Chokes and Sleeper Holds

It has been a while since I've posted. I've been busy with different projects, including Lock On Volume 4 which has a section on chokes and sleeper holds, as well as a different Paladin Press project that will also have a section on chokes and sleeper holds. At the same time, I engaged in an internet discussion regarding these techniques and their usefullness. Here are a couple thoughts I posted in that exchange:

I was put out during a Judo match years ago and around that same time I read an article on sleeper holds in a MA magazine. (I still have the article and a couple years ago when I found it I realized that it was Loren W. Christensen who wrote the article, and now I've appeared in books with Loren) Those two incidents put me on a path to learn and perfect a couple sleeper holds.

I have used them in competition. Sure, that is a different area, and we all know that competition is not self-defense, but it is one area of martial arts that I have used them.

In "Hard-Won Wisdom" and an article in Black Belt (also found at Loren's site) I tell about a time I was called to break up a fight in the barracks. The guy winning was about the same size, maybe a little bigger than me. When I broke up the fight he turned on me and I used a sleeper hold to control him and calm him down. It was a way to handle the situation without hurting him, and without letting him hurt anyone else.

I have shown several other people that I "could" hurt or do a lot more to them by putting them into a sleeper hold and telling them what else I "could" do as they started to go under. (one such time I was commended by a superior in the Army for finishing the matter without actually hurting the other person. I proved my point and it was over) (Another such time I was fired after scaring everyone else who witnessed what I did to the guy who got in my face)

I used one to control and subdue a person before transitioning to take him outside. I should have put him under, and then maybe he would not have struggled to the point where I threw him down a filght of stairs. I locked a guy up one night in Riverside with Marc MacYoung. I didn't put him out, but could have. He was not going anywhere, that is for sure.

I locked a sleeper on a guy who was going off on his girlfriend one night while security for the dorms during my undergraduate studies.

I have used them other times in less than leathal barracks fights. When I say less than leathal fights, these were not out in the bars or street, they were in the barracks and you knew the person. No one was trying to kill the other person. Punches and such were real, but they were more to dominate and show who was boss, not kill the other person. Usually black eys, fat lips, bloody noses and bruised egos were the results of these. However, on occasion someone would be hurt worse. When one person started to get the upper hand and proved he was boss, others in the platoon would usually break things up and keep it from getting too serious.

I have used them on bigger people than me. And yes, I realize that my strength does help me with these too. I feel they can be a valuable tool in the tool box. I've used them and I teach them. As a matter of fact, Lock On Volume 4 will have some in it, as will a new dvd I'm working on for Paladin. Also, one of my favorite sleepers can be done easily with the cane, and it is featured in the cane dvd coming out in July.

Are they perfect? No, nothing is. But I do feel they are valuable techniques and knowing them gives you more options than not knowing them. Plus - I like them. :-) And to think it all started with Loren's article and me getting put out in a Judo match....