Where once I was lost – the Flak Zone

The Flak Zone is the zone where you are in range of your opponent’s weaponry, where you can strike them and they can strike you. Martial arts is obsessed with this zone. 

Just about every technique ever developed for the stand up fight was focused on the flak zone. There are a lot of good technical solutions that work in this zone but there is equally a lot of stuff being pedaled that doesn't work.

Fighters rush through this zone, or move in and out of it, as they attempt to measure and deliver strikes to their opponent. Unless you are going to take the fight to the ground, your thinking is likely to be trapped into focusing on the flak zone as the most important element of the fight to solve.

What happens then when you face multiple opponents?  It’s a mistake to assume that you have time to measure and assess each attacker, as that is the time the group will take you to ground and acquaint you with their footwear. In a battle against a single attacker, the flak zone is seen as a problem that you have to spend your time solving. For multiple opponents this is not the case.

You may not like to hear it but the flak zone is really the least important part of a group encounter. Your safety is found in your ability to accelerate straight through the flak to the source of the attack, and then on to the next opponent. This can only occur if you are not distracted by the ‘flak’. There is no time to prove a point.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall

I read an article the other day where someone had rated the top 10 martial arts. It made me think about which art I would put at the bottom of such a list. A particular genre of the arts popped into my head and it left me somewhat perplexed, as 25 years ago I would have rated it higher. It sparked my thinking as to why.

Whether you like it or not, there has been something of a major shift in the arts that continues to gain momentum. MMA is changing the martial arts landscape. In my time as a student of the arts a few decades ago, those exponents who had learned several different arts never integrated them to any real degree, certainly nothing like they are doing now. Back then people who had a couple of black belts from different styles were looking for the kudos that went with it but now you get the impression exponents who are multi-disciplined are much more interested in fixing weaknesses in approach.

Who cares whether MMA is really a martial art in its own right. You occasionally see claims that ‘it is mainly a sport and doesn’t really translate to the street’ etc. but you can’t help feeling that this position is hard to justify and it’s more about the TMA’s trying to stake out their turf. The thing I like about MMA is that it is forcing a shift in exponents thinking to a greater focus on getting the job done.

This seems to be having an ever-increasing effect on the traditional martial arts (TMA) systems. We are seeing martial arts schools opening up that teach a combination of arts and students of the arts that look to improve stand up and ground games. What does this mean for the TMA systems over the next few decades? That is not an easy one to predict.

Take for example one of the major TMA’s such as Karate (no, it’s not the one in my list above) where there are tens of millions of people around the world involved in some form or another. You cannot see something like Karate disappearing any time soon. Whether it’s Karate or another TMA, people’s participation in the arts is not all about fighting; for a lot of people the passion for their art plays a big part.

That said, you can be forgiven for having the impression that the reputations of the TMA’s are being squeezed, some more so than others. The problem the TMA’s have in terms of reputation relate to the whether students of a particular style are easy meat for multi-disciplined exponents. If they are, then at some point those students are going to have a crisis of confidence in their system. For instance, those TMA’s that are traditionally ‘stand-up’ in approach have an obvious weakness if someone takes them to ground to fight the battle on those terms. You see some traditional arts trying to incorporate takedown avoidance techniques in their training, and you see terms like grappling and ground fighting in their literature where it never was previously, but you wonder if these ‘patches’ will ultimately be successful.

MMA seems to be providing a reality check to the martial arts systems that have lost the focus on getting the job done.  A basic strategy of ‘ground and pound’ has the potential to pull the rug out from under a lot of martial arts and they are still struggling to come to terms with it. You are now see video of fights where people with only a basic skill level of controlling the opponent on the ground, are pounding their opponent into submission.

You read forums where students of a style expound the virtue of their art’s rapid handwork or their short powerful strikes. Then you see a post where someone asks what they will do when someone ‘shoots’ for their legs, takes them to ground and starts going to work on them. The outcry this generates is somewhat amusing, as the person asking the question was obviously trolling, but their question is rarely answered to anyone’s satisfaction.

It’s an unfortunate part of the human condition that we don’t want to hear things that conflict with what we want to believe. We don’t want to hear that the art we are invested in has failings. Of course you can never underestimate the illusions that people will hold onto for dear life, but those niggling thoughts probably remain at the back of those student’s minds.

We might dream of being great fighters but in reality we don't need to be one. It’s just our egos and it's the same with the art we chose to follow; we need to believe it is the real thing and we don't want to hear any criticism it might not be. However, that is no excuse to ignore weaknesses in approach that are more of an inconvenient truth than anything else, and which we are happier not acknowledging. Ignorance may be bliss, but there is a pointy end to the equation when reality comes calling.

I think some arts suspect they are looking relatively weaker when it comes to usefulness in battle. It makes you wonder if, in the future, the pressure is just going to keep steadily climbing for them to make their art work as the alternative may be they will start losing students to the MMA school down the road. Will weaknesses in approach need to be addressed if there is to be any hope of salvaging a styles reputation in the future? The momentum at the moment seems to be towards a multi-disciplined approach and it will be interesting to see what the martial arts landscape looks like in a decade when the numbers of these exponents will be a lot larger as MMA continues to gain traction.

Am I proposing that everyone should just take up MMA? No I’m not, as while MMA will turn out lots of good martial artists, it is ultimately a branch of the arts that is a cul-de-sac. Exponents will combine different arts but they are generally locked into a similar approach and a similar philosophy. One thing that some of the TMA’s have is the possibility that the arts can transcend the technical approach, although not without a large divergence from the original art.

‘What does all this have to do with fighting multiple attackers’, you ask. Basically it all comes back to the ability to get the job done. Does your art have any good strategies for dealing with multiple opponents or are they just hoping the students will not ask too many questions. You probably don’t want to hear that grappling, wrestling, submissions, fast handwork, short powerful strikes, etc. has little relevance to a multiple opponent attack.

The faster you move your hands the slower you move your feet. Grappling, wrestling, submissions, and similar strategies will likely result in being taken to ground by the group. Your short powerful strikes won’t do you any good when someone dive-tackles you to the ground and the rest of the group piles in. I get the same feeling of warmth when I see a good group take out an individual who thinks their techniques will work under pressure, as when I see someone shoot for the legs of a traditional martial artist and start to work them over on the ground. The lesson to beware delusions of grandeur is not pleasant but it can be an instructive one to learn.

Pressure is the great leveller in the multiple attacker arena. When you are comfortable in the group attack training environment it is a real buzz to be one of the group. You can actually watch people go internal as the pressure reaches a point where they cannot handle it. It was a real eye opener for me the first time a black belt from another system tried a group encounter where I was part of the group. He was outwardly confident and he tried to strike the closest attacker. Tried and failed, we swarmed him and I remember that I could see him going internal where he stopped seeing us, and a few seconds later he was taken to ground. We destroyed his vision that day of how he thought he could defend himself against a group.

It probably was a bit harsh for that person as he would never expect to come up against a relatively high functioning group as he did that day. It probably explains why he folded so quickly when he met the level of pressure he did from the group. It does highlight to those who want to be better at defending themselves against multiple opponents to ensure the group they train with is giving them sufficient pressure. The last thing you would want to happen is to go internal in a real situation because it was too much for you.

As always with group work, train safely and under the supervision of a qualified instructor.

MMA for kids

I was watching Dateline on TV a few weeks ago and saw a program on Cage Fighting Kids. They called it youth Pankration, probably in an attempt to smooth over some parents fears and associated brutal images whenever MMA or cage fighting is mentioned.

What struck me was the skill of these young kids and that they could perform at a reasonable level. An equivalent kid doing a traditional martial art would not be up to their capability. If they really have 3 million kids under the age of 13 taking part in some form of MMA and 30,000 MMA schools across the US, then TMA's have a big problem coming their way in the next ten years.

New appreciation for Judo

Have a look at this video of Ronda Rousey and the commentary on her strategy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqBoyekp_ZY

The first thing that impressed me was how she brings her strengths into play. She goes straight through the Flak Zone and gets head control on her opponents. This enables her to use her Judo skills and her opponents invariably end up on the ground with her on top and from what I've seen of her other videos, she seems to really like arm bars. The octagon also works in her favor by creating a barrier to help her round-up her opponent, it certainly helps prevent an opponent circling out.

Her opponents have attempted to overcome her strategy by using straight punches to try and keep her outside of grappling range but punching has the effect of slowing their footwork which makes it easier for her to round them up and complete her strategy.

You can also see that she has plenty of 'will' and she intends to get her target and is not bothered if she takes a few strikes in the process. You can see that the opponents are worried by it. It reminds me a bit of John Smith who would get his single leg takedown no matter what.

For the record I don't pretend to know anything about Judo. My only experience with it was sharing a training hall with a Judo club a few decades ago. Occasionally a few of us would sit down with some of the Judo guys and talk about what we were trying to achieve with our respective arts and have the odd friendly encounter to experience some of what was being said.

Seeing this video makes me glad that none of them ever thought much of the dragon tail footwork we trained. It was designed to teach the skill of moving rapidly and safely through the flak zone (the zone where you and your opponent are in striking distance). If they had been proficient in something like that then the Judo guys would have had it all over us.

In a way the video shows what can happen when you begin to take on a battle mindset.

Going through an Attacker (Part 2) – Flight

Flight can teach you a lot about what is required when facing multiple opponents. It will give you insights into such things as: the level of acceleration required, the benefits of no-choice training, the need to keep the body together and compact, how to create a shield to hide behind, the level of commitment required, the need to centre your attack directly at the opponent, and what types of reactions you can get when you give your opponents a sufficient mass effect.

Dealing with a group of attackers is about getting rid of distractions, which requires a 100% commitment. Flight requires you to leap at the danger with full commitment. Since your feet are not touching the ground, your commitment is total until you land. In flight you have no time for anticipation, or hesitation, or to change the speed of your advancement. You have no choice but to deal with what is coming. Some students can find it a bit disconcerting at first but it can be lots of fun to learn.

The problem to avoid when learning flight is not centering on the attacker; it is all too easy to attack the side and if you do that then you won’t affect the opponent enough. To truly activate flight you need to be aiming directly at your opponent with full acceleration. You need to produce enough anxiety in their mind about the anticipated impact that they move out of the way. Of course if they are big and skilled at absorbing energy, then you might have a problem.

In practical terms you cannot do this half-heartedly. You have to affect the opponent’s ability to measure your actions. The more speed you gain for your progression, the less time your opponent has to measure and prepare to resist you. You want them to have only a split second to decide that they cannot handle your mass effect so you are in effect forcing an instinctual response from them.

Every attacker in the group will have a different threshold to absorbing energy from your approach. For your survival in a group attack you will need a consistency of acceleration and forward energy that will exceed the toughest attacker. All you can do is give your all, accelerate your system to its maximum and ensure your energy is directed effectively to the attacker.

As always with group work, train safely and under the supervision of a qualified instructor

Going through an Attacker (Part 1) - Reduction

If you think you are going to be able to defeat all of the attackers in front of you, then you have just found the necessary ingredient to experience a world of hurt. What you should be trying to do is ensure that you don’t get overwhelmed by the group. A lot of people get lost in the futility of trying to defeat some or all of the group members and don’t give enough consideration to the possibilities that spring forth from the ability to accelerate through the group.

The ability to accelerate through multiple opponents will enable the individual to get to the exit in the shortest amount of time. When it’s done well it can shred the group’s intentions, even high functioning groups. Most people never experience what they can do when fully energised because they never move fast enough, their body cannot hold together under  resistance encountered while they are accelerating, or they want to slow down and battle it out with one of the attackers. You spend only one moment on an attacker because that is how fast you are moving, but you need a particular skill-set to stop you getting stalled on the resistance from the group.

One of the rules of fighting multiple attackers is you don’t try to go around attackers or in between two attackers as this allows the rest of the group to measure your actions more effectively. By accelerating through an opponent you become ‘invisible’ for that moment to the rest of the group. To their eyes you merge for a moment with one of their fellow attacker’s and this makes it more difficult for them to either measure your speed, track you, or anticipate your progression, especially with the limited time spent per opponent. If you try to run around people or get stuck on one attacker, you will be a clear target and your chosen direction readily identified by the rest of the attackers. By moving through attackers you also leave them in your wake as human debris that helps prevent other attackers getting you from behind.

If you attempt to strike an opponent, you do so at the expense of your acceleration. If you lose acceleration then your chances of being taken down by the group will increase. Do you think you are going to move through the attackers, taking them out one by one with strikes or something similar? To be honest I have heard it all before and the only response I have is to tell people to test it in a higher functioning group and prepare for some pain and disappointment.

In order to maintain acceleration you have to be good at moving through an opponent. One of the strategies you can develop to achieve this, is called reduction. Reduction is not meant to defeat the opponent; it is more a way to reduce the attacker’s resistance by delaying their defensive reaction and to also affect their intentions. This is a small target approach that reduces the options for the attacker to resist and find solutions. Your approaching height will be below the opponent’s chest, bending the attacker’s vision downward.

Reduction is a combination of skills and not a technique so you cannot just copy a shape. The trap for anyone trying to describe it in detail is that it’s not technical and since it takes place under accelerated movement, the exponent is in real time and ‘darkness’ so you don’t really know exactly what you did. The effect on the opponent and freedom from resistance are the key elements to focus on.

Reduction needs to be executed with the intention to accelerate fully. Any hesitation will put you in direct confrontation with resistance. To stop and fight resistance splits your attention and your survival relies on how fast you can affect not only one opponent, but all opponents in a progressive way.

The size of the effect depends on how small the target appears to the opponent and how fast you approached. The opponent is driven to a reaction unwillingly in preparation of a large impact i.e. they stiffen or “panel” their body for the anticipated impact. The opponent’s defences are now at their lowest when their body is fully panelled where the muscle systems lock up.

The panel is really the last bastion of resistance put up by the opponent. As seen in the diagram below, the opponent could be seen as a triangular panel standing on end. It is wide on the top and narrows to a point near the ground, the zone of lowest resistance.

The grey regions are representations of low resistance areas or holes in an opponent’s panel. The frontal view indicates that the lower half of the panel is an area of low resistance or a gap that allows you to move through the person in an accelerated state. The diagram also breaks the vertical plan into three levels of attack ranging from high resistance (top) to low resistance (bottom). The top of the triangle is the area of highest reactivity which produces the greatest chances of resistance.

Logically there is another zone of low resistance directly behind the opponent, so it stands to reason that you don’t want to get stuck in front of them. You need to get past the opponent in a moment of time to get to the low resistance areas. Reduction is not a half hearted process; you have to create a large effect on your opponent so that you can remain free to move forward.
 
As always with group work, train safely and under the supervision of a qualified instructor