I don't think I have ever seen a video that does a better job of showing how your body's natural compass can be a liability in a real altercation. Nor have I seen one that does such a good job of showing exactly the opposite of how we train.
Humans being verbal and social creatures most often engage each other face to face at conversations distance. The reasons are obvious. When you are close to and facing someone, you don't need to yell at each other. They can also see your facial expressions and possibly read your lips if they cannot hear you. Try having a conversation with someone facing away from you and see how frustrating it is and watch how fast the person with their back to you turns around.
Now consider the fact that the vast majority of altercations that escalate to physical violence begin as a verbal altercation.
The next problem, as you can see in the video, is that when roughhousing or practicing some of the striking arts they tend to stay within hands touch distance allowing them to stay in contact with each other or trade punches and kicks. The longer this goes on in a fight the longer it will be maintained.
If you couple your natural compass with millions of interpersonal contacts that do not result in any physical contact and add "training" like this or hours and hours of traditional striking arts, you can see where there is an excellent chance you will do exactly the same thing when being confronted.
The larger problem with this is that at contact distance when someone pushes the attack, unless you are trained to do otherwise, you will back up and not move forward. The closer you are to people, the more likely you are to move towards the attack. This is why we train police officers to deal with suspects who are both compliant and have their hands in view. Standing at the traditional interview distance of 3-5 fee is absolutely the worst position you can be in. It is a no mans land where you are too far away to move in during an attack, so instead you will back up giving the attacker full extension for an open hand strike or impact/edged weapon attack.
Typically we teach bouncers and police to be at a distance to a contact where they can put their palm flat against their chest. This means that your response will be behind the wrist and inside the weapon or you can foul their attempt to draw a weapon. If they take a step back, you take a step forward like your leg is tied to theirs. This really shuts people down.
Your reaction to any furtive movement towards you, such as a finger in the chest, is to close the distance and move to the outside of the offending hand and control the arm. If they are putting a finger in your chest, they are punching you in the face in their mind and will be doing this next if you don't respond with action instead of words. This is FUNDAMENTAL. If done correctly, all your natural weapons are pointed at them and all theirs are pointed away from you. They are 100% playing defense at this point because they are not used to having someone flank them. It puts you in a position to issue verbal commands or attack the Central Nervous System with with elbows to the head and the Structural System with strikes to the elbow and knees. There is no trading shots or back and forth. If the open hand skills you are practicing allow you to practice them several days a week for hours at at time, they are likely to fail in the real world.
This one thing has kept many altercations from becoming violent for me and the bouncers I train. With more training it also transitions fast into a rear choke or simply smash them into a wall.
The bottom line is that being close enough to move to the outside at the onset of violence gives you the luxury of time and options that do not exist when you are face to face.
Humans being verbal and social creatures most often engage each other face to face at conversations distance. The reasons are obvious. When you are close to and facing someone, you don't need to yell at each other. They can also see your facial expressions and possibly read your lips if they cannot hear you. Try having a conversation with someone facing away from you and see how frustrating it is and watch how fast the person with their back to you turns around.
Now consider the fact that the vast majority of altercations that escalate to physical violence begin as a verbal altercation.
The next problem, as you can see in the video, is that when roughhousing or practicing some of the striking arts they tend to stay within hands touch distance allowing them to stay in contact with each other or trade punches and kicks. The longer this goes on in a fight the longer it will be maintained.
If you couple your natural compass with millions of interpersonal contacts that do not result in any physical contact and add "training" like this or hours and hours of traditional striking arts, you can see where there is an excellent chance you will do exactly the same thing when being confronted.
The larger problem with this is that at contact distance when someone pushes the attack, unless you are trained to do otherwise, you will back up and not move forward. The closer you are to people, the more likely you are to move towards the attack. This is why we train police officers to deal with suspects who are both compliant and have their hands in view. Standing at the traditional interview distance of 3-5 fee is absolutely the worst position you can be in. It is a no mans land where you are too far away to move in during an attack, so instead you will back up giving the attacker full extension for an open hand strike or impact/edged weapon attack.
Typically we teach bouncers and police to be at a distance to a contact where they can put their palm flat against their chest. This means that your response will be behind the wrist and inside the weapon or you can foul their attempt to draw a weapon. If they take a step back, you take a step forward like your leg is tied to theirs. This really shuts people down.
Your reaction to any furtive movement towards you, such as a finger in the chest, is to close the distance and move to the outside of the offending hand and control the arm. If they are putting a finger in your chest, they are punching you in the face in their mind and will be doing this next if you don't respond with action instead of words. This is FUNDAMENTAL. If done correctly, all your natural weapons are pointed at them and all theirs are pointed away from you. They are 100% playing defense at this point because they are not used to having someone flank them. It puts you in a position to issue verbal commands or attack the Central Nervous System with with elbows to the head and the Structural System with strikes to the elbow and knees. There is no trading shots or back and forth. If the open hand skills you are practicing allow you to practice them several days a week for hours at at time, they are likely to fail in the real world.
This one thing has kept many altercations from becoming violent for me and the bouncers I train. With more training it also transitions fast into a rear choke or simply smash them into a wall.
The bottom line is that being close enough to move to the outside at the onset of violence gives you the luxury of time and options that do not exist when you are face to face.
