Pressure Testing & Internal Martial Arts

It is clear that the general consensus among the martial artists of the world is that martial arts like tai chi are mainly for health and have lost any connection with real combat. Although this may be the case in many, many instances the Internal arts were and are actually based in the idea of ‘testing’. But this does not only mean getting in a ring and duking it out! There is a huge amount of testing in the Internal Martial Arts that may surprise most people with its vigour and rigours attention to detail.

Pressure testing the Body

One of the earliest forms of testing that the Internal Martial artist undertakes is the pressure testing of their body. This means both its ability to maintain internal principles under load (positional and external) and under combative pressure.

There are a vast array of ‘testing’ methods for the body in Internal Martial Arts, From pushing hands in Taiji to simply holding postures for long periods of time to work out alignment and muscle usage. But the basics of testing are these:

• Find where tension builds either under load or from static holds so that you can re-align or relax the area and release the tension.
•  Find out how breath and internal pressures are affected under load
• Find gaps or ‘sticking points’ during dynamic movement
• Find movement instability of problems from load or pressure.

These points, once worked out can prove invaluable for the next type of testing that we do in the IMAs.

Pressure Testing the Principles & Skill sets

After we have refined the body and tested it against force we are able to begin pressure testing the principles we train in order to become combatively viable.

This process is a gradual increase of test, adjust and retest but can often start with ‘being thrown in at the deep end’ to give an honest impression of how the mind is acting when conscious control is lost.

As we layer up the Testing of our combative skill set we can begin to test refine and retest the following:

• Movement fluidity
• Listening skills
• Reaction and action capabilities
• Our ability to deal with large volumes of force
• Power generation and Power redirection.
• Ability to change

Both of these testing Phases are then fed into the next phase of IMA pressure testing

Pressure testing the mental Capacity

This is one of the most interesting phases of pressure testing in that it aims to bring out the nature competency (or incompetency) of the individual through focuses but randomised training methods.

From Free sparring to Wrestling to Free Push hands there are many training methods that help to really put the randomised element into the testing of the two above phases.

During this phase there are many layers and ways of maintaining a randomised movement dynamic while still staying within the boundaries of a specific drill. For instance, in a free push hands session you can move with the aim of touching the chest and not, as is common, to push the other guy. This changes the force dynamic and can result in real time movement that will help you or your coach to find deficiencies.

It is also in this phase that people can go off out to other arts and test their skill set and body against other arts and styles.

Return to the First Phase

Once you have been through these phases you can then return back to the first phase, refining your body skill specifically in line with the deficiencies that were highlighted in the preceding phases.

As you can see, there is a good structure to testing ones capability in the IMAs. 

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Defining IMA 2! - Efficiency in Combat

As i mentioned in the previous article, my definition of the internal martial arts is as follows:

Internal Martial Arts are practices to find efficiency.

We have talked about some of the training methodologies and why we train slow as well as fast, but now lets look at how IMA’s look to find efficiency in combat.

Firstly is it fair to say there is a single natural way that humans fight. To a degree, yes! But this is simply a guide not a rule. We are all build the same, two arms, two legs, muscles, tendons, ligaments, bones. So there will always be a measure of commonality in how we utilize what we have to combat an aggressor. However, looking at what is most effective in for instance combat sports we see that there is a real and quantitive difference between Brazillian JuJitsu and for instance Muay Thai. Very effective arts but very different outlooks, methods and training methodologies, neither being the 'natural way to fight' but both still highly effective.

IMA = MMA

When i say this it could be thought that I am jumping on the modern combative bang wagon, but nothing could be further from the truth! Mixed martial arts are thought of as a fairly new concept in the west. We think that this idea of cross training or looking at other arts is a modern phenomina brought about by the advent of the UFC. Nothing could be further from the truth. Long before the UFC, long before Bruce lee even ...  the ‘internal martial artists’ of china were cross training and exploring other arts with great enthusiasm.

A few examples:

The primary example of this ‘search and explore’ mentality would be Wan Lai sheng of the Ziranmen (Natural Boxing). His primary teacher was Du Xing Wu but he then went on to learn from a myriad of different teachers and meet many many other martial artists and specialists in various systems.  His books read much like Bruce lee’s Tao of Jeet Kune Do in their approach.

Then we have masters like Li Cun Yi, Sun Lu Tang, Zhang Zao Dong, Chen Pan Ling etc ... all very famous masters of various styles who cross trained extensively and met and learnt from many other fighters of their era .. that included Western Boxers and Wrestlers!! So this is the Tradition of the Internal Martial Arts.

It is very unfortunate that in many modern martial arts schools this spirit of freedom has been lost, with practitioners not looking beyond their primary style or practice and fervently defending their ‘lineage’ as the one true way. This is often at odds with the people who started the schools they train in!!

If our goal is to strive for ultimate efficiency then we must be free to go and explore, test, experience and train in any method, art, system or practice we choose ... with one Caveat!

You must have roots to your tree first. This is a vital point. To be able to determine what something is, how it works and how it may be useful you must reach a point where your own body map and motion sensitivity are of a good/ high level.

Sometimes you see people who struggle with the simplest of movements while others pick them up straight away. This is largely down to body awareness, sensory awareness and internal awareness. Once you have this root body skill you can make useful observations that you can feed into your own practice. Without it you are in a dark room fumbling for the light switch.

Once you have it though you can explore various other systems somewhat and feed useful information back into your own search for efficiency.

Although I would say my roots are Xing Yi Quan and Aiki, because i have developed a relatively good body map, in recent years i have trained with experts in Russian Martial Arts, I Liq Chuan, Tai Chi Chuan, Ba Gua, MMA and Brazilian JuJutsu and have picked up useful insights and information from all of them. Which leads on to the next point in the search for combat efficiency.

The search and explore mindset

One aspect of IMA’s as i know them that may go against most peoples idea of ‘traditional Martial Arts’ is what i call the ‘search and explore mindset’.  This is a vital part of the training in IMAs in my opinion and is central to developing combat functionality.

Traditionally the idea is to develop some skill in your chosen root method, then go off into the world to experience, test and explore all the Martial arts, artists and methods you could.

NOTE : There is simply no teaching method, no art, no system, not training methodology that can give you the skill and understanding gained from ‘experience’.

This search and explore mindset can lead you to street fighting, ‘door work’, fighting for others or yourself in a real and dangerous environment, to competitions and combat sports and many other testing grounds ... but it can equally lead you to interesting and well thought of figures in the Martial Arts from a variety of styles that have something connected to what you already know.

You may go to one person who is a throwing expert to feed experience and understanding back into the throwing of your personal method, or to a high level tactician for understanding fight craft, or to a Knife expert to get an appreciation of knife work and defence.

This ‘search and explore’ mindset doest take away from your status as an ‘internal martial artist’ for the overall goal remains throughout. You go through periods of training your stuff based on what you know, then go out and test and experience, then come back and train your stuff again. Its a very interesting traditional way of training.

Some may say, ‘you say you do xing yi but thats from judo’. That is only true from a certain point of view. I would say back to them ... "i do my own method, sure my root method was from Xing Yi but my method is my own.

Remember no martial art exists outside of the individual. The concept of a system is a human concept. Really we are all doing our own art!

Efficiency in combat – the fundamentals

Whole body power = The biggest bang for the least fatigue

This is something that is often discussed in Many martial arts but what do we mean when we talk about this from the IMA perspective.  Well it boils down to this difference ... in this instance when punching.

• Muscles firing sequentially, 1 then the next then the next,  from floor to hand(cracks in the system between muscle utilization)
• The body (muscle, connective tissue, bone, internal pressure) being utilized simultaneously without any gap or cracks.

With the right unification of the body through strengthening connective tissue, Aligning the joints, and releasing areas of built up tension we can begin to work with this idea of whole body power as it is meant in IMA. It can be used to drive whipping forces, waves, ramming forces  ... a true diversity of methods.

What will happen when this connection and whole body power begins to work? Ironically people will start to notice that you are very strong without trying and while appearing very relaxed.

This unified power is extremely useful as a general principle for all martial movement which is why it underpins everything we do in IMA (the search for efficiency). We are looking for the biggest bang for the least fatigue .

Change > dealing with the unpredictable.

“No plan survives contact with the enemy”

British military saying.

If there is one thing we can say for certain about real combat is that it is a largely unpredictable endeavour. It is impossible to plan or predict what an opponent will do or when they will do it!

So why do we see so many ‘applications’ where A stick out their arm and B performs 3 techniques to their 1? In ancient times this may have been applicable to sword work, but today we need a more innovative approach. It was this innovative approach that got the IMAists a name in old China.

The IMA’s approach this subject with a clear idea of using principles and the combat ready body rather than techniques to create combat functionality.

For instance Xing Yi’s 5 element fists, although they can be used as techniques for splitting, for drilling etc are also very useful as technical principles for dealing with the unpredictability of a combative encounter. They train the major directions that force can go out or come in and flow seamlessly. Similarly Ba gua 8 mother palms or Taiji’s 8 energies deal with principles of expression or receipt. Without the reliance on set responses you are freed to work as is appropriate to the moment rather than what you think the future moment may hold.

The idea central to IMA’s is this idea of Change in the moment. This can be brought out by structured free sparring drills and high speed training. You learn that the foundation in force vectors will stand you in good stead for dealing with the changes that naturally happen in combat and the more you train at real speeds the more your body will fall back on the lines that have been trained.

"you do not rise up to the occasion, you fall back to the lowest level of your training"

Balance

As mentioned in a previous post, One of the main aims of IMA’s is to keep the opponent in an unbalanced state by taking their centre. I define taking their centre thus:

‘Removing the opponents physical stability, their ability to control their support, balance, structure and mind to the point where they must recover before being able to act.’

I have covered some of the methods to do this in previous posts but here is an outline of why we would want to do this.

• It breaks the structure of the opponent in such a way that he cannot strike or throw you effectively.
• It creates opportunity to strike an unprepared structure. They cant brace to receive the hit.
• It allows you to throw/take down the opponent with relative ease.
• It disrupts the timing and rythm of the opponent.
• It can nullify Fighting intent (but doesn’t always).
• It causes a feeling of insecurity and loss of control.
• It triggers defensive reaction instead of offensive.
• It buys you time in an encounter to bring the situation under your control.

Remembering the defining principle of ‘efficiency’ we can say that all of these things help us to dispatch an aggressor more efficiently than if they were fully balanced and capable of applying force as they wished.

Mind

The will and willingness to fight when it is needed is a very big stumbling block for alot of people. To take that step to really inflict injury on someone else. This is however the trade of the martial artists.

There are essential a few different ways to approach the mental requirement for a combat ready state:

1. Hunting animal mindset - focused, straight to the point and lacking emotional attachment to the situation, getting the job done. (professional Mindset)

2 The fighting animal Mindset - Extreme channelled violent focus.

3. Awareness mindset - No attachment to the an idea of outcome. Working from a position of awareness in the moment.

Most of the fighters of the world you can place into one of these 3 categories or for some fighters you can place them in all three! But from the IMA Point of view we are looking mainly at fighters in the 1^st and 3^rd category. These mindsets fit better with the overall idea of efficiency and lack of tension.

It is important to mention when talking about mindset that this is something that we have to live with in every aspect of our life. It has to be utilitarian in nature, something that can be worked into the process of daily living, something that is natural. It has to help our efficiency in every day life.

With this in mind, for most people, the best mindset to have is the Awareness mindset. His allows us to live in the moment dealing with situations as and when they arise. Not waiting for that spark when the fight breaks out like it could happen any minute. For some people that is the way to be fight ready and it works very well for them.

If we live with awareness mindset then we can combine that with ‘Hunting’ mindset should a problem arise. Then we have the practice of ‘active awareness’ where we are working to finish the job while not planning past the moment.

Awareness boils down to lack of disturbance or distraction. So meditation is a key aspect of training to quiet the mind and remove the disturbance of future or past related thoughts.  For many IMAists Meditation is the key way to bring about mental efficiency.

Next Up – Efficiency every day.

Defining Internal Martial Arts = The search for efficiency.

A question often asked of someone who says they do ‘internal martial arts’ is ‘what are internal martial arts’.

This is a classic and ongoing debate on message boards and between martial artists of varying backgrounds and styles. Here are some of the main definitions that we come across:

• Internal martial arts are those arts founded inside china (Taoist) rather than derived from India via shaolin (Buddhist)
• Internal Martial arts focus on the development and use of ‘Chi’.>
• Internal Martial Arts are soft, external Martial Arts are hard.
• Internal Martial Arts are specifically, Tai Chi, Xing Yi & Ba gua as defined by Early artists from these styles.
• Internal Martial Arts use connective tissue rather than muscle.

Personally however i do not think that any of these classic and much discussed definitions really define what i have found Internal Martial Arts to be. My definition would be this:

Internal Martial Arts are practices to find efficiency.

For me IMAs go beyond tradition, they are not a system, not a set of preconceived notions that can be put in a box and labelled as this art or that. They are the individuals search for efficiency. So why still call them internal? Well the reason is simple, the struggle to find efficiency is largely introspective. You are constantly looking inside yourself to find the optimum. It becomes more the ‘you’ inside than the label others put on what you do.

This is the best definition of IMAs that i can come up with because the best Martial Artists that i have met live in this manner. Every one of them were researchers of efficiency, none of them were rigid in their notion of what something ‘should be’, none of them were married to their tradition to the expense of their freedom to explore any and all other combat or health practices they wished. But it always came back to THEIR journey ... not the ones who came before.

So, with this in mind lets look at a couple of things that I look to achieve in my IMA practice.

Efficiency of body

The way you move in combat or in any physical action is central to the ideas of the IMA’s. The aim here is to be as efficient as possible for the given task with no excess tension, no forces that oppose the goal and no wasted effort.

To do this we must be able to recognise ‘inefficiency’ in what we do. This is largely a very difficult task indeed!!

Is it enough to get someone fighting full speed and let the efficiency come out on its own? For some people yes i think it is, if they have a very good body map. But for most people,  feeling where they are inefficient in a certain movement requires that we slow the movement down from full speed training to ‘zoom in’ on it.

I have recently read some very interesting articles, books and blogs on the process of learning (see the bottom of the post for recommended reading!) In brief we can say that in order to maximise our ability to recognise inefficiency we need to slow a movement or practice right down and really get inside it. That process amounts to these two things...

1) The Weber Fechner Law
Definition:
describes the relationship between the physical magnitudes of stimuli and the perceived intensity of the stimuli. Fechner's law states that subjective sensation is proportional to the logarithm of the stimulus intensity.
In plain English what does this mean for our practice? This Law states that if we move with a high rate speed and muscular effort we decrease dramatically our ability to perceive our efficiency in that movement. The slower we go the more able we are to perceive the efficiency of the movement.

2) ‘Deep Practice’
What does this mean? Basically it means ...’How we learn’ and relates to the process of Myelination in the brain. This process is key to how we learn new things and retain or become better at other things. Myelin can be thought of as the insulation around a wire, The more insulation the less signal is lost. Our ability to increase the Myelin around a certain neural pathway is directly related to ‘how’ we learn.  For the martial artist this is achieved through what is called ‘deep practice’.

" Deep practice, "struggling in certain targeted ways -- operating at the edges of your ability, where you make mistakes -- makes you smarter. Or to put it a slightly different way, experiences where you're forced to slow down, make errors, and correct them...end up making you swift and graceful without you realising it."

If we apply these two ideas correctly then we can begin to maximise our body’s learning efficiency.

The internal traditions already had these two ideas down, the very slow or static training is specifically designed to both zoom in on muscular and structural inefficiency as well as create an environment for ‘targeted struggle’.

Not just fast... not just slow ... but training both!

One thing often missing in some IMA training is the very fast or full speed training. We must also practice at full speed to understand how the body needs to move, then draw that back to the slow movement practice to maximise its efficiency and get inside the movement.

Tai chi is an example of this fast/slow training being lost to the focus on slow training. Traditionally the forms and fighting combinations were performed at real speed, slow speed, mediums speed, with jumps, agile footwork, static footwork etc ... a myriad of ways. 

A great example of how this lack of speed training has effected modern tai chi is how many Tai chi people will stand bolt upright throughout their form, but when they speed up they lead with the head and incline in the direction of travel or force expression ... they do this naturally but do not feed this back into their practice. When you look at older taiji guys you see they knew about this and the lean in their forms reflected the functional requirement.

If we are training for combat then we have to understand that speed, rythm, timing and confusion are fundamental aspect ... you cant just practice slow ... but by the same token you cant just practice fast if you want to obtain the ultimate goal of IMAs ... efficiency.

The body structures.

As you slow down fast movements you will recognise excess tension in the musculature and misalignments that can explain ongoing injuries or soreness whenever your going full speed. What you also notice is that as you work these problems out in a focused way you begin to use a different type of body method.

What the IMA traditions do have in abundance is exercises striving to sort out muscular and structural problems as their primary goal, but more than that, exercise that build the lines of tissue and alignments needed at full speed.

As a real life example of the need to train these tissues, I knew someone who was training full speed doing a slapping motion with his palm and broke a tendon in his wrist. The movement was natural but the conditioning of the structures in use was not there.

This is a really important point.  It is all well and good to train at full speed to bring out combat efficiency, but without the body to back it up the risk of damage is much higher and for most ... almost inevitable.

So one of the primary goals of IMA training is to build the body that is capable. The body that can be tuned to any skill without fear of injury. The body that can produce huge forces without creating tendonitis or elbow and knee problems.

Anyone that has trained Muay Thai, Judo, MMA or any of a number of arts will attest to the ongoing niggly little problems with the shoulder, wrist, elbows, knees etc. This is largely down to lack of conditioning of the correct structures ... They might have big muscles but their connective tissue is weak. When i trained these arts i had tennis elbow often, had tendonitis in my knee and had hip flexor problems ... nothing major but these little niggles were the result of the training methodology. Most injuries occur in the connective tissue and not the muscle. So why do they happen?

1) too much force to the elastic aspect of the tissue to cope with
2) force produced along a misaligned joint
3) reactive damage from impact.

The structures we aim to train are those that connect the body together, the ones that tie and wrap the joints, the structures that link muscle groups. If these are conditioned then we can move full speed without fear of injury. This is the IMA body.

Here is some interesting information on the role of connective tissue as it relates to understanding proprioception and kinesthesia.

Finding #3:The fascial system is far more innervated than muscle, so proprioception and kinesthesia are primarily fascial, not muscular.

This is a hard concept for many fitness professionals to get their heads around, but it is a fact: there are 10 times as many sensory receptors in your fascial tissues as there are in your muscles (Stillwell 1957). The muscles have spindles that measure length change (and over time, rate of length change) in the muscles. Even these spindles can be seen as fascial receptors, but let’s be kind and give them to the muscles (Van der Wal 2009). For each spindle, there are about 10 receptors in the surrounding fascia—in the surface epimysium, the tendon and attachment fascia, the nearby ligaments and the superficial layers. These receptors include the Golgi tendon organs that measure load (by measuring the stretch in the fibers), paciniform endings to measure pressure, Ruffini endings to inform the central nervous system of shear forces in the soft tissues, and ubiquitous small interstitial nerve endings that can report on all these plus, apparently, pain (Stecco et al. 2009; Taguchi et al. 2009).


So when you say you are feeling your muscles move, this is a bit of a misnomer. You are “listening” to your fascial tissues much more than to your muscles. Here are three interesting findings that go along with this basic eye-opener: Ligaments are mostly arranged in series with the muscles, not in parallel (Van der Wal 2009). This means that when you tense a muscle, the ligaments are automatically tensed to stabilize the joint, no matter what its position.


Our idea that the ligaments do not function until the joint is at its full extension or torsion is now outmoded; for example, ligaments function all through a preacher curl, not just at the ends of the movement. Nerve endings arrange themselves according to the forces that commonly apply in that location in that individual, not according to a genetic plan, and definitely not according to the anatomical division we call a muscle. There is no representation of a “deltoid” inside your movement brain. That’s just a concept over in your cortex, not in your biological organization. Apparently, sensors in and near the skin are more active in detecting and regulating movement than the joint ligament receptors (Yahia, Pigeon & DesRosiers 1993).

Understanding the body training

To the outside observer standing arms outstretched will not relate to combat. But then neither would watching someone in a Gym doing a deadlift or someone on a hill doing sprints. However they are all combat applicable to some degree.

Context is important. If you want to work on connective tissue there are certain ways that can help you to achieve this. The internal arts use slow movement for targeted muscular release, dynamic positional holds, specific twist methods and stretches from finger to toes ...  Modern sports science uses methods like the ‘static partial bench press’ etc. The outcome of such training is that when you return to combat specific training the body is more connected and capable.

Of course all these plus points make sense from a health perspective as well. When we are correctly aligned our torso is open, the internal organs are not compressed or confined and our joints are able to function with all round support and re-enforcement.

Next up ....Efficiency in Combat, cross training, the search and experience mentality.... Stay Tuned!

Recommended reading:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Talent-Code-Greatness-born/dp/0099519852
also ref Myelination props go to Chris McKinley for sharing this information and getting me interested.
http://www.bettermovement.org/2010/why-practice-slow-movement/#comment-20539
http://www.ideafit.com/fitness-library/fascial-fitness

Taking the centre (part 1)

Taking the centre of the opponent is a concept common to many martial arts. Some styles may call it taking the balance, some may call it contorting the structure and these are certainly aspects of ‘taking the centre’ as we mean it in the internal arts. But there can be more to this concept than these ideas. In these posts i will try to outline some of the many ideas associated with ‘Taking the centre’.

Firstly some definitions:

Centre.
This is open to interpretation depending on the theory of your style. But for now let define the centre thus:

‘A state where the Mind is in control of the body support, balance and structure creating a physical  stability’

Taking

Here we mean to bring something under our control, or take it away from the opponent.

Taking the Centre

So we can define taking the centre as:

‘Removing the opponents physical stability, their ability to control their support, balance, structure and mind to the point where they must recover before being able to act.’

Why take the centre?

Before i get into how we take the centre of the opponent, i think it is useful to ask the question of why do we aim to take the centre of the opponent.  In my opinion it boils down to these reasons:

1. It breaks the structure of the opponent in such a way that he cannot strike or throw you effectively.
2.  It creates opportunity to strike an unprepared structure. They cant brace to receive the hit.
3.  It allows you to throw/take down the opponent with relative ease.
4. It disrupts the timing and rythm of the opponent.
5. It can nullify Fighting intent (but doesn’t always).
6.  It causes a feeling of insecurity and loss of control.
7.  It triggers defensive reaction instead of offensive.
8.  It buys you time in an encounter to bring the situation under your control.

So here we have an outline of the aims and benefits of taking the opponents centre as i see them. In the next post i will discuss in detail the first method of taking the centre.

Stay Tuned!

Internal Training Exercises

Here are some of the basic internal training methods I have developed and been working on. I am not so good at them yet but they may be useful for some of you out there looking for internal training

The devil is in the detail with all these of course and over the coming months i will take each of these 5 exercises and put a detailed description of what they are and how they should be trained online.

1. Body cross
2. Body row
3. Pushing mud
4. Slapping water
5. Horizontal coil

Developing the Legs (Part 1)

One of the key methods in Martial arts training, especially when you read about the old masters, is the development of the legs through deep stance training and a lot of hard focused work!  Often you hear that an IMA master would have spent many years training an external style and mastering its basic foundation training before moving into IMAs. Much of that time would have been devoted to training the legs so that the tree has good roots.

Beyond Kicking there are plenty of good reasons to develop good leg skill. We need good legs to transmit and receive force from the earth,  we need them for good powerful and connected footwork, we need to them to lift and throw people ... the list is a long one!

But what attributes are we specifically trying to develop in our leg training, well here are a few of them:

- Freedom of movement and mobility in the joints,

- Strong lines of connection 

- Endurance

- Power

- Sensitivity.

How do we train the legs to achieve these things?

Here are some basic training exercises to help develop functional leg skill and bring out some of the above attributes.

SQUATS

Clearly the Squat is one of the most fundamental excersises no matter what the discipline. It is a great tool for developing leg strength and how to align the bones of the legs with your direction of force. However beyond the basic squat we have several other ways in which we can train this basic exercise.

- Speed variation

Try performing a squat with variation in speed. You may go down very slowly and then shoot back up, you may fall into the squat as if someone took away your support then stand very slowly. There are a lot of ways you can try this .. but here are a couple of specific drills which are both challenging and useful.

1. 30 breath squat

Perform 1 squat but take 15 breaths to sink and 15 breaths to rise. This should be a very smooth and slow motion with not jerks or pauses.

2. 5 as fast as you can then 1 slow

Perform 5 full squats as fast as you can remembering to breath, then perform 1 squat with 5 breaths down 5 up. 

3. Explosiveness

Using a jump squat drop down very slowly, as soon as you reach the bottom point explode up into a jump, when you land again, very slow drop.

- Height Variation and holds

One very useful way to mix up your squat training is to hold the position every so often at different heights during the squat. Try the exercises below:

1. Step and Squat height variations

Take a forward step and then make a full squat, another forward step 2/3 squat, anther ½ squat, another 1/3rd ... Then turn around and repeat backwards.

2. Hold variations.

No in a static position try to hold  the ½ squat position for 5 seconds as you go down into a full squat. Then the same when you come back up. You can hold for longer and longer or at different points in the squat range.

Integrate breath

Clearly we need to breath to live! But when we  train any sort of loading exercise it can be useful and increase your performance if you actively think about how your breathing as you move through the exercise. The squat is a very useful exercise to start this training on as it acts very much like a pump, changing the pleasures in the body as you move through the exercise. Try these ways to begin to integrate your breath and movement.

1. Breath Pump

As you squat breath out for the entirety of the movement, then as you stand breath in! Its fairly simple, but you should remember that the breath should go out for the WHOLE movement down and in for the WHOLE movement up. Focus deeply on this cycle and repeat very gently and slowly for 8 repetitions. 

2. Listening to the Natural Breath 

The natural breath is what your Body requires in terms of oxygen. This natural cycle is very smooth and precise when there are no mental/physical blockages making the breath become stuck. Try performing relatively slow squats and breathing in accordance with your bodies requirements. Here you are merely watching what your body does and not trying to enforce any set breathing pattern. 

Breath integration can be continued in all exercises but it is good to start out with something very simple like a squat.

HIP MOBILITY AND LEG CONTROL

One of the most important factors in training the legs is training their ability to move and change direction at will. There are some very simple exercises that help to build the mobility attribute.

1. Leg hanging & swinging

This method is used to help the hip joint soften up and move unimpeded in its joint.

- Stand on a step with on foot on the step the other off the edge, so the edge of the step should be on along the inside of the supporting foot leaving the other leg hanging.

- Ensure the pelvis is level and that you have something to hold onto for support.

- Gentely swing the leg back and forth, extremely softly. 

- Focus deeply on the hip and release any built up tension with each out breath.

- Repeat for an equal amount of time on each side.

2. Tag the Target

This exercise is suprising demanding to do well! It is a simple game of touching targets that you have laid out for yourself with your big toe.

- Pin small circles of paper to a wall (or use post-it notes) These should range from next to the floor to hip height . You can extend this to shoulder height when you get better.

- Stand close enough to the wall so that you can touch it with your big toe with a bent leg.

- Stand on one leg ensuring that the pelvis stays level. Touch the targets in a random order continuously without dropping the foot to the floor for 30 seconds.

- Change legs

Note: Make sure that you are not leaning the body or tilting the pelvis as you go through the exercise.

3. Kick Walks

This one can look a little funny but has great benefits to the mobility and movement involving the Psoas and adductor muscles.

- stand feet together body upright

- Without adjusting the body at all or moving the arms or pelvis raise the knee and kick out the front holding the leg in place. Knee should be bent and the feeling of lifting should be in the hip. 

- Holding the leg up allow the body to fall forward so that you end in a front lunge with the kicking leg supporting.

- The rear hip should be open and stretched

- Pulling up with the original kicking leg drag the rear leg up and then kick up forward. 

- Repeat the process

4. Leg rolling Adductor/Abductor

Very simple exercise this but it can cause some difficulty in the rest of the body.

- standing on one leg raise the knee out too the side as high as possible.

- swipe inwards with the leg until it is just past straight ahead .

-drop the knee back in line with the standing leg and then repeat.

Be sure to change direction as well to work the outside muscles.

One important point with this exercise is to not have any resulting movement visible in the rest of the body. Make the body tight and tied together so that the arms are not flapping around and your not leaning or wobbling around.

In part 2 i will aim to talk about Power, Sensitivity and Connection training methods related to developing the legs for Martial Arts. Try the exercises above for a month and let me know how you get on. I think you will find a good improvement in mobility and strength fairly quickly.

Utilizing the Spine

The ability to manipulate the spine as a way of developing power, enhancing health and increasing mobility is a point central to many martial arts. We can even say that without spine mobility the effect of striking, throwing and movement will be greatly diminished.

Whether it is Brazillian JuJutsu or TaijiQuan the ability to manipulate and move the back effectively is one of the things that separates the excellent masters from the rest. However training methods specifically designed to work on the back and spine can sometimes be somewhat lacking in many arts.

Here are a few training ideas that you can try to help increase overall back and spine mobility.

Rolling.

If you follow my blog it is no secret that I rate floor rolling to be a superb overall health and development exercise. However there are specific benefits to this work that directly relate to spine health and mobility.

1)    Rolling for massage.

When rolling on the floor in specific ways you actually massage the muscles around the back and spine, dissipating tension and smoothing out any points of stiffness or sticking. After a very short period you can feel the benefits of this work.

2)    Rolling for mobility

Also when rolling around on the floor your are extending and opening the spine in multiple directions. This means that the connective points of the spine are becoming more and more relaxed but increasing in load capabilities. Gravity is the big friend here and working slowly will increase the effectiveness or this work greatly.

Rolling is a great way to start any work with the spine or back. Once you have warmed up the back and spine through rolling it will be much easier to find points of tension or sticking when working on the next exercises.

Axis twisting

Here we consider the spine a central axis of the body with two ‘sticks’ coming out of it forming a line through the shoulder joints and through the hip sockets. Imagine  the points that these two sticks cross the central line.

1)    Stand arms outstretched and feet shoulder with apart.

2)    Fixing the pelvis and lower stick in place, Turn the upper stick so that it is at right angles to the lower stick when looked at from above.

3)    Once you have twisted into this position, mentally relax any tension created by leading it out of the body through breath.

4)    Come back to the start point and repeat on the other side.

This exercise has several benefits.

- It increases the ‘wrapping’ of the body around a central axis

- It stretches the side lines of the body

- It helps you to recognise the central point and where the shoulder hip alignment it

- It develops twist force

Spine Wave.

This is a little trickier to achieve at first. The aim here is to initially create a big wave up the spine from the point of the coxyx to the base of the neck. As the practice progresses we make this wave smaller and smaller until it is very short in nature. This is where a vibration or short emission of force from the spine become possible.

First exercise, wave and return.

1)    stand feet shoulder width, feet centred on the ground,  hips relaxed, spine extended to the crown and body soft with the shoulders sunk.

2)    Starting at the very base of the spine, Roll each vertebrae forward and then let it naturally retreat. Like a wave rolling onto a beach.

a.     This should be a large movement without any forward action on the body

b.     Maintain the base and position of the pelvis

c.     Do not start the wave in the legs and involve the pelvis in the wave by moving it forward and back in space.

Second exercise, Wave and project

In this instance rather than letting the vertebrae of the spine retreat back naturally you hold them in place so the wave has a forward aspect and momentum

1)    let the body be lead forward from the point the wave breaks.

2)    Done not hold back or try to stop the forward power of the spine wave, but simply ride it and take a few steps.

Spine Hanging

This is a very good closing exercise to relax the spine and let any excess points of tension dissipate.

1)    Feet shoulder width apart, knees and hips soft

2)    Raise the palms out to the sides and up over the head, connecting at the back of the hands  and leading down the centre line of the body

3)    As the hands lead down you will feel a point where the body wants to bend, allow this top happen naturally making sure that the head and neck are also being fully release

4)    Lead all the way down until the torso is hanging from the hips. As if you are being held up by someone at the point of the hips but the rest of you is fully relaxed.

5)    Make the head a weight pulling downward with gravity opening each vertebrae as you hang there.

6)    Hold as long as is comfortable making sure that you breath naturally and are mentally relaxing the back with every out breath.

7)    Very slowly, one vertebrae at a time, stack them on top of each other starting at the base of the spine. The head should be the last thing to come up.

I hope these exercises are useful for you in your daily lives and your martial arts. I will post a video in this Blog post very soon to help with these exercises. 

Happy training.

Pack Mentality

During my time in security there were many occasions when I faced more than one attacker or aggressor. This is more the rule than the exception for anyone dealing with violent confrontation. One of the things I learnt to apply was awareness of pack formation when looking at a crowd. I would stand in the DJ box and point out where a fight would most likely kick off 5 minutes before it did and 9 times out of 10 I would unfortunately be right!

Saftey in numbers

One of the primary things that arises in multiple opponent fighting is often that the individuals themselves may not be strong accomplished fighters in many case but, much like in the animal kingdom, are reliant on the whole for power and protection.

It is very easy to see when you work in the security industry how a person on their own may be reasonable and somewhat fearful of confrontation but when surrounded by a few mates he becomes empowered, feeding off the added security and power that a group brings.

This is not only to empower them to fight, but also it gives them the feeling that they may not be so easily damaged should an encounter occur.

Crowd Density

Crowd density has a lot to do with pack mentality and group fighting. By this we mean how many people are packed into a certain area and also are there any obvious Gaps in the crowd density.

The first point is fairly easy to understand. If you have a large volume of people packed together, it is very easy for misunderstandings to occur regarding shoves or accidental pushes.

The second point is also pretty straight forward, if the area is full of people but everyone is avoiding a certain point in that crowd, you can bet that there is something/someone or some group that people don’t want to tangle with in that area.

Diminishing the effect of pack mentality.

So how do we diminish the effect of pack mentality when faced with a potentially violent situation? There are several useful tactics to employ when looking to break a pack of people up:

1) Split their intention.

Used if there are several of you dealing with the pack. Here the aim is to draw the attention of the group away from a single point. You can direct your collegues off to the sides slightly or even better on more acute angles so that the group is having to deal with a greater arc of threat. Then through discussion and dissuasion the effect of the pack as a whole is diminished as their collective attention is split to multiple points. Should physical encounter be inevitable then, much like a pack of wolves circling a flock of sheep, the mentality should be to separate the groups intent to fight. As each individuals chances of injury increases their want to get involved will decrease.

2) Separate individuals

If you are able to subtly separate individuals from the pack you will find the overall intent of the pack drops. This is a much more subtle and difficult method to achieve in real time, and is mainly useful if the pack are aggressive but nervous in nature. Verbal dissuasion and distraction techniques are very useful here along with body angulations. You can begin to separate individuals very subtly while you colleagues manage the rest of the group. Often you will see that this has the effect of turning the attention of the group as a whole to ‘what are they talking about’ rather than violent action.

3) Funnel the group

Like sheep moving through a gate, give plenty of space to a group that are acting aggressively but cut off certain routes of escape. This action triggers the flight response in people as soon as they move out of the gap. Like sheep spilling through a gate into a field and running off, often the same feeling of freedom will follow a group moving out of a space through an obvious escape route. It is very important that careful understanding of control and separation occur after the direction has happened, re-grouping can occur very rapidly, especially in an enclosed space.

4) stack the group.

Most clearly useful if your facing a pack on your own. In this instance you try to position yourself in a narrow area so that only a small number of people can attack you at any one time. For instance backing into a doorway or an ally will mean that a maximum of 2 people at any one time can attack, no matter how many you face.

There are many other methods for the professional to use in a potentially violent group situation but these few should give you an idea of some of the principles behind beginning to defuse intent in this sort of an environment.

What are the Chances?

It is more common now to be faced with a multiple opponent attack than simply to face off against one attacker. This is the unfortunate truth of my experienced on the doors. Gone are the times of the honourable duel with two people squaring off and slugging it out. Understanding how a pack forms and the mentality of a pack once its formed should be at the very forefront of the Security professionals mind and be a constant point of awareness and focus.

But more than this, it should also be a central point of avoidance for the person interested in real self defence. Avoiding areas when in a crowd, using awareness of individual vrs group psychology and never putting yourself where you think something could occur are extremely important considerations.

Ginastica Natural - Movements

Lovely display of movement strength, flexibility and floor fluidity from  Brazilian JuJutsu expert Fabio Gurgel



anyone working on the Ukemi things i have posted should get some good inspiration for new movement patterns from this work.

Working in the Recovery Moment

Timing and rythm are two very big factors in effect Martial application. There is quite an interesting aspect to these two points of combat I would like to discuss in this post and that is the focus of work within your opponents mental and physical recovery phase.

What is the Recovery phase?

The recovery phase refers to the points within an encounter where the body and mind are ‘re-centring’ themselves after expression of force, power or intent or after a period of defensive action.

Physically this could mean:

• Moving back or re centring from a failed body movement.
• When retreating back from a strike (either with the striking weapon returning or with the whole body)
• Removing a point of density or tension when in the clinch or grappling (usually to change into another movement or technique)

Mentally this could mean

• After defending a flurry from your opponent where you ‘reset’ and settle down to re attack
• After your failed attack where the mind establishes the next course of action
• After anything unexpected happens that causes the mind to freeze (there are many ways to insight this reaction in an attacking opponent that i will go into at a later time)

Recovery phase is linked quite clearly with visual comfort or acuity. (this is clear from drill 1 below.

Why work within this part of fight rythm and timing?

There are several advantages to working within this aspect of the fight process, most notable that the opponent will not be in a defensive or offensive phase when recovering their mind or centre. You are able to take advantage of their physical and mental lack of expression and take their centre or mind as you begin to apply your work.

This is a very big topic and applying your force or attack at the perfect time is related to awareness of the moment and not necessarily ‘reactions’ as these are too slow. This moment only lasts for a miniscule period of time so you have to already ‘be there’ or it will be too late. However training this idea will eventually bring you to the point where your naturally exploiting this moment of recovery.

Some Drills:

1) Turning from a wall. (visual acuity training, and moment of relaxation when the site is familiar with the scene) Recognising the point of mental physical relaxation.

a. Stand with your facevery close to  a wall, eyes open

b. Your partner stands at varying distances from you each repetition

c. Partners says ‘GO!’ 

d. You turn to face the partner ready to receive a tap to the top of the head

e. Your partner waits for the moment they perceive you relax and tap the head at that point (this moment of ‘settling’ or relaxing should be fairly apparent to begin with)

f. Repeat. 

Note : it important that this drill has the partner at varying distances and has a random tempo/timing to their touch.

2) Slapping palms. (recognising relaxation after a flurry)

a. Hold both palms out close to your head

b. Partner slaps the palms any way they like with a flurry of slaps and backhands.

c. As soon as they stop and go back to guard you try to catch the point where they are re-setting, neither in attack or defence mode, by taping the head.

Note: when done correctly they should be unable to check your tap, even at a lower speed. 

3) Striking pads.

a. Have your partner put some focus mits on.

b. They slap your sides and side of head with focus mits while you cover, check and defend.

c. Then suddenly stop and hold the pads up to be hit. 

d. Not the time it takes to go from defence to offense. This is the recovery phase where you are re-centring and regrouping.

The next stage on from this training is to work inside their rythm. You may be going exactly the same speed as them but quarter of a beat inside their beat. I will talk about this next time. 

Ukemi - intermediate level rolling

This video follows on from my last one which highlighted ground rolling for spine health.


Now the aim is to increase softness and ground awareness and also start to move between standing and ground into rolls.

Push ups for connection & joints

The push up is one of the classic basic exercises of most training regemes, and for good reason. It is a very effective upper body workout, has a myriad of variations and a large number of benefits.


In our class we use press-ups as a means of building arm to body connection, how to apply force through the arms correctly and how to use certain mechanics to develop or transmit force.


The basic push up is probably well know to everyone. The main areas being worked are the chest and arm muscles. We are looking to begin to combine a few different ideas in the push-ups we train that are slightly different to the normal push up method.


1) Slow speed for joints
We use very slow repetition speeds to help the joint structures naturally and safely work with the weight of the body.  The General idea in IMAs is that the tendons, ligaments and Fascia store energy and the Muscles use energy. This is not to say that we dont want to use muscles, in my opinion, we definitely do! Simply that we use them in a different way. When  we train slow you will feel over time that joints become ‘wrapped’ and protected, you will notice that your tendons feel much more solid when in use and much softer when not.


2) Training to Fatigue
We are not training to build big muscles here. However, we do need to train to a point of fatigue where the other supporting structures can begin to be utilised to support the frame. This is a bitter training but very fruitful if you stick with it.


3) Breath
It goes without saying that we need to breath ;), however when under load the mind often has a habit of disrupting the breathing cycle. Breath and oxygen are vital for the energising of the tendons and ligaments however so we need to breath in a manner that gives the body exactly what it requires. There are many methods of breathing with the push up motion and some to release fatigue and tension when things get tough. I will discuss these another time.


4) Work your way up
Dont start out your training with a 10 minute push up! You need to begin very slowly with a deep focus on the mechanics of the movement. It is important that you understand fully what your trying to do and why. Then you can begin to play with the push ups and invent your own movements spontaneously.


Push ups or ‘Arch ups’?
One of the things that we have been working on is the idea of forming a bridge or arch between each hand to support the upper body. This is very similar to the idea of Dang Jin or Crotch Arch in the Chinese MAs. Think of it as a sort of horse stance for the arms. This has a couple of implications for the movement.


1) The body is supported through a connection of various structures without joints between them. The power is unbroken between the hands
2) When ‘pushing’ the formation of the arch by pulling inward with the arms recruits a larger amount of structures and results in less effort to create the up force. This is clearly felt when the methods done correctly.


Here is a short video of the basic method in the arms and a few very simple variations on the push up.

Through the Back

Several Chinese Martial Arts work with through the back power or a connection through the back. It is indeed a very useful connection for transferring power between the side lines of the body or from one hand to the other. In Japanese arts this partially covered in the Hitoemi Principle or the ‘one line’ idea. 

What does it mean and why is it used?

‘Through the back’ means transfer of power from one side of the body into the other, more specifically from one arm into the other. A very simple exercise to highlight what we mean:

1. Loop a belt around a pole or tree
2. Stand with feet parallel and shoulder width
3. Hold each end of the loop in each hand
4. Pull with one hand
5. The body will rotate around its axis and the opposite side to the pull will go forward
6. Remove the rope and try to create the same response to the one hand pulling back

This is a very clear demonstration of through the back power in action.

The uses of through the back power are many and varied but I will list a few ideas of how it is useful in a combative context

• Receiving with one side while simultaneously projecting with the other.
  For instance, I block a strike coming in with my left arm, the force of that strike immediately travels through the back into the right arm which shoots forward to strike.
• Power in the back hand
  This is useful to hide the source of power from your opponent. When using the back hand to send power to the front you are able to keep the ‘intent’ or weight of force out of the striking side of the body. This is used Extensively in Xing yi and the ‘changing’ strikes it can result in are extremely hard to stop.
• Short Range striking
  Through the back power also enables very short range striking with a large volume of power. Your closest weapon, that is even in touch with the opponent does not need to load before striking as the power comes from the opposite side of the body.
• Twisting throws
  When close in you can pull back on one shoulder sending the other forward when combined with stepping to create a powerful twisting throw.

The area of ‘the back’ that is mainly in use when working through the back.

The Primary muscle groups that the force will transfer through are the deeper back muscles relating to the scapular area of the back. These are the:

• Infraspinatus
• Rhomboideus Major
• Teres Minor / Major
• Deltoids
• lower trapezius.

Understanding the central line

One of the first ideas to understand is that when talking about transferring power between the sides of the body we have to recognise a central line that this force moves around. This is simply the central channel of the body, the spine is the obvious body part that can be thought of as a central channel or point. It is a little more complicated than that but for the purposes of beginning to feel power switching sides the spine is a good starting point.

You can feel that this central channel turned as power transfers across it , this turning is useful (when combined with work with the Kwa etc) to begin the process of ‘winding’ the tissues around the body. This winding helps to load the next strike and fuel your body movement.

In Summary

Through the back power is a primary driver for many arts method of power generation. The ability to switch sides, transfer force between the hands and send force back to the opponent is an extremely useful skill that some teachers have perfected to a very high level. I hope to film a few exercises to help you develop a feel for ‘through the back power’ in the very near future so stay in touch and it should be up fairly soon.

Fighting a crowd

It has been very rare an occasion when working professionally or being involved in street altercations that i faced just one opponent in a classic ‘fisty cuffs’ dual, rather it would one or a few vs a pair or group of assailants. With this in mind I feel that an often wholly overlooked area of self defence or combative training is the work against multiple opponents.  You do see alot of attension paid to this sort of work in Modern combatives systems or systems stemming from people real life experience and training, but in the traditional arts there are very few systems out there that realistically take on the reality of facing a group of determined attackers.

Once system that originally had this very idea as a primary focus is the Chinese IMA of ba gua. However, this idea of fighting several people at once has somewhat fallen out of the Ba gua basic training in favour of 1 on 1 training.

When we look at ba gua’s movement patterns and general dynamic strategy we can see very clearly that one of its great strengths was this ability to take on multiple opponents at once. From its unique stepping and flowing movement to its evasive mindset and constant turning motions the core basis of the system seems to very clearly be about fighting more than one person. Of course Ba gua is an extremely useful method of fighting a single opponent, but what i would like to discuss here are some general principles that i have found in ba gua, other IMAs and from real life encounters that are practical and useful against multiple  opponents.

First some general points regarding reality.
1) You will get hit!
I can honestly say that i am very lucky in that during the many multiple opponent encounters i have been in there have only been a few cases where I required some form of hospital treatment for injuries sustained, these occasions were for broken noses and the injuries did not inhibit my ability to end the confrontation. However, As is often the case with certain types of martial arts training, it amazes me how students do not think they will get hit when training. In a 1 on 1 encounter you may well be able to check or block alot of attacks, when facing 10 fists rather than 2 however, the chances are you will get hit a good few times! Once the student accepts this reality they are able to move forward and practice without the mind being too stunned every time a strike lands. Clearly we do not want to allow people to hit us ... but reality is they will ... they may even stab us, but we need to learn to fight through.

2) Do not exhibit pinpoint focus.
One thing that ba gua trains very well is the vision. When walking the circle in basic training, the vision opens up to draw information from the entire scene. After some training you are able to perceive movement and action at the extreme periphery of your vision. This is a vital part of working against multiple attackers. You have to be able to ‘take in the scene’ as a whole rather than simple the guy throwing that first punch!

3) Accept your environment
A lot of times we train in a very comfortable environment, a clean dojo with a matted floor for example. This is, however, not the real environment where we may have to employ these skills. It is important that you are mentally prepared to navigate and more importantly USE your environment to your advantage. Training with obstacles in the way or in an unusual setting is a very good way to help your mind learn to adapt.

4) Treat the group as one
When looking to defend against MOs you need to start to view the entire group as a single opponent, this way the mind and psychi will not be overwhelmed with the information of trying to keep up with 5 individual units.

5) Limit the amount of people that can reach you
All of the principles below are based around this central idea. The ability to limit the amount of weapons heading your way at any one moment. This has very obvious advantages that i am sure i do not need to explain.

Principles of Multiple opponent Defence.

Moving
If there is one thing that i would like to drill home when talking about combat against multiple opponents it is that constant movement is one of the key requirements. You really do not want to be stood in one place for too long ... you may well end up with 2 kicks and three punches all arriving together!

Movement is one of the fundamental requirements of good MO (multiple opponent) defence tactics. If you can move smoothly, efficiently and change direction on a dime, you will have the tools to fool and slide past the opponents.

Specific training methods are present in Ba gua for drilling this idea of constant motion and effective movement.  They include:
- Kou Bu Bai bu steps
- Circle walking with Sliding mud and goose steps
- Deer Running and leaping training
- Palm changes
- Changing centres
- Turning skills

One important point is that movement is not simply about footwork, but is equally about the ability to ‘change’. Ba gua is often described as the art of change and this idea of changing direction or motion, line of force or position of centre when the opponents least expect it can help to result in the following methods.

Stacking.
Contrary to some ‘multiple opponent demonstrations’ you see from MAists, this is not about 5 people attacking one after another!

When we talk about stacking in MO situations we are specifically referring to positioning yourself in the first movements to a position where the opponents stack up and will have to fight through their friends to reach you.

The primary idea of stacking is in the strategic first motion of the encounter and in the pack mentality that the opponents will be exhibiting. At the moment of attack you will usually find that all opponents will head straight in your direction, this is the ideal situation to use a stacking tactic.

One of the main initial ways you can achieve this is to ‘stretch out’ the line by moving rapidly out of range while angling your line. This will result in the initial attacker and next closest angling in towards you in order to reach you, blocking the path for the others.

Shielding
Shielding is often used in conjunction with the strategy of stacking and has the same ultimate goal, to limit the amount of opponents able to take you on at any one time.  When you use a shield you protect yourself from attack in that direction. In this instance we are talking about using one of the opponents as a shield.

One of the best methods of this is to get to the opponents back gate and follow or control their motion from that potistion. It is often not the person you may be engaging with that you will get to the back of, but the next person who is stacked and trying to move forward. With correct change and footwork you can move past the immediate threat (maybe with a quick slap) then get behind one of the other attackers while they jocky for position at you.

Barriers
This is linked to Shielding but also very much refers to using the environment around you to make it hard for opponents to reach you or to help to stack them. The barrier may be a doorway or a table, or of course it could be an opponent you have put on the ground! Anything that you can get in between you and the opponents that they then have to climb over is a barrier.

Using barriers if very useful in the real world environment where you have bus stops, benches, tables, chairs,  walls, doorways, bins etc, all of which you can get behind or move in front of you.

Final thoughts.
As you can see i have not discussed the methods you will use to actually strike or throw or take down your assailants here as i feel those tools are to be trained with a good instructor. What i have discussed are the underlying tactics and principles you will need to employ when a multiple opponent situation presents itself. Although now one of the most common forms of real world requirement the actual physical part of any encounter is just one of many facets of self defence that need to be taken into account, from situational awareness to control of the pre fight build up and the resultant adrenaline dumps.

Here are some videos that show the basic MO work i have been discussing
NOTE: i have no affiliation with these teachers and am not holding these videos up as perfect examples of total method, but as videos that highlight specifics that i have been discussing.

Master Su Dong Chen (movement, stacking and shielding)

Scott Sonnon of ROSS (start of the video shows use of barriers as opponents have to step over each other)



Alex Kostic Systema Expert (This video shows multiple opponent free fighting and highlights the use of turning and movement to decrease the ability of both attackers to strike simultaneously.)