Situational control seminar
Organized by Dennis Martin
Saturday 10 November.
After preparing I left home at 8.00 AM for my trip to Liverpool to attend the situational control seminar by Dennis Martin which was going to be held in the Mushin martial arts academy.
TO TRAVEL HOPEFULLY...
After a train trip that took me later than expected because of works on the train tracks I arrived at Schiphol. I went up to the KLM check in and did the self-check in terminal where after a lady directed me to the self-check in for luggage. After checking in the luggage and going through passport control I walked to the sushi bar. Although I didn’t have much time for a sushi and sake I walked up to say hello and had a Japanese tea. After drinking the nice hot tea I said bye and walked off. The gate was on the far end of the pier and when I arrived there people were going through security. Soon after going through security we boarded the plane and were on our way to Manchester.
After landing we went through passport control and then to the luggage carousel. I picked up my bag and started the long walk to the SAS Radisson hotel where I usually stop for a meal. I had a chat with Marta, the Polish waitress and after finishing the pizza and the coffee I took a desert and another coffee. Intending to chat some more with the two polish waitresses I moved to the bar but as soon as I moved there they walked off to the kitchen. The Italian manager came over to serve me and we had a quick chat. When the ladies came back I told Marta I was relieved as I almost thought they had ran off as I moved to the bar. She laughed about it. After some nice conversations I said bye and after a visit to the toilet I moved off. At the station I took a ticket to Liverpool and soon I was on my way. After a quick visit to WH Smith to see if they still had a book called ‘what is everybody saying’, which they hadn’t, I walked to the taxi stand. I walked to the first taxi, gave him the address of the venue and jumped in.
WHEN IT RAINS...
Sue and Adam, the owners of the gym where the seminars are being held were so kind to let us stay in the gym for the night. As there was a football match going on that weekend resulting in fully booked hotels and extortionate rates for the rooms still available I gladly accepted the offer. I had seen it had been wet in Liverpool while in Manchester the weather had been nice. On a certain moment the taxi driver stopped the car and said: ‘if u walk down that street for 200 yards you will be at the address you gave me.’ I paid him £8 where after he gave me back the address. I crossed the road and walked into the street. By now it was raining quite hard. I saw a car with an opened window, the driver talking to the driver of a van. For a moment I thought about asking about the venue but didn’t want to look a fool for asking while probably being next-door. Following the street I noticed the was a dead-end. As I started to walk back it started to rain harder and harder and my shoes weren’t really watertight with rain standing almost at my ankles. I was getting a mixed feeling of desperation and anger as I thought I had been tricked. The van and car had driven off as well. On the other side of the street I saw a person speeding on foot through the rain and thought with this weather people weren’t eager to stop and help a lost tourist. Coming back at the point where the taxi driver had left me I saw a fellow pedestrian. When I showed him the address he said that the entire street was Queens drive but he didn’t know the venue. So I started looking for house numbers finding one which said 35… Then I walked up and down the street to see how the numbers were going. After crossing the crossroads up ahead I continued following the road until I saw two young women in a bus stop. I walked up to them showed them the address and asked if could give me directions. They said I should have went right instead of crossing the road as that was the Queen’s drive. By now I was soaking wet. I walked back and to the left looking for a house number. I saw I was in the hundreds so close by. I saw in the distance the car phone-shop and when coming closer it was the venue. The shutters were down so I stood under a ledge to keep dry and tried making a call. The wet hair didn’t do the smartphone much good so I rubbed my head dry and tried again. Sue answered the phone and asked how I was I said: ‘Soaked in front of the gym.’ She told me she was coming and should give them 20 minutes. To my right there was a guy and as he now knew I had a phone one me I was quite vigilant when he passed me. After he went around the corner I stepped away from the corner of the building so if he would come back he would at least have to reorient. I took a look around the corner and saw a pub and a street running towards it. I wondered if the street would somehow connect with the street the taxi driver had dropped me off. I countered the thought, I paid 8 GBP to be dropped at an address not to walk through the rain and having to find my own way. The area looked dodgy at night, at a certain moment people came around the corner, small group of tough looking guys who luckily didn’t pay attention to me. There was a car waiting at the parking spot opposite the gym. I didn’t know where Sue was going to come from so it might be they had come from the street and hadn’t seen me. I walked towards the door of the gym, waited a bit but no reaction from the car. So I walked back to the dry spot. A bit later a woman with an umbrella and a child passed by. They wanted to stay dry despite having the umbrella folded. I guess the lady didn’t know whether I was good or bad as I got the impression the umbrella was ready to give a whack with while she kept a sharp defying eye on me. They passed and moved towards the cars. I entertained the thought that if I had to rob someone in this area 10 minutes ago there would be a new report of someone being robbed of their umbrella by some desperate guy with a huge bag. Not long after a car slowed down. I recognized Sue and Adam. While Sue got out and started to open the shutter and explained me about the locks, Adam and Chris, 2 guys from London arrived. Their timing was much better than mine.
Upstairs Sue showed me the dojo as the back wall was broken out, instead there was a MMA cage there. Once everyone was upstairs Adam and Sue explained us everything about the alarm system and said we better stayed in the office to sleep as the dojo would be too cold. Adam showed his book collection and the dvd’s in there. After we were settled they left and after we figured out about the alarm system and the locks we left for Chinatown for a meal. Having lost weight since the grading in September apparently also meant my stomach was smaller as I struggled with the same dishes as I usually had no problem with. There was a 75th birthday party going on. The staff kept putting on the song every 15 minutes which was funny.
IT’S ALL TRAINING
After getting back to the venue we put up the field beds and the sleeping bags. Adam and Chris were next door and I heard the sounds of pads getting hit. I took a look and saw them having fun training a bit. When they found a kicking-shield they started throwing Thai kicks. They asked me to join in and as I was in pyjamas’ already I said: ‘like this or what?’ They said it didn’t matter so I walked up saying it would be angry blue pyjamas instead of angry white pyjamas. I kicked the pad a couple of times where after they gave me feedback and advice about stepping in so I could rotate my hip more and drive through. I tried to follow their advice and tried modelling their movement when they showed me how to do it. My foot started to hurt as I hit with the instep rather than shin. I tried to correct the technique. On a certain point I seemed to get the hang of it as my kiai was getting the same as I do when punching and the overall feeling of just driving the hips was also the same. By now my foot started to hurt like hell which reminded me of the movie kickboxer when Van Damme is forced to kick the palm tree. It was 1 am by now so we went next door. There Chris took his laptop and started to watch martial arts video clips. The video clips explained what they had been telling me. Light went out around 2 AM…
Sunday 11 November
Chris his alarm went off at 8.00 and a bit later my alarm went off as well. After we washed up and had put the beds away we went first to Asda to the ATM where after we went to McDonalds for a breakfast. I took a coffee and a wrap. Keeping an eye on the other visitors as some were good-looking to my surprise I suddenly saw Slackbladder show up. He had been dropped off by his mum as his sister was living in Liverpool. After finishing the meal we all 4 drove back to the venue where Simon was already waiting. We all went upstairs. As people came in it was good to recognize some familiar faces as well as to see some new faces. I walked up and introduced myself. One of them was Stuart from Wales another was Nige from Sheffield and the third was Chris, a huge guy who came with Nige. Soon after Den came in. There was an air of excitement and the everybody was very enthusiastic. While waiting for Ben and Elly we started with the payments. Soon we were complete and the seminar officially started. As it was cold Den advised us to put on some warm clothes as the gym was quite cold.
At 11.00am Den requested a minutes silence, as it was Remembrance Sunday.
After everyone was settled in what once was the backroom but will soon be ‘the cage’ the seminar kicked off with an intro. The intro was done by Den who explained that the situational control seminar was about the stuff that was added to combatives after WW2. During the war as a soldier or operator you didn’t have to operate in a legal framework like we as civilians, police officers or doormen have to do on this modern day. The presence of CCTV everywhere doesn’t make things easier. For people whose income is earned by doing police or security work a wrong decision can be career-ending. This increases the need to control the situation.
CONTROLLING THE SITUATION
In a PowerPoint presentation Den mentioned two types of confrontation. The flash which is kind of an ambush where you can only fight your way out of and the build-up. With the latter you see the situation develop which has to be controlled. The seminar was about this build-up kind of confrontation.
Next Den discussed the levels of force. There was a list of words like Physical presence, verbal control etc… for the good guy in one column and the bad-guy version of these in the next.
From there we flowed into the subject of reasonable force which is very scenario dependant. Den showed us a list of occupations that face potential hazard of being assaulted. Of course it started with being a police-officer but it also happens to people who work in fast-food venues, people on public transport, ambulance crews, dentists and people working in the pharmacy. Sadly most of those people only get some exposure to conflict management training without proper training to back this up when plan A fails. So this begs the question what is justified force? Which Den answered over the next following slides.
After a section on tactics we had a short break to stretch our legs. After everyone had some water we stared again and Den did an intro about body language which was the set-up for Slackbladder’s excellent module on pre-assault kinesiological cues.
Now we know what to look for Den took over to explain us about how to control a situation. Den explained that first step is Request, then Command and finally Compel.
From here we took a look at the tactical lifestyle. Self-protection can much be seen as a multi-layered system like an onion. A criminal should get discouraged after peeling away some of the layers and not know how many still to go. One of these layers is habits, like sitting in a restaurant facing the door so you can see who comes in, park your car in well-lit areas, queuing up sideways, follow your instinct before stepping in an elevator with another person, distractions with phones or MP3’s etc.
Next was a brief mention of team tactics for the times you have to work with partners or a team. This is also useful to flow over to our life partner as they also should know what to do when something happens.
PROXEMICS
This ended the presentation where after we got ready for the physical work. After a quick sip of water and removing our extra layer of clothing Steve C. also known as super Steve took us through a warm-up with runs, reaction drills and stretches. After that we partnered up and Den took us through a series of pad-drills. If we look at body language sites they often discuss the different zones we have around us and which people we allow how close. The next drill was to have our partner approach us to a point we started to feel uncomfortable with them. This is called our personal space. Den explained us that someone experienced with violence had a usually much bigger space. Now one of the first acts of aggression is usually the invasion of our close personal space or intimate space. To control this space we use a technique called the fence as thought and made popular by Geoff Thompson. Next Den explained when a situation can’t be controlled we should use the pre-emptive strike which is done after asking a question. Practicing this I ran out of inspiration asking my partner apples or oranges… I thought it would create enough confusion and started to laugh. Den continued by explaining about checking, something taken up from Manchester’s best kept secret Greg Hall, on which we did a drill to gain belter understanding.
The module ended with a drill about the fend, a concept developed by amongst others Simon S. that serves to in a defensive way take the fight to the opponent. The cover helps to defend against blows but an aggressive forward drive takes distance and the necessary grounding away from the opponent which doesn’t allow him to attack efficiently.
CONTROLLED INTERVENTION
The next module was presented by Slackbladder and was about control and restraint. Most of the guys had done this already during the international so I looked for someone who had done it. Den kindly partnered me up with Simon Porter.
The first drills consisted out of fending in then take control of the arm and head. The next couple of drills involved controlling from behind. As I hadn’t done the module during the international I felt like I was lagging behind on the others with feelings of frustration as a result. Especially as it seemed close to aikido and Greco Roman wrestling of which I had seen bits of while training with Geoff and on which Karl Tanswell’s STAB system is based. Luckily Den observed me and came correcting and advising where necessary. Some ground control drills were especially hard. During drilling a technique Simon couldn’t pull the arm to get control over me. All of a sudden I heard Adam offering some advice and mounting me. After a short tag at my arm suddenly his leg hooked my other arm pulling it from underneath me making me land with my face into the mat.
CONFRONTATION TACTICS
After playing away with this Simon took over for the next module. The first drill seemed very aiki or soft as there was no direct force to force confrontation.
The next drill followed on that. From there we went on how to control two assailants by grabbing one and using him as a barrier for the second opponent. This involved a second partner and two sets of boxing gloves.
The two attackers decided who was going to hit where after the defender used that guy as the barrier. Simon had said it should be a punch that shook the defender awake. Suddenly while playing the assailant my opponent had the reflex of grabbing me and head-butt me on the nose. Startled he apologized but I told him to carry on while checking if nothing was bleeding. Everything seemed OK.
The next drill involved running one in the wall and psyching the other out. When it was my turn I ran Nigel into the wall and put up my war face on while shouting at Si Porter who to my surprise bursted into laughter…
Then we did some drills on working in teams and take a bad-guy to the floor to restrain him.
After this Simon we sat down and did a drill about switching our aggression on and off where after he explained us about the scenario we were going to do.
Before we went outside Den showed us how he had been able to use certain techniques we did today disguised as a friendly pat on the back for example.
SCENARIO WORK
Last but not least now came the scenario. We were going all into the office space from where we were going to be called in in pairs. The scenario would be more difficult as this was not just having a fight with the padman but we had to avoid fighting and work towards persuading him to just come along with us. When it was my turn I went in with a tall guy from Sheffield. Simon sketched a scenario about a guy who was in a building and had punched a couple of people already. He instructed us to do some push-ups while we communicated a plan about how to take him down. We both agreed on first talking, to try to persuade him to just come and walk outside with us. After finishing our push-ups we walked up there and after a rather short exchange of words the assailant attacked my friend, as they were in a struggle I went for the legs, having one first then grabbed the other one which brought the padded assailant down. After some feedback from Si we were taken back to the other side of the room and were ordered to do ten hard bastards, which are a push-up and a burpee. After finishing those we walked up again and got word of a person harassing a woman. This time the crowd got involved too so we had more people to control. I asked the guy’s name as to talk someone down you need some kind of rapport to which he answered. Then he attacked my friend again probably because he was closest and again I went for the legs. As I was holding the legs other people still were getting involved… The disadvantage of restraining someone is that you are tied up yourself as well. In reality a third and maybe fourth person to control the immediate area would be useful. Again we were received feedback and a well done where after the next couple came in. On a certain moment things went wrong a bit when Chris, the padded assailant, twisted his knee. Steve took up his role of padman again and the last couple came in to do a good job.
Now everybody went through the scenario we all gathered in a circle for some positive self-talk where after we lined up for a photo. This concluded the seminar. Some of us said their goodbye as they had to drive home while the others went for a Chinese meal on the docks.
POST TRAINING SCOFF
Simon Squires drove Simon Porter and me to the restaurant on the docks. After dropping us off Simon Squires unfortunately had to go so we said our goodbyes. Arriving in the restaurant we found Den, Steve and Slacky waiting while enjoying their cup of tea. Si and I joined and we ordered food. During the meal we commented the seminar. The food was delicious, the tea lovely and the waitresses gorgeous. I guess I looked a bit much at one of the waitresses as Den asked if I was in love. Unfortunately Steve and I had to shoot of early as Steve had to attend a ceremony as it was remembrance day. So we paid and went to the car. Being in a hurry I kept the bag on my lap during the ride. When we were close to the Ibis hotel Steve stopped the car and I jumped out, thanked him and closed the door. I crossed the busy road and crossed the car park to the entrance. At the reception I met the receptionist who checked me in where after I went upstairs. I sat down on the bed and started to feel tiredness setting in. After a short nap I went downstairs and to the bar. I ordered a beer which I finished and ordered another one. When I wanted to pay however I couldn’t find my wallet, the first beer I had paid with lose change I had in my pocket. I excused myself and walked upstairs to look for my wallet in the room. Not finding it there I phoned Den to have a look under the table as that was the last time I used it. Den told me it wasn’t there but was going to check with Steve. Quickly after that Den informed me that Steve had found the wallet in his car and was coming to bring it to the hotel. I went downstairs to inform the receptionist about it and she was kind enough to allow me to put drinks on my room after taking a swipe with my credit card. While waiting I started to talk to the receptionist Mathilde who was coming from France. Not long after that I got a call from Steve telling me he was waiting on the car park. I went out and saw Steve with his son in the car. I asked what I owed him for the drive but he refused. I thanked him again and went back inside. I walked straight back to Mathilde and continued where I had left. On a certain moment a guy came in telling the barrier was closed, I thought oops then Steve must have the same problem and yes a few moments later he appeared. As I had seen that guests get charged 3 pounds for making use of the parking lot I told Mathilde that he was the guy who had returned my wallet. She told Steve that she would open the barrier. I was quite sure Steve would tell everyone next day that he caught me chatting up the receptionist. After a couple of beers I went upstairs.
Monday 12 November
After checking out I walked to to the Liverpool one Waterstones bookshop where I was going to meet up with Den, Slacky and Si for a coffee. Having five minutes left I decided the I started to look at the shelve of martial arts books which has a view on the escalator and I could peek around to see the coffee corner in case I wouldn’t see the guys coming up. I walked towards the desk to ask about ‘what is everybody saying’ but as she was busy I lingered around the escalators when I saw Simon Porter coming up. Thinking he hadn’t seen me I waited for him to walk past so I could sneak up behind him, but he turned his head to me and said hello. Soon after Den and Slacky came up as well. We sat down in the coffee corner and ordered a coffee and had a nice chat about all kinds of stuff for the next 2 hours. From there we went to see Tommy Mac where we had some more coffee and talked about wrestling and magic.
When it was time to shoot off Den walked us back to the train station. Hundred meters before the station we stopped and Den, Slacky ad Si gave me some feedback where after Den said goodbye to us before going into the shopping centre and Si walked Slacky and me to Limestreet station where we said goodbye to Si and went inside. A quick check on the screens revealed that Slacky’s train was going to leave soon so we hurried to the ticketing desk where we bought our tickets. After saying goodbye I hurried towards platform 4 where my train was waiting. I sat down and about an hour later we stopped at the airport. I checked in and went through security and a bit later was flying on my way back to Schiphol.
After landing and getting my luggage I walked to the ticket desk where I took my ticket and got some explanation from the nice lady I walked to the platform to wait for my train. Soon after I was on my way to first Utrecht where I had to switch trains to Eindhoven where my parents were waiting for me. This concluded a great weekend with great instructors and great people to share it with. Thank you for making it all happen. Also an extra thank you to Sue and Adam to let me stay in the gym.
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Photos added by Den
Subject: Situational Control Seminar November 2012 + AAR 
Thu 11 Oct 2012, 10:45
