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Carl Cestari’s Fundamentals of Unarmed Combat, Volume 3
A Video Review by Phil Elmore
The third tape in the Carl Cestari series, Groundfighting, addresses a
critical component of combat. While the first two tapes in the series
focused on strikes delivered by a standing fighter, this one gives you the tools
you need to fight after being taken down. In my opinion, Cestari’s
material is the best available on World War II combatives. This tape may
well be the best of the series so far, full of useful advice and simple,
common-sense principles for dealing with the dangers of fighting from the
ground.
Production values are a vast improvement over the poor quality of
Tape
2. The picture is clearer and brighter. The sound, while still
tinny, is also much better. I am almost always disappointed with some
aspect of the production quality when I view an instructional martial arts or
self-defense video, so it is nice to see effort spent on improving such
deficiencies. The tape is available from
close-combat-video.com.
There are a few tape lines, but no major problems. One thing I did
notice in this tape, however, is that the black clothing worn by Cestari and his
training partner isn’t the best for demonstrations. As the tape is about
groundfighting, the black-on-black sometimes makes it difficult to see exactly
what is happening as the two grapple.
Cestari begins the tape by reminding the viewer that this is not sport, but
combat. Wearing street clothes, including a jacket, he removes a variety
of knives from concealment on his person. Willingly going to the ground,
he warns, exposes you to increased danger of severe injury and death, especially
if your opponent is carrying a weapon. The message is clear: if he
can so easily conceal deadly weapons of this type, anyone you meet could be
similarly armed.
Returning to the black combat garb he wears in the first two tapes, Cestari
begins speaking on groundfighting in earnest. He stresses the importance
of awareness and mindset. Always assume, he tells the viewer, that
your opponent has concealed weapons — and friends. Avoid going to the
ground of your own volition. Once you’re there, be prepared to do
absolutely anything you must do to survive.
Cestari warns against the use of breakfalls in combat and street encounters,
explaining that they do more damage than they prevent on hard and uneven
terrain. (Interestingly, this mirrors the discussion I had online after
publishing my analysis of the first
Bujingodai
training tape. The Ninjutsu students on that tape do not use
breakfalls either, and the dangers of employing slapping breakfalls — on, say,
asphalt — are difficult to dismiss.) Tuck your chin, Cestari counsels,
and hunch your shoulders. Drop and roll while doing this, but do not slap.
Next, Cestari demonstrates using the legs as if boxing while on one’s
back. He also demonstrates how to swing the body and crab-walk to change
directions from the ground. Avoid using your hands, he cautions.
Instead, rock your body and pivot. Targets on your opponent’s body include
the shins, knees, and groin.
The next segment covers techniques to take an opponent to the ground, used in
conjunction with kicking blows. These include hooking the ankle and
kicking with the other leg, and a variation of this in which one strikes with
the heel. From your side, Cestari explains, go fetal, covering your head,
neck, chest, abdomen, and groin, using your arms, forearms, shoulders, and legs.
At distance, a man on the ground can roll into a kick and bring the opponent
down, striking with the elbow or hammerfist once the opponent is prone. Up
close, it is possible to catch the opponent’s leg and roll, stopping him and
taking his balance, then counter-attacking as he is brought down.
Cestari pauses to explain that the principles he espouses do not comprise
a system. All he can do is show you the basics, he warns. It
is the viewer’s task to apply them.
Moving on, Cestari explains techniques useful when both the defender and his
opponent are on the ground. The first sequence involves scenarios in which
the defender is on top of the opponent, with his legs outside of the torso in a
“schoolboy pin.” You can push off the opponent, Cestari explains,
striking him to the head and neck and pinning his arms as you push off.
You can also use a “chest bounce” to smear the face and then push off,
pinning an arm before you start “hacking” at him with edge-of-hand
blows. Cestari emphasizes the vicious use of fingers and thumbs, gouging
and tearing into the opponent as ruthlessly as possible. He also covers
the use of the reverse Japanese strangle, using the chin against the head and
working the fingers in.
I found myself wondering just how much Cestari’s training partner was acting
during the filming. Some of the techniques Carl executes look very
unpleasant even with little force behind them, and he doesn’t seem to be holding
back much.
The vicious nature of close combat as espoused by World War II-style
combatives experts is very obvious in this tape, focusing as it does on ripping,
crushing, and tearing into the cheeks, eyes, and nose. Follow-up strikes
as one rises from the ground are discussed (using the elbows or other natural
weapons), as are some grappling techniques that come from Judo and/or Ju Jitsu.
All the while this is happening, it sure seems to me like Carl’s partner is in
genuine pain.
From between the opponent’s legs, Cestari demonstrates smashing the groin and
the inside of the thighs, knocking the ankles away, and driving in with one knee
up under the leg while the other is in the opponent’s groin. “These
techniques hurt like a sonofabitch,” Carl acknowledges. Once you’ve
maneuvered over him, you’re back to striking and smashing the assailant as
previously covered. “There’s no technique, there’s no system,”
Cestari states. “It’s fighting for your life.”
With his opponent’s legs wrapped around his body, Carl demonstrates leaning
back and driving his elbows into the opponent’s thighs before jumping over to
smash him with the chest and again press his attack. He stresses the
brutal nature of combat as expressed through WW2-style combatives.
“Just hack him. Hit him. …It is not that complicated,”
he says. “Whoever fights dirtiest first, wins.”
The next scenarios occur with the defender beneath the attacker, which
presents even more danger. “I have to be aware that what I want to do
to him is what he’s going to do to me,” Carl warns. He demonstrates
slamming down the heels, then the hips, to push the opponent’s weight off his
center. Force the opponent into a defensive position and hit him with axe
hand after axe hand.
Carl demonstrates bucking to get your hands on the opponent’s head and neck,
applying a reverse Japanese strangle while using the knees for leverage.
Loop his arm, grab it, and work him; you’re gouging his eyes and nose and
basically making life very unpleasant for him.
When you’re on the ground, Carl explains, you must attack immediately and
then move in to apply brutal, ruthless techniques. He emphasizes using the
reverse Japanese strangle while working the fingers of his hands into the
opponent’s face and eyes. “My attitude is one of ruthless
offense,” he says. “If I’m going to die it doesn’t matter.
…Once you’re in that situation, what else are you going to do? You may
as well fight.”
Carl offers much of value to those looking for the basics of fighting on the
ground. When you’re on your back and the opponent attacks between your
legs, he explains, do not push against him to give him your legs. Instead,
convulsively turn your body, stomp, and kick. Cestari also suggests using
your own hand to grab your groin to protect it if the opponent starts to come
in. You can hack at the enemy with the other hand.
Another tactic Carl discusses is gripping with the legs to put your groin in
the attacker’s belly. Protected in this manner, you can leap up and apply
the strangle, perhaps while biting and ripping the ear or biting into the neck.
“The immediate techniques have to be ripping, gouging, and
striking,” Carl intones. “Just hit him! Explode all over
him. …Sharp, short, vicious hacks.”
The tape goes on in similar fashion until it concludes. For example, if
you can hook the ankles of someone attempting to strangle you from on your back,
you can open the opponent’s body and try to break his ankles. (If the legs
open, grab an ankle and twist it until it snaps.) If possible, Carl also
urges, drive your elbow into the opponent’s femoral artery. (I again was
forced to wonder: is Carl’s partner okay? The taping session must
have made for a rough day for him.)
This is not sport, Carl explains. It is very different.
Groundfighting is dangerous and not something in which one should engage
intentionally. “Avoid it if you can,” he says. “But
if you have no choice, you fight for everything you’re worth and you do what you
have to do to survive.”
That’s real groundfighting.