This past weekend was drill for me. On Sunday afternoon we decided to do combatives, the Army’s program for hand-to-hand fighting, based closely on Brazilian Jujutsu. In the middle of the class, I asked the sergeant teaching, “At the end can we have some time to go at it?”
“Oh, so you wanna roll? Hey, who wants to roll with Buck?”
A private who is three or four inches taller than me and a bit bigger said he would, but he was standing in a group of soldiers.
“Great!” I said. “Which one is it?”
At that point, a guy about an inch taller than me and weighing 200-ish pounds (a muscley 200 pounds), said, “Me, I’ll do it.”
So we got down on our knees (I didn’t want us to seriously injure each other in trying to throw the other down) and began. Because he is so much stronger than me, he got on top fairly quickly and stayed there. In wrestling this is the worst thing possible. It means you just lost. Not so if you’re trying to kill someone. While not ideal, I knew it was not bad. Instead of wasting energy trying to get him off of me, I reached my left hand up and grabbed his left collar as far back as I could. Then I got my right hand on his right collar. At this point, he had his forearm across my neck, putting all his weight into choking me between his arm and the ground. It was kind of working. But then he moved his chin up a little bit, which had been preventing me from really getting him. So I stuck my wrist under his chin next to his neck, locked my left arm out, and proceeded to try to pull my right hand back to me (with my arms in an X in front of his neck, that did two things: first, it tightened his collar on the sides and cut off blood flow to his brain; second, it put my forearm where the space for his windpipe used to be). He didn’t tap out (which is how you say, “Uncle,” while unable to breathe), so I kept tightening. Then his face changed and he really gritted his teeth.
“Not giving up?” I thought. “That’s fine. You’ll just have to pass out.” Then I realized that the change in facial expression meant he already had passed out. The bulging eyes that I took for determination were just bulging eyes, apparently. I let go, laid him out on the ground, he started breathing deeply, his exhalations flapping his completely relaxed lips like horses do, and then he woke up.
No brain damage was apparent. (He wasn’t exactly a high-performance model in the first place, but we didn’t notice him saying anything particularly unusual.) All’s well that ends well, right?
5 comments:
That sounds like the same choking move you showed me that one time when Clarence and I showed up unannounced at your apartment. And by showed me I mean showed ON me. I didn't pass out though so it sounds as if your skills are improving. Good work.
You're dangerous!
I'm laughing fairly hard. Wow. You just set the standard high to not mess with you. What were the reactions of everyone else?
For the rest of the day, people were either threatening the use of me or siccing me on the offender-of-the-moment.
The guy who originally volunteered started laughing about it one hour after it happened and said, "I'll be telling this story for days. That coulda been me!"
Ok, I LOVE the line about the high-performance model. hahahaha. Also....you are crazy! (So his he, you both volunteered to do this)
i testify that it is that very same move. also, cassi probably didn't pass out because she must be buffer and better at fighting than your army compadre. yaaaaaah cassi.
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