Eskrima Kombat

First of all, let me say it’s crazy to use a bat to fight a gun if your life isn’t at stake.

At the very start of the video above, the gunman is shooting with his arm over the shoulder of a hostage/shield. This is a key opportunity for a disarm, something on the order of aikido’s sankyo (See the video at the very bottom of this post.). Normally, sankyo has some convoluted entry techniques, like catching a punch and spinning, but with the shooter’s arm resting on top of your shoulder, no entry is necessary.

The shooter accidentally shoots his accomplice! The 2 criminals decide to leave.

The catch, though, is that a customer has to be “buzzed out” to get through the locked door, which can only be opened by a buzzer behind the counter. The gunman returns at about 10 seconds.

What follows looks a lot like larga mano to me. The store owner swings a light, short bat one-handed, swinging at maximum range so that he doesn’t expose himself to gunshots. The problem is that these are not power strikes. Finally, at 22 seconds the clerk delivers an overhand left blow with both hands (which is the essence of Big Stick Combat). Up until this point the gunman had been trying to vault the counter and grab at the bat, but this strike is powerful enough that it drives him back and he bolts for the door again.

At 27 seconds the gunman vaults the counter. This is the ideal time to blast him.

At 35 seconds the clerk lands a strike to the gunman’s head. WHEN YOU HIT A GUY IN THE HEAD, HE NEEDS TO GO DOWN. There is a gun involved here, and you can’t afford to have someone get up from a clean shot to the head and shoot you to death. It’s not enough to have a baseball bat –you need to train to deliver nuclear strength, apocalyptic strikes. The clerk should be hitting hard enough that he’s breaking a blocking arm and crushing any grabbing hand.

The video below shows the same encounter from a different angle.

At 14 seconds the clerk knocks the gun out of the robber’s hand with a solid shot to the wrist. At 39 seconds there is a very clear disarm opportunity. Even if you don’t know any disarms, you can grab the gun with both hands and yank downward.

At 57 seconds it’s clear that the accomplice has been shot, as he limps toward the door.

At 1:16 we see the disarm again.

There’s no reason not to hit with both hands, which is just as fast, and more powerful.