Immediate Action Combatives with Cecil Burch
Date: 5/28-29 2016
Location:
We were fortunate to be hosted by TAD Gear at Dogpatch, San Francisco – a great space and location, easy to access in the sunny Bay Area.
Instructor: Cecil Burch of Immediate Action Combatives. For those that do not already know him, he is warm, open to questions (especially jiu-jitsu and boxing), logic driven, and humble. He mixes the right amount of humor and anecdotes in his course, and genuinely cares about his students.
Students: Open Enrollment, 6 students (5 male, 1 female), all civilians, with a mix of experience ranging from novices like myself, to Shivworks ECQC alumni; one student had a background in Greco-Roman wrestling, and another in jiu-jitsu. Take it from me, you do not need to worry about being too old/too small/too inexperienced to take this course.
Prep work: Cecil’s DVD the “Defensive Applications of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu” was very useful to conceptually understand the groundwork material (TD1) beforehand, and will be an effective review tool for the future. I have also since gotten Cecil’s second DVD “Surviving the knockout game” for reviewing TD2 material. Cecil also has various videos on his YouTube channel that have also been really useful.
TD1 launched straight into groundwork (Immediate Action Jiu-Jitsu). The overarching philosophy of this course is to be put in a worst-case scenario and to provide solutions “not to lose” (not the same as winning). Cecil does this by breaking down the elements of one’s response, and emphasizes body position (especially hips and arms) and physical movement that works for all body types. We started off with a default ground survival position, followed by gaining space, then by stabilizing our position. Also discussed was spatial awareness in a multi-threat environment. Dealing with weapons was then covered, including knife and gun defense.
After lunch we were ahead of schedule, so Cecil included some additional offensive work from various guard positions. We finished the day with 1 vs 1 (or in some cases 1 vs 1 + a surprise friend) as a form of pressure testing – no surprise, the material works!
Everyone showed up on TD2, sore and stiff, but still functional. Like TD1, the material put us in a worst-case scenario, but now all from a standing position (Immediate Action Pugilism). Material included a standing survival default position (which would be familiar to those who have taken ECQC), a default response, dealing with ranged strikes, and transitioning to a basic striking offense. Again, there was a large emphasis on body position and movement, including footwork and hip position (especially hip level). The day concluded with some basic grappling defense and various drills that put all the standing work together.
Observations:
I spoke to a few of my classmates and they agreed that you should take this course if you:
1. Have never been on the ground before with someone trying to work you over
2. You have limited training time/experience and need a groundwork/standing course that strips all extraneous information to provide you with a strong basis for future training
3. Are interested in the application of Jiu-jitsu in self defense (however, this isn’t a Jiu-jitsu-is-better-than-everything-else cheerleading class)
4. Are interested in improving your ground game in a weapons based environment
5. Are putting off going to ECQC because you lack training, either standing or on the ground
6. If you have done ECQC and you want to improve your ground/standing game
Basically anyone, new or experienced will be able to take something away from this course.
The essence of this course is survival in the first few critical moments of an assault. Cecil gives you non-diagnostic responses to be able to survive either from standing or on the ground. Once survival is established and held, Cecil then gives you the tools to put you in a position to diagnose the problem(s) and then work solutions in a stepwise manner. Cecil gives you a taste of how to proceed with several high yield offensive solutions to work with, but emphasizes there are many more to choose from.
This is not a course with lots of jiu-jitsu finishes or offensive techniques – we neither had the time or brain capacity to cover any more information, but no doubt this type of work will be covered in future, more advanced classes. As Cecil notes, if all you walk away from the class is being able to survive and defend what you’ve established, he will have done his job.
Personally, I found that Cecil’s coursework really complemented my previous experiences with Craig Douglas’ ECQC coursework (note: I only took day 1) and Jerry Wetzel from the Red Zone. Immediate Action Combatives as Cecil teaches it draws both from a lot of the experiences from other well-established instructors (without plagiarizing), but also adds its own unique coursework, which should serve as an excellent foundation for any combatives portfolio. It was a fantastic class, and has made me want to pursue jiu-jitsu and combatives training further.
Special thanks to Cecil for his stellar instruction, Peter for helping out despite a rib injury, my classmates for a fantastic and safe two days, and TAD gear for providing an excellent training venue on the West Coast.
Reply With Quote