Padwork And Movement Drills Against Multiple Attackers

One very safe method for getting a handle on fighting multiple opponents is windsucking. This is a drill they use over at DKK, something that Gavin Mullholland came up with I believe. In simple terms it involves one person striking the kick shields and/or thai pads of 2 to 4 others, while they move and jostle/barge the striker. It’s simple but puts a lot of pressure on the striker particularly when tired and it doesn‘t take very long to get tired!

Within this drill the striker can practise movement tactics to make life difficult for the pad holders while striking. The tactics of Darren Laur and others mentioned in the last post on the training components for fighting mulitple opponents can be applied within a framework of continual movement. That is,

• screening (human shield)
• cracking (splitting)
• re-directing
• clinching (certain aspects) 
• feinting (dodging)

Of course the described windsucking drill alone will not address all areas required to train for multiple attackers but it will certainly help with the movement and striking while on the move, if nothing else. The following clip (ignore the first part) gives an illustration of the kind of movement you want to aim for, obviously the clip is slightly different to windsucking but it’s similar and illustrates some of the concepts in action. These padless drills can of course be included with windsucking.

Windsucking as a stand alone drill or in conjunction with purely movements drills has some value. With a little imagination it can be adapted to include further pieces of the multiples puzzle, e.g. the striker can be pulled back, pad holders can strike etc. Of course other elements must be trained to properly prepare for a self defence encounter fighting multiple opponents but this series of posts provides a starting point.

In the Turkish clip the survivor of the multiple attack from the first post was able to strike and cover on the retreat, cut angles and move effectively. Most of these skills would seem to have been transferred from some form of previous training, probably boxing. It’s a moot point as to whether further skills from a kickboxing martial art and/or MMA would trnasfer as successfully.

In my opinion there is more transferable than not, with some obvious exceptions. Head kicks would be risky while sprawling on a shoot/tackle would be close to suicidal the consequences of which are covered in two posts by Wim Demeere on his blog.

MMA against Multiple Opponents

MMA against Multiple Opponents part two

Hathaway stuffs the shoot

Using MMA as an example, not everyone uses head kicks or likes to go to ground, there are many who avoid the ground very successfully, this suggests that some of the skills used in the cage would transfer very well. For instance, in the recent UFC114, John Hathaway lands a lovely knee strike to Diego Sanchez’s head in the first round off a shoot. Excellent skill for fighting multiple opponents if you can pull it off, training to use it would help of course.

In my opinion there are aspects of combat sports that are transferable to fighting multiple opponents and if selected with a critical eye can be implemented into training for mutliple attackers.

Fighting Multiple Opponents – Some Training Components

As I have little expertise at fighting multiple opponents when devising training drills for fighting multiple attackers I draw from footage of real life situations. Akin to the Morris Method approach of  ‘watch the fight‘ this can provide some rich information.

In the last post I embedded the clip  of a victim surviving a multiple attacker situation. The clip from Turkey, looks like a road rage argument that escalates into violence. Three blokes attack one in the middle of a busy street and it’s all on cctv. To say that the bloke attacked does well is an understatement, and the clip provides an excellent example of some of the attributes required in a multiple attacker situation where there is plenty of space.

He is a continual flurry of movement, attack and defence. He moves and strikes while going back,  defends and strikes while cutting angles to fight his way out of trouble. He repeatedly knocks down his attackers even managing to knock one out cold! Admittedly, he was a better fighter than the opposition, but was nevertheless outnumbered. He successfully takes the skills he has, probably from boxing, and applies them to fighting multiple opponents. As a boxer he may never have trained specifically to fight multiple attackers but the movement, striking and defence skills he had accumulated were transferred to the street fight.

These skills, while not straightforward, can be covered in regular training and with a little imagination drills that tackle these issues can be expanded upon to become more appropriate to fighting multiple opponents. A number of further movement tactics can be adopted to use against multiple attackers.

Three of these I gleaned from an old internet article, the source of which I lost but have recovered at a different location. The Author, Darren Laur, grouped three tactics together and called them the “principle of S.C.A.R. (Screening, Cracking, And Re-directing)”.

• Screening – get a human shield! Position yourself so the attackers get in each others way, thereby being obstacles to others reaching you.
• Cracking – splitting the opponents. When possible move between the attackers, striking as you move. You can ‘bounce’ off them turning as you move into a better position.
• Redirecting – use the attackers momentum and direction against them by redirecting them into inanimate objects or other attackers

These in conjunction with two skills in addition to those from the clip but common in combat sports, namely clinching and feinting,  can be used within the context of the continual movement required for fighting multiple opponents.

• Clinching – not a boxing/mma clinch as such, rather using skills from clinch fighting to redirect or screen or set up a cracking movement
• Feinting – probably more like dropping a shoulder to feint in Association Football rather than feinting to throw a punch can be used to set up or in conjunction with the three tactics above

Clearly, these training components do NOT cover everything required to cover ALL multiple attacker possibilities. These are only useful where there is space to move, it does not cover the skills necessary to get back off the floor, for instance. But if successful continual movement could prevent the fight going to the floor, which is very dangerous when fighting multiple opponents.

Training to fight multiple attackers

Training to fight multiple opponents is an aspect of martial arts that is covered in many styles with varying degrees of validity. A trade off between safety and ‘reality’ or validity is required to train for multiple attackers. Too little validity/reality and the training has minimal transferable value to a real life situation. If safety is completely compromised for the sake of making the training directly transferable the outcome would result in the loss of training partners to injury.

There clearly is a market for ‘keeping it real’ and judging by the price of the equipment it’s making someone a decent wedge! There will always be arguments over the veracity of using protective equipment such as Tony Blauer’s High Gear. Because although full force, or at least near full force strikes can be absorbed the use of any safety equipment skews the training away from ‘reality’ to some degree. Put simply, there has to be some form of trade off.

In contrast, an overly safe approach to multiple attacker training can have close to zero or even negative transfer to the real world scenario. If multiples training were to simply comprise of three man Ippon Kumite, similar to what you can still see at demonstrations it would have negligible real world use. That’s a bit daft but there you go. In fact, that sort of training could be counterproductive as the practitioner might even decide to fight several attackers instead of running due to overconfidence in his/her ability.

I intend to cover the way in which we train for fighting against multiple attackers. We manage this without specifically running a multiples program as such. This means we cover the skills required to fight multiple attackers through a mixture of drills gleaned from internet articles and clips, taking stuff from training with Steve Morris (who has never specifically covered multiples with me) and others and adapting regular training drills but without bringing in a self defence expert and buying expensive protective equipment. There’s a huge amount of information available on multiples training but to get value requires sorting the wheat from the chaff.

My favourite clip of successful defence against multiple attackers is the one of an altercation in the middle of a busy road in Turkey. It’s been around for a few years now and shows an argument leading to one bloke fighting multiple opponents amongst parked cars and traffic. The bloke on his own has clearly trained, probably boxing, and deals with the three attackers pretty comfortably. He’s a flurry of continual movement, striking and defending on the move. It’s an excellent example of how to defend against several opponents.

So information from this and other sources will do a reasonable job in my mind. A series of posts will follow this that address the issue of training to fight multiple opponents without an actual program to train for multiple attackers as such. Does that make sense? Anyway watch this space.

The Cowboy Gunslinger and Speed Punching

Speed and quickness are generally important in martial arts in terms of movement and striking; footwork and speed punching/kicking training drills are common place. Attempts to address punching speed at the initiation of a strike are less common. Steve Morris tackles this area in a number of ways, one of which involves reading cues and beating the incoming punch. I don’t want to say it’s impossible but I’ve not managed to beat him to the punch, he always puts his punch in the gap between initiation and finish.

Morris is very good at reading cues and acting on them, this definitely contributes to his speed. Another contribution maybe the inherent speed of reacting to environmental cues. One of the blokes who trains with us put me onto some recent research from the University of Birmingham (UB), who were testing for speed differences between self initiated actions and reactions to events in the environment.

This research was motivated by renowned Danish physicist and Nobel laureate, Niels Bohr, who had an obsession with western films. He wanted to know why the bloke who pulled the gun first always lost. He tested this with toy ‘cap’ guns but in the study at UB they used pressure pads. The results show that reacting to the opponent produced quicker reaction times in comparison to when a subject initiated the action.

So what!

Well this finding shows that human beings are able to react to environmental stimulus more quickly than if they plan the action. This quicker reaction is at the cost of greater error but that’s normal. When speed is desirable the faster you perform the less accurate an action will be. Of course in a gunfight, speed is of the essence when drawing your six shooter, but you only have to be accurate enough to get the gun into a shooting position. Precision accuracy is not critical at this point.

The study itself is a nice piece of work which controls for social aspects (the findings remained when the opponent was a computer), type of movement (quicker movements were still present when the buttons were arranged differently) and when there were no movement cues (computers don‘t produce any). The difference in speed while small (20ms) equated to 10% which is useful in a life or death situation.

For the cowboy gunslinger to take out the bad guy 20 paces away, he’ll need a fast drawing action and good aim, but so long as he is operating purely reactively rather than from a deliberate intention to draw the gun, he can take advantage of the phenomena described in the study.

The authors suggest that different neural pathways govern these two types of movement initiation. That is reactive actions take a different neural route in the brain than intentionally driven actions, with their research shows that these are faster for reactive actions. It is possible that under pressure less conscious involvement is desirable, better to react instincively.

These findings have implications for martial arts, certainly self defence. If you are threatened the freeze flight or fight response will kick in and you become hyper activated. Then you may adopt either a reactive or intentional style of movement, i.e. an ‘observe and strike’ vs. “I’m gonna hit him” mode. Alternatively, you may be naturally predisposed toward one or the other mode. The study suggests that one has a 10% reaction time advantage over the other. A follow up post will take a further look at these implications for speed punching.

Imagination in Martial Arts & Fitness Training

Muhammad Ali was the greatest fighter of all time, well at least he believes so. Whatever, he produced many great quotes. Dubbed the ‘Louisville Lip’ by the press they came thick and fast. Some had wise words others cheeky. Below are two of the wiser quotes

The man who has no imagination has no wings

The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life

Both of these are worthy sentiments and have pertinence for your martial arts and fitness training. Clearly, if you view training the same after thirty years of training you haven’t trained very much at all. This is very much related to one of the things that really shook me was written on the once excellent but now defunct Goju Forums. Someone had said that some people do ten years training three times when they get to thirty years of training. This seemed awful to me but was truly put into context when another contributor said that there were others who did three years of training ten times!

Now that’s scary!

Why oh why would you want to do that? The same old stuff repeated time after time. Where is the progression? Sure you may very well work your way through the belts and get a high dan ranking but you know yourself if you’re merely collecting them like some styles collect kata. It has little meaning and must be incredibly boring.

That’s where the imagination comes in. I really like that Ali quote, if you have imagination you have wings. Imagination brings the martial arts alive. Training with Steve Morris has given me the confidence and desire to really use my imagination in training. Although observing imaginative training methods has not been restricted to him alone, he is the most inspiring in that regard.

Imagination coupled with intelligence in creating training drills, relating these to fighting requirements can get you out of the humdrum of dull repetitive training which seems to be for it’s own sake rather than improving someone as a fighter.

Sure repetition is required to master skills but with imaginative drilling this can be achieved in a fight specific manner. In my previous existence as a traditional karateka we would train basics in line, then marching around, then in padwork and with partners and then in the kata performance and even in bunkai. That’s a lot of basic training leaving little time to really apply and test what we learned. In the end there seems little point in mastering the perfect chudan block.

With imagination and a little intelligence these could have been combined into drills that tested the skills learned, but too often these skills were tested in an artificial stylised manner with little bearing on reality. I remember watching the grading at a progressive karate club and being surprised at the way in which minimal importance was given to the kata performance, in my eyes the form was all over the place. But the application of the moves were better and well….. more imaginative than those I’d been shown. Imagination can be used in a similar vein to make fitness training and conditioning more specific to your needs, rather than simply going to the gym to push weights around or plodding round a park.

These days I use kata less than ever, in fact barely at all. I do, however, refer to sanchin, and other kata’s from time to time. I believe sanchin in particular has a lot to offer as a model to illustrate certain concepts, such as structure to resist being pushed. I don’t get anyone to perform the actual kata but I do refer to it.

Tomorrow I am giving a private lesson on a kata I haven’t performed for a long time. There won’t be much, if any performance but there will be a lot of imaginative application on my part.

Bruce Lee’s One Inch Punch

Following the recent one inch punch post I found a short documentary on the wing chung approach, which, of course, was Bruce Lee’s approach at least initially. I know very little about Wing Chung so I found it an interesting seven minutes or so.

Interestingly, the one bloke in the video said that on it’s own it offers little value, other than a great party trick of course. The value comes in applying the one inch punch movement. He said when you learn it you discover “invaluable lessons”.

If you manage to learn how to one inch punch successfully, that’s all well and good. The value comes in applying the same power movement in other ways. If you can do so in one context you must be able to do so in another.

Furthermore, it surely opens the door to further discoveries regarding the generation and application of short range power, without having to rely on “centering the chi” or whatever. One bloke in the video intimates using the one inch punch from a combat perspective, firing it from a blocking move without pulling the arm back first. Another mentions the importance of getting the mass into the target. Some sensible stuff here.

Lee's one inch punch

Right at the end of the video the last bloke to speak says that the one inch punch “keeps opening doors”. That’s the take home point, referred to above, learn it and apply it!

When we look at getting power over a short range we try to take what we know to work and condense it. So to get the mass into a short range strike you can use the same, or almost the same, body movement that powers a longer range punch to power a shorter movement. Add the explosive finish and you’ve got something to work with.

That would be one approach that may prove successful or may not depending on the context. Of course, if you manage to develop a new short range power generation movement, it only has value if it can be applied in a fight. If not it’s just a party trick.

How to… one inch punch

Lee's one inch punch

I literally stumbled upon a blog post concerning the one inch punch, specifically Bruce Lee performing the punch on a judoka.

Personally, I always thought it was a bit of a myth but did come across people who could indeed manage a one inch punch. People talk about ki expression when they try to explain the phenomenon. An old friend of mine showed me the one inch punch; he did tai chi and was able to propel someone across the room.

Later when training with Steve Rowe in Chatham I saw the one inch punch, or something similar, again. Unfortunately, for me anyway, the explanation of how to ‘one inch punch’ involved lots of Chinese terminology, such as fa jin, which confuses the hell out of me.

It wasn’t until I trained with Steve Morris that I understood the one inch punch. In fact, you could say that Steve Morris taught me the one inch punch, but…. without ever teaching me the one inch punch! Sounds a bit crazy but there you go. Incidentally, I always say Steve Morris taught me more about sanchin kata than anyone else and again that was without ever teaching me sanchin kata!

The first time I went on Steve Morris’s site I read about punches like dum dum bullets, punches that explode on contact. He calls this the finish and by learning the finish I unintentionally learned the one inch punch! Steve Morris wasn’t trying to get us to practice the one inch punch but he did want us to develop a finish to our punches.

startle reflex

This kind of thing is easier to show than describe but I’ll try. Morris will get you to imagine and perform the startle or withdrawal reflex. We all have been startled and we’ve all put our hand on something hot. What happens? You jump or pull your hand off, explosively. That’s key.

All you need to do then is transfer this to your one inch punch, practice this a lot. Actually, you don’t have to transfer it to the one inch punch, I didn’t. I did, however, practice transferring the reflex action to my punches (and kicks).

It’s essential that you pull rather than push your punch. Karate punches tend to rely on a pushing action, if that’s you, stop it and concentrate on the pulling action of the non-punching side. Develop this and drop the push. You will also have to drop the urge to retract before firing the punch.

Jim Fung's one inch punch

You need to have a good base to explode from, so ground reaction force can be transferred into the target. Play with this reflex pulling action on the heavy bag, ensure the punching side doesn’t ‘give’ and you will transfer the force generated.

It takes practice, but it is achievable. When you get it you will be surprised at how much power you can generate from one inch, or no inch even! Then you have to work out how you are going to use it, because it is of little use in itself, except as a party trick or if you are trick or treating (see startle link above)!

Waiting for the bus; getting on

waiting for the bus

Using the feet properly, or at least getting to the stage I’m at has been a long and winding road. I’ve already described the amazing potential the feet have and how getting a feel for whats happening in the foot can assist in stablity, or being rooted/grounded. Obviously, the drawback of being too stable is a lack of mobility, a wall built with foundations is very stable but has minimal mobility, obviously fine for a wall except in extreme situations, earthquake/hurricane perhaps.

For humans wanting to be able to avoid incoming attacks stability has it’s role but good mobility is essential to avoid attacks and to set up your own. The answer is to be ‘on your toes’ rather than ‘on your heels’, the first supports movement while the second hampers movement. That’s not to say that you cannot move if you have your weight on your heels, of course you can, but it takes a preparatory movement to do so. I tell the kids in my class that its the difference between waiting for the bus and actually getting on the bus.

getting on the bus

It’s fine standing on your heels waiting for the bus but when you get on you need to move forward and your posture must support that movement. If you need to hurry to get on the bus, if it’s about to leave you really need to move from the front of your foot, i.e. be ‘on your toes’.

Nothing to spectacular in any of this but it’s amazing how many people in martial arts are rather flat-footed. It’s not universal, of course, but if you practice the hateful sanbon kumite and the like you’re training yourself to ‘move in stance’ and to not use your feet effectively. It’s like trying to move with an anchor pulling you back!

Elsewhere movement is optimised. At Primal, Steve Morris got us to repeat kick like they do in Muay Thai which trains the feet to move rapidly. The little ‘skip’ is key which serves to not only ‘charge’ the kick but also to adjust position in relation to the target. For me this had the wonderful spin-off of helping my foot movement in general, this became evident in the movement drills Morris introduced. These involved chasing each other around, meaning you have to move quickly to avoid the other bloke while staying close. It’s not a case of running away, rather adjusting position.

This training coupled with watching and getting an impression of Manny Pacquiao really helped me get to grips with moving my feet so they could make tiny adjustments for whatever reason, i.e. throwing kicks/punches, pushing off to move away. That is not all you can glean from watching such an excellent fighter as Pacquiao, it’s merely one aspect, albeit a vital one.

By concentrating training on optimising the potential of the feet anyone can learn to greatly improve their movement. But even you you become more ‘getting on the bus’ than ‘waiting for the bus’ you will notice an improvement.

Self-Protection – diffusing the situation

Derren Brown

In his book ‘Tricks of the Mind’ the Illusionist/Magician/Hypnotist Derren Brown recounts a story of when he was accosted by a drunken thug. It’s pretty amusing as he manages to avoid a tricky situation by using a rather abstract distraction technique. Brown confuses the thug and puts him off track by asking “Is your garden wall four foot high?”. Bamboozled the thug ended up sitting down with Brown and telling his life story which, although annoying, was preferable to a beating.

Geoff Thompson recommends something similar as a ‘pre-cursory action trigger to pre-emption’ in his self-protection book, ‘Dead or Alive’. During the very early stages of the ‘attacker’s ritual’ he suggests asking a question to engage the brain, thereby distracting the (potential) attacker from their assault. This allows a window of opportunity for a pre-emptive strike or, if the question involves some kind of recognition (How’s your mum these days?), often results in the (potential) attacker leaving the scene. I’m not sure Thompson suggests anything as random as Brown’s approach but it’s similar in essence.

Using distraction to diffuse a situation does work, I know from personal experience. Probably as long as 12 years ago, I was on a bus with two friends, returning home from a football match. We’d had a couple of beers, to avoid the crowds and were quietly singing a couple of songs when a big thuggish bloke got on and took offence. He was a fan of our local rivals, drunk and had a big scar on the side of his rather ugly face.

From his demeanour and language, it was clear he wasn’t really open to discussion. He was aggressively ‘raring up’ on my mate, surprising, as there were three of us and only him. Ugly thug wasn’t bothered and continued pushing for a fight. This was circumvented and it ended up with him sat next to me talking about his holiday with his mum in the Isle of Man. I can’t remember what I said to him initially but my ’diffusion’ strategy was to get him talking about himself, everyone likes that topic, especially when drunk.

I just followed his prompts, asking how our rivals had fared, their promotion chances and the like. Eventually he moved onto his family and all was well with the world. That is until my mate piped up with a comment, although neutral it was sufficient for the thug to remember he was supposed to be fighting not chatting. It was only a blip and I soon had him discussing his holidays.

He eventually got up to get off the bus a couple of stops before us. He was dawdling, waffling on while a small group of teenager lads were trying to get past him to exit the bus. Amazingly, by the time he had got down the stairs and off the bus, he was fighting with the teenagers! He really had been up for a fight, the distraction was only sufficient to save us the bother of a scrap.

Thugs are thugs, but distraction can work, as the books say!

Short Range Power – the Phantom Punch

On May 25th, 1965, in Lewiston, Maine,  Muhammad Ali  beat Sonny Liston for the second time. Again there was controversy, this time it was related to the ‘phantom punch’. Ali finished the fight, in the first round, with a short chopping straight right, which knocked Liston down for somewhere between 12 and 17 seconds, while the referee flapped around losing control as Ali stood over Liston shaking his fist. The ref was informed of time Liston had spent on the mat and stopped the fight, declaring Ali winner by knockout.

The straight right that tagged Liston was known as the ‘phantom punch’ as many missed it completely, others said it didn’t land at all. Many believed the fight was fixed, for a variety of reasons, one of which was that many believed the punch was not hard enough to knock Liston out. In slow-motion, it’s clear the short right hit Liston plum on the jaw as he is regaining balance from a lunging jab, he had trouble landing punches in both fights. The clip clearly shows a jarring, shaking of Liston’s head which appears to be sufficient to knock him out.

Steve Morris explains that a knockout occurs when the reticular activating system, responsible for controlling consciousness is disrupted.

The disruption of the reticular activating system occurs through the violent rotation of the brain on the brainstem. In most cases, this rotation is very obvious, whether it occurs through twisting, moving side to side or through the head being violently snapped back

The slow-motion clip indicates a rotation of Liston’s head, the ambiguity concerning the efficacy of the phantom punch is to do with the assumption that a bigger punch is required to cause a knockout. Big punchers tend to throw the kitchen sink at their opponents, Tyson, Marciano and others of that ilk certainly did. But if the opponent is off balance when hit, less force is required to rotate the head, and so cause a knockout.

In 1965 there were still those that believed Ali was unable to punch hard, he was retreating when he threw it and given the short range of the phantom punch it’s easy to understand how people didn’t believe their own eyes. Ali himself claimed the punch, which he called the anchor punch, was too quick for the eye to see.

A short punch on the retreat does not have the obvious power of a Tyson blockbuster, but the phantom punch was not the only time Ali was able to knockdown or knockout an opponent while going backwards. The highlight clip shows a few examples, while Anderson Silva did something very similar to Forest Griffin recently. I suppose people find it difficult to believe that it’s possible to generate power while going backwards, let alone short range power.