Excellent comments Van.
One of the drills I have used and continue to use is called Night of the Living Dead (NLD). It is named this way based on the old Night of the Living Dead movie zombies and how they had to move very slowly.
This is an easy drill to incorporate into any training but not the easiest to do properly.
It meets certain conditions set out previously:
• It is safe because it is done at a slow speed -- no one should be injured. (I make a distinction between injured and banged up a little.)
• It introduces an element of surprise and unpredictability because the attack is underway before you get to respond and you will have no idea what the attack is.
• The aggressor’s intent is to work at the level of the drill but – they are to take you out.
• Because it is a surprise assault it happens up-close and personal CQC.
• It can also incorporate weapons and ground fighting and multiple attackers.
• I call this a soft adrenaline drill because there will be an adrenaline dump that takes place and by having to move slowly you will work towards controlling that dump.
• You will also be able to recognize your ‘freeze” and (hopefully) work on breaking that freeze.
• The drill is also designed to teach you to end the threat because if you don’t it won’t.
WARNINGS:
• The drill places you in a position of disadvantage and because of that it often gets messy – much like a real life assault.
• The first time people do this drill most hate it. They hate it because it is uncomfortable and often outside of what they are used to doing. Also they often do poorly – not near as successful as they hoped to be.
• Some will even question their training. They shouldn’t. The drill merely puts their training into a new situation and working the drill allows them to access their training and bring it into this new venue.
Here is a brief clip on what I call Soft Adrenaline training:
http://wpd-rc.com/blog/trailer-1/ Here is an explanation of the drill:
Night of the Living Dead (NLD) Drill
Introduction
I was introduced to Night of the Living Dead (NLD) by Tony Blauer, a self protection expert and trainer in Montreal, as one small part of a seminar he was presenting on knife defence. Tony called it NLD because you move slowly like the attackers in the old horror movie. It was a great gift to my martial arts training that was beyond any expectation I could have had. I will always be grateful to Tony.
I am sure Tony does many things with this drill that I did not have an opportunity to learn because it simply was not the focus of the seminar he was presenting. In working with NLD I waned to develop a methodology for teaching the self protection responses that I felt were the most effective. Therefore I developed the progression of phases (levels) presented here.
Definitions:
Aggressor: The person(s) attempting to assault another party.
Respondent: The person the aggressor is attempting to assault.
The respondent is always seeking to be successful.
The role of the aggressor changes with the experience of the respondent.
Night Of the Living Dead Drill
A brief Description:
This drill is required to be done in slow motion as much as possible. The reasons for this are many.
The first is safety because any defence is allowed.
The second is subtler in that to move slowly in this drill requires you to control the adrenaline created by the drill. This helps train you to control that chemical cocktail dump that takes places during a self defence situation. This vital to surviving a street assault.
Another reason this drill must be done in slow motion is that nothing is “pulled.” All strikes are taken through to their fullest extension. Because the strikes are being delivered slowly there is some requirement of the person being struck to evaluate the effectiveness of the blow and allow the proper anatomical response.
One of the main reasons for slow motion is that we want to build into the natural responses a person has to being attacked an effective reaction. When moving at full speed the proper movements are not felt, opportunities are not seen, and the ability to sense and fill holes is extremely difficult to learn.
The Drill
1) The respondent closes their eyes and does not open them until the aggressor says “BEGIN”.
2) The aggressor begins an attack in slow motion and says begin part way into the attack. (The types of attacks can progress as well, however, it is highly recommended that you use the types of attacks found in the street and not in martial arts schools).
3) When the respondent hears “begin” they open their eyes and, in slow motion, begin to react.
4) If the respondent is unsuccessful it is beneficial to repeat the same attack until they find a way to succeed. This installs within them “success” in defending themselves. It does not leave them with the memory defending in an unsuccessful manner.
PROGRESSION
Phase 1 “Teaching Stopping the Aggressor”:
• The aggressor attacks and keeps coming until the respondent does something that would stop them (keep throwing attacks until the respondent does more than block – no pauses).
• After the respondent delivers a stopping reaction, they will continue to follow up their initial stopping move until they are safe.
• In this phase or level after the respondent uses an effective stopping move, the aggressor will not press another attack. The aggressor will simply respond anatomically to the balance of the respondent’s attacks.
• This allows the respondent to learn how to follow up with natural attacks that flow from one to the other.
Phase 2 “Filling your Holes”:
• The aggressor keeps coming until the respondent does something that would stop them (keep throwing attacks until the respondent does more than block – no pauses).
• After the respondent delivers a stopping reaction, they will continue to follow up their initial stopping move until they are safe.
• The change is that the aggressor will now fill any holes (point out faults or weaknesses) in the respondent’s follow up with a small touching strike. However, the aggressor will not push into this opening and take back the initiative of the attack. The aggressor will not press a new assault.
• The goal here is to teach the respondent where their holes are so that the can improve their follow up by eliminating them.
• The other purpose is to teach the aggressor to look for and find the holes. This will improve their self protection capacity.
Phase 3 “Filling the Holes and Pressing the Issue”:
• The aggressor keeps coming until the respondent does something that would stop them (keep throwing attacks until the respondent does more than block – no pauses).
• After the respondent delivers a stopping reaction, they will continue to follow up their initial stopping move until they are safe.
• The aggressor now will not only look for the holes in the respondent’s reactions but they will take back the initiative of the assault anytime the respondent leaves themselves open. The aggressor will press a new assault until the respondent once again reacts with a strong stopping action.
• However, once the respondent retakes control the aggressor will only take over again if the respondent leaves another hole.
Phase 4 “Surviving”:
• The aggressor keeps coming until the respondent does something that would stop them (keep throwing attacks until the respondent does more than block – no pauses).
• After the respondent delivers a stopping reaction, they will continue to follow up their initial stopping move until they are safe.
• In this phase both sides try to win. If the respondent does not stop the aggressor they will keep coming.
• If the respondent leaves a hole the aggressor will take back the initiative of the assault and press on to win.
• Both sides try to win while staying within the bounds of the drills requirement to evaluate the effectiveness of a reaction to gauge the appropriate response.
Phase 5 “Responding in the worst case”:
• This phase can be done with any level of the training. If a respondent has a hard time with it you would want to do the “worst case” starting again at phase one level of training and build them back up to phase/level four.
• The respondent does not start until they are actually being struck/grabbed. While any strike may take us out, this training tries to build in the mindset that you take it and fight on. It also teaches how to try and mitigate impacts.
Phase 6 “Blinded”:
• This phase can also be done with any level of the training. If a respondent has a hard time with it you would want to do the “worst case” starting again at phase one level of training and build them back up to phase/level four.
• This is very interesting; the respondent never opens their eyes. The attack begins just as in phase five with the actual strike/grab and the respondent must react the entire time with their eyes closed. This helps prepare someone for when the attack takes away their sight.
Phase 7 “Jazz It Up”:
• This phase can also be done with any level of the training. If a respondent has a hard time with it you would want to do the “worst case” starting again at phase one level of training and build them back up to phase/level four.
• Jazz it up anyway you would like. We have done the drill with weapons, multiple aggressors, the respondent only having the use of one arm, and in complete darkness.
• One other way we have done this drill is have a number of respondents stand in a circle with their eyes closed. An aggressor moves among them and when they say begin everyone opens their eyes and the person being attacked defends themselves. The more the aggressor walks around the higher the level of anxiety and adrenalin.
Phase 8 “All out”:
• At this stage you will go as fast as you can as long as you can:
1. “See” everything still.
2. Have total control of what you are doing.
3. Both move at the same speed.
Other Important Points
Notes about the Drill:
One learning point you may want to keep in mind and use is that, if the respondent is unsuccessful in a defence, the aggressor repeats the same assault until they are. This teaches the successful reaction to the respondent by ending with a successful memory.
There is an acting (role play) element to this drill as the participants must gage the damage a technique might do to them and respond in a correct anatomical manner.
Every attack must be extended through the target to show the effects. Done in slow speed this should a perfectly safe exercise even when otherwise dangerous techniques are being used.
Maintaining the slow motion is excellent training to control adrenaline. I have referred to it as soft adrenaline training. (I’m thinking Tony Blauer’s HIGHGEAR would be hard adrenaline training.) As you gain control and experience you can speed the drill up, however, done too soon not only decreases the safety factor but reduces the learning capacity.
You will find that maintaining that slow speed will be one of the hardest things to do, but do it. The aggressor has a great deal of control here.
The respondent must learn to accept mistakes and turn them around rather than speeding up to avoid them.