drill you could for example use a knife hand strike to the carotid artery (the exact point for striking the carotid sinus is underneath the angle of the jaw line an inch or so back from the windpipe and not the side of the neck where a lot of people hit.) Now start off slowly and ‘touch’ strike the spot and then build up gradually your speed. If you perform a dozen touch strikes try and accurately hit the carotid sinus a dozen times without fail. If you manage 9 or 10 at speed that’s good, 6 out of 12 you’re halfway there but must improve, any less and you need to get to work on your targeting. You can do this with any strike and improve the targeting immensely.

Another drill is for your partner to call out a vital spot on the body and you must instantly and accurately hit that spot. This not only improves the targeting and your reaction time but also gets you familiar with the names and placement of the vital points. These are just two ideas to work on to improve your skills.

When you also study a person’s characteristics other things can be taken into consideration in relation to what may motivate you to go for certain targets.

Trends can also have their disadvantages. Long hair can be pulled; twisted and painfully manipulated, earrings can be tugged and wrenched free. Long facial hair can be grabbed and twisted for control or ripped out. Glasses can be shattered into the eyes etc.

Also certain dress can go against you. A motor cyclist’s full-face crash helmet can inhibit most face strikes; heavy leather jackets can nullify a good body shot etc. These are all useful things to consider in the reality world of combat.

If you are studying a potential assailant then become attentive. If his hands are covered in heavy rings, know they can be lethal knuckle-dusters. If he has heavy boots on he may favour kicking and stomping. If he’s wearing a muscle vest he may want to maul and grapple you. If he’s wearing a dress run like hell! No, but seriously these things all go hand in hand with your vital point’s knowledge. They can give you the edge you need.

Much rubbish has been pedalled about pressure points. Striking a compliant person where you have also planted the suggestion in their mind that the strike will hurt or drop them is a world apart from some ‘crackhead’ coming at you in fighting mode.

Some of the pressure points being mentioned are so small you just wouldn’t have the accuracy to strike them. Remember one of the first things to deteriorate in real combat is fine motor skills. Any technique that replies on fine motor skills is going to fail.

We have even got demonstrated on face book now ‘no touch knockouts’ were so called experts will point at an opponent and they will hit the floor as if they have been shot. What the f..k? If these things work why haven’t we seen them in the Octagon.

A human being in full fight mode is a formidable creature. The body can take untold punishment. Most pressure points will fail or come up short. You will need the ‘big guns’. These are what I refer to as ‘Manstoppers’ using my ABC system. They are based on empirical knowledge not bullshit.

Now close your eyes and imagine your worst nightmare. He’s in front of you now. Huge, strong, ugly (par for the course) face like a road traffic accident. He’s foaming at the mouth; he wants a piece of you, he says he is going to tear you limb from limb, then start on your family. What are you going to do? Are you really confident you can hit those recommended spots that the Guru’s online tell you will magically work or haven’t you done your homework and your training to really be sure? Don’t wait until this nightmare materializes get to it now so if your nightmare becomes a reality you know what to do!

If you enjoyed this then maybe you would like to download my MANSTOPPERS FREE REPORT now at the link on my homepage of www.kevinohagan.com.

 

Taking Control – Jari Peuhkurinen

It’s almost dawn and you have been out with your friends celebrating. Your friends took a taxi, but you decided to walk because it’s just a short way home. You are walking down a quiet road. It’s kind of dark still, since the sun hasn’t come up yet. During the night you didn’t drink too much, but you can feel that you are little bit intoxicated, but most of all you are tired. You just want to get home to sleep.

You are just about to cross a road to your home, when you see two men hanging out in front of your apartment building. They are not doing anything, just standing there, but obviously checking you out. You feel how your stress hormones start raging through your bloodstream, those little buggers that make your mind and body wake up… you are feeling fear.

Luckily you had been aware of your surroundings and you spotted the possible threat in time and you have a chance to affect what happens and avoid possible encounter by simply not entering a situation. Perhaps you change a direction or grab your phone and make a call. Maybe you go and get help from somewhere or someone.
When you are able to perceive a threat early it gives you time to react and plan. Time gives you a possibility to control your emotions better if you have the tools for it. This because the stimulus that causes fear, in this case observation of those two guys, is still somehow controllable.

On the other hand the stress hormones can be slowly paralyzing and draining your energy down. This can happen when you have the knowledge of future conflict and you know it cannot be avoided and you have to wait for it. The tools to control your thoughts and affect your emotions in these situations are very practical; concentrate your thoughts and energy on observation and planning.

When you exit the scene and get distance to the threat you can feel that stress is decreasing, since you feel you are going to be safe. You are coping through by your decisions and actions and take charge of the situation at an early stage.

Same thing happens during a physical conflict; stress starts to decrease and you can get some of your cognitive functions back the moment you feel that you are in control of the situation.

Let’s take the scenario further…

You have spotted those two suspicious guys standing in front of your home and you’ve decided to head back the way you came from, to get away from them. As you turn around to head back you see a third guy who’s been following you, but you hadn’t noticed him before. Seems they are all part of the same group and working together.

Situation has developed to a point where you cannot avoid by simply exiting the situation. There is nowhere to escape, not at least without some form of action towards the threats. Some form of encounter with them is unavoidable. You can make a conscious choice and start adapting to the situation.

Firstly you need to assess the situation again with this new information. Make a quick threat analysis; map your options and form a plan of action, make the goal clear for yourself. This is a conscious decision not to let your feelings of fear guide your thinking. You are coping with the situation and your actions will be goal oriented.

Threat analysis gives you information to plan your action. Forming a threat analysis is a skill you can practise everyday and it really helps to take charge of your thoughts and emotions.  

With this said it is not always easy to control those thoughts and you may find yourself in situation where your cognitive thinking doesn’t work too well and you seem to be thinking that if I don’t say anything and just ignore them, don’t look them in the eye and just walk away, everything will be fine. “how did I end up here?” what’s going to happen to me?” If I don’t notice them, maybe they don’t notice me” etc. You are denying the reality of the situation.

Denying the situation is our internal defense mechanism. Our internal defense mechanisms can protect our mind, but they also chain our thoughts. Defenses are about denying and distorting the reality around us and adjusting and suppressing our internal reality. It can help to cope with the pressing feeling of fear. When you are submitting yourself into this cycle of denying, you are forcing yourself to just react to everything that happens and that will increase your feeling of fear and you become a victim. All that is left is coping with what has happened after the situation.

It is also possible that fear literally makes you freeze. Makes you incapable to act in anyway. The possibility for this is especially high if the stimulus (the situation) develops without any warning. There is no time for denial. The stress hormones rush to prepare your body to fight or flight so suddenly that you just freeze. Simply you are not coping in anyway. This is no better than previous stage, you become a victim. There are drills to practise braking the freeze, but firstly you need to be able to recognize when you are freezing and that’s not always easy to do under control circumstances.

This was an example of coping in threat of physical conflict, but the same model applies for conflict management in general. Put yourself in a situation where the threat, the factor causing stress, is an upcoming conflict with your boss. You have those same tools at your disposal to cope with the immediate stress; if you have time and tools to avoid, the stress will be decreased. If you cannot avoid, but have time to make a plan of action (how you handle the situation) it will affect the stress levels and your action in a positive way. If, however, you are denying the reality the internal defense mechanisms may kick in and will distort the internal or outside reality to relieve stress. Or you may just freeze, not being able to respond or defend yourself.

It all comes down to two things;

  1. how much you have time to prepare and how you use that time
  2. what tools of coping you have in your disposal.

Both are things that we need to train for and train our students for. If either one of these elements missing and your action and coping will be severely compromised, facing the threat of a physical conflict you need to get your mind working for you, not against you, remaining in control is key.