“Hi Stewart,
Thanks for last nights class, I feel like I learnt more in 1.5 hours then many more hours spent in other disciplines.”
a nice bit of feedback and not unusual. With UKM we keep it real and keep it relevant – and we try to keep it so it works for everyone, not just big bastards who can punch hard.
Tradition and Reality
This is an article we wrote a couple of years ago that was published in Martial Arts Illustrated Magazine
Tradition and Reality
There seems to be an unspoken assumption that the various Reality–Based Self Defence Systems (RBSDS) have little resemblance to the traditional martial arts styles (TMAs), and that they have a wholly different philosophy and set of techniques.
I’ve been training in reality systems form some time now , the last few of which have seen me develop Urban Krav Maga (UKM); to be frank, the more I train with the other founders of UKM, the more I realise our debt to our traditional background and how crucial it continues to be to the system.
If you went to a karate, aikido or traditional ju jutsu class and then subsequently attended one of our sessions, your first impression would be that these aren’t different sides of the same coin but actually separate currencies. If you attended on a more frequent and regular basis, you would probably come to see the unity beneath the diversity.
We focus on situations – what to do if somebody grabs you and tries to head butt or knee you, how to act pre-emptively to avoid a fight, how to read situations and body language to avoid conflict, how to defend yourself and get up quickly if you’re on the ground, what you do if your attacker has a knife etc. For everything that we do, the Ashi-sabaki (footwork) and Tai-sabaki (body movement) are both crucial. We incorporate sparring and groundfighting drills into the system and, of course, here the fundamentals are heavily informed by the traditional arts of Boxing, Muay Thai, Ju Jitsu and BJJ.
As we are also aware, many of the traditional systems have developed into combat-sport based systems such as freestyle karate and kickboxing, particularly since the latter part of the last century. Once again the footwork, body sponsorship, conditioning and the self-control that one develops in a competition/sparring-based context in these combat sports will prove hugely valuable in improving both ones ability to learn and teach a RBSDS.
It always struck me that the better instructors and students in Reality-Based systems had a strong traditional background-and by that I would include the tradition-derivative combat sports mentioned above. A certain school of thought says that the “archaic’ movements and responses of traditional arts can negatively influence your muscle memory thereby slowing down your adaptation to the Reality systems. This can initially be the case but generally speaking traditional martial artists pick things up significantly quicker and can ‘make things work better’. This is basically because (i.) in stand up situations they are used to moving their feet in concert with their body in order to secure and maintain get to a strong, stable position – all that Kata does have a purpose. (ii.) they understand the importance of balance, (if the other guy is not stable and you are, then you have a major advantage) and (iii) those with a traditional background in ground fighting understand that it’s all about the hips – whether you’re grappling to submit or just get the hell up as quickly as possible you need to understand the tai sabaki to get your hips in an optimum position vis a vis your opponent.
The better TMA and RBSDS instructors will have this understanding ingrained into them and their students will benefit accordingly.
A crucial element in confronting real situations is often that of controlling ones attacker in some way, be it through balance, your environment, pre-emption, or getting hands. When it comes to controlling an attacker’s arm that is wielding a blade for example, I have seen a few responses from Reality Systems which basically involve grabbing the knife-wielding wrist and hitting the carrier. Even if you’ve got a powerful close-in punch and the attacker isn’t much bigger than you, the latter still has a good chance of regaining control of the weapon and stabbing you just by stepping back and/or pulling the weapon back strongly from you grip. You can obviate this by moving into a traditional grip in which, say the opponent has the blade in his right hand, you grab his wrist with the left hand, loop your arm over so your left elbow is on his sternum, squeeze your armpit tightly into your side and step back with your right leg so you’re facing almost the same way as your attacker exerting great pressure on his elbow joint with your ribcage; from this position – which is actually far simpler to engage than one might think – you can rip the blade out of the attacker’s hand if he’s still holding it.. This technique is strength and size-neutral and is based on sound traditional principles. This has been by far the most successful technique that we’ve tried against an aggressive knife threat and we couldn’t have put it together without our traditional background. Learning techniques based around underlying principles, which more often than not are “traditional”, also helps to remove the requirement to learn a number of complex techniques for a wide variety of unpredictable reality-based situations. Instead, our system relies heavily on certain common principles that can be applied to any situation. Of course, technique plays a part-it always does-but if technique goes to pot, which it may well do, and you are left with nothing but solid principles of movement, power, balance etc. you still stand an excellent chance of getting away safely.
In summary, there are some great moves, techniques and principals in TMA which RBSDS practitioners ignore at their real peril. In TMA the moves are sometimes misunderstood and the paths into the techniques can become somewhat obscure, but they can save your life.
For example:
The age uke (rising block with the forearm) is actually a great strike from a variety of close-quarter situations and one which lends itself to good short-term control setting your opponent up for a head butt and/or knee in the groin. It’s often taught in TMA as a block to a strike in the face – for reasons of distance and reaction time, it’s not great for that purpose as I can vouchsafe from painful experience.
Conclusions
I would simply recommend that if you’re considering training in a reality based system, check out the background of the system and of the instructor. There are some excellent instructors out there with good practical experience but who have never trained in any other area of martial arts or combat. On the other hand, regardless of practical experience, which is of course always hugely beneficial from an instructional perspective, in my view there are few substitutes for the foundation afforded by the Traditional Styles.
I’ll often get asked which other styles are the best to supplement Urban Krav Maga.
Just been thinking about this, I normally only recommend, Western Boxing, Muay Thai, Brazilian Ju Jitsu. These are proven combat styles with, in the case of Western and Thai boxing, no-bullshit blocks/good footwork; BJJ and Judo are excellent re getting yourself out of trouble on the floor.
You need to adapt some of the techniques from these systems, e.g. punching bare-knuckle in the street is not a great idea, and in a real fight it’s normally best to get off the floor as soon as you can rather than try to tap somebody out, but these are proven systems that will give you valuable skills.
But then I think that there is some good stuff out there in other systems from both a self- defence and fighting point of view: in Karate and Tae Kwan Do the lateral movement to get away from an attack is very useful -used to see it a lot more in boxing but focus there nowadays seems to be more about holding your ground and swapping punches, also in the ring it’s safe to move backwards away from an attack, less so in the street. There some nice striking combinations in Wing Chun, Shotokan is great for generating power, Savate has some very nasty real world kicks etc.
There’s a lot out there so I guess the best advice has to be not to limit yourself, try a few and see which suit you and/or train with a group that contains a wide variety of experience and has that much under-rated weapon, a collective open mind.
One of the reasons we went independent was to get away from the internal politics and conflict that seem to characterise the Krav Maga world. As well as allowing students to benefit from many more influences, it’s been great to avoid this waste of energy. We will continue to avoid these arcane, theological disputes over what is “pure” or “the one truth” Like most religious disputes, they cause grief, solve nothing and everybody ends up still hating each other. Sniping about what we are not is never going to worry me. Tell me how and why you think our stuff doesn’t work based on your knowledge and experience and, despite the number of students we’ve had successfully defend themselves and how well our people have done in MMA when they’ve entered, I’ll listen.