Dave Briggs started his martial arts training at the age of seven.  Over the years he has trained in many of the combat arts with his core art being Chinese boxing.  Over the last five years Dave has focused his attention on the ground fighting systems.  His work as a doorman for ten years has been the inspiration for him to find out the key points for most of the martial art fighting systems and having to test the theory sometimes two or three times in a night quickly helps you to find out what works. 

This was a private seminar but we were pleased to invite Darrin Richardson who with two of his students travelled from all the way from Gosport to be here.  Darrin took the the class through a good warm up session (which at his age is a sign of how well martial arts training keeps him looking so young).  Within no time the students (and the dojo) were warmed up and everyone had been looking forward to training with Dave for a long time.  Dave talked briefly about his training history, his friendship with Peter Consterdine and Geoff Thompson and the way the British Combat Association had helped him and many other instructors push the reality side of the combat arts. 

With the help of his friend and training partner Stuart Williams (or as Dave would say, 'His crash test dummy') he went into the application of pre-emptive strikes and his unique concept of control and destruction applicable in both horizontal and vertical situations, working on lining up one of more potential attackers.  Using body posturing he was able to  work the pre-emptive strike using palm and forearm strikes to the side of the face and neck and with a simple training drill we were able to feel the effectiveness of the strikes. 

Facing off with our partner as the attacker we moved in, pushing away their leading hand and then coming around with a strike to the head of neck.  Dave said that hitting the head is sometimes like hitting armour plating, he has found that striking with an open hand or with the forearm to the side of the face or neck works well.  Dave was keen to point out that at the end of the day you need to be happy with the techniques yourself so if something works for you then use it. 

Size is not the issue

Dave went into great detail about how your mental attitude is a big factor in surviving a street confrontation.  If your attacker is the size of a silver back gorilla you are going to wish you were somewhere else but if you can make him/her think that you will not back down and if it comes to a fight you will do anything to win then physical size is not an issue, being a potential problem is.  Dave has found this to be true, many people have told him the physical damage they will do to him but as they are saying it they are walking backwards and away.  Having confidence in your techniques and having the confidence to protect yourself comes from putting yourself under pressure on the mat and believe me, when Dave puts his training on the mat it's as real as any street fight. 

With his training partner Stuart, Dave demonstrated how once in position for your first strike you have to do anything to win.  With his partner attacking Dave pushed Stuart's leading hand to one side then moving behind, he applied (with great speed) a choke.  The point of getting in close is that as soon as the choke is on the amount of damage your attacker can do is very limited.  You must do anything that helps you get the choke from poking the attacker in the eyes to biting their face, ears or nose. 

When you train with this level of realism your subconscious mind cannot distinguish between your training and a real attack so you will be feeling and getting familiar with how your body is going to act or react in a real situation.  We found that keeping it simple and being determined was getting amazing results. 

Taking it to the floor

The final part of the seminar was devoted to some of Dave's ground fighting drills for powering through the guard to destroy and finish.  Taking the drills from close standing and fighting range, Dave explained that most fights when taken to the ground are not normally done with a neat throw.  The weight of your attacker can just pull you down or as you are fighting his friend kicks your legs away or you just trips over each other's feet.  Anything and everything happens in the real world! 

Working from the guard and mount positions on the floor, Dave demonstrated how driving your punches and strikes through your partner's attack can overwhelm them and not giving your attacker time to recover is the key.  Again, Dave has some great ideas for training drills.  Using focus mitt pads, our partners could hit us as hard and as fast as they could but by driving our punches through we were able to get a choke on in no time.  Next, by changing positions with our partners into the mount position they could hit down at us with the focus mitts.  This time still driving back with punches through their attack and coming into a sit up position we could grab the attacker's neck and pull back down allowing a choke or head lock. 

Like all the drills before they pushed us to our limits and yes our partners got some punches in and we had to work hard to get control but at the end of the day we all took comfort in the thought that we were training in something that works under pressure.