Get Tough (Paperback)

The techniques described herein are based on Faribairn's experiences in the service of the Shanghai Municipal Police in the first decades of the 20th century. By this time Shanghai was one of the most violent and nasty places on earth, ever. These techniques were developed, refined and used by men who regularly fought for their lives with very violent and vicious criminals; there is no fancy dojo "what-ifs" involved here.

The book demonstrates some simple and efficient techniques for maiming and killing the enemy, and encourages the reader to choose A FEW OF THEM and learn them thoroughly. Unfortunately Fairbairn does not devote much time and space to explain the rationale behind this, but in order to perform a technique automatically -- to encode it as a reflex, which is amust for an effective response -- it has to be trained over and over again. Some authorities claim that 5,000 repetitions is required, with three additional correct ones for every flawed execution. Do the math yourself. This is the reason behind the, for some, staggering simplicity of the techniques -- at least compared to those taught in more traditional martial arts etc. If they are to be learnt as instictively as is necessary, they have to be simple. The techniques do not look "fancy". They are not supposed to, they are supposed to kill.

However, the contents of this book has been much improved upon since, and most notably by the author himself and his coworkers during WWII when they incorporated the results from actual experience in the field into the curriculum. That is, allied agents who fought axis soldiers and agents wrote field reports and communicated their experiences to the men responsible for CQ-training, most notable within the SOE. The results of this maiming and killing can be found in the so called "Silent Killing Syllabus" of 1944, basically Fairbairns lecture notes.

This curriculum can be found in the book "SOE Syllabus: Lessons in Ungentlemanly Warfare" (ISBN 190336518X), which is also available from Amazon. The focus in that curriculum is even less on "grappling" than in Get Tough! and almost exclusively on open hand strikes with the odd kick to the lower legs; apart from shooting and/or stabbing the opponent. That is, the techniques in the 1944 curriculum are even simpler and more direct, and more brutal, than in Get Tough!.

The focus is not on "self defence" but on combat, in fact Farirbairn has stated -- I do not remember exactly where -- that if two men of equal ability fight, the one with the advantage of surprise will win. The nature of the game is to strike first, strike hard and keep on striking until the enemy is either unconcious or, preferably, dead. Beat him to the ground and kick his brains in or jump on him.

Fairbairn & Co. stated, quite emphatically, that you are not supposed to fight with your bare hands, you only do so if you are caught empty handed, and you only fight empty handed so that you can get your hands on a weapon. So to get a complet picture of the Fairbairn's work, be sure to read the book on combat shooting, "Shooting to Live", co-authored with E A Sykes and available from the same publisher. He also developed some interesting techniques for use of the stick, which are found in "Get Tough!", and which he later adapted for use with an umbrella. Also, read the book "Kill Or Get Killed", by his American pupil and colleague Rex Applegate for a similar but slightly different approach; and make sure to get J.J. Styers's "Cold Steel" while you are at it for yet another perspective: Styers advocates the use of the fists more than Fairbairn and Applegate do.

It is only beacause of the missing pieces of the puzzle that I do not give the book more than four stars. Faribairn should have been able to write a much better book, at least when the quality of his "lecture notes" are taken into account. Whether he did not do this because he, as we all do, laboured under constraints of the politically correct I do not know, but the ugly truths about real combat have never been popular with the wider audience, so to speak.