Quote:
|
Originally Posted by zefff So what is it that causes you not to notice his responses, what makes it work? |
Okay, here goes. An attacker (me in this case) who has some sort of goal also has a way of recognizing that goal. How does he know he's "done?" He has your wallet, he has you scared, you're lying in a pool of your own arterial blood, whatever the goal is, the attacker has some pre-thought-out way of recognizing it. When you find yourself in a situation like this, you play with the other person's "programming" to really mess them up and extract yourself from the situation.
An attacker who's mugged a few people before will have a good idea of what to expect in his mind. Think along the lines of
"if he yells, I cut his throat/shoot him"
"if he tries to bat my hand away, I circle, come back, and shoot him"
"if he says "no" when I tell him to give me his wallet, I cut his throat/stab him/shoot him in the head"
"if he raises his hands after I tell him not to, I kill him"
But there are others. For example -
"if he doesn't understand the threat/see the weapon I'm using, intimidation isn't working. I'm going to show him the weapon, hold it into his face or tell him how I'm going to kill him to intimidate him better"
"if he tells me to fuck off, I respond back and kill him"
And the worst case:
"If he doesn't register the threat, I kill him anyway."
There's some basic thought patterns/triggers/whatever you want to call them. On to manipulating them. Someone relying on a Blitzkrieg-style overwhelming intimidation with a weapon can be coaxed into a disarm by pretending not to see his weapon. He shoves the gun into your face, you take it away. This is the psychological stuff, made practical.
Here's what is happening in a good portion of that clip: I am threatening with a knife held to the throat, torso, etc - wherever I'm comfortable and feel "in control." Arthur uses basic physics to change small things in the situation (my alignment, distance from my torso to the weapon, distance from the weapon to his throat, etc). Many are too small for me to feel and I don't register them as threats, but if I do notice and try to cut/stab, pull the trigger, I find that I am either in a really bad position, or Arthur just has to take one step and break my neck to kill me.
In addition, you'll see Arthur "sneak" his hand up to create a wedge between the knife and his throat (when I threaten from the front with a blade to his jugular). If I'm experienced and I ripcut out of it, and for some aweful reason he is still standing there, the worst I cut is his fingers. If he's not completely stupid and simply rotates his wrist as I ripcut out, I won't even get those.
This is basic basic BASIC stuff. It is really simple - 7 and 8 year olds were doing fine when I was hostaging them with like 80% intent and 100% speed after 10 minutes of demonstration/practice with a partner. If it looks complicated, you're attributing too much skill to something that's simple.
Anyways, a drill to get good at this quickly is to get a partner and a blade. Have him hold it wherever he wants, and SLOWLY move/realign/change things in the situation. Ask him to tell you when his "oh shit, he's doing something" alarms go off. You'll be amazed at the kind of freedom you have even in training - and in real life, you have MUCH more room to move around, because you're expected to be scared shitless and twitchy, which makes small adjustments even harder to identify, much less read.
Whenever you're watching video, just see it as physics. It's only rubber bands, incline planes, gears, and a few other simple machines. Seeing stuff in terms of arms, legs, stances, footwork, attacks, and defenses is just wayyy too complicated. Simple simple simple. Simple keeps me alive.
-Dave
.
Linear Mode
