TACTICAL APPROACH

(This article appeared in the April 2003 issue of Australia's Blitz Martial Arts magazine)

A Different Way

Back in late 1999 my friend Robert Redenbach asked me to assist him teach a defensive tactics course organized by Olympic Security Command in the lead-up to the Sydney Olympics. The course comprised representatives from the NSW Police SPG unit, Federal Police, 1st Commando Regiment and our SAS, all of whom had responsibility for security during the Olympics in their various capacities. Robert had recently finished a five-year term as the defensive tactics instructor for the South African security services. His system, now called P.A.T.S. (Psychology, Attributes, Training and Skills) was formerly known by the name of "Kontact".

Robert's system grew out of a need to reduce the injury and death toll amongst employees of a security company in Papua New Guinea he was managing, and to do this fast. Robert had a strong martial arts background but knew that approach would not meet his needs. His approach was to quickly develop key attributes (psychological and physical) other than skill in technique that would increase the chance of his security personnel staying alive and in one piece.

The success in Papua New Guinea led him to 'export' his system to South Africa where the death toll amongst security personnel was on par with our national road toll. It wasn't an easy entry, especially as he was considered a "rooneck" but his system gained gradual acceptance. The ultimate sign of acceptance was his appointment as defensive tactics instructor to President Mandela's Presidential Protection Unit. Members of the various services acknowledged the reduction in the death and injury toll amongst their officers due to the impact of Robert's system.

I had trained with Robert prior to the Olympics course, was familiar with his material and knew it to be very different from the standard defensive tactics training and certainly very different from what a martial artist would teach. The bulk of the training was on conflict theory, tactics, psychology and very anaerobic "flesh on flesh" physical drills. It was very hard physically and psychologically. I remember at breakfast one morning part way through the course the SAS guys saying to me that they found it challenging. Technique training, the mainstay of all martial arts training, was minimal.

There was clear evidence for the benefits of this type of training. It proved itself through lives saved rather than trophies won in an environment of intense and often lethal violence. As a martial artist with 33 years experience at the time it was a radical departure from the format of training I was accustomed to across many systems. The realization struck me while teaching it that this system placed emphasis on those combat skills and attributes that are generally ignored or receive nominal attention in mainstream martial arts curricula. And conversely it gave marginal treatment to the core of martial arts training, which is technique training.

The implications of this, obvious in hindsight, simply jump out at you. There are other attributes as important if not more so than technique that are critical to surviving physical confrontations. All are required, all must be trained and all in a balanced way. It's a package deal. Give less attention to one area or too much in another and you weaken the lot (the weakest link concept). And each skill or attribute must be specifically aligned with the needs and demands of the confrontational environment and not the training hall or traditions of the system.

That experience started me down the path of an alternative approach to self defence training. The problem for us in the martial arts is that we have put technique on a pedestal to the detriment of these other skills and attributes. I strongly feel we are out of balance and have lost sight of the big picture. So it's time for us as martial artists to move on, take our systems and evolve them to the next stage to keep them relevant.

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