Hello again guys. Wanted to start first real article again after my short hiatus with an article on the use of biting in the martial arts and in real world combat. Biting is something that a lot of people including martial artists find repulsive and hence don’t work biting techniques or to work defences for them, this is understandable nowadays with our knowledge of blood born and transmitted diseases and with prolific drug abuse etc, but to anyone who’s had a well placed bite put on them can attest they work!
For documented proof of the effectiveness of a good bite one can follow this Link to the 1997 Tyson / Hollyfield fight in which after a few dodgy head butts from Hollyfield Tyson purposely bite off a part of Hollyfields right ear. Now this is a BIG professional fighter used to being dealt rounds and rounds worth of powerful blows real punishment to the face, left screaming like a spanked child from a bite.
Primal Fear:
There’s something hard coded in our DNA some ancient past memory a primeval fear against being bitten or eaten, something that causes such a deep visual response that the victim goes into a state of sheer terror, especially when the culprit spits back in his face the flesh he’s just bitten off! The stylist will then use it to aid his animal transformation seeing blood and eating his prey and be triggered deeper into his own mannerism. This is were we leave the tournament sport “fighting” way behind, this is not the mindset of “it matters not who wins or losses, but how you play the game” in the mind of the victim he’s no being eaten by a tiger not whether he comes out of this with taking on or two on the chin or getting a black eye’ in is view he’s being torn apart and this is the psychological edge we want as a practitioner of animal based Pencak Silat as all Silat and in fact all of the oldest tribal martial arts around the world once where!
This may seem unsavory with some of you and some of you of the more “artistic” persuasions may look on this as unnecessarily savage or barbaric but this is not for kambangan or for performance this is life and death! if your life or that of your loved ones depended on tearing a shred out of someone’s face, cheek of neck to save your life what would you do, what would you wish, as his knife sinks into your body? you had worked… the art of biting?
Disclaimer:
I will now state for the record that I don’t advocate at all, in the use of uninterrupted biting or intelligent biting unless you honestly feel your life of that of your loved ones is in imminent danger. If someone bumps into you in the pub don’t dive on him and tear his cheek off ok!
Biting off more than you can chew:
But anyone can bite, right? Where the art in that? Well actually biting correctly is about technique and sensitivity the Filipino art of Kino Mutai is a fairly newish art that deals with the “dirtier” side of what works bities, nerve pinches, eye gouges etc I’ve had the pleasure (unsure if it could be called that) at least the brouses and teeth marks to attest to the brutal simplicity and thorough effectiveness of these techniques.
If one was to just bite someone, our teeth would careen off the surface and this would actually give the opponent the signal that we’re biting now its serious and we’d be in trouble, big trouble it takes actual practice to bite correctly what Tuhon Paul Vanak calls “uninterrupted biting” where the limb or target to be bit is held secure; think like rear naked choke for example and then bite to the neck or ear unable to simply just pull away while you tear repeatedly backwards and forwards blood pours, pain courses through him while he forgets the fact your choking the life out of him and you will get the idea.
For more info and some excellent, (if not grizzly) training methods for biting please check out Tuhon Paul Vunaks “Streetsafe” series there excellent.
Bando is another South East Asian art that utilizes intelligent biting as well of countless forgotten aboriginal arts the world over.
So in closing remember fighting, real fighting, not ring shit; is not just about hands and feet.
In part 2 we will look at some video clips showing some visual examples, till then
Play safe, train hard
