August,2009

SFC HEADQUARTERS DOCTRINE

"Read by Thousands Round' the World!"

28 August 2009: The Big Cross-Over | Part 3 Hand Grip Strength

One big cross-over that applies to all missions is hand grip strength. It seems no matter what we do, we always need our hands to do work and sometimes in overtime and overdrive. One good consequence of weight training is the side effect of building hand strength. You may be working on your back muscles but guess what? You are also working on hand grip strength. Then there are also exercises that work specifically on hand strength. THEN there are mission specific exercises that build even specific goals. Take a look at Mike Gillette's Strength Show web page to see what he needs and does. The Strength Show

Mission specific Gillette has always been crazy-obsessed with inventing new ways to create functional strength. I remember when we were cops in the 1990s and he invented replica pistols with platforms at the barrels so you could do push-ups while holding your pistols! Then he invented replica pistols with hooks so that you could do pull-ups on a chin up bar while holding your pistols. All to create insane grip strength for pistol retention and shooting. More on Gillette strength training here Strength training course

So there is a continuum from generic cross-over skills to mission-specific goals. Does this also relate to shooting and combat? Yup, and many are not going to like what I have to say about it.

Part 4 coming soon in the September blogs

Adios, amigos,

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25 August 2009 The Big Cross-Over |Skills and Footwork

One of my own AHA moments on this crossover subject came to me years ago. In the late 1990s I was teaching Marines in Camp Pendleton, CA., several groups for several days on what would now be called “Force Protection” subjects as well as helping fulfill their growing need to take on more and more policing-like actions. In short, the day officially began for me at 8 am, but I had been up with the troops since about 6 am. After a 2-mile jog, of which I joined them from boredom, at 7 am, I observed them doing some more PT (physical training) and much of this included basketball (of which I dislike and therefore cannot play at all). I noted that it was very early in the morning and these guys were playing serious hoop like it was in the afternoon or evening and they had money on the game. Most, if not all, looked very athletic. Some looked like college players, even pros.

At 8 am sharp, in a training hall attached to a gym in Camp Margarita, they secured all the hatches (that's closed the doors to the great unwashed), and I began. I immediately noted that many of these Marines suddenly became gawky and quite un-athletic. I interrupted and told them that I watched them play B-Ball that morning and now they looked really unbalanced and funky. I told them to think about playing basketball in their stances and movement. Bend at knees and glide about. Many had also played football, even as kids! and I reminded them that this footwork and leg work was like B-Ball and football, or not unlike any other sports they'd experienced.

I am here to report that almost instantly this group of some 60 men and some women improved. It was like I had thrown some switch in their heads! I realized then and there that if I could only attach such experience in every student I could accelerate their education time and performance, which is always a challenge in police and military training.

In the process of fighting, there are many parallels in the moments of contact in football and basketball., least of all kick boxing and MMA but most of your students will have no experience in those fields. Every martial art has its own footwork drills. Even if they do, there may be problems:

Lead Arm Dogma: Adhering on one lead, a right or left lead and therefore having too much footwork based on that. True combat is neither left nor right. It is both.

Center-Line-Only and Outside-Arm-Only Dogma: Systems that foolishly think that they will fight only between the arms, or that they can always fight outside the arms of attackers.

Ring Dogma: Adhering only to sport fighting rings, and ignoring methods of larger reality spaces. True combat comes in all sizes and landscapes.

Obstacle course Dogma: Adhering to the idea that police and the military need only to dash a course under a time clock. Combat is often a close close, arms entangled or bear hug of death. Plus, running an obstacle course for the jungle does not help you in the desert.

Running Dogma: Just running alone is a good foundation, but in no ways complete preparation.

Running in general can build endurance and is a great cross-over skill. Wind sprints are every good to challenge the ups and downs of the heart. BUt running can be made to mission specific requirements. Even track teams have different training methods for sprinters and milers.

So, while bits and pieces of things can help, we should surely connect ourselves and our students to these established practices to help them "get a leg up" on the process. Forward and back, side to side. Combat is walking and running with balance and power. I lay the Combat Clock down on the ground and use the numbers for footwork drills. Remember to burst completely out of the clock at times.

(Quick side story - there were several very tough marine women in this group who fought like hell, and frankly could have kicked several of the men's asses there in my opinion. One hurt her arm, but kept on. The next morning, Captain Maceo Franks convened the group and he spotted a cast on the woman's arm.

"What happened to you?" he asked.

"Just a sprain, sir." But it was worse. We saw it happen the day before.

"Good. Good. Let others know down the hill that we do some serious training up here in Margarita." he said.

I got a big kick out of that attitude. If this were the US Army? Commanders would be passing out on the floor in spasms because a Band-Aid was needed. There is a whole new accident/injury/worry-culture in the US Army. So ...Semper Fi!)

Part 3 coming soon

Adios, amigos,

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23 August 2009: The Big Crossover | Part One

One of the concepts I am thinking about a lot lately is something every trainer and instructor should ponder - that of Crossover Skills. Taking the sports skills, or even the everyday skills, of of your students and clients and trying to make them work in combatives training. "Make the connection," as Remy Presas would say. It is more than obvious some will never match up. The issue of muscle memory also comes into play - the big and small, intricate and gross movements associated with a sport that are grilled and drilled into our bodies, yet won’t meld into survival combatives. In fact these motions often won’t meld into another sport.

Who are some poster boy examples? One poster boy of crossover study is Pro Basketball legend Michael Jordon. Superstar on the pro court but mediocre and a dropped failure in pro baseball. Some other players have attempted to play football and baseball, or two other combinations and aside from schedule conflicts, very few have tried and eventually failed at one.

Can a super soccer star play super Lacrosse?
Can a super soccer star play super Australian Football?
Can a super karate star win at mixed martial arts?
Can a super boxer win at kick boxing?
Can a champion pistol shooter be just as good with a rifle?
Can a super submission wrestler win at mixed martial arts?
Can a super sports fighter be a hand, stick, knife, gun combatives winner?
Can a champion competitive shooter win a village gun fight in Afghanistan?
Can, in reverse, a veteran combatives fighter easily play at martial sports?
Can a computer war game master be handed a machine gun and clear a real street in Iraq?

Can a SEAL automatically be a Green Beret? Or vice versa?

The answer is mostly, largely no. And note the word “super” and champion being tossed around. What of us lessor mortals who are not super? Where do we stand in the crossover continuum of both genetic and developed skills? This investigation is really not about the Jordons but about we mere mortals and what we can do in our limited time to make the best of ourselves and our students. But iof the answer is no, then it begs the question, what skills and at what point will the cross over attributes help out?

When the martial arts became mixed, it also became apparent that each MMA fighter needed differing “games” so-to-speak, and had to become really good at each of them to succeed. They need a stand-up game, and a ground game. Then their ground game needed a submission game and then a ground n’ pound game. Their stand-up game needed a kick boxing game (which was a blended boxing game and kicking game) and then a takedown game to go from standing to the ground.

Lots of gaming going on. Most combatives fighters shun the term game used in survival fighting. I know I do. “Just words?” But they set a mindset and a direction. No real fighters I know of cannot abide by the term game in their training programs. How many times have you heard the warning, “this is no game!” to impress upon cadets the imperativity of their exercises. All sport fighting is a game, no matter how high they try to place their trophy, if your team loses the Superbowl or Cup, world wars and politics still continue on Monday morning. Get a grip.

I ask you here has the modern, mixed martial arts come from so many, too many in fact, mixed and in some case diametrically opposed, arenas that it now must become one seamless entity? The UFC animal is no longer a Gracie or Thai guy that does other things? I say yes. Can it be trained as such? I say yes? Without a doubt.

First, I think its smart to discuss very universal, baseline attributes that might best cross over from...

Part 2 coming soon.

Adios, amigos,

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20 August 2009: Malfunction at the Intergalactic Junction

Jurassic Park meets Star Wars. If you read our Combat Centric Talk Forum, you will learn that my laptop was recently, sort of crushed, somehow? This made us buy a new road warrior laptop, a super one, BUT, as with all such things, the brand new media does not interconnect with the old media that everything else here at headquarters works with. There is a learning curve and a technological curse with even the most simple task. For one thing, I could not blog and upload, ergo my absence here. Right now, we have two old computers hooked together and have interphased into some of kind of Star Trek, time-warp, inter-dimensional window in space for me even to make this quick entry right here and now.

SO! I apologize for being in the Jurrasic dimension for a week. I swear in a few days it will all be worked out, and I will be back in the saddle again pumping out the usual...whatever it is I pump out?

But right now my window is shrinking. No time! Beam me aboard Scotty. NOW! SCOTTY!

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13 August, 2009: My First Dead Body

Growing up right on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, overlooking Manhattan, I can't say that I saw many people water skiing on the Hudson. Ever. Small boats? Sure, but the Hudson a recreation "lake-like" body of water. No. It was also full of tugs and commercial ships. Still, my friend George's, Uncle Les would not let such tradition (and common sense) get in the way. Les decided to round up us young teenagers and take us out to the Hudson River, right under the George Washington Bridge for a day of water-skiing.

The plan was that we need one guy steering the boat. One watching the skier. One skiing and one up front in the boat...looking for debris ahead. This was about 1965? 66? And the Hudson river was far from environmentally correct, and in fact the term "environment" wasn't invented yet! Well, at least not in terms of a catch-phrase for green-clean just yet.

As I was bobbing in the water, right under the GW Bridge, waiting for the Les to crank up the boat (the bridge is Gi-normus from sea level) the boys in the boat all seemed to spot something else bobbing around.

"Looks like a fish or a dolphin," Les observed. They passed it and this thing was now geting close to me. He circled around. After closer examination, we discovered...it was a dead guy. They hauled me into the boat and we turned for shore. Les climbed out and dropped a dime into the pay phone at the park. He asked the operator for the police.

About 30 minutes later the police arrived and Les told the officer we'd follow the body in his boat, until a police boat would get there. The dead guy was floating downstream and soon would be passing the Statue of Liberty and out into the Atlantic. We jumped aboard and re-located the corpse. It looked like a bloated something or other right out of a horror movie. The police car waited for the police boat.

The police boat came and we watched them net up the corpse and haul it back the park under the Bridge. Then I watched the police morgue workers prep, bag, lift and toss the body into the station wagon. They bid us farewell and that was the end of my excitement for the day. We went home, but with a great story to tell the other kids in the hood.

My father read in the newspaper that the body came from a "dock incident" way up river. I was pretty fascinated by the whole thing, and maybe it helped steer me to police work? That, Dick Tracy comics and Kojack? Hell, I don't know.

Yes, probably a "Tony Soprano" kind of dock incident. The NJ side , once a rat-house of rotting shipyard docks, dangerous bars and decaying houses, is now a thriving new condo shoreline with expensive, new restaurants, stores and shoppig malls. But still, no one goes water-skiing out there, well, except maybe crazy Uncle Les.

Adios, amigos,

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10 August, 2009: Tenacity of Life and the Knife | Part 2

The killer found his target and closed in. Other inmates in the cafeteria scattered. The target could have grabbed his food tray as a shield against the knives, but he didn't think of it. I watched the film intently to see this victim fight the double knife attacker. The whole fight lasted but a minutes or so. The victim did the best he could but, all he knew to do was try and reflexively block and pass the knives and throw a few punches and slaps at the attacker's head. One thing in his favor was that he dodged and ducked all over the place. The tables, with attached benches, were very long and heavy an seemed to be bolted to the floor. But, footwork was on his list of survival and he ran, leaped and dodged the knives.

The target eventually died before guards could respond. The state investigator reported to us that the target was stabbed and slashed - I want to say from my memory - 187 times! If that is not the exact number, then it is close as it has been near 25 years ago I saw this video tape. He noted that for the first 80 or 90 stabs and slashes, the target fought and moved very quickly and quite well. But the following 80 or so, he was losing it. Losing his wind, his balance and probably his blood pressure. Interesting point - the first 80 or so wounds took about the first 60% ot 70% of the fight time. The following 80 or so wounds took the final 30% of the time. All in direct relation to the victim's inability to sustain his defense. He fell back and was mauled by the attacker. Guards charged in with nightsticks and beat the attacker. The tape ended. The investigator said that the attacker, already doing life for murder, was charged and convicted of yet another murder. The state, unlike Texas, had no death penalty, as we would have been plain happy to kill that son of bitch in an electric chair, the needle or a good old fashioned firing squad.

180-plus stabs and slashes! That was a lot of knife work. I have worked cases where victims were stabbed and slashed many times. The worst I think was about 40 times. Some actually lived and then some died. But the moral of all those stories is how unpredictable the stab/slash death toll/ratio can be. And, how unpredictable the responses to being stabbed or slashed were. In the jail film, the victim was moving and this movement interrupted the common responses one would guess a stabbed or stabbed person would do.

My old friend and biker comrade Gary Theil had his throat slit wide open one night in the 1970s, in our old New Jersey stomping grounds. Gary was waiting at red light in a bad "hood," when somewhat of a planned riot unfolded on the street. Residents rushed out to cars waiting for the red light. Gary said that car windows were broken and people were hauled from their cars and beaten. He tried to maneuver his motorcycle back and away from the car in front of him, so as to burst down the street or even down the side walk to escape. This plan worked...for a bit. A man with a knife in his hand saw him and lunged the blade out as he past by, ripping the right side of his throat wide open. Gary continued on, touched his throat and saw the blood. He gripped his neck and lowered his head down to the right. Since it was our old neighborhood, he knew right where the local hospital was. Letting go to shift gears, he raced to the emergency room. He staggered in a bloody mess and was treated immediately with many stitches. As they worked on him, he saw the other victims of the riot being stretchered in. Still, with his throat severely slashed open, covered in blood, he made it to the hospital and was saved. Perhaps an eighth or quarter of an inch either side, he might not have made the drive?

And then, I have seen a single stab kill a person, with a very small pocket knife! Or, a single slash in the right place kill a man. I've seen this in person, not just in case files or films. I have chronicled in earlier blogs the night I arrested a murderer seconds after stabbing a man through the eye and into the brain with a small pocket knife. Or the case I was called to of a teen-ager stabbed right in the heart by a small pocket knife. Small, novelty knife. yet quick death. I remember the scene. A frigid, cold night. The teen had on a thick jacket, not thick enough, laying there on the gas station, parking lot. Deader' than hell. His face contorted in an expression of surprise.

Anyway, all these experiences, my cases, the case reviews of thousands of others, and research into military action and crime, tell me that any knife stabs or slashes may or may not:

a) produce predictable body responses and

b) quick death.

The tenacity of life is the unpredictable force that keeps a victim - or you - fighting on. It proves that a knife attack doesn't carry the shocking feel of stun knife or a stun gun when touched (this type of electric training is dubious at best). If you are stabbed or slashed do not give up!

You may well survive. If you do die, we fully expect you to last long enough as to kill the bastard that killed you. Don't let us down on this point. The last thing, your last duty is to kill your killer, if you're going down. Take him with you.

Adios, amigos,

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6 August, 2009: Tenacity of Life and the Knife | Part 1

Through the years as a patrolman and criminal investigator in the US Army and on a Texas police force, I have worked numerous edged-weapon, assault cases that resulted in the full spectrum from threats, minor wounds, significant wounds, major wounds and lethal results. Hundreds and hundreds of them since the 1970s. In these last years since my “retirement,” I have acted as a paid consultant, expert in knife crime for both prosecution and defense attorneys from California to North Carolina and states in between. And, I have never stopped my research in criminal and military knife attacks, as evidenced by the dozens of real-world, knife fights I've chronicled in my new Knife/Counter-Knife book. (click here)

Probably the most educational experience I've had came from numerous investigation schools, such as annual Assault and Violent Death symposiums. These gatherings were taught by chief medical examiners from various major cities in the USA and with lectures, slide shows and videos about the numerous autopsies and cases they'd worked. Many of these cases involved edged weapons, usually kitchen knives, as throughout the civilized world, common, single-edge, kitchen knives are used almost 99% of the time in crimes. All of these cases describe the various situations of criminal assault and the "who, what, when, where, how and why" these knives get pulled and used. Knife fights, all fights actually, are highly, highly situational. Universal themes, but very situational.

One point of universality, and points of contention amongst the ignorant is what does a knife attack really do to someone? How will a person react to a stab or slash both mentally and physically? The ignorant will proclaim all knife stabs kill, or that all slashed people cut wide apart like slabs of supermarket, roast beef hanging on a string, or that as soon as people are first cut or stabbed they experience medical shock and immediately debilitate. Or, that when people are hit from a certain direction with a knife, they will next, automatically, autonomicly, bend in a certain, predictable, mandatory positions, perfectly setting up the next attack. Sort of like game of billiards. Suffice to say that none of the above attacks will create absolute results each and every time. You can hope. You can plan. Bet. Assume. But you cannot guarantee. That is why I use the terms “high yield” and “probability factors” when discussing the effects of some tactics.

Much of this misinformation is brought to you by “the experts,” many of who are high school dropouts with just enough pocket money to advertise their name (an easy feat these days in the age of cheap web pages). Actually the experts come in all shapes and sizes beyond dropouts. We see, rough-tough ex-military types with no real education and experience with the knife. We hear about experts who grew up on the “wrong side” of town or “tracks,” or a martial arts, black belts with a good imagination, or drug addicts. One of my favorite "qualifying " backgrounds was from a guy who worked a mid-night shift in a factory, in an inner city and saw a lot of knife crime on his lunch breaks! How about people who did a little time in a county jail yet pretend to be tough, ex-cons and prison violence experts? What about the martial experts who build mountains out of molehills? That is, mountain ranges of drills and moves out of simple molehills of stabbing? Speaking of molehills, a knife system can also be painfully, dangerously, over-simplified. Minimalists can go way too minimal. And, some of the inexperienced remain pristine from reality and just collect all of the above opinions and moves and manufacture their own programs. Houses of cards built from other houses of cards. What if a stiff wind comes?

One stiff wind is - like with firearms - is that complete amateurs do lethal damage with knives. Simply put, simple knives with simple moves do much damage, and technical problems with mountains of tactical doctrine are easily forgiven and therefore easily overlooked because the margin of doctrine error is forgiving and broad. You might say, many knife experts get lucky and retain their title as one, just because a killer used a slash or a stab in a saber or reverse grip.

What will a knife do to you? Will the touch of the tip or the edge shut you down into shock and a pattern of predicted, autonomic responses? Of course not. This brings us to the core subject here of human nature and the continuum of the tenacity of life. I have seen the predictable and the unpredictable. In the early 1980s, I was shown a surveillance video of a vendetta, prison cafeteria knife fight. An ambush. In preparation, the killer stole two butter knives from the kitchen. He sharpened them into points and edges. With the help of an accomplice he duct-taped the two knives into his two hands. Often such prison killers, remove their shirts and swab their upper bodies with kitchen lard or oils to reduce the chance of being grabbed. This guy didn't bother. This killer found his target in the cafeteria and closed in…

Part 2 coming soon…

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2 August 2009: Da Grass! BY Buffalo Nickels

(Another guest appearance by the inane, insane Buffalo Nickels - Hock)

Da Grass!" My wife reminds me, as I lay like a homeless bum in a stained hammock in my backyard. It is upon this blessed hammock swaying in the New England breeze I could live out my life, reading the horse race results, watching ballgames on the old portable, scratching my balls and whiling away the hours of my meaningless existence. Trancelike, I drink steady highballs from a 20-year-old coffee thermos. I stare at the fat neighbors slaving in their yards. Martha Stewart says garden­ing is a cal9rie-burning exercise. HAl HO! She hasn't seen the disgusting sumo wres­tlers that live up and down my street. Plant­ing petunias ain't a weight-loss program.

"Da grass!" She barks again, knowing well the exact amount of extra volume needed to penetrate my zombie mentality. What wife really wants her husband to lan­guish? There is always something to do! My lip curls. I show teeth. Sneer. I look her dead in the eye and growl, "yes dear."

For you see my fellow Americans, tis the national anthem of summer. "Da Grass." It needs mowing. Why, why, why do we get houses with lawns and grass. Why? Do we not know what we are in for? Two hours a week, we loose precious fuck-off, hammock, highball time-the sweetest charms of life­to fight back nature and trim the never-end­ing growth of green scum that only breeds more scum atop the soil.

Once upon a time I had son at home who I could trick into doing the mowing.

struction?" pointing to the lawnmower. "You could line up shit in front of it and chop it up."

Dr. No, who got his name by first saying "no dad!" in an annoyed tone to every damn thing I would ask, would instead get a gleam in his eye and say, "Yes. Why, yes father." He would break away from burning bugs with his magnifying glass or igniting fire­works in the mouths of enslaved flogs, or some other pre-medical past time to run the mower. He would first place expendable toy soldiers throughout the lawn with great care, along with various other plane, tank and car models. Then he would chop and mulch them up with all the enthusiasm of a twi­light zone Patton. The grass became second­ary to his campaign bent on destruction. Was this how they invented the atomic bomb? Some sick, fucking kid with a potential for math and a high horsepower mower?

My wife would moan, "He is going to ruin that mower!" But I would tell her to leave the youth be. When soon the novelty wore off, I would have to beat him to cut the grass.

Over the years, his pain endurance grew and the intensity of the beatings increased. About the time only gunshots would motivate him, he went away to college to become a doctor and left me with this mounting grass fight and beat-to-piss blades. I was cleaning out the engine once and found the round, tiny helmeted head of a green army man.

It is a fight- a real battle with nature. But I have devised a plan to win, partly in­spired by Dr. No's great toy soldier battles. Since I am ex-military and since so much domestic warfare occurs over grasslands, I reason it is only fitting that my front lawn should have a special motif that truly reflects my interests and personality. I call it-The Battlefield Motif.

Here's how you do it. One afternoon in the middle of the week, when fewer folks are home to call the cops, throw a series of hand grenades all over the yard. It is impor­tant that you destroy every blade of evil grass. Napalm may well be required to re­ally finish the job right. The explosions eliminate bugs as well. Make sure the grenades cause craters. You do not want your yard to look like it's just been seeded, or the sumos next door will ques­tion you. It must look totally destroyed, raided and decimated. You may need some heavier ordinance, but I still have connections.

Next, you need some adornments. On the side ofthe yard? Rolled barbwire. On some barbs, hook tattered pieces of material with red coloring on them. Up front, one of those MASH road signs would look nice-the one with pointy boards showing the name and mile­age to foreign cities. Martha Stewart would require accurate infor­mation, and I agree with the anal retentive bitch on this one. Get the correct mileage to Paris. Saigon, Berlin, Seoul and then pick some obscure city in the U.S. where they grow com. Complete the look with a fog machine.

At night-not too late to get the cops called on ya-but say, early evening hours, run a tape of explosions, machine guns and pathetic cries of the seriously wounded. Keep lots of fireworks on hand too, in case anybody comes around to check things out. Throw M-80s at them. Nothing would be funnier than tossing a dummy grenade at some nosey, fat fuck and scream "incoming!"

Think about the possibilities at Christmas? A wartime noel theme. Two WW I uniformed manikins seated at on old wooden table din­ing on a rubber turkey. Then Halloween! Put dead skeletons in uni­forms strewn across the yard, probably the only time that the dead body display would really be acceptable with your local Chamber of Commerce. One night out of the year you would appear sane. Plant dummy hands in the ground. Have one hand hold a sign that says, "no fucking solicitors." That might really work! Tourists would drive by. Fox News would interview you. You could become a star!

Well then ... why not a statue? There are all kinds of military hero statues already. Why not have one commemorating the real unsung hero of war... the hooker .. that's right, the camp follower, trailing and servicing the troops since the ancient days right on up to last Wednesday. Design a hooker statue. Yeah! Personally, I prefer the WW II look myself, a Betty Grable type. No, wait! Rita Hayworth, yeah. Short, tight skirt. Lotta leg. Maybe one boob sticking out of a symbolic, war-tom, tube top. Yeah! Big brass nipple. America! Yeah! At her feet, a pile of used brass condoms. Yeah!

If Martha Stewart comes around? Shoot her! Just shoot her right down. With a real dirty, fucking, bullet. Anybody who paints zebra stripes on doorstops has entirely too much fucking free time and no life anyway ...

"Da grass!"

The wife yells, this time a four-highball yell, loud enough to pierce the effects of cuarto intoxicato. Well, guess I'll have to mow it all again one last time. The quicker I get on this battle­ground motif in place, the better. Sometimes to save a lawn, you need to destroy it.

(This was the work of Buffalo Nickels, former SF soldier and madman. We do not usually agree with his comments. Nor should you. Visit the Buffalo Nickels page. Click here - The Buff )

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1 August 2009: My Knife/Counter-Knife Book is Ready

Yes, the book, years in the making, is finished. 300 pages. Over 1700 how-to photographs. This is not the razor-thin, large-print, knife books you have seen by others in the past.

Even I am impressed and I am my own worst critic.

Click here for more

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Email Hock at Hock@HocksCQC.com