Mastering Force Delivery: Why knowing the science will make you more effective

Blitz, Australia's #1 Martial Arts Magazine has published an article I wrote on the use of the biomechanical concept of force to better understand and study martial arts techniques.

The title of this post appears on the front cover of the July 2013 edition, with 'Use the Force' being the title of the actual article.

The Biomechanics of Biffo

All martial arts techniques can be explained using the description 'push' or 'pull' - or so says West Australian jujutsu instructor John Coles, who had devoted years to writing and researching a book on the biomechanics of martial arts techniques. Coles, a 3rd Dan in Tsutsumi Hozan-ryu jujutsu, 1st Dan in Yoseikan aikido and 3rd Degree in Suci Hati Pencak silat, all under the late, world-renowned sensei Jan de Jong, believes that a better understanding of the scientific basis for combative movements - or rather, their successful application - has long been buried in scientific texts. When revealed, he says, it could change the face of martial arts. He begins here by explaining the fundamentals of force.

The Boiling Frog Syndrome

Wendy Squires wrote a very thoughtful and personal article on the Nigella Lawson domestic violence incident. 'Not another article on domestic violence' you may be thinking. Given the wide spread prevalence of domestic violence in our society, it will touch our lives sooner or later (see the statistics in the article). Hopefully not directly, but we'll know someone who is or has experienced domestic violence. The more we know of the subject, the greater the possibility that we may be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

While there are many aspects to this story, the one that stands out for me from Squires' article is related to the following passage:

We could have asked how such a smart, capable, successful, intelligent woman as Nigella found herself in this position, but there was no need. We've both been there and still can't answer that question ourselves. Neither of us can pinpoint just when it became OK to think that this is normal. This is love. This is what I deserve.

I've supported a number of women who have been involved in an abusive relationship. I've read a lot of articles and studies on the subject. The question how they ended up in an abusive situation when they know better is so common it has become cliché.

When I listen or read about the history of a relationship, I see the boiling frog syndrome. It is, of course, complicated by the relationship, but I see so often the boiling frog syndrome.

The boiling frog syndrome refers to the anecdote where a frog will jump out of a pot of boiling water, but will stay and be boiled to death if placed in cool water and the heat of the water gradually increased.

An abusive relationship often starts with a harsh word here or there. Then some name calling. A few derogatory remarks. A shove or two. Finally it ends in physical violence. The first time is a one off, and the relationship complicates matters. This graduation process normalises the process.

What I've seen with women who question how they got to the position they found themselves in - I must be stupid, I must want it on some level, etc - is simply re-victimising themselves. Suggesting the boiling frog syndrome I've found resonates with some domestic violence survivors, and has positively affected how they view how they view themselves.

Moral Courage

Lieutenant-General David Morrison made one of the greatest speeches ever in Australian history (see below). If you extend the message beyond female degradation and humiliation to that of degradation and humiliation of any human being generally, the message rings even louder.



This speech is not to be listened too. This speech is to be studied. But there is one aspect of the speech I'd like to speak too.

Every one of us is responsible for the culture and reputation of our army and the environment in which we work. If you become aware of any individual degrading another, then show moral courage and take a stand against it. No one has ever explained to me how the exploitation or degradation of others enhances capability or honors the traditions of the Australian army. I will be ruthless in ridding the army of people who cannot live up to its values, and I need every one of you to support me in achieving this.

The standard you walk past is the standard you accept. That goes for all of us, ... it is up to us to make a difference.

Powerful stuff.

Many students come to the martial arts to learn to defend themselves. How much more empowering would it be if we encouraged them to stand up for others, which in turn makes it easier for them to stand up for themselves.

How do you stand up? In the martial arts, we tend to teach physical tactics and techniques to stand up against others. How are you going to teach A Force More Powerful? The power of non-resistance.

A recent news article reported how a lone man resisted in Turkey by simply standing up and putting his hands in his pockets - a force more powerful. Mahatma Gandhi and his followers walked willingly into lines of police who clubbed them and they did not respond violently. The unidentified man from Tiananmen Square in front of the tanks. How much more powerful than physical force is, 'No.'

Courage is an amazing, misunderstood concept. Shouldn't we be encouraging (teaching) moral courage rather than physical courage to defend oneself?

It was recently reported that Nigella Lawson was assaulted by her partner in a public restaurant. Patrons videoed the assault but NONE intervened. Do you want yourself or your students to be able to defend your/themselves but be one of the photographers at such an incident?

There was a recent event where a young man at an American college was secretly filmed being intimate with another male student. It was broadcast via Skype by the perpetrators and shared with a wider audience. The young man killed himself. What role do you and your student's want to assume in this tragedy.

A very good friend of mine's young son, testosterone fuelled, sporty lad shared with me a homophobic rant in order to demonstrate his manliness. Much to my surprise I was emotionally affected and distressed. I saw him as being the one standing up for the victims, fighting the tormentors. He would never be one of the perpetrators, but it still distressed me that he might have been one of the ones pointing the finger and laughing.

This post is designed to be a reflection on what we are teaching. If we wish to teach moral courage, we must also teach to say 'No' to those confronting us as well as those confronting others, even if we don't know them or even agree with them.

Karate Kids Get Lesson In Fighting Back

'Karate kids get lesson in fighting back' is an article that published in The Age yesterday. Given my work for my book, I found some of the comments interesting.

Most children are taught the ''stranger danger'' message from a young age, but many parents are viewing martial arts training as a means of reinforcing that message with some physical self-defence skills, as well as for its health and fitness benefits.

My book uniquely contains a chapter on injury science, a relatively new science that studies injuries and the causes of injuries. All of the factors that interact to cause an injury are considered: the host, vector or vehicle, and environment. In this case, the host is the kids, the vector is a potential attacker, and the environment includes social and physical.

Injury events are divided into three time frames over which the factors interact: pre-event, event, and post-event.

Creating a matrix with the factors and phases of an injury event provides nine possible intervention points to prevent and control injuries from violence.

The stranger danger message is an intervention for the host in the pre-event phase. The physical self-defence training is an intervention for the host in the event phase.

Does martial arts training provide self-defence training? That is a contentious question with different opinions.

One of the biggest problems of martials training in terms of preventing and controlling injuries in a violent event is in the definition of the vector, the potential attacker. The definition of the vector is crucial to designing strategies, tactics and techniques to prevent and control injuries in a violent event. Most martial arts focus on the host and not the vector, or, the vector is themselves.

Most martial arts develop defences against their own style of attack. Karate teaches to defend against karate attack; judo against judo attacks; wing chun against wing chun attacks. Mixed martial arts was suppose to solve that problem except, through the principle of counter-response and symmetry, a new martial art evolved and defences were designed against those same type of attacks. How effective is this approach in preparing someone to defend themselves against someone who does not attack in the same fashion as those similarly trained?

This raises the issue of teaching one martial art to different ages and sexes. In another blog, the question of the applicability of male centric karate for females was questioned and explored. What then of adult centric karate for kids? Should there be different tactics and techniques taught if self defence is a supposed benefit of training and the vector is defined as an adult or a child of similar age?

''Part of martial arts is [trying] to avoid a situation by potentially seeing what's going to happen beforehand. It's not always easy, certainly for a young child, but you can at least teach some basic lessons, and that could help them.''
Trying to avoid a situation by seeing what's going to happen beforehand is an intervention in the pre-event phase. Do the martial arts teach skills that allows one to avoid a situation by seeing what's going on beforehand? Do they teach conflict resolution strategies that do not involve violence? I would suggest they do not. The martial arts focuses almost exclusively on the host-event cell in the matrix to prevent and control injuries from a violent event.

I'm not suggestion martial arts training does not assist in preparing a person to defend themselves. I'm suggesting that it may do so indirectly. I think not a lot of thought has gone into the suggestion that martial arts teaches one to defend themself when that is touted as being one of the functions or benefits of martial arts training.

If we truly want to ascribe a self defence function to martial arts training, then we need to review the martial art and its training. The abovementioned matrix, known as the Haddon Matrix, is a wonderful tool to help in reviewing the self defence function of martial art training and to develop enhanced capabilities.

Strengthening the Weak Link in Combat

There is an article in The Age concerning a UN meeting on killer robots. One of the arguments in favour of using killer robots in combat was:

"LARs will not be susceptible to some of the human shortcomings that may undermine the protection of life," his report said. "Typically they would not act out of revenge, panic, anger, spite, prejudice or fear."

In a book that deals with soldier stress and soldier performance, Krueger explains that people on the battlefield haven't changed but the military tactics and technology of waging war have. Consequently, he suggests that the human combatant has been called the 'limiting element' in military systems and are often labelled as the 'weak link' in the harsh environments of battlefields.

Siddle makes a similar comment when suggesting our evolved stress response interfere with modern survival skills such as close quarter combatives, firearms and evasive driving.

When stress inoculation training is discussed in terms of preparing a person for operational experience by the military or law enforcement, training and stress training are often distinguished. To put it simply, training is learning to fire a gun, stress training is learning to fire a gun when someone is firing at you.

Grossman explains how the fire rate at the enemy increased from 20% during WWII, to 55% in Korea, and 95% in Vietnam. What changed? Stress training, albeit not under that name.

I don't like the word 'stress.' The father of stress research, Hans Selye, said that everybody knows what stress is, but nobody really knows. Emotion and stress guru, Richard Lazarus, argues that stress should be considered a subset of emotion. Why? Because the ambiguous and limited concept of stress is actually referring to the emotion of fear-anxiety. If 'stress' has detrimental effects on fighting performance, why not study what the real issue is, emotion.

Many women self defence courses tackle this issue head on - turn fear into anger. Anger reduces inhibitions to aggress, has an action tendency of fight, mobilises the body to fight, and avoids flight, tonic immobility and fainting which are only associated with fear.

Stress inoculation training and stress exposure training for law enforcement and the military would be better served if they focused on emotion. The martial arts is often criticised for not teaching self defence. One of the biggest failings is in not addressing the emotion issue. They are the training methods of WWII when self defence requires the training methods of the Vietnam War.

The last two chapters in my book are unique in integrating the theories of stress, emotion and fight-or-flight to develop a survival process model. This is our evolved mechanism that was selected for in nature because it provided a survival advantage on an individual. All of the methods developed by all activities associated with preparing a person to survive a violent encounter are actually interventions in this survival process.

A better understanding of the survival process provides a better understanding of violence generally, whether it be offensive or defensive violence. It has the potential of producing better fighters or those who want to defend themselves simply by an academic understanding of the survival process. This has been demonstrated with respect to stress training whose first stage is informational.

Understanding All Fighting Methods

This post is an update on Understanding All Fighting Methods - the book I have been working on full-time for the past 4-5 years.

The book is tentatively titled: Understanding All Fighting Methods. If any reader has a better suggestion for a title it'd be gratefully received.

The book is aimed at all activities that prepare a person to survive a violent encounter (Survival Activities). This includes martial arts, combat sports, self defence, security, law enforcement, and the military.

It is a unique contribution to Survival Activities and the general body of knowledge. All of the chapters contain information that has never before been used to understand Survival Activities methods.

It has 16 chapters plus a preface.

Chpt 1 Introduction
Chpt 2 Core of all learning
Chpt 3 Kaizan: Analysing techniques to continually improve
Chpt 4 Push and pull explains all techniques
Chpt 5 Balance and unbalance
Chpt 6 Stances and motion
Chpt 7 Throws and takedowns
Chpt 8 Joint-locking techniques
Chpt 9 Injury science
Chpt 10 Striking and kicking techniques
Chpt 11 Blocking techniques
Chpt 12 Nature's and martial arts breakfalling techniques
Chpt 13 Neck restraints and shime waza
Chpt 14 Pain
Chpt 15 The survival process
Chpt 16 The survival process applied

From an original 180,000+ words, the editing process has reduced the number of words to 77,000+ which equates to about 211 pages.

A graphic designer has commenced work on the illustrations. Permission is being sought for reproduction of figures and tables from other publications.

My editing of the vast majority of the chapters has been completed.

The chapters on neck restraints and shime waza, nature's and martial arts breakfalling techniques, and pain have been reviewed by experts in those fields. When I say experts I mean non-martial arts researchers in those fields.

There is one small piece of information I am still seeking. An anatomical description of a wrist twist. Among the many unique features of this book is an anatomical description of joint-locking techniques applied to the upper limb. No other book provides that information.

If any reader can direct me to any information or person that could assist in explaining a wrist twist, I'd be very grateful.

Each chapter is heavily referenced with authoritative sources. Studies that have hitherto been hidden away in academic journals are used to provide a deeper and more complete understanding of the methods taught by Survival Activities and those used in violence generally.

The final two chapters are unique in all literature in that new theory has been developed that explains all the strategies, tactics and techniques of Survival Activities and those used in violence generally.

Many misconceptions, misunderstandings, myths and errors that are commonly espoused in the martial arts are exposed and clarified. They are clarified with the aid of science, professional research, and hard work.

Soon the tedious task of submitting the manuscript to publishers will commence.

Teach the Essence of All Martial Arts Techniques

What is the essence of all martial arts techniques? What makes them work?

Forces account for the changes in motion and shape of all things in the environment, including the body and body segments (collectively body).

Any time a body starts, stops, speeds up slows down or changes direction, a force has been applied. A change in shape refers to deformation. Deformation of body tissues can cause pain and injury. Think about all the techniques taught in any martial art and you will see that they are designed to change the motion of an opponent or deform their tissues to inflict pain or injury.

The beauty of it all is that force is a biomechanical concept that is easy for the layperson to understand and apply.

Without providing the full explanation, the following is how you teach and learn by referring to forces, the essence of all techniques:

1. Identify the points of application of the forces - all contact points between the two bodies.
2. Forces are a push or a pull. Determine if it is a push or a pull at each point of contact.
3. Determine the direction of the force.
4. Determine the relative magnitude of the force.
5. Determine the objective of the combined forces (change the motion or shape (deformation) of the opponent's body).

First teach students about forces, then consistently teach using a force based approach. Students will be taught to, and will, focus on the essence of techniques; what actually makes them work. When they come to correct errors in their performance they will go directly to the essence of the technique.

While the above might appear to have limited potential to improve on teaching striking and kicking techniques, it does not when the third law of motion is also understood. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Action refers to forces. When we hit a body, that body 'hits' us back with a force that is equal in magnitude and opposite in direction.

When we hit or kick an opponent or some training devise, or block an opponent's attack, we must deal with reaction forces. What is being done in terms of posture and stance to increase our stability and ability to absorb those reaction forces?

Those martial arts that describe their stances in terms of mobility (which means less resistance to forces), what are they doing to increase stability when contact is made and forces are experienced?

Everybody understands what a push or a pull is. If a student is told to push or pull in a certain direction they will do so. If that instruction is not an accurate or complete description of the forces involved in the execution of a technique, do not be surprised if the student experiences difficulty in performing the techniques. A force-based approach 'forces' us to consider each and every point of contact where a force may be applied. All of those forces contribute to, or at times hinder, the execution of a technique. A complete analysis of the forces involved in the  technique avoids these issues and demonstrates a thorough understanding of the technique. And a complete analysis of the forces involved in a technique is so simple.