Foss had put down mats in the back of the Kesdet Consulting facility for the lesson he had promised Jessi. Kyle, Jessi and Declan stood on the mats, looking uncertainly at him.
"I've been thinking about the abilities Kyle and Jessi bring to this. I think we can get them proficient quickly using the unique skills they have," Foss looked at Declan, "Unfortunately, you are going to have to learn to do this the hard way – just like I did."
"What do you want us to do?" Jessi asked.
"I've never seen either of you in a fight," Foss said. "I'd like to see where we are starting."
"I've seen Kyle in a fight," Declan said. He smiled at the memory, "Kyle just ducked while the other guy kept swinging at him. The guy couldn't lay a finger on him. He got pretty frustrated."
"I didn't want to hit anyone," Kyle explained. "I hoped he would see it was useless and stop."
Foss picked up a police baton and announced, "I am going to try attacking each of you with this. I want you to react as though I were an opponent who you wanted to stop but didn't want to damage more than necessary … Please." He approached Kyle and swung at him over and over. Each time, Kyle ducked, sidestepped or otherwise kept Foss from landing a blow.
After a minute of this, Foss stopped and smiled, "Well, it certainly is frustrating. The problem is, Kyle, that it doesn't end the fight. You could have multiple opponents or something else you need to do. You need to be able to not just be safe but to have the fight be over quickly." He turned to Jessi, "Now I am going to try with you." He approached her and swung the club. She caught the baton with her left hand and struck Foss with her open right hand in the center of the chest. He flew back four feet and landed on the mat. He lay there catching his breath for a moment and then sat up.
Jessi went to him and helped him up. "Are you all right?" She asked, with a look of concern on her face.
He stretched and said, "I'm fine. I would say that Jessi clearly has the edge in taking out an opponent." Jessi beamed triumphantly at Kyle, "but perhaps not with the precision that would be ideal." Jessi's smile faded. "Adam Baylin told me that his body was the same as anyone else's he just had better control of it. Is that the same with the two of you?"
"We have the same muscles, but we can trigger all the fibers at the same time," Kyle said. "This lets us generate more force than other people."
"But your tendons and joints are no stronger," Foss said. "So when you use a lot of force you risk damaging yourself."
"We can sense that and stop just before doing damage," Jessi said.
Foss nodded, "I am going to be focusing on getting the most effect for the least effort. I think that even for you, that's a good idea. There are two basic strategies that various martial arts study. You either strike your opponent or knock them down. Of course you can do both. I want to focus on knocking an attacker down today. That will probably be more in keeping with Kyle's desire not to hit anyone and will give Jessi better control over force levels." He looked at Declan, "Declan, I'm going to demonstrate on you. Come over and stand here." He indicated the spot in front of him.
Declan smiled, "I get to be the dummy."
"The technical term is Uke," Foss corrected him, smiling, "To be honest, I'm not sure what would happen if I tried this with Kyle or Jessi. Are you ready?" Declan nodded. Foss reached out with his right hand and pushed on Declan's left shoulder while pulling back on his right shoulder with his left hand. Simultaneously he swept Declan's foot and Declan went down backwards. As he fell, Foss held onto his shirt and kept him from landing hard. Foss looked at Kyle and asked, "What did I do?"
Kyle said, "You knocked him off balance by twisting his body and pushed his leg out from under him. You also held onto him to keep him from landing hard."
"Exactly," Foss agreed. "I put him in a position where he was off balance and denied him the use of the leg to regain it. I was able to control how hard he landed. If I had pushed instead of pulled he might have landed hard enough that the fight would have been over immediately. In any case it would take time for him to get up and be a threat again."
Jessi said, "You control the strength of the impact by pushing or pulling as he falls."
"With a minimum of my own strength," Foss said. "Traditionally, when someone learns to do this in Judo or Jujitsu, you spend years learning technique. You learn various ways of disturbing an opponent's balance and exploiting that. You have to practice it over and over again so that you can recognize an opportunity and select the proper response at combat speed. When you become advanced, the techniques blend together and you simply become aware of the opportunity and exploit it without thinking of it as a specific throw."
"You calculate the motion vector and determine the displacement necessary to cause the opponent to fall," Kyle summarized.
"Well, you might be able to do that, the rest of us have to do it through extensive practice," Foss said.
"How do you get your opponent to be off balance," Jessi said.
"That's the easy part – for you. People who are moving are always off balance. When we walk, we lift up a foot and start to fall forward. We catch ourselves with that foot shift our weight to it, and then pick up the next foot." Foss walked slowly, exaggerating the process. He continued, "At every step, there is a moment when the forward foot is just about to touch the ground but you have started to shift your weight off of the back foot. You have committed yourself to the step. At that moment it takes a minimum amount of force to move the foot out of its normal path since there is no weight on it. A small amount of force on the upper body can accelerate the process. A highly skilled martial artist can precisely time their effort in conjunction with the step." He grinned at them, "You should be able to do that right away."
"That seems simple," Jessi said. "Can we try?"
"All right," Foss said, "I'm going to come at you again." He picked up the baton and stepped toward Jessi swinging it. As he stepped, she swept his leg and guided him harmlessly to the floor."
"Wow," Declan said. "I couldn't even see that happen."
Kyle said, "She did just what Foss told us to do."
Jessi helped pull Foss up. He said, "That's what I thought would happen." This should give you a tool you can use to stop a fight right away. And, Kyle, you don't have to hurt anyone, you can just set them on the ground."
"But you can make them land hard if you want to," Jessi said with a grin.
Foss smiled and said, "Yes, you can. Let's try a number of variations on attack and see how you do. Declan, you work with Kyle, I'll work with Jessi."
They tried a variety of attacks but both Foss and Declan found themselves instantly on the ground every time they tried. Kyle and Jessi seemed to be able to guide them down with ease.
Finally, Foss called a halt, "There's one more aspect of this that I want you to get some practice on. Jessi, I want you to make me land harder. You need to be able to put an opponent down and have them likely to stay there." He moved tried to strike Jessi and went down with more force. "Hai," he called out breaking his fall with an arm slap. He lay there for a moment catching his breath.
Jessi frowned and helped him to his feet, "Was that too hard?"
"That was exactly what I wanted you to do," Foss assured her. "You could have done it a little harder without damaging me. Of course if you wanted to damage me, then I think you could."
"It's easy," Jessi said. "I can calculate how much force I am applying to get a specific impact speed."
Foss stretched, working the kinks out of his back muscles, "I think that's enough for today. I hope that gives you something to work with."
"It does," Jessi said. "Thank you, Tom."
