Momentum In Unarmed Close Combat

 

 Here we have another article on the basics of Unarmed Close Combat from frequent Blog contributor Steve Forester. 

 Momentum In Unarmed Close Combat

by Steve Forester

 There are four tenets of close combat.

They  are POSITION-DISTANCE-BALANCE-AND MOMENTUM. The more I understand, the more I realize how important concepts like these are over things like techniques.

In this brief article I’ll be talking about MOMENTUM.

Carl called this Aggressive Forward Drive and his article of the same name is one of THE best articles on close combat I have ever read. The drop step (derived from Jack Dempsey’s method of getting power into his boxing strikes) gets you started. As Carl Cestari states in the article, you drop step into him at the same time your attacker moves into range.

Now this is important: his forward movement, combined with your forward drive, DOUBLES the collision force. i.e. doubles the power of your strike.

Continued aggressive forward drive motion drives him back and off balance. He has no power while off balance (while you maintain yours by correct stance and footwork as in the second post). Driving him back with continuous strikes till he trips over something and goes down. Or use a convenient wall as vertical 'ground'.

All well and good but I see no one really doing or teaching it. All the combat sports, KM, TMA, heck - everyone - teach to strike and recover back to the same spot. Look at the rear toe kick for example. Everyone performs this by kicking and then pulling the leg back to it's original starting position. How about letting that kicking foot slide down/ stomp down hard instead of withdrawing and let the MOMENTUM carry you into another strike.     

I recently completed an on-line course ($197 ) titled 'Striking Mastery'. Advertised as how to effectively strike even if not large, or strong.  What it boiled down to was identifying and attacking vital points of the body with maximum body weight force.

Guess what? The same thing concepts Carl taught in 2001, or 1991. Carl’s ‘Operation Phoenix’ video gives all the information on vital target areas and effects one could ever want, as well as various methods of accessing them. Now look at OS-1 and OS-2 (Carl’s first two Unarmed Combat videos) for striking with total body weight.  Look at the hip and shoulder strikes and driving knees and how Carl is striking with total body weight.

Now do I think the class was ripping off Carl or anything? I do not. I think it is simply that if one studies and distills things down enough, it starts to look the same. (i.e. reach the same conclusions independently.)

To use Carl's phrase: "This is how to win fights". Study combat anatomy and physiology, learn to strike with maximum body weight, control balance and distance. And ATTACK FIRST!

Same stuff that has been said here for the last 24 years now. Yikes! Almost a quarter of a century. I find it is easy to read the words and understand their meaning, but then not really being able to practically apply them.

Maybe I am just dense, but it was only after retiring in 2017 and devoting myself full time to close combat that I really started to learn 'the secrets'. Which I have found can only can be learned through training.

Again, maybe I am dense, but I am amazed at those who study first this, and then that system, or a combat MA that involves thousands of techniques. I have enough trouble understanding just basic close combat.