Lee Morrison – Solo Pad Training Drills

I fashioned City Combatives after twenty-two years of researching numerous Asian and Western strategies of fight. The testing floor for my analysis began from the varsity play yard, progressing all by means of adolescence the place I, like most misguided younger males, had my fair proportion of pub brawls and road fights. It moved on to the place I’ve been for the final twelve years – working as a bouncer inside the pub and nightclub setting of door safety work. To say that this had been the best a part of my fight effectivity training to date can be an understatement.

Anybody who has been in an actual blood-and-snot, violent confrontation will know what I’m speaking about. Thirty seconds on the road is price three years within the dojo any day of the week. Multiply that by so much and also you, too, would have approached comparable conclusions to my very own and people of higher males earlier than me. These conclusions are the results of a mix of lively studying from my very own expertise, and from those that I’ve skilled with and aspire to, in addition to 1000’s of hours spent travelling, coaching, studying and learning – sorting the wheat from the chaff. And imagine me after I say there’s a severe quantity of chaff inside the martial arts world that’s being handed off as efficient and workable self-defence.

Right here is the primary indication that such a system has missed the purpose – the phrases ‘self-defence’. The phrase ‘defence’ particularly signifies that you’re in a scenario the place a bodily response shouldn’t be solely required, however is your solely possibility. What about avoidance and escape? That is made attainable by means of consciousness of your setting, and an understanding of assault ritual, dialogue and physique language, so that you’ve got information of such occasions earlier than they unfold to a degree the place a bodily possibility is all that you’ve got. This is the reason the highest folks on this area really feel that the time period ‘Self-Protection’ has much more to supply.

For instance, you notice a probably violent and aggressive particular person strolling behind you, and your street-smart instincts let you know that he has already weighed you up as a his subsequent potential sufferer, making you then resolve to take the motion of turning the very subsequent nook and working like a b**tard with the intention to keep away from and escape the expertise. Is that not good Self-Safety? In fact it’s.

If, nonetheless, you don’t have any likelihood of escape, and this particular person is intent on destroying your future high quality of life to no matter diploma he can, then the one possibility left is a bodily response. In such a case, you will need to not hesitate to show stated particular person right into a grease blemish on the pavement.

The underside line to reaching such a purpose is to be first and hit exhausting. If this creates the chance to flee, then achieve this with out hesitation. If not, then you will need to constantly assault till the risk is terminated – then escape to security on the first alternative.

Good private safety and street-smart consciousness have to be the facility base to your ‘stay safe’ sport plan. However lurking just under the floor should lie a cultivated mind-set that holds an unwavering conviction – that in case you are supplied violence, then you’re ready to reply in sort, overwhelmingly.

This is the reason I’m drawn to the strategies of Western Combatives. My coaching could be very a lot influenced by individuals who have examined their techniques underneath the stress of actuality – be this in ‘live’ conditions, dynamic simulation and situation coaching, or a mix of each. In brief, the individuals who know that what they’ve will get up with out hesitation or indecision for the time being of reality.

From the likes of Fairbain and Sykes stress testing their ‘Defendu’ system within the violent streets of 1920’s Shanghai, to the strategies of veteran Coventry doorman Geoff Thompson, who discovered what labored for him in a few of the worst institutions within the ‘neon environment’ and on the mat of his dojo throughout a whole bunch of his legendary Animal Day periods.