Hock Hochheim 2010 Brisbane Seminar

This weekend just gone, 6/7 march 2010, Hock held a seminar at Defensive Measures International's Brisbane Training Facility at Mt Gravatt. It was an action packed weekend, making it hard work to get up early to go to work this morning.

Hock covered various aspect's of Stick, Knife, Gun and Barehand Fighting, covering various counters to being attacked by these weapons.

Hock covered Stick level 1, knife 1 (revision for last year's participants), knife 2 and a fair bit of his Pacific Archipelago Unarmed Combat.

We did some great Arnis, Silat and Escrima type stick, knife and hand work. We did some very JKD / Wing Chun / Fillipino type handwork, including trapping drills, hubud and destructions, covering what would take months or years to cover at a normal club. As always the trick will be maintaining the skills developed and remembering all that we did.

It was great to get to practice some fast handwork and wake up some old neural pathways. Caught up with Dan, an old training buddy. Great to practice handwork with someone who can work at the same break-neck speed.

Learned some great stick drills, including some concepts which Dan said he hadn't learned in over three years of training Fillipino martial arts. It seemed to be a bit of an 'a-ha moment' for him, which is great. The stick disarms ending in joint locks were painful (and therefore good in my books) and I could tell Sempai Raymond was enjoying them as much as me.

The knife material was also brilliant, and can be found in Hock's Knife/ Counter Knife Book, which was a popular seller at the seminar.

A big thanks to Tim for playing crash-dummy for Hock and helping us all when we weren't quite getting it, Sensei Paul Johnstone for arranging the seminar, All the lads from regular training who showed (you know who you are!) and all the other participants. And of course a big shout out to Hock for a great weekend. To sum up the seminar, it was top notch!!! Hock is great in that he has some much info that if the group asks about a particular topic, he can explain and show the answer in great detail (that's how the two and a half hours of handwork drills started). It is a flexible approach that allows the group to really learn what they want to know with no BS about rank or readiness. If you ask, you are ready to here about it.

First Fight Day Bookclub

Last nights training session included a few rounds of knife fighting with chalk knives, however instead of chalking them we used stage blood for added realism. First two fights, one on one, yielded what would have amounted to four fatalities in all likelihood. Witness my shirt above, looks like a punctured lung and a few stabs to the chest plate. Everyone else who participated would be in similar or worse shape. Bear in mind that you can't see the numerous defensive wounds to the arms in the picture either.

Now some people may say "well you didn't do very well, my master has shown me a technique for disarming a knife that works all the time". My answer to this is simple - your master is either a fool or full of sh*t, unless he/ she is bringing a gun to the knife fight!

Now you may think I'm being harsh, but harsh is giving students false hope in a technique that gets them killed. But hey you may disagree, and that's fine. But don't take my word for it, test the technique. Have a friend with a chalk knife attack you with multiple stabs and slashes, at real fight pace. Then try your technique. How did it go?

This brings me onto the topic of the post, the First Fight Day Book Club. My book of the week is a golden oldie from 1988. Written by Don Pentecost and published by Paladin Press, "Put 'em down, Take 'em out! Knife fighting Techniques from Folsom Prison" is a look at the tactics and techniques used by maximum security prisoners to kill each other. Wait a sec, why the hell am I reviewing a book on how to murder people? Simple, because this book represents the REALITY of Knife Attacks! This is the stuff you may face on the street. Let me make one thing perfectly clear - I am not advocating the use of any material contained in this book. If you go out and use this material to kill people, well I hope you enjoy your time on death row. I am suggesting that you use this book for research purposes to learn how to defend against knife attacks.

This book is short (54 little pages), to the point and contains only one exercise at the end. In short it is everything that most martial arts books are not. And that is what makes it so useful. Reading this book and practicing the exercise contained in the last chapter opened my eyes. I have never looked at knife defense the same way since.

Here's some choice quotes from Put 'em down, Take 'em out!

"Contrary to the teachings of "noted" knife fighting experts, certain accepted techniques are ridiculous and will get you killed in a real-life situation. Unarmed joint-lock takedowns against an armed opponent and kicking a knife out of an attacker's hand are just two of the more common examples. Such "sanitary" approaches make knife fighting acceptable to the general public - they do not burst the viewer's television fantasy bubble.
The traditional martial arts are, in fact, busy perpetuating the most useless shit imaginable! These "noted experts" are writers, not fighters! The battles they engage in take place on paper...Use of these techniques would result in death of the technique user!"

"Martial arts publications are fond of showing how the attacker makes a thrust and then leaves the knife hand extended and stationary, letting the defender immediately gain control. The attacker then watches in an apparent trance while the defender applies technique after technique on him. Does this sound even remotely possible the you?"

Here's some video inspiration for you - here, here and here. As always these videos contain disturbing material.

Good luck with your knife defense and keep on training.

Hock Hochheim Seminar

Just spent a great weekend training with Hock Hochheim. We covered so much stuff my head is still spinning - unarmed, knife and stick work, as well as touching on aspects of firearms work. Hock is a funny guy, with a great collection of war stories and recollection from his days with the military and civilian police forces. Check out his website if you don't know who Hock is.

Day one started with Hock's dodge/evasion drill (no it's not jumping out of the way of a classic American car) against knife and stick. Then we went through his military knife fighting, which is brutal and to the point. No fluff here! We then work some stick fighting combos from Kali and Escrima, including some great chokes and takedowns with the stick. Then we learned stick disarms.

Day two included Hock's Spartan series of drills, more stick work, lots more knife including disarms and knife grappling!

We worked through Hock's Stop 6 theory and much more, so much it was going in one ear and pushing day one's material out of the other ear.

Hock is a CQC legend and a character, if you get a chance to train with him, do so (it's well worth it).