PPCT
January 1, 2008 by Bob Patterson
Taking a cue from TDA Training and Dojo Rat, I’m hoping to feature videos more in 2008. A modest goal would be to run one at least one feature video per month. We’ll see how this idea goes. Regardless, after exploring the widgets that come with a free WordPress blog I noticed that they have a VodPod video feed.
So, it is now installed and you can see some featured videos at the right side of my blog. I plan to change them out each month so please check back. It appears that VodPod lets you upload your own as well. As soon as I get the Korean stick form down I’ll test this feature and see how it goes. Right now I’m just playing around with it and ended up picking some random videos.
While I was poking around on VodPod I came across a PPCT video. This is definitely a blast from the past. I have it selected in the VodPod feed and also am going to highlight it in this post.
PPCT is a use-of-force training system for criminal justice agencies. The prison system that I worked in approximately 10 years ago used it and I had to certify in it. I also got to use it in real use-of-force scenarios.
PPCT is an acronym for Pressure Point Control Tactics. The system teaches strikes, holds, and take-downs that target certain pressure points on the body. From a criminal justice get sued perspective the system is sound. It teaches a use-of-force continuum and the appropriate response based on the particular situation.
However, if you are a fan of a “reality” self-defense systems this one is probably not for you. While it is effective and can work, it’s designed to not get your particular agency or security outfit sued. So, depending on your view of self-defense, it may not be extreme enough.
If it taught me anything it would probably be that these pressure point strikes don’t always work. Some people are sensitive to them while others are practically immune. Also, they can be hard to pull off in a live setting. In fact, sometimes we threw PPCT out the window when things went south and relied on superior numbers.
Anyhow, what follows is the video. It’s grainy so you have to bear with it. However, you can get a sense of some the training I had many years ago.
What worked…
- All the kicks are low kicks to the nerve clusters on the inside or outside of the thigh. A basic knee strike and push kicks is also taught. They worked as a gap-bridger/distraction more than anything.
- Hands always up with kicking/punching drills after blocking a punch.
- The baton tactic in the video shows what the Koreans call a high drop stance. Also taught was a normal ready stance (baton in lead).
- The basic take down taught was the arm bar. Many different ways to pull it off and the video shows one.
- The lateral vascular neck restraint (sorta of side headlock) works and can put someone out.
Now the complaints…
- The video is very grainy so there is that.
- When we were taught the arm bar the trainers always emphasized a quick pivoting circle step. Doing this throws the attacker off balance and dumps them.
- The arm bar can be drilled from the front as a counter to punching.
- The kicks are non-chambered and lack the power you’d see in karate or taekwondo.
- The escort position and goose neck wrist lock look good on paper but are worthless in reality.
- Use the head pressure points (mandibular, etc.) at your own risk. They usually just pissed inmates off.
- The video did not show sprawling drills (anti-tackle drills) along with about a dozen other training scenarios that were covered.
- They did not show the brachial stun. Essentially a hammer fist to the brachial plexus origin (side of neck).
- Half the time inmates kept on fighting regardless of what you used. In the video the partner just folds every time. In training they had us try three on one drills where the one kept fighting until actually restrained. It drove home two lessons: 1) Strength in numbers when dealing with inmates and 2) Using this stuff for real is hard.
~BCP
Despite the bad video quality, it is a good intro to pressure points. I use the come-along wrist lock, the double striking demonstrated on the dummy, and I have had really,really good use of the knee strikes and kicks to the inner thigh (spleen meridian) and outside thigh (gallbladder meridian). All in all, a pretty good system for it’s intended use.
That gun disarm is really risky. You have to get the trigger finger in a lock against the trigger guard without getting shot.
D.R.
What I want to know is how in the hell you go from a prison to working at a college!
Short version: Inmates sucked and I had to do something with my social sciences degree. So, off to library school for an MLS.
Criminal deviance was fun to study in school. Experiencing it first hand stunk.
~BCP
DR -
Yeah I think like anything else personal preference and one’s ability also come into play on these things. Now that you mention it we had one Lt. who used that goose neck all the time. I think he had a judo background though which helped when wrestling with morons.
I am currently doing PPCT in a corrections academy. I was told this was a karate-based system. I thought it was great, most of the material is familiar to me with my background in martial arts. I do have the realistic perspective that this it may or may not work on some people as we are all different. I do believe in “tailoring” and that helped me do some of them better.
What I found disappointing was that the instructor called it the “PPCT way” and he made no bones about the fact that he did not agree with most of it and frequently made derrogatory statements. He spent alot of time inferring that his martial arts training was superior (who cares) to that and showed us “other ways”, that only confused many of the students. He is good at what he does, but of course we can’t do those in a correctional environment.
Hi and thanks for commenting!
I had my first class back in 1995. I wonder how much has changed? That video I found was very close to how we were trained in it.
Our trainers did not put it down. What they did say is that it is not like karate or other martial arts. It’s designed to teach people some stuff (probably based off those systems) in a short time. The academy can’t spend hundreds of hours practicing roundhouse kicks, etc. when they have other material to cover besides this.
The other thing is that it is built around use-of-force and not getting you or your institution sued. So, it does put you at a disadvantage.
I saw some of the techniques work and even used them. I saw others that did not but it’s no different than the other martial arts I’ve experienced. Some of this stuff works and some of it may not.
Now one of my favorite Lt.s always warned new people that “half of this shit will get your ass kicked in real fight.” To a point he was correct. Is it the best reality system out there? Probably not. Is it a good system from an administration/training/get sued perspective? Yes.
At the end of the day most of the officers I knew had an unwritten rule: If there life was in danger for real use anything.
Anyhow, stay safe once you start working in the prison system!
~BCP