Kampfringen - Judo crosstraining question

[william_cain]

note - cross posted to JudoForum as well.

Hello folks, as I've said before I'm a student of a grappling art known by the names of kampfringen/abrazare. In short, it's medieval wrestling, applied variously in armed and unarmed situations.

Recently I've been trying to introduce more of an emphasis on grappling in the fencing study group I am with. Longsword and dagger are fine things, but they're incomplete without a basis in wrestling and close-work. Thus I proposed this as a purely grapple sparring/drill.

* Drill Number - 0038
* Drill Name – Unterhalten Beta
* Type - Game
* Skills Trained – Ringen, Unterhalten, Grapple Control, Dagger awareness
* Props - Dagger simulator, a safe grappling surface of your choice
* Description – This one straddles the line between drilling and free-sparring. The two grapplers each have a dagger on their belt. The rules are that any grappling technique may be used to bring the opponent to the ground. The daggers may not be drawn until the parties are on the ground. The aim of the drill is to teach control of your opponent before going for your weapon - getting a clean kill without a counterblow is the goal.
* Remarks – This drill is of course mildly unrealistic. Daggers would come out immediately if they were available in most cases. However, there are some cases where someone might wish to subdue their opponent before pulling a weapon. Rare, but having the skill is valuable. This allows people to focus on grappling someone to the ground, -then- worry about daggers involved in the mess, without it turning into the knife fights from Thriller or West Side Story. For those unfamiliar with the term, unterhalten is the principle of controlling an enemy once he's on the ground (pins, but also locks, etc).

With this in mind - I began studying Judo as a way to inform my studies into Ringen. Would anyone be willing to comment on some Judo or even BJJ techniques that could be applied in this case with an aim toward being able to pin/control the opponent, but leave room to go for a dagger and 'end' the drill?

[judoka_uk]

In terms of specific techniques I would imagine that tate shiho gatame, known in BJJ as full mount.



Uki gatame, known in BJJ as knee-on-belly.


Would probably allow the maximum control whilst also leaving the arms free to draw a knife and use it.

I would imagine that most of the other pinning techniques in Judo wouldn't be particularly good for this kind of practice because they involve controlling your opponent with your arms in such a way that you would lose an element of control when trying to draw your dagger. Some of them would even put you in a position where it would be easy for your opponent to draw your dagger and stab you with it.

Mune gatame would be quite risky:


Especially if you were wearing the dagger on your left hip as I would guess would be natural for a right hander.

I would imagine the most important thing would be a well controlled transition. That is to say that when you throw the opponent you don't land on them or roll with them because then its probably going to be a bit of spazzy a **** fight as to who can get their dagger first. However, throwing with control in this way is quite a difficult skill and takes quite some time to get.

Perhaps a good source would be to look at some of the genuine Koryu arts for some inspiration.

[Kung-Fu Joe]

Reverse Scarf Hold could also work (gyaku kesa gatame, in Judo). Top man has one free arm, lots of control, and might as well have a bullseye painted on his opponent's midsection with a note reading, "Knife Goes In Here."

[william_cain]

Actually, dagger is worn at right side or the small of the back. The most common grip in medieval dagger combat is an 'ice pick' grip (dagger extending from bottom of the fist).

Thanks for the advice folks, I will read up on these techniques and the principles therein to improve the drill.

[Permalost]

I'm not a judoka, but I've trained with one for a long time and have done a good deal of knifeplay in FMA and chin na. Since you come from judo, I'll awkwardly cram in some judo names so we might understand each other. IMO the best position to find yourself in to draw your weapon and attack while you prevent them from doing the same is the backmount, using your right leg to prevent them from getting to their weapon. Like other grappling, if they fiddle their hands around by your legs too much, their neck is opened up (in this case, to a fatal cut or thrust).

To end up there before rolling around too much, the arm drag us useful, to get towards the back, so you can go right to the ground and stay behind them. The arm drag can also be used to good effect if they happen to be trying to thrust at you in a forward grip and they really commit to it.

The waki gatame is a good technique to have down if you're scrambling around on the knees with weapons. Once you secure it, you can strip the weapon and use theirs, and they can't do a whole lot.

There's a position that my teacher has shown us in FMA where you end up with your opponent on his stomach and one leg folded up between your legs. The way you can escape from it is to scoot forward to get space for the leg to extend, so to keep them from doing that, you can use a hand to grab onto something (I like the back of the shirt, so if they scoot forward they pull you with them).

[DdlR]

Back when I was heavily into HEMA we did a lot of this type of drill/sparring. Best I can suggest re. the unterhalten/dagger scenario (which is great fun and good training) is to work from Martin Hundtfelt's (unillustrated) treatise combined with the pictures of dagger groundfighting from Talhoffer and the Gladiatoria treatise. Most of those sources assume armored combat, which obviously does make a difference, but you'll quickly find the appropriate newaza parallels and then the judo material (positioning, etc.) might become more directly applicable to HEMA.

[BKR]

William,

You might want to consider looking at various youtube videos of traditional japanese martial arts, aka koryu bujutsu/bugei etc. There are a wealth of them online, and involve grappling with weapons.

Most "modern" groundfighting has evolved without weapons in mind (Judo, BJJ, Sambo), so much would be unrealistic for armed grappling, even in the restricted scenario you present.

Ben

[Mordschlag]

I am not a judoka so I can't really help with you judo positions. From a quick glance at some manuals and my own recollections, you might want to consider these mounts:

• High mount
• Low mount
• Half-mount
• Side control
• North-South
• Back mount
• Guillotine Choke

Now of course, you can make these more effective in the following two ways. First it would be good to control your enemy's arms with either your free arm or your legs. Second it would be good to be on your feet or at least with one foot kneeling. I recall seeing these at least from the Gladatoria manual and from the Talhoffer ones too.

[Mordschlag]

Sorry for the double post but I just came across this today. I was actually going to write a short article for this forum regarding ground-fighting in Ringen and then I saw this:

http://www.thearma.org/essays/Wheres...dFighting.html

This is basically an expanded version of what I previously posted, now with flashy photos. I think this might benefit you more the Judo stuff, frankly.

[lklawson]

Sorry for the double post but I just came across this today. I was actually going to write a short article for this forum regarding ground-fighting in Ringen and then I saw this:

http://www.thearma.org/essays/Wheres...dFighting.html

This is basically an expanded version of what I previously posted, now with flashy photos. I think this might benefit you more the Judo stuff, frankly.

Cool. Though it doesn't seem to include the sprawl. I KNOW I've seen it represented in a medieval fightbook somewhere, I just don't remember which. :(

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk