I am very excited to announce that I will be teaching my fundamental coursework in Austin, TX on August 19-21. It will be my only coursework in Texas this year and it will be a blast.

Contrary to popular belief, many empty hand fights and those involving weapons, end up entangled, either standing or on the ground. No amount of pontificating or self-proclaimed “expert” posturing will change this simple fact. If you ignore this reality, you may very well find yourself in a situation you cannot handle with disastrous consequences. This course is designed to give the layman a realistic and functional set of concepts, techniques, methodologies, training drills and experiences that will prepare them for a worst case grappling scenario. All techniques and concepts are high percentile applications which span a wide spectrum of confrontations. Training consists of presentation, drilling and Force-On-Force evolutions providing attendees with immediate feedback regarding the efficacy of the skills learned. The goal of this course is not to create a “ground fighter” or grappler. The objective is to provide attendees who have limited training time and resources with solid ground survival and escape fundamentals geared toward the increasingly violent weapon based environments they may live, work and/or travel within. And all techniques/concepts are from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Wrestling, and Boxing and are combat proven over the past 80 years by thousands and thousands of practitioners, including the U.S. Army.

These methods are for everyone regardless of physical condition – young, old, male, female, athlete or not – You DO NOT have to be a professional fighter to perform at a functional level. This will be a class about physical training, but it is NOT boot camp. Participants may go at the pace that is comfortable for them, while trying to push the envelope of their own individual performance.Requirements: loose, comfortable but durable clothes, mouthpiece, cup, notebook, and an open mind. Boxing or MMA gloves are strongly encouraged, but are not mandatory. Blue Guns and matched holsters, and training knives are a good idea, but there will be loaners available.

Surviving/defending/escaping from the bottomGetting back to your feet / staying uprightDefending against strikes on the ground or clinchDenying the attacker weapon access – understanding technique, positional hierarchy, and timingProper role of “dirty tactics”Multiple opponentsEssential training principles, methods, and drillsUnderlying concepts and mindset for the clinch in a self-defense contextDealing with the sucker punch/ambushFundamentals of the clinchControlling the entanglementDisengaging and making distance for escape, weapons access or orientation resetPerformance coaching and troubleshootingStructuring and balancing your training for a real world lifestyle”

All delivered in a professional, ego free manner.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/immediate-action-combatives-seminar-austin-tx-tickets-265325735417

Leg locks in a self-defense context

In the past Leg locks tended to be looked down upon in the BJJ community. Historically, there are three reasons this was so.

1. They were seen as cheap because they generally only were used when nothing else better could be done. When someone could not pass guard, or stay on top, or finish from the top, leg locks were the answer. It was a mark of someone who was not that good at jujitsu.
2. They cause a lot of needless injury in training. Leg locks are mostly applied against the knees and ankles, which are much weaker in construction than other body parts, and there is a much narrower window of the start of the submission to the point of injury. With a kimura for example, unless there is some underlying physical condition, most people can take a lot of movement and articulation before things tear and break. With the knee especially, only a very tiny range of movement can blow out the ACL and leave someone needing surgery and long recovery.
3. Until recently, they were more of an “add on” to jujitsu, and therefore there was a lack of congruence with those attacks versus the typical BJJ offense. In other words, with most proven attacks like a straight armbar or a rear naked choke, it came out of positional dominance. With leg locks, they more generally were sudden moves that either worked spectacularly, or failed miserable because they were not positional based. That has changed over the last few years, mostly through the work of the “Danaher Death Squad” and the Renzo Gracie gyms, but it was true for most of the past.

These issues with leg locks do matter for self-defense as well. Obviously the injury part is important. None of us can afford to be on crutches for six months because we needed ligament reconstruction after a session of drilling leg attacks. And that idea of them not being integrated into the conceptual matrix of “position before submission” is key because while if it fails in competition or training, it is just an ego crush, but for self-defense it could be your life.

But along with those concerns, there are two other problems that need to be taken into account with leg locks when we are dealing with the self-preservation idea.

The most pressing is that to do almost any reliable leg lock you need to use both your arms to control and attack the legs. But when you do so, that leaves your opponent’s arms to be completely free to do whatever he wants to include defending and countering your leg attack, as well as striking, or the crucial part that he can deploy and use a weapon.  We don’t see leg locks in MMA to the extent that we do in grappling only matches because just adding the striking component makes it more complex and difficult. Just imagine how much worse it could be if the person getting locked could pull a gun, knife, etc.

The other problem is sort of a corollary to the above paragraph. While leg locks can be extremely painful and can sap the will to fight from someone (as someone who has been injured by leg locks, I can tell you there was not much I wanted to do afterwards but hold my knee and try not to scream), you are relying on a lot of pain to end the fight rather than damage. Yes, having your knee blown out can end the fight, but since you are already on the ground, and it does not affect the arms, if the other person can overcome the pain they are still capable of fighting at a high level. That is not so true with arm attacks since turning a two armed fighter into a single arm one can be a good way to diminish their capacity to continue, and it is obviously not true at all with chokes and unconsciousness. And some leg attacks don’t even cause injury but are pure pain compliance, such as calf crushers.

One place where leg locks can work even in a streetfight/self-preservation scenario is when we stop looking at it as a technique to finish, but rather as we look at all other submissions in BJJ – as a positional control first, and only after that as a finish in and of itself. For example, my friend Craig Douglas of Shivworks has shown video from his flagship ECQC coursework where students have used the set up of a leg lock to control the other person and instead of finishing with the leg attack, the student instead deployed a weapon. Think of the ashi-garami control that John Danaher shows as integral to his system of leg attacks. This is where the idea of leg attacks have been mated with the BJJ principle of dominant positional control before the submission and it makes the use of leg attacks a bit more functional outside of grappling mats.

Neither of these two issues should completely preclude the use of leg locks, but they need to be understood and addressed. Understand when they should be used, and when they should not. I would also not make it a priority for people under purple belt level. I think the normal focus on positional dominance and limb control, as well as high percentage fight finishers like chokes should be the main focus until the student is at least with a few stripes on his blue belt.

All aspects of BJJ should be trained to some level, but that does not mean that each aspect is equal in efficacy.

I am super pumped to announce that on April 1-3, 2022, I will teaching my fundamental coursework in Nashville, TN at the amazing Royal Range USA firearms facility.

Not only is it my first time in Nashville, it is also my first time at Royal and I cannot wait. Not only am I looking for the touristy stuff to do in the city, I am excited more than I can say to be at such an amazing location. I had a FaceTime tour and the place is jaw dropping.

Check out their website and the video tour:

https://www.royalrangeusa.com/

Some of the things covered are:

Surviving/defending/escaping from the bottom

Getting back to your feet / staying upright

Defending against strikes on the ground or clinch

Denying the attacker weapon access – understanding technique, positional hierarchy, and timing

Proper role of “dirty tactics”

Multiple opponents

Essential training principles, methods, and drills

Underlying concepts and mindset for the clinch in a self-defense context

Dealing with the sucker punch/ambush

Fundamentals of the clinch

Controlling the entanglement

Disengaging and making distance for escape, weapons access or orientation reset

Performance coaching and troubleshooting

Structuring and balancing your training for a real world lifestyle

Sign up here:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/immediate-action-combatives-course-nashville-tn-tickets-169686076623?fbclid=IwAR2Vunem7nMFy2XT3dz0SxRT7wA_HrtFGFnPbo3ETH5XCalG9wWjuo-YbW0

Things are busy on the seminar side! Which is great, but I keep forgetting to get things updated to let folks know, so here is the latest for the next few months:

Close Contact Handgun, Oct 8-9, 2021 Chino Valley, AZ

https://independencetraining.square.site/product/close-contact-handgun/10?cs=true&cst=custom

Entangled Handgun (the only one until September of ’22) Nov 5-6, 2021 Chino Valley

https://independencetraining.square.site/product/entangled-handgun/20?cs=true&cst=custom

Immediate Action Combatives, Oklahoma City January 14-16, 2022

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/immediate-action-combatives-real-world-application-in-a-weapon-based-env-tickets-167916238991?ref=eios&fbclid=IwAR0IU5GVJwdUIOv4lqDeA4JXqcin3iNxxcNm3lSet6YMa1jy3HvfYupVrwM

Immediate Action Combatives, Sterling, VA February 25-27, 2022

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cecil-burch-immediate-action-combatives-tickets-172156995207

Immediate Action Combatives, Nashville April 1-3, 2022

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/immediate-action-combatives-course-nashville-tn-tickets-169686076623

We all have time  constraints. Unfortunately we live in the real world where we have to deal with  jobs, family, social obligations and some dedicated leisure time. Somehow in all of that we have to figure out how to slot in training. And to make things worse it’s not just one kind of training we have to slide in,  but rather a lot of different kinds of training. We have shooting, medical, legal issues, strength and conditioning, empty-hand combatives, and other ancillary aspects. It can be daunting trying to figure out how it all goes together.

One tool I use it’s something I call the 80/20 principle. The 80/20 principle is better known as the Pareto Principle which essentially says that 80% of consequences come from 20 per cent of causes.   This idea is popular in the business world to help guide allocation of time, energy and resources. For my purposes I don’t quite follow that definition. For me, the 80/20 principle can be understood as this: make sure that at least 20% of your training time is devoted to stuff you don’t like. Simple, right? Here is how it can be applied. 

 As an example, many people prefer strength-building to cardio conditioning. Let’s face it, strength work is easier even if you’re pushing heavy weights. There’s something seductive about the simple metric of “I pushed more weight more often, therefore I’m stronger”, and that is reinforced by seeing muscle growth and mass as a result. Strength training is important but it is not more important than cardio. In a self-defense context, you had better have enough cardio in reserve that you are able to exert the strength you have for as long as needed. Otherwise, that strength is useless as you will not be able to access it.  Do some self-defense encounters only last a couple seconds? Sure, but far more last much much longer, and even the very short ones will put so much stress on your respiratory system that it will feel like the fight lasts hours. More cardio capacity is better. Period. 

So go ahead and put time into building your strength.  Spend 80% of your time working strength but make sure you put at least 20% towards hardcore cardio conditioning. That way you at least attempt to cover your bases and to minimize weaknesses.

Another example can be found with our grappling skill sets. For BJJ,  the choice can be wearing a gi (a heavy cotton dedicated training uniform ) or wearing a no-gi outfit (typically a rashguard and board shorts). Both of these options teach you different things and both are useful. However most people much prefer one over the other. For myself, I really dislike no-gi as it is based much more on  physical attributes such as strength, speed, mobility and explosiveness and far less on things like mechanics and leverage and position (which we always have throughout our lives and are not dependent on how physical we can be). However, no-gi does teach you intrinsically important aspects to grappling (which I covered in a previous article) and if I ignore them I would be making a huge mistake. Therefore my answer is the 80/20 principle –  I will spend 80% of my grappling time wearing a gi and  I will try to ensure that 20% of my mat time,  I’m doing no-gi. That way I don’t lose out and I make sure that I’m a complete fighter/Grappler.

So this is just a general guideline but it can be applied in anything including firearms end defensive shooting. Hate dry fire? Understandable but make sure at least 20% of your time with Firearms it’s in dry fire. This kind of metric is easy to track and to keep a training log that builds you for success in the long term.