Passive Power by Clive Girdham

"Passive Power "

Published in Blitz Martial Arts Magazine, July 2005

Musashi the great Samurai warrior and writer of the “The Book of Five Rings” said:

“Make your fighting stance your everyday stance; make your everyday stance your fighting stance”

In more modern times those serious about Self Protection have adopted this philosophy under various different titles. Examples from some of the pioneers of Self Protection include:

Tony Blauer who calls it the “Non Violent Posture”

Richard Dimitri refers to it as the “Passive Stance”

Geoff Thompson named it “The Fence”

Peter Consterdine coined the term “Talking Hands”

For well over 12 years I have been teaching different variations on a similar theme. I started my journey with the now well-published “Fence” but have reached my destination with what Richard Dimitri calls “The Passive Stance” (See photos below)

The problem that I have seen in many photo shoots is that they are being taught as just another “stance” to perform techniques from. There appears to be an over reliance on “correct” foot and hand positioning, of having a strong side forward or back etc. Unfortunately this doesn’t deal with the realities of conflict. I refer you back to the quote by Musashi, a survivor of over 60 life and death duels. I guess he knew what he was talking about.

First and foremost your sole objective during a confrontation is to de-escalate it and walk away without physical violence occurring to either you or your aggressor. If you are teaching pre-emptive strikes then you need also be teaching the legal consequences, dealing with witnesses, the police and the possible aftermath such as revenge attacks or a term inside for manslaughter.

Teaching a technique only sequence of

1. “Fence”,
2. Small 45 degree stance
3. Trigger Question
4. Right Cross

is not teaching self defence which is why I was reluctant in writing this break it down.

No photo sequence can convey the importance of avoidance and verbal diffusion and to quote Tony Blauer “Those who talk can be persuaded to walk”.

Witnesses may only see you throw that first punch without hearing your attempt to avoid the situation. If that’s the case then your next stop is likely to be a police cell followed by a court appearance and possible jail time. Think about that for a second, you loose your job, your wife and possibly your virginity inside jail.

While attempting to de-escalate the situation you must take account of witnesses, as they will be your best hope of avoiding a Police charge.

How much better off will you be when the Police arrive if you are able to handover a written list of witnesses all of whom heard your attempts to de-escalate the situation before your reluctant pre-emptive attack?

So how do you diffuse a confrontation? Well that deserves a whole article on its own however I’ll make some important points here.

The crucial component that is missed from all martial arts training is that real attacks begin with an attack on your mind, not a reverse punch or spinning back kick. A strong verbal attack backed by aggressive body language isn’t going to break your bones but it will break your will to defend yourself. The adrenaline that a verbal attack causes has a biological effect that can make you as useful as a stunned mullet unless you are trained to deal with it. A verbal attack is used to close down the distance and to instill fear before an attack. Fear is just an emotion that we attach to the physical presence of adrenaline. Once your mind is defeated by fear then you are ripe for the picking. So recognizing that the assault on your mind is an attempt to cripple you, that tunnel vision and auditory exclusion are just symptoms of adrenaline it’s time to get on with the job.

Number 1; is don’t stop thinking, accept the situation. Apathy and denial are the traits of a victim mindset. It is happening and unless you take charge then you become a scripted actor in the aggressors play. The only way to train these cognitive skills under stress is by “stress inoculation” training.

Number 2; adopt a passive stance to take advantage of the effect that non-aggressive body language has and to protect yourself from a sucker attack. The passive stance almost guarantees that any attack will be telegraphed haymaker.

It’s theorized that body language contributes in excess of 60% of non verbal communication. 30% of communication is through tone of your voice, actual words only contribute 10%. So you can see that taking a horse stance and having attitude in your voice is only going to inflame things.

Your words and body language must be congruous. We can all spot the liar who says yes while shaking his head or scratching his nose. If you start twitching your hands or taking up subtle fighting stances while saying you don’t want any trouble then the round 1 “ready to rumble bell” will go off in your aggressor’s head.

Number 3; your attacker wants at least one of three things from you.

• Your valuables or possessions
• Your body, either to injure it or to have sex with it
• Your life

There really isn’t anything that can’t be classified into one of these three categories

So a simple “What do want” “What do you need” question will put everything else in perspective. Remember that unless you have deliberately provoked this situation you may have no idea why there is someone screaming in your face.

I find it’s far more useful to know that my aggressor intends to put my head in a vat of acid because I spilled his beer. That knowledge gives me something to work with!

Number 4; the following are the golden rules to verbal diffusion that need to practiced under stressful scenario training and not just intellectualized by reading this article

• Don’t threaten your aggressor .. “Come near me and I’ll leg lock you”
• Don’t challenge your aggressor … “Oh yeah, what are you going to do about it”
• Don’t contradict your aggressor.. “I wasn’t looking at your girlfriends tits”
• Don’t command your aggressor…”Calm down!” “Stay back!”

Break any of these rules and the situation will escalate.

If you were looking at his girlfriend then acknowledge the fact while apologizing as you had no idea she was taken, what a lucky guy he is.

Tell him to calm down and he will probably reply with “Don’t f***ing tell me what to do”

Finally always be polite and respectful, remember you just don’t know who you are dealing with. A recent murder in Sydney occurred because one bloke told a complete stranger to f*** off and mind his own business. The stranger walked to his car, pulled a gun from the glove box and silenced the bloke for good. 1 person in 33 is a sociopath who is capable of emotionless killing, those are pretty scary odds.

If your attempt at diffusion isn’t working then this will be plainly obvious.

He won’t be listening to you, he’ll have gone monosyllabic, he’ll pale, and his hands will twitch and form fists. There will be a thousand other subtle cues that your radar will be unconsciously picking up. By now your intuition should be screaming “problem act now” however the victim mindset of denial will be telling you “It’ll be ok, he’ll calm down”

Bungee jumping is a great analogy to use when discussing pre-emptive strikes. You keep saying to yourself, “I’ll jump in 5 seconds”after 5 seconds passes you say “I’ll jump in 10 seconds”. Meanwhile your mind has become so overcome by the emotion of fear you step back down from the platform shaking having never jumped. In other words if you keep saying to yourself “Not yet, it’ll be alright, he’ll calm down” you might find yourself flat on your back in denial saying “I can’t believe he just hit me”.

Your passive stance must protect you if he does decide to throw a sucker punch.

Firstly let’s clarify a sucker punch. This is any attack that comes out of incongruous behavior. For example your smiling attacker offers his hand and says

“Listen mate sorry about all that, no hard feelings lets shake on it”

whilst simultaneously putting you to sleep with the other hand. The reality is that most attacks are either sucker attacks or king hits but only a few of us train for them. A haymaker launched out of aggression isn’t a sucker punch as both the behavior and the attack are congruous, in other words the attack is expected.

A passive stance enables you to reflexively protect yourself. We all know, or should know, that action beats reaction. However you have one ace up your sleeve when it comes to being sucker punched that is your reflexive flinch mechanism. There are a lot of “Fences” out there that just do not allow your reflexive flinch mechanism to protect you, (see photos below).

Now if you’ve spent thousands of hours learning complicated blocks in the dojo it may come as a surprise to learn that a simple passive stance can protect you from any frontal “street” attack whilst allowing you to immediately counter attack. Even better it only takes a very short time to learn to be 100% effective. I know I should be selling on late night TV, but wait there’s more!!!

How many legitimate “street style” attacks are there? Some will say hundreds, I say about a dozen. This is an extremely empowering concept. Consider the bio-mechanic differences between a haymaker and a headlock. From the starting position through to almost the end they are identical, only the finish is different. A straight punch and a throat grab are again almost bio-mechanically identical. It’s at this stage the “but what if” crowd jump to their feet trying to find flaws in the argument, how can anything be so simple! Sorry, but empowerment is not knowing hundreds of individual defences to hundreds of stylized attacks. You know too many irrelevant moves and are entrusting them to a cognitive process that is too slow at the close quarter confrontation range, see photo below

You have milliseconds to react, and there is no time for conscious cognition. Empowerment for me is to stand in front of three guys and being able to say “one of you come at me full force with anything you like” and then KNOWING that I can reflexively stop it, no cognition required.

Finally if your de-escalation is having no effect then your stance must allow you to pre-emptively attack with techniques that match the level of the threat. You just can’t go knocking out a 6o year old with a practiced right cross because he cut you up in traffic. I’m referring to a recent incident close to home where a 30 something male punched a 60 something male and killed him. Back of skull injuries happen every weekend, do you want to deal with that aftermath? You must develop simple less than lethal gross motor options. However you also need the ability to knock someone out with a single blow if that’s the only way. You may not have the luxury of standing in your strongest stance so knockout blows must be practiced from all your natural stances with both left and right hands. With my Passive Stance the range dictates that the hand is quicker then the eye. My hands are held only inches away from the main vital targets of eyes and throat and there is simply nothing that my aggressor can do to stop me attacking them.

Some important misconceptions to clear up.

Misconception 1 . “Sneak into a hidden stance for maximum effect”.

This needs to be left in the dojo. Unless you intend to be rooted to the spot when it kicks off then you must have the ability to fight from whatever platform you have at the time. This could include being seated, lying down or while circling to avoid being outflanked. You need to train such that you can deliver a knockout blow, from every conceivable natural stance. To only train from a small 45 degree stance is extremely limiting. Also to assume that adopting a “hidden” stance will go unnoticed is suicide. An unconscious action trigger I have is to attack the moment the person in front of me moves from a natural stance into anything remotely resembling an aggressive launching platform. This movement is an unmistakable pre-contact cue that will be picked up by all but the most shortsighted and mentally challenged of street attackers.

Misconception 2. “Posturing with an aggressive stance, arms splayed will enable you to psych the guy out or knock him out if necessary”

This has so many holes in it screams sieve. Yes it will work for the natural Alpha males amongst us who can carry off aggressive posturing but would you teach it to your Granny? It provides no protection from being sucker punched and your body language will only escalate the situation.

You fight fire with water not petrol, aggression leads to escalation.

Misconception 3 “Punching to the head”.

As a boxer I can assure you I am not going to bear knuckle someone in the head. If Mike Tyson can break his hand in a street fight you can bet your life you can too. The very simple reason is that unless the guy is drunk he will flinch. A common uncontrollable flinch is to drop your head low when your hardwired protection mechanism detects that incoming threat. Have you ever tried punching the top of someone’s head? If you can’t get a partner to practice on I suggest a brick wall. Open hand strikes provide more follow up opportunities and varying degrees of force. It is extremely easy to slap someone unconscious and from a witness point of view less problematic. Who wants a witness statement reading, “He punched the daylights out of him”.

Open hands allow simple restraining options for lower levels of threat.

Misconception 4 “Pre-emption is the most effective form of self defence”

Now I wholeheartedly agree that once you have exhausted all other options and the threat of violence is imminent then pre-emption is the name of the game. However if all you are teaching is a “Pre-emptive Stance” then you are missing the point. A passive stance helps you to take control of the vital pre-contact seconds while at the same time protecting you from ANY forward attack including the dreaded sucker punch.

It is simply the best possible platform to de-escalate any conflict. If you adopt that “lined up stance” while trying to de-escalate a situation then ask yourself what messages you are really sending. Your body language will be non congruous with your words and can be interpreted as an open challenge. The male ego just loves a challenge!

Misconception 5. “Passive equals Submissive”

This has to be the most common case of mistaken identity since spotting Elvis became an international pastime. Passive does NOT mean submissive. There is a time and a place to act submissive as part of a bigger plan but for the majority of situations passive means neutral. Remember the role of body language in communications. Neutral (passive) but assertive body language is far more effective than openly aggressive body language.

I like to teach the passive stance with a gun prop to get the message over (thanks to Richard Dimitiri). Firstly I’ll demonstrate the stance, and then I’ll repeat the demonstration with a gun in one hand. The analogy I make is that my hands are potentially a deadly weapon and are cocked ready to fire. It looks pretty stupid me saying, “Sorry mate let me buy you another drink” while holding a gun to his head.

Photo sequence 1 Use of the passive stance against sucker punch

Clive is covering up his intentions to sucker punch Nick. Nick is in Passive Stance Clive explodes out of no where with a haymaker; Nick flinches from his passive stance. Nick recovers from the flinch and drives forward to jam the haymaker and send Clive off balance.

Photo sequence 2 Use of passive stance for pre-emptive limited force options e.g., restraining opponent

Nick is upset about something and is shoving Clive. Clive simultaneously hits Nicks right shoulder and pulls at his left shoulder. Nick is spun around and restrained and off balance, the choke is an option but this position allows Clive to have a quiet word.

Photo sequence 3 Use of passive stance for full force pre-emptive open palm head strike

Nick attempts to diffuse the situation but Clive is becoming more aggressive. Nick feels an immediate threat to his safety and cannot get away, he strikes with an open hand to Clive’s face (This is a live shot, I am wearing a mouth guard) Clive collapses from the blow, Nick follows with a knee to the head.

Photo sequence 4 Use of passive stance in a static knife attack to disarm attacker

Clive is on his tip toes pushed up against the wall with a live blade against his carotid artery. Clive pattern interrupts Nick with a question, clears his neck while simultaneously grabbing Nick’s wrist in a death grip, moving the knife in the opposite direction to his neck and pulling Nick off balance. At the same time striking with elbow and knee Knee and elbow strikes continue .Clive goes for the eyes to finish it off, notice that he has never let go of the knife hand .

Credit to Clive Girdham for pictures & article.