Mini Map Meet (DART Sim Day 6)

Finally finished this thread. I always enjoy these videos. It sure beats the pants off of most of the RBSD training I've seen.

My hats off to everyone participating who has the courage to expose themselves to this level of scrutiny on the Interwebs. Whatever secret sauce JWT mixes into the cocktails of his Legoland bars, I would not have guessed there was much punch pulling at these things. So kudos on the acting all around.

Some overall thoughts on the dozens of these videos I've watched over my tenure at MAP:

1.) It always cracks me up imagining such shoddy craftsmanship in JWT's violence-lab. The QA on padded cells has gone way down.

2.) I'd like to see some of you in dresses. Both for personal reasons and because it's a facet of violence frequently undertrained. Women make great obstacles in bars, make great distractions for ambushes, and there are plenty of bipolars out there willing to attack a guy without reasonable provocation. The way women react with violence is fundamentally different enough from men that a lot of guys deal with it very badly without training/experience. Big bad bouncers, LEO, soldiers, etc. get injured or killed from female aggressors pretty frequently.

3.) I see a repeated pattern of getting this sort of dojo syndrome happening where flight options aren't properly exploited. You know it's a drill, so you stand your ground and fight. Ideally, while you're trying to verbally dissuade violence, you should be repositioning yourself for a quick getaway. Most of us naturally fall into that "stand your ground and do a technique" mindset, even when that is totally inappropriate (which is pretty much everywhere outside of the dojo for the average Joe). Some of this probably comes from an instinctive desire to conserve energy when you've been doing anything so exhausting all day, but predominately I suspect it's just human nature to plant your feet when you're being screamed at by a stranger.

I'm afraid all I meant was that you can't undo the injury caused by someone being too aggressive in training, but you can safely teach a timid student to act more aggressively for practice. I'm not sure how stimulating of a thread that would make.

 

A lot of the hits, particularly the initial assault, catch the trainee off guard, so the effect is somewhat different than a hit you see coming. Although they are hitting relatively fast, having trained the guys I use the most as the role playing attackers (in the events above it was mainly Chris/Sampsi, Alex and Robbie who've trained with me since 2007 and Guy who's been with me since 2008) I can say for sure that they can hit a lot harder.

Do you mean the shaky buildings?
One day I may have a set venue of my own where I have bespoke rooms. In the mean time I'm just moving around somebody else's stacked mats.
The walls provide one of the more interesting aspects of the environment. Not only do they enclose people, but in the debriefs we have to look at the other factors they impose. If you look back through some of these simulations you can see instances where people, particularly (but not exclusively) the grapplers have charged head first into walls - actions that would have interesting repercussions with both solid and stud walls. In other cases people have been slammed into walls - something again that would probably be a game changer. This sort of dynamic is covered in a lot of the debriefs.

We have had women do this form of training, most notably at Mitch's club. As there were no Mappers training (Mitch was recovering from an injury) I didn't post the videos here.

I do have character cards that some participants get where they engage in responses to violence that fit a more feminine stereotype. These range from being very verbal and egging on other people, to cowering, to actively hindering a response by pulling people back etc. These aren't exclusively feminine traits. We also have more exotic roles. Please understand that I'm not prepared to share everything I do here or on youtube. The reasons for this are:
1. People can misconstrue the training by identifying the mock venue with a particular client base that would be put off from using me if they saw it. For example I might use a waiting room for a self protection scenario instead of a restraint and anger management scenario. Someone looking for the latter and seeing martial artists doing the former might assume I didn't know what I was doing.
2. Some scenarios work on surprises. If the surprises are visible for people to watch in advance then the training loses its efficacy.

I have been looking into the possibility of costumes over armour. The two issues there are wear and tear and heat. Finding a long coat or dress that can take the rough and tumble of training is difficult. I have to be careful how many layers I put on trainees - the gear insulates and they get very hot. Costume use is more plausible with Skins than with Spartan or High Gear, in fact we have worn normal 'business' suits over Skins armour in one of lectures I have delivered.

In the debriefs we frequently scroll back and forth on pause through bits of the situations and discuss options. There is a huge gulf between knowing tactics and having strategies, and being able to pull them off in dynamic unplanned (for you) situations. It takes a long long time to become consistently aware of your surroundings and to be able to work room positioning in both the pre fight verbal and the mid fight situation.
In the video clip below the defender is Robbie, who wore a bright green shirt and acted as attacker in some of the videos above. He's been away at Uni for two years so was out of practise, particularly at gear stuff, just getting occasional training in the holidays. In the video below filmed over 12 months ago Robbie is the defender. Although you can see he is very nervous (his first Sim Day) and his body language is so timid it invites attack, he did this just after I had given a brief on multiple person positioning and he puts attacker 1 between him and me (in the skins armour) very well.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGrEiLMgQBg"]Sim Day 1 Scenario 5 - YouTube[/ame]

I am planning on running some Sim Days that will be strictly for previous attendees only that will spend more time on some of these elements. I have ways of getting people to do this.

 

Here is the first of the closed environment scenarios.

LateforDinner (and son in yellow) is the star of the second clip.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R4FNSJAM9U"]Sim Day 7 Scenario 2 - YouTube[/ame]

 

We looked predominantly at what LFD's son did. The physical intervention there was a high risk strategy, whereas confident verbal without tactile contact from a 90 degree position would have reinforced the strength of the defenders position without compromising safety. By talking to the aggressor in a 'pincer' form a solid defence or preempt could have been mounted. LFD's son also dropped his hands and left himself open to an attack almost immediately after going hands on.

Overall though this was a very well played scenario. DART Coach Sampsi in yellow as the aggressor as loud as ever.

 

Yup, I was referring to the "walls." With this sort of controlled chaos, I imagine the best option would be padded standing barriers. Having many working parts, it's hard to imagine actual walls being the ideal solution. But, then of course you'd require an obstacle course of small structures in a large building to get the same versatility of mat stacking.

Haha, I wasn't literally advocating dresses on male MAPers for anything but my own amusement. I am glad that you've accounted for the typically "feminine" responses in violence role-playing though. I'm well aware of how implausible it is to get 50% of a RBSD class flaunting two X chromosomes. Still, I'd personally be concerned that role-playing alone won't bridge that hesitation gap as well as actually working with women would. Humans have a strong pheromonal reaction to opposite genders, and the social stigma of a man needing to defend himself against a woman is very great. (I've personally witnessed several coworkers and friends get hurt from their inability to bridge that moral conundrum despite enough experience dealing with it to know better.) Obviously, many criminals know that last bit, which is precisely why some recruit women to help victimize people.

I'm afraid I don't follow this paragraph versus the video very well. The person in the green appears to be an actual female, not a guy who went away to university. Also, while the body language of Mr. Black (the defender was wearing a black T-shirt in the video I watched three times) is tragically timid initially, he seems to respond intelligently towards a combative exit. (The poor kid looked like he felt like a chum in shark water and I'm sure he was thinking about that exit the entire time. )

 

In this next series we introduced a little aural distraction and increased the number of people.

In the first clip LFD acts as the aggressor. In the second Oddbodskins is in the 'defending' group and in the third Oddbodskins is the aggressor (in role).

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amz_4R5sSfw"]Sim Day 7 August 2012 Scenario 3 - YouTube[/ame]

 

My mistake - the problem with editing multiple videos. Robbie was in green for the most recent Sim Day. He was in black, and as you say very timid, in the older video I showed.

 

wait for it....

Wait for a few minutes and I am sure you will see me screw up/get caught/act inappropriately :' P

This DART stuff is not as natural/easy as one might think... then again luckily most of us don't live our lives with random acts of violence creeping in :' D

LFD

 

If we could wear body armour 24/7, ensure no weapons and have someone on hand to shout zero, it might not be so bad

 

The likelihood of having to defend yourself is very low, particularly if you've learned/developed the ability to stay out of trouble and have the ego to walk away from trouble if it isn't necessary to stay.

The question is therefore merely do you enjoy the regular training? The physical training of a regular self protection class should be just as stimulating, healthy and fun as any martial arts class.

 

Finding the bar to be a bit rough, some trainees went to the bus stop.

Lat for Dinner, Oddsbodskins and Sampsi feature.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3Z1G5F6qg4"]Sim Day 7 Scenario 4 - YouTube[/ame]

 

But with added PTSD!

I kid, I kid.

 

Who else is going to the advanced scenario day?

 

Tempted. But I want to see where I stand injury-wise before I commit.