October, 2007
SFC HEADQUARTERS DOCTRINE
HOCK'S Web Log
"Read by Thousands Round' the World!"
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29 October 2007: The Gun Wrap-Up
We had an amazing time at the Cincinnati, OH Gun/Counter-Gun seminar this weekend. We had the full run of an empty, five-story office building and underground parking garage.
We covered elements from all ten levels of the gun course. Then we took advantage of the building and grounds. With gas gun and airsofts, pistols and machine guns, we exercised:
The Alqada Memo Scenario
Search and Destroy Scenarios (no and low-light)
The Stairway to Heaven Scenario. We used the five-story stairwells for combat
The Diner's Dilemma (The CCW armed customer witnesses an armed robbery in a restaurant)
The latter half of the Mexico Escape with emphasis on getting the witness into an escape car.
Various combat scenarios.
Much was learned, as you can only learn with interactive sims. I think the most eye-opening for people was the combat on the stairs. We ran chases up and down the stairs. Solo and teams. We ran all the scenarios with pistols, then with machine guns (BIG Difference) and then with a mix.
I don't usually say this...but if you considered coming to this one and didn't? Stand up right now and kick yourself in the shin. I don' t know when the next dedicated gun one will be and I don't know if we can get this building ever again. In fact, put a boot on before you kick yourself.
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28 October 2007: The WHO of who we fight?
This month we have discussed the "12 Step Program of Self Defense" ( scroll down) and the first step was the Ws and the one H. The first W is "Who?" Who we fight. The answers are found in the best book I have ever read and still re-read on the subject.
Violence Risk and Threat Assessment by Dr. Reid Maloy Jr.
AS with all the really good articles and books about fighting, they are not found in martial arts publications. They are instead in the professional medical and psychology fields.
A few years back, martial artists and those martial artists masquerading as reality self-defense experts, side-stepped out of their world to read...The Gift of Fear by security specialist Gavin De Becker. The Gift was an interesting read, thick and full of stories, but they all had a main, one-liner moral, "trust your intuition," and a few other tips. But the point is that the natural gift of fear can get you out of trouble.
If you took away the pulpy stories from the Gift however? You would be left with a single-sheet of crime prevention tips you'll find on a copy-machined stack of paper, on the front counter of your local police department. You would never dream of having your local Sergeant Joe Friday come down to the clubhouse and read this tip list, all in his droll, monotone voice, but Gaven De Becker? Whoopee! It is plain fun just guessing what secret movie star he was protecting in this or that story?
I read the Gift and was entertained. Yes, if drummed the gift of fear home. But to my surprise, like..little cults began popping up about the book, as though a sub-culture emerged that over-worshipped De Becker and the book as some major cure for crime. On a lesser scale of what I see from the Grossman and the Killology movement, but a movement just the same. On the larger list of counter-crime tips, warnings and things-to-do? For them, Intuition/Fear was highlighted, bolded and over-emphasized. Many of the cultists were the aforementioned, martial artists, and lets face it, martial artists are just a bit "culty?" I mean, look what they seek out and get themselves so immersed into.
The Gift of Fear is but a paragraph compared to Dr. Meloy's college textbook. It tells you who you are likely to fight in crime AND WAR! And, it is concise, stacked with stats, and loaded with observations from his decades of running psych wards, criminal justice and psych teachings, studies and consultations. It is actually easy to read. In the first chapter he breaks down the essence of conducting studies and defines the classic category names. Many police trainers should take note of these clinical guidelines. If you will read past the few pages on "false negatives," which will bog most common folks (me) down, and he so admits, the book kicks off with a gold mine of practical information you need on your shelf that you will go back to again and again and again. I have.
Any comments? Continue the thread on the talk forum! http://www.hockscombatforum.com
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25 October 2007: Basketball Hands
A while back I read an interesting college lab study on reflex response, a subject near and dear to us all here these last two months. First, the study collected and identified volunteer students who were sports players and who were not. Then specific sports were listed on the interview sheet. One of the check-off sport boxes was for basketball.
In the test, the testee student stood still in an empty room. The tester quietly approached from the rear, shouted, “hey!” while throwing a basketball very hard at the testee.
All the test takers turned and saw a basketball speeding toward them. As you might have imagined most of the testee's with no basketball experience flung their arms up in the direction of the ball, in a reflexive movement of self-protection. The ball bounced off their forearms. But, the experienced ball players tried to catch the ball with the palms of their hands. Some caught the ball, some failed. But they tried with their palms up and out. The difference being...arm-y versus hand-y.
We do not know the level of experience the people whom had checked off the “played-basketball” box had. But the moral of the story is full of common sense. People with some level of experience responded instantly with a trained response. This struck me as yet another in a long string of experiments that strongly suggest proper training leads to quick, instantaneous responses.
Since I really dislike basketball and NEVER have played it, except when forced to in public school, I know I would block the basketball with my arms like a caveman. If you tossed a football or baseball at me, I would try to catch it. Even after all these years.
THAT is what a little practice does for ya'! And THAT is what proper martial training can do for ya' too!
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21 October 2007: Want To. Don't Care. Don't Won't To.
How do you view, or more specifically"pre-view" ...everything? What are your predispositions? Do you go through life "wanting to believe?" Do you have a predisposition to a religion, a political party? Conspiracy theories? Sales pitches? Certain martial arts or martial artists? Or, are you a "tough sell?" Do you have a tendency to want NOT to believe? Distrusting of all things? Or, do you not care either way.
Now who would you trust most to take opinions or advice from? Someone with a over-tendencies to 'want to believe? Someone who doesn't want to believe? Or someone who doesn't care either way? Look at the lifestyle, habits, hobbies, jobs, spouses, etc of the person who are listening to and therefore use all that to see if the advice might be tainted or filtered. See if it comes from:
a) the want to believe
b) the don't want to to believe
c) the don't care either way
For me, the "don't cares" have the least-vested interest in a viewpoint and are worth listening too.
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17 October 2007: Serial Killers Continued: Henry Lee Lucas-The Final Chapter
CNN would later report on the Toole/Lucas connection:
“First arrested as an adult in 1964 on a charge of loitering, Toole had an IQ of 75, which is considered border-line retarded, though the low score might be the result of his being virtually illiterate. No charmer, Toole did manage to get himself married for a short-time, but his wife left him in a huff after realizing he was homosexual. A drifter, Toole would support himself as a male prostitute. Fatefully, Toole met the one-eyed bisexual Henry Lee Lucas in a Florida soup kitchen in late 1976, when he was 29 years old and Lucas was 40. In 1978, Toole and Lucas moved in with Toole's mother and sister in Jacksonville. Lucas fell in love with Toole's 10-year old female cousin, Frieda "Becky" Powell, whom he eventually adopted and lived with as husband and wife. Toole and Lucas went to work for a local roofing company, but they often missed work as they frequently went back on the road.
In 1983, Toole claimed to have committed the 1981 abduction and murder of six-year-old Adam Walsh. He somehow knew the store where the child was kidnapped, a fact that had been withheld from the public.
I have worked security for John Walsh, Adam's father and creator of America's Most Wanted, and we have talked about these times. John believes that Toole is the killer. The He is critical of the Florida police who 
impounded Toole's car and lost the blood-stained carpeting that could have provided a forensic link to the murder. Toole offered to take Walsh to the body of his dead son for a fee, but John turned that down. As usual, Toole later recanted this confession.
All these confessions. Something wasn't right. But the haunted fraternity just kept racking up those case clearances. Enter Anyesworth. The murder bubble burst, when in 1985, a Dallas Times-Herald newspaperman we all knew named Hugh Aynesworth, claimed that the many confessions were false and he could PROVE IT! Aynesworth cut his journalistic teeth on the Kennedy Assassination and his news story describing the minute-by-minute escape route of Oswald, less than a week after the assassination. Chronology. Making a name as the “chronology-guy.” In the 1985 Lucas newspaper feature, Hugh cleverly created a land map and chart with Lucas murder dates and compared them to Henry confirmed locations where he actually was, based on things such as work time cards, medical visits and other track-able events. Aynesworth proved that Lucas could not have killed as many people as he claimed. In fact, hardly any of them.
For example:
a) Lucas confessed to the August, 1977 murder of Curby Reeves in Smith County, TX while payroll records indicate that Lucas worked a full shift at the Kaolin Mushroom Farms in Pennsylvania.
b) Lucas confessed to the March 20, 1979, murder of Elaine Tollett in Tulsa, Oklahoma, while medical records indicate Lucas was in a hospital in Bluefields, West Virginia.
A pallor of shame descended on the Ranger Task Force. Why, you ask, didn't this Ranger Task Force make such a common sense wall chart like Anyesworth had? A wall map of the USA with push pins? I don't know, but I heard their lazy mission was to just run an “access-hotel” to Lucas. The newspaper, magazine and television reports raked them over the coals in a media onslaught not unlike what one would find today.
This chronological chart concept left a lasting impression on me as a young investigator. Sure, we always worried about alibis during the crime, but what about day before and day later. Before that? Where was our suspect? Days before? Days later. What was his behavior? Pre-crime? Post crime? This can be telling. There was so such more being developed in criminal psychology at the time and back then you weren't taught this in a class. You learned it the hard way from your elders or you were a natural- an insightful, natural student of human nature. Or both.
Remember when I said earlier that Ranger Ryan couldn't get Lucas to stop confessing? About a year after I found that skull in the open field, Ryan and I were sitting around talking. Ryan capsulated the entire mess with this one recollection. Right before the Lucas task Force was formed, Ryan had escorted Henry to meet with Arkansas authorities over an unsolved highway murder. He told me about it.
“Somethin' ain't right, Hock. They showed Henry the photos. Henry is unsure. ‘Looks familiar' he says. So we get in car to look at the crime scene. You know I was sitting in the back seat. They had Henry up front. Drinking coffee. Smokin' and jokin'. The lead detective was driving. So we are going north to Little Rock and this detective starts to slow the car down a bit. I felt it! I know Henry felt it. The detective turns and asks him, ‘anything looks familiar.' Henry perks up. Now keep mind Hock that Henry has already seen some crime scene photos of a dead woman outdoors by an overpass. As we approach the next overpass he really slows the car down and says, ‘anything?'
Henry pipes up and says, ‘yeah, right here.” We all get out and walk around and Henry says he killed the girl and left her body there. When I got back alone with Henry later, I asked him, “Henry, why'd you take that murder? You know you didn't do it.' He just shrugged his shoulders.”
“He's a lying sack of shit,” I said.
Ryan finished up for me, “he killed his momma. He killed Kate Rich in Ringold. He killed Becky Powell here. That's about all I know.”
Oh, I might add, I also know that Lucas was a low life, slithering, scum bag. He had the IQ of a drunk stump. That too, is about all I know on him.
Any comments? Continue the thread on the talk forum! http://www.hockscombatforum.com
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15 October: My 12 Step Self Defense Program
Tired of reading this upside down and reverse? And daily? I will condense the whole thing right here in its proper order.
Everyone has a 12 step program right? Huh? For years I have a 12 step list for the basics of crime prevention and street survival, but it also can include some aspects for the modern military. I usually pick and choose topics out of this list and use them in different modules of training. About 6 years ago, Joe Hubbard of England urged me to print the list, even to do a film on the list. “This is what all these new reality-based people are doing! You do it much better!” Thanks, Joe. I should have listened. And, recently I have been reminded again to do so by others. The following is the basic outline and some scattered, rough notes on subject matter.
“Hello, my name is W. Hock Hochheim.”
“Hello Hock!”
“and...I....am a crime fighter. I am working on my 12 step recovery program. I will never stop working on it.”
1) Who,What, Where, When, How and Why
2) The Recon (yours and his)
3) The Stance (yours and his)
4) The Fear (your and his)
5) The Talk (yours and his)
6) The (Four) Targets
7) The (Four) Stops
8) The (Four) Takedowns
9) The Ground
10) The Weapon (yours and his)
11) The Group
12) Aftermath (yours and his)
Step 1: W.W.W.W.H.W?
Who? What? Where? When? How? and Why?
These are the classic cop questions when taking a crime report and investigating crimes. The questions must be used here in all the following 11 steps of the program. In Step 1 we explain it. Crime and combat is situational and that is why there are really very few universal answers for people to use when in jam. For a quick exercise, imagine a common mugging and answer the”W” questions. You will have dissected the victim, the location, and the criminal and how he attacks you. This analogy also works with world wars.
Another big subject here. The WHO of who attacks you? Here I talk about the common and uncommon, organized or disorganized criminal. Read Dr J. Reid Maloy's Violence Risk and Threat Assessment. This book defines the personality types that will attack you in crime and war.
Step 2: The Recon
To prepare yourself, where do you travel? This works for the professional or the civilian. A “pro” like a soldier, guard, or cop has more travel plans to worry about than a civilian But, either a pro or a civilian, how can these routes and stops of your life be dangerous. List the high percentage problem events with the high percentage problem people. Educate yourself and prepare for them. (big glitch here is that many people -and martial instructors- THINK they know these answers).
Think like a criminal. How will criminals recon victims?
Step 3: The Stance
Communications experts say that some 90% of communication is non-verbal. This means your face, your clothes, your physical appearance., how you hold your hands and arms, etc. This covers three areas to me:
Area a) mental - what stance do you take in your mind about confrontations? (BIG subject)
Area b) physical - how will you actually "stand" when confronted;
* try to keep some distance
* keep the body slightly bladed
for quick, athletic response
* move about slowly and advantageously
(the very word "stance," hypnotizes you
into thinking you have to stand still.)
Area c) martial arts gobblygook review, advise and consent. Many martial arts systems obsess about stances, turning them into anal retentive, black and white still photographs of perfect group, statue form. This is best used for organized group training sessions, not fighting strategies. When actual fights are full-color, hi-def motion. The so-called fighting stance is really about balance and power in motion. There is no “football-scoring stance.”
4) The Talk
Given the many “Ws” variety in Step 1 and many places of Step 2's "life recon", what in general are you prepared to say and to whom? What will say (scream, whisper, or yell to you) Collect verbal ideas here.
5) The Fear
Fear is a two-way street yours and his. And here I like to mention:
*Issues on mind set
* A quick, user-friendly, non-techno-jargon
speech on the bio-mechanics of fear
* preconceived notions and the common
misunderstandings and misuse of
adrenaline issues in fighting. Trainers
can often further scare the student
with negatives about adrenaline.
Many are still using a 1980s model
and subsequent scare tactic
marketing plans to lure students
into various training programs.
* repetition training issues
* Hicks Law misunderstandings
* crisis rehearsal issues
* fortune favors the prepared
Step 6: The Four Targets
For a long time now I have mentioned my “college” speech on this, “You graduate the college of self defense by majoring in eyes, throat, groin, top of the feet...with a minor in fingers."
Major: By eyes, I mean the shooter’s triangle around the eyes.
Major: By throat I mean the entire circumference of the neck
Major: By groin...I mean groin
Major: By top of the feet I mean around there on the feet - the shoe laces - and the ankles
Minor: By fingers, I mean cranking and breaking those suckers.
These are great self defense, close-quarter targets. But here we would cover...
The Strike Modules
The Kick Modules
Sucker Punch and Strikes Module
Step 7: The Four Stops
When angry parties do charge you, it is not uncommon that they "stop" at four points upon each other.
Stopping Point 1) At the hands. Since many people push or reach up to grab you, their hands are up. Your hands are likely to be up to respond. This often leads to parties held at hands length, sometimes with their fingers entwined. Please remember that I am not talking about a UFC fight here, but the real world folks. Watch the TV news and you will eventually see the Taiwan parliament, or the West Palm Beach City Council, or any other people in a fight and see members caught at times, at finger length. I often teach finger locks and catches at this range not un similar to Aiki-Jitsu and aikido.
Stopping Point 2) At the forearms, basically limb grabs. People either crash at bang forearms or grab each other's forearms. I often teach grab releases and...the Block, Pass and in Drill (the great forearm-to-forearm drill - which can be as alive or as dead as you want to make it) for response options here.
Stopping Point 3) Shoulder stops and chokes. I show basic old-school self defense here. Many common fights and crimes with citizens, police, criminals and today’s modern military start with the ubiquitous shove to the shoulders . I teach an entire, mixed weapon module called The Shove Module, here in this progression.
Stopping Point 4) Bear hugs and arm wraps. I show what some might call JuJitsu here...grappling. I show old-school, basic self defense here.
Step 8: The Big Four Takedowns
In the opening of this century, several criminal justice departments of major USA colleges, along with the famous law enforcement street survival institute Calibre Press (who 'se information has saved my life) put together a list of "the 4 ways we hit the ground." How are we taken down. While I am sure the basic order of them might be debatable, I do think was can all agree that we are taken down by these four categories quite a bit:
1) Tripped down
2) Punched down (at times I use the words struck down, but the study said "punched.")
3) Pulled down
4) Tackled down
1) We trip. Probably the most common. In the real fight, many stumble over ourselves, furniture, curbs, etc. Here I introduce "grounds awareness" ideas, footwork and balance training.
2) We are punched down. The experts list this as second. Maybe? Maybe not? But the subsequent order of successful punches do make sense, as the majority of "street assault" attacks are perpetrated by untrained people do not know how to execute a sports jab or cross:
a) Sucker punches / strikes reviews
b) Roundhouse haymakers
c) jabs and crosses
And here we must do much work. Sucker strike recognition and responses, then the basic blocks and strikes of street strikes and punching. Issues of broken hands. Then, the "advanced" work of dealing with jab/cross/hook/uppercut/overhand sports striking and what they mean to survival. At times I use the words struck down, but the study said "punched"
3) We are "pulled down." That is to say we do a takedown and the guy hangs on to you with enough mojo to yank you down with him. He is on one knee or the ground and he pulls you down. (yes, they list this as third!) More balance, awareness and footwork.
4) We are tackled. Listed as last? I beg to differ. And they mean not sport tackles either. Crazy wild man leaps and so forth. Here I teach basic takedowns and basic countering
The order is not that important to me as the overall idea of the "big four takedowns." GREAT teaching concept. Perhaps we can use them as just a list of four things, but these are the four big ways the bad guys take us down.
Step 9: The Ground
If we are prone to hit the ground, whether on purpose or by accident, we had better learn to fight and survive there, and in a mixed weapon world. Here is where I teach the street survival material with a dash of very practical submission fighting for arrest, control, restrain and contain material.
This includes:
- Kneeling vs standing
- Kneeling vs kneeling
- Kneeling vs the downed
- Downed vs groups
- Top vs bottom
- Bottom vs top
- Side vs side
- Ground striking module
- Ground kicking module
- Ground maneuvering module
- Basic ground escapes
- Basic, practical submissions for capturing criminals and soldiers
- Fighting with uniform duty gear on
- Climate and terrain awareness
(more on weapons coming up)
Step 10) The Weapon
Stats say that 40% of the people civilians and police police fight are armed with concealed or brandished firearms, impact and edged weapons. In the military, pretty much 100% of the people you fight have firearms. Here is where I would introduce thee:
- Unarmed vs the Pistol and Long Gun module
- Unarmed vs the Knife Module
- Expedient weaponry training
11) The Group
Stats say that 40% of the time civilians and police police fight two or more people. In the military, pretty much 100% you fight two or more people. Here is where I cover the:
Multiple Opponents / Mixed Weapons Module
12) The Aftermath
You have to be constantly asking yourself, what happens next? Okay, if I do this, what happens next? If I beat the overzealous, panhandler flat with my commando and World War II Combatives course? What happens to me next? The police arrest me? What?
The basic, final answer should be this: “I am home safe and the police will not arrest me.”
This area is where I bring up legal issues, what and what not to say to responding police and how to do it. What actually happens in the criminal justice system? I am uniquely qualified to expound on these subjects.
Also we cover some other after-the-immediate-fact things to do. Check yourself out for injuries. Proper authority notification, etc.
"My name is Hock, and I will never stop working on my 12 Step Program.
Thank you and good night"
Any comments? Continue the thread on the talk forum! http://www.hockscombatforum.com
Report back to Headquarters! http://www.hockscqc.com/
2 October 2007: One of My Top Ten Favorite Martial Arts Photos
Years back, this is Tim Tackett jumping all up, trapping and "hubudding" all up into Dallas Cowboy Randy White's face. Randy is one of the all-time bad boys in football and I just get a big kick out of this picture.
Despite all the "dead drill" talk you hear about trapping and the block, pass and pin drill of Hubad (is the proper pronunciation - huBUD means naked above the waist in Filipino Tagalog) professional football teams were after these drills as they develop great forearm-to-forearm skills to pin, pass, pull and push an opponent.
Pro teams in 90s and in the 2000s have developed their own similar skill drills but they do not stray far from the Hubad pattern and concepts of trapping.
Any comments? Continue the thread on the talk forum! http://www.hockscombatforum.com
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1 October 2007: TM9 DVD set
TM 9 is ready.
4 discs. 3 hours and 40 minutes.
Unarmed versus the Knife,
Unarmed versus the Stick,
Gun Ground Fight Module.
Any comments? Continue the thread on the talk forum! http://www.hockscombatforum.com
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