Incorporating unarmed combat into your regimen....

[Shane Smith]

At ARMA VAB,we do alot of grappling and the like in the Fiore tradition,especially during our harness fechten bouting.We have found that training in this manner makes it much more natural for us to flow from one range to another with maximum efficiency and confidence during all of our freeplay,armed or not.We also go freestyle while unarmed and work till one of us attains a killing position or locks the other so deeply in a "key" as Fiore deems them that there is no escape...(Why does Fiore call it a "key" when there is obviously no hope of escaping anyways?Seems like the modern term "lock" is more fitting somehow <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />) How do you guys incorporate unarmed methods into your sessions and how has it affected your armed training?

[Jay Vail]

We train primarily in the dagger which by its essence is irreducibly linked to kampfringen.

One thing I have noticed with people unused to wrestling is that when you close to grips them they do not respond appropriately. I will say that JC is not one to give up. He whacked me good on the ear with a sword once when I locked up.

[Guest]

John Mills of ARMA CNY has a good "warm up" drill for grappling. I can send you a video if you like.

[Shane Smith]

Hello Sully,that sounds interesting.I'd love to see it. <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

[Brian Hunt]

I have starting to use Fiores unarmed teachings, plus his dagger. I also wish to include other masters in this. As there are only three of us in my area, myself and my friend Scott and his wife I find it difficult to do much unarmed do to my size vs. Scott's. He is game and gallant, but I am 6 and a half feet tall to his about 5 and a half feet tall. Can get awkward at times, particularly on throws. Still lots of fun though. Hope to find more people to join us hopefully someone more my size and someone more Scott's. Will make the learning a little easier for all, then anything is fair game. <img src="/forum/images/icons/laugh.gif" alt="" />

[Stuart McDermid]

Hi Shane,

I don't know for sure, however my theory about Fiore calling his locks "chiave" or keys is that the nature of the locks is that they turn......rather like a key in lock.

At Stoccata, we do both Talhoffer's Dagger and Bare Knuckle boxing (alternating terms of instruction) in our advanced class. This has affected our armed training in that folks launch "choppers" and short hooks and also wrestle to the "point of no return" after someone closes.

We train dagger/boxing first up of an evening because they don't require any armour. After this training we armour up for sword and then rapier.
Cheers,
Stu.

[TimSheetz]

Just recently I did some rather intensive grappling training with the Military "SWAT" team nearby.

After being forced to tap out to everyone at least twice I feel that I learned a great deal and had nothing worse than the deep down soreness of someone not conditioned for massive amounts of grappling.

All this to say that some of the techniques we worked were called key locks. The kind where you have your opponent's lower arm behind their back and you are isolating the elbow joint and rotating the arm from the shoulder... like it is a key in a lock...

The second week of doing this training I did fair a little better. Great training.

[Guest]

Post deleted by John_Clements

[TimSheetz]

Well the SRT guys were all strong.

I was bigger than most of them (at about 206 pounds) and I think that I may be stronger in some ways. But the key to REAL STRENGTH is knowing how to use it.

Week one, I ws tapping out to save my life. Even the guys much smaller than me, whom I outweighed significantly would get me into a submisison hold. I left training so drained and tired I was walking lieka 95 year old and had to take a nap.

Week two, I was ready and had been working some of the Fiore and codex Wallerstein moves I knew in the standing position from the kneeling and close fighting positions. I did spring a couple surprises and forced a couple guys to tap out.. BUT the biggest lesson was wrestling the NEW GUY... a 235 pounder that was mostly muscle. I ended up choking him out 3-4 times though he tried using all his strength

So, that's the difference between hitting with all your strenght and "Fencing with all your strength".

[Casper Bradak]

"Although a weak fighter in a serious combat can be equal to a strong opponent, if he has previously learned agility, reach, fighting tricks, and killing tricks, in a friendly combat strength has always the advantage; in spite of this, the art of fighting is praised by knights and squires above all other things."
I always mention this in training. If you're a smaller guy wrestling a bigger guy, and you can't hurt him because you're just training, it can be VERY difficult to defeat him.

[Guest]

There's no doubt that a smaller man can overcome a larger one in wrestling. JC for example, is not a big guy, but he's quick, experienced, and uses good technique. I weigh about 220 and am fairly strong, yet he can easliy get the best of me in close and seems to expend very little effort doing it. Surely, if we were fighting for real, incorporating strikes, eye gouging, joint locks, etc., he would be quite dangerous.

[Casper Bradak]

No doubt. But I, at least, am not that skilled:)

[Jeffrey Hull]

It all makes me think of some very basic Glima (?) which I saw elder Waller demonstrating to the participants of the "Warrior Quest" Vikings episode. Right away, his first lesson he wittingly chose the biggest guy to make his point: that he could tumble someone far bigger than himself with proper wrestling movements, despite a strength disadvantage. It was cool. JH

[Mike Cartier]

We like to warm up some days with clinch training, just jostling and pommeling for position for a throw or takedown.
It is our goal to fully extend our unarmed training into an all range fighting style loosely based upon Pankration with a reliance on strong blows with hand, fist, elbow, knee and head coupled with high percentage throws and takedowns.
Any kind of grappling is of course going to lead to ground fighting so we have to fill in the gaps for the groundfighting with general modern concepts, much as the army is doing here with BJJ concepts for the ground.
http://www.adtdl.army.mil/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/3-25.150/toc.htm

I was thinking about some drills that might be usefull for developing the sensitivites of getting the the inside ranges when using a weapon. You invariably go thru several stages with a disarm and when you enter to grapple. So maybe starting the action from a bind or from and an attempted disarm, this is usually a nice way to isolate some of the attributes for the offensive and defensive sides of a technique.

When we spar we go to grapple range if both combatants consent. A weapon kill shot from grapple or trapping range is the ideal end result here, but if you have to the fight can continue to a submission.

I look to the DogBrothers alot for insipiration here, they do a wonderful job of blending the ranges with weapons.

[Jay Vail]

I am thin, light, and weak. When I was a kid, I was built like a stop sign, big head, spindly body, and I’m not much different now. Tim S probably has 40 pounds on me.

Since I appeared to be physically weak (and I was), I was often the target for bullies, who, not surprisingly, were bigger and stronger. When we went to the ground, they tied me in knots until I learned not to wrestle. That’s right. NOT to wrestle. Wrestling on the ground is for suckers and people who want to lose, and for play. It is not for combat.

Here is what I learned. I have used this lesson for real, and it worked every time.

Once when I was about 14, I used a hip throw to toss a guy who swung at me. We ended up on the ground, me in a head lock getting choked out. Before I passed out, I remembered a trick my judo instructor had taught for essentially the same attack, only we were standing in the dojo: reach around the guy’s shoulder and press your finger into the hollow of his throat just above the sternum. So, I did this, and he let go, whereupon I was able to assume the top mount and exact my revenge.

The next time a bully attacked me and we went to the ground, I stuck my finger in his eye. That was the end of that.

Over my HS years, I had a number of other encounters that went to the ground, and every time, I went for the eyes or the throat or the fingers (interesting, the Codex Wallerstein advises bending the fingers if you can’t get some other hold), and the fight was over.

Here is another example from WW2 of the same thing:

“‘Before Company K moved out, I went down the road to the next company to see what had happened during the night. I learned that those blood-chilling screams had come from the Japanese. He had jumped into a foxhole where he met an alert Marine. In the ensuing struggle, he [the Marine] had lost his knife. The desperate Marine had jammed his forefinger into his enemy’s eye socket and killed him.’” From Hochheim, Military Knife Combat, p. 64, quoting E.B. Sledge’s With the Old Breed.