Tale from the darkside

The area of fighting arts that Gene LeBell calls ”the dark side of the Moon” is in fact not unknown by most practitioners nor rarely travelled. We’re simply talking about applications that would be regarded as “dirty” tricks in the world of sport for the reason that any competition needs to have a rulebook for it; then again once we start thinking of combat in general we come to understand that such methods are no less than essential. A real life situation is all too many times a question of the attacker's serious attempt to hurt you, which may have a lot to do with his preparations so to speak, like having armed himself, choosing a easy-appearing victim and so on. There is no “fair” to begin with; therefore we are to feel comfortable with the circumstances we might be forced under and must be ready to deal with the (non-existing) rules of the game.

I give you one example, a technique I showed Ricky Vendetta a while ago in order to deepen his perception of the true “Constrictor” style. It’s a way of moving into double wrist lock-takedown. First of all, people tend to grab the opponent by the forearm, right above the wrist that would be. This is because of the handle-like structure which makes the part feel suitable for a tight grip. The bad thing is that it’s strong for the opponent as well; he’ll have both the strength of his muscles and the leverage provided by the bones of his forearm to fight the hold with. So in catch-as-catch-can we prefer grabbing the hand or even the fingers (it’s done in many styles of ju-jitsu too). The small joints work as hinges that would consume some of the kinetic energy of any counter-move; they may also be dislocated if the opponent tries to pull away in a very aggressive manner.

The grip should, especially in this case, be also a twist. As you take a hold of the back of the opponent’s hand, try to reach over. It’s best if you can get the base of the thumb to use it as a sort of hilt. Having accomplished that you’ll be able to put on a powerful twist just as the very first phase of the technique. I guarantee it’ll be impossible for the opponent to fight it like he’d normally do. Second, we don’t really want to drag him in but deflect the horizontal line of his shoulders; twist, pull outwards (from his direction) and bring the weight down just a little bit – you’ll take him slightly off balance, which will be the time for the next move.

Pulling an object towards you is the same as pulling yourself towards the object, this is most elementary in science. So when the moment’s come use the force generated for letting yourself step in, or turn slightly sideways I should say. You have the rear leg anchored to the ground and control over the opponent with the hand/arm of that same side, with the same direction. Imbalanced the opponent is probably leaning forwards, not much but sufficiently. Now with the step, swing your free hand up, aiming at the opponent’s face. The movement comes very natural really for the body will try to keep it half-and-half anyway; a manifestation of yin/yang. I would use backhand, the fingers rather, and go for the eyeball: do not focus the energy to hit the surface but drive the whole load inside the socket. It’s not supposed to be a high energy strike of course, but I think of it as lashing someone with a twig instead of bludgeoning a person with a baseball bat – a quick, snappy move. The nose would also be a nice target as the blow comes diagonally from below, hitting the temple would not be bad either. With the eye it’s just that the opponent will instantly have his mind set on the possible damage done to his sight (the most important sense for human being), not any acts of war that might follow from the other person’s side.

Should you choose to do it in a match one useful thing about it is that the referee might not even notice it happen, and if he does you can always say you were just going for the opponent's head. Where's the proof you were not?

From this set-up it is easy to drop your hand down, grapevine the opponent’s upper arm (make sure you wind it up tight; the smaller the angle of his elbow the more unnatural the position for him) and move on to the actual takedown. If you’re able to reach far enough during the procedure and grab your own wrist – the one holding that of the opponent – you can lock the forearm by putting pressure on the radius, already bent across the ulna bone next to it, with the double hold you have. It is possible to even snap it that way, which would create an interesting layout for the following situation of you having the upper hand on the mat from that point on.

The fact about the "dark" side of the Moon is that day and night follow one another on it, as they do down here on the planet. The sun does shine there too. What we can’t see only raises this illusion of darkness before our eyes. Let no such deceit blur your vision, never stray to allow it to weaken the power of your own perception.

From razor to guillotine

A remainder of something known as Occam's razor

In a clip filmed for FCF before the Continuation War wrestling show you can see parts of a training session at which I taught Mr Ricky Vendetta a few facts about grappling. It’s not just about what to do, but what to avoid as well. For instance, after I’ve taken Ricky down – notice the leverage; very catch-as-catch-can style, or martial arts if you will – I “lay back” instead of rushing into a cluster of potential techniques I would try to do. By relaxation and sensitivity I constantly stay alert, know what’s about to happen and turn Ricky’s efforts into traps that’ll work to my advantage. 
 

When Ricky tries to do the same to me – put me down and keep me there – he has problems with the bursts of brute force he uses: they’re not very effective for my defence is pyramid-like, and it's very difficult to flip an object like that to say the least. At one point I do choose to go down, but only to roll through and as he tries to gain control on the mat I’m able to get up, or bring us both up really, by leaning onto him. Using the Occam principle helps me save the fuel so I’ll have more of it left for whatever may come next; more than the opponent anyway.

If you watch(ed) our match against Jami Aalto and Joey Impact you could see that what I kept doing was this: I make my move, go for a pin, can’t get it yet but force the opponent to use a significant amount of his energy for the kickout, then I do the same all over again. This is exactly how a constrictor would work on his pray. (Ricky, the Doberman he is, wasted too much time barking=showing his attitude while he could have moved directly towards finishing either Aalto or Impact.) Why gamble when you can simply have the opponent’s liver on a stick?

It’s like I drive the enemy before me into a canyon that gets more and more narrow offering him less and less room for his actions. Finally there’s nothing but a dead end. Another example of efficient strategy was Jimmy Gavroche’s wrestling in his bout against Valentine at the show; it’s been some time since I saw anybody use headlock as a weapon not only for handling the situation but to make it count regarding the outcome of the whole match.

Even when wielding the razor one must never forget what Einstein had as his whetstone: simple is good only as long as you get the results. Not going all the way but preferring to take a shortcut actually cost Vendetta the victory at Continuation War. Always remember to crush the enemy, then make sure he won’t come back with a vengeance.