Reality check part 4 - ECQ's

A critical factor within combat that determines what techniques we can use is of course the range we find ourselves in. Range dictates what weapons that can be deployed effectively to deal with the opponent. Many combat sports today will exclusively deal with only one range, boxing for example as a striking art will train within the range of striking with the hands. Kickboxing like wise with the added range of the legs. Judo works within the range of clinch and ground fighting with MMA dealing with all ranges within a sporting context. Range can be defined as that workable distance between you and your opponent in which you can deploy your trained techniques, both offensive and defensive. All combat sports will compete within these ranges and within the guidelines of their respective rules settings.

If we take combat out of the sporting ring and explore it from a realistic point of view where the participants are not safe guarded by any particular rule set or sporting environment, range dictates not victory but survival.

Combative principles:

Training within Combative principles tells us that to significantly increase your chances of prevailing over an aggressor, we must where possible hit first, hit the head and keep hitting until the threat is removed. That being to seek a knock out with a pre-emptive strike or to seek knock out through a number of cycled shots to the highline while maintaining a tactile grip on the target. This of course is not always possible and the range you find yourself in will determine whether I can significantly strike my intended target for knock out or not.

Ranges within Combative training:

Ranges within Combative training and sport training are similar as they are a constant within combat. Striking range is a range where I can employ any significant shot with the hands to the highline, that being any target above the clavicle with the hand or any low line kick to any target below the umbilicus. Close quarters is a range where you can employ clinch tactics which enables the use of the big guns – the elbows, head and knees.

One step closer again is a range that stifles movement and restricts striking, extreme close quarters. ECQ’s is a range most commonly found where someone has been pinned to a wall or pinned to the ground. You can find yourself in an ECQ situation after an initial flurry of wind milling (punches thrown aimlessly, aggressively and erratically at the face) where two combatants clash and fall to the ground or crash against a static object such as a wall/hording, for that couple of seconds within a real fight dynamic that is extreme close quarters.

Maintaining dominance:

Maintaining dominance is a key factor for prevailing in a ‘balls to the wall’ mill up. Losing dominance at any stage means you are losing and are already on the back foot. All principles within Combative training is geared towards maintaining dominance over your subject in a bid to securing a clean and fast result enabling you to go home safely.

Finding yourself in a situation with an aggressor that has you both in ECQ’s means you have lost initiative somewhere along the way and now you find yourself in this tight fight where both of you will have an equal opportunity to obtain dominance, if he or she wins dominance they improve their chances of injuring you.

Closest weapon nearest target:

On finding yourself in ECQ’s with an aggressor what ever the reason, you must be immediate in regaining control of the situation. Regaining control meaning you create the opportunity for you to continue the tactic of ballistic impact to the head. In order to do that, you must have created significant distance between you and your subject since the extreme closeness has stifled the movement needed in order to strike.

This is where biting, tearing and gouging have their place within the field of Combative training.

Biting, tearing/ripping and gouging have come in for bad press, and in many cases rightly so. There are systems of “Self Defence” out there that use tactics such as this as their primary method of dealing with an attacker, or they will use the idea of gouging and biting to market what they do as being some sort of deadly street art imported from ‘X’ country in the middle east.

Ignoring all the bull shit that some perpetuate, biting, tearing and gouging have their place within the field of real combat. Bear this in mind before we press on, there are NO rules on the street, clichéd I know but never the less true.

Within extreme close quarters where our hands are pinned we can rely on the principle of closest weapon nearest target. This may mean that the closest part of the aggressor’s body might be the cheek, the neck or the shoulder, and the closest weapon you have is your mouth. Like wise within a messed up tangle of extreme close quarters the only part of the aggressor’s body I can index would be the eyes or even the ears. It depends of course on the situation you find yourself in but what ever the situation is, biting, tearing and gouging need to be used within the context of the dilemma you are in.

Not fight finishers:

Biting is rarely a fight finisher, as is sticking your fingers into someone’s eyes or even tearing skin such as an ear. The likely response to this will be an immediate reaction by the aggressor to pull away from the point of pain. This is the response that we are looking for in order to regain dominance. In effect what we are doing is creating a workable distance between the aggressor’s head and your wheeling shots to his highline. Once we regain the initiative through inflicting localised pain thus creating some distance we can resort back to ballistic impact – herein lies the importance of hitting hard, and being able to hit within a restricted environment.

Biting and inherent problems:

Biting has it’s place within the realms of street fighting but it also comes with it’s own problems of cross contamination. It would be remiss of me to write about the need to bite without mentioning the possible complications it brings with it. There is always the possibility of cross contamination anytime bodily fluids mix between one human being and another. Blood borne diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis can be readily transferred from person to person through cross contamination of blood.

Research suggests that the risk of HIV infection in this way is extremely small. A very small number of people - usually in a healthcare setting - have become infected with HIV as a result of blood splashes in the eye or being pricked by a needle.

Blood in the mouth carries an even lower risk. The lining of the mouth is very protective, so the only way HIV could enter the bloodstream would be if the person had a cut, open sore or area of inflammation somewhere in their mouth or throat (if the blood was swallowed). Even then, the person would have to get a fairly significant quantity of fresh blood (i.e. an amount that can be clearly seen or tasted) directly into the region of the cut or sore for there to be a risk. HIV is diluted by saliva and easily killed by stomach acid once the blood is swallowed.

On a finishing point, before those on the moral high ground turn to the next page, it is worth noting that the recent abduction of a young girl in England was foiled after the girl who found herself in an extremely tight grip bit her assailant. The result was him removing his arm from the point of pain which created the opportunity for her to run.

Every range creates opportunities to regain control of the fight, outside of a sporting context one must think outside the box.