Watch the Fight
6 June -- Spot the Difference
A post on self-protection.com about head guards seems to have raised concerns by Tony K in response to Jon Law’s invitation to a course I'm giving in July at his dojo.
He’s concerned about the safety issue of my method, particularly with regard to blows to the head. In particular there's an issue with an enclosed cover drill that I taught Jon Law's group at our first session in Birmingham.
I think Tony has kind of missed the point. The first part of the training process is to build a solid defence, important to which is being able to defend the major target of the body: the head. You cannot afford to take any shot to the head. You really don't know what the effect is going to be. It could be a distraction, a stun, a disturbance of equilibrium or a full knockout, right the way up to coma. You don't want to assume anything; any hit to the head is dangerous.
It's really not about being under 40 or over 40, it's about protecting your head so that you're not taking shots there.
You shouldn't go into practice with the belief that you can 'get used to' taking shots to the head. Unlike other parts of the body, you can't condition the head and you have to have that in mind in training. Whatever defences you've got must be ones that do not incur damage of any kind.
As a side note, I've never been knocked out but I've taken shots to the head in fights, but it was never my intention to do that in a strategic sense, and I definitely didn't do it in training! I even had the bad luck once to walk through a door straight into a rounders bat; I managed to deal with it, but I wouldn't want to count on that. By contrast, I've taken big shots to the groin, but my pain threshold and my ability to work through it got me through because I knew the consequences if I didn't. But a head shot is a different thing. If you're brain's been rattled, then there's no amount of concentration that can help you. There's just nothing you can do about it.
The problem then becomes, how do you address that within training? Do you pull your punches, as in karate, or do you run the risk of actually getting hit in the head during sparring in the hope that you’ll ‘learn the lesson’ in this way?
What I found in the late 1970s was that by drilling, first at low intensities and later high intensities, I could get used to dealing with incoming shots in different ways. I didn’t use a headguard personally, but I advise people to use one as a safety precaution. It gives you a psychological sense of security as well as a physical one. I used to get my partner to fire designated shots at me, i.e., a left hook, combinations, round kicks, body shots, whatever. I would know what was coming. So I could remain focused, without panicking or being distracted from what I needed to do to my opponent, while the blows were coming in.
To be an offensive/counteroffensive fighter, you need a sound defence that gives you the confidence to attack and counter knowing that you can deal with what your opponent is going to dish out. Whilst you can take limited shots to the leg and the body, you can’t afford to take shots to the head because any one of them could knock you out. And so you need to find ways of neutralizing those shots. This can be done by covers, evasion, evasive head maneuvers, clinching, tie-ups, counterpunching, or pre-empting the attack in some way. But the only way you can learn to do this effectively in a live situation is to be familiar with a live situation. This is where the safety element is critical.
With my method, the safety factor comes in because the fight has been broken down into snapshots. You know what’s coming, and you’re training yourself to see the body cues early, before the shot goes off, so that your response is early. That’s what the drill is about. Building a defence. This idea can then be extended into free drilling of this type, but only after your responses have been laid down at an instinctive level. And there are a whole bunch of drills I’ve got to accomplish this. Naturally, the drill needs to be tested; that’s why I have conditional fighting, where I pre-determine an attack or a ‘mission’ for both parties to accomplish. Anybody who’s got my stuff knows what I’m talking about.
The types of drills that we were doing in Birmingham were a safer model of what I used to do with Mark Tobin and others at Earlham Street. The person who is defending always determines the level of intensity that the attacker should employ. It’s not about somebody ‘testing’ the other person, or trying to wind them up, humiliate them or just give them a beating. It’s got nothing to do with any of those things. The drill in question is all about the defender learning to get comfortable with dealing with shots, not by taking the shot , because you’d be stupid to try to take a shot to the head. But by covering or evading, etc.
There is an important element in training with my method, one which has to be built over time, and this is trust between the training partners. If the drills are being performed correctly and with an understanding of what their purpose is, then you’ll naturally achieve an esprit de corps and you’ll know when to push each other and how far. If anybody’s seen the film clips of me with Mark Tobin or Vince Jauncey, I’m encouraging them to hit me harder. I’m measuring what they’re doing and I’m determining what I need them to do in order to train me. I’m egging them on, progressively, not the other way around.
And this is where Tony K has got it wrong. It’s not up to him to be dictating the intensity to his training partner when she is defending and he is attacking. He doesn’t know what she can or can’t, or wants to, take. Only she can be the judge of that. And this is something that I pointed out in the class but it still doesn’t seem to be coming across. Lots of people try to turn my drills into bouts, but that’s not what they’re for. We have conditional fighting and playfighting for that.
As far as the problem of brain damage among amateur boxers despite their wearing headguards, let’s get it straight. We know that repeated blows to the head can cause brain damage; that’s pretty obvious. The headguard isn’t going to protect you from the damage of repeated hard blows to the head; in fact, there’s some debate which suggests it could actually make it worse because of the rebounding nature of the material. So it mustn’t be worn in a way that gives you a false sense of security. It’s not a helmet like a warrior would wear, because you aren’t going to have one in a real situation. You don’t put it on so that you can feel free to bash each other in the head or take risks which you wouldn’t otherwise take. It’s there to protect you from cuts, to give you some psychological confidence, and as some protection against the occasional miscalculation on your part.
The important point is not to treat the headguard as a free pass to hit and be hit. We’re learning to not be hit, or effectively hurt. That’s why we need covers, tie-ups, clinches, slips, evasions, etc. And that’s why we start easy and then build up the intensity as your reactions and defensive skills get stronger.
Here are some really great examples of effective defence of the head.
Winky Wright and Floyd Mayweather Jr
The enclosed cover that I taught on the Birmingham course, like the cross cover, is something I've been using and teaching for 30 years. In fact, I got an e-mail from a guy in Brazil a year or so ago pointing out to me that the Keysi lot appeared to have nicked it off me! This cover is part of a defensive mix of head and body evasions, evasive footwork, clinches, ties, blocks and parries. Unlike in Keysi, it's not a big deal. It's one of many tools. There's a moment in the fight when it's appropriately used, and it might incidentally have a damaging effect on his arms or legs when you use it, but its primary purpose is to afford a cover and facilitate an offense out of that cover. It works best as part of evasive entries, though it can, as you'll see in some of the clips, be used just on the outside edge of red zone. It's best used as a part of a closing move, evasively.
Rampage Jackson is an example of someone who does this type of covering work well when he's closing in to pick the guy up and do a power dump, but he tends to overuse it. When he fights a guy called Mauricio Shogun Rua he keeps relying on it and gets caught in a clinch because he's going 'into his box' when he shouldn't. There are a lot of other things he could be doing at that moment, but he's relying on this particular cover exclusively. And he gets punished for it. You'll also see a good example of the clinch in this clip, as well as this clip from Thai boxing (but you've got to ignore the inane commentary).
One of the problems that comes up on forums is that guys talk the talk without ever having walked the walk in the arena, ring, challenges, or on the street to any real degree. Nor have they analyzed the fight game. Everybody on a forum can be an expert, and if the person is articulate then what they have to say can be very convincing. But when you see the guy's performance, he isn't even walking. He's crawling. Personally I think it should be a prerequisite on any forum to have a clip of yourself so we can see who's doing the talking.
And this brings me to Harry Cook. I personally have no problem understanding what he's talking about when he posts on a forum regarding mindset, formless form, situational training, power development, conditioning, shu ha ri, and the pragmatic interpretation of kata. Where the problem comes for me is when I then see him demonstrating what he's writing about. And although I have footage on Cook which I cannot publish because of copyright, there is now a clip of him up on You Tube. It's really hard to make a connection between what he's saying and what he's doing. Talk about robotics! And I just love the 'reality' of the bunkai oyo and the elbow strike.
Here's a clip of me teaching a little bit about the elbow strike. And in case you think that Cook can get off lightly because of his age, bear in mind, I was 54 when I made this film in 1998--Cook is some years younger than me. But you want to see some elbows? Look at some of the knockouts in this mix. That's what your elbow should be trying to do, as well as your feet and hands.
Cook intimated that I have a problem articulating my method, which surprises me when you consider that Terry O'Neill, someone who Cook holds up as an example of the combative effectiveness of karate and who apparently has now been voted the 'greatest fighter on the planet' said that he always turned to me for holistic knowledge. Now, if the 'greatest fighter on the planet' can understand me, what's the problem?
I've never had a problem with talking the talk to guys who have walked the walk. In fact, yesterday I had an interesting conversation with Mick Coup and although we were born some thirty years apart, we seem to be reading off the same song sheet. It's the plonkers who I've got a problem with, who are martial arts experts in name only.
On the one hand, natural fighters and athletes often have problems in articulating what they do because most of their performance takes place at a reflex level. On the other hand, non-athletic academic types find physical movement challenging and have difficulty in translating a biomechanical concept or tactic into a dynamic action. Yet it's this latter group who seem to find their way to the top. They can rationalize, systemize, and talk a good game.
It doesn't fool me. I'm someone who has been engaged in the physical since early childhood. I have also extensively researched sports psychology, physiology, and fighting and training methods old and new. So, I have lots of references that are both physical and rational in origin. I use the theoretical information to drive my physical development, and vice versa. It's through this interaction of my research and my (physical) experiments and experiences that I move forward. And I move others forward as well.
I really do break my balls trying to articulate what I do, to break it down into a kind of science as well as an art and a philosophy, and I do that at all levels. It gets up my nose when Cook says that nobody can understand what I'm talking about. I believe that in order to advance, you have to understand the concepts and principles of a thing. Looking at me and trying to do it like I do it will take you so far, but to get further you have to internalize the concepts. And a lot of people who have a more intellectual bent seem to have a big problem making the connection between what their head is telling them they're doing, and what their body is actually doing. They're stuck in their head.
It's a bit like X Factor, when you see the first-round contestants who really believe they're a superstar. It's funny to watch them, and sometimes it's kind of sad, but there's a reality check in the form of the judges. Although many of these deluded wannabes, even after they've been told, 'Don't quit the day job,' they still think they've got a raw deal. What are you gonna do?
In the majority of martial arts practices there are no reality checks, either mentally or physically. The only way you can get a reality check is by either fighting or watching the fight--preferably both. So take a look at Cook and then look at the Muay Thai elbows from You Tube. Can you spot the difference?
