The "one" thing to seperate good entangled skills instructors from silly ones

[UNM1136]

I have a couple of black belts in various styles. ANY system will work with enough practice. An actual Tai Chi master will mess you up. It is just getting there and all the coulda/woulda/shoulda folks making excuses for their styles. Broken rhythm training and whatnot. I am one of those, but had a great teacher. She knew she had something to sell, sold it, and gave a lot of wisdom with her training. She is gone now, and very much missed. I lack her skills, but I learned a lot.

What I learned was complimentary to my DT stuff. And having trained with Craig and Cecil, yeah. Just yeah. My kids are taking IAJJ and ECQC before they get their blasters at 21 years old.

pat

[EPF]

I’ve been thinking about how to answer this question since the OP and every time I tried to type out an answer it just trailed off into a useless drivel of platitudes.

In short, I’ve come to the position that there isn’t “one” thing to determine the qualifications of a good combatives instructor. Like many things worth doing it takes some time to acquire the knowledge of training necessary to research and evaluate the curriculum a given POI is based on.

To add something useful to the thread, I think it would be incredibly valuable for a legit combatives instructor to demystify the force on force component of self defense in a WBE by breaking it down into micro component drills that could be shared with the general public. Something similar to the way in BJJ we can break down sparring into the component parts of a technique and work it at different % intensity levels along a continuum of partner resistance from pure drilling all the way to blood on the mat.

If the techniques taught in a given program can’t survive the testing then they aren’t legit.

A set of micro drills people could implement at home to train, practice, and test the required component skills with training knives, dummy guns, or even air soft. There is no better way to evaluate the reality of a technique than personal experience.

The challenge is most people don’t know where to start. It would require rules for the role players/OPFOR tied to simple drills that teach the fundamental underlying skills involved in accessing a tool and putting it into the fight and/or preventing your opponent from doing the same. With well defined but limited goals and parameters.

I’m not talking about the longer complex FOF such as Southnarc posts from ECQC. I think that level requires proficient moderators. I know this type of thing already exists and that Cecil B, some Shivworks training groups, and others have a well defined set of these drills already.

For an example of what I’m talking about check out Shawn at Anti-fragile, who I met years ago at a seminar in Baltimore. He has done great work in this area and posts some of the drills and ideas he uses for teaching the underlying component fundamentals drills.

I think rather than giving away the answers for free, an instructor who allows you to pressure test his work on your own would be proving the worth of attending a longer format class. It may not draw flies like the blue light of a sleeve tattooed one second draw on instagram, but I think it would increase one’s presence and voice within the community.

[Cory]

@Cecil Burch has an ebook about beginning BJJ for newbies. It is free, and he emailed it to me in response to some questions a few years back.

In the portion where he talks about choosing an instructor or school he lays out things to look for in a BJJ teacher. He says some stuff I think is more BJJ specific, and then this:

Fifth, does he associate in some way with other BJJ instructors? Even if he does not
compete, does he go to tournaments to meet up with other practitioners? Does he
talk to or communicate in some way with other high level BJJ teachers? Again,
being willing to associate publicly with others in the BJJ community is a good
indication that the instructor is willing to stand behind his credentials.

And I think weapons entangled skills would be similar. For instance a gym a few hours south teaches weapons grappling. That instructor has his own pedigree of .mil and BJJ black belt, but he also interacts with Craig Douglas, and Cecil, and others who are respected in the sphere of weapons based grappling. So I think who a person associates with and who informally endorses them is a major criteria.

[Rocky Racoon]

I'm taking Shivwork's ECQC this year. Been wanting to for a while but haven't been able to make it work. I'm not spending any of my own money on any other training this year.

With that out of the way - let me be a contrarian if only for the sake of it. Here goes.

Could the Gunsite analogy be even more apt than we realize?

I imagine there were would have been a lot of this if gun forums had existed in the 80s and early 90s: "What? You want to train with Rob Leatham? Never heard of him. Modern Isosceles? Any fool knows you need to push/pull to tame the recoil. Go down to Gunsite and learn color codes from some closeminded old geezers masters who will sneer at your Glock plastic framed mouse gun. "

Before the hate starts (I can take it), refer back to my first sentence. I'm just wondering at what point our collective lovefest for Craig will cause us to overlook other innovative trainers.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

I'd say the one thing is this: is the curriculum a mature system that has evolved over time to incorporate the lessons learned both from in-class pressure testing by motivated people giving it their all to win in a competitive, non-consensual testing ground and from fairly large scale field testing by alumni?

If yes, then it's probably good to go.

If no, I'd wait until the answer is yes.

Obviously I like Craig but the reason I usually recommend Shivworks ECQC isn't because Craig is a good guy or a hero or my friend, it's because the content has had many years and many practitioners and many opportunities to be proven true or false, and it works, and we know it works.

If Georges St-Pierre opens a school for entangled fighting, I'm 100% confident that the unarmed components will be super effective. Maybe more than anything I've ever seen. What's his experience with people trying to shoot him or stab him? I have no idea (hopefully it's none, really). So where does that curriculum come from?

If it's not "years of experience with exactly that" then personally, I would hesitate to assume it's anything beyond a theory.

And I don't think many people can honestly say that they have been working guns and knives in realistic, competitive scenarios for many years.

[Totem Polar]

I imagine there were would have been a lot of this if gun forums had existed in the 80s and early 90s: "What? You want to train with Rob Leatham? Never heard of him. Modern Isosceles? Any fool knows you need to push/pull to tame the recoil. Go down to Gunsite and learn color codes from some closeminded old geezers masters who will sneer at your Glock plastic framed mouse gun. "

No hate from me. That said upfront, where the above analogy falls down and can’t get back up again is this: modern isosceles made inroads against the accepted modern technique dogma *precisely* because people started strafing targets at speed that the weaver guys couldn’t match in a wet dream featuring Keanu Reeves and Scarlett Johansson. No dig: the modern technique did the same for the single-handed hip shooting set. That’s how progress works.

Point being, isosceles proved itself under competitive pressure. As has the shivworks POI, in total. We simply don’t have the same linkage blindness we had pre-internet: the cream floats pretty quick in 2022.

I have no doubt that some folks will come along and exceed Craig and Cecil, et al. And they will do it by sucking those guys dry of every bit of experience and then running in the open field with it. As well—and we aren’t there yet, but soon—it will be possible very quickly to gain the benefits of the Shivworks efforts over the last 2-ish decades without meeting the plankholders. I have no doubt that peeps like Shawn from antifragile or Glenn Stilson from independence could coach me on a thing or two regarding the weaponized FUT, and that’s because of the fount that they drank from.

In terms of re-discovery of tangled weapons practices, we are currently (I think) about where BJJ was at the dawn of the 2000s. There are probably people emerging right now that get it, but they all likely have a connection to the folks that the majority of this thread’s respondents leg hump, and for good reason. In the early/mid-2000s, there were some rock-solid BJJ people emerging who might not have had a direct instructor lineage from the Gracies, but they probably still had contact on the side with someone who’s name began with an R and was pronounced “H,” with few exceptions. JMO.

[EPF]

Could the Gunsite analogy be even more apt than we realize?
……….Before the hate starts (I can take it), refer back to my first sentence. I'm just wondering at what point our collective lovefest for Craig will cause us to overlook other innovative trainers.

This is a fair point and a question worth asking. Cult of personality with any expert can be blinding and historically it has led to stagnation. Although I think most of the guys comments here are tongue in cheek rather than sycophantic in nature.

What drew me to the Shivworks “collective” in the first place back in the Total Protection Interactive forum days, and what sets it apart from the historical examples you provided, is the methodology itself.

It’s one part scientific method and one part Socratic method. It’s the ongoing quest for what works rather than a finished set of techniques presented as the “best”. Favored technique doesn’t mean the pinnacle has been achieved.

To use your example, I believe that rather than declare the system finished and resist advancements like some of the modern technique guys did, the Shivworks guys would have been early to adopt isosceles because it was demonstrably better.

A more commonly debated example, the “thumb pectoral index” is a technique closely associated with Shivworks. But my understanding is that they didn’t invent it, they adopted it because what they were doing didn’t work and the TP index worked better. I think they would drop it tomorrow if you could show them something even better.

So I ascribe to their methodology because they do the work for me that I don’t have the time and resources to do myself. I want the best not the coolest association. I would move on from Shivworks tomorrow if someone could show me something better.

Their are other decent programs out there. SOCP comes to mind as one that has a lot going for it. Greg Thompson is a smart dude who is also on the quest for what works. But it’s not commonly available to citizens like the Shivworks coursework so in some ways it’s irrelevant.

Since all bjj cultists like myself have to mention bjj constantly I’d like to point out that bjj is a common denominator in the background of both Shivworks and SOCPs development. I’d wager that modern bjj’s prime directive of “oh yeah?, show me a detail works better and then I will adopt it” played a role in the psychology behind both systems.

[Totem Polar]

@EPF you just said what I really wanted to say better.

[UNM1136]

This is a fair point and a question worth asking. Cult of personality with any expert can be blinding and historically it has led to stagnation. Although I think most of the guys comments here are tongue in cheek rather than sycophantic in nature.

What drew me to the Shivworks “collective” in the first place back in the Total Protection Interactive forum days, and what sets it apart from the historical examples you provided, is the methodology itself.

It’s one part scientific method and one part Socratic method. It’s the ongoing quest for what works rather than a finished set of techniques presented as the “best”. Favored technique doesn’t mean the pinnacle has been achieved.

To use your example, I believe that rather than declare the system finished and resist advancements like some of the modern technique guys did, the Shivworks guys would have been early to adopt isosceles because it was demonstrably better.

A more commonly debated example, the “thumb pectoral index” is a technique closely associated with Shivworks. But my understanding is that they didn’t invent it, they adopted it because what they were doing didn’t work and the TP index worked better. I think they would drop it tomorrow if you could show them something even better.

So I ascribe to their methodology because they do the work for me that I don’t have the time and resources to do myself. I want the best not the coolest association. I would move on from Shivworks tomorrow if someone could show me something better.

Their are other decent programs out there. SOCP comes to mind as one that has a lot going for it. Greg Thompson is a smart dude who is also on the quest for what works. But it’s not commonly available to citizens like the Shivworks coursework so in some ways it’s irrelevant.

Since all bjj cultists like myself have to mention bjj constantly I’d like to point out that bjj is a common denominator in the background of both Shivworks and SOCPs development. I’d wager that modern bjj’s prime directive of “oh yeah?, show me a detail works better and then I will adopt it” played a role in the psychology behind both systems.

And that is what makes it so hard for tradtionalists to accept. They can't stand that they spent so much time and energy to become proficient in a stagnated system. If they were honest with themselves they would use pressure testing to learn that their systems were passed by. Or that they needed more pressure testing to vet their systems. This is my branch of the tree. Spend a long time working and gathering black belts, and you learn more about the flaws of your system, and if you are honest, researching how to overcome them. Most people never get beyond Soke/Sifu/Sensei told me...stagnant, outdated, broken rhythm training can be overcome, and be your ultimate solution, but it takes an uncommon honesty to look for training with an open mind to overcome and adapt.

I remember @SouthNarc mentioning how much Greco-Roman wrestling influenced his style.

pat

[Mister X]

I’ll try to tread very cautiously on this subject, since I’ve tried to ineptly broach it before only to offend(not my intent), but I understand where @Rocky Racoon is coming from. My best guess is most gun forums are primarily populated by gun-centric folks with relatively limited Combatives/martial arts backgrounds, just as martial art jocks form the bulk membership of martial arts forums. The shiv-works guys bridge that gap and I think they are doing a fantastic job and have the overall best and most comprehensive approach comparatively to the entangled shooting problem, even if there may be things I don’t agree with or view other approaches may be better in specific areas. If you agree with absolutely everything someone says whether it be in martial arts or politics, you’re just not thinking for yourself.

When I started Shotokan karate as a kid in the mid-80’s, I thought it was the end all be all and the JKA/AJKA masters infallible since I simply didn’t know any better. The presented reasoning behind why we did what we did made sense with my limited understanding. A few years into it, I learned better even if there are still limited elements I retained and still believe can be potentially useful. That style has been mapped from origin to today, so we now know the various whys, but some guys won’t hear it and stick with what they always thought. So much effort and time invested(a lifetime for many), and it would hurt too much to change what is essentially their identity.

There’s a lot of talk of vetting through pressure-testing on most forums, but the method used that supposedly verifies effectiveness must be scrutinized to determine they actually do prove what they are supposed to. I knew plenty of marital artists in the 80’s who felt their systems were effectively pressure-tested and many back then agreed, but not many would likely think the same today. Almost everyone claims their approach is proven via pressure-testing, but many are using methods I don’t think prove anything that reflects what it’s intended to. I would have said my Shotokan karate was pressure-tested, and it was under certain specific conditions, but one night in a very cramped 7-eleven in Chicago, I learned how important the environment factors in when I didn’t have the space I was accustomed to and I made a massive shift in another direction that I think has been proven correct.

And there’s a difference between being able to do and being able to teach. In my 20’s I could make pretty much make anything work just because of my athleticism and muscularity. So, ability doesn’t always equal knowledge although many confuse the two. Sometimes the most unathletic folks make some of the best teachers, although someone performing physically at a very high level can bring in elements to similarly gifted individuals, so there has to be a balanced approach that considers the individual.

BJJ has demonstrated it can be effectively utilized by nearly everyone. You don’t have to be a superb physical specimen with world class athleticism to make the techniques work, although I do personally feel it’s currently actually overrated and almost cult like in its popularity. I first trained BJJ in early 1992 when one of my students started working with Rorion. Back then, most people I was around initially resisted and dismissed it, but the pendulum has swung too far the other way IMO. There has to be proper balance and an objective perspective when it comes to guru’s, sensei’s, styles, and systems.