The Shredder – Lee Morrison

Drill two:
The next drill called for both partners to take up a mutual clinch. This time having one person shred as the other strives to stop him. This is what I liked best about this training method, all the drills were alive. From the very start you are striving to apply the shred on a non-compliant partner under the pressure of the acid test. This drill progressed into both sides attacking and defending at the same time. The object is to shred and not get shredded. This allows you to develop the necessary attributes via tactile sensitivity to avoid his attack whilst delivering your own. It’s just like simulated biting and gouging during scenario work. If you don’t train it you will be beaten by it.

Drill three:
The progression now was to have your partner attack you all out with anything they wanted, kicking, striking/punching and grappling were all fine while your objective was to try and read your partner’s attack cue and respond by getting the head and shredding him up. This gave us the opportunity to integrate the shred with striking and grappling and basically whatever else came out under the pressure of scenario replication and to be fair this concept worked very well in the arena of non compliance.

The thing that impressed me the most about Dimitri was the way that he put forward his instruction and then put it under pressure by calling out one of the biggest and strongest looking guys in the crowd, who was in this case a very capable striker and grappler and told him to attack him with anything he wanted as hard as he could. How many instructors have you ever seen do that? This will give you an indication into Dimitri’s ability and belief system in both himself and his material. Needless to say his opponent was dispatched quite rapidly with his shred even though it went to the ground Richard was dominant throughout.

I also like the way that the physical drills were interspersed with lots of information relating to all aspects of combat as a whole. Richard taught through examples of personal experience and from real life documented incidents. He talked about how a multitude of variables could affect the way that you respond in a live altercation. For example the time of day, the conditions of your environment and how you feel physically are all factors to consider. How you might react to a problem that occurs when you’ve have just left the gym after a good training session, that’s left you feeling alive, confident and ready for anything is vastly different to how you might react at 5am in the morning when someone has kicked your door in and attacked you in your bed as you’re wiping the sleep out your eyes. He also talked about the consequences of violence. Too many people are all too eager to respond in the physical sense without thinking about the reactions that their actions might cause. Again Richard gave us true incidents as examples; like the Russian martial arts expert who was walking with his wife in New York City when they were approached at gun point by two teenagers a boy of 19 and a girl of 18. The boy had the gun and demanded money, instead of assessing the situation and threat the Russian so called expert used a flamboyant technique of kicking the gun from the boy’s hand which worked by a complete flook by all accounts and then proceeded to beat the shit out of him. Taking no notice of the girl who then pulled out her own gun and blew the guy’s brains out. A clear example of underestimating the threat. Another example was the football jock who beat up a little Filipino guy with the help of his friends only to find himself some 7 months later coming out of the cinema hand in hand with his girl friend, completely oblivious to the fact that the same Filipino guy has just clocked him and proceeded to creep up behind the pair of them with a knife in his hand before stabbing both of them rapid and repeatedly in an act of vengeance. The jock survived but his girlfriend died as a result of something that he did some 7 months earlier.

Of course where there are no alternatives available and we now have to become physical in order to increase our chances of survivability then we must take our aggressor apart as quickly and clinically as possible there’s no argument there. But understand that there is no gratification to come from violence. At best you will stun and run and get away intact, worse case scenario you will have to deal with the victim of your justified assault or what’s left of him assuming that you are not the one who has ended up victimised along with the aftermath of adrenaline, the witnesses if any, possible police involvement not to mention the courts and any guilt that you might have. Bottom line is the consequences of violence are always negative, it’s ugly and horrible but with all that said these consequences are better than the alternative of finding yourself in hospital with a drip in your arm or worse in an open casket at the local funeral parlour. If it’s you or them then make it them but where possible always seek avoidance and escape, enough said.

Drill four:
Next we addressed the issue of the knife. Richard pointed out as I have said myself on many occasions that there is no guaranteed method for dealing with an edged weapon attack, unarmed. So we looked at what options are available and how we could employ the Shredder in such a situation. We started from a mutual clinch with one person concealing a training knife somewhere on his person. The deal was simple, look for any indication that your partner is attempting to access the weapon and strive to stop him. In some cases you will trap the weapon bearing limb and shred him with your free hand following up with whatever comes out. In another example the knife is on its way to you too quickly so getting a hold of the arm may not be an option, here you will just have to try to get away from the bearers weapon side and rag him into a position from where you can shred. This inevitably ended with both of you going to the ground (less than ideal) and just making the best of a bad situation. Here the success rate for me and my partner Simon came out to about fifty fifty in all probability we would have both got cut, so we tried for damage limitation and as you can see my training partner Simon Alpin caught one in the struggle from the training folder we were using. At one point I thought I was doing well as I seized my partner’s knife hand, shredded with the other and ragged him to the floor only to look down to see Simon slicing and dicing the back of my knee and Achilles tendon, nasty, go figure. Like he said there are no guarantees.

Simon’s battle wound

Drill five:
The final drill for the day showed the first of a progression of drill for dealing with multiple assailants in this case 3 people grouped together to simulate a two on one scenario. The crucial point here is positioning, the aim being to keep both opponents in a line by controlling the closest to you by shredding his clinched head as you zone to relocate position in order to keep away from the other guy. Then as the second opponent attempts to close on you, shove his mate into him and escape or engage. All very simple with plenty of room for progression.

The day was bought to a conclusion with a Q and A session with Richard and photo opportunity. This bought a fine end to a most excellent day. There were plenty of good people present which provided a great opportunity to network and share. My conclusion as to the validity of the Shredder is that I think it is an excellent concept, easy and natural to learn and retain. It works under pressure and is especially useful to women and in a horizontal grappling situation. It integrates nicely with hard skill striking and would make an excellent addition to anyone’s support system. For those of you who still remain a little sceptical, my suggestion to you is that you take off the blinkers and attend a seminar in order to gain a thorough grasp of this concept, apply it under pressure then make your judgement. I’m sure that you will be pleasantly surprised.

Peace out…

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