This book was written to address an important gap that exists in martial arts. The tricky issue is the space in between sport and combat, as well as the chasm that separates these two extremes. In order of severity, we call these three environments, sport, drunkle, and combat. Drunkle is a combination of the words “drunk” and “uncle,” referring to situations in which you need to control a person without severely injuring him (or her). Understanding these environments is vital because what is considered appropriate use of force is codified in law, yet interpreted in the public arena. Actions that do not accommodate these rules can have severe repercussions. Techniques must be adapted to best fit the situation you find yourself in.
While the differences between sport and combat are somewhat intuitive, it is important to clarify exactly what we mean by these terms. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines sport as: “Physical activity engaged in for pleasure,” whereas combat is described as coming from Anglo-French roots, combate, to attack, or fight, and from Latin, battuere, “to beat.” Okay, so we can regurgitate definitions out of a dictionary, big fat freaking deal. Let’s cut to the chase—sports are competitions, stuff you want to win that are specifically designed so that competitors don’t get seriously hurt. Combat, on the other hand, is designed to kill people, break things, and blow stuff up. They’re worlds apart.
Martial sports, judo, boxing, wrestling, jujitsu, sumo, mixed martial arts (MMA), and the like are a fantastic means of training one’s body and mind, even of forging one’s spirit. And as a sport, each one of these has rules, built-in faults that allow for intense physical contact while minimizing the threat of life and limb. An example of this is “the rabbit punch.” The rabbit punch, usually a swinging hook punch to the back of an opponent’s head while in a clinch, is illegal in boxing, MMA, and many other sports. An important reason for banning this technique is that it attacks the connection between the base of the skull and the spinal column. In acupuncture, this location is called Gall Bladder 20, and in Western medicine it is C1 (Cervical 1). To the medieval executioner, it was the general area where the ax would fall to sever a condemned person’s head from his body. A severe blow to this area from a practitioner’s fist can have the same consequence as that headsman’s ax, minus the messy decapitation—it can kill.
Another example is that in tournament judo, MMA, and the like, you pin your opponent face up so that he can have a fighting chance to continue the match. Law enforcement officers oftentimes use the same techniques, yet they pin the suspect face down so that he cannot put up much of a fight while being handcuffed. In this example, the same application is applied in a different environment. Safety rules can change the technique, the application, or the context.
Without these rules, a sport becomes combat; with these rules combat becomes sport.
If you are a citizen, your role in society (legally, if not morally and ethically as well) is to get away from violence, to escape. Law enforcement officers have a duty to act, they must become involved, but unless you’ve got a badge, you don’t have to. Unless the violence is directed at you and you cannot avoid it. Depending on the circumstances, you might then have to cripple or kill another person in order to escape from harm. Nevertheless, your purpose is not to arrest the other guy, beat him down, teach him a lesson, or otherwise “win” the encounter.
As a competitor in sports, on the other hand, your role is to win. The rules are designed to allow you to intensify your actions with minimal risk of injury. You are able to use one hundred percent of your physical ability because you are assured, due to safety gear, rules, referees, and whatnot, that there is only a very slight opportunity for you or your opponent to experience life-altering events because of your actions. This intensification of action, with safety precautions, gives you a powerful and competitive experience.
If you are a soldier, your job is to convert people from living to dead. Sure, you do other things as well, but that’s the bottom line. Nevertheless, you need to practice killing people without actually doing it. Consequently rules and specially designed safety equipment are used to reduce the intensity of your actions so that you may train for war with some level of safety. Like referees, drill instructors oversee the action and enforce the rules… until you hit the battlefield and use what you have learned to defeat the enemy.
Commonly four areas are addressed to limit damage: reduction of angle, intensity, weapon, or striking area. These are the keys to creating safe training/competition.
That all takes place in a practice hall, training course, or tournament ring, yet from a certain perspective, the same thing happens on the street. How you choose the angle, intensity, weapon, and striking areas will, in large part, affect the outcome. This is how sport and combat can overlap and is called the “critical point.” This is the place where sport can become combat and where combat can become sport. The decisions you make determine which direction your engagement will take.
What You Will Find in This Book
How to end a fight at grappling distance, using the ancient tried-and-true three-point military concept of ground, clear, and insert.
Ground: Drive the opponent to the ground via any means necessary.
Clear: Open a space, clear their weapon, or take advantage of a space.
Insert: Insert your weapon into the cleared space.
You probably know that we’re traditionalists, guys who study and teach martial arts that were historically designed to create cripples and corpses, so perhaps you also expect us to bag on “combative sports.” Not gonna happen. These things have their place. The athletes who participate in them are tough, skilled, and in great shape. They just do something that’s a little different than we do, or perhaps more accurately, have a different focus. Similarly, we’re not going to get into which system is better, UFC, K1, Pride, or whatever… Who cares; it’s pointless. Each form of sport has its rules and those rules are used for protection, securing victory, and ensuring continued participation and enjoyment by the participants and spectators alike. That’s what matters.
Look at it this way. If you were a kobudoka in ancient Okinawa with a bo staff, your intent clearly would not have been to spend fifteen minutes engaged with an armed adversary. Chances are good that you wouldn’t be able to walk away from something like that, and even if you did you probably would have been busted up so badly that without modern medicine you’d have died within a week or two anyway. In combat, you don’t want to engage your adversary for any significant length of time, it’s too dangerous. You want to kill or disable him swiftly.
The same concept applies to modern times. With rifles, artillery, aircraft, and other weapons, you end the conflict by killing at a distance. In fact, the last major time the United States Army fixed bayonets to their rifles, effectively turning a long range weapon into a close-range weapon, and charged the enemy was during the Korean War on February 7, 1951. This assault was led by Lewis Lee Millett, Sr., who received a Medal of Honor for his heroism