Miyamoto Musashi’s book “”The Book of Five Rings”

I have the last 5 months reread Miyamoto Musashi’s book “”The Book of Five Rings” and have had quite a lot of eureka moments, as the more times I read it I get a completely new perspective about bladed combat, I have lost count as it is more than 10 times as I don’t take notes but try to understand the full picture than just a few pieces of the puzzle, as I view it from my interpretation of the book that has changed or rather confirmed my view on how to use long bladed weapons, which is completely contrary to how I have been taught to do in sport fencing, the FMA styles I have trained and other systems where the weapon is launched first and the body moves after or at the same time.

As it is nearly the same as I have learned training AMOK! stick and machete, making it easier for me to change muscle memory and an easy transition, that in the end has removed any doubt about if I should or could combine previous training and concepts, but I cant as they are incompatible with my current one, but also teach how others systems attacks to have general idea of why and what to expect, and most importantly persons with no training based on watching how untrained persons swings a stick horizontal at shoulder height as it is the most natural way for the shoulder, so they are exposed to very different attacks to learn and experience the difference in oppositional training and sparring. 

The emphasis on using the body first to launch the attack, and with heavy stickiness on impact which will keep the pressure on the line of attack instead of a possible redirection of his weapon and an unknown counter attack path, creates situations that I have been training a lot and have explored all kinds of variations for swords, inspired by a really good chi sao like sensitivity drill I was taught by a HEMA instructor Dan Smith from the EHCG, which then opens up for a lot ways to find a Guided Discovery path/way to attack while keeping the opponent locked in a momentary fixed position, that leaves him no choice than to keep him there to avoid being cut as the power output is maximal and if he breaks contact he will get cut, or try to find a way to attack without disengaging the blade to blade contact. That is only 1 element of many that makes the book so interesting to keep reading it over and over again, the book is so full of wisdom that I find it worth to keep on finding as much as possible from a source with so much to offer.

I have used the same concept with knives and it is perfect for martial arts trained opponents that does not move their hands outside the frame of their torso when they parry, as while the other is working on a solution and is at the start of the second OODA loop (Observe, Orientate, Decide, Action) after his parry which is his 1st loop, I find a path by reflex and have finished my actions and have completed the 2nd OODA loop with my second attack that is combined with a pin, control of his weapon hand, trap, takedown or something else while keeping him on the start of the next one while I execute my Actions fast and extremely aggressive non stop, as the Decision is to go AMOK!, so he has to Observe constantly and will have difficulty to reach the Decision point. 

If the OODA loop is an unknown term I recommend reading about it as it is one of those things that is extremely important to know, and it has even more applications than only strategic warfare and combat, same goes with Musashi’s book ”The Book of Five Rings". 

Cold Steel Training Gladius Test vs Cinder block

I have decided to introduce training with ancient weapons, from Roman Gladius, medieval swords, tomahawks and at some point also sabre fencing which is tons of fun, I have never lost a match the year I was training foil fencing, I lost interest as I never lost a match, so I decided to train something that would challenge me and lose. 

That I found in MMA and BJJ, I really did experience to be completely dominated for the first time in my life and feel that I had no living chance, the only reason that I didn’t quit even if I had bent the ribs on both sides, was that I improvised a submission the first day and didn’t know what the hell to do but managed to get a tap out from a more experienced student. Getting pawned for weeks non stop and only when someone new stepped in was the only victories the first 6 months, when I reached the level that I didn’t get submitted before 10 seconds, could defend myself for a round and once in while submit others who had trained at least the same amount of time as me was what made me come for training, but the discovery of having a huge lack of skills was the primary motivator.

There is as far as I know only one DVD on the market for combat with the Gladius, I didn’t like it as it was FMA with a Gladius, nothing wrong with that but it didn’t show me anything new, or had a historical reference which is impossible as there are none for the use of the Gladius in combat from ancient Roman text as far as I know, only that the biggest problem was that some general was concerned with his soldiers using it for slashing instead of stabbing, which kills a lot faster. So it will be using AMOK!™ methodology combined with my previous training with sport fencing, European medieval weapons, to not recreate but to rediscover and innovate how to use it to its best potential, that was the reason for creating the Kratos Combatives Combat Laboratory, to learn by Guided Discovery™ how to fight with ancient weapons that have no use in today’s arsenal of weapons for combat.

The Cold Steel Training Gladius is unbreakable and a relative safe training weapon, I like steel but it cost a lot more and if the gladiators used wooden swords for training, I see no point in using a steel training model. I have broken 4 steel swords, and one of them was a heavy high quality Lancashire sword that was created to be unbreakable as it was very heavy, but it broke when I blocked an attack that was delivered with maximum force and I applied maximum force to match that. So to keep the cost low and safety high, it is IMHO the best choice, as a broken sword depending on the angle does not stop the attack unless one can control and stop before impact and the piece that is broken can fly anywhere and by accident hit some ones eye. But we need proper protection, as look at the video and think what would happen if a slash hit bone.

Short Flow Drill Video HD.mp4

Reinventing the fastest forgotten archery.

Got to love his shooting and his comment on his Youtube channel, this man is a rare type that will not let others narrow views of what is possible stop him, which is a huge problem as I hate listening to self proclaimed experts saying it is impossible and it is visible it is due to lack of skills, he shows that he can acquire skills beyond what seems possible, this man is a genius maverick. There are too many interested in medieval European Martial Arts who lack skills and proclaim themselves as experts by reading old books, with no prior martial arts experience or with some martial arts experience with another ancient weapon style, so they at least have a base and foundation to build from, but most of them have no real skills, there is today a lot of new really skilled practitioners and teachers, but there are more swindlers than the real deal, that does provoke me as I hate to listen to all kind of BS no matter what subject, but with a dead art it is hard to know if its done properly and easy to fraud people with naming fancy old German guards and techniques. I have only one advice for anyone interested in medieval European Martial Arts, the only and best groups you can find are the European Historical Combat Guild (EHCG), Gladiatores, Sieniawski & Sons, our own group Kratos Combatives, there are others but most of them are full of BS but watch videos with them and you have a baseline of how quality looks like.

 

Faster than Legolas! 
A historical technique much faster than the known.

The Danish archers Lars Andersen has rediscovered. an old and very fast way to shoot bows.

To compare speed
I have added 4 other good fast archers together !
to show the time it takes to shoot 10 arrows.

It is completely unscientific and not objectively
The 4 other archers can probably shoot faster than these video.

1: Lajos Kassai famous and fabulous Hungarian. 
Fastest horseback shooting in the world !
He was the one who first inspired me to fast shooting.
Shoot and teach the horses and archery system
he has developed.
A system based on pre angerede arrows.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yorHswhzrU

2: Iza Privezenceva tough Russian girl.
Fastest quiver shooting in the world!
She shoots a new and very interesting inverse system developed by Seregedel.
http://www.youtube.com/user/SeregedelReal

3: DasDaan Dutch archer
He shoots a ""classic"" quiver system
http://www.youtube.com/user/DasDaan

4: Bo " CombatArchery" cole American archer.
Shoot and teach the system he has developed
A fairly simple straightforward system, without the 
use of pre angerede arrows.
The best start system for people who want to shooting fast
http://www.youtube.com/user/CombatArchery

In 60,000 years, man has shot with bow,
Today we know very little about the past archery.
so much is lost.
There are no truths, or proper ways to shoot with bow,
I have rediscovered something about archery, but there is still so much to rediscover.

Sincerely,
Lars Andersen

Comments on my videos:
I remove: stupid and not funny comments, childish criticism,,,,,

Kratos knife combat accidents HD

How to deal with injuries in training, after over 25 years of training and most of them full contact, I have accumulated various injuries, the reason I have trained so many styles is that I changed style depending on the current injuries. As an example I trained MMA and BJJ, but after the second serious contagious skin disease I had to stop to not infect my team and the it took over 2 years to get rid of that disease, so I started training Escrima and combat with medieval European weapons again after a long break, when I was healed I started to train Submission Wrestling again but suffered a serious nerve damage in my dominant right arm and had to stop, as I tried to continue training but the after surgery I was advised to not train any combat sport that would add pressure on my elbow or use elbows to strike and any contact to my fingers triggers excruciating pain, so now I teach and have stopped cross training other martial arts, but as I teach 6 hours every week and have to fight often when teaching, I don’t want to risk to have a permanent injury and get enough training without risking to worsen the damage. If you use an injury as a new way to train other important aspects of combat instead of seeing it as an impediment and not train, you loose the opportunity to learn how to fight under less than perfect conditions, there is no guarantee that you will be attacked when you are fresh and have no injuries, better to do it in a safe environment than have to find a way to deal with it while you are under attack on the street completely unprepared. https://www.facebook.com/KratosCombatives

Kratos Combatives™

The Copenhagen Combatives™ Group has expanded from teaching only AMOK!™ to also Practical Combatives™ after Kim Hansen passed the test with a 100% score, but have also launched a non AMOK! related project called Kratos Combatives™, it’s a laboratory were we experiment the use of any kind of weapon from any time in history and country. It’s to see if we can transfer our skillset to any kind of weapon, we have always done that but mainly with short blades, machetes, stick, improvised weapons, empty hand combat, flexible weapons and projectiles. This is heavily inspired by our teacher and mentor Tom Sotis, he gave us the tools to fast functionalise our skills, analyze combat, and discover solutions and testing new ideas.

The challenge is now to transfer to as an example 2 handed European swords, sword and buckler, quarter staff, katana, tanto, tonfa, war clubs from various cultures, this depends on how many weapons we can find to spar safely, if there is no safe alternative do drill with them, use instruments that closely resemble them that are safe for full on contact sparring, or make the ourselves as we have done in the past.

We do have steel swords for sparring, bucklers, real and blunt plastic tomahawks and other weapons, good for drills but not safe enough to full on contact, I have broken 4 steel swords in 1 year, one of them was extremely heavy as it was built to be indestructible, this shows if you are able to use the body in perfect harmony you can destroy anything even thick solid steel. This is the main reason to choose the safest instrument and not the perfect historical correct replica of a weapon, if you want to train against fully committed attacks the chaos when fighting at full speed and maximum intent and power, safety is the primary priority.

One of our main objectives is to use time on unequal use of weapons, as stick vs. knife, sword and dagger vs. staff, sword and buckler vs. 2 handed sword. Most of this kind of training can be done with NOK knifes and padded sticks of various length, as we have 45 cm, 60 cm, 80 cm and planning to buy two 135 cm. Most martial arts spend a lot of time on fighting with equal armament, but that is highly unlikely scenario today, the world is not fair when it comes to real violence and combat, to find out what the weakness and strength of any weapon it is better to discover it by fighting against other weapons and not the same.

We have 2 groups, Copenhagen Combatives™ and  Kolding Combatives™, to take a scientific approach we will choose a specific configuration, if the other group can replicate the success rate then we can assume that it is a validated high % solution to a predicament. If the opposite happens then its either not a high % solution as the other groups empirical test does falsify the assumption, or it’s based on difference in skill level.

The Kratos Combatives™ site is at the moment only in Danish and the link address will change and be in English also, as it is a temporary site, it is to launch our project to the public when the site is finished we will write an update.

Link to our site http://kratos.vpweb.dk/

Fencing with five different medieval weapons

One of our new projects is using ancient weapons and among them also old European weapons, in our newly created sub group under Copenhagen Combatives, the Kratos Combatives group, use AMOK! as methodology, a combat proven modern teaching method developed and tested in the worst hot spots on the world, to survive armed assaults by civilians, in war by professional soldiers and special forces, police, security companies, bouncers, martial arts instructors and correctional officers. 

Secret Teachings of Yagyu Shinkage Ryu (Ken Jutsu) with English Subtitles

“Opening the dragon’s mouth” is exactly the same way we prefer to grip blades in AMOK!, Kratos and limbs when we wrestle.

Spartan Training Gear Goddess Hoplite vest

For those women brave enough to challenge themselves, test if they can survive an assault, we have a set of the Spartan Training Gear Goddess Hoplite vest and complete protection from head to toe. Fitted for the today’ woman warrior, who need the fastest way to learn how to defend themselves in a busy life with children, job or studies. We can provide both, the functional skills set and the gear to train and fight hard without injuries that will inhibit everyday life.

At Copenhagen Combatives our goal is to acquire functional defence skills fast with the use of non compliant resistance training, no katas or forms, only technical training with aliveness and oppositional partner training. This method is used in our AMOK! training were this method comes from, in our Kratos Combatives training fighting with weapons from any time and place in history, predominately European weapons.

Copenhagen Combatives Group new system The Kratos Combatives™

The Copenhagen Combatives™ Group have launched an independent systems besides our regular AMOK! training, which is the most ultra functional system proven in combat based on short blade techniques. This is what we predominately teach as a defence system against armed and unarmed attacks, how to use any object as a weapon, recognising and evading an assault by learning how to spot the subtle cues before an attack is launched.

The independent systems is:

The Kratos Combatives™ a methodology to use any kind of historical weapons inspired by my mentor and teacher Tom Sotis. This is to show how the framework and methodology from AMOK! can be utilized to any kind of weapon. A hybrid martial art based on geometry for empty hand defence, where the goal is to give functional self-defence skills with the minimum amount of time, by utilising the most common flinch responses as a defence. Utilising genetically pre-programmed movements as attacks, as for example using the movement from throwing an object to use it for a punch, throwing is such a complex movement that its not a skill learned its there from birth, but can be improved by training and change it to other purposes.