Bekka was willing to go through some hand to hand after lunch. They were working on how to turn some of what Allyson knew and had taught Angelique into true offensive trauma inducing moves. Most were dealing with making joints move in directions they were not intended. No fancy roundhouse kicks or other flashy stuff. Stomp kick onto the arch of the foot or the side of the knee, either from the outside towards the middle, or the inside pushing outward. She showed her how the feint of kneeing the groin causes the target to move their legs sideways, twisting and therefore presenting the knee in perfect off balance position for a stomping style kick to break the knee sideways and inhibit their ability to run or chase. Bekka started with such tactics to focus on the ability to escape and get away from a close in attacker. This also laid the ground work for the next step; initiating the attack.
They went through a systematic identification of all the target points for dirty fighting as well. Thumb gouge to the eyes and below the ear behind the jaw were some quick ones, A downward tearing motion on the ear can tear it clean off the side of the head. How if you can get ahold of their fingers, you can violently pull them apart and split the hand down the middle, impeding their grip for quite some time. They also went over how to twist and bend to cause the grip to fail on things in their hands.
Garen came in next with a bag full of stuff. He spread them out on a table. There were at least two dozen different knives and striking implements. Each knife had next to it a wooden or rubber replica for training. He started going down the line, explaining the general characteristics of a few of them.
“So, we have a whole lot of options here. The thing to remember about up close hand to hand combat is this: Don’t do it! This isn’t some prancing practice floor or some video game. Real hits hurt, punching people with your hands can break your hands, unless you practice a great deal, like boxers do. Martial artists learn a great deal of techniques that are quite useless unless they also learn how to apply them in the real world. I prefer to use tools as a force multiplier. I can do more damage to vital organs with a simple six dollar steak knife in a quarter of the time than I can with a lot of fancy karate. Some of these are designed to mainly thrust, making deep wounds into the body, some are designed as slashing tools, to cut wide swaths of flesh, and some are kind of both. A lot of which one is better boils down to what is better for the individual using it. Some of that is style, some is how it fits in the hand, and some is how they learn to use it. Now, go ahead and feel the way each of them are, and how they move. When you find something, then we can talk about how to use that particular one. Let’s start with knives and stay away from the tomahawks and bigger things for now.”
Angelique and Allyson went round and round the table, picking up and testing each one of the knives, feeling the heft and balance until finally coming to some selections. Garen told them to each pick two different ones. All the while Bekka was standing to the side, a few of her ‘tools’ next to her. She knew what was coming next. She also knew that she would only be doing some of the show and tell. Her ribs wouldn’t permit anything too vigorous, but she could show and go through some of the motions.
Garen looked through the choices. Angelique had picked a medium sized classic fighting knife that looked like a cross between the Marine Corps Kabar and a Randall style and a smaller double edged boot knife. Allyson went a different route. She found a large karambit and what looked like a thin tanto shaped blade.
“Alright, these are some good choices. The boot knife and the small tanto will work well for what is commonly called a ‘get off me’ knife. Small enough to have it on you all the time in a spot to let you get to it with an attacker on you. You can then use it to motivate their separation from you. This knife would not be used for box cutting, shaving kindling or other pedestrian things. That is what pocket knives are for. A lot of people I know wear these types of knives at around the bellybutton or belt buckle position so it can be reached by either hand in such an emergency. It would also be useful for seatbelts and other emergency uses.” He points to the small 3” fixed blade at his own belt, then points to Bekka who has a small skeletal handle just peeking out over her pants in the front.
“Angelique, you and I will be working together. I will work at teaching you the fundamentals of the larger blade you chose. Allyson, you picked the karambit, so you get to work with Bekka, that’s her choice for up close blade work. So set down the live blades. We will be working with the trainers. Before you pick them up though, we need to do some modifications to our apparel before we begin.” He pulled out some lightweight running shorts. “Everyone strip down, bras, bikini tops or whatever and running shorts. We need to see and go through the anatomy we are targeting.” He stripped off his t shirt and dropped his cargo shorts, revealing his running shorts underneath. Allyson and Angelique looked around. Bekka had already pulled her t shirt off and was standing in sports bra and running shorts. Garen turned his back while Allyson and Angelique stripped down and changed. A few minutes later Garen turned back around.
“Now, the reason we are half naked, is so we can see and feel the structures we are targeting.” For the next hour, Garen went through the locations and targets, having them feel the part of the body as it moved and flexed so they had a better understanding of what was where. They felt the interplay of muscles and tendons in the inner thigh, found the femoral artery, manipulated the structures of the knee, palpated the ribcage and the liver underneath. They felt the fibrous nature of the structures in the neck, and the lack of tissue in the forearm and shin. Garen and Bekka then went through the most effective swings, strikes and stabs with their chosen tools. Next, they began some round robin free form sparing to try and bring the concepts together. This went on and on. After several sets, Garen and Bekka began using some of the other ones from the table to give different problems to solve. Each slice, stab and swing left chalk marks and at the end of each individual bout the wound locations were examined for effectiveness and what structures would have been impacted.
It was during the free form and the post-fight analysis that Allyson and Angelique began to see why the half-naked thing for the sparring. This way they didn’t mess up clothes and they could really see the structures involved. It wasn’t some gimmick for Garen to oogle sweaty half naked women.
All through the process, he and Bekka kept up a steady stream of information. Things like “arms and hands are great, but watch the core, that will tell you where your opponent is really going’ and “if you know you can’t get away, you better put them down hard’ and ‘leaving wounded bad guys behind you only spells trouble in the future’. These were mixed with highly technical corrections on grip, stance, and movement. They were well and truly exhausted by dinnertime. The training was halted so everyone could go clean up. They had hoped Kara would have been back by dinner, but that had not happened. Bekka and Garen were starting to get a little worried.