To be able to apply a takedown, a throw, a restraint, a hold or impact against somebody, we need to have entry tactics. None of the more complex and advanced manoeuvres of self defense are possible without an entry tactic. Unless you are a person who pre-emptive strikes every time, you will need to have an excellent base of entry tactics allowing you to enter upon any angled delivered strike. This is one of the key factors that most martial artists and people who practice self defence forget. They get comfortable or enjoy the more complex manoeuvres of self defense because they can apply them in an environment with no threat to themselves.

For example; you could train with a partner and throw them with a rear leg take down all day. You could tell him to throw a haymaker and know what is coming, and throw them all day. There is no threat or danger to yourself of accidentally getting hit. This puts most students into a comfortable setting when realistically they should be better off training more entry tactics and training their take downs less often so that they actually have a skill that will allow them to enter upon a person in a conflict and then be able to take them down, rather then just having a pure skill set of just being able to take someone down. But it is human nature. People like doing things that they are comfortable with. After all not many people like to put themselves consistently under threat.

In our part 1 issue today, we are going to be examining the first steps of an entry tactic against a straight line attack. I have chosen the straight line attack because the straight line attack is the hardest thing to defend against. When someone throws a straight line of attack at you, it will always force a position. It will make you move either right, left or backwards because if you don’t, you will get hit with the strike that the person is throwing. Remember, it doesn’t matter about the technique.

One thing that you need to start learning if you are going to start training with me is to forget about the sort of technique that someone is going to throw at you. It is completely irrelevant to the situation at hand. You should only worry about countering the angles of delivery. There are thousands of different techniques that apply to the angles but only a handful of angles that the body will function upon. Don’t get into the trap that I have seen many martial artists get into over the years, trying to have a set repertoire against every different sort of technique. You want to make sure that you have skill sets to deal with the different angles of delivery at different ranges that you will pick up on. So you will have long range, mid range and close range defence tactics against all of the angles.

This is imperative because the person may be really fast, they may be slower or you may be super fast or may not recognise things as quickly as someone else. It will give you a base of tactics that covers every range. Especially when you start looking at more than one strike being thrown at you, it is probably inevitable that you won’t pick up on every shot and will need some very tight and tidy close range defences.

The very first thing that I want you to start practising against a straight line attack will be teaching your body to move first. Most people will have the habit of wanting to use their hands first because every day we rely on our hands in our daily tasks. For example, we drive with our hands, we type with our hands, we are more proficient with our hands. However, realistically we should move with our whole body and legs out of the way of the straight line attack. The simple principle is that if your body isn’t there you cannot get hit. It doesn’t matter about your hands.

Now not suggesting for a minute that you do not use your hands because you certainly do use them but you need to first of all get your body to react to every angle strike moving out of the way. So very slowly you will get a partner to throw a straight line attack towards you, and you will be moving to a left 45 degree angle if they are throwing a right handed straight shot towards your face. It is preferable to be moving to the outside of someone’s arm, very commonly referred to the blind side of someone’s body. The reason being is that it zones you further away from the opposing hand and offers some sort of protection because it is going to take them longer to turn around to strike you.

It is possible to drive to the inside of a straight but it does pose certain dangers because you are facing the opposing hand. When doing this drill the objective is to force you to start moving your base. You will go through it slowly and step by step with a partner. Do not go too fast. The objective is to start training your body to know that your legs must move first. The way that I like you to train this drill is to keep your hands behind your back and move that whole body from the hip line first by swinging your hips out, and step out at the same time on a left 45 degree angle and you will find that it only takes you around an inch and a half of travel to clear someone’s fist leaving you in a good tactical position to gain upon somebody. You will continue doing this drill very slowly, build your skill sets up and acquire them. This will be one of your imperative strategies to gain an entry upon somebody.

Then after you acquire these skills you will look at incorporating the hand to help with further deflection and entry tactics. If you are finding that you have the habit of wanting to try and use your hands, what I sometimes do with clients is handcuff their hands behind their back so that they are forced to move their body out of the way. If you find that you are consistently moving your head backward and cant move your legs to the left, get your partner to put you against a brick wall so that you are forced to move out of the way. It is amazing what people will do when they are forced to do something that they do not like doing. Practice this strategy it is one of the first steps in building an excellent base of entry tactics for yourself.

Hi there!

I would like to welcome you to the new CQCtactics.com. Every week you will be receiving fantastic combat articles from myself to try and enhance your skill sets as quickly as possible. The website is under construction at the moment. We have many new changes appearing over the coming weeks. I urge you to keep coming back so that you can see the changes for yourself and experience the different services that we will be able to offer you no matter where you are in the world.

In this weeks issue, I have put in a part one series of my articles on entry tactics. This is an imperative area of study, teaching you how to enter upon any angle strike. Remember it doesn’t matter how good you are at taking someone down, throwing them etc because it is never achievable unless you get an entry upon someone. Make sure you read these articles every week and save them somewhere and use them as excellent reference points for your training.

For those people who are located in Victoria, Australia, you many have seen our new television commercial that is airing on channel 10. If you have, log into the pop up box on the homepage and let us know.

Now this is the first week of our relaunch of thew website I have decided to do something really special. I have 50 sets of my famous Military Combat series. This series is by far the best series so far, 7 DVD’s. It retails for $199. Well for the 50 remaining sets that I have in stock at present I am going to give the first 50 people that set for just $99 plus postage and handling. That’s right, just $99 plus postage and handling. This is a 1 off special that will never be repeated, so if you want to take advantage of this special offer, click here now. I only have 50 sets available.

Speaking of DVD’s and updates, I know that there is many of you out there asking when are the new DVD’s coming out. Well, our new editing team will have levels 5 and 6 of the Unarmed Combative series and I mean the new unarmed combative series available within 2 weeks. So stay tuned for that because I have a super special on our intermediate pack as a first release offer in the next few days. Remember, if you want to keep up to date on all the events running across Australia and overseas, make sure that you look at the home page and the events section which has a detailed list of every event and now you can also book online. I look forward to teaching you on a weekly basis and look forward to seeing you in person in the very near future.