Shivworks Edged Weapons Overview

The Shivworks Edged Weapons Overview (EWO) is awesome. Now that we have that out of the way, let me describe the problem I had and how this course goes a long way toward a good solution. I started in the realm of traditional martial arts. What I mean is a set attack and a set defense. Not a lot of free-play or resistance. Over the years I trained in both traditional arts and modern combatives styles, progressively moving more towards less structured responses and greater free-play and exploration. 

To be clear I still teach both traditional skills and modern inter-disciplinary self-defense solutions. I just try to be honest about what I’m teaching on a particular night, why I think it’s important, and what I hope we gain from it. People want both. When I focused too much on modern applications people got bored after a few months because its not “martial arty” enough. They want some of the traditional stuff, but they also want actual skills that work in the real world. 

Last Spring we were integrating some wrestling drills into our regular Japanese Jujutsu standup grappling and one of the people in the class talked to me about Shivworks. I was aware of Shivworks but had not taken the time to fit a course into my schedule. I was intrigued that night about how Shivworks also had a wrestling base and focused on modern weapon threats and solutions.  Over the last couple years I had reduced our knife defense to the bare bones while I was looking for better solutions.  I explored most of the popular knife defense options out there and was not happy with what I found. 

My school is in Tacoma, Washington so when I saw an EWO course coming up in Portland just a few hours away I signed up. The Shivwork EWO is taught by Craig Douglas, a retired police officer with extensive SWAT and undercover work. He developed this curriculum as a result of his traditional martial arts and defensive tactics training failing him for the situations he found himself in. Very dangerous, life or death situations. 

The first module in the course is Managing Unknown Contacts (MUC). The assumption is they are likely armed, and they have friends. MUC address the verbal engagement, positioning, and pre-contact cues for a fight.  I have attended many courses that address these, but the Shivworks course gives the best instruction I have seen in this domain. Rather than saying be more “aware” they tell you what to look for. Instead of saying use non-aggressive language, they give you specific stages of the verbal engagement and a goal for each. Instead of saying “be a hard target” they tell you how to position yourself to reduce your chances of ambush. 

From there the course progresses through a series of very sound physical skills adapted to the knife environment. These skills are examined from defending yourself against a knife wielder, as well as countering them if your using the knife for defense. 

Then everything comes down to evolutions or “evos.” This is one of the parts of the course Shivworks is known for. Realistic scenarios with complete free-play that does not end until Craig calls it. Which means it does not end until at least one person has multiple stabs to a vital target area. 

Craig’s commentary on the evo’s is worth the price of the course alone. He does not say you did the right or wrong thing. He asks about your perception of the situation, or what were you thinking at this point? He may draw your attention to something you missed, or demo another way it might have been handled. But it is a learning process and Craig never makes anyone feel bad about the choices they made or feel like a failure for not “winning” an evo. One of the hallmarks of this course is that everyone fails something at some point. In fact some drills don’t end until you experience failure. Sometimes knowing that certain situations are so unfavorable that you will do anything to not end up there…..again, is priceless.

I have had more than two decades of Department of Defense, State Department, and Law Enforcement training courses. Many times as the student and many times as the instructor and another decade of civilian teaching in a variety of subjects. I can say that Craig Douglas is one of the best instructors I have ever met, and as a curriculum writer he is a very talented individual. 

The fingerprints of Craig Douglas and the courses from Shivworks (both EWO knife defense and the ECQC gun defense course) will be all over both our grappling and our weapons work from now on. Thanks Craig, phenomenal program.