Monthly Archives: February 2021

Webinar – Weapon grappling


I’m excited to announce my first webinar, March 21, covering halfguard in self-defense.

I am confident that it will accomplish a multiple number of things in one compact and easy to watch package :

1) for those who don’t know anything about grappling, it will be an easy to grasp set of techniques and concepts to give the new person a bit of a bigger picture on how taking the fight to the bad guy on the ground can look

2) for those who have some BJJ, it will be a focused look at an excellent game plan for attacking and being aggressive from guard that is less attribute dependent than some other guards

3) for those who are not familiar with using a weapon in an entangled fight, this is about as good a place to start to learn as anything out there

4) for those who have some idea of fighting in a weapon based environment, it gives a good solid look at one of the most useful set of moves that there is

All of that is a tall order for a single two hour webinar, but I know I am not promising something that I cannot deliver.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/webinar-grappling-in-a-weapons-based-environment-halfguard-tickets-136853284859

Video analysis – 3 carjackers vs Snub

I tend to be a “go against the flow” kind of guy in the self-defense training community.

Not because I am being contrary for contrary sake, but because I straddle multiple arenas in said community. Certainly I am a martial artist/combatives/hand-to-hand focused person, but I am just as much a firearms centered person. Throw in a nerdy need to know all there is to know about the human condition so I spend much research time looking at history, sociology, human performance, stress, vitality and fitness, and throw in my degree in psychology, at times I come at problems or scenarios from different angles than tend to be the norm when commentators have a more narrow prism to view things.

Case in point is the accompanying video. It has been making the rounds in the training community and most of the comments about it typically begin and end at “well, he should not be carrying a snub revolver against multiple opponents” with the blatant implication that if he had a full size pistol the end would have gone differently. That is not my take away. If you have not seen the video in question first, watch it here and then think about it for a moment before reading further.

 I am sure after seeing that then you understand why so many people keep their commentary centered on the idea that the good guy was outgunned because he ran a 5 or 6 shot revolver against three attackers. It is an easy conclusion to draw. After all, he was killed and all three of his attackers were armed with semi-autos. And this leads to the easy answer of “he should have had more gun”.

Except that misses everything that actually happened. Re-watch it and take note at the: 18 second mark where everyone is. The bad guys spread out and try to flank the good guy, but he brilliantly uses the nearest car as a form of cover. He has some protection from the two guys to the outside left, and has his gun out and firing at the closest bad guy on the right. Then watch what happens in the two following seconds – as he opens fire from cover ALL THREE BAD GUYS RUN AWAY! It is hard to see if the robber he is aiming at took any hits, but it is a secondary matter because all three broke off their assault and tried to escape. At that point, the good guy is fine, and the bad guys are leaving. It does not matter how many rounds the good guy has left in his gun, because at that point he is safe. Unfortunately, after doing literally everything correct and at an exceptionally high level (he sees the attack coming way ahead of time, instantaneously reacts, moves to a superior position, gets his gun out and makes the mental switch to “I am in a fight for my life and I will not fail” – all brilliantly executed), he makes a grievous error. As the bad guys flee, he leaves his superior position with some protection against incoming fire and presses the counter assault. At that moment, all three bad guys slow their attempt to leave and return fire. Now, in the open and without cover against multiple opponents who think their only hope is to fight back, the limitation of the snub become apparent.

From everything in the video and from what the reports after state, the good guy took the first hits when he was out away from the car in the middle of the sidewalk after the :20 second mark.  But at that point if he had stayed behind cover and let the bad guys leave, he would not have suffered that. Moreover, and probably more important to the overall discussion is that it is pretty much irrelevant then what gun he was firing. Standing in the open against three different attackers, he could have had a Glock 17 with a 33 round magazine and the outcome would have most likely been the same. His gear did not let him down, his final tactic did.

This is no way diminishes what this brave man did, nor does it diminish the tactically superior actions he took early in the fight. But we need to learn from mistakes as well as copy successes.

Nor should anyone take this as “Cecil says all you need is a snub against multiple opponents”. That is not what I said at any point. I think assuming that any and all bad guys you face in the future will always run away at the first sign of resistance is foolish, and can lead to other catastrophic results, so just because these attackers broke off does not mean any other future attacker will follow suit. But, it also does not mean all multiple opponents will stand and fight like they are the Mongol Horde either.

So please, let’s stop looking mindlessly through our own personal prism with our own confirmation bias’ and start talking about nuance and context to determine best practices rather than lazily falling into a type of solipsism based on what we want to believe, rather than what actually exists and happens.

Webinar – Grappling in a weapons based environment

I’m excited to announce my first webinar, March 21, covering halfguard in self-defense.

I am confident that it will accomplish a multiple number of things in one compact and easy to watch package :

1) for those who don’t know anything about grappling, it will be an easy to grasp set of techniques and concepts to give the new person a bit of a bigger picture on how taking the fight to the bad guy on the ground can look

2) for those who have some BJJ, it will be a focused look at an excellent game plan for attacking and being aggressive from guard that is less attribute dependent than some other guards

3) for those who are not familiar with using a weapon in an entangled fight, this is about as good a place to start to learn as anything out there

4) for those who have some idea of fighting in a weapon based environment, it gives a good solid look at one of the most useful set of moves that there is

All of that is a tall order for a single two hour webinar, but I know I am not promising something that I cannot deliver.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/webinar-grappling-in-a-weapons-based-environment-halfguard-tickets-136853284859

Cardio for BJJ

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Every time someone new starts jiu-jitsu, I hear the same refrain – “man, I thought my cardio was good but I am wiped out after a one hour class!” If you have not experienced it, the conditioning requirements of BJJ are different, and it is eye opening.

Even if you truly do have solid cardio beforehand, you will still come close to feeling that giant ball of suck that is oppositional pressure in BJJ and what it pulls out of you. You can be able to run a 5k, do 10 x 100m sprints, do 100 burpees in 4 minutes, and crush that WOD at your Crossfit gym, and still be an empty rag at the end of a BJJ class.

Why is that? There are a few reasons.

The first is that in jiu-jitsu, you are going to be using your body in ways you most likely have never done before. Even experienced and trained athletes rarely work the body the way that grappling does. Few people use and work your hips in the manner and to the extent you will in BJJ, and your core is engaged almost constantly, as are your grips. Firing all those muscles constantly when you are not used to it is exhausting.

Secondly, using all those muscles in new ways is going to be done in a generally inefficient manner. Any strength and conditioning coach will tell you that inefficient movement leads to more energy and calorie burn and that is partially why it is good for fat loss. One of the reasons they will advise someone to change programs now and again is that once your body acclimates to the movement, it becomes more efficient, which when you are trying to burn as many calories as possible is not what we want, so a good S&C trainer will try to keep you with inefficient movement to maximize the burn.

However, the single biggest reason that outside cardio does not translate very well at the beginning is due to stress. Or in more appropriate jiu-jitsu terms, panic.

When you do BJJ for the first time, you tend to be terrified on some level, and desperate to get this bigger person off you or prevent them from choking you. Every part of your body is coiled and tensed, and you are exerting 100% effort constantly to try to not die. You go through whatever energy reserves you have in the blink of an eye. Fairly shortly, you strongly resemble a fish that jumps out of its tank and is now gasping huge gulps trying to stay alive. And the horrible part is that there is no relief, because even as you learn techniques and actions and movement, you are still in a partial panic. You know no matter what, that higher belt is going to be on top and inching forward to that armbar or choke or leglock or…….. The end is near, and there is little to nothing you can do about it. That causes blind panic even when you don’t think you are panicking.

You can get a glimpse of that situation right now. Tense up your entire body as hard as you possibly can, very muscle and tendon and ligament straining as if you are being crushed under a collapsing ceiling and you need to hold it up. Keep it up for 10 seconds, and relax. How strained and sore are those muscles right now? How hard are you breathing? And that is only after 10 seconds. Imagine a non-stop hour or two. And that is why you are so used up after your early BJJ practices.

This is one of the reasons that whenever I hear someone say “let me get in some shape first, and then I will do jiu-jitsu”, I tell them it doesn’t matter. Whether they start right now in the condition they are in, or they do a three month program of cardio, they are still going to feel like they have no cardio at all. The only people I have seen come to BJJ and not experience this are wrestlers and judoka, because they are already used to their energy and body movement. Everyone else, from that world champ Crossfitter to the ex-D1 football player, will suffer.

The good news is that this does not last. Very soon your body will adapt, and you will get in jiu-jitsu shape. More importantly to those of us in the self-defense world, you will be in shape to deal with a violent criminal actor who tries to assault you. S

So just start training now. The results come when you put the time in. BJJ is the ultimate democracy. You will get better if you just get on the mat and start.