Uechi-Ryu.com

MENTAL CASES-

In any major urban area, street contacts with mentally or emotionally disturbed persons are practically unavoidable. According to the American Psychiatric Association, one of every three Americans will suffer some form of serious mental or emotional illness at some point in his life. I’m OK, but frankly I’ve been a bit worried about you.

The most common group of mentally disturbed persons you will encounter is the “street person”, typically a homeless drifter, or “bum”, usually shabbily dressed, unkempt, bearded, and dirty. A lot of people will try to tell you that these people are helpless, harmless victims of the failed mental health care system. This is not typically true.

It is now extremely difficult in this country to involuntarily commit someone for a mental illness, even a serious one. Even disturbed persons who kill are typically stabilized with medication and released back into the public, with the frail hope that they will continue to faithfully take their medication without supervision.

Most mentally ill street people have been placed in care homes or mental institutions at some point, but since they cannot be held there against their will, they left and went back on the street. In my experience, many of these persons prefer uncertain life on the street to the structured and confining life in an institution. Of course, once on the street and broke, they have no access to medications, and no one to evaluate their progress or deterioration.

In my area, for instance, I used to patrol a residential area which was a short distance from the main concentration of hospitals, including mental health facilities. We would arrest these "disturbed persons” for theft, burglary, or assault so many times we knew them all by name. Some were not violent, some were.

In court, the judges recognized them as persistent offenders, but understood that they were seriously mentally ill, so were reluctant to put them in jail. In jail, these typically poorly physically conditioned people were victimized horribly by true criminals.

The judges were powerless to commit these individuals to mental institutions for any length of time, as the admitting psychiatrists would judge them not to be “an imminent threat to their own safety or that of others”. Back on the street they went in 24 hours.

One night one of these “repeat customers” of ours, a fifty-ish female of slight build, knocked a man down, sat astride his chest, and cut his heart out with a steak knife. Sometimes three of four of us would have to “pile up” on one of these offenders to get him into custody without having to kill him. Harmless? Hardly.

A large percentage of these street people are armed, with usually crude weapons such as knives, screwdrivers, straight razors, or improvised weapons. They are often very territorial about “their home”, which may be a cozy spot behind your office’s dumpster. They also tend to be very touchy about personal space, and inadvertently getting too close to one may be interpreted as the worst sort of aggressive attack against him, resulting in a furious assault against the “intruder” (you!).

Aside from the obvious “bum” be on the look-out for behavior such as a shuffling, uncoordinated gait; a vacant, “thousand-yard stare”; incoherent mumbling; talking to himself or unseen associates; and other bizarre behavior.

With anyone you suspect to be mentally disturbed, try these tips to avoid or de-escalate a contact:
1. Remember his personal space, and don’t invade it.
2. Do not try to touch him, unless you are prepared to fight him.
3. Do not make sudden, rapid, or startling movements.
4. Speak quietly and slowly. Do not shout.
5. Try to increase distance, and get an obstacle (parked car, fence, etc.) between you, as if he is armed it is probably with an edged weapon.

More comments to come on the great points raised but for now I will throw this out there about the raising of the hands when attacked.

That instinct to protect is important and natural.

Making more tactical is a matter of training that we hope kicks in.

Here is a little drill we have to work on going from that “Oh Carp” moment of the assault to “OK I can fight back.”

http://wpd-rc.com/blog/going-from-that- ... ight-back/

- Continual eye contact made (non-verbal challenge)

- The bully interview: what the f*uck are you looking at

- The approach towards you

- The bully question reiterated

- The response from you; usually a verbal challenge

- Escalating interview back and forth

- Actual physical challenge: let’s f*ucking go right now

- Single syllable replies back and forth

- The actual attack; usually a hooking sucker punch

- During the last few stages prior to actual physical attack, not uncommon to have finger pointing, arm flailing, and slight one or two hand pushes. These are done as an intelligence gathering technique to ascertain your intentions and abilities to fight back

Five tactical Advantages Of The Criminal:

Remember, most attackers have five very real advantages over most of their victims:

Advantage #1: Confidence

- will usually not attack unless he has full confidence in his abilities to win the physical encounter

- Confidence comes from ability to use the tactic of the sucker punch or the the ambush to his full advantage

Advantage #2: Experience

- Experience comes from actual street application rather than a training studio or martial arts school

- Experience comes from real lessons learned on the street. Both good and bad

Advantage #3: Competence:

- Most have one or two techniques that they have mastered to some degree

- This mastery comes from actual application in the real world

- Because of this fact, they know what works most of the time, and what does not

- Their combatives training is learned by doing under “real” street conditions

Advantage #4: Tactics:

- a criminal’s tactics are that of simplicity, the simpler it is the better it will work

- when they do physically attack, it is usually a continuous attack until the intended victim has been knocked out or grounded

- physical attacks are usually very brutal and violent

- usually the criminal uses the advantage of FIRST STRIKE

Advantage #5: Psychological:

- Most people believe that this s*hit will never happen to me and because of this fact when attacked, go into a state of hyper vigilance which is a huge advantage to the attacker

REMEMBER:

The experienced predator on the street, in most cases, has an advantage over you. Respect that !!!! he has things that many martial artists do not have. He has hit real people, in real fights under life threatening conditions many times. You are in his arena, playing his game, by his rules !!!!!!

The street predator keeps his attacks simple and direct. He masters one attack, instead of knowing 100 techniques that he can do in the air, and he knows one or two that he can really land against someone fighting back. And these techniques work in his game plan. Do not play his game; change the rules or you will loose !!!!

:- more often than not, the combatant who strikes first and maintains the offensive mindset, usually win the fight

- in a street fight do not go defensive, attack the attack, go offensive, you deploy FIRST STRIKE and continue with a compound attack. If he gets the first strike in, you want to counterattack the aggressor so viciously that he realizes that now he is the one being attacked and not you

- This is not a cat and mouse game like you see in the movies, no fancy moves and then a theme song as you gaze at your fallen opponent; you have to attack like a banshee and keep on attacking until your safety is assured by the fact that your attacker has no interest in contacting you again

Knowledge and the understanding and application of that knowledge is power !!!!!!!!

Any input on guys as to how you drill for the foot movement? We did a kata bunkai drill Saturday at Joe's dojo and one of the guys did a neat bunkai from the opening movements from konchin where he was being attacked from the side. I'd also think the tenshin moves from hojo undo also have potential as do the first to attacks from each side in kanshiwa.

Too many uechi students are taught to stand strong in sanchin while being attacked, wait for an opening and counter punch.I've never been patient enough to counter( I get happy feet.. bouncing around, impatient etc). I think this would get me killed in a confrontation and makes sense in sparring, which is a type of chess match/duel, but not in reality.

Any ideas that you use to drill and ingrain foot movement that is efficient while being attacked by one or more opponents?

Any input on guys as to how you drill for the foot movement? We did a kata bunkai drill Saturday at Joe's dojo and one of the guys did a neat bunkai from the opening movements from konchin where he was being attacked from the side. I'd also think the tenshin moves from hojo undo also have potential as do the first to attacks from each side in kanshiwa.

Too many Uechi students are taught to stand strong in sanchin while being attacked, wait for an opening and counter punch. I've never been patient enough to counter( I get happy feet.. bouncing around, impatient etc). I think this would get me killed in a confrontation and makes sense in sparring, which is a type of chess match/duel, but not in reality.

Any ideas that you use to drill and ingrain foot movement that is efficient while being attacked by one or more opponents?