Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2005 15:22:46 -0700 From: eskrima-request@martialartsresource.net Subject: Eskrima digest, Vol 12 #301 - 6 msgs X-Mailer: Mailman v2.0.13.cisto1 MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Errors-To: eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net X-BeenThere: eskrima@martialartsresource.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.13.cisto1 Precedence: bulk Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net X-Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net X-Subscribed-Address: fma@martialartsresource.com List-Id: Eskrima-FMA discussion forum, the premier FMA forum on the Internet. 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Copyright 1994-2005: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource The Internet's premier discussion forum devoted to Filipino Martial Arts. 2200 members. Provided in memory of Mangisursuro Michael G. Inay (1944-2000). See the Filipino Martial Arts (FMA) FAQ and the online search engine for back issues of the Eskrima/FMA digest at http://MartialArtsResource.com Mabuhay ang eskrima! Today's Topics: 1. Re: legality and the martial arts (Kes41355@aol.com) 2. Re: Re: Getting familiar with your laws (Pierre Honeyman) 3. Re:problems with knife grappling (Marc MacYoung) 4. Re: Defense or offense? (Steve Kohn) 5. RE: One last law question. (Mike Casto) 6. RE: One last law question. (Chris Seals) --__--__-- Message: 1 From: Kes41355@aol.com Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2005 14:04:18 EDT To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Subject: [Eskrima] Re: legality and the martial arts Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Hi all, After I sent my last post, I felt that I need to clarify a point I was trying to make...I stated that as a law enforcement officer (I work for the Dept. of Correction), if I know my attacker to be a violent felon, I have free reign to do what I need to do while defending myself or others. I did not intend to imply that as a LEO I can get away with more when defending myself, it's just that I have more access to that kind of information concerning criminals than the general public. I am still, as all LEO's are, governed by the same laws as the average civilian, I just have more access to information regarding citizens with criminal histories, and it is more likely that I would know about a criminal's record, especially if I've had them in confinement in the past. Kim Satterfield --__--__-- Message: 2 Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2005 11:22:19 -0700 From: Pierre Honeyman To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Subject: Re: [Eskrima] Re: Getting familiar with your laws Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Quoting Kes41355@aol.com: > Well, so much for being concise, huh?...;-). I ramble on about legality > because I feel that the legal implications of self-defense is a neglected > subject in martial arts classes these days Because it's so complex that it needs a professional of some kind (hey, I think we call them "lawyers") to sort it out. Pierre --__--__-- Message: 3 From: "Marc MacYoung" To: Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2005 12:57:09 -0700 Subject: [Eskrima] Re:problems with knife grappling Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net > OK Marc why is it a bad idea to hold their knife hand (particularly with > 2 hands)? And specifically what are those details factors you alluded to > right at the start of all this. I was waiting to read them (and the knife > grapplers responses) and was very dissapointed that you never got round > to stating them. > Graham Well nobody asked until now. And as far as that goes, I was kind of disappointed that nobody did because it is a life saver/life taker of an issue in this context. Let's start with a explanation I picked up from my co-author Tristan Sutrisno in our new book "Becoming a complete martial artist." The concept is more fully explained there, but a rudimentary understanding is critical for my point. There are three components involved in understanding range/positioning/techniques/etc.. The two that are germane here are Reach and Distance. Reach is the length of your limb. You can never change that, it is fixed. Distance, however, is very mutable. It is how much you can move your body by twisting, turning and stepping. If distance is a sliding scale, then reach is the ruler inside the slide rule. Now, stop and think about this. You grab onto the guy's knife hand via the wrist. IF you have unlimited mobility, you theoretically have unlimited ability to keep on applying that pressure. The reason being is that your hand -- as long as it is trying to control his arm -- is NOT trying to control his bodyweight. It is at best an issue of you keeping optimum pressure via your moving around. At worst a contest of arm strength. The difference between theory and practice is in theory there is no difference. Here's where things start getting funky. For the sake of this discussion ONLY we will define mobility as a two part issue. (Mobility is far more complex, but these are the two factors that will get a knife in your guts in a grappling situation). The first part is moving your body. The second part is doing it fast enough. EVEN if you have enough room to move, failure to do it fast enough will turn your body into a kind of sea anchor. A sea anchor is not like a regular anchor that drops to the bottom and catches. In the water it extends out from the boat and creates drag to keep the boat from moving as fast as it normally would. So it keeps the boat "anchored" in a general area. In ships, good. In this context bad. This brings us back to reach and distance. If you lose mobility, you lose distance. That puts us almost entirely into reach. And you only have so much reach before it runs out. Now imagine running a string through an old style keyhole on a closed door. On one side tie a knot. Imagine someone gently pulling the string through until the knot catches. It's going to stop. That's the end of reach. Without moving his body -- that is important -- imagine him tugging the string. It will likely resist just his arm strength. In the next step, tie the string to his waist and he turns and runs. The string will break under this onslaught of greater momentum created by distance(allowing him to move his body). That string is your grip on his knife wrist. The door is your body. But wait, what if the door is open? Well first the door will swing open, but once it reaches the limit of it's mobility, the same physics will come into play again. The string (your grip) will break. Now that is a simple model, but it gives you an idea of the physics involved, any time the momentum is greater than the string's tinsel strength, it will break. Any time the momentum exceeds your grip strength, you lose your grip. So let's go back to controlling his knife arm. Remember, we are talking about a grappling situation. Whether you're talking about still on your feet or on the deck. Your mobility is severely limited. One by him being in the way. Two by you not being able to move fast enough -- especially if you are on the ground (in which case, your body becomes the other type of anchor). When you run out of distance, is when the string will break -- especially if he is using distance by moving his body. If you and he are standing face to face and he pulls back his hand, your mobility is limited by his body being in the way. That means your distance is limited and you are reduced to reach. Unless you are fighting a child, your reach will not exceed his ability to create distance from your relative positions. He can go back more than you can go forward. And this most definitely includes with his body. That means sooner or later, the string is going to break. He will break your grip on his knife hand through distance. And the longer you try to control it, the more likely that -- sooner or later -- you will not be mobile enough to keep the string from breaking. Notice BTW, I didn't even go into the subject of him twisting his wrist, which is a major factor of him breaking your grip. A twist with distance pretty well means it's gonna happen. When it does happens, that lack of mobility has left you in-range, out of control of his superior weapon, but also standing right in its sights. A weapon that he only has to touch you with to do damage, in comparison to the effort you have to put into hurting him. Now add to all of this that the damage a blade will be doing will be affecting your ability to function. With every hit, your effectiveness AND your mobility will be impaired. And that's if the dude doesn't know what he's doing. If he does, then you're really screwed because those hits (which I am not going to tell you where they are) create incredible and immediate damage...thereby totally blowing your ability to effectively resist out of the water. Experienced or not, generally speaking these kinds of attacks follow the Lays Potato Chip slogan from hell "Bet you can't stab just once." And with each additional stab, slash, hack your ability to resist effectively is seriously undermined even more. A contributing factor to this is that rushing your opponent when you are losing in order to keep him from continued effective attacks is a natural human response. This (not an overwhelming urge to submission fight) is why many fights end up on the ground. In the attempts to keep from getting the hell beat of him any more, the beatee closes and attempts to pin his attackers arms. The attacker, failing to control the distance, is grabbed and they often topple over. It ain't the winner who takes it to the ground most of the time, it's the loser. The problem with this reaction and knives, however, is once again, you are charging into the optimum range of the weapon and right into its line of fire. In doing so you are destroying both your mobility and distance. Can you survive a close in encounter with a blade? Yes. I've done it. On numerous occasions. But instead of trying to control his knife hand or defang the serpent, I took a more of a Beowulf approach. Thing is, ripping his arm off wasn't my tactical goal. It was only to get it out of the way so I could rip his head off (although that arm does make a handy club). The problem I have with trying to grapple with a knife is that it is a defensive posture in what is far too dangerous of a situation. You DO have to go berserk in these kinds of situation. Within three moves he has to be incapable of attacking you again. In-close like this and against a dedicated opponent is NOT the time to be defensive in hopes of saving your hide. In fact, it is the absolute worst thing you can do because of the string/grip idea. At the risk of sounding preachy, pedantic and *gasp* seeming as though I am trying to recruit groupies: A major problem that I have with what is being taught as solutions to these kinds of problems is that it is ass-backwards. That is to say it is too extreme in non-extreme situations, and yet it is too cautious in extreme situations. You don't stab someone because you are losing a fight and you don't try fight defensively when someone has closed and is trying to kill you. Swap it around. As the danger of the situation escalates, so to does your response...that is appropriate AND legal. The higher the danger, the more important it becomes to immediately stop him. In a non-lethal situation, you need to be thinking defensively. In lethal, it is the opposite. In these circumstances, you're going to get mauled anyway, so your goal shifts to making sure he is incapable of mauling you further (e.g. yeah, he stabbed me, but I snapped his neck). You don't prevent further mauling by taking a defensive stance when someone is trying to punch your ticket. Such a strategy almost guarantees his success. The solutions you come up with are up to you. But now at least you know the problems and factors. Whether this helps you come up with a working solution or keeps you from buying into a BS one is of no mind to me. I'm not making money by telling you this. Oh BTW, let me point something else out. Most people when someone is trying to punch their ticket tend to freeze because -- short version -- they realize that they are in over their head. There is a level of bone chilling, mind numbing terror the first time you experience someone trying to kill you. Which, if you think about it, what does that tell you about someone who thinks his life might be in danger, but can still function? I'll give you a hint, in most cases, it wasn't because he was the big bad who could go berserk in the face of certain death, it's because the danger really wasn't that great. M --__--__-- Message: 4 Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2005 12:57:54 -0700 (PDT) From: Steve Kohn Subject: Re: [Eskrima] Defense or offense? To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net I agree with your stance on accountability. I've heard many gun people say "if someone pulls a knife on me, I'll just shoot 'em". Sound familiar? I don't know the law too well, but that seems like it would be very close to the empty hand against knife argument. Clearly those guys never saw "Surviving Edged Weapons". The knife aginst gun scene was one hell of an eye-opener! -S Marc MacYoung wrote: Steve said > Let me just be clear in that I absolutely believe that it's an insanely > dangerous thing to allow any FMA student to >think that by doing static > drills, he is in any way equipped to handle a real knife fight...or any > fight really. I don't. >To be very honest, If I didn't like the attributes > one can develop from knife drills, I'd be extremely hesitant to ever > >teach knife as I'd hate to be responsible for what could be a potentially > fatal false sense of security. It's shameful >behavior to market such a > thing to the general public. Okay, before we even get to whether or not said drills will work to save you against a knifer. Let's take a step back and look at the trouble you can get into before that. Gun folks "train for success." Safety protocols for handling, cleaning and being on the range, (hopefully) prevent accidental discharges. Taining on when you are justified to pull the trigger is a big issue these days. Additional training on handling the court cases is also availible. That's what comes from when you pull the trigger... there will be results. My question is, since a) a knife is also considered a lethal force weapon and b) even a poorly swung blade will cut flesh, why hasn't the same idea of "training for success" come into the blade world? A knife will cut flesh. My concern is not whether or not training drills will fail in the face of a committed and lethal attack, that's still miles down the road. Right now we got ourselves an axle breaking pothole right in front of us. And that is: Those drills will still work in unwarranted circumstances That blade combined with your training WILL cut -- justified or not. What are both a far greater, and a more likely, dangers to you than your opponent, is YOUR fear, adrenalin, over-reaction, panick, those training drills and the refusal to learn counterbalancing factors (like when you are justified to strike). You freak out and swing a blade too soon and you got a world of trouble. Putting that in the simple English: The greatest danger to you isn't the other dude, it's you. My point has never been that the FMA don't work, it's that they do. Which is one hell of a responsibility. Now personally where I get scared is when I hear people arguing about why they aren't going to pick up that responsibility for all kinds of reasons. M _______________________________________________ Eskrima mailing list, 2200 members Eskrima@martialartsresource.net Copyright 1994-2005: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource Standard disclaimers apply http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/eskrima --------------------------------- Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page --__--__-- Message: 5 From: "Mike Casto" To: Subject: RE: [Eskrima] One last law question. Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2005 17:15:43 -0400 Organization: I.M.P.A.C.T. Academy of Martial Arts Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net The show was "10 Speed & Brown Shoes" and the character in question was played by Jeff Goldblum. It was actually in 1980. Unless a similar line was used in something earlier, this is most likely the source and the quote you gave was almost exactly what Goldblum used to say. The show only ran for a very brief time but it was a good series and very funny. Mike -----Original Message----- From: Felipe Jocano [mailto:labsica64@yahoo.com] Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 4:16 AM To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Subject: Re: [Eskrima] One last law question. TJ, I knew a boxer who is in the Air > Force > and he said he had to be registerd as a lethal > weapon. > > Ask to see his registration papers. :-) That should be fun. :-) Seriously, this particular urban legend goes back to the 1960s. The product of some silly TV show so I understand. The line goes, "I'm warning you, my hands are registered as deadly weapons." Don't ask me what show it was as it was before my time :-). You can see how it spun over the years. Bot ____________________________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs _______________________________________________ Eskrima mailing list, 2200 members Eskrima@martialartsresource.net Copyright 1994-2005: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource Standard disclaimers apply http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/eskrima --__--__-- Message: 6 Subject: RE: [Eskrima] One last law question. Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2005 14:28:37 -0700 From: "Chris Seals" To: Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Barney Fife (sp?)deputy on the Andy Griffith show -----Original Message----- From: Mike Casto [mailto:sikal@yahoo.com] Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 2:16 PM To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Subject: RE: [Eskrima] One last law question. The show was "10 Speed & Brown Shoes" and the character in question was played by Jeff Goldblum. It was actually in 1980. Unless a similar line was used in something earlier, this is most likely the source and the quote you gave was almost exactly what Goldblum used to say. The show only ran for a very brief time but it was a good series and very funny. Mike -----Original Message----- From: Felipe Jocano [mailto:labsica64@yahoo.com] Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 4:16 AM To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Subject: Re: [Eskrima] One last law question. TJ, I knew a boxer who is in the Air > Force > and he said he had to be registerd as a lethal weapon. > > Ask to see his registration papers. :-) That should be fun. :-) Seriously, this particular urban legend goes back to the 1960s. The product of some silly TV show so I understand. The line goes, "I'm warning you, my hands are registered as deadly weapons." Don't ask me what show it was as it was before my time :-). You can see how it spun over the years. Bot ____________________________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs _______________________________________________ Eskrima mailing list, 2200 members Eskrima@martialartsresource.net Copyright 1994-2005: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource Standard disclaimers apply http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/eskrima _______________________________________________ Eskrima mailing list, 2200 members Eskrima@martialartsresource.net Copyright 1994-2005: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource Standard disclaimers apply http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/eskrima Attend the 7th Annual Design-Build Symposium on Thursday, September 29, 2005. Register online at http://www.designbuildsymposium.uci.edu --__--__-- _______________________________________________ Eskrima mailing list Eskrima@martialartsresource.net http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/eskrima http://eskrima-fma.net Old digest issues @ ftp://ftp.martialartsresource.com/pub/eskrima Copyright 1994-2005: Ray Terry, MartialArtsResource.com, Sudlud.com Standard disclaimers apply. Remember September 11. End of Eskrima Digest