CBD Western Martial Arts

01/28/2025

http://cbd.atspace.com/articles/holdtheknife/holdtheknife.html

How they hold the knife doesn't tell you if they know how to use it.

10/04/2024

Join me in congratulating Tommy Cheatham in earning his Gold rank in Bowie Knife from Cumann Bhata Dayton and American Frontier Fighting Arts.

06/26/2024

My buddy Timothy Anderson teaching a Tomahawk technique.

This was taken as part of a two day School of Two Swords Infniti Workshop at Ludus Ferocia Historical Combat in Norfolk Va. The two days focused on The Fight...

04/10/2024

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1424087644871815

03/06/2024

Blades & Brawling 3/5/2024

Just Tommy and I and I was thinking about promotions and growing skills and stuff so I hauled out the Bowie Knife Gold certification material and worked Tommy on that material.

We ran a number of drills. I started with a drill where the attacker gives 5 attacks and the defender parries or evades all of then then counter attacks on the 5th. Ran that a bunch. Then I switched it up to attacker sends 5 attacks but the defender chooses to counter somewhere between attack 4 and 5. Ran that a bunch. Then it was counter and enter to a contact/grapple/throw position.

Then we worked on Tommy's certification material. We started with kicking as it applies to bowie knife. We're generally using modified Savate kicks, mostly staying low-line.

This was followed by a segment on knife disarms. I generally am not a fan of them, however, there are a few which can "work" in certain limited circumstances. But anyone who's sparred it out knows that it's rare and difficult. Still, we spent time on what I consider the somewhat-less-rare material.

After that we worked on what I call "Beyond Right of Way" which focuses on how you should fight with a bowie when the opponent doesn't know when he's in danger due to lack of training or the like. The opponent is just trying to stab/cut you and he doesn't understand when he's under threat or will get killed in his own attack. Some of the material we covered here included how to stay safe while attacking.

02/14/2024

Blades & Brawling 2/13/2024
Everyone canceled out for other responsibilities, to not share their nasty virus, or whatever.

So, just me. I decided that I had been neglecting conditioning and needed to restart the Karl Gotch Bible. Now I'd done this routine religiously many years ago so I figured getting back into it would be easy. Famous last words. I figured I'd go "easy" and only do a 1/2 deck because I hadn't done this in years. About 1/2 through the already 1/2 deck, I was done. It was the pushups that had burned me. Just sad, really. :) Oh well, at least it wasn't boring.

After that, it was time for Bowie Knife drills. I ran through a good number of repetitions on the CBD Bowie Knife Drill, then did some pattern cuts with a trainer on the heavy bag for a while.

Finally, just because it was only me, I decided to do some dry-fire work with my laser cartridge. It's not part of the CBD Dayton club curriculum but I figured I was both the instructor and the only student so I could do what I wanted. I set up the laser cartridge and the phone app and then did 30 or 40 draw-to-first-shot from concealment drills with an accompanying side-step. Times were pretty average but I still had a lot of fun.

02/13/2024

X Marks the Spot

X Marks The Spot by Kirk Lawson "X marks the spot." Anyone who's seen (or *gasp* read) Treasure Island knows that the treasure map has a great big X indicating where the treasure is buried. That is the place you want dig. That is the place where you want to focus your efforts. The same thing...

02/07/2024

Blades & Brawling 2/6/2024

Just Tommy tonight. My ankle was still stiff so I decided to completely ignore my body telling me to take it easy on my foot and focus on FOOTWORK!

We started with an examination of different stepping and footwork styles based on the environment, ranging from flat, smooth, and perfect indoor training halls, to slick and slippery, to uneven surfaces with tripping hazards and holes.

Then we practiced an old Feed & Follow footwork drill that I got from Ken Pfrenger. Didn't do it more than about 10 min because it's easy to grasp and gets boring fast.

Then we did evade and enter at angle drills.

We chained that technique to a "reach out and touch" which then chained into a evade from bata strike.

That chained to evade and counter, then on each side, which was chained again into a following footwork step.

We finished off by 1) doing an evade and enter to footsweep / grapple drill and 2) noting that my ankle was now somewhat angry with me. ;)

Anyway, we had fun. You should come next time and join us!

01/30/2024

Blades & Brawling tonight. I tweaked my right ankle at Judo last night so my mobility is impacted. Sounds like a great time to come to class and hit me with sticks and knifes and stuff!

08/30/2023

Blades & Brawling 28 Aug 2023

Just Tommy I for an hour class. It had been a while so we broke out the Slungshots. We warned up with swings, "figure 8's," reversals, and movements. Did a tiny bit of walking drill then did some striking practice with the slungshot against a dead tree in my yard. It helps to remind us that bounce-back is a thing with these weapons. Poor Tommy also was reminded that he's taller than I (and most folks) when he kept hitting low hanging branches and getting peppered with dead tree-branch as a consequence. While it's funny, it is also a reminder that restricted space environments can impede your weapon and some ceilings are lower than others.

We did a particularly fun defense against a knife-thrust drill with the slungshot. We used our "sparring" slungshot trainers with is just a tube sock balled up and stuffed down in the toe of its mate. This drill inspired a set on movement with striking and the slungshot, particularly the issues of trying to do evasive or "triangle stepping" while using a moving (figure 8) slungshot. Inertia is not always your friend. But there are ways around it, either move at the right time during the trajectory of the slungshot or know how to redirect the flight (which isn't necessarily intuitive). Or, even easier, just keep the slungshot static and not swinging when you start your footwork.

There were some other stuff too but let's not make this post too long.

Overall I had fun and got hit a bunch. Yes, even a sock-in-a-sock can still hit hard enough to ring your ears.

07/20/2023

Blades & Brawling 7/19/23

Just Tommy and I.

Started off with Bowie Knife. Warmed up with the CBD Bowie Drill which flowed into a two-person version of the drill, some parry drill and parry riposte. Ended with some "Assaulting."

Tommy is kinda getting into Fokos and brought a trainer. So we did some Fokos drills. Some tomahawk-like "top of the head" blocks, parries, expulsions, etc. Mostly work against the saber/singlestick. But it did encourage us to pull the tomahawks back out as well so we got a bit of Tomahawk work in too.

Finally, we pulled out the Bamboo poles and did some Victorian Sporting Quarterstaff work. I kinda mixed McCarthy and Boy Scouts merit badge styles and Tommy seemed to stick mostly with McCarthy. Both of us slipped a little bit of Phillipps-Wolley in but the lower parries/blocks for Phillipps-Wolley are pretty similar to the Scouts. I also slipped in a bit of the 1912 Boy's Life style. I even worked in some Hanging Guard. :)

The outdoor heat and humidity really seemed to drain me, but all in all, we had a good time.

06/15/2023

Blades & Brawling 15 June 2023

Just Tommy.

Brawling: We worked "Broken Wing" standing wresting and throwing. How to off balance and throw when you only have one working arm. It's a lot harder than it sounds but easier than might be conceived.

Blades: Followed the Broken Wing theme into Bowie Knife. It seems like it should be harder than it is but is actually easy. You still use the same footwork, attacks, and parries but you can't use the off-hand to stop, arrest, hand-check, jam, punch, grab, etc.