Techniques

As the name implies, 52 Blocks has been described as a defense based

countering fighting style. Thats a little misleading though because as its
taught and displayed today, I would say its 50/50 defense / offense in
application. The blocks themselves are intended not only to defend but to
inflict injury at the same time. To any of you who had ever punched an elbow,
youll appreciate the gravity of a fist landing on hard bone.
This often results in fractures to the metacarpels. This can also occur to
punches landing on the head, which is why palm strikes are the preferred
method of striking to the head in hand to hand combat. Slaps are used in 52
Blocks street fighting moves. Its an ever advancing method involving dynamic
torso twisting, tight footwork, shifting stances, and a natural flowing
pressure-fighting feel. Some of the blocks or moves are:
Skull and Crossbones
Close Door Open Door
Triangle Train
Black Man Rising
Kiss and Catch
Scoop against shank
g-lock
The pants leg flip
Shaolin blocks
Secret g=mc lock
Defense against an uppercut
Circle hands trap
Hook and take down.
Open gates (buttefly) and take down.
Choke out
The shank
Gun disarming
Slap hands etc.
Prominent New York trainer, Lyte Burly maintains that 52 Blocks is 90%
elbows. Unlike the stiffer approach though used in Muay Thai, 52 requires
fluidity of the shoulder joints and rotator cuffs. This is achieved by daily
mobility exercises that increase and maintain that suppleness of the joints.
Footwork and body Movements
Although developed in close quarters situations, such as crowded and cramped
cells, it does have footwork and evasive moves of the head. It is common to

hone reflexes and condition the defensive movements through highly

repetitious fear drills and dodging moves.
Elbow and Forearm Blocks

These are the predominant guard techniques employed. This gives an

interesting insight into the origins of the style, as it is thought that shackled
slaves employed this form of protection when beaten. With the hands tied
elbows and forearms were all that was left to defend with.
Jab Catch and Elbow Block Combos

These techniques really highlight 52s defense emphasis. The one pictured
above is a counter to a jab / straight right combo. The jab is caught and then
the elbow presented to spoil the incoming straight right.
Punches and Arm Movements
When you see a display of 52 Blocks, there sometimes appears to be an
unnecessary amount of arm motion. These movements are not always employed

in actual fights, but are often just drills that aid the student in becoming at
ease with his bodys natural movement patterns.

It is not a hard fighting method, despite the ferocity of its blocks. There is
no kata employed as such, as in traditional karate, but an improvisational
form of blocking patterns is used as a form of shadow boxing.
Haymaker punch (more often called the Overhand Right in MMA) is often
used in 52. Why? Consider a situation where a man is waving a knife in your
face. Your backs up against a wall. At some point though, you get the chance
to throw something at him. You want to go over his hands, rather than take a
path that could land your knuckles on his blade. So the Haymaker is the
obvious choice. Rashad Evans used the Haymaker in his UFC match against
Chuck Liddell. This punch is Liddells favourite, his trademark almost. But
Evans beat him at his own game, throwing one at the same time Liddell did.
Evans landed a fraction of a second earlier, and knocked Liddell out.
Catching Punches
52 employs a lot of techniques that involve a sort of hybrid of blocks and
holds. These are designed to simultaneously defend, immobilize, and set up
counter attacks. They are useful in real life self defense, and in mixed
martial arts competition.

Practitioners sometimes refer to these techniques as catching punches.

There are several techniques but the most famous is the kiss and catch
which made Mother Dear famous. The move involves catching a haymaker or
wild overhand throw. The opponents arm is then locked and a counter to
either the head or body is dealt as the locked arm is maneuvered to open the
opponent up. It can be used against jabs too, but requires speed and accuracy.
Its a dangerous one for the novice as the back is exposed to a degree.
The New York Jiu-Jitsu Connection
If you have ever learnt Jiu-Jitsu (the original Japanese style, not
Brazilian/Gracie Jiu-Jitsu), you might have noticed a lot of similarities with
the blocking-holding moves in 52 Blocks. This is an odd relationship because
Jiu-jitsu has almost became extinct in Japan. It is a lost art and no longer
passed from generation to generation. A lot of you reading this wont know
too much about the original Jiu-Jitsu as its been overshadowed by BJJ. When
you mention Jiu-Jitsu people think of the ground game they see in MMA.
However,original Jiu-Jitsu was primarily a stand-up fighting art.

So where is the New York connection? Enter Professor Kiyose Nakae. Back in
the 1940s and 50s he was considered the foremost instructor of authentic
Jiu-Jitsu in the world. Seeing that the art was dying out in his native Japan,
he moved to America and set up in New York City circa 1908. There he taught
thousands of private students, and also the armed services and police
department. He was like the original Bruce Lee, in that he shared a previously
secret fighting art to a western audience. Its not surprising then that his
influence on the New York martial arts scene has permeated 52 Blocks. My
father was a student of a student of Nakaes,the author of the book Jiu-Jitsu
Complete. Below is a photo of me with the original hardcover published in
1958.

Rhythm, Synergy and Spatial Awareness

Coaches of the art maintain that paying attention to your own rhythm is vital.
Without this, the essential synergy needed cant be developed. The aim of
this is to fight with natural, rather than contrived body movements.
At its core, 52 is an up close infighting system. Among coaches, the analogy of
the phone booth is used. This is to make students aware of the space they

need to focus on in order to judge their opponents angles and movements. To

this end, sparing often takes place in corners, stair wells, and roped off areas
of not more than a few square feet.
Although the style is often slated as dirty boxing, it isnt if looked at from an
MMA perspective. Most trainers deny its dirty boxing but instead an
effective form of self defence. They insist that it is as valid a style of
martial art as boxing, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or Muay Thai etc.
Capoeira, and 52 Blocks
Some people have said there are organic connections between Capoeira and 52.
However, there are big differences in the techniques employed. For example,
there are no roundhouse kicks, amadas (spinning back circular kick) or 45
degeree kicks in 52 Blocks.
There may have been a point in history where the two were similar due to the
trafficking of slaves from Africa to Brazil and the Southern States of
America. But as the two styles stand now, they are miles apart.
The Migration of 52 Blocks from the Prison System to the Gym
Some say this style has died and is no longer being passed down. The reason
stated is that disputes in prison are seldom sorted by fist fights nowadays.
Ive asked ex-inmates about this and been told its generally true.. Most
disputes are settled by merchandise (money, drugs, phones etc, all being
exchanged to cool things off). Or a straight shank in the back of the neck.

The Death of Fist Fights

Up until the late 80s though, it was still common to sort out a problem with
your hands. Straight fights between two inmates, with a nod from a prison
guard, were an accepted way of resolving issues. There was a code of conduct
and the acceptance of defeat and victory that put an end to the matter. But
Gangs and their ever growing use of weaponry on the outside ended all that.
Nowadays, weapons are improvised from a variety of objects, including tuna
cans, plastic chair legs, bone etc., in order to fashion tools that draw blood.
And that is the bottom line.

Fist fights, if they do occur, are usually started by first timers who dont have
too much of an understanding about prison politics. Wanting to make a rep for
themselves, they lash out when provoked. The consequences are usually dire.
As the gang system controls most aspects of prison life, what takes place on
the street, is merely transferred inside, but with a change of weaponry. So
instead of a drive-by shooting, someone just walks up behind their target and
an improvised knife does the business. Its an unemotional solution to a
problem. Nothing but business.
So if the days of honour among thieves are dead and buried, has 52 Blocks,
aka Jailhouse Rock, ceased to exist? Well, thanks to the current popularity of
mixed martial arts, it has found a way back from near extinction. Its thriving
in the boxing gyms and public parks of New York City.
Lyte Burly and 52 AOD
One of the most prominent trainers on the scene isLyte Burly. Burly (who
teaches in and around Tompkins Square Park, Manhattan) is pushing 52 into a
broader MMA technique. His new take on the style - 52 AOD (Art of
Defense) fuses it with the kicking aspects of Muay Thai, tae-kwon-do and
wing-chun, and the ground fighting of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

The logic behind this appraoch Burly takes is that nowadays men do not usually
call each other out, and fight with fists like they used to. Things are more
sneaky and vicious. If you went to ground in an honour match years ago,
your opponent would do the decent thing and let you get back to your feet.
Not so today! Youre more likely to get a kicking while you lay on the ground
at best, and a knife in the back of the neck at worst. Or even shot.
So Burly looks at things holistically. He takes the Bruce Lee approach in using
what works and discards the rest even some of the more traditional 52
moves. The core elemental values of 52 Blocks are still there. Especially the

rhythmical body movements. To this end he employs tai-chi, so his students

can learn energy flow and leverage.
Daniel Marks
Marks is a scholar in the truest sense of the word. An accomplished fighter
and trainer himself, he is on a mission to preserve 52 Blocks as an integral
part of African American culture. He has been researching it and piecing
together the bigger picture since he

first learnt of the style during his military service. He teaches the style, its
history and cultural significance in New York and beyond. He compares it to
Jazz, believing it is just as integral to Black American culture as the music
form. He has lectured at Black History conferences to this effect.
Daniel Marks runs the 52 Blocks Preservation Program which helps helps exoffenders re-integrate into society. It does this by an education program
which helps them set themselves up as 52 Blocks instructors. Marks employs
his professional social work experience to aid them in avoiding the too often
easy path back into crime.

Born Justus (BJ)

BJ is is a fight trainer. He spent 33 years of his life behind the wall as he
puts it. So he is well acquainted with the prison fighting styles that
predominated back in the 60s and 70s. His take on 52 Blocks is that it is
boxing taken to another level. He claims that a lot of the methods seen now,
were created by boxing enthusiasts during the 1960s and 70s. These
fighters worked off boxing as a foundation, and a lot of the techniques they
created were a fusion of western boxing and eastern martial arts such as
Karate, King Fu, Stato etc. It was a quest to find the perfect defense, and to
break the accepted methodologies and rules employed by boxing trainers of
the time to take fighting to another level.

BJ saw that boxers were trapped into fixed ways of fighting and training. His
take on 52 is that you should be able to throw a hook or
a jab from anywhereand still maintain guard, by the use of elbows and
forearms. His philosophy is based on mentor-ship and brotherhood. He
believes in passing on the art form free of charge, and encouraging his
disciples to do the same.