Gunther

The Combat Zone

I left this post up to just Jenna and Jim. I skipped allison and Gabe this time. I don't know if you noticed, but we did a bit of a time skip here. We can talk about the murder investigation at the gym too, if you like.

The Combat Zone

Jim parked in the department’s parking garage and entered the building. He loved the fantastic gym at the police department. There was a weight room for those who wanted an anaerobic workout and another room the officer’s used for hand to hand combat or self defense training. That was exactly what he and Jenna would work on today.

Jenna entered the gym sooner than he. “I hope you are ready for a workout,” Jim said with a smile. He put his large black “sparring bag” down on the floor near her bag. The sparring bag contained shin guards, rib guard, head protection, MMA gloves, two training knives, a training stick, a training handgun, a first aid kit, a bottle of water, mouth guard, his current belt (black/red), and two pair of boxing gloves. He pulled out a black and white pair of gloves that appeared to be broken in and a pair of yellow colored “Venom” gloves. The yellow gloves were still in a plastic wrapping.

Gloves

Jim handed the brand new Venom gloves to Jenna, “here. Take these. They are yours now.” Jim was dressed in a black T-shirt that had the logo for America’s Best Defense imprinted on it and pair of black boxing shorts with a Krav Maga Alliance or KMA logo imprinted on them. It had a two-inch-wide camouflage pattern up the seam of both legs.

Jim reached for a kick shield; there were several hanging on a wall. “We are going to warm up with some punches. When you punch, you want to make a fist like this.” He demonstrated in the traditional manner, dropping the kick shield to free up his hands. “Make sure your thumb is against the middle sections of your fingers. You don’t want it on top or tucked in between your fingers and your hand. Both good ways to break a few bones. When you make contact, only the facing two digits of your first two fingers should make contact. Avoid contact with your two smaller fingers as they could break easily. Next, your stance is important. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart and take a half step back with your right foot or the distance of the foot itself so that your right toe is lined up with the heel of your left foot, but shoulder width apart. When you punch, lean slightly forward. If you are in a fight, you don’t want to be standing upright as your attacker could quickly put you on your heels. Always lean into a fight. You can always lean back if you have to in order to dodge or slip a punch.”

“I am going to teach you the four basic punch combinations. They are each numbered one through four. The first punch you need to know, is the jab. Since you are right handed, your jab is thrown with your left hand, or lead hand. Rotate your left shoulder slightly forward as you punch. Rotate your upper torso forward as you punch.” Jim demonstrated a few jabs in the air. “The jab is combination number one. Combo two is a jab – cross. The cross is thrown by your rear hand or right hand. When you throw the jab, you rotate your body forward on the left side. This naturally sets up the right cross by rotating that hand and arm rearward away from your attacker. Pull your left glove back to your face as you throw your right glove while rotating your body with the right side of your torso moving forward. Again, rotate the right shoulder slightly forward as you make impact.” Jim demonstrated the right cross by rotating his body forward into the air. When he was complete, he returned both fists to his face. “It is important to keep your hands up by your face when you are in a fight. You need to be able to protect your face. Most fighters will punch the head rather than other parts of the body.” Then he demonstrated combo two by throwing a jab and a cross successively. “Combo two is what is often referred to as the one – two punch.” Jim exhaled a while making a shh or hissing sound when he threw a punch. It helps to control your breathing during training as well as during a fight. Many people have a tendency to hold their breath during both and that just makes the work unnecessarily tiring. Most people are challenged to keep their hands up by their face when they spar, fight or train. It requires strong deltoids and conditioning which is acquired over months or years of training.

“Ok, we have two more punch combinations to get through. Combo three is the same as combo two, with the addition of the left hook. When you throw the left hook, you rotate your shoulder back as your arm hooks outward. Then, when you rotate your body forward, keep your fist sideways with your forearm perpendicular to the floor. Throw the punch and quickly bring the left hand back to your face. The movement of your left arm should give the appearance of a witch stirring a cauldron.” Jim made a circular motion with his left hand as he rotated his torso and left shoulder repeatedly making the proper motion for a hook. “Combo three should look like this,” he demonstrated the three-punch combination in the air throwing the left jab, the right cross and the left hook. “The final combination we will cover is combo four. It is the same as combo three with the addition of another right cross. Combo three was jab – cross – hook while combo four is jab – cross – hook – cross.”

Jim turned to pick up the kick shield, “put on the gloves and we’ll try it out.” Jenna slipped on her brand-new pair of Venom boxing gloves. They had that new leather smell to them. The pair went through several punch combinations. Jim watched the clock and stopped her after a minute. It is exhausting, punching a pad correctly, keeping your hands up by your face for one minute straight. “You’re doing fantastic! I remember my first time doing this, I threw six punches and was bent over breathing heavy. Don’t feel bad if you can’t keep punching throughout the entire minute. Hopefully we will extend the time you are punching a bit longer. In my Krav class, we normally do three-minute rounds. There is a drill we perform occasionally called the cauldron. The cauldron is three three-minute rounds. In the first round, you throw one of each combination. Then you take a 30-second break. In the second round, you throw two of every combination and in the third round, you throw three of each combination. It is an excellent work out.”

After one round on the kick shield, Jim put the shield away and picked up a pair of Muay Thai pads, These are smaller pads that fit over each hand. They are rectangular in shape; smaller than the kick shield, but still large enough to hit individually with a glove. Jim had Jenna punch the pads calling out numbered combinations from one to four repeatedly for three one-minute rounds.

“One!” Jim called out and Jenna’s arm uncoiled like a snake ready to strike.

“Three!” Jim called out and Jenna’s hands reacted appropriately. Jim held his left hand up to meet Jenna’s left jab. Then he held up the right pad to meet Jenna’s cross. He turned the left hand so his arm was perpendicular to his body and parallel to the floor. It was in position to meet Jenna’s left hook.

After three one-minute rounds, he put to the pads away. “Take the gloves off.” As Jenna took her gloves off, Jim retrieved a hard-molded black rubber hand gun with red paint where the muzzle would be. Upon close inspection, the pistol resembled the .40 caliber semi-automatic handgun the Boston Police Department issued to all its officers.

“Your arms should feel warmed up now. I hope that wasn’t too bad for you.” He stepped onto the mat with her holding onto the rubber handgun. “Let’s try some gun defense now. The one thing I want you to always be aware of during any of this training is where your own sidearm is located. You need to protect it; keeping it away from your attacker. You never want to give your attacker an opportunity to take it from you; even if you have it locked into the holster.”

Jim handed the pistol to Jenna. “Hold it up to my chest with your arm out as though you wanted to steal something from me. TV tells us that when you are held up at gun point, you should raise your hands. Instead of raising them up over your head, bring them up to chest height instead. This will put your hands at a shorter distance to the firearm than leaving them by your side or above your head. You can even tell your attacker, they can have anything they want or please don’t shoot or I have children. It doesn’t matter if you do or not. If they have any sense of humanity, they may not shoot a mother.”

“Your first move is to blade your body by pulling your right shoulder back and rotating your left shoulder forward. While you are blading your body, your left hand will come straight up. It is best if you slowly raise your hands about mid chest; as though you were going to raise them over your head. Form a V with the thumb and forefinger of your left hand. This V will go under the receiver or barrel of the pistol in front of the trigger guard. Wrap your hand around the pistol and twist it into the attacker as you straighten your arm out. You should in a sense punch your attacker in the stomach with the pistol in your left hand. As you do this, simultaneously burst forward, with our left or lead foot landing just outside your attacker’s right foot and punch the attacker in the face with your right hand. After the punch pull your right hand back and then make a similar motion as though throwing an uppercut and grab behind the slide or hammer of the pistol with your right hand. The gun is now yours, just pull it up and away towards yourself, backing away. You may want to pull the slide to the rear, in order to cock the weapon and hold it on your attacker. Or since you carry a sidearm you know works fine, you could ditch the attacker’s gun; place it in your pocket and retrieve your own. You never know what some of these brain children do to their firearms. I remember one time, this guy had a forty-caliber hand gun, but he had 9mm bullets. So, he put duct tape around each bullet so they would fit in the magazine and the chamber. He was a dumbass. All that did was cause the weapon to jam when he tried to shoot it. You have no idea of the intelligence of the lame ass holding the pistol. Use your own over one you took from some Joe on the streets.”

Jenna and Jim went over gun from the front defense several times before they both felt comfortable with it. “Is there something specific you would like me to cover?” Jim asked Jenna. “We could do more punching combinations or get into kicking as well, if you would like?”

Post a random fact about yourself.

I love math, but I haven't had a math class in 37 years.

Post a random fact about yourself.

I find it hard to commit to learning a new skill. I'm on like my 5th try at learning a third language...I learned a little self defense but I had to move and even though I'm back in town, I haven't gone back.

But I stick to writing so there's that.

@Liv

I am currently struggling with re-learning something I once knew--advanced mathematics. I will not quit!

Post a random fact about yourself.

I like the winter. Everyone always complains here, about how cold it is and about having to shovel snow and et cetera, but I like it. There's a starkness to the cold and a stillness to a winter night. I almost wish it could always be winter.

@The Nexerus

I've lived in New England all my life. YOu can have it, bro. I prefer the summer months.

Post a random fact about yourself.

Look at us all trying to guess what Briza's Thing is. If she wanted us to know, she would have told us. I'm thinking it is something personal and has absolutely nothing to do with movies or American holidays.

Post a random fact about yourself.

I love this quote. How many people have vowed to never be like their parents and then wind up being exactly like them? It is fate or kizmit. We do have no control over that. It is our destiny. We each have one parent who we are like. For me, I have traits from both.

In the end, we become everything we swore we wouldn't be.

@HaleyTheRandom

I identified traits in my father I wanted to avoid and was successful. For me, as a parent, I have been successful in not being a parent like my father. My mother on the other hand was always kind, patient and compassionate. I have been more like her than him.

My dad was absent from most of my life. He worked all the time. If he wasn't working, he was sleeping or getting drunk. There have been fewer than ten days in my children's life when they haven't seen me. My father was an alcoholic. He drank every day and was inebriated frequently. I bought a 12-pack of beer before Thanksgiving one year. Those 12 bottles lasted ~24 months. My father spanked me until I was twelve years old. When he did it, it was out of frustration. His spankings were what psychologists refer to as adult temper tantrums. I chose to include spankings in my parenting because I know it works. I found that with four children, some needed it and some did not. Not every child behaves the same way.

When I used that parenting tool, I sent the misbehaving child to his or her room to give both the child and me a time to cool off in the event tempers rose. Then, I would go to their room and have a conversation. I would ask them three questions:

What did you do wrong?

How can you correct your behavior in the future?

What sort of punishment should you receive?

Most of the time, when they answered the third question, I went with their suggestion. I might modify it slightly, but I like the child to have some say in the matter. If I believed the suggested punishment did not fit the offense, I would go with my idea which may or may not include spanking. Once the child reached a certain age, spanking was removed from the parenting tool kit. This was between ages 3 and 6. After a while I found that the benefit of spanking no longer existed.

Once I stopped this form of punishment, then the threat of spanking became an effective tool. You cannot threaten something you have never done. There is no teeth in the threat without it.

When my father spanked me it was an adult tantrum. When I did it, it was a calm professional conversation. There was not a lot of emotion involved and it was always done away from the other children. They may have known what was going on, which lends itself to helping with the fear of the punishment.

Today, my children who are between the ages of 8 and 14 are very well behaved. I frequently receive compliments on their behavior. Many adults will not use spanking as a tool; mistakenly believing it is child abuse. This was considered true in the courtroom in the 1980s and 1990s. Children raised in those decades were not spanked and often times grew into spoiled entitled brats who have no comprehension of consequences. They deserve the best and will not settle for less. They have grown into parents believing the same. By the late 1990s, the courts overruled a previous court case that said any parent who spanks their child is committing child abuse. As a result of the later court case, if a child suffers permanent injury or excessive bruising, trauma or lacerations occur, then yes the act of spanking would be considered child abuse in the eyes of the law. It was never a case of child abuse for me either as the child or the parent. Even in his inebriated state, I was never permanently injured or scarred by his punishments.

Spanking teaches a child humility. In the absence of humility, a child can grow to become arrogant. Arrogance and humility are two sides of the same coin. You can counter too much of one, with an extra dose of the other. The way you counter excessive humiliation is with extra heapings of praise and encouragement; things that will increase confidence. Humble confidence is the desired behavior for a child in the eyes of his/her parent.

The Combat Zone

@Liv I started working on a post. Jim is going over the basic four punch combinations with Jenna; focusing on technique and form. I will also include a bit on one form of handgun defense. Do you mind if I write things like, "Jenna put on her gloves" or "she punched the pad"? I'm not writing things like, "She took to it like a natural" or she couldn't throw six punches before running out of breath." It just makes it easier if I can state the simple things without being subjective.

Post a random fact about yourself.

Do you like teaching?

@Chasebloodcrest

Yes. But as a substitute, it is more "babysitting" or having an adult in the room while the students do a worksheet. At the High School level, I can read about 60 pages of whatever book I am reading. The subject matter is very technical and if you don't have a degree in that particular subject, you really can't instruct anything. The teachers realize this and schedule a worksheet or a test on a day when they know they will be out just to give the students something to do. At Middle School, most of the curriculum is pretty basic and simple to understand. I spend most of my time at the Middle School. At the Elementary school level, you actually teach classes; stuck with the same students all day. I have taught at 1st and 2nd grade level, but I prefer 3rd grade and up. The 3-5 grade levels are a lot of fun. The 6-8 grade levels, the students are really curious and they know what they are doing. The HS students just want to be left alone; quiet and avoid eye contact.

Post a random fact about yourself.

I was an English teacher this week. It was fun. Next week, I go back to Math.