Hock Hochheim's Combat Talk Forum

One time awhile back, I had a old-timey karate black belt, system head, guy, tell a student who was both with him and me, say...

"Hock has no finesse."

Actually coming from him, that was a good compliment. His definition of finesse is not one I aspire too.

Beauty and ugly is in the eye of the beholder.

Hock

 
  “…wait now, these are not your grandfather’s mitt drills! Read on!”

     "Pad drills are healthy exercises for practice and an important slice toward the big picture. Right lead. Left Lead. Standing. And of “late”- ground.  Most people in training just do the classic boxing school versions. In the late 1980s, I saw Larry Hartsell do these and he added "slap-mitt-versions" – standing and clever ground versions. These slaps forced the trainee to cover first and then counter-strike. This was not completely new for ignorant me, but he did a whole host of impressive and creative applications. I just called them Hartsell Slap Drills in his honor since, because they have popped up here and there through time in other systems and have differing nicknames.

     To explain a Hartsell Slap Mitt Drill example quickly, a trainer slaps the side of a trainee with a right-handed mitt. The trainee drops his left elbow/arm and takes the blow. The trainer then pulls the mitt back and over on the center line about stomach high. The trainee then hook punches this mitt with his right hand. I realize this might be hard to imagine without photos or a film. Look below at this sample we shot for a book in 2001. These can be down with the jab, cross, hook, uppercut and overhand, standing, kneeling and on the ground.

     So…right, left? Jab, cross? Let’s take the common punch. Did you know that many military courses for many decades did not designate the difference between a jab and a cross? They just called it a “punch.” A "punch" from the right side and a punch from the left side, no matter the blading of the body was just called a punch. This simple approach does help through various drills, but in other courses, certainly modern ones, people (me too) like to fine tune training and use the lead shoulder jab and the rear shoulder cross definitions when possible, because they do offer differing training drill opportunities. Of course if you are doing boxing-based programs you absolutely need the “jab-cross” distinctions. But when “MMA-ers” get down on the ground and ground n’ pound? There really are no right or left shoulder forward leads. Just…punching.

     But, what of citizen self-defense, security, police and military? Are stand-up, sport, boxing mitt drills alone the best we can offer them? No. We can add more. First off,..."

Click here for more: http://www.forcenecessary.com/unarmed-striking-pad-drills-and-heavy-bag-too/

    "...There seems to be a little fad/craze about paring or fruit knives going around. You know those little kitchen knives just about everyone uses, and here in the States, you can buy for about a dollar in the Dollar store. One guy said when he lands from a plane ride he runs to a cheapy store or supermarket right away and buys a paring/fruit knife. Good idea although I don't know how he'll carry it around, but its good for the hotel room and…thereabouts.

     And I do worry about the hotel room too. I don't exactly travel to the best and safest places. I was in Africa one night, and the power went out, and…well, that's another story. But do take a good look at these paring knives. They are good and they are cheap.

     I saw a fixed blade knife in a knife show one weekend in the 1990s. It was cool. It was about $150. Then my wife and I were in an outlet mall in a kitchen store and they had kitchen knife sets for sale. I saw a set with similar designed wooden handles. I looked closer, I swear, I swear, the middle knife in the set of 8, looked EXACTLY like the $150 knife I saw at the show. The whole kitchen set was like $19.99. Ever since then, I have been really pessimistic about the cost of knives and branding, etc. I am not a collector of knives, per say, so I do not collect them for the sake of admiration – if you know what I mean. To me, they are just a tool. A simple tool. I understand that..."

Click here for more:
http://www.forcenecessary.com/this-paring-knife-thing-and-kitchen-knives-and-scissors/

    "There's an old story going around about me and a kermabit. The tale goes that during a seminar, lunch break, in the 1990s, a guy walked up to me and showed me his kerambit, and I looked at it, opened a nearby window and threw it out the window of a two-story building. This isn't true. I would never do that to a guy's property. I can say confidently that not only would I be so rude as to throw his out a 2-story window, I would never throw my own kerambit out a window either, because I would never own one in the first place.
     Being somewhat in the business of knives, I am all too often shown kerambits and asked questions about kerambits. You know, the curved bladed knife that looks like a single animal claw. Some folks think they are God’s gifts to knives. And I am shown and see way too many karembits. I see photos and photos of them in the web. God, they look cool. All kinda science-fictiony. Klingon-like. Deadly. Tiger-paw looking. I can honestly proclaim I have never seen a kerambit I didn’t think was very, cool looking. Wow!
     Lord knows I don’t want to be attacked by one. But I don’t want one. Don’t need one. Don’t want one. Because of the Karembit Handicap. I hope I can..."

Read the rest here-
http://www.forcenecessary.com/the-kerambit-gambit-handicap/

“If I die in combat zone. Box me up and ship me home.”

    "You’ve all heard that ditty? Maybe you haven’t? It comes for most as a cadence –  a song – we all sang while marching and running in the military. It has been bastardized, or satired and altered for various messaging. One paraphrased version we don’t see much anymore but old-timers will remember, was popularized on some t-shirts and posters years back. It was about dying in a combat zone and having your gear split up, the words accompanied by art of a rip-shirt, commando. This splitting-up is a very good idea for several reasons, but I don't think the commandment reaches deep enough in citizen and police training methodology.

    There are numerous, vitally important, physical, survival things you cannot and will not learn or get to do, if you decide to forever shoot on a paper target range and consider that the end-all to gun-fighting. One such subject is what to do about a “drop dead gun,” or the dropped gun. Dropped by a wounded or dead person. You can lecture on this, show charts, and talk it up, you can put various kinds of guns in various conditions on a bench at the shooting range and make people pick them up and shoot them (which has been done forever), but the true savvy and timing of doing this pick up inside a hot under-fire, being-bunted situation is hardly practiced on the range.

     Technically, this is weapon recovery. Weapon recovery is..."

Click here for the rest:   http://www.forcenecessary.com/the-drop-dead-gun/

Don't Headhunt?
The "Third Round is Yours" Theory and Any, Better, Best Targets

     "Don't head hunt! This was advice I had been given for many decades by various boxing, some kick boxing, and even some Thai boxing coaches. I think they always really meant to say, don't "overdo" headhunting, as in spending  all of your time, effort and strategy trying to strike the head. Strike other places, as well as kick in kickboxing and Thai. You do this to hurt the guy, confuse the guy, wear him down..."

Click here for the rest
http://www.forcenecessary.com/dont-headhunt/






 

Click here for the film fight

"The other day, I mentioned here the subject and term “Well-Defined Combat Scenarios” in shooting training in the context of using simulated ammo in interactive training. (Actually the subject must fit into all hand, stick, knife and gun training.) But I briefly suggested the semantics of terms like “role-playing” and “well-defined…” and how some, not all, some instructors turn these terms into epic acting requirements, when there are tons of little short interactive shooting bits and segments that can be set up and done swiftly and successfully in small “skits.”
     I sometimes think that “properly-structured” might be a better term than “well-defined” but hell…it’s all semantics. But sometimes I still worry where the semantics lead off too. There is a difference between “well-defined” and “properly structured” to an anal retentive person. Think about it. Well -defined means..."

For the rest. look here:
http://www.forcenecessary.com/well-defined-combat-scenarios-vs-well-structured-ones/

The results of these lawsuits...(what was he thinking!?)
https://www.facebook.com/MichaelYonFanPage/posts/10151422446985665

Wait for it! Off-Speeds, Timing, Delays, Fakes and Feints in Fighting

Ever hear that expression, “wait for it. Wait for it!”
Or how about in American baseball, that infamous ”off-speed” pitch.

     There is always much ado about training too slow and plain slow, to later train and perform fast and even faster still. The topic of “fight-speed” is always popping up in social media, sports, seminars and classes. Dan Inosanto once said in a seminar I attended years ago,

“train slow, fight slow.”

     He was suggesting that you needed to up-your-speed. I think we all get this point intellectually, but we don’t always physically train speeds proportionately. Much time is spent on slow and half-speeds? How much can we safely do full speed? And is super-fast always the best? What about a needed change of pace? Can we..."

Click here for the essay: http://forcenecessarytv.blogspot.com/2016/02/wait-for-it-off-speeds-timing.html

Travis Haley Responds To NDgate

Earlier this evening, Haley Strategic Partners posted this statement on their Facebook page in response to the week old disclosure of video taken by Panteao Productions depicting Travis Haley discussing an AK. During that video, the weapon fired. Panteao Productions issued their statement on Monday of this week.

Press Release Feb 11, 2016:

On approximately Thursday February 4th 2016, Panteao Productions released a video through poor accountability and security with its servers by one of their instructors according to the owner of Panteao Productions. How and why this happened is still unclear, however assumptions can certainly be made.

This particular video was of me teaching a block of instruction on controversial Russian trigger finger/safety techniques, and why I personally don’t recommend them. During the filming, my AK was discharged inadvertently performing the demonstration. The range was set up for this demo, the weapon was intentionally off safe due to the block of instruction, and the barrel was oriented towards the target in the event the weapon fired as it did in this case.

Of course I take these matters seriously and if you know me or have been through any of our courses, you know our number one priority is safety. We pride ourselves on learning from our failure as it is our greatest opportunity and share those experiences with the people we serve.

There was also a communication issue with the inconsistent posts made on social media between the HSP team back in Scottsdale AZ and me being in Central America at the time the video was released. Now that I have seen the entire video (never seen by me before as it was in Panteao’s library), I have been able to review it and now share my thoughts. After reading a lot of comments, I think Pat Rogers said it best:

“One type causes injury/ death or comes close enough to warrant immediate measures to remove the person and his weapon. The other type is a down range ND, when the shot is discharged unintentionally, but into the target/ berm etc. These represent the majority of ND’s and this is where learning can occur. These are teaching/ learning points, and if handled correctly, will not likely happen again.” -Pat Rogers

I have had many failure points in my life (much greater than this)… I have ND’d. I have missed the mark countless times in my life even when it mattered most. I have zigged when I should have zagged. I’ve been impulsive and involved myself into fights without thinking of who’d it effect. My brothers have asked me for direction in combat and I was unable to answer. Hell, I have even taken life when it could have possibly been avoided… I have failed over and over in my life, yet I have been blessed with being accountable and educated by my shortcomings. This, in turn, allows my failures to continually become my greatest opportunities.

Travis Haley
Founder/CEO
Haley Strategic Partners