Thinking in the...Black Box

 

You ever find that some things in your life and doings are inexplicable, almost mysterious? I sure do. One of such conundrums is the fact that I have been a real fan of work and instructional material of one Mark Hatmaker for almost 25 years now, and despite his prolific output to my liking, I don’t have any of it reviewed here. How did it happen is beyond me… Although, I once did a thorough review of his Outer Limits Drills video for the Raven Calling magazine, it is about time to rectify the situation on this blog.

To that end, instead of tackling a single product, I would like to point your attention to his Black Box Project. If you’d prefer reading what the author himself has to say about it, check out the overview at his website. But, here is my summary:

Back Box is a series of DVDs from his RAW library, issued monthly, that addresses the grey area of combat methods – the approach that relies as much on the athletic physical attributes required in modern sports as it does on the “old school” technical work that is both ring/mat proven and street savvy. In broad strokes, the material presented belongs to the categories of standup striking, upright and ground grappling, weaponry work (what Hatmaker call frontier tools, i.e. tomahawk and trade knives), and physical preparation.

The interesting part is, however, that he did a huge amount of research to find, test, filter and apply predominantly the training methods used by the yesteryear generations of folks who had to use it in real life, and did not have access to the facilities and gear that modern professional fighters do. In other words, what you will find is the stuff that will work for common people like you and I, who have daily jobs and limited financial resources to invest in enhancing your fight game. On top of that, he focuses on the type of training that minimizes the risk of injury typically caused by following professional regimes without the professional support of coaches, massage therapists, nutritional supplementation etc. Plus, there is a cool addition of written outline of contents in each DVD, along with suggestions on how to conduct the training, delivered either in hardcopy or electronic format with each volume.

Now, as you could see, the production style is of the homemade tradition, which might seem lo-fi to some viewers, but I actually like it for its authentic feel. The sheer quality of the material is further enhanced by Hatmaker’s excellent presentation. In line with the values of the old-timers, Hatmaker is a rather eloquent gentleman, well read and able to articulate his thoughts and advice very nicely. To get a taste of his worth in this domain, I wholeheartedly recommend that you pay a visit (or several) to either his audio podcast or written blog (or both) according to your preferences.

After several months into his material, I can honestly attest that Hatmaker’s Black Box stuff is excellent! The combative techniques and tactics presented make a lot of sense, and with a little work can be integrated in any existing program that you may be partaking in. And while that portion is top notch, to me the physical training (culture) material contained in the Unleaded sub-system of the Black Box has been a real blessing! It has enabled me to get rid of some nagging injuries and discomforts that had been hindering my daily training for a while, while also boosting my performance ability in other areas.

As if all of the above was not enough, Mark happens to be a true gentleman and enjoyable fellow to converse with, and inspires people to do good work and live good life in the best way possible – leading by example. All in all, digging into his offerings might turn out to be one of the best investments (time, money and effort) you could possibly make.

With violence in mind

I will take a wild guess here and say that most of my readers have a least a small library of books in the field of martial arts and related subjects. As a kid I particularly liked those that featured many techniques and forms in detailed pictures, as well as those with cool pseudo-historical anecdotes about the origins of the styles presented. Later, as I was growing up and (hopefully) maturing on my path, my focus shifted to training methods and principles behind training systems.

Today’s post is review of a superb work that highlights the foundational meta-principles behind any combative training approach aimed at developing the real world civilian fighting prowess. And what a piece of work it is! I had stumbled into the name of author Varg Freeborn quite recently, through the Conflict Research Group’s page, and one of his interviews hit a chord with me, so I then took a closer look at his own website, and finally ordered the book.

The author...

Well, the book “Violence of Mind” belongs to the category of paradigm shifting, game changing pieces (or packages) of information you occasionally run into. The author has a rather unique biography that provides him with some “privileged” insights, and I am certainly glad he chose to share those with the general public. Freeborn’s intimate knowledge of violence lead him to formulating a robust method of preparation for those life events we all (well, the sane ones) hope to never have to deal with.

From the very start it is clear that the book fills some of the large gaps that most other instructors either neglect or are even ignorant about. I got my money’s worth just from either of the chapters on Mission, Orientation or Conditioning, and there are still few others that will make you take a deep and honest look at your training and reassess how it is conducted. For example, how often and how in depth do you consider legalities of the possible application of the material you work on during your training sessions? Or, how about the standards and validation of what is done in those sessions?

...and his legacy.

Although his writing comes predominantly from the perspective of firearms training and use, the principles are readily applied to any other domain of practical preparation for self-preservation. Another aspect that I liked immensely is that although the goal of the book is to be critical of the current widespread self-preservation training practices, the author manages at the same time to clearly exude the good-meaning attitude behind it, i.e. it is obvious that his intent is to help the readers adjust their training to the demands of reality, and not self-aggrandizing through mockery of others.

In conclusion, if your involvement in martial arts and general fighting stuff is in any way inclined towards the real world management, beyond recreational practice and sportive applications, you owe it to yourself to get this book and read it…repeatedly!

What's your type?

Since the previous post I have had some interesting learning opportunities and one of the best was a few days spent in training Skobar (more on skobar itself at a later date) with Dima Khakimov from St. Petersburg in Russia. While it was not my first time attending Dima’s seminars, this particular was organized differently so we had much more time to discuss all things martial and other subjects. One of those conversations touched upon a certain video, and that in turn raised a question within me.

How do you prevent good models of thinking and training from yielding bad results? It dovetails with something I wrote about before, but I would say on more of a meta-level of sorts. Namely, Dima mentioned an episode of a TV show he watched back home, in which one of the hosts is an experienced Thai and kickboxing coach asked to spar a bit with an instructor of a traditional style, white crane karate more specifically. Instead of telling about it, take a look for yourself, starting at 16:58, and see how it ends.

Again, the question that came up was how do we deal with stereotypes in martial arts? It is easy (and often correct) criticizing many of the traditional schools and systems for being dogmatic and hermetic in what they do, thus failing to grow with and adapt to the times. Yet, it is not an inclination endemic to the traditional styles. Do you remember the time when high kicks were deemed undoable and downright harmful for the kicker in MMA? And them Maurice Smith appeared… How about spinning backfists before Shonie Carter? Or spinning back kicks before GSP…you get the point.

While this certainly is not the case of dogmatic blindness, it certainly qualifies as stereotype. My readers know that to me the training methodology is more important than individual techniques practiced within a school, but it is possible that sometimes we don’t even consider putting certain techniques through whatever the adopted methodology, due to our stereotypical views of what will or won’t work in a fight. I guess it is the occurrence of semantic shift from “low percentage” to “impossible”. Yet, those two are not the same, are they? Plus, as good as the training methodology of most MMA schools is, some techniques are never practiced simply because they are banned in an MMA fight by the rules of such encounters.

Granted, there is a lot of moves and techniques in the traditional systems that cannot work against a resisting opponent THE WAY they are done in those schools – but, take those same techniques and train them THE WAY it is done in MMA and you might be surprised with the outcome. I experienced it first hand, too. Once I grappled an advanced aikido practitioner and basically toyed with him, so he gave me the rant about eye gouging and biting etc. We then went through another round, but with all those allowed for him. Again, the result was pretty much the same, as he had neither the attributes nor the understanding of fight dynamics (positioning, distance and so on) to apply those tools. On the other hand, in sparring other guys, experienced in modern sport training methods, there was more than one instance when I was able to take them by surprise because I used some of those “dirty” or “street” tactics.

So, where does it put us? I guess some moves will never be “high percentage”, but could come in handy in some of the more specific situations. Just like in the daily life, hammer and screwdriver are used frequently, but sometimes you just have to use the soldiering iron. This why the Pareto principle talks about 80/20 and not 100% solutions. Take those most reliable tactics and work on them most of the time, but do allocate some of the training time and effort to at least get acquainted with those “other” tools…

Who knows when they may come in handy?