Fairbairn Grabs the Gordian Groin

W.E. Fairbairn‘s fights can’t have looked cool. If done by the book, they would last just a couple seconds and look ugly and artless, more like a car wreck than a Jackie Chan movie. But that doesn’t mean Fairbairn didn’t hide a lot of clever “programming” deep in the code.

Nowadays it is a cliché to talk about “no-hold-barred” fighting, but even in the age of mixed martial arts (MMA), true no-rules fighting can scarcely be seen outside of security footage. Needless to say, even in fight promotions emphasizing “realism,” there must be many, many prohibitions. Biting and eye-gouging are definitely out, and hair-pulling, striking the groin or back of the head/neck, and breaking fingers are also almost always verboten.

But more significant are the guarantees implicit in an organized fight promotion. It’s guaranteed that neither athlete will pull a knife. The ground will be clear of broken glass and concrete curbs. Cars won’t drive across the octagon. The referee won’t assault either fighter, or randos from the audience pour into the ring and dog-pile them. The fight won’t get cut short by mortars or the Gestapo.

A Fairbairn’s trainee might be preparing to infiltrate occupied France undercover, where the first warning that he needed to fight might come when he was shirt-collared by suspicious policeman. The fight might happen on a passenger train rolling through Belgium, or in a stairwell. Whatever happened next would go down within a few seconds. The adversaries wouldn’t advance from separate corners in fighting stances and study each other’s reactions to feints, draws, and combinations. All these essentials for good boxing, fencing, and wrestling would be missing. Instead of the noble chess match of boxing, Fairbairn prepped students for one terrifying, jet-speed game of rock, paper, scissors.

Accordingly, Fairbairn jettisoned stances or “on guard” postures, since no one could predict whether future misfortune might find the trainee facing this way or that, holding a suitcase, sitting down in a church pew, or standing at a bank counter. Also thrown out was the jab, the very foundation of good boxing, or any other type of “feeler” attack. Fairbairn stressed the importance of landing the first blow, and it had to be committed. The ideal one would be the “chin jab,” an open hand launched straight upward that resembles little found in either boxing or karate, and would probably be followed in the next instant by a knee in the groin.

Fairbairn never mentioned the word “block” or “parry.” There would be no time: Tommy must protect himself by hurting the enemy first. Apparently, the bad guy would be too busy eating shots to throw heat.

Another surprising omission from Fairbairn’s syllabus was close-fisted punching! Effective punching is truly a science—it’s difficult and unintuitive. Without a lot of patient training, we primates make lousy boxers. Instinctively, humans revert to flailing overhand rights–they worked great for chimpanzees and cave people holding rocks and clubs, but with empty hands they devolve into a sibling slap fight in the back of mom’s Camry. Besides, fists are imperfect, chancy striking implements. Even Mike Tyson broke his hand punching a dude outside Dapper Dan’s all-night haberdashery. But even more importantly, when you punch with a closed fist, physics demands a lot from you. First, you’re striking one hard round thing with another. Unless you land with your knuckles pretty flush, you can glance off the bad guy’s dome.

Second, it’s actually a pretty long weapon that’s hard to align correctly. Fist and elbow must travel one right behind the other, in a straight line. So it’s more fool-proof to use that short bludgeon called your palm heel.

Fairbairn also didn’t bother to teach “footwork,” at least not by that name. No prescribed shuffles, passing steps, or pivots. There was stepping, yes. The basic tactic can be described as “taking ground.” Whatever location the evil Jerry occupied in space, young Tommy would knock him off it and take his place, like when one pool ball whacks another and imparts its full impetus. This put power in Tommy’s blows and unbalanced Jerry.

I suspect Fairbairn elicited pretty darned good footwork from his trainees, without their being aware of it, just by embedding the footwork unobtrusively beneath the surface, like an automatic transmission that busily changes gears without the driver’s thinking about it.

For example, even though Fairbairn didn’t say, “Look here, laddy, maneuver laterally off Fritz’s centerline,” he still embedded the flanking imperceptibly into the attacks. When Tommy lines for up a chin jab or groin attack, he automatically shifts to the enemy’s side.

Usually, Tommy is also stealing extra positional advantage and off-balancing Jerry with some kind of “bridge” contact, e.g. by chin jabbing, grabbing his arm or waist, or kneeing him in the groin.

Though Fairbairn had legit jujutsu and judo credentials, he stripped out most joint manipulations from the wartime curriculum. To escape from this or that hold, Fairbairn taught earthy, direct solutions like “smash him in the face with your tin hat.” Or if Tommy gets bear-hugged from behind and really has no better option, he should “seize [the enemy’s] little finger …, bend it backwards, and walk out of the hold.”

But Fairbairn resolved most grappling problems even more directly: “seize his testicles” or “knee him in the testicles.” Our saucy Tommy should jump directly into this intimacy without even buying Jerry dinner first. If there had to be some kind of lead-up, it was also very direct. For example, if you’re grabbed too tightly to move, Fairbairn instructs, “If possible, bite his ear. Even [if] not successful, this will [put you] into a position from which you can seize his testicles.”

In our next exciting episode, we’ll drill farther into the many ways that (IMO) Fairbairn evolved convergently with Wing Chun.