A Philosophy of the Fist The Making of “Cross Training in the Martial Arts 2: The Anatomy of Hand Strikes” - Part 4
A Philosophy of the Fist The Making of “Cross Training in the Martial Arts 2: The Anatomy of Hand Strikes”
If Matty acts as the devil’s advocate in the world of reality martial arts then Mick Coup is the base strategist, returning everything back to the fundamentals of efficient fight management. Readers of Martial Arts Illustrated may have read my four-part series on my training experiences with Mr. Coup and by now will be accustomed by his insistence on keeping everything ruthlessly efficient. I was first put into contact with Mick before he began running his C2: Core Combatives classes, seminars and workshops at the end of 2005. Mick’s rise to success has been fast and relentless. His CV is an impressive list of military and civilian experience dealing with genuine life and death violence. His whole C2 syllabus is centred upon programming high percentage methods of attack, de-evolving all methods into a robust few that fulfil his practical criteria. Everything Mick does is clearly driven by a military attitude towards getting the results he wants. During the comparatively small amount of time I trained with him, I learnt a lot of hard personal lessons. The Core Combatives were a welcome guideline to the way I teach my own cross training system of Clubb Chimera Martial Arts, but more than anything I learnt about being stricter with my own agenda in all aspects of life.
Russell Stutely is the founder of the Open Circle Fighting Method and Body Alarm Reaction. Russell is both known for his pragmatic approach to pressure points as well as his use of “players”, which are designed to enhance the effectiveness of martial arts techniques. Russell is already an established and highly successful seminar instructor. He regularly runs a variety of workshops for the “Mind Body and Kickass Moves” alliance of martial arts clubs, such as Steve Rowe’s Shi Kon and Tony Pillage’s “The Way of the Spiritual Warrior”. I first met Russell on a weekend training seminar that was organized by Tony Pillage. Russell and his team have wide interest in the martial arts and a constant interest in researching ways to improve techniques in the all the martial arts. I enjoyed my experience training with Russell so much that I was back to attend a workshop he held at Tony Pillage’s club that very same week. His knowledge of “balance points” was of particular interest to me and found that they applied very well to my current study of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Submission Grappling. I currently hold an assistant coach certificate in Russell’s OCFM system.
The second DVD begins a series that concentrates on specific areas of the Anatomy of Combat. This one is titled “The Anatomy of Hand Strikes”. I chose hand-strikes as they are naturally the most accessible tools we have at our disposal and therefore the best place to start for our combat synopsis.
Before we got to the actual use of hand strikes, however, I unapologetically wanted to make a point about getting across what happens before they can come into play. Awareness, described as “Zanshin” in Karate, is a paramount skill with regards to the realities of combat. Behaviour, attitude and the process of defeating “victim selection” can stop a conflict from ever happening and therefore I believe it should be given more coverage. So, I addressed this matter with a fair number of the instructors and had Mo Teague take up the majority of his spot on the day of the seminar explaining the importance of being streetwise.
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