Jim King Crowd Work Mini-Seminar - Friday, June 4th, 2004

The topic for the mini-seminar was "crowd work"—something city dwellers experience on a daily basis. Jim started us walking around the center in a tight formation, just walking, first normal pace, then fast as possible, then at a half squat, then a full squat, duck-walking. It was hard to keep out of everyone's path, and after a few minutes of that, he pointed out the importance of posture. Looking down at everyone's legs, it's almost impossible not to crash into others, keeping the eyes up makes it a lot easier. And of course, breathing in co-ordination with movement. He showed us how to create holes in the crowd by touching the hip, which makes the person yield, or a "friendly" hand on the back, or a less friendly finger digging into the crease between torso and thigh. Then we practiced moving through the tight formation making holes. I didn't practice this too much; because all the holes everyone else was creating made it easy to move through the crowd and I wasn't sure how to incorporate it. But I could see how effective it was, even on the subway, or on the street, a light hand on the back will make anyone move.

To warm up, we huddled in groups of 6-8, arms around each other's shoulders, then one person climbed up and crawled around the whole circle, across our backs. Jim leaped on top of his group and crawled around like a squirrel scampering through the treetops. I didn't think I'd be able to do this one, but as usual, everyone encouraged me to give it a try and to my surprise I made it all the way around. It's wonderful how my classmates and teachers always encourage me not to give up, to just give it a try, even when I am certain that I can't do a certain exercise—and very often I am suprised by what I can do. Then we did the same thing, crawling over lines of people, rather than circles. This I found a bit more difficult, both standing on the bottom, and crawling on top. I fell off the line a few times until Dennis advised me to use my knees and that made all the difference. Jim explained to us that using the arms to move across makes it impossible to maintain balance across an unstable surface, using the legs and knees allows the whole body to maintain balance.

Then, a psychologically interesting exercise: we divided the class in half, one group stood against the wall, the other in the center, the people against the wall closed their eyes, then we in the center re-shuffled, and lay down face up, and also closed our eyes. Then the other group walked over us, still keeping their eyes closed. I was a little nervous about being stepped on, but I figured if someone stepped on me, they would try to be nice about it and step as lightly as possible. Then Jim asked them to run over us! A few people stumbled over me, but I wasn't stepped on. I felt almost as nervous running over the other group when they lay down; I didn't run, just sort of walked as quickly as I could, trying to step over people, sort of picking my way through, but I wonder if were actually supposed to step on them, rather than feeling our way through, which you can't really do while running.

We also did what Jim called the "squirt" drill, a simple, but fascinating, exercise. One person stands in center, 5 or so people stand around pressing fists and hands into them, leaning as hard as possible. The person in the center tenses, then suddenly relaxes, and voila the circle collapses. If you haven't already, try this exercise! It's remarkable the way one person's tension and breathing can break through five or more people leaning as hard as possible.

Next, Jim had three guys pulling hard on his arms and legs, while he kept his balance and even shook them off. Jim demonstrated how to use the opposing forces against each other, and how by standing on one leg, you can dissipate and control the tension. He shrugged off the three guys while calmly explaining the principle behind this exercise. Of course we tried this ourselves, and found it not as easy as it looked when Jim demonstrated! Though some lasted longer than others, everyone in my group ended up on the floor, amid much laughter.

Jim explained could do mass attacks, or break into smaller groups and do "posse-style" attacks. Jim pointed out that mass attacks are fun but 3 or 4 people attacking one was a more likely scenario. Everyone agreed to the latter, and Jim promised we would do some mass attacks at the very end.

So we formed groups of 4 and 5 and tried walking into one person, not tracking the person, just walking straight while they avoided. Then we did three-on-one punching each other, avoiding, and using the attackers against one another. Working in groups of this size is great if you're prone to stop and think, as I do sometimes. There's nothing like working in groups to bring out the spontaneous instinct towards self-preservation. No time to think of what you'll do next, you've just got to keep moving.

Jim demonstrated the difference between military and art. Generally in class we take our partners down with some consideration for their comfort; he showed us the difference between quick, efficient disabling of the attacker and the more artful and gentle way we generally spar. He encouraged us to be careful as we tried the more military applications with three -against-one.

We practiced the same exercise we did in the beginning, walking around in a tight formation, and I think we all felt much easier doing so. After our two-hour seminar with Jim, I certainly felt a big improvement in this simple exercise. Then Jim told us to "defend the center" and everyone starting punching and hitting whoever was in the center. Well, almost everyone. At this point in my training, I was too nervous to do much more than watch. I don't mind a bunch of guys trying to hit me in a focused way, even if the whole class is doing so, but the sort of melee with everyone hitting everyone randomly, well, I don't think I'm quite ready for mass attacks. It's hard to believe entire villages in Russia get together and do this for fun!

We then went right into the next mini-seminar with Martin Wheeler, the theme of which was chokes.