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By Bradley J. Steiner, American Combato
Whether discussing the matter of being able to handle an adversary in unarmed or armed close combat, the honest and real world answer to the question of how much training and practice you will require is: “It’s impossible to tell.”
Impossible? Yes. And anyone who presumes to tell you with the smug assurance of an “authority” who can determine such things because of his level of knowledge and expertise is full of sh-t.
The fact is that every individual combat encounter is uniquely different.
There have been instances where well-qualified black belt experts have been overcome by violent assailants, and there have been cases where untrained individuals who were angry and lucky were able to completely overwhelm and defeat dangerous, experienced attackers.
This is not to say that training is not significant. It certainly is! And on balance the person who has spent some months working on quality skills of close combat, and who has acquired the proper mindset, stands an infinitely greater likelihood of being able to dispatch his opponent in battle than, say, an untrained person.
Our point is simply that real combat is so chaotic as well as varied and dangerous that it is a serious mistake to set down “final statements” about who can and will be able to do what against whom, ahead of time. The odds are with the properly trained individual… but odds have been known to be beaten.
Some very misleading—even absurd—pontifications have been made by people who, in the field of unarmed and/or armed self-defense and close combat, have been regarded (erroneously) as experts. These individuals may have been very knowledgeable about other matters pertaining, for example, to survival and personal security, but when they speak on the subject of individual combat, their presentations are sometimes way off.
We recall an otherwise excellent book on self-defense which we read years ago by author Matt Braun. A former Army Ranger, he made some really excellent good sense in his advice and instruction on unarmed and armed self-defense. However, he also said something to the effect that someone who was an expert (i.e. black belt) in karate could walk about as safely as if he had a loaded gun on his hip.
No. Sorry. To be a legitimately skilled black belt and in your prime, certainly shifts the odds of you being able to handle an attack by one or even two dangerous street felons in your favor most of the time. But—and we say this as an experienced black belt—if we had a choice in any dangerous emergency, we’d take a .45 automatic or a .357 revolver before we’d use unarmed action.
We certainly rate unarmed close combat as a must-have skill for self-defense… but equating hand and foot blows with the deadly impact of 230 grain full metal jacketed slugs is, we respectfully suggest, a mistake.
Also, remember that unarmed skills and personal formidability remain, but inevitably diminish, with the passing decades. The firearm delivers its same degree of impact and damage whether fired by a perfect physical specimen in his 20’s, or by an 80-year-old grandmother!
Realistically a person can easily cover more than he will ever likely need in order to defend himself with unarmed combat within about 30 hours of professionally-rendered training. However, he will need many, many more hours of practicing that which he was taught before he will be reliably capable of employing it effectively against determined opponents. Four to six months of intensive practice and drills in what he has learned will do it, and if the techniques are quality techniques, and not the flash and sizzle of acrobatic bullshit and complicated fine motor moves that look good but aren’t worth a damn in real combat, the individual will have what unarmed combat can give him.
What about weapons? These always change the picture, and it is ridiculous to suppose otherwise.
The knife is a weapon that depends much more on the attitude of the knife user than upon technical skill. It takes at most about two to three hours of instruction to teach a man how to use a knife with great effect in close combat… and another six to ten hours will be needed in which serious, hard practice of that which has been taught will be necessary, and neither the instruction nor the practice of that which has been taught will be of any use if the individual lacks the stomach to get close with another human being and stab and slash him to death, while indifferently getting that person’s blood and sometimes pieces of his flesh on oneself.
In fact, persons who are lethally injured by blade or bullet may vomit, urinate and/or defecate. If by blade, then receiving the enemy’s involuntary excretions upon oneself is part of the action. It’s not what you get in the dojo with rubber weapons and cooperative training partners.
We love the stick as a self-defense weapon, and we have elaborated upon the many reasons why elsewhere. But here is a weapon, although lacking in the psychological capacity to cause fear in the heart of the opponent (as a knife certainly does, and a gun usually does) nevertheless provides a versatile, simple, formidable weapon that is right there in your hand when you need it.
Speaking of the walking stick, which is what we recommend, it does take more time and effort to learn practical stick combat than knife work… but it doesn’t take long, per se. Ten hours of training will equip the average man with all that he needs to be a deadly stick wielder. Another ten to fifteen hours of hard practice will make him a practical expert with the skills that he is taught. And no one we have ever met who wants to master self-defense has ever had any mental qualms about smashing and bashing and jabbing an attacker with a stick!
The handgun is the ultimate personal weapon of self-defense. (Yes, we agree: the shotgun surpasses it, when available, for home defense. But a handgun—a sidearm—can be right there on your belt 24/7 and that gives it an edge over the shotgun for practical use.)
Talk about ridiculous advice about proficiency in combat shooting, get the following by the late Mel Tappan, an otherwise very knowledgeable authority on survival: “You will have to expend several thousand rounds in practice before you can realistically expect to defend your life with any handgun, particularly if your attackers are likely to be determined, well-armed and multiple.” (Quoted from Tappan On Survival—for the most part an otherwise very excellent book on survival.)
That statement is actually funny.
Now here’s the truth—and we got the truth many years ago directly from Col. Rex Applegate who, during WWII, was personally responsible for training more than 10,000 men in combat shooting. He had acquired his training from William Fairbairn and Eric Sykes, who had trained thousands of men themselves in real world combat use of the handgun: You can learn how to shoot a handgun at close quarters for personal defense within two to three hours.
The method—point shooting—is readily retainable, and although you would be well-advised to do some practice firing at a range on a regular basis (or dry fire drill, if you cannot get to a range) two or three hours is really enough to train the average man in combat handgun shooting at close quarters. We make this statement remembering what Col. Applegate told us regarding how much actual live firing was necessary to train men in this method during WWII. He said that rarely was more than an expenditure of 28 live rounds(!) needed before the person who was being trained could handle his weapon for real. Quite a difference when juxtaposed by the “several thousand rounds” that the good Mr. Tappan suggested, eh?
Now of course we understand that the more training and practice—with or without weapons—the better. However, we hope that we have made it clear that practical ability does not demand that you become a black belt or any kind of “champion” shooter or “grand master” with a knife or stick.
Doing that is for those who enjoy the training and for whom the subject is a very serious, lifetime interest. The idea that many years of training is needed is true of formal, classical martial arts. And, if you wish to become a master of “knife work”, stick fighting, and the use of the handgun in combat, be prepared to invest many months in regular, disciplined, arduous training sessions after you learn the mechanics of what you need to employ.
But if self-defense—plain and simple, of a kind and to a degree that gives you what one of our teachers, Charles Nelson, called a “fighting chance” in any emergency, then realize that you can do it in a matter of months, not years. The important thing is to obtain quality instruction from a professional, reliable, authentic source, and to be certain that your training includes very heavy and consistent doses of mental conditioning and tactical orientation in real world combat.