Techniques Against Armed Attacks

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Techniques Against Armed Attacks : great malay martial arts silat

In studying orthodox pencak silat, the trainee must sooner or later take into serious consideration how to cope with an armed assailant. He must, whether under conditions of training or in actual combat, learn the capabilities and limitations of an armed enemy. This he must do both when he is unarmed and when he is armed.

The stress on combative reality cannot be overemphasized when the trainee is practicing the methods and exercises of pencak silat. He must do nothing in his training routine that he would not do in fighting an enemy who is trying to kill him. By concentrating on this in training he will be able to adapt the methods he has learnt with complete facility when a real combat situation occurs.

How well or rather how safely the trainee effects the outcome in dealing with an armed enemy is entirely dependent upon his understanding and abilities in meeting an unarmed enemy. If he can do that well, the transition to coping with the armed enemy is only a matter of application.

Method A

In #1, the assailant (on right) is standing with his left side to the camera, and his right hand, though empty for the purpose of the illustration, could easily be holding a weapon with which to strike at the defender, whose responses may well be the same whether the hand is empty or not. Two methods of defense will 'illustrate this point. The defender has already, in # 1, intercepted the assailant's right arm with a sweeping open-handed catch of that arm from the inside, using his left hand to grasp the attacking arm between the elbow and the wrist. Following Method A, the defender pulls the assailant'r attacking arm forward and downward, thus jerking him off-balance and forwards. The defender simultaneously strikes with his opened right hand, uring a knife-edged formation, at the assailant's head (# 2). The assailant's reaction to this blow is one of shock as he, at the same time, attempts to resist the forward movement imposed on him by the defender. This he does by straightening his body and leaning backward, putting himself offbalance backwards. Even had the defender's intended blow fallen short, the combined action would have had the allimportant effect of moving the assailant back. The defender utilizes this reaction ofthe assailant to throw him backwards to the ground. He does so by putting his right leg behind the assailant's right leg and, using the combined power of both his arms, forces the assailant further backward over the outstretched leg (# 3). Ncfte that the defender does not step forward until he has obtained a rearward movement from his enemy. This is a safeguard: if the assailant does not react by moving backward, the defender is still in a position to deliver a forward snap-kick into the groin of his enemy.

Method B

Method B is shown above (# 1-# 3). In the first two, the defender has used a left-hand catch on the assailant's attacking right arm in order to "float" the assailant upward and forward by pulling the captured arm toward him on a plane more or less parallel to that of the ground. Simultaneously, he has taken two other actions; he has put his right footjust in front of his assailant's right foot, and he is in the process of delivering an open-handed knife-edge blow to the left side of his assailant's head or neck. In # 3, he uses the combined power ofhis arms and a sharp twist of his body to the left in order to wheel the assailant backward to the ground. Note that in Method B the defender steps forward immediately, at the moment that he pulls the assailant forward and delivers his open-handed blow. To have remained behind would have invited a kick from the enemy, perhaps with devastating results for the defender. Once the defender's response to the unarmed assailant has been perfected in both methods, a weapon may be placed in the assailant's right hond and identical responses to the attacks shown practiced. Under these conditions the the addition of certain weapons changes nothing in the mechanics of defense-but does serve to heighten the emotional atmosphere of the combat.

Method C