Martial Mania
Five On One
What can you do when your attacker, who is larger and stronger than you, already has some measure of control over you? It’s of no use to try to match his force with your own, as you just don’t have enough to go one on one. Well, you could go five on one. This may sound simplistic or stupid, but often it’s the only way to escape your predicament.
Long ago the Greeks learned that they could defeat or hold off enemies with much larger armies, or navies, if, instead of trying to match their enemies’ battle formations line for line, they concentrated their forces on just one or a few vulnerable points in the enemy line. Thus the flying wedge formation that enabled the puny Greek confederation to repel the mighty army of the Persian empire. On land, the Spartans led the forces of the other Greek city-states in stymieing the Persian army. At sea, the Athenian navy concentrated its attacks on vulnerable spots in the Persian fleet, enticing and herding the fleet into narrow straits where they couldn’t maneuver well. Their greater numbers were neutralized and they were destroyed as a fighting force by the Greeks, with their smaller ships and abler commanders.
In personal combat, it’s a great advantage, when you’re outgunned, to follow the same strategy. If your more powerful attacker seizes your wrist with one hand and puts you in a neck lock with the other, your impulse is to fight at all points. You struggle to free your neck at the same time you struggle to free your wrist and you struggle to get your body away. You are already in your attacker’s control and you don’t have the power or leverage to free yourself. You’re trying to match your attacker line for line and you’re grossly overmatched. You lose, maybe fatally.
Since you don’t want to lose, especially fatally, you have to learn how to react more logically. That is where the five-on-one rule comes in. You have to quickly decide where you can use your strength optimally and where you can afford to let your attacker keep in control for a while. Let’s say in this case that your attacker’s hold on your neck isn’t going to choke you out for a while. Therefore, you can afford to disregard it and concentrate on the wrist. You still have a free hand to work with, but your hand is much smaller than your attacker’s hand; you can’t match strength in hand-to-hand combat. So, you do something better. You concentrate your forces. You use your hand, with its five fingers, to fight just one of your attacker’s fingers. Maybe not even a whole finger but a small part of a finger: one joint or one muscle or one nerve. To the power of your hand, you add what you can by focusing your body weight on your hand, too. Gravity is your friend, not yet another force to struggle against.
Now all the power you can muster is applied to just one small part of your attacker, one vulnerable point in his battle line. You strike with all the explosive speed you can manage, snapping your target and then twisting it away from your wrist. If the counter is quick and thorough, your attacker will have to let go before you damage him more. You, however, don’t have to let go. As soon as your attacker increases his distance from you, to try to free his finger, you have gained extra leverage. Now you snap his finger off and run—or grab another finger. If you need to, you can break them one by one.
Copyright © 2008 George Donahue & FightingArts.com. All rights reserved.
George Donahue
George has been on the board of FightingArts.com since its inception and is also a Contributing Editor.
George is a retired book editor, with a career spanning four decades, among his positions have been editorial stints at Random House; Tuttle Publishing, where he was the executive editor, martial arts editor, and Asian culture editor; and Lyons Press, where he was the senior acquisitions editor and where he established a martial arts publishing program. At Tuttle, he was the in-house editor for the Bruce Lee Library. Throughout his career he also edited, acquired, or reissued a wide array of military history, martial arts, and Asia-centric titles.
He was born in Japan in 1951 and originally named Fujita Tojo, with the Buddhist name KanZan. He was renamed George Donahue when he was several months old. After living part of his early childhood in the U.S. and France, he returned to Japan when he was seven years old and immediately was put (involuntarily) into intense training in traditional Japanese martial arts. His childhood training in Japan was focused on judo and jujutsu, primarily with Ando Shunnosuke, who blended keisatsujutsu (often referred to as police judo) and Olympic style judo in his teaching. He also studied kyujutsu (archery), sojutsu (spear), and kenjutsu (swordsmanship), with several teachers under the direction of his uncle, Tomita Yutaka. Following his return to the U.S. when he was twelve years old, he continued to practice judo and jujutsu, as well as marksmanship with Western style compound bow and firearms, and began the study of Matsubayashi Ryu karate in his late teens. Subsequently, he has studied aikido and cross trained in Ying Jow Pai kung fu. He began studying tai chi chuan in 1973 and now teaches qi gong and tai chi for health and fitness, as well as Okinawa Taijiken, which blends the principals of Okinawan karate with tai chi.
After studying Okinawa Karatedo Matsubayashi Ryu for ten years, he changed his focus to the teaching of Kishaba Chokei. He has been a student of Shinzato Katsuhiko, the director of Okinawa Karatedo Shorin Ryu Kishaba Juku, which comprises karate and kobujutsu (including Yamane Ryu Bojutsu) since 1983. He was also a student of Nagamine Shoshin, Nagamine Takayoshi, Kishaba Chokei, and Nakamura Seigi until their deaths. A key teacher in the U.S. was Arthur Ng, with whom he trained and taught for several years in New York City. He currently teaches Kishaba Juku privately, along with special training in karate, weapons, and self-defense. He has taught seminars throughout the U.S. and in Israel.
He has been teaching martial arts almost continually for sixty years. His first class, at twelve years old, was in judo for a group of military dependents and airmen at Sioux City Air Base, Iowa, at a time when the Air Force Strategic Air Command was beginning to stress training in martial arts, particularly jujutsu.
He was introduced to Kundalini Yoga practice in Japan but didn’t begin serious practice of Kundalini and Hatha Yoga until he was in college. He practices yoga at least an hour a day and now teaches various approaches to yoga. He is also a cancer exercise specialist and a Livestrong at the YMCA instructor, helping cancer survivors regain and maintain their vitality.
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