July 2007
SFC HEADQUARTERS DOCTRINE
HOCK'S Web Log
"Read by Thousands Round' the World!"
28 July 2007: The Shallow Question and The Deep Question
Did you know that it is against the laws of most states in the USA to do private investigation and protection work of certain sorts without an expensive license? Hmmmm. So, how can I best describe this? Without breaking any professional confidences and my own chops? I happened to be out at 4 am just a short while back. No, I was not committing a real crime-crime like a…real crime. But, an incident happened at this deep, dark-thirty time that leads me to write about two important street survival points.
I was involved in overseeing a delivery of perfectly legal stuff and it came in from afar and it so happens it came in very late. 4am late. The drop-off point was a place near a residential area, an apartment complex and it also borders a typical business area (with all night Walmarts, 7-11s and so forth). What state was it? Hmmmm. I the last 14 days I have been in Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Iowa, and Louisiana. Let me say somewhere in the south.
When the drop-off was complete, I watched a clipboard full of business paperwork being signed on a parking lot, as tired men were more than ready to go home. Me too. Off in the distance, loomed a newer model, black, pick up truck. It was near enough to the 7-11 to keep me calm. But I kept an eye on it. A white male, thin, trimmed hair, dressed neatly walked sober enough “normally” in and then out of the store. No alarms in my head. It could have been someone coming home from the nightclubs. After all, we were by houses, apartments and stores. Just someone to watch. When you do this kind of work, there are usually all kinds of people fluttering around.
All the parties finally dispersed. The commercial shipment locked away. Job completely done, everyone left and I was the last one standing there, as it should be. As I walked to my pick up truck, I heard some tires screech. That black truck backed up so fast, its tires screeched! Then it pulled around through the lots and near me!
Now, I have a large caliber, semi-auto pistol on my person. This ain't my first rodeo. And I know from experience not to get into “the coffin,” that is my vehicle and get pinned in and down. So I walked around the vehicle, near the passenger side, front end of the truck between us. This also caused him to pull up near my passenger side. I like that. If he pulled behind my truck? I got a real problem brewing.
This guy's driver's window lowers and he says hello. Big-ass smile. The license plate looks typical and unofficial. He looked clean-cut, sober, but….ahhh, something ain't right.
I said, “SO! You wanna' come over here and talk to me?” and I really was itching to know why. Did it relate to this job I just did? Keep in mind this guy; thus far, half way looks to me like a plainclothes cop! As well it could be. It is after all, 4am. He could have watched us from the 7-11. But then, drug and arms dealers don't stand on open parking lots with flashlights, signing 14 pages of business, delivery paperwork.
He asks the…shallow question… that is the stall question, the “get-any-conversation-started-question, AND…he doesn't really care what the answer is. It was a “you live around here?” Then followed with another question and an…“I live around here.”
And a ‘what's your name?” question. He could be drunk or drugged-up, but no real slurred speech!
Now I can't recall exactly how this banter carried out, but I asked him right away, “you some kind of cop? He also had the shuck-and-jive face I have seen a thousand times. But I did counter some of his questions with lies for answers and asked questions of my own.
Here is where I made my BIG mistake. Bubbas and Bubbettes. I forgot myself. I forgot who I was in my own point in time. I fell instantly back into midnight-shift, street cop mode. After 12 years! Instantly. I wanted to know who in the hell this was and why in the hell is he out at 4 am, stopping strangers and asking shallow questions. Now, this is no business of mine anymore, is it? And for a simple, civilian like me, or anyone! It is risky business. I gave up my midnight, caped-avenger job a long time ago.
When he said his name, he stepped from the truck and tried to shake my hand. Ha! No way! When I didn't move, he actually said, “aww, come on man, don't do me like that.”
Don't do me like that? What is this, a line from Starsky and Hutch? Something Huggy Bear would say? What a poor, con man job. But, you know, I am sure it can work on some folks.
I got a hold of my "civilian" self, nodded and got into my truck. If he was a cop? I would now need to see some bona fides right about now. He could have been anything. Through the years I have seen these midnight people be serial killers, muggers, queers, drunks, drugged, joggers who were really window-peepers. Window peepers that were window peepers, burglars, hookers, drug sellers, drug buyers…and even just the lonely. Not my job anymore to figure it out is it!
“See ya!” I suddenly said. I got in the truck, cranked the engine and left, looking to see if I was being followed. I scribbled down his license plate. I even went the wrong way just a bit.
The two street survival points? Beware the shallow question. Real people who stop strangers and ask real questions want real answers and pay attention to the answers. Secondly, you retired cops out there, maybe even off-duty cops in some situations where you are not packing a radio for back-up? Let it go! Your cape is hanging in a glass case in the Bat Cave. Mine is moth-eaten. I have even sold my cave to a housing development.
Now for the deep question. Dear Citizen. I have one question for you. Just one. Why are you out at 4am? You'd better be working, on lunch from a midnight shift job, or else you are one of the aforementioned group of scumbags. Or just lonely? Like the old western movie title - Lonely are the Brave - brave because you are intermingling out there with…the aforementioned group of scumbags. Well, hell, why the hell should I be asking you that question anyway? I am retired. What do I care?
I guess I still keep some skills tingling for the odd jobs I take once in a distant, blue moon. Sometimes you have to spray a little graffiti on the Pillars of Hercules to find your way back from that cruel horizon.
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26 July 2007: The Dallas Explosion! Hell, I was there!
Yes, I was running through some business babysitting a jewelry broker and it had me there and abouts, in downtown Dallas yesterday morning. Driving, I had a choice to go south on I35 and turn east on I30, but at the last second took an exit ramp that that was a short cut. Boom and I mean...BOOM! There was an immense explosion! We saw a ball of fire roll into the sky that was at least 20 or more stories tall and as wide as a broad skyscraper. I compared it to the size of the nearby Lew Skerritt Justice Center. Wider and as tall or taller. Then came another rolling ball almost as big, this type of surge is conducive of a sudden fuel, supported fire. It was quite amazing and hypnotic. We traveled on an overpass as slow as all the other rubber neckers. Close, but still safely. Cars on the parking lots around this red hot epicenter burst into fireballs, just as though they would in an improbable movie.
These days, one immediately considers terrorism in the range of possibilities. The broker was an old Dallas hand and he told me that the hot zone was near key railroad yards and by an industrial center. This blaze rumbled for quite some time before the news media even got to the scene. About 40 minutes later, befuddled, radio newsmen had something to report. See the story and film:
Eventually, the explosion was on all major media. As always, the irony of life, about ten minutes away, it was life as usual.
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22 July 2007: The Lesson of the Chair: The Weapons Continuum (a student asked me recently to repeat this old story, because newer people have not read it)
Back in the mid- 1990's I did some seminars in a classical martial arts school in the southeast. The local host loved the diverse, modern material I showed and always contacted the schools in his parent organization coaxing them to attend. Finally after the fourth visit, his “head guy” committed to attend and the local host told me the morning before the seminar,
“Hock, the head guy Joe __________ is coming this weekend. He owns a whole string of these schools all over and if you impress him, he will start having you in to teach these chains.”
“Good.” I said.
“Well, he wants to see how good you are.” The host said.
“Yeah.” I nodded my head. Such a review was obvious.
“I mean,” the host continued,” He wants to see how good you are. In like…he wants to spar with you. If you spar real well, he will probably start having you in.”
“Spar? Well…ok. I can do that.” I shrugged my shoulders. I had been sparring since the early 1970's, and adequate at it, but certainly no champion. Sparring is hardly a reflection on “how good” my hand, stick, knife, gun combat reality courses are. And, I had purposely spent years weaning myself away from the tennis-match, give-and-take, back-and-forth, "sportee-ness" of kickboxing/sparring to end fights more realistically and quickly. Apples and oranges. This school, this chain, like so manyof the karate and tae kwon do schools today had developed simply into kickboxing and kata academies.
The head guy arrived and was just a super guy. We talked for a bit and then he said to the local host,
“Did you tell him?”
“Yeah,” said the host.
“Good!” the head guy said and turned to me with a friendly smile, “Well, get your stuff.” And he proceeded to the wall where his bag of gear rested. He zipped it open and started in applying shin guards. Next, out came his boxing gloves and mouthpiece. (By the way, this whole thing was no big Hollywood-like, fight challenge, but very casual and friendly, like old workout buddies going to do some sparring.)
I walked to the other wall. In martial arts schools all over the world one thing you always see is the white or green, cheap, plastic chair. For fifty bucks you can buy about 15 of them and seat a whole group of parents. I grabbed the chair and started back to the middle of the mat holding it like a lion tamer.
Still on one knee the head guy looked over at me quizzically.
“This,” I explained, “is my stuff. My gear. When a fight starts I grab the first good weapon I can and fight with it. If I loose the chair, then I am down to hand-to-hand fighting, unless I can get a hold of something else. This is what and how I teach.”
The guy grinned, shook his head and immediately took off his gear off and stuffed it back in the bag. I was prepared to dance around a bit with him after I made this point about the chair. No big deal. But instead, he zipped up his loaded bag. The event attendees showed up and we started the seminar. The head guy had a great time and we got along marvelously for two solid days. At the end he shook my head and said he learned a lot. But, I was never invited back to this school, or any others in the chain again. Perhaps the message of the chair was shocking? Too much? I don't know.
The chair was just an improvised weapon, what we must reflexively snatch when any fight starts. There are martial arts through the history of time that have actually specialized in the rendering of everyday items into weapons of destruction. This type of training is still afforded to many espionage and special operations agents of today.
The modern warrior, the urban and suburban survivor battles inside a continuum of weapons and their ranges, loosely listed here:
Missiles
Biological weapons
Sniper rifles
Long guns
Anti-tank weaponry / RPGs
Grenade and grenade launchers
Pistols
Short range sprays
Sticks
Knives
Improvised weapons
Hand
Word
History recalls that soldiers in their trenches preparing for battle have lined up their weapons, their ammo and at times even stacked rocks to chunk on the edge of their foxhole when all else is expended! When all is else has been propelled and the enemy closes in, the knife stabs into the fight. Knife gone, then it's the hands. Dead last. Hand to hand fighting is at the bottom of the list (and kick boxing is just a slice of that slice in the weapon's continuum.) The last resort. The worst-case scenario.When you don't even have a rock left to throw!
There is a military and police distinction between heavily-armed and lightly-armed. Few of us will fire missiles from silos, platforms and planes. Few will ever shoot sniper rifles, RPGs and LAWS rockets. For unarmed citizens, even lightly armed cops and guards under strict use of force rules, the improvised weapon is a tricky ace up the sleeve of survival. Improvised weapons of all types surround you. Practice identifying them in your common travels. An improvised tool can be used for three things, to throw, to use as a shield or to batter with in combat.
When is a chair not a chair? In the hands of a lion tamer fending off and controlling the enraged beast.
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20 July 2007: Quotes From the Underground
The FBI released a new 5-year study on police shooting incindents. The information has many direct relationships to citizen, self-defense shootings. Criminals practice more now than in earlier times studies. But their way! Directly as they percieve their needs. Most are "point/instinct shooters. One FBI researcher collected this quote:
“We're not working with no marksmanship….We just putting it in your direction, you know….It don't matter…as long as it's gonna hit you…if it's up at your head or your chest, down at your legs, whatever….Once I squeeze and you fall, then…if I want to execute you, then I could go from there.”
These and other weapons-related findings comprise one chapter in a 180-page research summary called “Violent Encounters: A Study of Felonious Assaults on Our Nation's Law Enforcement Officers.” The study is the third in a series of long investigations into fatal and nonfatal attacks on POs by the FBI team of Dr. Anthony Pinizzotto, clinical forensic psychologist, and Ed Davis, criminal investigative instructor, both with the Bureau's Behavioral Science Unit, and Charles Miller III, coordinator of the LEOs Killed and Assaulted program.
This comes off the heels of the sad news that USA Law enforcement deaths are way up this year. Read more about it on http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-07-18-police_N.htm?csp=34
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16 July 2007: The Jitters - Curb Your Simulated Enthusiam!
Many martial instructors will declare that competitive sports is the best training for reality because it ignites some kind of "adrenaline bath." Bath. Their word, not mine. Some gun range shooters, with-little-to-none real world experience like to participate in shooting competitions and every once in a while you will hear such a gun club guy say - "I do this because this is so close to real combat." Well, its better than sitting on the couch for sure. but as HBO's Larry David would say, ...."curb your enthusiasm ."
On the surface this seems to make some, little sense, but there is more involved when trying to maximize combat training. I recall serving some arrest warrants on armed felons one day, then later that night, coming up to the plate to bat on our police department softball team. I remember noting that I was more nervous about batting than I was earlier that day making the earlier arrests. I took stock of this and you know? I decided it was a different kind of nervous.
Contest/sport jitters are different than pre-raid jitters. Non-combat nerves, jitters, butterflies and adrenaline are different than the combat nerves, jitters, butterflies and adrenaline. Pre-karate tournament fight anxiety is different than those prepping a house raid in Tikrete, Iraq. Since firs publishing these notes a few years ago, I have received numerous emails and conversations from veteran soldiers and cops who agree with me on this. The only ones to disagree? Were non vets - people with no comparison point.
Such abstractions like sports and recitals are better than nothing, but the best combat training must resemble the actual combat as closely as possible for a host of reasons, such as probability factors and muscle memory. Crisis rehearsal of the most realistic combat encounters is the highest form of training. There is always something better to try than settling-for a sports competition. I emphasize the term settling-for!
Sports advice and reality cross-training is a very hard split to make. Even just within the sport's world, cross-training is hard enough. A pro baseball player is a fine athlete, but he cannot succeed in pro football. His raw, athletic skills will carry him to a point, but specific skills must take over. Think about the amazing basketball star Michael Jordan. Despite his amazing skills, he pretty much sucked in baseball. Now, suddenly drop Michael Jordan in a firefight northern Afghanistan, or a Camden, New Jersey gang fight. How much is basketball going to play in these encounters? Some yes. Maximized? No.
These topics are heard to delineate because as trainers and instructors we CONSTANTLY leap-frog in, out and around sports psychology and athletic performance trials and studies to prove a point or make statements on combat training. These sport borders can become very hazy and confusing if you do not draw succinct lines and articulate your points. For example, the skill of running fast, or heart rate endurance are universally important. We rely a lot on sports to advise and train us in these areas. This does not mean we have to join the high school track team and win the state trophy. Nor do the pressures of a track meet really relate to run-and-gun movements, such as the infamous "Mogadishu Mile" of Blackhawk Down fame.
There is also a ton of personal psychology involved here too. The background of the individual really plays a lot into hers or her's reaction and performance. Also, and this is very important, being nervous or having an increased heart rate before a shooting match or karate fight is not always connected to an official adrenaline release. At what level of nervousness can you declare an official, adrenaline rush, or :"bath" as they say?
You might just simply be nervous. I know for me, I am more nervous batting with two outs in the ninth and a man on base inside a small softball stadium of people, than I have been in many police actions. Put me on the Idol TV-show? Yikes! Put me on drug raid? Cool! When's the next one? There are all different kinds of nervous, all kinds of levels of scared, all different tiers to adrenaline. A sports competition is better than nothing, but lets not get to excited here about where it really fits in the big picture.
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12 July 2007: Harvey
“Harvey…give me the shotgun.”
I said. This is the time when cops usually get killed I reminded myself, looking at an angry Harvey Wilson with a 12 gauge pump. But I thought since I knew him, I could talk him down…
The first time I met Harvey Wilson he was drunk on a horse. Not to unusual since after all-it was Texas. It was a bitter cold winter night, about 2 am back in 1977 and Glenn Bilyeu and I were on patrol when we spotted Harvey slumped over the saddle. Harvey had a barn on the back of his one-acre house in the city limits and apparently this horse didn't know the way home to barn. Or it was on a walk and Harvey was just there bouncing along for the ride.
“Harvey!” Glenn shouted, as we grabbed the reins and stopped the gelding.
“WHAT!” he snapped awake, and then started kicking at us. Harvey was a hard-working stout, black man in his late fifties at the time, living alone in a neighborhood of welfare cases, drug addicts, screw-ups and fuck-offs. Harvey was a little rowdy and tended to “pull the cork,” but despite the whiskey he was always at work the next day. That night he fussed and kicked at us enough that Glenn decided Harve needed to spend four hours in our urine and puke-stained, stinking, drunk tank.
We hauled him off the horse, cuffed him in a frisky little wrestling match, all under the big eye of his calm horse. I put Harvey in the front seat- back then in the pre-cage days-that is where we transported prisoners so we could watch them as we drove. Glenn got in the saddle and rode the horse to the city animal pound while the dispatcher paged out the on-call animal pound worker.
Not six months later, alone this time, I repeated the whole affair again with a smashed and frisky Harvey and his horse. If you looked at Harvey's file, you'd find multiple drunk-in-public arrests. Still, he never seemed to hold a grudge and always held down a job. On weekends you'd drive by his small, wooden house and he would be painting, or cementing, or fixing something. Salt-of the Earth. Every once in awhile when I was on Saturday or Sunday dayshift I would pull over, get out a talk with him for a few minutes.
“Whatca' doing Harvey?”
“Ohh…oh, fixen' to clean out my septic tank lines…” he would say softly and breathlessly, and rest on a shovel and tell me the symptoms and cure for his latest housing ailment.
Then, a fairly new red Camero started appearing parked on the street outside Harvey's house. One day I saw a very attractive black girl, say, in her late 20's, maybe early 30's pulling up in it and walking into Harvey's house, with shopping bags, enter without knocking. The car remained night after night. I asked Marvin Hayes, a retired postal worker and Harvey's neighbor, about this mystery girl and saucy car.
“Harvey's got him a girlfriend. Ya-Heah! She's a sweat young thing too. From Dallas. I don't know how they met. I don't know how he keeps her. But he bought her dat dere car, you know?”
“NO!” I declared.
“Yes, he did. Bought her dat' car and, and jewelry, and, and I don't know what all. Ya-Heah! I hopes he knows what he is doin'. I don;t think the boy knows what he's doin'! He's silly for her. ”
I ran the license plate of the car in the hopes of getting her name and seeing if she had a criminal history. The plate was still registered to a car dealership in Dallas. Back then it use to take a while, maybe even a few weeks to a month, to catch car registrations up on NCIC. Lots of index cards and hand-typing.
In our squad meetings, the Sergeant read us the daily blotter each day-the list and quick summary of the events since we left the day before. Over a period of three weeks, there were several domestic disturbances at Harvey Wilson's house. There was already trouble in paradise. I never caught a single one of these calls at Harvey's house, until one Saturday afternoon. It was the one with a shotgun.
When I pulled up, this girl was almost through packing her Camaro. She looked up and smirked at me and continued yelling over her shoulder at Harvey, who was up the small hill of his front yard and by his front porch. When I climbed the small incline I got my first look at Harvey. He was holding a pump shotgun at port arms. His eyes were red and wet and the veins and muscles in neck bulged. I knew if I drew my pistol, this action could be a catalyst for him to react and shoot me. I could just tell. And, this is how many, if not in most, how some cops are killed. The domestic.
“I'll kill her!” he yelled.
“Harvey. Put down the gun. You can't kill anybody.” I said.
“BITCH! I'll kill you, BITCH!” he yelled. He was barely paying attention to me and watching her pick up her suitcases from the lawn.
“I bought that car!” He yelled.
“It is in my name, mutha-fucka!” she yelled.
“Harvey. Harvey. Harvey,” I repeated calmly. “You can't kill her. You can't kill her over a car. You know that. Give it up man. You can't be doing that. Put the barrel down. Let her go. You shoot her and your life is over. She ain't worth it!” I inched closer and closer and he got madder and madder. He was losing it.
He still held the gun across his chest, inches from lifting the stock to his cheek and shooting. He glared his teeth and I could see his fingers moving in contracting waves on the gun. The barrel wandered from me to the girl, to no one and back again across all of us again. Yup, this is how we get killed - I thought. But, I got close enough to lunge out and grab the weapon with both my hands and pulled the barrel up and the stock down. With a fast motion, not unlike rowing a single oar of a canoe, I ripped the gun completely from his grip.
The girl slammed the car door and burned rubber down the street. Harvey's little temporary paradise…was gone.
I ran the pump action up and down which spit out the shells across the manicured lawn, and when it was empty, I laid it against a porch railing. Harvey sat down on the stairs of the porch. I sat down next to him. Melvin had witnessed the whole thing from next door, was probably the one who called us in the first place, and walked over.
“Man! Fuck!” Harvey said. “Did I get fucked.”
“She was never no good, “ Melvin said. And I agreed. We sat there on the steps for about ten minutes talking. My back up squad car drove up and I waved him off, signaling it was all over and everything was ok. I got up and said, “Harvey, I am gonna' take this shotgun in with me for 24 hours.” I saw Melvin nod his head at me.
“You can come down to the station and get it tomorrow.” I picked up the ejected rounds on the manicured grass.
“You got him, Melvin?” I asked.
“I got him. I got him.” Melvin said.
We use to have a policy where we would extract guns from a hot situation where there might be more violence or suicide and lock them up at the police department. The Chief held the gun and the owner would have to see the chief himself to get ot back. Probably as illegal as hell. Probably cause a lawsuit today, but I figure it really worked many, many times . Ol' Harvey picked up his gun the next day after Chief Hugh Lynch had a word of advice or two with him. Harvey remained quiet and behaved after that day.
One morning some ten or so years later, as a detective, we got a call of body found near some undeveloped land in the southeast part of town. A cable man and a railroad agent were surveying land to bury some lines near a run of tracks when they stumbled upon a body not that far from the road. When I got there, I was surprised to find our EMTS at the scene at working feverishly. It sounded on the radio like it was a homcide. The railroad man walked up to me, “he wasn't dead! We thought he was dead, but he wasn't.”
I walked past the agent and to the action. The techs were working on...ol' Harvey Wilson! Harvey was dressed up in a suit and looked like he was pulverized to a raw pulp. He was whisked to the hospital and laid there in intensive care for days in a coma before he could answer a single question. I went to Harvey's house and Melvin and I tried to reconstruct his last healthy day. It was a real head scratcher for starters, but one thing for sure, Harvey's pick up was missing and put out a “bolo” on the truck.
“What happened, Harvey?” I asked him the first morning at Flow Hospital that he could finally speak.
“John Wayne Wilhurt. He asked me for a ride. Then he pulled a gun. He made me stop the truck out there on Morse street. He beat me up and robbed me. Left me for dead.”
Harvey was never quite the same after that near-death beating and within a year or two thereafter died of natural causes. Heart attack, I think. John Wayne Wilhurt? An ex-con punk scum, on parole, and this gave me a reason to send this piece of shit/trash up for life, but catching him? That is another story…
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9 July 2007: Bullet Memory Lane
I thought you all would get a kick out of this picture. This is a random photo I found from my old police department, taken at our old range, and taken not too long before I started. I have no idea who they are, except the shooter looks to me to be Walter Keene, but I could be wrong. Perhaps some of my old buddies will see this and tell me?
Anyway, I spent a LOT of hours training this old school way. Then we converted over to more modern ways, but you can sure shoot and kill with either way as fast as lightning. Note the revolver. Newfangled Semi-autos were not allowed when I first started. Plum tricky and confusing!
They call it the "Third Eye" now, getting your pistol low and under your two eyes in the center line of your body. Builds an instinct point shot.
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7July 2007: 2005! Those were the Days, My Friend. We Thought They's Never End...
The internet. The God's gift of massive commerce to all, and to my readers here on this blog, a gift to
martial, military and police trainers, authors and training film makers.
And I ask you, internet business people and not just martial related? Do you recall fondly just a few a years back, say 2005? How about you, Oprah? Ebay? We remember some boom years, whether we realize just how much of a boom it was or not. Whether we see a business graph or not. Do you think things are just a little dry now? Summer is usually hot and dry, yes, and that is why stores have so many summer sales. But, there is more involved in this than just the selection of a wrong newspaper or magazine ad you might be cussing yourself over.
Memories of 2005. Without getting into the details and the ..."how ja' find out that?" but I was involved in a research project. With the help of some experts, we here at the SFC got involved in a big, (perfectly legal, I might add,) "insider" study of a number of businesses via a series of reviews, programs and methods that record business records, stocks, incomes and webpage evaluators. Looking for patters and trends. The results? Well for starters? No longer can you just look yourself up and see many times your name has been googgled to gauge how cool and successful you are. Those numbers change constantly and seemingly on a cosmic whim, a waning tipping tip we often cannot predict nor reconstruct. I guess we always knew that the Google search was lame, but now with these newer, intense, surgical, studies, it has been proven. There is an alarming, annual trend since 2005 folks.
For example, my best internet business year of late was 2005. And you know what? So was just about everyone else's - even Oprah's! So was the UFC. Then the drop. And I mean a significant drop, in some cases by half from 2005 to 2006. Almost all us, the UFC on down, 2006 was way worse, 2007 is starting about to be at 2006 levels or even worse levels, for Ohrah, Martha Stewart and me!
At first, most martial systems say "well...its that damn UFC and MMA! They are luring away all the young-uns from us." But this post 2005 crash crash also includes the UFC and their new property - Pride. (This perhaps one reason why their business managers at the UFC did buy Pride. I think in the end. UFC people were both Pride AND UFC people anyway) Or, karate people will say, "Its that damn reality-based, fighting stuff, taking our customers."
But is worse than some dwindling student numbers. From this internet, why is every martial, police and military paper magazine, internet magazine and webpage drastically down since 2005?, (Inside Kung Fu is about dead by the way). TRS by the way, is almost invisable, but still hanging on via golf and fitness DVDs. (I try to warn people that these silly ads are now a turn-off to people. But ignorant people still replicate them in their own ads. Wise up!)
Yes sirs and ladies. There is a definite shift in the pool of new, interested people and programs. Yet, sadly and in fact you could name any popular martial arts or system and ALL of them had a giant spike in 2005 and a huge degrade in 2006. It is really evident in webpage viewerships. But, this crash also includes EBAY and J.C Pennies and vast numbers of non-martial companies. This leads us to consider that the fault may not lie in the martial world, but rather in the internet business world in general.
Some might say it is it is the economy, that discretionary income has been eaten by medical insurance and higher gas prices. This might make some sense. Kids in a karate class, adults at seminars, purchasers of the "Nuke Killer Commando" and "Dragon Fighting Secrets" DVDs are all affected by discretionary funds.
Largely, I think that people are overwhelmed with ever-growing choices. Growing choices. Every month there are ten new military reality instructors (oh, they are so young!) popping up as the next, "be-all" and next "know-it all." Every small, mid or big city has 1-to-5 new gun ranges a month. Isn't it all overwhelming? Every month there are 10 new gun-gods, decked out in 511s, opening up new security contractor businesses. Most of these companies are first raising, then shrinking and often tumbling like dominos.
Plus, with all this, people are addicted to the you-tube martial films like porn, and seeking the plethora of free information available on the net if you just keep searching and searching ...and fast! Search faster! Searching for the next guru's webpage takes longer and longer each month. Soooo many gurus! So little time.
But, Oprah battles all of her competitors just like this too. Note, that she has kicked off a new business campaign about "Oprhah selects Store Front Products." Wall street reports a downturn in internet shopping interest and a movement to stores. I tell you it often pays to watch the big leaguers in all fields, who have had boards of experts advising and planning. Watch for general trends. There will always be exceptions (Amazon steadily climbs for one example). And if you discover and sell the cure for cancer, even in the worst of economic times? You'll be fine. That which distinguishes.
If you sell rocketships and have ten billionaire customers that look at your page? You are happy with 10 viewers. And, if you were not around in 2005? Ignorance is bliss. 5 new customers means a 500% increase! Break out the party hats. But, what about next month? 1/2 year? 5 years. Learn quickly grasshopper the following business ideas and points.
Business Points in summery.
How big is your arena? The neighborhood? That so-called, elusive "6 square mile" stat of people and businesses around you that come see you or shop at your store, even battling rush hour traffic? Is your city your arena? Your state? Region? Define yourself, your mission and the turf you want and work on it with a complete holistic vision of your community, virtual or otherwise, in mind. Today, professionals place gas stations in highly, demographically chosen neighborhoods, not because they found the cheapest rent on Z Street. Even bubble gum is scientifically placed at the check-out line. Where do you fit in the big picture of market analysis?
* Trends and fads. Recently it was BJJ and Krav. Right now, there is a fad for MMA and still some reality programs. The demographic of 17-ish to 28-ish males - the new students - the fresh blood - that usually spread across the adult martial market from Tae Kwon Do to combatives and feed the many systems, are now mostly doing MMA. But hey! Still! That too is still still down since 2005!
* Exploding market places. Each month more and more people and things to do and the easy access of the Internet to find them. You can still isolate and invent one new thing and make a killing in it, but everyone is trying and it is not easy.
* Diversify. If the UFC internet is down? They have a big fight in Peoria to make up for it. Do seminars. Do other things. Or, don't quit your day job! Still! All these diversifications are internet related because the word of your fights, your seminars and your products are indeed spread to customers by the internet. "Lost internet" equals "lost spread."
* Essential no matter what! For most businesses having a webpage is as essential as a having a common business card. It is an electric business card in a way, one thing people expect you to have despite all the ups and downs and shrinking and re-grouping. The strong do survive.
There seems to be a momentum at play with the internet in both the USA and in the world economy. It pays to look at the big picture. You are what you are. You are what you eat. You eats what's around you. What exactly is around you that you can actually chase down, catch and eat?
To paraphrase a classic....
"So goes the internet, so goes a huge foundation of our economy! And you!"
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Report back to Headquarters! http://www.hockscqc.com/
4 July 2007: The Knife as Pistol Retention Tool. No Fuss? No Muss?
I have had someone try to take my pistol in a ground fight, well, it was kind of a ground fight...on top of furniture. We were sideways flopping on a couch and a table. I was able to choke this guy out because of the position we were in. Had I let go of him with my one hand and arm to pull and open a folding knife? Probably be dead now, I guess. Everything is positional and situational. Otherwise, I have only had a few passing tugs and pulls on my gun handle through the years. But, I have extensively studied and exercised pistol disarming and retention.
In 1998, I made a video tape called, Tactical Folder for Pistol Retention. It sold modestly to die-heart knife people and some police. It was during an era that officers were coming of age with duty knives and various folders were appearing clipped to the pants pocket of police uniforms. In my last few years on the street in the 90s I wore a Cold Steel Tanto Folder (called Tanto but rather much a straight blade) It was, as Dwight McClemore would say, “a big rascal.” Some officers back then were toying with the idea wearing a folder or fixed-blade knife right on the Sam Brown pistol belt. This had many police administrators scratching their heads, turning a blind eye and also quietly praying that the day would never come when an officer used his knife to gut and kill a suspect. Imagine the lawsuits and confusions. Duty knives were welcome, barred or ignored. This is true of policing worldwide.
One popular reason to tote a knife was to use it against someone stealing your pistol from your body. And I will say that at first, second, even third glance at the idea it seemed like a good one. Then you take the fourth and fifth glances ….you wonder how statistically proper this method is as a main strategy. Is a knife a primary tool to protect your pistol?
For starters. For the big picture, and you must look at this big picture to fit this subject into a proper prospective, pistol retention is a very complicated bit of tactical science. I will tell you right now that I have seen all the other retention DVDs on the market, young and old, and am aware of the old and current training procedures by law enforcement. I will proclaim here that no one had broken down this subject into the comprehensive outline I have on. No brag. No exxageration, just fact. The best equation of study is:
Dissect the directions of attack
Front, back, right side, left side, from above or from below
Dissect the methods of attack
From any of the above directions, an ambush or interview, two-hand gun grab, one hand gun grab and one hand beating you. Both hands beating you and then he removes pistol from unconsciousness and/or stunned, you.
From the weapon at its carry site, to and through the draw process to weapon presentation and/or use with a one-hand or two-hand grip
So, to completely learn to disarm, one must:
Learn common and uncommon weapon-carry-sites
Learn weapon holsters or ease of removal of guns from non-holster sites
Learn all the single and double –handed quick draws from start of movement to finish
Now Retention issues! See all the takeaways. Counter the takeaways.
Learn counters to all these disarms! You cannot get good at pistol retention unless you do your homework and learn the above disarms. See all the takeaways. Counter the takeaways. I have a collection of 18 combat scenarios that I have compiled that really cover the spectrum. The list of counters are both generic and are also at times specific solutions to specific problems. We shouldn't list them all here because ultimately this essay is really about just using your knife for retention.
For a primer on this subject.
For a quick primer on the subject, to use your knife for retention you need one hand free from the scuffle! You must pull the knife and open the tactical folder. How many police officers practice knife quick-draws under combat stress and from awkward positions? Almost none. It is hard for practiced experts under combat stress to acquire, open and draw. Many SWAT and special teams carry folders into hot zones, all while wearing gloves. No matter how expensive and “sensitive” these gloves are, you are layering yourself away from a stress, folder quick draw.
It is also counter-reflexive to pull a knife while your gun is mid-way to a draw position, or in a shoot position or a threat presentation position. When your gun is grabbed and you have a two-handed grip, letting one hand go from your pistol to pull and open your knife is just not a safe or practical move. You will instinctively feel the need to keep both hands on your pistol. We hope that if the suspect is this close? You have your gun in a single-hand grip and turned back away from the suspect. In many of these situations, your free hand is busy fighting the attacker. Taking it from the fight to pull a knife, might also be a tactical mistake.)
Eliminating knife-pulls from many two-hand grip situations and one-hand-grip situations, trims the possibilities down dramatically. When are the best opportunities? In the big picture, the option may largely be when the suspect is tugging on your holstered weapon and he is in practical striking range. Looking at all the angles of possible attack I previously listed, being front, rear, right, left, up or down, your strike-ability range with a knife, is limited to the front and a side. Two of six possibilites?
In CQC? Your free hand is often busy
fighting and not free to break away and
draw and open a folding knife.
Looking at statistics, we see so many gun take-ways involve the suspect pummeling you with one hand and grabbing your gun with the other. Or, just getting pummeled with two hands. Pummeling. Ever try to find your folder, pull it and open it while being pummeled and tossed around? Practice that one much? Not likely and I'll bet you have a false sense of security about what you and your knife can really do.
So when exactly is the best time to pull and open a folder for pistol retention? When the suspect is standing within knife arm striking range and you have the time and skill to open the folder under such stress. If you run the numbers? This is quite limited possibility. But we presume from this position, you will stab the attacker.
On the subject of stabbing, All of us veterans in police work have marveled at one time or another about the tenacity of stabbed people. We have worked cases where people have been stabbed tens and tens of times and are still functioning. When you draw your knife in this retention struggle, where will you stab and how many stabs will it take to get a good result? We have also worked many calls and cases where people have been punched or forearmed tens of times about the head, neck and body and are still functioning. In this vein, many stab victims report that they felt as though they were being punched or hammer-fisted at first, while actually being stabbed. These are things to consider when pulling small blade to retain your pistol. How fast to you see results? Stabs at a moving target may prolong the fight.
But, I now must ask you, how many eye gouges does it take to get a good, distracting result? Blinding, in fact. The answer to that is one. An eye gouge requires no extra “find-and-open-folder-under-dire-stress” time and support training. Just open fingers and plunge. 95% of the time, It is faster and easier just to stick your fingers into his eyes then run the risk of removing your hand to your side from desperate combat, then finding, pulling and opening a tactical folder all inside a violent struggle.
I repeat, 95% of the time, it is just faster and easier just to stick you fingers into his eyes. Given all the physical possibilities I have listed above, and the training level needed, 95% of the time, it is faster and easier just to stick your fingers into his eyes.
I can only tell you to try these tactics with gear and full force-on-force training, and you see how well you can get the knife out compared to the eye attack. Many major enforcement agencies do “sand-pit” style retention training. Trainers (usually with very little gear) get in the pit and grapple around with cadet's to steal their guns. Note the word “grapple.” No one hauls off and belts the cadet senseless (as many bad guys do). And, the cadet cannot exercise the true, vicious, survival tactics that really counter the attack. Therefore this training is nothing but abstract, lame and incomplete. It is not "FOF."
So the quick draw of a folder under combat stress is really a major problem. Now this leads us to the new, short, fixed-blade knives. Of course, the common ones are carried vertically on a the belt. But, there's a new modern series that are nifty, little curved things or at times shaped and applied like push-daggers. They are curved not for some esoteric, Indonesian reason, but for an angled, natural grip, quick draw, from the holster's tilted, slant. In this sense, think of a push dagger with half the handle gone. Good models are only $50 or so!
So, when the stinky feces hits the street fan, you convulsively grip this knife handle and pull it out - no fuss, and slay away - but with plenty of muss. These blades are very short. The suspect tenacious. Prepare for a vicious, medieval experience. Prepare your supervisors, prosecutors, attorneys and news media too. Most knife salesman and knife teachers don't know what the word “muss” bloody well means. Don't forget your free hand may be to busy to pull your little slant-carry push dagger, too.
These fixed blade, knives and the sheaths are hard case material and positioned… well, somewhere amongst everything else an officer must carry these days, to facilitate this emergency quick draw. This 
positioning makes them a left-hand or right hand-only access. They are also targets of very easy takeaways. Plus, your admin must first approve this little Klingon, claw thingy on your duty rig. Will they? Many admins have trouble approving any folding knife, least of all, a Klingy thingy.
What do you have to worry about when implementing a training program and policy on pistol retention that includes a knife response? It is the same problem I once had. I wanted so, so much to squeeze a knife into the solution. Force it. I wound up over-using and over-working a knife solution when other, easier, simpler responses should have been prioritized.
So who will force feed you knife solutions? I learned that:
People who sell you knives will do this, blindly or on purpose.
People with knife courses will do this, blindly or on purpose.
People who train you that are fixated on their tool will do this.
All miss the big hand, stick, knife and gun picture. All-knife-all the time-doesn't make Jack a dull boy. It makes Jack…a full-time knifer.
So, in 2002, I took my Knife for Pistol Retention film off the market. I'd like you all to think about prioritizing the good ol' fingers-into -the-eyes tactic for a first response to so many pistol retention problems. It is quick, blinding, easy, distracting and proven highly effective. Always drawing a knife may not be as quickly effective and practical in a majority of positions and situations.
Sure, carry a knife too. I did. Fixed, straight, angled, or folder, you may really need it in some situations. But it sure can be mussy. Mussy in approval, mussy in concept, training and danmed mussy in execution.
"Krotak Pug!" Klingon High Command approves their new edged weapon.
The process is much more difficult with police administrations.
Any comments? Continue the thread on the talk forum! http://www.hockscombatforum.com
Report back to Headquarters! http://www.hockscqc.com/
2 July 2007: The Knights. The Duel. And the Fair, Fair Lady - The First Texas Murderer I Caught
The first Murderer I caught in Texas was an interesting case. Typical of murders in many ways- if you are indeed, use to this kind of thing, and also shocking - if you are not. It has many intriguing, classical aspects and timeless, human drama.
In my first or second month on patrol in Texas in the 1970s, I was riding shotgun with Officer Ron Atkins. I'd had three pretty hard, fast and furious years in the US Army military police as a patrolman and investigator and I was hardly a rookie.
About 4 am one night we got a call from an angry neighbor in what we once called “shack-town” the projects or the poor, part of town…you get the nickname, you get the picture. The neighbor reported men fighting in the house next door. I later heard the original call on tape:
“They's fighten' something horrible next store.
They's young, drinkin' people and I don't know what all is goin' on.”
On this street, these single-story, old, small, wooden houses were very thin and noise would carry. I reported in the old “10-4” to the dispatcher and Ron headed that way. As we got close to the block, Ron turned out the headlights to approach the house as quietly as possible. Then, as now, we boys in blue would get ambushed in route to a domestic disturbance with some frequency. Lights out. Never park in front. All that tactical stuff.
It was pretty chilly as I recall, and it surprised us both to see a nearly naked man, alone and busy in motion in front of our target house. He was a tall, thin, black male, dressed only in cut-off jeans. We coasted closer and watched him. Ron finally decided we needed to see what was going on and he pulled on the headlights, high beams and our takedown lights – powerful light bar beams from our car roof, that really turned darkness bright like a movie set.
WELL! This young man was busy working at the trunk of his car. The trunk was open and he was wrestling with a lifeless body. The body was as long and lanky as he was, and as quickly as he would shove an arm into the trunk, a leg would roll out, and vice versa. The man was covered in swirled blood – that is blood painted in circles and swirls on his skin. In my business, that generally means people were bleeding and fighting.
He froze in a bath of these bright lights. I can still see this picture in my mind today. He was half crouched over, eyes wide. Incredulous and shocked. There was no way he could identify who we were behind our bright lights.
I turned to Ron and said calmly, “I guess we got a murder?” It was calm, and that sounds like I am very cool, but I had not quite digested what in hell I had seen before me in a split-second flash.
“Yeah,” Ron too, said calmly.
I sprung out of the car and pulled my Python, pointing at the man.
“Police! Hands up!”
He stood straight up and shoved his hands up.
Ron and I approached from opposite flanks and handcuffed the man. Ron knew him immediately,
“Terry, what is going on?” he asked,
“MANNN! This muther-fucker tried to kill me.”
Terry was indeed cut by a knife. Multiple slashes. I looked in the open trunk with the help of my maglite. The black male in the trunk was also cut up. He too, was naked except for cut-off, blue jeans. I felt for a pulse. None. It was more than obvious that Terry was going to remove this body in the trunk of this car. Terry tried a few real swiss cheese excuses as Ron walked him back to our squad car and used the hand mike to call for an ambulance, a Sergeant and for CID. He sat Terry on the ground and started to talk with him and inspect his wounds.
Curious, I walked into the house, gun up and out. The house was partially furnished and whereso, with very old and pitted junk. All made worse, if possible, by the signs of a struggle. The living room was an upturned mess and where it connected to a dining room, a cheap table and chairs were tossed away and upside down. There was an ancient carpet on the floor and it was covered in a giant, bloodstain. Atop this ritual wet red site? Two big, kitchen knives. I imagined, two, 6' 2", lean, black guys, in matching cut-off jean shorts no less, ducking, and stabbing and slashing. And yelling loud enough to wake the neighbors.
I saw a dim, yellow light on down a short hall and gun barrel first, I made my way into the room. On an old bed, lay a white girl, about 20 years old with long blonde hair. Her shoulders were bare. She clutched a soiled and crusty sheet up to chin.
“They were fighting over me,” was all she said to me. That pretty much told me a lot.
“Get dressed,” I told her.
She did and I guided her out to the front of the house. By now, ambulances and supervisors were arriving. With my arms folded and the two us leaning against a car on the street, I got a preliminary tale from the girl.
The sad story went, that the girl was from out of state and attended one of the local universities. She met Terry somehow (as Terry was not college material) and began this affair. Terry shared her with his best friend, but the sharing became too tense? Call it love? Territory? Honor? I guess? Call it what you will. And so, Sir Terry and this Sir Friend had to duel it out with kitchen knives over the fair lady, in the dingy, little dungeon of a castle.
In the end, it's another torrid love story, in the near-naked city of cut-offs, a mythic, melodrama as old as the knights of yore. The duel of edged-weapons, as if told by Shakespeare himself. In the end of the courtroom case months later, the Third Act, the prosecution could not prove who was defending themselves against whom, and Terry Raygins received about a 6 –year sentence. He was out on the street in 2 ½ years, on parole.
Terry was the first murderer I caught in Texas. I got to know him as the years went on. He stayed out of major trouble ever sense.
Post Script:
And through the years, I also got to know most all of their Raygins family. All was not well at Raygins' family castle either. They had a huge family and were a colorful, bunch of troublemakers and sad sacks. Poppa Raygins was a hard-working, factory man whose feisty wife tossed him out of the house one winter. Tossed him out…to the garage that is. Daddy Raygins lived in the unattached, dilapidated garage at the end of the driveway for several years. No heat, no air. We use to drive by and look down the driveway and see ol' man Raygins watching TV in his garage, showering by the yard hose, cooking on a hot plate, and sleeping on an old couch. If he sneaked into the house, his wife would beat him and toss him out. I had the occasion a time or two to walk up the drive and talk to him.
Daddy Raygins decided he needed an electric stove in his garage. He could cook better than on the hot plate, and he could also leave the oven door open and heat the place. He bought a used kitchen stove, cleared a space in his cluttered garage, plugged it in, turned it on and electrocuted himself. Fried, stone dead. His crispy self lay in the garage a few days until someone eventually found him and called us. Killed by a stove. His wife said, “good riddance to the old bastard.”
Sometimes, life ain't so pretty in the various Camelots we find for ourselves. Things can get mighty rotten in Denmark sometimes.
Any comments? Continue the thread on the talk forum! http://www.hockscombatforum.com
Report back to Headquarters! http://www.hockscqc.com/
1 July 2007: Some Up and Coming Major CQC Group Camps and Seminars
Hock and McCann
Laurel, Maryland USA 8, 9 September
http://www.hockscqc.com/shop/product267.html
Romeoville, IL USA 29, 30 September
http://www.hockscqc.com/shop/product265.html
Military Knife Seminar, Frankfurt, Germany, Oct 6, 7
Gun/Counter-Gun, Cincinnati, OH. USA - Oct. 26, 27, 28
CQC Group Camp, Gent, Belgium - Dec. 7, 8, 9, 10 2007
CQC Group Camp Sacramento, CA. USA, Jan 24-27 2008
(all seminars build the ranks for the CQC Group AND
the SFC Hand, Stick, Knife, Un and PAC courses.)
Any comments? Continue the thread on the talk forum! http://www.hockscombatforum.com
Report back to Headquarters! http://www.hockscqc.com/
