Just got back from another great Edged Weapons class in Quakertown PA. We had our usual group plus some motivated first timers. We finished up today’s IET course with the Folder into Fight Drill. You put on headgear and a mouth piece and are armed with a Endura training folder, the rest goes like this-
Panic Push where you simulate trying to distance yourself from you attacker with a two handed strike to the chest up and under the numbers, hopefully in real life this will put them into a wall or vehicle.
Then you grab a hold of two sticks held by another student and go back and forth for 30 seconds to get your heart rate up. When you have 10 seconds left I start tagging you while wearing boxing gloves. We had some advanced students in the class so they get the heat turned up a bit. This accomplishes a few things, the first is inoculating the student to what it feels like to have your bell rung. The second is it will allow them to articulate why they would use a knife to defend themselves even against some open handed attacks.
At the end of the 30 seconds they let go on the sticks and it is one on one. They try to gain the time and distance needed to deploy their folder and I do everything I can to stop them from doing it using what I taught them the previous day in Spontaneous Attack Survival for Edged Weapons. Once they get the knife deployed they land some some cuts and we call time.
Something I noticed today as I turned up the intensity is that the good guy was crouching lower and lower from being struck, when he did get his knife out he was very low and just about all the cuts I suffered started above the knee and funneled into the crotch and ripped out. When they felt the hook was set they stood up and I attempted to pull away. It gives me the willies even in training.
We also worked on the use of Inverted Tactics with the stick and open hands. Much of it with eyes closed replicating getting OCed at the start of a robbery. During this type of robbery the bad guy is gonna walk up to take your stuff. Using body mapping (being in touch with one body part allowing you to know where other body parts are) Again, it was a great class. Should have some pics and video up this week.- George