Category Archives: Hock’s Blogs

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Martial Art Taproots Taking Your Money

Palace Intrigue Report #87: Taproots in Martial Arts Business
(This essay causes me trouble, even among friends)
 
Is your instructor, system, art, tribe, etc. a negative taproot?
Are you a negative taproot for your people?
 
 

No one ever said that all martial artists people were good business people. Usually they are not. Dreamers still dream of making local, national or even global networks. It’s an old-school dream that never dies. With my fifty years in the martial world, running my own school in the 1980s and 90s, and knowing hosts-owners and “students” all over this world, I’ve learned some of the biggest reasons why people quit training and why they leave martial organizations:

  • Natural life habits and occurrences. Finances, marriage, kid’s soccer, golf, apathy, sickness, families, jobs, interfere with martial arts business. So much so, you might say that is “planned” obsolescence, in that you should seriously plan for these natural occurrences. 
  • Another big one is dues, and-or tithings, be they local or distance-franchise. What is the price-break point in your neighborhood, not in Beverly Hills, your neighborhood. The “Gee Willikers Martial Arts Business Association” always tells you to charge more, regardless of where you are.
  • Stupid, insider politics.
  • On the list also? Economic downturns in general and of course Covid-lockdown related economic downturns.
  • On the list too, people signing up for something they didn’t know was not what they wanted (like those folks seeing a Steven Seagal movie and then they hurry-sign up at the local Tae Kwon Do outfit)
  • Fake background discovered. 
  • Married owners that fool around with opposite sex student. (Is there any long-term martialist reading this that isn’t aware (or guilty) of this imploding story?
  • How’s about the ol’ alcohol and drug addiction albatross?
  • Yeah. Yeah, there’s more. Keep a list going.
There are lists of “why people leave,” and “why schools fall,” and “why martial organizations fail,” lists that every martial business should develop. Warning – real success is not simply countering that list because there is so much else involved. The formula, the recipe for big success some dream of is a tricky one beyond these three lists. But, I give you today, just one in particular to think about! The “martial leader, money taproot” problem.
 
The Martial Money Taproot. I have long warned about “system worship” and “system head-leader worship.” They cloud people’s minds, and this essay covers one of the ugly list subject of…dues. fees, tithings.
 
Of course everyone pays for training. Lord knows I have. Hey, I am a capitalist. But I am not an idiot. If you are an instructor you need money for the full spectrum of business needs. You may have a training building and you pay somebody rent and/or utilities, etc. Then the martial owner must also make a living so he-she needs your support to even try to teach. (My advice for most? Don’t quit your day job.) But many martial organizations operate under a longer-distance plan, collecting payments from affiliates, instructors, groups, etc. sometimes around the world, and here’s where you get into taproot troubles.
 
Here are some stories I am aware of about taproots:
  • Why have one? Instructors feel they need a never-ending affiliation to a “grandpa” or a “tribe.”
  • Instructor pays a lot monthly and gets nothing or next to nothing in return.
  • Instructor finally makes a little profit but then must send it off to the taproot.
  • Taproot reluctantly grants a time-off break during bad times, but taproot demands it all paid up later.
  • Taproot demands a long-term connection contract with many restrictions and ridiculous monthly fees. Think of the original Premiere contract – 10 years, one thousand a month (which turns you into a kid factory). Also think of the 1990s surge of “Los Angeles” based Krav Maga ($$$$).  Should you fail with these payments? Payments stop? Lawsuit follows. I have a friend who left his state and filed bankruptcy to escape these contracts. But, if you want a study of what not to do? Take a deep dive into that 1990s Krav organization business plan based out of L.A.. Did these geniuses not see the inevitable future?
  • Taproots take advantage of fads, fads, fads. Are you weak in the fad department? Susceptible?
  • Join “Puhon-Maiki’s” school with dues AND additional plans. Get weekday, afternoon phone conversations with him for an extra $50 more a month. Get TWENTY-FOUR-SEVEN phone access to Puhon for $75 more a month! (I NEVER understood this need to phone-thing. It’s like what? A poison control center you need to call at 3 a.m.?”)
  • “Jimmy Taproot was my good friend. But when I fell on hard times, I couldn’t pay him the association dues. Jimmy got mad and now we don’t speak after all these years.”
  • Even the “Gee Willikers Martial Arts Business Association” taproots monthly dues to make you a success.
  • Taproot has an annual fee-license for your black belt. Fall to pay? Your black belt license is revoked and goes away. 
  • Here is a big warning “bell” for me. Should be for you too – if a martial franchise has melted into it’s freakin’ logo the words, “Become Certified”…in it’s logo! It’s little more than a business franchise and potential taproot. If not in the logo, then you should detect from a brief examination of its mission statement, if it’s little more than a pyramid scheme. All systems have ranks and instructorships, sure, but what is the thrust of the mission statement. Teaching? Educating? Or money pyramids? These organizations run through people like mad and live on seducing new suckers. (Do yourself a favor and read this paragraph twice.)
  • And so on…
Are you really getting what you are paying for? Unpalatable, organizational fees drive people away. Many leavers often change-alter the abandoned name brand of a system a bit and pay no one. As a side joke I always remark, “You pay a fortune for ‘I Love Kickboxing.’ Why not change it, create and advertise ‘I REALLY Love Kickboxing…A LOT,’” and do the same universal kickboxing things no one owns and not pay a taproot. Remember, it’s a joke because they will still harass and sue you. But you get the basic concept, why pay a crippling taproot? Think of a name to where you won’t get sued. In this case, you could just use a generic “Fitness KIckboxing” class and not pay anyone.
 
In the years past and to date I have seen the innocent and naïve, and some not-so-innocent and not-so-naïve seduced into, and fall for, expensive and stupid fad fighting systems, paying ridiculous fees on top of their ignorant choices. 
 

In the mid-1990s I left all martial organizations for freedom to innovate but also to stop distributing money to some negative taproots. I have been around, full time – no day job – on my own for 26 years. I have regular practitioners and instructors as far as China and Australia and I have no tithings, or monthly dues. In the end I more successful and longer lasting than 90% of the others (and that still ain’t saying much). I might suggest that if you want to succeed big, you might also try to “be what everyone else isn’t,” for one thing. For example, in the USA now, about every four blocks is a Krav school or a BJJ school, (or both combined) most likely with a happy taproots in another state sucking money. Chances are you will not grow or excell in such a crowded environment. Hey, if you are happy with a “corner store?” I am happy for you. Great. I want you to be happy.

For bigger dreamers? Also, build an organization, an association, so creative that no one has reasons to leave. No business reasons that is, because people are people, and apathy and interests wane and switch, as listed in the beginning here. Don’t add to the natural distractions of life by constructing unplanned obsolescence with bad pricing, stupid rules, politics and signing ten-year contracts with taproot pyramid schemes.

I think I could write a whole book pontificating on this subject with many so sad, detailed examples, but there are some old westerns I have to watch on TV and my 2 o’clock nap is coming up. Meanwhile, think about this – is your instructor, system, art or tribe a negative taproot? Are you a negative taproot for your people and wonder why you aren’t local, “national” or “global?” If you’re that ambitious? Check your goal, your recipe, your compass and your taproot quota.

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Hock’s email is HockHochheim@ForceNecessary.com

Want an adventure story? Click here!

 

Hock's Blogs

NLP in Martial Arts and Shooting – A Brief History

I was doing a seminar in early 1990s and an attendee approached me during a break and said,
“I see you’ve studied NLP.”
“No,” I said.
“Oh, you use NLP methods. I thought you did.”
In England years later, another guy said the same thing. I said no again. And then a host there said that I “used NLP.”  

Neural Linguistic Programming. What then precisely was NLP “methods?” I was just “doing my thing.” Saying “my thing.” Of course, I had a vague idea of NLP because some pop instructors of the day were using it as the next sales pitch magic, promoting it to sell their courses. “Learn NLP!” Was it a form of hypnosis? Svengali-manipulation?

So, I had to look this up to see what I was doing naturally that was so NLP-ish. After a library visit I deduced that EVERYONE was “using NLP” to some degree. Using your words to influence, to teach and sway (and hopefully improve) was not new. Selecting and understanding wordings and the nuances thereof, reaching and influencing people, did not and does not have to come from NLP.

 The Death of Marcus Wynne (February 2022) Army vet. Air Marshal vet. Creator of courses. Why am I thinking about the faded away NLP? Wynne’s recent death made me re-reflect on those NLP-times, because with his passing his old friends mentioned the things he taught. And for some, they say Wynne somewhat-somehow changed their lives! They recall he taught things mentioned above like “crisis rehearsal,” visualization and the magical – NLP. In fact, Wynne was revered by some folks, as some sort of “Jedi” in those days gone by. 

Jedi? Star Wars? The timing for such lingo was perfect, as the army and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) were looking into any and all ways to enhance soldiers “brains” and performance. The book, The Men Who Stare at Goats, which I read years ago was described as – “a non-fiction work by Jon Ronson concerning the U.S. Army’s exploration of New Age concepts and the potential military applications of the paranormal. The title refers to attempts to kill goats by staring at them and stopping their hearts.” But, known by most folks, this storyline was satirically covered in the movie version with George Clooney. This was an era for insider, mind-expanding stuff. NLP seemed like one of the magic paths, especially with the underway, “goat-army” connection.   

I knew at the time Wynne was teaching here and there. I saw him in some training films, but I just…I just didn’t care as many of us were also “looking around” at science, sports, medical and psychological incorporations for fighting and performance. For others, Wynne seemed to be their introduction to progressive ideas, which was a good thing. Everybody learns stuff from somebody else. Plus, Wynne had an engaging personality (which that in and of itself is NLP-ish). Then his popularity seemed to shrink away into a, not-quite oblivion through time, as will we all. And after all, he survived a serious near-death cancer back then, taking him even further “from the scene,” for a time. I am pretty sure Wynne moved on from NLP. Anyway, his death brought all this up from my memory. You “rookies, young-ins” will find some martial folks and firearm old-timers lamenting his passing and now you know why.

           All goats aside, I highly, highly              recommend this investigative book.

 

The raw, overall solution-methods were “camp-fire old” in many ways. In another whim-follow-up in about 2018, I downloaded several newer concept NLP books via audio (by actual doctors NOT martial arts guys). I listened to them, which extraplolated the evolved additions of the NLP world, somehow dense while shallow, (one of the NLP complaints is that they use vague language – see inside the link below). After lstening, I still remained quite unimpressed.

Common, related NLP topics were told and old:

  • Stress inoculation (not new even then).
  • Crisis rehearsal (not new even then).
  • Visualization (not new even then).
  • Advanced learning methods (not new even then). 
  • Special, catchy language (never new.)

It’s the gun-guy, Dave Spaulding’s old, wise line again, “It’s not new, it’s just new to you” that holds true over and over. And by the way, speaking of guns, there was an NLP influence within certain firearms crowds too, back then. So, why the martial arts and shooter fuss ages ago?

Shootin’ and Fightin.’ Being in and around the martial arts, military-policing and guns since the early 1970s, I have seen many fads come and go. Oh, they might last a while, but still are a fad. We are in the middle of a few right now. The influence of how NLP had some voodoo magic in the 1970s, 80s and even the 90s martial artists, shooters and other folks is an interesting business study. First off, martial artists, shooters, police, military being human, we can fall for any sales pitch. Business people use faddish sales pitches to increase sales. NLP can be by itself, its own manipulative sales pitch, about a sales pitch, about a sales pitch, about… (the cycle continues).

And now back to NLP itself… for quick examples…

  • A monopoly on crisis rehearsal? New? No. I mean just look at old football practice and old shoot-room training. Are they not crisis rehearsal? Sometimes you are already doing what you have been told is new, and have not made the connection.
  • A monopoly on Visualization? New? No. In Ed Parker’s Kenpo Karate classes in 1972, there were discussions on the power of visualization training. Sort of rehearsing in your mind katas, techniques and fights in a quiet room or moment. For me, a believer in the tenant of “reduce the abstract,” when feasible, I will never grasp significantly replacing this closed-eye, sit-down with physical action. There is much science today that proves such visualization-meditation has only fractional results in comparison to reality, or smart steps toward reality. My point is not the success ratio, but rather that the practice of visualization already existed in martial arts. Take shadow boxing. It can be be quite shallow without visualizing an opponent. Helps but the shadowm won’t break your nose. I am sure readers here will and could list this martial, mental rehearsal practice going…back…ages.
  • A monopoly on advanced learning? New? No. There’s always more learning. In the “mind-game” you have to keep up with the ever-changing  improvements. I have a friend in Australia who is a double-doctorate in psychology, a working counselor and college professor. He told me that a psychology doctorate must be completed within two years because that’s how fast the world of neural-plasticity changes! NLP was off the radar. (Psychological therapies are VERY complex, the training complex, and require a customized, deep-dive into clients with careful scripts.)

Trained psychologists and motivational speakers were teaching these generic principles of speech, motivation and improvement, here, there and everywhere. I mean, Zig Zigler or any business guru said more or less the same things. The Power of Positive Thinking was a 1952 self-help book by Norman Vincent Peale. Age-old common speech classes produce verbal influence methods. Books and speakers have preached the copying of successful people’s habits, their messages and ideas were-are very much language influencers. They all use and preach the nuance of language to communicate, focus, sway and improve. President Lyndon Johnson would write speeches, then hand the crude outline to his speechwriters and say, “Here, put the music to it.”  The music to it. To really work, you need the soundtrack.

  

Any-who, here are some fast facts about the old and new NLP:

  • Linguistics is the study of human speech including the units, nature, structure, and modification of language.
  • NLP was developed by Richard Bandler and John Grinder, who believed it was possible to identify the patterns of thoughts and behaviors of successful individuals and to teach them to others.
  • NLP originated when Richard Bandler, a student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, was listening to and selecting portions of taped therapy sessions of the late Gestalt therapist Fritz Perls as a project for Robert Spitzer. Bandler said that he recognized particular word and sentence structures which facilitated the acceptance of Perls’ therapeutic suggestions. Bandler then approached John Grinder, then a linguistics lecturer. Bandler and Grinder say that they studied Perls’ utterances on tape and observed a second therapist, Virginia Satir, to produce what they termed the meta model, a model for gathering information and challenging a client’s language and underlying thinking.
  • NLP tries to detect and modify unconscious biases or limitations of an individual’s map of the world.
  • NLP is not hypnotherapy. Instead, it operates through the conscious use of language to bring about changes in someone’s thoughts and behavior. (Some naysayers call it “covert” hypnosis.)

Camp-fire old? Many experts (and little-ol’ me) believe that your world – as in your personal predilections, and our world as in history, governments and religions, are totally built on, and re-enforced by, fiction and non-fiction stories. Mine was. Is. Story-telling from the campfires to the upcoming “Metaverse” has shaped and is shaping the world. And these stories are made up of single script lines…single sentences. Phrases even. Verbally, spoken, these sentences are bolstered by intonations, gestures and facial expressions. Lyrics without music. Poems with or without rhymes. How somewhat engaging they all are, somewhat hypnotic…how…NLP-ish sounding, but not NLP.? 

Oh, the everlasting, simple wonder of manipulative words! Monks chant. Writers write. Poets poet. Singers sing. Preachers pound the podium. Speakers-talkers sway and influence. Oh, the pulse, the orchestration of words to create positive (or sadly, negative) emotional, intellectual bonding and states of mind. 

NLP had a martial arts and shooter fad. NLP is not in the martial arts, shooting world vernacular. The universal training topics were there before NLP and remain after. Today, you have to be careful about NLP though. I don’t think it comes up much in modern discourse. Despite being around for nearly half a century, NLP is currently not recognized in mainstream psychology. I know some folks working on their Masters and PHDs in pschology, enjoy talking with them, and NLP is nowhere to be found. It seems like today’s NLP business wants to make “life coaches” out of just about anybody, high school grads or not.  And I noticed that the old “NLP” initials are easily confused today some some modern computer, language programming.

So, from the 1990s, and through the finished books in 2018. I remain unimpressed. I am a skeptical, hard-sell by nature anyway. Good or bad, I did suspect early on that learning this NLP stuff from actual veteran, certified psychologists would be smarter than from some martial arts guys or gals who may or may not have even graduated high school? But as we see, veteran, certified psychologists won’t touch the stuff.

After this article was published a professional NLP-er coach stood up for NLP (and why wouldn’t he? It was his income). He was very nice and non-confrontational, but I must say I’ve never read a more jargon-filled, collection of complicated clap-trap, goobly-gook. I told him that this techno-talk, meant to sell and impress, was largely responsible for the decline in NLP. No reply. 

Thanks to the internet, today’s citizen, shooter, police, military, martial studies are diverse and wide-open to new worlds of modern science, sports training, medicine and psychology. Look around. Be conscious of fads and overt and covert sales pitches. Our martial genre always talks about being a “hard target?” Also be a “hard-sell,” skeptic.

And I now hereby conclude my manipulative words for today. I guess I do know NLP after all!

For more…

Six ways you can tell someone is using NLP on YOU

The Men Who Stare at Goats Movie Trailer

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Hock’s email is HockHochheim@forcenecessary.com

For more essays like this here, click here 

 

 

 

 

#nlp #marcuswynn  #combatives #martialarts #martialartstraining #kravmaga #preparedcitizen #counterbladetactics #PoliceDefensiveTactics #defensivetactics #selfprotectiontraining #selfdefensetraining

 

 

 

Hock's Blogs

The Smiling Criminal

In the last decades or so, numerous self-defense people have been going around, reading off ”Pre-Assault Tips” lists, and been considered such “inventive geniuses” by virgin listeners. I first saw such a list in the early 1970s in the military police academy. This list, this idea, “ain’t new, it’s just new to you,” to paraphrase the great gun instructor Dave Spaulding.

What’s often missing is the vital “Pre-Crime Tips Approach” list, which can often be broken down into major categories:

  • “criminal ambushes” or,
  • “criminal con man/trick-you” approaches” and these do not resemble much of the pre-assault list at all. Thus, sometimes, we have the “smiling criminal” approach. But it gets worse!

(Running out of above meme space to type in words, I’ll continue here off the photo.) I’m not saying that pre-assault tips lists are worthless. I have them in my books. But they might well exist in a Stop One of the Stop Six, which is kind of a stand-off, no-contact-yet situation, like an “angry-argument” situation, where such signals might be observed from a distance. And I don’t mind people reading over and thinking about the list. In fact I have seen several of these tips occur in person as a cop, but once again, I was in too many Stop One stand-offs with people. Perhaps thousands of them in 26 years. Talking, listening, resolving, arguing. Arresting some. Their faces and arms and eyes and legs do tell a tale. “Normal” people usually don’t have these experiences and could just leave sometimes if they get in one? They often know the other person as in “drunk uncles,” friends, acquaintances and spouses-partners.

These Pre-Crime tips can be as varied as a criminal’s imagination. His-her plans might include sudden come-from-nowhere, ambushes and/or approach-closing-in, acting skills. And these performance may be anywhere, from doorways, sidewalks and parking lot, in and out of buildings, con men contacts. They extend all the way to sit-down, financial, Bernie Madoff schemes.

The Pre-Crime list? Where do you get such a list? Gather intelligence from non-fiction books, (even fiction books!), the local and regional news. True crime TV shows. Listen and learn from victims and smart people. Everywhere. Pre-crime, don’t forget that list too. 

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Hock’s email is HockHochheim@ForceNecessary.com

For the list and more, check out this book

 

 
 
 
 
 

 

Hock's Blogs

Worst USA Catastrophe Question? MLK Assassination!

Late last year I was interviewed for a martial arts book, and they asked opinion questions to a series of traveling martial-seminar guys like me. There was a series of standard ones and then some “different” kinds of questions that we were asked.

And one question was (and I can’t remember the wording exactly) what was the greatest or a great catastrophe in the USA in our lifetimes. It would be easy to spit a few common ones, Twin Towers, Pearl Harbor, (a bit before I was born).

But I have thought a lot about this and very quickly answered, “the assassination of Martin Luther King.” An answer I think that was off most people’s charts. But, I think King’s universal message is/was vital, and the perpetuation of him alive and over the decades would have added a great benefit and value to the country.

I know some “but” people who like to say “but he…” did this or that bad thing. He did. BUT…I am thinking the “BIG-picture,” not the “but-picture.”

Years ago I was asked to protect and set up security for Coretta King on a college tour, along with that great kid, the first kid who memorized the “I have a dream” speech. He always performed it perfectly. It was nice group of travelers and I simply did the usual “hotel, eating, appearance” standard, until they all were whisked off to another state. It was great to meet her (and that kid!).

I hate to let a King birthday go by without mentioning him and this loss to the USA and probably the world. Of all the “big” assassinations in my lifetime, I find this one the worst of all, for all we lost. In fact, heartbreaking.

And the best book on the assassination I’ve read would be “Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin.” This is the deepest of dives into the despicable James Earl Ray you’ll find anywhere and it is an unusual, engrossing tale, which reads more like a true-crime, police procedural and not just a history book. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7624086-hellhound-on-his-trail

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Hock’s email is HockHochheim@ForceNecessary.com

Check out Hock’s true crime book, a collection of TWO books –  Kill or Be Killed, (the ebook is still on sale for 99 cents!) Click here.

true crime, police book

Hock's Blogs

Mixed Martial Arts? Or, Mixed-Up Martial Arts?

MMA – Mixed Martial Arts? Or MMA – Mixed-up Martial Arts?

 

The tabulators tell me that 2021 this will be my 51st year doing martial arts – having started in Parker Kenpo in late 1972. I’ve always been looking for the best most realistic arts and systems through those decades, hunting for the next best thing, but for the first half of those 51 years, for about 25 years, I’ve done so rather poorly and confused. Mixed up.

From the 70s on I was working out with what was available, old school jujitsu, boxing, karate, police judo-defensive-tactics. Then in 1986 I starting with the Inosanto Family systems (Thai-JKD-Silat-FMA-Shoot fighting) and Presas Arnis. In 1990 I started Aiki-Jujitsu with a professor in Oklahoma. I guess I was spinning a whole lot of plates? But on some level, despite the differing outfits, patches and the nomenclatures, many times I noted I was often doing the same basic, good moves in different systems, despite the change of systems with a tweak here and there. Sort of a name-game change.

Makes me think of the Bogey movie song, “You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is…” But you really must remember that a “punch is just a “punch,” a “kick is just a kick? I recall Bruce Lee doing some Zen paraphrasing from the famous Zen Buddhist – “ Qingyuan declared that there were three stages in his understanding of the dharma. The first stage, seeing mountain as mountain and water as water.  The second stage, seeing mountain not as mountain and water not as water. And the third stage, seeing mountain still as mountain and water still as water. Bruce modernized the phrase a bit, then replaced the nouns with “punch” and “kick.” He did this name-game switch often from Buddhist sayings.

I see my martial life that same 1, 2, 3 stages way that Mr. Qingyuan suggests, which leads me to my mixed-up-martial arts phrase and phase. Bear with me. You might see yourself in this dharma-dilemma-development?

For quite some time I played a name-game switcheroo. I changed clothes and mindset with various martial art class scheduling. Often in the same night! I can best describe this with two quick stories.

  • Parable 1: Years ago in the late 1980s and early 90s, one of my favorite instructors was Terry Gibson, headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I would host him in Texas, attend his seminars up there and also visit him for multiple day private lessons. At the time Terry was considered one of Inosanto’s top five instructors (Terry has since passed). He was terrific. When there for privates in the daytime, one could attend all the night classes for free. There was a battery of them, an hour of this or that, JKD, FMA, Thai, Silat, etc. And I stayed for all of them from about 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. each night. Different students came in and out for their flavors and I recall the change of mindset and clothes for each one, even with the folks attending two or more of them each night. Me? FIVE of them. All the classes were mixed with careful instruction and some fighting. The Thai Boxing (in traditional shorts, etc.) was particularly rough and it was suggested that Thai sparring be limited in class to prevent statistical injuries and therefore it was mixed with lots of choregraphed Thai drills on pads. Yet two hours later, the Jeet Kune Do class (this one in gym clothes) sparring was wide-open, and anything goes. Same kicks, elbows, strikes, just not “Thai” in Thai clothes and no “shwoshing” mouth sounds, stance, etc. 
Terry Gibson and Hock Hochheim
       Terry Gibson and Hock Hochheim, Tulsa,                                          Oklahoma, 1990.

Each of the classes definitely had a different mission, feel and goals. I’d got the vague idea back then that these things could be blended, especially via the Bruce Lee ideology I was trying to grasp, but they were not. I was also a PFS Paul Vunak instructor back in that day and Paul was very much on mission for the one blend idea. He only used FMA for skill developing methods, but he was trying to blend everything into one thing, one approach. Vu was a pioneer in his own way, a real shock treatment to late 1980s martial arts. I was all in.

By the way, this division of subjects is a martial arts school business model. More classes. More themes. More students. More outfits. More testing. More money. Nothing wrong with that – just saying. With many other instructors and schools in this business model, we studied to become one system-artist when doing that one system-art. MMA, the evolved business model became closed studies to learn different things – yes – but, inadvertently, keep them separate. Divided. Which, whether I fully realized it at the time, was NOT what I wanted, but I wasn’t quite “martial-mature” enough to realize it. I had no “eye” for it. (More on “eyes” later…)

  • Parable 2: I was kind of trying to blend, but I was really off-mission. Mixed-up. Not clear. In my Texas classes that I taught from 1989 to 1994, I started out running the same multi-theme format on weeknights. Man, it was fun! People had fun! I had fun doing such a variety of martial arts too. Playing around with all kinds of stuff. I continued to see more of the basic similarities when organizing the class outlines. So much good stuff was the same wrapped in a different packages and lingo. Parts of the karate class looked like parts of the JKD class. What? As they say, you don’t really know something until you teach it. Some customers were in and out doing the mixed subjects, some stayed for all theme classes. Some customers got confused back then too. One lifelong karate student who sought me out only for self defense survival, asked me why did I show a complicated, Judo Gene LaBelle wrestling move for a sport tap-out. These little situations were popping up, jacking with my mission statement, things that belonged in one umbrella were popping up under another umbrella. And not the umbrella I really wanted.                                                                                So, I wasn’t doing mixed martial arts really. I was doing…all mixed-up, martial arts. I was all mixed up (All this while I was a cop making arrests and realizing that fighting was more like checkers and way less like chess). In late 1993 I started organizing my mission better. I really started to recognize the off-mission sport material, the off-mission art material, the hypocrisies between the arts, and unnecessary, artsy editions. I’d been right on target with FMA since 1992 thanks to Presas Arnis, but these other topics? No. So, I worked on the blend. The REAL mix. (Oh, and by the way, this work is a never-ending assessment of search and destroy.)

I used the Who, What, When, Where, How and Why questions.

  • Who was I? Who is the student? 
  • What was I really teaching? What did they really want? Really need?  What is the generic, simple good in all of them? 
  • Where should I teach and what? Because differing places want or need different things.
  • When should I teach and what? When do they understand what I am saying?
  • How will I best organize all this? How will I teach it?
  • Why am I teaching what I teach? Why are they here?

While turning the all-mixed-up to the mixed-blended, I have a lot of teaching stories for each “W and H” question from these last 26 years, the second half of the 50. I believe these to be informational, entertaining and educational stories, but book-length, and not good here for a short blog.

It should come as no surprise that in the big training picture, modern MMA (as in a blended “UFC style” With ground n’ pound, and I repeat WITH ground n’ pound), Combatives or Krav Maga formats evolved to fill in that anxious, wandering market place of folks like my early self, seeking the stripped-down blend, the best mix. It’s just business and filling the gaps. “Nature abhors a vacuum,” as they say.

Something much bigger is going on though. In the history of mankind, its overall DNA, a small group of people – us – struggle to keep fighting skills perpetuating, alive, for the drastic times that come and go, and keep us all alive. This genetic drive manifests in many different ways, like karate or combatives. It’s that big picture, so big we don’t see it, down to the smallest of pictures. You. You and the quizzical questions and choices in your head. Why do you do this stuff? Well, I just gave you one big DNA reason you might not have thought of. For some of us? It’s our inherent duty to mankind. We are the odd, weird ones, keeping this alive.

I certainly don’t regret all the mixed-up, past exposure, the blood, sweat and cussing since 1972, even though I wanted simple, generic hand, stick, knife and gun. But still, the background-depth, time and grade, experience is irreplaceable. Mike Gillette said once, “you are really paying Hock…for his eye.”

His eye? Eye? Look for a moment at my Australian friend Nick Hughes, currently in North Carolina, USA. Yeah, he teaches Krav Maga, and yeah, so does every Tom, Dick and Henrietta these days, every six city blocks, some at worst from just very quick certification courses. But Nick Hughes is a lifelong, skilled, multi-system trained, articulate, former military Legionnaire, international body guard, very smart, talented and also a champ kick boxer and boxer. He can teach any martial subject very, very well. All this wisdom and experience is the real deep foundation of his version of…Krav Maga. All this time and grade makes him irreplaceable. Depth. He has…an expert’s “eye.” and is several cuts above almost all the rest. I have often said, “If I ever had to build a Dirty Dozen? Nick Hughes would take up two slots.” There is indeed a savvy-wisdom you attain by toiling in the trenches for decades. But I worry that most people be around that long, they won’t dedicate decades of obsessive interest. How to we reach the most with the most? The needy with the needed?

I often peruse the internet martial arts pages and I read stories of 25, 30 to 45 year old martialists and martial artists and their compulsion to publicly write – as one might in a personal journey or diary –  about this or that small martial epiphany.  Been there, done that, kid, and I quickly get impatient and bored with their tales which is my flaw, because I have to remember everyone is on their own splayed and fileted journey. Their mission, however on or off it might be.

What is your mission in this dharma-dilemma? Are you…”martial-mature?” How’s your “eye?” Look, I want people to be happy. Do what makes you happy, sports, art, combatives. Mixed? Mixed-up? Fun? Comradery? Whatever. People even like all kinds of mixed-up, martial arts to fool around with! Just know where it all fits in a big picture. Your big picture.

The teacher’s curse, “Survival? Or addictive hobby?” “In the martial arts world – There is so, so much to do and so, so much of it is addictive, but so much of all that addiction is extraneous, superfluous, abstract, distracting and unnecessary. Yet still this curse – the mandatory basics become boring, no matter how utterly important it is to utterly master them and them alone. It seems we will never stop wrestling with this fight against boredom. The “art” of the survival teacher is to find the best, reduce the abstract and somehow trick-hypnotize-engrain the student into doing it…first, foremost and forever.

You can use your mature eye to take the “mixed-up” out, and to leave “mix” in. You can take things from a martial art that has a high percentage of success and NOT take the whole damn system. Or not? Just don’t be…off-mission, off your personal mission. In the mixed up, forked roads of martial dharma  – the “eyes” have it.

____________________________

Hock’s email is HockHochheim@ForceNecessary.com

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Hock's Blogs

Football “Hand-Fight” Exercises and Drills for the Martialist

A lot of American football coaches and players watch game films. I instead, have watched hours of football “how-to” training films to see how these players TRAIN. If you have ever spent time with me, you’ve heard me brag for years, decades even, on how American football training methods can be diced and altered to enhance, inspire and supply power-contact exercises for martial fighting. You’ve heard me say that a knife fight might not look like a movie duel, but might instead look like “football with a knife.”  Same with sticks.

Hand fighting! Lord knows football takes from us and you’ll see Chinese, JKD and Filipino hand drills are used to develop what football already called “Hand Fighting,” (To the left, Tim Tackett is showing Cowboy great Randy White some classic hand drills decades ago. Tim is one of the earliest martial artists showing the NFL these types of work-outs.) You’ll also recognize some of the hand drills in the below videos I’ve listed.  There’s also a drill in Football called by many, the Karate Drill, where one player tries to strike the chest at random of another and the other guy tries to slap the attempt away. One or two hands. 

To me the offensive and defensive line of scrimmage, football battles cover some Aikido (because they are dealing with real powerhouse collision energy) on up to the UFC and MMA…and…yes, within it, ”trapping hands.” Trapping exists. I get a kick out of a lot of people dissing trapping because I guess they watch too many Jackie Chan movies? I don’t know. But the pinning, passing, pushing and pulling of trapping exists and I look for it in Football, boxing and MMA-UFC world. It might only go “one deep,” as in one beat trap clearance so to speak, maybe two. Three? Three might be pushing it. I started trapping in 1986 with the Inosanto family of instructors and FMA, but through the years I look to combat-contact sports as a foundation for reality trapping. What works? What can work? Boxing, Football, MMA-UFC. Fast, Short. Furious.

As with Football, line collisions are violent, with very quick trapping hands within. In the boxing, MMA-UFC world there are arm clearance, raw, ugly traps. Since I am obsessed with mixing-blending hand, stick, knife and gun wherever possible, I prefer to call them “invasions,” or invading____ . Like, “Invading Hands,” “Invading Sticks,” “Invading Knives” and, “Invading Guns” ( pistol and long gun). What pinning, passing, pulling or pushing of arms work in those realms. How are they alike? How are they different?

So, I take a hard look at football, hand drills-methods that enhance all that. The of quality football players, starting at college on up, is record breaking incredible now. These increases come from several methods, but two methods are clever drills and exercises for functionality. 

One Quick Observation in and around on this subject. Australian football – or “Footy” is tough as hell, and like Rugby, sort of like soccer, are  “chase-games” without the consistent line of scrimmage collision battles that can be reminiscent of, and can resemble a common collision in a fight, crime or war. Every football play starts with what a chiropractor might call, a small car crash.

Speaking of chases, I might add here that a high percentage, arrest-fight problem for law enforcement is chasing. Foot chasing suspects and tackling them down. Virtually no police academy or training covers or practices a Footie-Rugby-USA Football, chase and tackle. In my Defender-Police Judo course I do, but rarely because I need a matted runway and the “suspect” suited up for safety. And still, chase tackles are crazy and it is not very safe, especially due to the lack of conditioning and physicality missing in today’s new or even established police officers. Cops who’ve played, and still play with contact sports are better cops at this.

Second Quick Observation in and around this subject. A fad move today is teaching an arm drag to get outside of an opponent’s arms and then pivot around them to get a rear bear hug. In demos and seminars, many “show-ers”  just…just end right there with the rear bear hug. They show no more. Huh? They stop there, as if, with the bear hug it’s…over? Nope, it’s just getting started. Yet naïve rookie, seminar attendees (usually gun guys exploring unarmed combatives) think its manna from heaven. Some instructors will show a follow-up. They demo a bear-hug follow-up solution and they will lift up and body slam the opponent to the ground, of course falling with them too, to enter into the world of non-stop, one-dimensional wrestling. Such is their brain-washing. Usually both these demo people are 30ish-year-old athletes. But when we look around at ourselves, at each other, differing sizes, ages and strengths, is a 150 to 250 pound body lift and body slam of the enemy practical for the masses? Hell no. I can’t pick up, least of all, body slam a  175 or 200 pound person! And anyway, I want to remain up as much as possible.

rear-pull-takedown-hock-force-necessary When pivoting to the rear, one could pass on the ubiquitous rear bear hug.  Instead maybe try a whole variety of rear hits, kicks or takedowns where we might remain standing or at least knee high. I bring this topic up here because there are great, rough defensive line drills that use things like the “D-Line Chop,” (a trap) instead of a grabbing arm drag. In the movement there’s a follow-up shoulder hit, and quick pivot to the rear. And these are practiced in football-game-“hike”-tough drills that martialists should investigate. And, batting, zipping past, and around folks are also handy skills versus multiple opponents, where I add “imagine you are a running back” advice…(okay, okay, enough on rear bear hugs, that’s another big subject…)

A Third Quick Observation in and around this subject. American football obviously deals with face-to-face, frontal to frontal tackles, and not always chase tackles. They also cover power drills with pads to counter tackles, done in clever ways that any citizen should try and would enhance the subject, beyond typical martial arts classes.

In Summary, The Problem Is, His Arms! They are almost always are in the way. And they have muscles and seem to have a “mind of their own!”  Here is a fast, short list of some football training drills I have collected on trapping and the “Football-Hand-Fight.” I can’t put videos in a book so I have to share them here. They incorporate Stop 3 Forearm Collision materials, and Stop 4 Shoulder Line collisions. Would you watch them for training ideas, adaptations, and inspirations?

 For more diverse training…

  • Top 3 Exercises To Improve Hand Fighting For Football Lineman -video Click here
  • Football Drills – Defensive Line Workouts and Technique  –  video Click here
  • Don’t be Afraid to Teach Your Defensive Linemen the Chop-Spin Trap Block – video Click here
  • The D-Line “Drop-Snatch”  – video Click here
  • Under the Microscope: The Cross-Chop Trap Block- video Click here 
  • Bruce Lee, Jeet Kune Do and Football – article Click here
  • Thai Hand trapping video, click here

More on this coming up in Hock’s Training Mission 3 Book, coming in 2022…

 

 

 

 

 

Hock's Blogs

KISSING OFF THE K.I.S.S. METHOD

Growth. Finding new information and ideas is a never-ending, quest-job. Makes me think of the old line I never liked,
 
“Keep it simple, stupid.”
 
It’s a shallow line. Stupid really. (Usually known as the K.I.S.S. method) Simple and stupid are not synonymous. To me, that means “I am stupid, you are stupid and we shall remain stupid.”
 
Einstein had another angle, saying once, “Keep it simple, but not too simple.” Still, as the “master brains of relativity,” he knew that simplicity…simple…is different to different people. It’s…relative.
What is complicated for some, is simple for others, perhaps too simple for the occasional advanced mind or advanced athlete? This then is a challenge to the teacher-coach. You must let “advanced” people become advanced, do and think advanced things to reach their…”simple.” This might mean passing practitioners off to other coaches.
 
Growth.
  • YOU grow by understanding and living this concept.
  • THEY grow by…growing. You are vehicle, a vessel of growth. (But never let them forget the basics!)
If you aren’t a vessel of growth? If you don’t, then you are standing still. Staying stupid. Keeping all the people around you stupid. I think we need to kiss off the KISS method.
 
(Another quick point in the blood vein –
“The exercise you hate the most, is probably the one you need to do the most.” – me )
 
___________
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Hock's Blogs

The Silly “You Can’t Block” Advice

I tell everyone that when I am evaluating a martial move for myself or others, in one filter I consider a two prong question.

  • Have I seen it done in the UFC? (or similar venue)
  • Should I even consider the UFC with this move?

Which leads me to the blocking naysayers. Once in a while you will run across an internet expert who declares “you can’t block” in a fight, you have to just wrap your head up with your arms, or your forearms, because it is impossible to block in a real fight or an MMA fight. One such expert actually declared a challenge in a youtube video that that there is NO, ZERO blocking in fights, and NONE in MMA/UFC fights. Just head covers by forearms. He claims that you therefore must ALWAYS opt for a forearm on the head, or some sort of “turban” head wrap as the only option. He dared anyone to send him a film clip of successful blocking. 

So, In 15 minutes I found 26 photos (not videos) of successful blocks versus punches and kicks in the “UFC-ish world.” I just don’t care enough about the subject and about him to bother looking up film clips for him. Blocks that worked are failed strikes and are boring. Such video clips (and photos) are not plentiful because blocks are boring and who films and spreads just them? Who takes the time to cut successful block footage into film clips? There are many, many unsuccessful punches, the ratios are high. Rather they film clip and upload, successful and interesting punches, kicks and knock outs. Cool moves are in film clips. Exciting things are made into video clips. No failed ones.

But some random photos tell another story about the success of blocking, even though they are taken and spread inadvertently.

Despite the fact that Bas Rutten, who I trust WAY more for advice, has said publicly and on film multiple times that blocking punches and kicks is an important skill and to ignore people who say otherwise. Bas is not the only vet-champ to say so.

I will continue to teach blocking methods. There are plenty of photo examples of successful, boring blocking in all kinds of fights. There are successful and unsuccessful blocks. I just don’t need someone telling me (and us) to FORGET them all, and erase the idea from training. To me, this is a thinking disorder.

In the world of “block-don’t block,” what about “over-blocking when it’s not needed or dangerous? Yes, this is sold to you too. Briefly on the Batman-turban-head-wrap-block. While there is a “doomsday block” as a last resort move, reserved for the cornered, or the floored pummeled. Sure. But, must you constantly wrap your head like a turban versus every strike? And 98% of the time, who has the time and skill to spot an incoming fist and wrap their arms around their head, (losing much vision, exposing their torso, also allowing the enemy to step closer in, etc.) then unwrap their arms to strike back. Who has this in-and-out, wrap-unwrap arm speed? If this is an overused go-to, mainstay of a system, then this is a sales gimmick, ad fad. To accept this idea as main response is shallow thinking or a thinking disorder.

I might add that a few of these turban practitioners have been struck on their hands while on their heads and have suffered some broken metacarpals. Military, martial and police vet Loren Christensen adds, “And head shielding hurts the arms when the puncher isn’t gloved. Get punched bare knuckle a few times in the forearm and one or more strikes a nerve(s), the shielding arm becomes useless.” If it were so wonderful you would see it more among the trained. Most of the time it is not needed, nor efficient. And good martial system doctrine is about efficiency.

Anyway, back to “block-don’t-block,” the main event of this essay. I am a little pissed that I now have to load, one-by-one, some of these successful blocking photos. But, for your entertainment I will include just some of the them as a sample collection to file away in your brain and in your notes, or to show naysaying idiots. I have many, many more such photos. How many do I need to show?

Okay, okay, I’ve had enough loading. I am through. I have many more. But I am through here.

______________________________

Hock’s email is HockHochheim@ForceNecessary.com

Check out these books! Click here

 

 

 

Hock's Blogs

“INSPIRE NOT CONFINE”

 
The “corporate” name for what I’ve been doing for 26 years this 2022, the big umbrella name is the “Scientific Fighting Congress.” Under that umbrella are the 7 martial courses.
 
1-Force Necessary: Hand
2-Force Necessary: Stick
3-Force Necessary: Knife
4-Force Necessary: Gun
5-Close Quarter Concepts group (the above 4 combined)
6-Defender: Police Judo (The top 4 with added police material)
7-Pacific Archipelago Concepts (fun & on request)
 
I chose the word “congress” back in the 1990s because we are a congress of martialists, free to express, but yet connected by a very basic must-know, core I have constructed from 5 decades of training, the last 4 of them I must confess, a rather unhealthy, daily obsession.
 
Since the 1970s, I was a street cop, a detective, a soldier, a black belt, a bodyguard and a private eye.  I’ve never taken a promotional exam and remained in line operations, I’ve put plenty of people in jail in 26 years, from rowdy punk fighters to serial killers. I have been put in the hospital and I have put people in the hospital. Such are the ups and downs of this kind of life I chose. But, I am not a tough guy! NOT at all, I’m a nice guy, a mediocre athlete, a normal, good guy and I just know some things about fighting and violence you might not.
 

Everyone is different and I work off of the “who, what, where, when, how and why” questions to win and-or survive, and-or problem-solve. The big 4 groups…

  • police,
  • military,
  • martial arts and the
  • “aware citizenry”
…are my sources, as each group knows things about fighting, crime and war the others don’t. I pull back the curtains until I find the back, brick wall of truth.
 
While any idiot can kick and punch, pull a trigger and stab, I know a good fighting system is based on doctrine, doctrine, doctrine. This is what I have tried to amass. You won’t find anything artsy or sporty in what I do. I truly believe “real fighting is more like checkers and less like chess,” (another motto).
 
“Inspire not confine” is one of my main mottos. I hope this little speech might inspire some of you in some way?
 
______________________________________
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Hock's Blogs

Will Self Defense Become Vigilantism?

The talk of the town right now is the Kyle Rittenhouse situation. This onion has many layers to peel. You think about one layer and you have to think about other layers. I try to warn my weapon practitioners that every shooting is a drama and a trauma. A story. As Clint Smith of Thunder Ranch says every bullet that comes out of a gun is a potential lawsuit (or arrest).

To counter many shooting mistakes, many people emphasize “shoot/don’t shoot” training but I emphasize a bigger five point, decision-making progression:

  • 1-There/Not There
  • 2-Pull/Don’t (getting hands on your weapon)
  • 3-Aim/Don’t aim (or point)
  • 4-Shoot/Don’t shoot
  • 5-Leave/Stay

Number 1 is a big deal. There or not there! I also rely heavily on the “Who, What. Where, When, How and Why” questions for… well…EVERYTHING in life, but certainly violent situations. In this case, WHY are you there? WHY are you still there? So, the first Rittenhouse hurtle is…the kid going there., and the kid staying there. That onion layer. But then, why were ANY of them there, especially those white, criminal thugs? Okay. But. So. They were ALL there, and this crap happened. I will say this though, that when the authorities won’t go get Frankenstein, soon the villagers pick up their pitchforks and go after him. Protest all you want, but when you burn, loot and destroy, you’re Frankenstein.

The onion starts stinking when we pull off more layers to see the real core, undercurrent movements that float the stinking corpses to the surface. 

As I have worried about and written about for years, I fear the relabeling of self defense as vigilantism will evolve, all nicely interwoven with anti-gun people. I guess two recent poster boys in the corrupt, bias news media for these movements are Texan Beto O’ Rourke (whom I nicknamed “Pancho O’Malley” to remind people the white-Irishman even starts-out/introduces himself with name-game scam to trick half-wit voters.

“Hello, I am Beto, a fake half-Mexican”). Pancho declared he will “Hell, yeah, go after AR-15s and AK-47s”. Pancho is like a bad penny that won’t go away in Texas.

Then we have the airhead, late-night waste, Stephen Colbert who wants to change the self defense laws.

How about that Kyle prosecutor Kraus who suggested – sometimes, you just have to take a beating, – in final arguments.

 

Take a beating. This way, in liberal la-la land, more and more self defense citizens get prosecuted and persecuted.

Speaking of idiot prosecutors, part of this relabeling is manifested by district attorneys at all levels. We have to watch out as airhead leftists win district attorney (oh, and mayorals too) elections in counties across the United States, as they have doing, confirmed to be financially supported by foreigner, international, buttin-ski, billionaire and Darth Vader lookalike George Soros. (Soros has been falsely accused of many things, but not these donations.)

I understand that people in other countries scratch their heads at the “America and Guns” issue. But, as I said while in England in a pre-Covid 2019 , BBC interview, “We have 320 million people and some 350-400 million guns. If we believe the media, we should all be dead by now.”

But folks in other countries live in a different world, different cultures and therefore imagine fairly-tale solutions and improbable opinions that cannot be blanketed upon the USA. We’re big and can get a little rowdy. 

As an old Texas, ex-lawman, redneck-hippy, my two responses remain…

  • 1) You ain’t collecting 350-plus million guns in 3,531,905 square miles of the USA, most of it rural. It is physically impossible on several levels. 
  • 2) I want to live in a world where criminals are plain scared to death of normal people (and I might add, world history tells us governments should always be a little intimidated and scared of their people).

_________________________

Hock’s email is HockHochheim@ForceNecessary,com

Get some of Hock’s book click here

 

 

 

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