A few years back I wrote an article which focused on the basic principles of close quarters combat. In that article I gave a brief overview of SCOPE which is an acronym for Simplicity, Control, Offense, Power, and Effectiveness. Each of these principles is as equally important as the other. Take one away and you’ll have a hole in your combative skills.

One principle which I feel needs to be emphasized is Power. No matter how fast or aggressive you are if you do not possess power in your execution of technique, you’re going to fail in stopping your assailant. Executing simplistic, effective techniques will all be in vain unless there is a substantial amount of juice behind those techniques. Peter Robins said the first thing to do in a violent encounter is to "take away the intention." Hit them hard enough, and they’ll completely forget why they were even there. The following are my five principles of power that I developed based on my decades of study in the martial arts. I use these whenever I teach a technique. Follow these and make your first strike the last.

A while back my Instructors had the assignment to come up with an acronym for these five principles of power development. John Watson came up with SWAMP.

S - stay relaxed

W - weapon first

A - acceleration

M - move in the direction of the strike

P - plunge your body weight into the technique.

Stay relaxed. Of all of the power principles this is probably the hardest to develop. I’m not advocating to stay relaxed when someone is all over you trying to end your breathing habits. It is learning to use your body at maximum proficiency. Staying relaxed is essential for your body to move swiftly and economically. Explosive movement doesn’t come from stiff, tense muscles. You need to stay loose. The key word here is concentration. Concentrate on being relaxed before you explode into the technique. You’ll find your movements to be much more dynamic.

Weapon first. This is another one of those hard to develop techniques. We want to throw the weapon first so to not telegraph our intentions. Let him feel the technique before he sees it. This is most important when executing a pre-emptive strike, which should be 100% of the time if possible. Although follow up strikes do tend to be a little more difficult when moving the weapon first, this is no reason not to try. Following this principle as often as possible will make your technique delivery much faster and more powerful.

Acceleration. Acceleration is simply speed. Once you move do so as fast as your body can and don’t stop until it’s over. This is most important on that initial strike. Here we go back to the first principle of staying relaxed. Tense muscles move slower. Stay relaxed and throw that strike as fast as possible and the results will speak for themselves. When you throw a technique, throw it fast. Accelerate, and keep accelerating until it’s over.

Move in the direction of the strike. During a GHCA Assault I observed our AIs teaching the unarmed section of our combatives training. I stopped the class several times to point out the fact that their bodies were moving in the same direction as the strike. Bodies were turning into edge hand blows as well as moving upward with chin-jabs. You can’t move mass into a blow when that same mass is moving in a different direction.

Plunge your body weight into the technique. In order to do this you must be applying two other principles: Moving the weapon first and moving in the direction of the strike. If you’re not moving the weapon first your body is going to move and set before the strike lands and results in your weight settling before the weapon strikes. No mass, no power. If you’re not moving in the direction of the strike there is no mass there to plunge. Plunging means throwing all of your body weight directly into the strike before your mass settles.

Each of these principles supports the other. Take one away and you’ll have a dramatic loss in explosive power. This is especially important in non-telegraphing, pre-emptive strikes. Students have a tendency to want to wind a technique up to get as much power as possible. That’s good! But if you’re telegraphing your initial strike, all the power in the world isn’t going to help when you’re on your back in a daze. The key in pre-emptive is delivering explosive power when they’re not expecting it. And the only way to do that is to follow the SWAMP principles.

As instructors we want to repeat these principles prior to each power development session. Let them sink in so the student can police his own training. We then want to watch for missing principles. Is the student’s weight landing after the strike hits, or is it landing before the strike? Is he turning his body into the strike, or is he still, or is he moving away? Are both of his legs moving with his body, or is he leaving his leg lagging behind? Is he loose and moving smoothly, or is he tense and choppy? Is his weapon moving first, or is his hip, leg, arm, torso, etc. moving first? Make sure you show him what he was doing wrong before you show him how to do it right. Unless he sees his mistake, he will think he is doing it right. Watch, detect, analyze, and correct. Hit ‘em first, hit ‘em fast, hit ‘em hard.

The Viciousness of Assault and Resilience of Man
 

Are your knife defense techniques and tactics able to withstand a real world assault?

By Bob Kasper, ©2000

According to most media reports violence is on a downward trend. What they fail to report is that violent attacks are more violent than ever. For whatever reason people who commit violent attacks today are more inclined to go "all the way" rather than just beat their victim. This is especially true in multiple attack situations that can turn into a vicious feeding frenzy once the victim is down. Knowing how vicious an assault can be, we must be sure that the tactics and techniques we employ are effective enough to stop this type of mad aggression. We probably think they are effective because we're hitting all the right spots with the right tools but what about the resilience of man and your attacker's determination to survive?

The following paragraph is a recent newspaper article showing just how vicious an assault can be and how resilient man can be when his life is in danger. (I have edited out the names of the gang members, victim and location for personal security concerns.) Real world attack. Authorities said the three gang members drove to the victim's home in a pickup truck at 10:15 P.M. that day and started, what first appeared to witnesses, to be a friendly conversation. But a struggle quickly ensued. "They hit him with an Ax handle, and he got back up to fight," reported the detective. "They stabbed the victim once in the chest and twice in the stomach, slashed his forehead and then his throat twice, once nearly ear-to-ear," the detective said. "They tried to shoot him three times but missed," he said. Investigators uncovered a .38-caliber slug from a tree near the scene. The victim needed 175 stitches before he could be released from a hospital a few days after the attack. The end. You're probably asking, "How the hell did they miss shooting him after beating him with an axe handle and stabbing and slashing him?"

Easy answer - he was running away from the scene when they shot at him. It was at night, with low visibility, a moving target, and everyone under extreme stress. He was hit so hard with an axe handle (and I'm sure more than once knowing the gang's mode of operation) that he was knocked to the ground. He got up to fight and was slashed and stabbed several times. Note the placement of the stabs and slashes. Believe me, these were not amateurs. I'm very familiar with their way of sending a message. They don't send punks to take care of business. After the knife attack he broke loose and ran from the scene under gunfire and made his escape and immediately retreated to a hospital for medical assistance. An excellent example of the resilience of man with a will to survive.

Real world training: When we train we usually address different attack scenarios using different types of weapons. And this is usually done in a training area with plenty of room and normal lighting. The above real world assault is a great lesson on how complex an attack can be. Multi-assailants, surprise assault (friendly exchange turned violent), multiple weapons escalating from less to more lethal, confined space (doorway to a home), natural environment (steps, sidewalk, grass, scrubs, trees, etc.), confusion, fear, and life threatening injuries. Think carefully about this scenario. Put yourself in the victim's shoes. Would you survive? Will your techniques and tactics stop a determined attacker with a will to survive as big as yours? Will your "defanging the snake" and "veil of blood" techniques really stop someone hell-bent on destroying you? Are you sparring with knives and stopping after someone scores with what you perceive to be a "kill shot?" Are you training for the real world or just dancing in the dark? Knife defense is not a game used for titles and competition. It's not a fitness exercise. It's a deadly force used to counter real world violent assaults.

Conclusion: I've said this before and I'd like to re-emphasize it. When you draw out that knife to defend yourself it means you are in fear for your life and deem it necessary to use deadly force. Otherwise keep it out of play. But if you do draw it out, do so with all the violence and fury you can muster up because anything less may not be adequate to stop the violence perpetrated against you and/or your loved ones. And how violent should we get? The following paragraph is a recent news article about a woman who survived a rape attack.

A man has been charged with trying to rape a woman who castrated him during the alleged attack, police said. Erik Williams, 21, allegedly tried to force a 42-year-old woman to perform a sex act on him early Friday, and while the two struggled the woman bit off his testicles, police said. The woman went to police headquarters and turned the testicles over to officers, authorities said. Williams later arrived at Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Centre with injuries matching the woman's description, police said. Doctors were unable to reattach his testicles, hospital spokeswoman Sandra Wilks said. Williams remained in the hospital Saturday in police custody and was listed in stable condition.

As I asked before, "How violent should you get?" That violent.