The Way of Least Resistance

Introduction Photoshopped image. Original is by Wikimedia Commons user Stillwaterising A particular approach in reality-based self defence (RBSD) is becoming increasingly popular: that of learning how to inflict maximum damage to dangerous attackers. On paper this approach looks like it could have merit - and correspondingly any criticism (of the kind I'm about to make) might seem to be totally inappropriate. After all, consider this example: "He came in the door of my office and shot two people already. I saw him drop down for a reload. When he dropped down for the reload, I was able to tackle him and get him on the ground. Then the first thing I saw was his eye, and I gouged his eye out, which stopped him from going on."  I got this from an article titled " How to Horribly Injure Someone ". And yes, it is worded in such a way as to be rather unobjectionable in philosophical terms: first an horrific scenario is created - one where the worst violenc...

It's more than a year since I wrote my analysis of Ronda Rousey's loss to Holly Holm .  My conclusion back then was as follows: "If there's a lesson in there for Rousey it is this: in a stand up fight, simple aggression is often enough to win against an unskilled opponent.  And if you're a good grappler, it will certainly give you some good chances to close the gap and use your real skills.  But if you want to fight a good stand up fighter, you need to know enough about stand up  defence ."  It would seem that in the intervening year, Rousey has done nothing - and I mean absolutely nothing - to improve this skill, as was clearly evident in Rousey's fight last night against Amanda Nunes. Many think that the cornerstone of stand-up fighting is  attacking : striking, in the form of punching and kicking. Indeed, this is very much the philosophy of some schools who tout themselves as " target focused ". But, as I have stressed over many years a...

"You can't block a jab - and that shows blocks don't work" I recently made a video on this topic and I'm surprised by the reactions - especially the private ones: my inbox this morning is full, mostly of some very strongly worded negativity towards what I thought was a fairly honest, unremarkable analysis of the possibilities and limitations of blocking jabs.  I guess people can't seem to understand that a video filmed in class doesn't provide a full analysis of a topic and relies on some background. I made the video recalling an event that occurred some 20 years ago.  I was training in a gym which had boxers training.  One young trainee there knew I did karate, so he came up and challenged me.  "Blocks don't work," he said.  Then he mimicked a jodan uke and a chudan uke, showing he'd done bit of cursory study in karate.  "You couldn't possibly use these to stop my jab ." I'm going to put aside the obvious absurdi...

Introduction I've previously written about how civilian defence grappling differs from full grappling in that it maintains a kind of "buffer" that avoids clinches and other grabs that take you into a range where you can be tied down (a situation that might be quite useful in combat sport, particularly if you're good at grappling, but which is contrary to the objectives of civilian defence , as I've often discussed). You will see from my civilian defence grappling article that I'd chosen to illustrate my point (at least partially) with the classic (and oft-seen) standing arm bar - noting the pitfalls of this technique and how easily it could take the unsuspecting traditional martial artist out of the melee range and into the grappling one.  Indeed, at one point I went out of my way to point out how traditional martial artists seemed largely unaware of this factor in demonstrating their suggested applications of traditional forms. Unfortunately, I too...

Okay, so the dust is settling on Ronda Rousey's historic loss to Holly Holm. And there are no shortage of pundits analysing the details of what went wrong with Rousey's game and what went right with Holm's. Heck, some people managed to get the commentary right before the fight even started.  Consider this adept video that my friend Gene Burnett put me onto: Doubtless, writers like the amazing Jack Slack will use this kind of analysis to examine the fight down to the finest technical degree. [Edit: Jack has posted an article  - and I'm glad to see his conclusion is consistent with mine!] But I'm going to be brutally frank here.  I don't think we really need to go to that level of detail to understand what went wrong for Rousey and right for Holm.  I think that in the end it's as simple as this: All of Rousey's previous opponent have been second rate strikers (compared with Holm). Rousey  simply wasn't prepared for a good stand-up game . ...

Continued from " Separate right leg "... Here's another taiji qin-na application I thought I'd share with you: the opening move of "repulse monkey". Let's go through the technique first: Again, you start in the finishing posture of single whip. Pivoting on the left (front) heel, you rotate counter-clockwise and execute an inward forearm "blocking" motion with your right (reverse) arm. The left arm continues to "fold in" and down (performing a kind of "suppressing" motion) while your right hand rises in a punch very much like the rising inverted punch of karate (especially in naihanchi kata), also seen in zuan quan in xingyi.  As you do this, you draw your weight back into cat stance. From there you you ward off an advance into your personal space by using your right hand to jam his hip and by lifting your front (left) knee to create a grappling barrier or "bubble" .  At the same time, you pull...