Who are the pioneers of RBSD?

yomchi

I must admit im fairly new to the whole RBSD thing. Over the past year I've been exposed the more real aspects of self defence.
This might be a silly question but I genuinly don't know ........

Who is famed with having put their hand up and say that A,B &C Self Defence (thats what I like to call it - attacker grabs, defender does A, B & C and no you're free) -doesn't actually work. For years we've been learning this type of self defence. So who are the modern day folk you brought it to the next level, as RBSD is very popular nowadays?

I would have said that UFC1 taught a lot of lessons to a lot of people.

Showed the three ranges of a fight and showed that the people who mastered these ranges even in a no-rules environment would win.

And it showed a lot of people that when they tried to spar all of their situational stuff it just didnt work.

dlofnep

columok wrote:

I would have said that UFC1 taught a lot of lessons to a lot of people.

Showed the three ranges of a fight and showed that the people who mastered these ranges even in a no-rules environment would win.

And it showed a lot of people that when they tried to spar all of their situational stuff it just didnt work.

Correctamundo.

Tim_Murphy

Colum is correct.

All it really takes is a little critical thinking from people, instead of simply doing what they are thought/what they have always done.

A,B &C Self Defence (thats what I like to call it - attacker grabs, defender does A, B & C and no you're free)

Not trying to stir, but have Don Dalton and co stopped doing this? That's the type of stuff we always did when I was training with them.

yomchi

Tim_Murphy wrote:

Colum is correct.

All it really takes is a little critical thinking from people, instead of simply doing what they are thought/what they have always done.

Not trying to stir, but have Don Dalton and co stopped doing this? That's the type of stuff we always did when I was training with them.

Tim Tim!! I know you had a falling out, but Mr D is not only my instructor but my friend and the 'Co' are also my friends! So better phrased would be 'you guys in the IUTF!'

Any SD we do is now applied with some realism. I think many instructors across the board are coming to terms with RBSD. However, when I train with with my Instructor which is only once a week I train mostly in pattern work and sparring at the squad sessions which are geared around the competition aspect of TKD.
Because of this I cross train for some RBSD with CHKD. Mr Dalton is very aware of the need for RBSD, and if he does A,B,C SD he will say this is good for demo's only, apply it on the street it you will not win.
Like I say the whole need for realism in SD training is slowly expanding out to what we know as TMA's.
I think 'online' has also helped this!

Jon

Baggio...

Hmm.... For me I would think that the pioneers of RBSD would be the people who trained the guys in CQC in WWII. Guys that new that TMA looked great but would not win in a "gutter fight". These training methods were developed and proven correct when the Brittish/American forces were forced to fight hand to hand with the Germans (when they were caught without a weapon or something).

Credit goes to:
W.E. Fairbairn (Godfather of modern Combatives - he created the first system in 1918, and it was developed from there for WWII)

Other guys Post and pre also derserve a mention:
Pat O' Neil
Sykes
Jon Styers
Westley Brown
Col. Rex Applegate
Biddle
Marcone

Modern guys like:

Lee Morrison
Geoff Thompson
Pete Conterdine
Carl Cestari
Richard Dimitri
Kelly Mc Cann

I'm sure there are loads of other dudes out there as well. Hope it helps.
Cheers,

Baggio.

yomchi

Funny I thought Matt Thornton would have gotten a mention

Tim_Murphy

Tim Tim!! I know you had a falling out, but Mr D is not only my instructor but my friend and the 'Co' are also my friends! So better phrased would be 'you guys in the IUTF!'

OK OK, no offence meant! I was just asking. 'IUTF peeps' so?! A good few of the 'co' are people I'm friends with too BTW.

yomchi

Tim_Murphy wrote:

OK OK, no offence meant! I was just asking. 'IUTF peeps' so?! A good few of the 'co' are people I'm friends with too BTW.

None really taken!
I was talking with Keith last night the guy who fought in Galway last week, he's failry happy with the result although he was fumin another guy pulled out who was meant to fight him

Millionaire

Baggio... wrote:

Hmm.... For me I would think that the pioneers of RBSD would be the people who trained the guys in CQC in WWII. Guys that new that TMA looked great but would not win in a "gutter fight". These training methods were developed and proven correct when the Brittish/American forces were forced to fight hand to hand with the Germans (when they were caught without a weapon or something).

Credit goes to:
W.E. Fairbairn (Godfather of modern Combatives - he created the first system in 1918, and it was developed from there for WWII)

Other guys Post and pre also derserve a mention:
Pat O' Neil
Sykes
Jon Styers
Westley Brown
Col. Rex Applegate
Biddle
Marcone

Modern guys like:

Lee Morrison
Geoff Thompson
Pete Conterdine
Carl Cestari
Richard Dimitri
Kelly Mc Cann

I'm sure there are loads of other dudes out there as well. Hope it helps.
Cheers,

Baggio.

Yes, Baggio got them all there and in historical order.

Fairbairn was the Pioneer and he learned his trade as he was a cop in Shanghi in china, which was a very murderous place back then, and cops had to be handy with fighting to protect themselves.

In fact of you google it, you can find free ebooks to download. I found
Kill or Be Killed by Col. Applegate on the web (sorry cant remember where), and his book was a mannual for Commandos in WWII. lots of Palm Shots and knees in that...thats what the Commandos were trained to do.

Geoff Thompson was probably the first modern pioneer, and has excellent stuff. Lee Morrission has taken Geoffs stuff, added his own twist and more WWII

Also a major USA pioneer is Tony Blauer , who would have influenced Rich Dimitri in Senshido. Sammy Franco is another guy, with good stuff.

Then Krav Maga was developed in Israel for military units to train in hand to hand, and hand against weapon, pitol, and rifle. Imi Lictenfeld was the founder of KM, and he his background was as a Champion Wrestler and Boxer.

Im2Lazy

I'd agree with a lot of Baggio's Modern day guys but would add :

Tony Blauer, Jim Wagner & Paul Vunak
Rodney King's street boxing stuff (Crazy Monkey) is good

Tim_Murphy

Rodney King's street boxing stuff (Crazy Monkey) is good

Indeed it is, and in a shameless plug, he will be in Limerick next Saturday and Sunday doing seminars. PM me to book a place!:)

Tim_Murphy

I was talking with Keith last night the guy who fought in Galway last week, he's failry happy with the result although he was fumin another guy pulled out who was meant to fight him

That sucks alright but not much you can do about it. Rd 2 is aprill 22nd, you interested in competing?

yomchi

Tim_Murphy wrote:

That sucks alright but not much you can do about it. Rd 2 is aprill 22nd, you interested in competing?

Don't think im good enough yet to be honest. I only get one night a week at it. As you know Im doing the TKD classes full time now, so a lot of my time is devoted to that. I started the CHKD to compensate for the lack of effective SD in TKD.. I'd like to give it a go some day though.

Musashi

I'd include Gabe Suarez, Jeff Cooper, Lee Aldridge, Paul Sharp and Luis Guitterez.
I think the stuff Paul and Luis are doing with Law Enforcement and Paul with Fist-Fire, are more akin to RBSD than straight MMA training.

dlofnep

The saddest thing is the actual need for "reality based" before self defense. You might think it's redundant, but you'd be wrong.

Millionaire

dlofnep wrote:

The saddest thing is the actual need for "reality based" before self defense. You might think it's redundant, but you'd be wrong.

what do you mean by that? (just not clear...fuzzy brain today!)

I think the RB means when training , you replicate how a situation would really happen...from the "interview", how to avoid the trouble, talk your way out of it, train the way you would have to fight if defending yourself, e.g. could be with 2 people who have back you up against a wall or into a corner,..so train to practice dealing with a situation like that. etc etc etc

Hey steeo

how you doing! yeah I forgot Paul Vunak, he got some great stuff too. hes one of my favs.

fianna.5u.com

Baggio... wrote:

Hmm.... For me I would think that the pioneers of RBSD would be the people who trained the guys in CQC in WWII. Guys that new that TMA looked great but would not win in a "gutter fight". These training methods were developed and proven correct when the Brittish/American forces were forced to fight hand to hand with the Germans (when they were caught without a weapon or something).

Hi, once again for the sensitive types, this is just a question.

If it was so effective how come the Germen's were pretty much unbeaten in this type of warfare, except of course by the Russians. WWII having really been won by them, then the US and UK in a rush to beat the Russians to it.

Okay so thats one question, here is another. Lets say the above is correct, the Russian RB trench fighting would have been better, since they are not in our speech community or what ever we have not been exposed to THE best type of RBSD?

So are any of the RBSD guys curious to see what other styles are out there under the net?

And one last question, when do you become an expert in RBSD? I mean how many times do you need to be attacked on hte street?

Thanks

Peace

Baggio...

Hey M,

I forgot a few also:
Paul Vunak is one of the best around, his style has been compared to Pat O'Neil of the WWII Combatives. Different styles - but they cam to the same conclusions.
Another great man is the late Charles Nelson, who had a huge effect on Carl Castari and Lee Morrison.
Not many women mentioted here, I think Millissa Saolt's stuff is really great and is def. wort a mention (I seem to remember Musashi mention her before).

Don't know that much about Jim Wagner, heard he's pretty good, You know much about him M?

Later,

Baggio.

Millionaire

fianna.5u.com wrote:

Hi, once again for the sensitive types, this is just a question.

If it was so effective how come the Germen's were pretty much unbeaten in this type of warfare, except of course by the Russians. WWII having really been won by them, then the US and UK in a rush to beat the Russians to it.

The Germans had their own hand to hand stuff too, there is actual WWII mannuals on the net scanned on, I found them before. To be honest their hand to hand is not must different, (the techniques) from the allies. Remember a punch is a punch be it SD, MMA or Nazi German

Okay so thats one question, here is another. Lets say the above is correct, the Russian RB trench fighting would have been better, since they are not in our speech community or what ever we have not been exposed to THE best type of RBSD?

Sorry, I know nothing about Russian Trench fighting, except they used some sort of a shovel as a weapon, as a last resort . and I did hear that this Russian Systema, is some one trying to cash in.
I do not think their is a best RBSD, most of the techniques are similar. punches,elbows, knees, other hand strikes.

So are any of the RBSD guys curious to see what other styles are out there under the net?

Are you asking do RBSD people train in other stuff?? (not sure of what way you mean that question) most RBSD instructors like many other MMA people, who have come from a TMA background, and then progressed along. Most good RBSD people including boxing, Muay Thai, Ground Training, along with the SD stuff.

And one last question, when do you become an expert in RBSD? I mean how many times do you need to be attacked on hte street?

I cannot answer that question as I am not an expert, and will never consider myself to be one. there is always something else to learn.

Like for example Geoff Thompson 2 main RBSD instructors (sorry cannot remember names, go to the forum on Geoffs site if you want to find the names, also won a few British Vale Tudo titles a few years back. though I am not sure if that makes them experts either??!!!??



Thanks

Peace

Gerry

If your really curious, why go buy a DVD and see for yourself, if I was in Dublin I would show you some stuff, but I am not (Thank GOD lol!!). It is very very difficult to explain this stuff and the whole ethos around it on a discussion board. any of the above mentioned names are well worth checking out. personalli I like Geoff, Lee Morrisson (he got good CQC dvd), Senshido, and Vunak.

P.S. We forgot Bruce Lee, who was training for Self Defence, and he started the Jeet Kune Do system, which was street orientated.

dlofnep

Millionaire wrote:

what do you mean by that? (just not clear...fuzzy brain today!)

I think the RB means when training , you replicate how a situation would really happen...from the "interview", how to avoid the trouble, talk your way out of it, train the way you would have to fight if defending yourself, e.g. could be with 2 people who have back you up against a wall or into a corner,..so train to practice dealing with a situation like that. etc etc etc

Hey steeo

how you doing! yeah I forgot Paul Vunak, he got some great stuff too. hes one of my favs.

What I mean by that is, if you are not training for reality - Then what are you training for?

Tim_Murphy

Don't think im good enough yet to be honest. I only get one night a week at it.

That's what the rookie division is there for! You'd only be fighting other first timers. Anyway, why not just try to keep standing and use your TKD?

yomchi

Tim_Murphy wrote:

That's what the rookie division is there for! You'd only be fighting other first timers. Anyway, why not just try to keep standing and use your TKD?

Well i wouldn't want to hurt anyone!

I wouldn't rule it out in sometime in the future though. Going to pop down to Ray Butcher tomorrow for some BJJ.

Colm_OReilly

About the WW2 stuff, how often were there H2H fights?

I've read a good bit of Stephen E. Ambrose and watched Band of Brothers a good few times. I know it's a dramatisation but it is heralded as one of the most realistic depictions of war from that era. I can't recall Ambrose mentioning H2H, but I could be wrong.

Also, wasnt' Churchill who said "the red army took the sting out of the Wermacht!" (Quote may not be entirely acurate)

Roper

I'll go hunt down the book if I get time this evening but I'm fairly sure that certain special ops units in the US Army in WW2 were taught Judo as their unarmed combat method. Can't remember which book it was but I came across it again in The Dirty Dozen (the novel not the Lee marvin movie!).

Ambrose mentions H2H in 'Citizen Soldiers', but not the type of system, and I don't think the average infantryman got much of it, it was elite units like the commandos or Ranger battalion. Lord Mountbatten's crowd did a lot of H2H before the Dieppe raid though I don't think you'd hear too many Irish people mentioning him as a reference.

Pro. F

Colm_OReilly wrote:

About the WW2 stuff, how often were there H2H fights?

ye it seems to me too that it was a relatively small % of the action. from what i´ve heard most troops got only minimal CQC training.

i´ve heard that the Sappers (soldiers who tunnelled under the battlefield) from both sides in WWI were fighting in close quarters a lot. they’d accidentally fall into each other's tunnels and often there wasn't enough light to shoot. they used knives a lot. & often had to fight in pitch darkness:eek:
Also the SOE fought irregular warfare in WWII so maybe they got into more H2H.

from what i´ve read on the GeoffThompson forums a strong argument can be made for CQC from the Shangai experience and contemporary experience. so (imo) the debate of how much close quarter fighting there actually was in the WWs may not be crucial.

Baggio...

True....

The tried and tested CQC did come from the "Shangai experience" (gutter fighting and thus Defendu). Where it was well pressure tested, and used many times. The CQC given to the guys in WWII was indeed minimun, as there was no time to train them properly. Plus who's going to fight H2H when you have a weapon involved. It was only to be used as a last resort. Now Combatives has evolved into a fairly large system by some very forward thinking individuals. It has been tested many times under pressure, that's why I personally think it's the best system I have seen. Again people may disagree.

Just my two cents, Baggio.

Scramble

W.E Fairbairn, Bill Sykes and Pat O'Neill (from Cork incidentally) were mainly influential in police and military circles, as opposed to the civillian martial arts community. Lately, however, WW2 combatives have really become something of a phenomenon on the internet. It seems like every second RBSD advocate regards Fairbairn as a personal influence, several decades after his death.

There were various big names who taught unnarmed combat material to the military prior to or at the same time as Fairbairn. Going back to WWI, for example, there was Drexel Biddle who taught a system based on a lot of physical conditioning, jiu-jitsu, boxing and savate. Ironically, Biddle's training methods would probably thought of far more highly than Fairbairn's by a lot of people on this board, as he was a huge proponent of athleticism and sporting methods to increase self-confidence and fighting spirit. During WWII, there were a number of other instructors, even Jack Dempsey got in on the act and taught the US Coast Guard a programme based on dirty boxing.

Why do we remember Fairbairn, and why do countless people reference him instead of ... say ...Biddle?

When Fairbairn was in Shanghai, he distilled the traditional martial arts he was doing (mostly kodokan judo, some chinese stuff) and created a system called Defendu that contained lots of small joint locks and throws as well as striking techniques. This police self defence system formed the bedrock of what was taught in pretty much every system taught to police in the west for the past seventy years. Even today, Gardai learn thumblocks, goose-neck locks and hammerlocks which owe a lot to Fairbairn's study of traditional japanese jujutsu. Then, as WWII began, he produced the Get Tough! syllabus which is devoid of all the locking and control techniques. Just a handful of striking techniques using the heel of the hand, edge of the boot and similar. Right up until he died, postwar in Cyprus, he continued to teach his various programmes, and they became progressively more and more stripped down (which is the opposite to what happens with most systems). He was able to codify his syllabus for each situation, and then get it adopted. I think there must have been a snowball effect, in some ways. He was hired for Shanghai because of military experience ... then hired for WWII teaching positions because of Shanghai ... Then postwar, had his pick of positions because of WWII ... It never really ended.

In police circles Fairbairn is not just remembered for his H2H stuff, however. He is widely credited with being the guy who invented the idea of the SWAT or emergency response team, as he set up the 'Shanghai Municipal Police Reserve team' when he was in Shanghai. Likewise, he pioneered extensive close quarter shooting methods and found ways to pressure test them on the range which were considered highly innovative and daring for the time. Rather gruesomely, he is also infamous for using cadavers to test the effects of various types of ammunition on the human body.

That's the rosey side of it. But does it mean we should all step back in time and train like our grandfather's generation did?

One of the main arguments from his adovcates is that we should look seriously at this stuff because it is 'battle-tested'. Well, a lot of martial arts claim that. So where's the documented proof? Erm... There isn't much, really. While Fairbairn codified his syllabus during a time of war (some of it, anyway ... leaving out the Shanghai-era stuff for the moment), no one actually went around afterwards documenting how well it worked out. Beyond Fairbairn, maybe. We do not have empirical proof that his instruction helped allied agents who were dropped into France to survive. We don't even really have any proof that it was a better training methodology than whatever other powers at the time were using (we just know it stood the test of time better).

I think that fixating on what Fairbairn and others achieved during WWII and in the run-up to it is to ignore some of the major directions that training has taken in the decades afterward. Leaving aside the civillian martial arts industry for the moment, I would point out that in military and police circles, pretty much any serious programme at the moment revolves around 'force on force' training, which is pretty much the antithesis of the combatives idea of training dirty blows unsafe to use full-power on a human partner, or training to 'beat on the opponent like a sack of potatoes'. The current US army H2H programme, for example, is based around a programme of Brazillian Jiu-jitsu. In policing, some of the most cutting edge programmes like ISR Matrix and Arrestling are based on greco roman / freestyle wrestling and grappling.

I think we should admire Fairbairn for what he achieved in his day ... but the world has moved on since then.

Musashi

In fairness to Styers, Biddle, Fairbairn et al. they were all highly ranked in various MA's at the time, unusual for Westerners at all. Fairbairn and Sykes had the most "readings of the Riot Act" of any Police Force while serving in Shanghai. They also started the process of "after action reports" where a round table discussion of any actions was discussed, analysed and Learnt from! This is where his ideas on Point Shooting under stress came from, and are still utilised today by the likes of Gabe Suarez for example.
When tasked to train OSS and SOE guys during the war (not all troops were trained by Fairbairn and Biddle or Dermot "Paddy" O'Neill) they distilled this massive amount of experience into a few easy to execute and remember moves. They weren't training H2H fighters, just giving them something in case it came to that. The overriding principal was similar to ISR Matrix really, use of H2H to create space to deploy a Primary Weapon.
Out of all the old time guys I think O'Neill is possibly the most interesting. He served in the Riot Police of Shanghai at the same time as Fairbairn, learning MA while there. In 1938 he went to Tokyo as security for British Diplomats and while there earned Fifth Dan from the Kodokan, as well as training Kempo.
He later trained and fought with the "Devils Brigade" in WWII, a joint Canadian and US unit.
He was one of the first Westerners to gain high rank in Judo, but in training soldiers he didn't teach them Judo as such. They weren't him, not as good or as dedicated, it would have been a waste. Instead he taught them what he considered to be the "essence" from his point of view.
The similarity of all these guys was that they took what they knew and distilled it down for ease of learning and use. Like JK showing me BJJ maybe?
I don't have the skills so I'll be taught simple and efective stuff to start. That doesn't mean I now know as much as Kav. or that he hasn't got more to back up his teachings.

RBSD these days isn't about teaching spies or soldiers, just normal folks who want to defend themselves maybe, if needed. So the instructors show them a few easy to remember and execute things and have them drill it, just like a short course in Krav Maga. This does not mean that the likes of Geoff Thompson, Cestari, McCann and the others don't have game to back up what they teach. Train in RBSD extensively and you'll get the best from Boxing, Thai, Wrestling etc. as well as stick, knife and Firearms training. Pretty much an MMA but with more lethal options for those entitled to use them.

Finally, a bit about Geoff Thompson. The guy is highly ranked in everything from Aikido and Karate to Boxing and Greco, he's trained with the Machados and all sorts. If you could bear with me and read this interview with him, I think the MMA lads would see that RBSD and MMA are not that dissimilar and certainly not mutually exclusive. There's bits where he sounds like Matt Thornton even!

http://www.knucklepit.com/mixed-martial-arts-geoff_thompson.htm

Millionaire

Very interest info in this thread gentlemen!

an intelligent debate, and no scartistic slagging...great!!!

Yes CQC techniques, are designed to be effective (say palm shot/chin jab) , easy to learn, and gross motor, in that the technique is easy to perform, easy to remember, and does not take the skills of a ballet dancer to do! LOL.

for example, I want to learn Ground fighting, right now my specific goal would be to learn, some basics that would get me out of trouble, be efficent for SD, and easyish to learn, and I would the roll them a million times unitl I had mastered them. I would not want to learn the advanced stuff, (well not right now...maybe later), just enough to hold my own. (allowing for the idea that average street thug, probably is not a BJJ expert).

so If I went to JK or any of the lads here, I would want to learn ground fighting on CQC ethos, as in show me the simple, effective, and easy to learn and apply stuff, let me drill it over and over, roll it, whatever, then pressure me (ok beat the crap out of me) and see how I handle myself.

I think the CQC techniques are very applicable, and effective, for the average civilian to defend themselves. In fact I am so impressed with CQC techniques ( backed up with proper training..if you want to master it) that I gloat over it daily! ha ha.

I am teaching a friend out here some CQC stuff (he is doing Muay Thai with me) and he was complaining that I only showed him 5 - 10% of what I know... welll I told him, Yes I have only shown you 5 - 10% , but that 5% is the 90% that will save your butt!!!

ok, I am off to look at some the the link you guys have posted! :-)

Roper

I don't think anyone ever disputed that there wasn't a lot of cross-over and similarities. From what I know of combatives and RBSD there seems to be a lot of "pressure testing" as an emphasis. Akin to sparring? Maybe, I dunno. What i'm trying to say is that methodology seems to be comparable. Drill, test, integrate, reality etc.

I think where you'll find the fundamental dfference is in the mindset. Even if myself and millionaire trained together every day in BJJ in the same class, I bet when we walked out of training we'd have completely different outlooks on what we'd just learned.

What I do find amusing is Geoff Thompson always being cited in debates like this. Most of the time he gets quoted by people training in some cqc or Kenpo or "self defence" type art. But whenever I read anything about him I see things like this :

If people train really hard in the martial arts and go into the arts that are not questioned, like judo, boxing, wrestling, thai – the really good physical arts – they will develop an artillery that will be so good they will be able to walk away from situations.

Millionaire

Yes, I picked up on that Quote too Roper...
Good old boxing, wrestling, judo and thai

I think to be a good (actually a proper RBSD student or teacher) in my book
you should be training hard in boxing, thai, judo and getting in sparring and training hard.

This MUST be a foundation, to all the other RBSD training and drills and pressure tests.

If ya are not training hard like this its not much use.

Baggio...

Hello all,

We all know who the most influential CQC guys out there are, then and now.

However Combatives, by its very nature, is ever evolving and always in a state of flux - seeking to adapt and improve the system to any new combat situations/scenarios that may arise. If we find something that works better - we'll use it.

So, full praise to Fairbairn and all the WWII era guys, but it in no way stops there. There are some amazing minds here today and freely sharing their knowlege. Another great thing about Combatives - its secrets are not jeaolously guarded like in TMA, and there's none of the politics crap, which wastes so much time these days.

Cheers, Baggio.

Great article. Not sure how familiar Geoff is with modern MMA training but it really sounds like Sprawl n Brawl MMA is what Geoff is advocating- namely strong striking (hands, knees, shins, elbows) good anti-grappling (to stay on your feet) and good submissions/ground fighting (but only to get back on your feet and go go go.

Scramble

I thought it might be interesting to do a visual comparison of some of the stuff we're talking about.

First, some clips of WWII combatives:-
Footage of edge of hand blows, chin jabs and targets demonstrated in slow motion
Fairbairn in a Lone Ranger mask demonstrating combatives

Both of the above were filmed for propoganda purposes more than anything else, but they are indicative of some of the techniques favoured. For the sake of completeness, here are a pair of Carl Cestari clips, who teaches currently:-

Cestari teaching strike to groin followed by elbow
Cestari teaching edge of hand blows drill on BOB

Bayonet training

This above is a clip of Biddle's bayonet system, which I think is actually far more impressive. It was the US marine programme, and had nothing to do with Fairbairn's group. About halfway through this clip, there is an explanation of how their approach to bayonetry is based on boxing. The instructor does a little shadow boxing and then has a bayonet and rifle put in his hands to show that (as we might understand it) the delivery system is the same.

Now, let's look at some contemporary approaches not in the Fairbairn tradition. Unfortunately I couldn't find any clips of the US army BJJ-style combatives programme, but the following are geared towards police agencies.

ISR Matrix sample clip 1
ISR Matrix sample clip 2
Tony Blauer clips

The ISR matrix clips kind of speak for themselves and have cropped up before. They're a good demo because some footage of what looks to be a seminar is spliced in there. I included the Tony Blauer clips even though they are more orientated towards selling his 'High Gear' protective outfits because they also demonstrate some of his training methods, which are athletically-based and heavily MMA influenced. His programmes for the police and military are very similar to what you see in the clip, except his guys train wearing their duty belts or in full webbing with all their gear.

I agree that goals of programmes like these probably remain pretty similar since Fairbairn's time (train a lot of people safely, in a limited time, and taking into account that what they learn needs to integrate with firearms, contact weapons and whatever control and restraint devices they are using). However, the training methods used to accomplish those goals seem vastly different to me. These days 'force on force' pressure testing is in, whereas the nature of Fairbairn's syllabus was such that it involved hitting dummies or practicing carefully with a consensual partner.

Train in RBSD extensively and you'll get the best from Boxing, Thai, Wrestling etc. as well as stick, knife and Firearms training. Pretty much an MMA but with more lethal options for those entitled to use them.

I'm not sure that the RBSD community is really so homogenous. While there seem to be some who try to use MMA (or their version of it) as a baseline, there are also others who have the mentality that MMA and combat sports are 'only for recreation' and that sparring teaches 'bad habits for the street' because it bans foul techniques.

I think where you'll find the fundamental dfference is in the mindset. Even if myself and millionaire trained together every day in BJJ in the same class, I bet when we walked out of training we'd have completely different outlooks on what we'd just learned.

Yes, I think this is a really important point.

Roper

scramble wrote:

there are also others who have the mentality that MMA and combat sports are 'only for recreation' and that sparring teaches 'bad habits for the street' because it bans foul techniques.

roper wrote:

I think where you'll find the fundamental dfference is in the mindset. Even if myself and millionaire trained together every day in BJJ in the same class, I bet when we walked out of training we'd have completely different outlooks on what we'd just learned.

Yes, I think this is a really important point.

Since you think it's an important point, wouldn't you agree that the 'only for recreation' combat sports are only for recreation when you approach them with a recreation mindset?
Two guys learn how to hold cross sides position. One for sport and one for RBSD. I think we can all agree that there's no difference in the position and the fundamentals, but a world of difference in the mindset. One guy's thinking from here I can step up to knee on stomach and the other's thinking I can hit him in the eyes, knee him in the head etc.

My point is this. Come to street fighting time, is it really all that difficult for the sport guy to elbow or knee his way out of trouble? I don't think the RBSD guy has any advantage there.

Scramble

Since you think it's an important point, wouldn't you agree that the 'only for recreation' combat sports are only for recreation when you approach them with a recreation mindset?
My point is this. Come to street fighting time, is it really all that difficult for the sport guy to elbow or knee his way out of trouble? I don't think the RBSD guy has any advantage there.

Yep, I agree.

In case there's an confusion, I'm not a proponent of training mainly for self-defence or the dreaded 'street', although I suppose I used to be.