After my post about training butterfly guard in order to better your standing clinch game, a number of questions were asked, and a major point that I left out was pointed out by one of my mentors. So here are some follow up thoughts along this subject.

I was talking to someone last night who is really, really good at keeping me on point and he made me realize I left something important out in the prior article. How do we keep ECQC goals in the vertical clinch congruent in a BJJ class?

After all, while the skill sets (as I already pointed out) needed for both are almost identical, the fundamental three butterfly attacks are focused on keeping the fight on the ground, though with a reversal in dominant position. So how do we keep focused while not pissing off our BJJ coach?

Understand, that I DO NOT have all the answers and am not 100% sure. This is what I am finding to consistently be the best solution right now, but I am still actively trying to see if there is a better answer. So buyer beware.

What I think is the best idea is to have your end state be taking your opponent’s back or going to his side and crossing his T (your hips outside and 90 degrees to his hip). Most of the basic butterfly attacks lend themselves to this end state without much, if any, modification. For example, the arm drag to hips outside his hips generally ends with you sweeping him over. You can easily substitute taking his back or even coming out and regaining your feet with no one looking at you like you have two heads. Even the classic sweeping him straight to the side with an under hook and over hook control can be turned into a duck under rather than a full sweep.

Basically, if you keep the goal of taking the back always in the forefront of your brain, I strongly believe you can get in a lot of good work that will translate directly to the standing clinch game.

The chance of getting guillotined in butterfly if you are doing things correctly is close to nil. My chin is lower than his chin (as it should be in the vertical clinch) and you are always looking towards his “center” – which I mark as his spine. In that position, not only are you in little danger of having your head/neck attacked, you are also maximizing your control of our opponent. Also, you go to butterfly when it is contextually appropriate and you are able to do it. The only way to know when that is appropriate is through mat time and hands on coaching.

And I don’t think you EVER go to your back to do the classic side-over butterfly sweep. If you can’t pull it off from the position you are in, it generally means you either do not have good limb control, or have the wrong angle on the sweep, or you don’t have head position, or a combination of all those.

You also don’t have to ball up to play butterfly. I don’t, mostly because I can’t. My list of injuries is fairly long – both shoulders permanently jacked up, a left elbow that has lost some range of motion, a big toe that has NO range of motion, and a left knee that is bone on bone and in certain positions I can actually move my knee laterally outwards (which is cool to gross out my wife with). The balling up is actually a positional replacement for being conscious of your spinal alignment. As long as I keep my head in the proper position (as I mentioned above) and I keep my spine as straight as possible and my head forward of my tailbone, I find I can do anything in butterfly without having to compress into a ball. And, balling up IMO takes away some of the advantages of transference to the standing clinch. Compressing too much has a tendency to take away from your hip mobility and that is where people start to play too much by going to their backs to attempt sweeps (which, again IMO is a bad habit to get into and not necessary ).

Here are a couple of video clips that illustrate what I am trying to say.

First one, go to about 3:13 for a nice shot of Saulo’s non-compressed position:

And this one is good. Look from about 1:09 to 1:28. I would just use her position in a little tighter, but I would not change anything else:

In my opinion, one of the most critical skill sets needed for close quarters fighting is a deep understanding of the vertical clinch.

It is one of the primary ways to prevent yourself from being taken to the ground. It is one of the primary methods to be able to access and deploy your weapon in a fight at bad breath distance. And it may be your only chance to continue the fight if you have been taken by surprise with a sucker punch (there is a major reason boxers clinch up when they have taken a mind altering hit). Done correctly with technique and correct tactics, it can also help the smaller, less physically capable person handle a bigger, stronger attacker.

Unfortunately, while there are only a handful of physical actions needed in the clinch and are simple to learn, they require a good amount of work to be able to get the maximum functionality. So we need to do some work and train it and here we run into the biggest drawback. It is not that easy to find places to get some legitimate work in the clinch. Ideally, we would have access to a top notch Greco-Roman wrestling club. There, not only would we have great instruction, but we could have a lot of varied training partners to get in the flight time needed. Tack on some practical “street” practice, you would have a definite ability to fight in the vertical grapple. It is too bad clubs/gyms like that are as rare as an honest politician. So what can we do? Here are some alternatives.

First, a general wrestling club that is focused on freestyle/folkstyle will have some clinch work, as well as possibly having some members who have competed in Greco matches. Again, though, most wrestling clubs are competition oriented and have little to no interest in teaching this to people who are not committed to competition. Understand this mentality if you do find a local wrestling club.

Second, some MMA gyms (like The Hardcore Gym in Athens, GA http://www.thehardcoregym.com/index.php) have a great knowledge and understanding of clinchwork. Thanks to the popularity of MMA however, many, many MMA gyms are no better than strip mall McDojos. And many other MMA gyms may train hard, but are run by people with little true MMA skill ( a lot of MMA gyms are run by guys who did a year of BJJ, a year of some striking martial art and maybe a seminar or two, but no real deep level of experience). So, as with the local wrestling club, caveat emptor.

Third, judo is an option. Not completely the same, since with the cloth handles, there can be more “distance clinch” work, but for some places (especially in areas that do not have a strong wrestling background like the UK), it does have some usefulness.

So where does this leave the average person? Should we just give up? Or settle for a sloppy clinch game? I say no. There is a very viable alternative. Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. But not just BJJ in general; rather a specific strategy/positional game – butterfly guard.

The positioning of butterfly guard is almost identical to classic clinch work. And the principle moves that we need in the vertical grapple – wrist tie, elbow tie, underhook, overhook, arm drag, duckunder, 2on1 – are exactly the heart and soul of the butterfly guard. The way we need to position our body parts – head, elbows, hips, feet – are the mirror image of what we need to do with butterfly.

Here is a visual of what I am talking about. Note particularly his head, hip, and elbow positioning, and especially at how he shifts his hip to sweep:

Watch here for the armdrag. Note carefully that EVERYTHING you need to do while standing is done here as well:

The great thing is we can go to any BJJ gym in the world, focus on training butterfly guard with the intent of making our vertical clinch better, and no one in the gym will say a word against it! And even better, we make our horizontal grappling better at the same time! Talk about bang for the buck. And butterfly guard is usually taught even to beginners in BJJ, so even if you are new to jiu-jitsu, there is a good chance you will be taught butterfly guard fundamentals fairly early. In the Fundamental class I run myself, it is generally taught within the first six months.

And, there is a lot of butterfly guard instructional material out there. Books, DVDs, YouTube videos, it is all easily accessible. So, improve your standing clinch while sitting on your butt!

Last summer, I was honored to be interviewed on the Ballistic Radio show (broadcast out of Cincinnati but available on iHeartRadio as well as iTunes podcast).

It is (as it’s name would indicate) a firearm oriented self-defense show. However, the host, John Johnston, is a really progressive guy who is constantly looking to see what is cutting edge and most effective in the self-defense community. Not only is he an excellent shooter who has trained in some of the most demanding shooting courses in the world, he has also put his ass on the line and done H2H work, both with me as well as Craig Douglas (www.shiworks.com). Though my interview with him was before he came to one of my courses, he still asked some insightful questions. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and I am a regular listener to his show since he always has on great guests.

Check out the direct link to the podcast to my show, but also make sure you go through the other podcast archives, as well as tune in to John’s latest show:

http://ballisticradio.com/2013/06/24/podcast-ballistic-radio-episode-16-june-23-2013/

When this video was posted on a forum I frequent, I made a quip along the lines of “so much for not going to the ground in a fight”. I thought it was an obvious point – that of course the fallacy of saying never go to the ground in a fight was an uninformed cliche – but apparently a couple of people didn’t get it. I think their replies make a good point of discussion.

What some replied was essentially this; “Well, this is not the same thing. The fight ended when the guy hit the ground. Using the ground as a ballistic impact zone is different“. Let’s look at those points.

First of all, the cliche is not mine. it is said by others, and the cliche is fairly clear i.e. Don’t Go to the Ground in a Fight. There is no wiggle room there. The winner in the video took the fight to the ground, in contradiction to the espoused line. No one who uses that cliche ever follows it up with any caveats. It is used as a cut and dried piece of advice. Period. So this video is a contrary to that, no matter what. Just that fact alone shows up how foolish it is when that hoary bit of wisdom is trotted out.

Second, There is no way that ending was preordained. Sure, we look at the video in hindsight and say well of course that ended the fight. However, there is no way the thrower knew that the fight would end when the impact happened. It could easily have not knocked the loser out. How many times do we hear of cases where someone is shot multiple times, or shot in vital areas like the head, and continues? It is a well established and accepted fact that almost no handgun round, including a 45acp or 44magnum will stop someone with one round. The human body is capable of taking an amazing amount of punishment and still keep on ticking. If an aggressor can take multiple rounds of modern high-velocity hollow points and still fight, why is being slammed on the ground magically superior? It simply isn’t. There was at least an even chance that the fight could have continued after the throw. If you watch the video carefully, you can clearly see the thrower expected (or at least was prepared for) the fight to continue. He held the dominant controlling position for a moment, realized the other guy was out, and only then released his hold. So for anyone to think this was any different than the thrower making a conscious decision to take the fight to the ground, and do whatever he needed to do, you are mistaken.

Third, someone out on the interwebz will undoubtedly say “Well, if the other guy had a weapon the fight would have been different”. Really? Take a look at the video again. The thrower had control of either the other person’s limbs or he was disrupting the guy’s base and balance the entire time. See how the loser is flailing away with full energy just to try to stay upright and on his feet? At what point could he have accessed or deployed any weapon? The answer is, he couldn’t, even if he had the latest tacti-cool gun and rig. It is one thing to have a fast draw on a flat range. Try accomplishing the same task when you are being tossed all over God’s green earth. It is not done with much chance of success.

And, finally, we get to the other rallying cry of the RBSD crowd – “If there were multiples, it would have been different”. Let’s ignore possibilities for a second (and I am actually deep into a research project where we are trying to actually document with hard numbers how often multiple attackers happen) and look at what did happen. There were no multiples involved, and the thrower very likely saw that and made an informed decision to go to the ground. Further, if he had been wrong, and other assailants had become involved, he was in a fine position to engage them. Contrary to the popular RBSD trope, when an expert grappler fights someone who knows nothing about grappling, they do not roll around for hours, The fight will end in seconds, with plenty of time to take care of other attackers.

To sum up, there are plenty of times when going to the ground in a fight is the worst decision possible. There are plenty of other times it may be the single best thing you can do. Trying to espouse one single answer as dogma is wrong. To paraphrase an old saying “Saying never is the last refuge of the intellectually lazy”.

A while ago, I was searching around for a good solution to being able to discreetly carry a pistol when I was in a situation that was not well suited for the standard arrangement of a good heavy duty holster and a strong and sturdy belt. I had looked at a few other belly bands, but was never quite satisfied with any of them. A noted firearms trainer (and a friend), Rob Pincus (http://www.icetraining.us/robpincus.html) stepped in and showed me a holster he had a hand in designing, the I.C.E. Belly Band. I was able to get my hands on one and away I went.

I have spent the last few months putting the ICE belly band through its paces. I have been wearing it fairly often and in a number of different situations and contexts. It is a very good option for someone needing a discreet carry method.

Here is a short video showing the properties of this rig:

The nylon wrap has proven to be fairly durable and has shown no significant signs of wear. It is well made and comfortable. Even better in my opinion, is that the band itself is a bit wider than most other bands that I have used and it seems to have increased the comfort/”feel” during daily carry. The holster itself is a separate kydex piece that can be attached differently and adjusted somewhat to the user’s needs. Mine came for a Walther PPS and has good retention qualities. There is a good deal of Velcro along the band (more so than some other belly bands I have seen and used) and this allows for a really secure arrangement when strapped on. Even through different movements throughout the day, I found the band to rarely move much.

My only real criticism is that the holster attaches to the outside of the belly band. I am sure this makes it easier to make adjustments to the positioning of the holster, as well as making it much more comfortable to wear, but it weakens the “stiffness” of the gun. Occasionally the pistol will tend to lean outwards away from the body, which can compromise concealment. This is exacerbated with the smaller type of pistols that will most likely be carried, since there is less barrel length to help stabilized the weapon. To ensure this does not happen, the band must be underneath some support, like a belt or a tightly knotted waist drawstring. Unfortunately, sometimes the place of the belly band is for those times when that outer support might not be available. This is the only issue I have with the set up. I really wish the attachment was on the inside of the band (albeit at a cost of possibly irritating the skin). The issue can be worked around, but I wish it didn’t have to be.

Other than that caveat, it is a fine piece of equipment, and I continue to use it regularly.

http://icestore.us/I-C-E-Modular-Belly-Band-Holster-from-Crossbreed.html

We need to ask ourselves ; “Why do the techniques advocated here:”

“Not look anything like what is working here? ” :

The answer is that these two separate groups are not testing their material the same way. They might use the same language, but it does not necessarily mean the same things.

It seems that in today’s training community, everybody throws around the term “pressure testing” in order to justify the functionality of their method or technique. What is usually meant by pressure testing? Generally, it refers to some kind of force-on-force training where two or more people can actually apply techniques with energy that simulates real world conditions and situations. Unfortunately, like the quote from The Princess Bride “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means”, most of them really don’t use it correctly. Rather than being an objective standard, it has too often become whatever the person wants it to mean as long as they look good. For it to have true worth, we have to have a defined standard of measure. Then, we can use it as a way to judge.

The most amusing part of all this to me is that I was part of the martial arts world in the early to mid-eighties when the term first started getting thrown around, and the outcry and antagonism towards that concept by many of the ones who today try to hijack the phrase makes me laugh.

One of the most prominent and public, especially in the U.S. of those who first advocated the need to pressure test was Bruce Lee. He ruffled a lot of traditionalist’s feathers when he compared most typical training methods to be like learning to swim on dry land. He wrote and lectured many times on the need to put some gear on and actually – GASP! – fight. Another early proponent was Jon Bluming, who had years of hardcore judo and kyokushinkai karate and was actually one of the first to talk about what we now term MMA. Unfortunately, since he was based in Europe, a lot of what he taught and wrote didn’t have the impact in the U.S. that Lee did. After Lee’s death, some of his students such as Dan Inosanto continued his teachings and ideas, and through some of Inosanto’s students like Paul Vunak, more and more people became exposed to this idea. And, with the arrival of Gracie Jiu-jitsu and its open challenge, and then the first Ultimate Fighting Championship, the concept exploded.

Still, even then, for years afterwards, many martial artists tried to dismiss any use of the idea of pressure testing as a needed component. One magazine columnist in particular, who now writes a monthly MMA column, derided all things MMA up into 2004! However, with the internet, DVDs, and social media, it became easy for the most inexperienced layman to understand the powerful need to pressure test. And so, even most of the die-hard haters have had to adjust their own presentation. However, as I said earlier, they do not always understand what they are trying to do, or even worse, intentionally try to subvert the principle. So how do we know if their testing actually meets the standard? Here are some easy to follow and understand guidelines. There are four basic components that must be present.

First, let me say that the following is based on years of study and research, and involved a number of gifted and talented instructors and fighters, who coalesce around the finest internet discussion forum, Total Protection Interactive (www.totalprotectioninteractive.com), and who were gathered together by Craig Douglas, also known as “Southnarc”. The group consists of people such as Paul Sharp (http://sharpdefense.wordpress.com/), Larry Lindenman, Chris Fry (http://www.mdtstraining.com/), Claude Werner (http://www.dryfire-practice.com/), Ryan Mayfield, Paul Gomez (RIP), and others, as well as myself. So while I had a small part in the following formulation, it was very much a group effort.

Resisting Opponent
The first principle of pressure testing that must be adhered to is that we need a resisting opponent. This is the base from where everything comes from. It also seems to be very intuitive. If we want to test whether our technique or concept works against resistance, we need to have someone provide that resistance! The problem is this is where most people start and end. While physical resistance is a key factor, it is only one piece of the puzzle.

Opposing Will
The second feature is opposing will. By this I mean an active attempt at preventing an action from occurring. Not just physical resistance, but mental resistance as well. If we use a technique such as an empty hand response to a knife attack for instance, it is not enough that the “bad guy” tries to physically mimic a real attack; he has to commit himself to said attack.

Malevolent Intent
The third component is malevolent intent. This is a term I first heard used by a LEO whose TPI moniker is KIT. It perfectly describes that beyond the mental and physical resistance our training partner has to give us, he also must want us to lose. Not just make us fail by our technique not working, but by us having to suffer a visible loss. In the case of the knife counter from above, our training partner must be trying to defeat our technique and put us in a position where he can repeatedly “stab” us. It is not enough to stop the technique, but he must also want to crush us. If he can succeed in doing so, he demonstrates it clearly that our whole concept/technique/method is in error.

Freedom of Action
The fourth and final part is freedom of action. In my opinion, this is the biggest aspect that many proponents of pressure testing miss. We can have all the prior components in place, but if all we allow our adversary to do is a finite number of things, are we really being true to the problem? For example, in the 90’s, it was really popular with the traditional martial art crowd to show how easy it was for their art to handle a grappler. The typical photo layout had the “good guy” standing ready to go while the evil grappler almost always shot in for a double leg takedown, and the good guy used his favorite technique to stifle the attack. The problem with this (outside of the fact that the “grappler” never seemed to know how to properly execute the takedown) was that the defender was only defending against a single and known move. If the grappler had also been allowed to throw strikes as an example, the difficulty would have increased exponentially, to the point that the defense would very likely to become overwhelmed. To truly test our methods under real world pressure, we have to simulate the real world, including the fact that we cannot know what are our opponent is going to do! It is a simple idea, yet every time I get into a debate about it, almost no one takes this into account. Somehow, they believe they will always be able to sense the attack and respond accordingly, like some kind of real life Jedi Knight. Unfortunately, that won’t happen, and to rely on it is to set yourself up for failure.

To sum up, if your pressure testing does not have all four of these components, you are not truly pressure testing. If you can conclusively show you put your favored technique/method/system/skill through this prism, then you can probably stand up to any scrutiny.

This is one of the hands down best books I have ever read on unarmed self-defense. Period. Incredibly useful and insightful, and written for the everyday person, Jerry avoids all the usual tough-guy clichés, as well as staying as far away from the typical paranoia inducing hyperbole that too many SD authors indulge in.

Jerry starts off with by setting up his ideas with fact and down to earth normal guy reasoning and logic. Then he proceeds to go over simple and highly functional physical skills that almost anyone can implement. Where he really shines, and where so many other SD authors fail, is at tying the physical skills into a cohesive game plan that comes as close to universal application as anything probably can. This sketching of his “game plan” might be my favorite part of the book. He finishes with some good words of wisdom and the caveat that there is no easy, one size fits all solution. In short, I cannot recommend this book too highly.

Order it here:

http://www.amazon.com/Red-Zone-Prime-Jerry-Wetzel-ebook/dp/B00HCLSMAK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389379732&sr=8-1&keywords=red+zone+prime

http://thefightworkspodcast.com/2008/04/13/112-luciana-luka-dias-the-grappling-world-team-trials/

This is a podcast interview with my coach’s wife Luka. She is also one of my coaches, a valued training partner, was THE coach to both of my kids, and is one of the greatest competitors in BJJ. She, along with Megaton, are truly part of my family. Her perspective as one of the first major female competitors is worth listening to. Up until very recently, she had more Gold Medals in the Pan-Ams than anyone else, including male competitors.

An interesting side note for you martial artists out there: while Luka was living in L.A. in the 90’s, she was training with Rigan Machado, and was the regular training partner for Dan Inosanto when he would take his weekly private lessons from Rigan.

We talked about how many grapplers, even experienced ones, can sometimes have a poor Upa (Hip Lift) or use it incorrectly. In this article, I will go over the points that I think are critical to success in this move. This article will not cover how/when/why to use the move, but rather the technical execution only.

The first thing we need to do is make sure our arms are compressed inwards. The elbows should be connected to the ribcage, and the hands should be somewhere close to the face. There is no valid need to use the arms in the hip lift. It is a waste of time since we can use the power of the hips to do the work, and the arms are useless, so let’s keep them where they are useful and not vulnerable themselves.

Secondly, we need to bring the heels of both feet in as close to our butt cheeks as possible. If we are not spazzing out and keeping ourselves secure in Survival Position, we have time to make this crucial adjustment.

Third, we have to lift our head up from the ground. If we leave it on the ground, it actually acts as a brake and stopping point for our movement.

Finally, we lift upwards using our core and hips as the driver. The same part of our body that allows us to dead lift 500 pounds is what we rely on now. Continue the drive as high as you can until the only points touching the ground are the tips of our toes and our shoulder blades. Drive straight upwards. You are not trying to move the opponent to one side or another. Rather you are getting his weight as high up vertically as possible so you can use that room to move. Let him fall to a side if he has to, but it is not your immediate concern or intent.

May of the failures with the hip lift come about from where someone fails in any of the above points. Another failure is when someone does not practice the move enough and is not able to get much of an arch as they drive upwards with their hips so you do not end up creating much vertical space. However, there is an easy and cheap solution to that issue – practice the move properly! It sounds stupid, but doing 10-20 perfect hip lifts everyday will teach your body how to do it, and will groove in that neural pathway so you won’t have to think about it under stress.

Here is a video clip that covers all the above points in detail: