Who are the pioneers of RBSD?

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.

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.

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.