WWII hand to hand self-defense video

**bujutsuboy** · Posted On: 10/10/2006 3:23am

Shuma - thanks for that. I too have found it not as invincible as some would have you believe. It is only one tool that can, on occasionl, be used to good effect. But, of course, the context of this discussion is about how badly the guy was treated on the site. LORD ASIA said that many people who HAD experienced the stuff had slagged it off on those old threads. But he can't find any, and merely found 2 people who didn't fit the bill in any case.

Kung Fool - One of Dimitri's conflict management techniques is about controlling ego. If you rise to the bait and fight for some skewered kind of "honour" you are not doing self protection - you are fighting like a thug. It is about controlling your own ego. And what is your goal? Is it to win fights or protect yourself. They are not always the same thing.

The up side is this. If you appear to be less of a threat to the bad guy, his ego rises and his guard lowers. Then, if you decide to attack first, you have a far better chance of getting it home. The down side is that you can appear to be a bit of a *****! But it is ego control, if you go home in one piece, do you care?

You can go all the way to the other end of the scale also, by "posturing." This includes ballooning off like some kind of lunatic, giving you a chance of scaring the other guy so much he decides to go and find someone else. There is a down side to that also, of course. If it does go physical witnesses are likely to say that you started it, or at least was a willing and eager participant. That doesn't look too good in court.

Its about choosing the right response for each situation.

If you are on some kind of position of authority (cop or whatever) you cannot use either of these techniques. The cop cannot be seen to be a coward, nor an eager participant. A middle ground has to be explored.

A guy called Peyton Quinn has 4 golden rules that help you find this middle ground. When talking to a person in a potential conflict situation you:-

Show no fear
Do not insult the person
Do not threaten the person and
Give them an honourable exit.

The last one means give them an excuse not to proceed with the conflict. They have to have their ego massaged, as these brain dead farts will (and regularly do) kill people just so they don't appear soft in front of their mates.

That last approach ios the one I adopt. Dimitri favours the former.

Now you didn't understand any of that when you called him a coward. If you still think he is, then fine. But it would be more of a reflection on you than him. After all, he does go into seminars of people he has never met before and says "I want a volunteer, and they can attack me in any way they want as hard as they can." I have seen this with my own eyes, and you can easily find many people who will confirm this from across the western world. Hardly the actions of a coward.

You're "was it wrong to debate the merits of this act?" is a little ridiculous. No, it is not wrong to debate the merits of different types of conflict management. But calling him a coward was not part of any reasonable debate and, of course, anyone searching the threads in question will see posts from you that are just ignorant, cheap and stupid.

I cant open the You Tube clip, so haven't seen it. As I remember you were also vociferous about how crap the Fence was, albeit with your usual caveat of not actually knowing anything about it. But that's fine. All I know is that I use it evry day, and it has served me well in real situations many many times.

You remind me of the guys who used to diss Gracie Jiu Jitsu after the early UFCs exploded onto the scene. They "knew" that GJJ was a load of crap too, and they "knew" that it was only rolling around the floor, and that any idiot could do it.

Like you, they rejected things after merely taking a cursory glance at them (not even that for you initially) and, through ill educated eyes, you gave us all the benefit of your lack of knowledge.

On behalf of everyone, I sincerely thank you. It's all relative, and someone has to be the biggest idiot since Phil left. You fill the role so well my friend!

**Shuma-Gorath** · Posted On: 10/10/2006 7:33am

Oh God, not this **** again.

In summary, my view is that it's a complete waste of time to train in pseudo-intellectual bullshit. Maybe the knobs with no personality who are drawn to RBSD need courses on how to interact with other humans but everyone else should do just fine with the social skills they've acquired through a normal life. The confidence that comes from studying a real fighting style helps too; most sport fighters I know are relaxed, charismatic individuals who have no desire to fight on the street because there's no money in it. Even so I still have many stories of our fight team owning entire groups of bouncers and angry club patrons, although it is unconfirmed whether or not any of those people were using a fence before they were knocked out.

As for your likening of whatever it is you're on about to GJJ, the difference between Senshido and GJJ is that the first person I ever sparred who did GJJ kicked my ass. He was also nearly 30lbs lighter than me. Since then, even with years of study in BJJ myself, anyone who's been taking it longer than me can usually beat me. I'm curious how you gauge skill level and improvement in a course about conflict management, mainly because it's probably hilarious.

I suppose you could prove us wrong by staging some kind of series of street fights where the family champion of a famous line of lonely white people uses the fence to defeat people who get uppity in the line to a club because you told them they didn't spend enough money on a shirt to get inside. However, don't blame me if you have trouble selling the Pay Per View.

**bujutsuboy** · Posted On: 10/10/2006 11:03am

Actually I wasn't having a go at you. But do join the fun.

Your post is great! It's like swimming. The Olympic champ is always going to swim better than the lifeguard. Imagine if he were on the Titanic. He could powerhouse his way into the ocean far far further than anyone else! That cowardly nerd of a lifeguard will be in the lifeboat, the *****! I know who'd have the best chance of survival though.

I would like to see you get in a streetfight. Do you have an entourage with you that will clear a space, put the mats down and keep the other guys friends at bay?

GJJ is a fantastic art, and has lots to teach us, particularly on the floor. But it is far from complete in a world of weapons, hard surfaces, multiple opponents etc. etc. As an aside the Senshido guys do loads of grappling, as well as Kickboxing styles also. The myth that they rely on scratching faces all the time has been invented, and believed, by the ignorant. They borrow much from the MMA world, and merely try to tweak it for a street rather than an octagon.

I know there are a lot of Elmore-like idiots in the RBSD world. And I also know that the Shredder is not the bestest most invincible technique ever. But don't tar us all with the same brush. I trained grappling here for years

www.maxt.co.uk

And this guy has been over to the Gracies and the Machados many times. I am far better on the floor when adding the Shredder to my present grappling skills, than when grappling without them. It's merely an add on, and the founder specifically states that it cannot be used as a stand alone.

The Fence is possibly the most simple tool of all. Many people regularly use it and reduce the amount of time they get punched in the chops. If you don't see any value in it, that's fine by me! And the point that anyone with apersonality can manage confrontation is very very wrong. We're not all fearless Warriors like you stud. Some people feel fear and adrenalin. It's almost as if it comes naturally to them. How mad is that? So practicing verbal communication strategies for high pressure incidents makes lots of sense to them.

I don't like getting into the MMA against RBSD thing. There are total arse holes at either end of the scale. The clever people are somewhere in the middle. Maybe you need to get a little closer to the middle.

Fond regards!

**rw4th** · Posted On: 10/10/2006 12:48pm

The problem I have with most RBSD is that they often side step what is know to work against a trained fighters for something that MIGHT work against and untrained drunk guy in a bar brawl.

My latest pet peeve is interceptions. Almost all RBSD (and TMAs for that matter) systems are littered with blocking and jamming techniques you're supposed to use to intercept attacks before they reach you, yet I think anybody who's been on the receiving end of a trained fighter's attacks can tell you that trying to block punches is bullshit.

I posted a short review of the Shredder earlier in this thread and stand by it: it's useful if you already have the ability to control position in the clinch or on the ground, but so are a myriad of other techniques once you've gained that control.

In summary, my view is that it's a complete waste of time to train in pseudo-intellectual bullshit. Maybe the knobs with no personality who are drawn to RBSD need courses on how to interact with other humans but everyone else should do just fine with the social skills they've acquired through a normal life.

This is where I disagree. The "touchy feely" aspect of RBSD is where I think it's value lies for most people, especially if your job involves having to deal with belligerent people on a regular basis (i.e. cops, security guards, and bouncers). Not only that, but in a self-defense situation the fight usually does not start the same way it does in a competition. In a competition the initiative is always even whereas in a self-defense situation the sucker punch is often the preferred attack resulting in the defender having to play catch-up. Minimizing this loss of initiative and dealing with it are skills that can be practiced.

I don't like getting into the MMA against RBSD thing.

I don’t think that debate should even exist. If your “RBSD” school doesn’t stress MMA as the physical delivery system then you’re wasting your time there. RBSD should be seen as add-on training for your MMA training that you do maybe once a week or 2 or 3 times a month.

**theardri** · Posted On: 10/10/2006 1:42pm

Originally Posted by Samuel Browning

As has previously been said, while they say there was feedback, there is next to no documentation of it, and its hard to see what, if anything they changed in their teaching. I only know of one example of one such change. The Fairbain Sykes knife had a round handle, and applegate says that one solder screwed up cutting a German's throat because in the dark he placed the flat of the blade against the guys throat for the cut. In the Fairbain Applegate the knife has a rectagular handle so that you always know the orientation of the sharp part of the blade. Its also a lot stronger blade because the tip had a tendency to break off on the FS, especially when the troops, were in camp, got bored, and started to use it for things it was not intended for, (camp work, knife throwing practice)

I assume you are talking about the Smatchet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smatchet) vs the Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairbai...fighting_knife)??

**bujutsuboy** · Posted On: 10/10/2006 1:43pm

That's an interesting post.

I am aware of various "flinch responses" in RBSD. The idea is this - Firstly, traditional blocks won't work. Secondly, all of us have an inbuilt ability to flinch when attacked. In fact it is hard not to. The idea is to try and capitolise on that flinch, developing the movement into something useful if a strike is thrown at you. The better guys, in my view, do acknowledge that it is far far best to hit first if there is a chance you'll be attacked anyway.

The style of these flinch responses are varied indeed and, in my view, absolutely none of them can give a guarantee of success. Some of these so called flinches look contrary to any natural movements whatsoever!

I have pressure tested a couple of positions that can work well but, again, with no guarantee of success - you still get a punch in the bonce every now and again. It truly is better to hit first.

In short, some can work, some rarely work, but they are in no way related to the big blocking movements of many traditional arts. And if you train them? Get ready to take some shots sometimes.

I don't have massive disagreement with your view of the Shredder. I think it can be a useful tool. I have surprised people with the partial shredder, and it has let me improve my position even more. But it is based on inducing, and then bypassing, a flinch. If some guy is hyped up, rock hard and totally committed? Well, you can't bypass a flinch that isn't there.

I can find much to agree with in your views on the "touchy feely" bit. What many of the MMA guys forget is this - not many real fights start with some guy ringing a bell. There is a build up, often verbal and behavioural, and starting too soon can see you in jail. Starting too late can see you in the morgue. Managing that build up (or, better still, avoiding/escaping/dissuading it, is where the value of these skills lie.

Imagine you're in a MMA competition with a good MMA guy. Oh dear, these people are rock hard and skilfull! Would you fancy your chances more if you got to hit him first, when he wasn't ready? The Fence, and pre emptive strike that leads from the fence (along with all the verbal deception etc.) goes a long way to helping someone get that first shot. Suddenly you may fancy your chances a little more. No guarantees though!

I'm not sure that I agree that MMA training alone is the physical side. It is great and blows just about every other competitive fighting style away. After all, it got to take the best from everyone and pressure test it all in competition! So how can it be bettered?

Well, with great difficulty. But taking notice of the differences between a MMA fight and a street confrontation provide us clues. Heres a few:-

No gloves renders punching to the head pretty dangerous to your own hand, so open handed blows can be researched.
Crowded areas - what groundwork is going to be easy when theres hardly room to swing a cat? And what is there that could be picked up to hit the guy with? Or, worse still, he pick it up and hit you? Trying to stay on your feet and learning how to identify and use improvised weapons might be a good idea.
Multiple opponents - Hard to beat. But the use of your surroundings, and doing drills incorporating multiples, is going to set you in greater stead than merely preparing for one guy all the time.
Etc.

Lets use another analogy. Imagine two drivers.

No.1 drives on a race track in a touring car championship, and he is at the top of his game.

No.2 has been trained in diplomatic protection. He can do all those J turns, hand brake turns etc. He is trained to force other cars off the road and drive over rough ground etc.

We all know that there are skills that both would posses. We also all know who will win on the race track. But who do you want to be driving you if some bad guys witgh guns are chasing you round the city centre?

Now lets just talk about the cream from each side (No Phil Elmores!). MMA and RBSD are variations on a theme. Its like being able to play two different musical instruments. If you're going to that clasical concert, take your piano. If you're going to Rock? Get the guitar.

All this "but the piano is better than the guitar" totally misses the point. And both sides are guilty of it.

Like I said before. There are two extremes of this debate, and each end is full of pricks. It's the guys somewhere in the middle who have the open minds.

**theardri** · Posted On: 10/10/2006 1:45pm

Originally Posted by devil

Sorry, this is totally off the subject, but this thread made me think about it.

I was reading a book about Medal of Honor winners a couple years ago. During one of the guy's accounts of a WWII battle, he mentioned an instance where one of his buddies was attacked by a Japanese soldier with what he described as a samurai sword. His buddy got slashed across his chest. Then he promptly threw the Japanese soldier down and stomped him to death. Is it just me, or is that hilarious?

Okay, you can now return to your regularly scheduled program.

there is a similar story in WW2 of a Combatives Instructor (US) vs a Japanese equivalent. They met in a river when both were bathing, and the Japanese guy lost as he was bare foot and the US one was wearing his boots... sounds about as "real" as the Katana story.

Then gain I've always prefered a nice meaty European blade over a Katana ;)

**theardri** · Posted On: 10/10/2006 2:03pm

YES I am coming a few days late, but the lab has been keeping me busy and a little aggravated (who says science is for the unemotional).

I’ve a great level of respect for Mr Cestari. He has learned a LOT, and his successors (Ralph Grasso for one) I am sure are good teachers. However there is an attitude from this bunch, the “Wolf Pack” that they are the only Legit Combatives school in the world. Carl has learned from a few good people (Charles Nelson), Rex Applegate etc. However he is not the ONLY person to be so trained. Some of the other groups don’t sit on the fanny and go “we are the best of the best, don’t change what works”. This has led to some nasty verbal brawls. Which is pure idiocy. Now this is almost completely 100% from Cestari’s followers. It is fine to be proud of your teacher. Hell I respect Mr Cestari, and hope to train his system one day (along with quite a few others, including BJJ (so bite me here is a “Combatives Nut” who sees the worth of some BJJ in his diet).

Combatives should evolve. Ground fighting has some importance just as does the H2H aspects. My own school emphasizes changing something that is broken. Some of the WW2 stuff will get you killed or maimed. So what did my instructor do? He went looking. A lot of the other guys do this too. Hell the Military does it. I’m a little worried by the over emphasis in the modern syllabus of Grappling (a soldier should be looking to shoot stab main, stomp before rolling about on the ground) but I also “get” that it’s a huge hole in the WW2 stuff. You are fucked if you have to grapple and you don’t know where to start.

Combatives is not all eye gouges, biting, neck/throat hits, those are little tricks to throw in IF you get a chance.

From a self defense stand point, I’m usually carrying SOMETHING on me that I will resort too before I use my body parts (unless you count steel cap boots? (why one has to wear these in an R&D lab still confuses me but OK)).

Originally Posted by PPlate

>>but he is way behind the Geoff Thompson's and Richard Dimitri's of this world.<<

Originally Posted by PPlate

You are aware that those tapes were made a very looooong time ago don't you? The production quality was horrible, even though the content (to me) was great.

I agree with you that it will be helpful if those moves were shown against a fully resisting opponent. It's something that I want to see too, never having a chance to train live with the man.

>>He then goes on to demonstrate specific defences to specific attacks.......<<

I think that's kind of a blanket statement. What he intended to say was not to have set "patterns" like in traditional martial arts, where you memorise a response to a punch, or a kick or a grab and stuff like that, as he says those kinds of stuff won't work when you're under pressure. What he teaches is to hunt for the next available target to hit instead of memorising set patterns.

Which is one of the reasons why I liked his stuff so much. I've seen many self-defense tapes including those from Bas Rutten, where you do a certain technique if someone grabbed you a certain way. Cestari's response is that the grab is not the attack, if someone grabbed you, he's grabbing you to do something else to you, like a head-butt, or a knee to the fork, and your response is to axe-hand him, chin-jab him, whichever targets are available. The same response works for a wide variety of scenarios, and doesn't need long term training or memorisation to do.

The only exception he made was when someone grabbed you from the front grabbing your shirt. His response was to swing an elbow over and duck your head behind that elbow, and take one step back with a leg to prevent getting headbutted or kneed in the crotch. From there it leaves you options to attack back as your body is already torqued for it. I think it's a reasonable exception.

Guess we'll have to agree to disagree on what we get from the tapes. I haven't seen Richard Dimitri's stuff, I'll check it out. Perhaps I'll have a different opinion after I watch his stuff.

**Shuma-Gorath** · Posted On: 10/10/2006 2:03pm

Originally Posted by bujutsuboy

Your post is great! It's like swimming. The Olympic champ is always going to swim better than the lifeguard. Imagine if he were on the Titanic. He could powerhouse his way into the ocean far far further than anyone else! That cowardly nerd of a lifeguard will be in the lifeboat, the *****! I know who'd have the best chance of survival though.

This would be a better analogy if we were talking about weapons instead of rehearsed headgames, but I can see you worked on it for quite some time so I'll humour you and pretent it was relevant.

I would like to see you get in a streetfight. Do you have an entourage with you that will clear a space, put the mats down and keep the other guys friends at bay?

Yes, because unlike you I don't go to parties alone.

GJJ is a fantastic art, and has lots to teach us, particularly on the floor. But it is far from complete in a world of weapons, hard surfaces, multiple opponents etc. etc.

Our school actually teaches a structured superset of GJJ self-defence. So, yeah, you're wrong again.

As an aside the Senshido guys do loads of grappling,

Which by my estimation sucks pretty hard.

as well as Kickboxing styles also. The myth that they rely on scratching faces all the time has been invented, and believed, by the ignorant. They borrow much from the MMA world, and merely try to tweak it for a street rather than an octagon.

All the krav maga guys claim this too but I've yet to see an example that confirms it.

...WORDS...

...So practicing verbal communication strategies for high pressure incidents makes lots of sense to them.

How do you practice high-pressure verbal exchanges? This sounds incredibly silly. The proper way to train for those scenarios is to bone someone's girlfriend and then practice dealing with their hostility when they come to the dojo to call you out. It happens all the time in Brazil.

I don't like getting into the MMA against RBSD thing. There are total arse holes at either end of the scale. The clever people are somewhere in the middle. Maybe you need to get a little closer to the middle.

Fond regards!

The problem is that one side of those people could care less while the other side has built an artificial Fence to market their books and tapes. You're just straddling it.

**theardri** · Posted On: 10/10/2006 2:14pm

Senshido is good IMHO (just getting into it, I've only recently been paid a decent wage for a research chemist again ... damn outsourcing).

The Shredder is NOT new, howeverthe issue is alot of the folk who jump on board a good idea (say Senshido) don't look. If you look up similar courses you will see the same idea with a similar name. Basically IF you control the head, go apeshit! Don't stop. Not new as we all know. It does work. If for no other reason you've shocked the fucker into well shock.

Originally Posted by rw4th

I trained at Senshido for a few months so I have a pretty good grasp of what the Shredder is and isn’t.

First of all, yes it is somewhat over-hyped marketing wise, but he’s selling to the RBSD market to pay the bills and you need to have some kind of hook to get people to buy your **** these days. Dimitri has “teh d34dly Shr3dd3r”

The Shredder involves gaining control of the head when in clinch range or grappling and attacking it using strikes, tears, and rips on a half-beat timing. It can be effective IF you can gain the required control over your opponent’s head. So once you control the clinch and/or manage to get your opponent’s back, the Shredder is a tool you can use to help you finish the fight, but then again so is a rear naked choke, neck crank, or solid punch(es). The Shredder concept works, it’s just not anything special.

The rest of his material is top notch self-defense stuff; from pre-contact and de-escalation to dealing with common attacks and knife defense work everything is pressure tested against resisting opponents. “Shredding” is emphasized to hurt an attacker once the distance has been closed but you can easily substitute something else for it (like a couple of solid punches).

If there’s one thing about his approach I don’t like it’s that in many instances he still relies on jams to “intercept” attacks. While you might be able to jam a drunk guy’s telegraphed punch, you won’t be able to intercept the strikes in a trained pugilist’s combinations (personally I like Rodney King’s Crazy Monkey approach).

Just my $0.02 CDN