Civilian, Military and Law Enforcement Applications:
Civilian Self Defense Applications:
In today’s world, violence has unfortunately become a commonplace occurrence. Although human social behavior has always involved violence, not too long ago it was considered safe to walk alone from a store to a car in a dark parking lot without much chance of danger. This is not true anymore as security patrol cars are increasingly used in places never considered to be danger zones. Even with security, the dark parking lot is still a potentially dangerous place to be. Greater numbers of attacks are taking place at universities, shopping mall parking lots, outdoor mall lots, apartment houses, neighborhood streets, city parks and according to law enforcement statistics nationwide, burglaries have increased tenfold since the 1970s. Guns, pepper spray, knives, personal carry weapons such as kubatons, yawara, hanbos are being sold and bought by the millions, something unheard of just decades ago.
Part of this phenomenon has been a result of desensitization of our youth. Books such as, “Stop Teaching Our Children To Kill” by Lt. Colonel David Grossman and “The Little Black Book of Violence,” by Lawrence Kane and Kris Wilder, and “Meditations on Violence,” by Sgt. Rory Miller are warning us of a world of ever increasing violence due to the advent of violent video games, television and movies and a decrease in general civility. Guns are not the answer. In fact, as self defense expert Massad Ayoob wrote, “The average citizen makes on terrible, frightening mistake when he buys a gun for self defense. He sees the weapon as a talisman that magically wards off evil. In fact, it is nothing of the kind.”
The reason guns do not work well for self defense is that unless a person is well trained in the handling and usage of guns, it can become a serious danger to the defender. Even police officers have had their own guns turned against them. In one study broadcast on television which took place in a university classroom, a young woman - a black belt in tournament karate - was given a gun that shot black paint. She was told that a gunman would be entering the classroom with a similar gun, but she wouldn’t know who. When the gunman entered and began firing, chaos ensued and students began running in every direction, trying to escape. At the end of the event, the young woman, who had stood up unprotected, ended up shooting more than eight students while trying to shoot the gunman. She had been shot numerous times, but the gunman did not have even one hit on him.
Many accounts of attacks on “martial artists” whose only experience with combat is in an arena or ring have been documented. Although "combat sport athletes" have developed reflexes and speed, they often have not developed power or street fighting finesse, nor the means of dealing with the surge of adrenalin that accompanies a paralysis of complex motor skills in situations of high stress associated with violent attacks. Most of their “techniques” and “mindsets” are acquired for scoring points, not for being effective on the street. Therefore, unlike the untrained victim who usually has little chance in a serious violent encounter, these “martial artists” thought they had certain skills that it turned out they did not have, and they paid the price for it.
Kakuto-ryu Jujutsu is designed to teach practitioners how to defend themselves with and without weapons.
First, concepts of deescalation are taught so that less than serious threats might be assuaged before they escalate to violence. If de-escalation doesn’t work, the KJJ practitioner will have developed the skills to counter any attack, even by multiple attackers. That said, well trained martial artists do not walk around paranoid thinking that they are going to be attacked all the time. Yet, they develop a certain sense of awareness that non-martial artists do not. Tournament martial artists in many respects have not developed such a sense as they do not need it in arenas.
KJJ is only concerned with street situations and the development of skills that will help a practitioner should he/she need them. All skills taught are considered highly dangerous to an attacker, however, there are many degrees of potency for every technique learned. Should a deadly strike be necessary, the KKJ practitioner will be able to quickly use it, overriding the adrenalin that would shut down those skills in a normal person. Should they merely need to submit an attacker and hold them until help arrives, they will have those skills in their repertoire as well. Besides techniques, a mindset of awareness and immediate action are instilled. This means that through kata, kata bunkai and specific sparring/randori techniques, the body will react to any and all threats immediately and efficiently; mizu no kokoro (mind like water) or Mushin (empty mind) takes over and the mind is therefore able to focus on only one thing, survival and escape. Awareness of ones surroundings is also a major part of the training. Self defense is as much a mental skill as it is physical. Anyone learning fighting techniques without earning how to think like a fighter is only half trained. In a street attack, there is no room for half training.
Law Enforcement/Military Applications:
Recently, videos of police officers being attacked have emerged on You-tube and other internet video formats. Some of these videos show aggressive assailants beating, shooting, stabbing law enforcement officials demonstrating a lack of training on the officer’s part. One video showed a female officer punched unconscious by a man she was trying to verbally control. Another showed a police officer pepper spraying and then shooting an assailant yet the assailant was able to retain the police officer’s pistol and proceeded to shoot the officer. From the video tape, it did not appear that he had much knowledge of street fighting. The assailant simply overwhelmed the officer. This happens too many times every year and similar scenes have been recorded nationwide. In contrast, there are videos of police officers beating up an unarmed, seemingly defenseless civilian when simple restraining techniques could have been applied more effectively and without incident. In these videos it becomes obvious that the officers, often athletic and powerful, do not know the possible subtleties of submission or restraining.
Kakuto-ryu Jujutsu is an art of self defense that can be applied at many levels. For military, all out deadly techniques are plentiful and are designed to be used without discretion - kill or be killed. Soldiers in combat often do not have time to consider different levels of technical application; their lives are endangered at that specific moment and they must respond immediately with effective offensive and counter techniques. Traditional martial arts were originally intended for such usage. Samurai fought other samurai in full armor and needed to end the encounter quickly or he would be killed. In Okinawa, karate was used as if the civilian were in actual combat as attacks usually ended in death. A broken or severed limb would usually cause fatal complications as modern medical technology was not known back then. An open wound would often lead to amputation or sever infection, again leading to death. Therefore, the techniques employed were considered deadly.
However, in today's law enforcement, in the public arena, this is not an approach that would be acceptable to most. Therefore, though the same deadly techniques are studied, different levels of force are practiced so that all situations - from extremely violent techniques to simple pain controlling submissions - can be applied swiftly and accurately. A practitioner of KJJ has at his disposal techniques for practically every situation, including weapons retention or again, submissions.
Although the make-up of civilian KJJ begins with karate kata, law enforcement officers and military personnel do not have the time to learn all twenty five or more katas, or forms, of KJJ. These take many years to acquire. Therefore, in the L.E/military curriculum, only a few kata are studied to develop efficient body movement and competency. Although L.E./military students might not perform the katas in full, extrapolated techniques called “waza” are learned from the bunkai (practical applications) and practiced to the point of fluency so that they are part of a student’s gross or innate motor skills - muscle memory. Since studies have proven that in high stress situations complex motor skills are lost, KJJ practitioners train specifically to develop their gross motor skills to a complex level. They do not have to think, they simply act. In serious encounters, seconds can mean the difference between life and death, yet in less serious encounters excessive force can lead to terrible ramifications. Therefore, kata techniques are imperative to creating natural movement in relation to the necessary force demanded.