What:
Paladin Combatives Managing Confrontations
When:
Sunday, April 6th, 2014
Where:
Student's garage, Indianapolis, Eagle Creek area
Who:
Mike Swisher (cedartop) - Owner/Instructor
Josh Haines (jdhaines) - Instructor
INGOers:
esrice, iChokePeople, Turf Doctor, indychad
Why:
My training background is heavy in live-fire firearms and scenario-based force on force. My weakest link right now is empty hand combatives. Thus, this course looked like a good gap-filler. It was also priced reasonably and the 1-day format fit well into my schedule.
Paladin Combatives is a new company with some familiar faces. Owner Michael Swisher (cedartop) has been a long-time INGOer and is a former instructor for Suarez International. In class he described his departure from SI as amicable, but explained that he was eager to build a curriculum of his own in areas that he thought were important to personal defense. While Mike takes the lead on their live-fire offerings, he was content to assist Josh and play 'meat puppet' for this course.
Josh Haines (jdhaines) is also a long-time INGOer, often participating here in the Tactics & Training subforum. Like many of us, Josh is a lifelong student of defense and has researched and studied heavily in the areas of empty-hand combatives. While he was quick to point out that he's not a professional, or even a competitor, Josh brought a unique perspective to defensive problems that are often overlooked in "big box" training. He offered an unbiased, no-BS look at the most common problems in today's violent society, as well as some solutions that can be implemented by anyone at any time, regardless of their level of prior training or skill.
Managing Confrontations, according to the Paladin Combatives website, covers "the fundamental basics for interacting with another person during a fight". This also included those interactions leading up to the fight. Josh explained that the material presented wasn't all conceived by them, and that a great deal was based on the work of Craig Douglas (southnarc) in his Managing Unknown Contacts (MUC) course. Craig was kind enough to grant them permission to incorporate the concepts. If you're not already familiar with southnarc, I'd recommend looking him up ---> ShivWorks | Integrated Solutions for Personal Protection
Before I cover a few specifics on the course, I want to cover what this course WAS NOT. This was NOT a "fighting system" course. It wasn't presented as "magic" techniques that would make a person immediately invincible. It wasn't a course in BJJ, wrestling, or martial arts. It wasn't designed to turn students into fighters.
In my own words, this course was a "demo" course where several ideas and a few techniques were presented, and then participants were given an opportunity to try them out against live resistance. It was a "taste test" of sorts. For the principles and techniques to stick, motivated students must put in more time and work in the areas they want to improve. Whether this be practicing scenarios with a partner, or joining a BJJ gym, there is more work to be done if participants want to develop the fighting skills presented.
Of the specific techniques presented, it should be noted that they were obviously chosen for being the best all-around techniques for the common person. By "common person" I mean those of us with limited time, money, and motivation, and those who have not dedicated themselves to a particular fighting style or system. We focused more on principles than techniques, and when techniques were demonstrated and tried, they were those that were simple, repeatable, robust, and maintained consistency across disciplines. It was more about self-protection and less about self-perfection.
Class started right on schedule at 9am. We had a nice size group of 8 students. Ages ranged from 15 to 60+. We had 1 female student. Experience levels ranged from ZERO experience to those with several hundred hours of firearms and/or combatives training. I wondered if this would pose a problem for Mike and Josh, but the material and pace was flexible enough to allow for learning at all levels. Rather than a typical lunch break in the middle of the day, we all brought our lunches and some snacks that we ate over 3 shorter break times. This helped keep the energy levels up, and kept us from eating a big lunch just before the physical portions of the course.
We kicked things off with instructor introductions. We were then given a container in which to place all of our guns, knives, flashlights, watches, and anything else that might be dangerous or uncomfortable during the physical exercises (it was quite a pile!). We then went around the room and each student had the opportunity to introduce themselves and share a brief training resume. Josh handed out a course outline and we jumped right in to the course material.
We talked about criminal behavior and activity, discussing the principles of 'unequal initiative' and 'unequal armament'. We talked about the nature of criminal assault, ruses or games used to draw victims in, and what these behaviors often look like. Josh spoke about criminals using "carrots" or "sticks" to get what they want. This was a new take on "reason (carrot) and force (stick)" that I hadn't heard before. We discussed situational awareness at length, agreeing that complete avoidance was always the best tactic (though the reality of awareness is often much tougher than the internet would have us believe!).
We talked about politeness and Josh crushed the myth that we have to be polite to EVERYONE. Err on the side of caution, as we can always make amends later. Josh talked about victim selection and ways to make ourselves less likely to be chosen. We don't need to be the biggest dude in the yard, but a few simple things can make a bad guy look for easier targets.
Moving on to the meat of the material, we had a chance to role play some scenarios with partners. We covered 3 aspects of managing an unknown contact-- verbal, movement, and hands. Using the crawl/walk/run model we incorporated each aspect one at a time, slowly building until we could put them all together. Even after 7 or 8 times trying it, I still need to work on a more streamlined response. The goal is to be able to project a "pre-recorded" verbalization, arc of movement, and defensive posture-- all without having to use valuable thought processing power.
After looking at some common pre-assault cues, we talked about preemptive measures we could take that weren't overly risky. One of those was an eye gouge. But it wasn't presented as the typical "stick your finger in his eyes" method. Instead it was demonstrated as a quick, sharp, half-slap, half-claw to the face with loose fingers. Tough to describe, but easy to demo and perform. Mike donned a facemask and let each one of us try it against him. We also covered a few default defensive postures that could be used to deflect an incoming blow if we failed to be preemptive.
Next we moved on to more combative work. Josh briefly covered striking, but conceded that being a good striker takes a lot of training and work. We talked about fighting in "the clinch" and the "3 Ps" to consider. We were able to try several basic techniques against a partner, including a hand fighting drill. We looked at ground fighting and how important position is. We also talked about panic and how it can be detrimental to one's fighting will.
In regards to panic, it's something I think people need to experience BEFORE they're in a real fight (like a lot of things). Like stress, you can innoculate yourself to it. But there's nothing like feeling yourself unable to breathe as someone's craming your face into the ground. You can actually feel the panic rise up inside.
On the flip side, blacking out was a totally different experience for me. iChokePeople (aptly named, btw) is very experienced in BJJ. Because of his screen name, I asked for a posed picture with him choking me. He asked if I wanted the real deal. My answer was "surprise me". Well, he did. Within a matter of moments my goofy grin turned to mush. It happened so quickly I didn't quite realize it at the time. I remember feeling some pressure, then my vision darkening on the edges, then coming to and my legs instantly feeling like spaghetti. What struck me most was that I felt the exact opposite of panic. It felt very calming. I'm always interested in how my body reacts under various circumstances, and I was glad to have these 2 very different experiences.
We spent a short time talking about defense against weapons, and Josh gave a quick demonstration of the Red Zone knife defense system. This was a demo only, and Mike got the chance to go at Josh with a Nok training knife. Josh noted that, while effective, he found this system to be particularly perisible if not drilled regularly.
The last portion of class was unique and unlike anything I've experienced in other courses. Josh spent some time giving thoughtful recommendations on resources for various "life improvement" opportunities. He shared his thoughts on various fighting systems, some fitness resources, and even an alternate jogging method. Josh then opened up the floor to discuss the "good, bad, and ugly" of trainers and training companies that we had all trained with before. This was not an open "bashing session", but rather the comparing and contrasting of training that we had been involved in. It was great to hear about other training companies directly from former students. It was refreshing to have a training company recommend other trainers and not feel like they were compromising their own business.
We wrapped up class around 5:30pm and said our good-byes. I was a little tired and had a few bruises, but I felt great and was glad I spent the day training outside my comfort zone. I was able to identify some of my failure points and now know what I need to work on (consistent response to unknown contacts, strength, endurance, a set of useable clinch techniques).
I would recommend Mike and Josh of Paladin Combatives to those looking to add some diversity to their training resume. They are a new company and Josh is still gaining valuable teaching experience so they aren't as polished as some trainers, but I actually found their "every man" approach refreshing. The fact that they asked for student feedback at the close of class and then took notes on the suggestions tells me that they won't fall into the dogmatic staleness that some companies do. And that means that their next class will probably be even better than this one.
Many thanks to Turf Doctor and Denise for opening up their home to our group. Good hosting often goes unnoticed because things run so smoothly. Your efforts were certainly recognized and INGO is lucky to have willing folks like yourselves.
If anyone has any questions about Paladin Combatives or this Managing Confrontations course I'll do my best to answer them. I'm sure Mike (cedartop) and Josh (jdhaines) will pipe up as well.
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