|
You WILL Fight Like You Train
by
Brad Parker
We've said it before and you've
heard it from numerous trainers
and instructors out there -- you
will respond to a stressful
situation in precisely the
manner in which you've been
trained.
So
the moral to the story is to be
careful of how you train and
where your spend most of your
time.
Here's a good example from a
recent trip I had to a large and
thriving Western city to
observed a four-day close
quarter combat instructor's
course. While I was there, I
had the opportunity to patrol
with the metropolitan police
department. I was riding with
my primary contact on the
force. Incidentally, another
officer that I've met before was
also working in a beat right
next to ours.
We
heard him get in a vehicle
pursuit. As the pursuit turned
into a vehicular accident and
then into a foot pursuit, the
officer's voice rose up a couple
of notches indicating that
things were getting exciting.
This officer is one of the
department's DT trainers and we
were getting a bit of a chuckle
as we sped to back him up.
When we arrived on the scene, we
found a stolen Dodge Neon wedged
nosefirst into a brick wall with
a metro squad car blocking the
car's rear. Both of the Neon's
doors were open and the squad
car had three male juveniles in
custody in the back seat.
The
arresting officer (the guy that
we knew) was notifying radio
that the scene was Code 4. He
saw us pull up and came over to
my window. He told us what
happened:
The
Neon failed to negotiate a turn
and had slide through a
residential intersection,
crashing into the wall and the
occupants bailed. He pursued
the driver on foot. The driver
dashed in between two houses and
was attempting to scale a wooden
fence when the officer tackled
him, both of them crashing
through the brittle boards of
the fence. A fight ensued and
the officer ended up on top,
repeatedly striking the subject
in order to gain compliance.
My
partner asked if he was okay.
He was, but he showed us his
right hand. It was already
starting to swell up.
What happened? The office
repeatedly punched (with a
closed fist) the subject in the
head. The result? A broken
hand which required surgery the
next day and a recovery time of
between 4 to 6 weeks. The
problem? The officer is right
handed. Now he's out of
commission almost entirely for
that timeframe. Plus, as you
get older, you know that old
injuries come back to haunt you.
Remember, this officer is a DT
instructor and one of the first
things he said was, "I could
almost hear in my head the words
'palm heel', 'palm heel' as I
was punching this guy." He
admitted that he knew as he was
punching that he was making a
mistake...
But, how many of us wouldn't do
the same thing? We know that we
should use open hand strikes to
hard areas and closed fist
strikes to soft areas, but do we
really train for that?
We
put on the gloves and we box,
kickbox, and cross train in Muay
Thai. Then we put on the bag
gloves and we hit the heavy bag
to work up a good sweat. Then
we head to karate class and we
do hundreds of closed fist
techniques. We pound a makiwara
to toughen up our knuckles. We
end up doing thousands and
thousands of repetitions against
resistance with a closed fist.
It's no wonder we are going to
punch with a closed fist when
things get crazy.
What we really should be doing
is training in a way that will
save your hands. Hit to the
head with open hand strikes.
Save your punches for the soft
parts of the torso and neck.
The exception to this rule is
when you use a hammerfist. You
can close your fist and still
hit to the hard parts with the
bottom of your fist without
damaging your hands.
The
hammerfist has a huge advantage
as a versatile weapon because it
allows you to still strike even
if you are holding an object in
your hand, say like a small
flashlight. Or a big Motorola
radio. Some of military
trainers suggest the hammerfist
strike while holding a pistol in
your fist so that the butt of
the weapon adds to the strike.
(The old pistols made great
impact weapons, while I've heard
reports of some of the newer
pistols breaking and
malfunctioning when used as an
impact weapon. In this case,
it's primarily the magazine
floor plate which can be broken
allowing all of your rounds to
fall out).
There are those out there that
say that the other exception is
the closed fist to the jaw,
primarily the portion that would
be covered by a football
facemask. However, anecdotal
evidence would suggest this is
harder than it sounds because
several professional boxers have
broken their hands in street
brawls and one would assume that
they would be the experts at
hitting a person on the jaw.
However, Geoff Thompson has
published a number of accounts
of his successful use of a
closed fist against a person's
jaw (he says the movement of the
person's head after you punch
them cushions your fist a bit).
Not
to get off on a tangent about
hammerfists, but try and devise
a way in which you can spend
your training time hitting to
the head with open hand
strikes. Use one of the various
training dummies that have a
head and an body on them. Use
one of your training partners as
a human dummy and practice your
combinations with open hand
strikes (or hammerfists and
elbows) to the head. While you
are grappling, take the time to
mimic the motions that you would
use to strike the opponent when
appropriate. You can even do
your one-step or three-step
sparring with the mission of
using open handed strikes to the
hard parts and closed handed
strikes to the soft parts.
Be
careful of falling into the trap
of pounding your padded training
partner with your fists simply
because the padding makes it
possible. I've had good luck
wearing an instructor's headgear
with a wire cage. You cannot
punch barehanded to the cage
because it hurts. But you can
slap and palm heel it with no
problem.
I've noticed that the sparring
partners who fair the best
against the helmet with the wire
cage on the face are people from
Okinawan and Chinese martial art
systems who spend the majority
of their time sparring and
training to fight bare
knuckled. The people who have
the worst time against the cage
are boxers and Muay Thai
fighters. Ironically, many
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu people also
do well. I think they are
taught early on the realities of
hitting to the head with an open
hand, but I also see that they
are relatively uncomfortable
striking and they still fear
hurting their hand on the cage.
They have not punched enough in
their careers to develop the
reflexive punching response of
boxers and others who routinely
wear gloves.
Do
a gut check here, if you
primarily wear boxing-type
gloves while you train, then you
will almost certainly punch with
a closed fist when in a fight.
Even if you tell yourself that
"in a real fight" you will
remember to strike differently,
your training will override your
conscious thought.
Healthy hands good. Broken
hands bad.
Structure your training now to
save yourself later. Because
you WILL fight the way you
train.
|