My Take On The Whole Inner Child Thing

The Snowflake Mentality "What Kind of A Person Carries a Knife?"

The kind who actually works for a living and doesn't live in a fantasy Virtual Reality world.

http://appalachianmagazine.com/2018/10/24/the-kind-of-men-who-carry-pocketknives/?fbclid=IwAR1-oCL0xezkVjDC3iEwfzn-DbkrQHF_VfveLwjYAThbXTq9aUML-nXSYhw

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Here's hoping everybody is enjoying their Holiday Bird!!

Want to Learn Something New? Read An Old Book

I recently reviewed the English translation of Jean-Joseph Renaud's Manual 'Defense In The Street'. Over the course of many years worth of looking at manuals on Self Defense, Sport Martial Arts, Combatives, etc., I have noticed a trend that is undeniable. Despite many peoples claiming to have come up with a new 'technique' or 'tactic', the truth is there is very little new under the sun.

Especially when it comes to unarmed fighting.

Whether someone came across it and decided to try it out to see if it had merit, or it just came out one day in a training session and it worked and they thought they had come up with something original is immaterial.
The fact remains that no matter what anybody thinks, the old saying holds true.

Sooner or later, everything old is new again.

As an example I'm putting up two images. You should recognize the tactic immediately. It's called 'The Fence' and it was brought out by Geoff Thompson in I believe the late 1980's.

The Fence - Geoff Thompson




And here we Jean-Joseph Renaud's version......from 1912, 70 years earlier.



To be clear, I am not making this comparison to slam Geoff Thompson in any way. It is simply my way of saying that you should not just discard something, whether it a handsaw for a sawz-all, a paint brush for a paint-sprayer, or a revolver for a semi-auto just because it appears to be the 'next big thing' being hyped in the current advertising cycle.

Combatives And The Use of Foul Tactics - Part 1 - Biting

A lot of self defense programs, especially the MMA based ones, have an ongoing complaint about the use of ‘Foul Tactics’ and how the Combatives based programs talk about those tactics like a magic wand. Over the next couple of weeks I will try to address these issues in a rational manner.

Now to a degree, their claims are legitimate. There are far too many yahoos running around the internet with claims of “I’ll just bite the guy to get him off me” or “I’ll fish-hook him to control him”, and the old “I’ll just poke him in the eye”. A lot of guys making these claims and putting up bad videos on Youtube, Vimeo, Liveleak, etc. do nothing but make themselve look stupid and Combatives in general look bad.

There’s no denying that.

However on the other side of the coin I could also just put up the list of techniques that are banned by the UFC, Bellator Fighting, and a host of other professional MMA Combat Sports businesses/organizations. But I’m sure everyone reading this can easily Google that information.

So, where does that leave us? As with most issues of this nature, the answer is most likely to be found somewhere in between. For the first installment of these articles I will be addressing the issue of biting.

A few weeks ago I came across a couple of videos on Youtube narrated by a guy who was also addressing the question of whether or not biting was a viable way to win a fight, particularly in the street. The guy showed 2 video incidents where a bite was used in a street fight. While both bites did an appreciable amount of damage, the biter wound up losing, while the guys who got bitten didn't realize the extent of the damage until after the fight. The presenter talking about these two altercations said after searching the internet he had found and watched numerous other videos and the result was usually the same.

He stated that while he had also found and watched videos where the guy getting bitten freaked out and wound up losing, it was not in the majority of the fights. The fact is that while the biters did manage to inflict subatntial damage on their opponents, it only rarely ended the altercation.

I'll let you guys watch and draw your own conclusions.






One of the things that stood out to me in both these videos, and which I have observed in other videos of street assaults (not all the time mind you) where other techniques other than biting were used, was how the recipient did not cave, run away or roll up in a ball calling for his mother. However I have seen numerous incidents where the recipient was shocked or startled for just a moment before he resumed his attack.

This brings me to where I will say that my Combatives instructor, the late Carl Cestari, always made it clear that when using these “Foul Tactics”, you should not depend on them to be fight stoppers. The point was that you had found yourself in a bad situation and using one of these techniques was your only option, and that the point was to create a momentary break in your opponents assault so that you might gain the space to transition to another, more effective technique or escape long enough to gain some distance.

After watching street attack videos for quite a few years now I have to say that it's amazing to me how many times I've seen someone on a Youtube or Liveleak video gain a momentary advantage over their attacker and then fail to capitalize on it. Whether from lack of skill, strength, conditioning, or simply the willingness to do what was necessary, they wasted an opportunity to prevail in a violent confrontation.

Above I showed you the two videos of the failure of the bite to stop an assault, now I’ll show you the classic video of a case where a bite stopped a trained athlete in his tracks and screwed up the results of a multi-million dollar boxing match.





Now in the case of the Tyson vs Holyfield video I think one of the reasons that the bite worked so well was because it was a sporting event, and Holyfield was stunned by the fact that he was bitten. This would be as opposed to a predatory attack in the street where both parties are in survival mode and both believe that their lives are in danger, not just facing the loss of some money and professional prestige.

So, to wrap this Blog Post up, in my opinion, while biting is an option that can be used to possibly help you break away from an attacker and give you time to either escape or mount a counter attack, it cannot and should not be relied upon to end a violent attack in the streets.

Venezuela Moves To Increase Social Stranglehold Amid Increasing Ties to China

With their economy faltering, social unrest spilling out into the streets, and over 1 million people (10% of the total population) fleeing the country Presidente Maduro and his Socialist regime are turning to China for help. A couple of months ago a Chine Navy Hospital ship made a visit to show support and there are indications of China looking to offer help with their faltering oil industry.

Now, it appears that Venezuela will be issuing new ID Smart cards that will be used for everything including voting, and getting services from the government. These cards will allow the current government to institute the same Social Credit system that China began using a bout a year ago. By tracking your activities they can punish you by denying services such as access to jobs, transportation, and by encouraging your friends and relatives to shun you for fear of retaliation against them.

It become more obvious all the time that China has big plans for Venezuela as a base of operations for the expansion of their plans to become an even greater player on the world stage than they already are. It's only a matter of time before we start seeing Chinese warships in such places as Puerto Cabello, the largest port city in Venezuela. As well as merchant vessels as part of their One Belt, One Road long range plan to dominate the worlds commercial logistics business.

Interesting times indeed.

https://www.businessinsider.com/venezuela-id-card-tracks-citizens-like-china-2018-11

And In Jolly Olde London

Where things are supposedly so safe because, well, there's gun control after all......

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/11/13/londons-homicide-rate-hits-grim-milestone-spate-bloodshed/

'Self Defense In The Street' (Defense Dans LaRue) by Jean-Joseph Renaud - A Review

The first time I saw a copy of ‘Defense Danse LaRue’ was around 2001. It was sent to me as a PDF from a friend. I have to admit I wasn’t impressed with it. Firstly it was in French. Secondly the organization of the Illustrations and Photos seemed to be haphazard. Earlier this year while surfing through Amazon.com I found a Kindle version available in an English translation. The translation was done by Milo Thurston and Phil Crawley. Both names I remembered from various Western Martial Arts forums back in the early 2000's.

I will say right up front, I can only describe what they’ve done is a first rate job. This English translation now shows me what a gem I’ve been neglecting. Now that I’m not doing some half-assed translation of bits and pieces by using free translation site on the Internet, I can see why that even today, 106 years after it’s publication in 1912, this book is still relevant today.

The author was a proponent of what some would call MMA, but others would call a well rounded Combatives system. In this manual he discusses standup fighting to include English style boxing, French Savate (as it applied to the street, not French Boxe-Francaise), and grappling based primarily around Japanese Jiu-Jitsu. He also covers stick fighting (with a cane), knife fighting, and firearms.

As far as actual techniques go by way of striking he favored English Boxing over his native Boxe-Francaise and his two favored strikes were the hook and the uppercut. On the other side of the equation, while he did not advocate the jab and the cross, he did stress training to defend against them. As well, he also recommended the Edge of Hand blow and the Palm Heel. Another item he stressed was that to end an assault in a quick and decisive manner your blows need to be more than just painful, they have to be powerful enough to do damage and incapacitate your attacker.

Where kicking was concerned, he advocated low kicks, waistline and below. The Coup de Pied Bas an example. This concept being well accepted in modern day self defense scenarios. Another thing he emphasized was to always wear a “sturdy pair of shoes” when going out. For anybody who has ever trained with Carl Cestari or Craig Gemeiner of Savate Australia for examples, this is something that is commonly advocated. Kicking someone with a pair workboots, or stiff soled oxfords will always provide better results than when wearing a pir of Crocs or flip-flops.

As to the grappling aspect of his manual, Mr. Renaud was obviously a big fan of Jiu-Jitsu which had made it’s way to the Western European nations in the previous decade or so. He discuses throws, trips, submissions (standing and grounded) in great detail. He covered a substantial number of techniques and while he equivocally stresses the need for learning Jiu-Jitsu, he however equally admonishes at the same time that you should not intentionally go to the ground for two reasons. His first for not doing so is that your opponent, even if unskilled may resort to “foul” tactics such as eye gouging, fish hooking, biting, or pulling a weapon. The second being that most criminal assailants do not work alone, and so you may find yourself being assaulted by a second or third criminal.

Hmmm..., where have we heard this before?

The sections on weapons are relatively short. His take on the use of the cane is not exceptionally favorable. He feels it’s best use is against a group in the street where you have room to maneuver. He keeps the strikes simple and advocates against the Moulinets used in the La Canne schools. One interesting thing though is when he talks about dropping your whole bodyweight into your strikes to make them more powerful. The description he gives is essentially Dempsey’s falling step.

For knifework he there’s nothing fancy or earth-shattering here. However one point of note is how he stresses that you should always try to integrate strikes with your off-hand and kicks wherever possible.

Shades of Pentecost’s ‘Put Em Down, Take Em Out’.

On using the handgun his advice is once again an indication that really is nothing new under the sun. He favored the revolver over the automatic without a doubt, however we must keep the times in context. This book was written in 1912 and automatics were few and far between, and not as reliable as the current crop available these days. He advocates what was for all intents and purposes. Point Shooting, and says that training to hit targets at known distances was unproductive. The longest distance he felt that you needed to practice at was “three to four metres” (10 to 12 feet), otherwise keep it closer.

He even advocates obtaining a hammerless revolver so that you can carry it in your coat pocket and be able to fire it without having to pull it out.

Allow me to repeat, this book was written in 1912.

There were other bits and pieces that you still hear today coming from people that think/act like they have personally discovered these nuggets of wisdom. Such things as use deception, surprise, strike first, the person who strikes first usually wins. No one system is better than the other, Combat Sports are not applicable to self defense, you should practice against people who use a different style than you. Do you actually see your assailant going for a wepaon?, then “Foul his draw”. Does he have a beard of substantial length?, grab it and start jerking his head around. Throw dirt or coins in his eyes, etc. He even shows a technique to help you maintain distance that looks like it came straight out of Geoff Thompsons ‘The Fence’.

And I’m just barely scratching the surface

Taking into account the time period that it was written in, this book was way ahead of it’s time in terms of dealing with the numerous aspects of self defense as it applied to large cities/urban centers in the emerging modern world. The Kindle version is available for $9.95 and the print copy is available from Lulu.com for $20.56 + shipping and handling. My only complaint about the Kindle edition is with the illustrations and photos. While you can enlarge most of them, the quality/size is still less than optimal. In the print edition this is not an issue. Also, the print edition is spiral bound so it can be opened and laid flat, precluding ever having to worry about the binding. Again, I would like to thank Milo Thurston and Phil Crawley for making this classic self defense book available to a wider range of readers. From both a practical and historical perspective this book is well worth the price.