The 6 Elements of Unarmed Combat

Mark Hatmaker 

  Often unarmed combat, whether classified as sport or street-oriented, is broken into arbitrary categories to make it easier to discuss particular aspects of the fight. Usually, these are called "ranges of combat" with an outside to inside scheme that seems (to my way of thinking) arbitrarily (and mistakenly) based on an outside-in military model. The outside to inside military model may include long-range artillery at the outside and wind up with infantry at the inside rage. The unarmed martial model seems to progress along the kicking range (long-range artillery corollary) and winds up with grappling as a presumptive infantry parallel.

I find the range model lacking as it seems to set up the student to see the fight in terms of distance-equating-with-tool-choice, as in, "I'm in kicking range so no need to worry about this or that." Big mistake. Or, "We're grappling now so this is off the table." Another big mistake. Anyone who's been playing the game long enough or even paying attention as an interested observer knows that range-models simply do not apply in MMA or any blended fight game. They not only do not apply but lead to disservice, as alluded to in the aforementioned examples.

Admittedly, I may be splitting semantic hairs here and many of those who use the word "range" may be meaning exactly what I mean by substituting the word "elements", but there is no getting around the fact that the word "range" is a designator of distance, and if what we are describing does not actually describe specific ranges then why use such a designation of distance at all? We can think more clearly about our training and/or the instruction if we don't cloud what we mean by twisting the meaning of words to fit a tortured definition with no basis in reality.

I have settled on the word "element" to describe these individual aspects of the fight. I have chosen it with purpose as elements are single disparate entities and (more importantly) elements can be combined with other elements to create new substances (the backbone of chemistry, Crew!).

To focus my element/chemistry analogy, I consider boxing a separate element and the clinch a separate element, but, as we all know boxing can be brought to the clinch and the clinch can be brought to boxing--when we do such combining we have a new animal that can be dealt with for what it is as opposed to trying to figure out what millimeter distance did we cross to make boxing range into the clinch range or vice versa.

Now that I've belabored my quibble with range terminology and introduced, what to me, is a more practical way of thinking about the disparate aspects of the fight let's move on to what I see as The 6 Elements of Unarmed Combat.

1. Boxing    I have made throwing the hands the top of the periodic chart of the combat elements not for arbitrary reasons, or even my admitted bias for the game. My reasons are twofold, one, throwing the hands in an aggressive manner is intuitive. People with zero combat training will attempt to hit one another with their hands (it won't be pretty, but they will throw). Capitalizing on this intuitive base seems a no-brainer. It's far easier to take an ingrained inclination and coach it to science than to start a counter-intuitive skill from scratch. The second reason is utility, more fights are won via hands than any other tool, and I'm not just talking boxing, folks. The stats show, whether on the feet or on the ground with some vicious ground and pound, throwing the hands wins more fights than any other tool by a ridiculously wide margin.
2. Boxing +   Here, I hedge the bet. My bias wants to weight boxing plus a few dirty boxing inserts more than the kicking game, but I would be wrong. The Boxing + Element is your boxing game plus knees, elbows, kicks, head-butts, whatever other body part you deem worthy of throwing. Rather than making this a separate element such as "Kicking", I want to impress upon you the primacy of boxing even when you add other striking tools. Excellent kick-boxers set up their kicks with their hands--always keep that in mind Boxing + is a key element.
3. Shooting  Takedown work without the benefit of the clinch--usually, but not always, limited to lower body shots.
4. The Clinch  Here, we have a true pre-blended element as the clinch can be the focus of some fight-stopping striking (dirty boxing or plum blossom work), or it can be used to set up another class of takedowns (usually upper-body dependent). Despite this pre-blending it must still be thought of as an individual element as it is unlike any other--it is not pure striking and it is not pure takedown.
5. Par Terre/Mat-Work/Wrestling I classify this element as being separate from submission work although submissions dovetailed into the wrestling drills can still be a huge part of this element. Often the ground game is seen in terms of the rousing submissions that can be reaped, but here I mean for the Par Terre element to be drilled to foster fluid and aggressive controlling (riding not pinning) and second nature defensive flow. Making the sub more important is cart before the horse territory akin to teaching a fighter to throw punches without ever discussing footwork, slipping, bobbing, weaving, and all of the other offensive/defensive deceptive tricks of the striking trade.
6. Submissions  This element is exactly what it says, a chance for the fighter to drill submission tools in isolation to focus on precise execution and smooth movement.

It is easy to eye each of these elements as being completely separate and they can, in fact, be drilled in that manner so that specific focus can be given to weak or more valuable areas. But, we've got to be careful not to keep the elements separated for too long or too often or else we fall prey to the same problem of the range-trap where we may become fighters who shift gears between elements as in "I'm boxing, now I'm clinching, now I'm on the mat."

Rather, what we want to strive for is seeing that the fight is, indeed, composed of these different elements but they are most valuable when we learn to use our chemistry to not shift gears between elements but to combine them in ways that give us far more useful animals than we have in their individual form.

Just as hydrogen and oxygen are vital building blocks of this universe it is not in their separate form that we find them of most benefit. Two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen keep us from dying of thirst. We, as combat scientists need to look at the six elements on this combat periodic chart with an eye on creating the most useful chemicals we can concoct.

Note: We use the 6 Elements to Build our Combat Drills of the Day in a progressing cycle in the inTENS WODs used by the RAW Crew with the commandment that scrimmage/Down & Out Drills will create the new chemicals.

For details on how to join the RAW crew and have access to the Combat Drills of the Day see the RAW info in the side-bar.

As some of you know I try to leave the homestead as little as possible, but this year is an anomaly as we have upped our seminar/playtime. Below you will find a listing of some of the most recent additions to the schedule.

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We'll be in Germany in May--details to come.

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Of course we'll be at the Annual Karate College in Radford, VA on June 28th & 29th. We'll teach 3 general sessions + 1 certification course.  To register for Karate College http://www.thekaratecollege.com/TheKarateCollege.com/Karate_College.html

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We'll be on the roster at Martial Arts on the Mountain--September 19 (5PM start) thru September 22nd (11AM).

Myself, Boyd Ritchie, Carlos Cummings, and John Miller will be presenting classes in MMA, Boxing, Catch Wrestling, Sambo, (and if time permits) an optional Challenge/Obstacle Run.

Four days of training, feel free to room on the campground (rooms and meals provided, crew--beat that).

Cost: $250

To register or for more details contact Coach John Miller

coach@grapplingsports.com

540-354-9356

http://www.facebook.com/events/126726897501640/

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Of course, we'll also offer our Annual Tennessee Boot Camp in November-details to come.

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We hope to see you at one of these events--if you'd like to have us come to you, check out our Pitch An Adventure info in the side bar and if you've got some adrenaline in your neck of the woods that strikes my fancy we'll be there.  

RAW Subscription Update

For our current and considering RAW Subscribers, beginning with volume 123 (January 1st, 2013) we will begin unveiling The Combination Man Home Study Course in which we (finally) present in an ABC/1-2-3 manner the steps from, 0-120 MPH how to become the best Boxer-Pugilist, Shooter-Stuffer, Par Terre Wrester-Submission Technician you can be.

Each volume will tied-in to the inTENS PREMIUM CONDITIONING SERVICE (free to subscribers), will be accompanied by a printed syllabi of drills for gym use, and will then be keyed to a foundation text (The Combination Man) that will be released at a later date. In other words, some good methodical let's get better stuff coming your way. 

April Special

The Short-Offense Two-fer

This month's ESP RAW volume (126) has some killer work with Combat Cradles, but if you want up to speed with how we got to this position RAW 123 on Short Offense Snap Fundamentals and RAW 125 on Top Arm Isolation Submissions will turn this single volume into one mondo-aggressive study block.

Purchased separately they go for $42 each ($52 International).

For the month of April you can snag them both for $62 even (Same price for my International Compadres) S&H Included.

To snag yours, just hit the button.

The Short-Offense Two-fer Deal:

Of course, you can get these 2 for free + 1 more RAW Volume of your choice. How? Simply subscribe to the RAW service--details in the side-bar.