Cheating is Winning

If I control the Head, I control the body; if I destroy the Head, I destroy the body.

Last week, I wrote briefly about the principle I call Torque.  Many martial arts call it Circular Motion in unarmed combat; in armed combat we think in terms of 360 degree security/situational awareness.  The last of my principles is a specific kind of Torque: against the Head.  If I crank a person’s Head in a direction it is not supposed to go, their body will contort and throw itself into amazing positions to protect its brain and central nervous system—I consider the neck part of the Head too.

I don’t advocate headshots from really any distance with a firearm except in one instance.  If your enemy is down but is still a threat and still trying to engage you from a supine position, then shoot him in the Head from point blank range.  It’s the same thing as stomping on somebody’s Head when they are on the ground and still a threat.

On the unarmed side, it is also important to understand the variety of Damage inducing points on the Head.  So, while moving the Head will move the body, attacking the Head in the vulnerable points can incapacitate, maim or kill the enemy.  Eyes, ears and throat (I distinguish the neck as the whole thing and the throat just being the front part of the neck) all can incapacitate with very little force.  The top of the nose, the temple and orbital bones around the eyeball are all capable of sustaining incapacitating Damage with a little bit more force.  For the boxers, the chin button is also very effective if you hit it perfectly and knock a guy out.  There are many more, like the ear drum, the brain stem, the third vertebrae, et cetera.  You don’t need to know all of them to be effective, but you should know a handful and know how to inflict maximum Damage to them.  Unarmed strikes to the Head should simulate putting bullets into it.  You want to affect the brain.  Your hands cannot penetrate the cranium like a bullet can, so you have to find targets that can simulate the same kinds of Damage.

As for applying Torque to the Head, there are two desirable goals from it.  Taking away their focus, by changing their eye line and/or balance is the first.  This controls their ability to see you doing things, like drawing a Weapon, or going in for a finishing blow.  The second is to attack the neck with Torque to cause paralysis.  To do this, you need to move their Head and get them into a position where their own body weight and/or strength can assist you in snapping their neck, traumatic Damage that ends an engagement.  That is the key to remember when attacking the Head; you can end the engagement very quickly and easily.  For non-lethal scenarios, like crowd control or private security, attacking and controlling the Head can put somebody out of the fight quickly and efficiently, without having to Damage the body or break bones.

So, those are my principles: WIDTH.  WIDTH does not have any deep philosophical meaning; it was just a convenient acronym-word that soldiers could remember.  But, if you think of the intent of these blogs, it is to expand the WIDTH of combat practitioners from competitive shooters to unarmed martial artists.  To review quickly:

Weapon: The first rule of unarmed combat is: Don’t Get Into It!  Anything can be used as a Weapon.  However, the most important Weapon is you, your brain and your instincts.  So, when you pick up a knife or a gun or a club, these become the extensions of yourself.  Be the Weapon! 

Initiative: Shoot First, Move Forward!  Remember, regardless of who Initiates the engagement, the winner is the one who has the Initiative at the end of the engagement; combat is essentially a fight for the Initiative. 

Damage: You regain the Initiative by causing Damage to vital organs, the central nervous system, or eliminating senses.  How hard you hit is irrelevant; where you hit is critical. 

Torque: Being the center of 360 degrees of situational awareness, you can defeat threats from any angle, using circular motion.  Circular motion/Torque breaks all holds, generates power and over-powers single muscles using entire body weight.  It also allows you to move to orient on the target and engage with a firearm from any angle on the 360 degree arc. 

Head: If I control the Head, I control the body; if I destroy the Head, I destroy the body.  The brain bucket is the processor and memory storage for the human computer; shutting it down, even temporarily, allows you to defeat any enemy.  The vulnerable areas of the Head do not require large size to Damage. 

So, remember WIDTH.  This came about because I had a year in Korea to train up my soldiers in a quick and easily understandable way to counter threats on a peninsula where everybody is a martial artist.  It is nothing new, it was simply a distillation of principles I learned in American and Chinese Kenpo, Ninjutsu and Jujitsu in the preceding ten years.  It is a word and an acronym that anybody can understand.  It is a five step process for HOW TO CHEAT!  Remember, if you don’t have to “cheat” to win, then you are not really in a self-defense or combat situation.  You are dueling, which may be dangerous, but it has rules and controls.  In situations that are out of control and without rules, these principles may be useful to you, whether armed or unarmed.  Again, I am not a master of any martial art, or a sniper, but I'm a pretty good pistol shot and I survived three tours on the front lines of Iraq because I understand Initiative is everything.  I get the Initiative by being more aggressive than the other guy.  I retain the Initiative by causing critical Damage, using mass effects of weaponry on his vulnerability; in other words I take guns to knife fights.  That philosophy of most aggressive and these principles kept me alive in combat and maybe useful for you in a self-defense situation.

Last note: WIDTH is a hierarchy. First rule of unarmed combat is don't get into it, get a Weapon, seize Initiative, cause Damage using Torque and finish it by controlling or attacking the Head.  That should be the process, not just the principles.  The engagement could end after any one of those has been achieved, by the way, but if you start trying to apply Torque from a defensive position where you don't have the Initiative, you will be disadvantaged.  Understand this, very few violent criminals have gone through extensive armed or unarmed combat training, but they are very good at defeating skilled opponents because they can't afford to lose.  So, instinctively violent criminals understand Damage, they understand Weapons of opportunity, and they understand the first rule of unarmed combat is to never get into it.  Most importantly of all, they understand that cheating is winning. 

Soule (Easy 6)