Urban Combatives in Venice/Italy

A Seminar Review

It was with great pleasure that I traveled to Italy for the second time in early February to work with my Italian apprentice instructors Fernando and Massimiliano, of the Italian Self-Protection organization known as META. As mentioned in recent articles UC and META have merged together in an attempt to introduce the Modern Combatives approach into Italy via several yearly visits, incorporating seminars and workshops in Milan, Venice and Rome. This time we were to meet up in the beautiful city of Venice for two days of intensive training. Day one was primarily for the instructors and students of the META group whom had trained with me late last year in Milan. Day two was a seminar that was more to the open public. I was lucky enough to spend an additional two days seeing the sights and beauty of Venice whilst enjoying fantastic hospitality in true Italian style from our hosts Fernando and his wife Francesca.

Venice is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.  Here’s our great hosts Fernando & Francesca

As far as the training went we covered a variety of topics as the overview will show. These guys trained really hard and showed good improvement and retainment of skills from the last time that we met.  Both Massimiliano and Fernando are very experienced in terms of training and study. Italy has a vast wealth of martial history particularly in the use of the knife along with the sword and methods of hand-to-hand. Nova Scrimia is a well-practiced art in Italy with a very interesting history as you can see here www.novascrima.  Training on day one focused on being pro-active in terms of avoidance, but if the physical is inevitable then we strive to be pre-emptive. Looking to hit first, be fast and ferocious. For the conflict phase of any engagement we look to develop the ability to deal with the worst-case scenario. With this in mind we must train for a high level of violence and cultivate a volume switch, so that our assault can be turned down to meet a lesser level of threat. It’s much better to have the volume and not need it, than to need it and not have it. So lots of impact and pad work was the start for the day.

Priority as always, was impact/pad work looking to cause ballistic impact to the head again and again until the threat is down.

During the early modules I wanted to get across the principles of forward pressure, continuous attack with explosive controlled aggression. From here we started to look at contingency plans if we are now ambushed, or find ourselves at ECQ or Extreme Close Quarters such as a tight stand up clinch. Here we employed tactics of gouging/biting and use of the environment etc.

We looked at blasting through an aggressor’s attempted encroachment using a cross fend before smashing through the low line with knees.

The knee is favored low-line shot from a dominant clinch and is the immediate tool of choice from an ambush punching attack. Here we employ a crazy monkey/fend kind of cover in order to shut the pad man down ASAP, from here neck clinch and blast through with knees.

After blasting in with the knees the guys were encouraged to zone away and relocate their position in order to be able to scan for a send aggressor as you can see here.  From here we started to add additional stress in the form of dis-orientation and fatigue etc.

Here we did some offensive/counter clinch drills: Working from ripping/gouging & biting into multiple ballistic striking ASAP.

Day one continued with a variety of material and as well as the training, we did some excellent scenario work in the narrow cobbled streets of Venice city, which is really a network of canals interspersed with beautiful architecture, old streets and alley ways. We managed to get quite a bit of this on film, which will show itself as an introduction on a future DVD project.   It was quite unique to get out into an outdoor environment, set the scene for a few scenarios such as the ones we covered in the gym and just see what came out. For the video it was all quite realistic, controlled and explosive. So much so that a few neigh boughs came out of their houses as they thought we were really going at it. Great fun.  In addition to the filming we took these pictures for the review just to give you an idea of the place.

Here is an excellent picture of a sign I found in a narrow side street. Apparently the word ‘’Defendu’’ has another meaning in Italian.  These tiny streets made an excellent setting for outdoor scenario training.

Counter clinch against a wall; sharp head twist to reverse position, smash aggressor into wall

Finish with multiple elbow strikes.

I can’t believe that you can find hood rats over here! Bloody CHAVS are everywhere.

ECQ drill: From a dominant clinch go to ear rip to thumb gouge, to bite face to elbow strike.

Here are a few additional alleyway depictions.

Seminar Overview

Introduction:

Into a definition to the term Combative followed by a brief history of Combatives up to a modern day influence:

Module one:

(Theory) Recap on developing a Self-Protection Game Plan & looking at Combative principles along with the Vital Pyramid.

Module two:

(Practical) Basic strikes applied during partner drills and impact work:

Module three:

Combination strikes applied pre-emptively employing the hard skills as continuous attacks, now introducing the principles of FORWARD PRESSURE & VEHEMENCE:

Module four:

Situational offence against common unarmed attacks: Including Angular attacks/Multiple punching attacks/Forward encroachment/Attached grabs.

Module five:

Working offensively from the clinch & methods of counter clinch/offensive takedowns.

Module six:

Conditioning stress drills for ATP task specific fitness

SUMMARY: Q & A, debrief and handouts.

Pictures from day two:

Massimiliano and Fernando depict the eye blitz: working from multiple eye attacks with forward pressure, index the head for the thumb gouge into multiple elbows.

Francesca escapes Freddy’s groping tactics with an ear rip, head twist into the wall

Finishing with head butt and elbows.

Fighting from the floor was a module for day two.

As was ATP conditioning.

Some of the guys from the META group.

All in all this was a great two day event, the students and instructors from META are coming on leaps and bounds and it will be a pleasure for me to go to Italy again in the near future.

Peace LM