"Okay, Circle," my Wing Chun teacher, Sifu Anthony Iglesias, will say in class.  If he calls the exercise by its full and somewhat whimsical name – the "Circle of Death" – it prompts the obligatory class joke.

"I don't know, Anthony," I will say.  "We lost two students last week."  (Alternatively, the punchline can go, "You know what happened last time..."  The key is the right deadpan, dubious tone.)

Kidding aside, the "Circle of Death" is one of the best martial arts training tools I've experienced.  The pace and the nature of the exercise are easily controlled, it requires no resources, and students benefit from working with the full diversity of training partners available in class.

Sifu Anthony Iglesias (right) demonstrates a chi sao technique.

The typical Circle of Death is a loose circle of all the students arranged about the perimeter of the training area.  A direction for moving around the Circle is chosen;  we'll assume clockwise for purposes of this article.  The first student enters the center of the Circle and turns to face the classmate who was standing to his or her left.

The classmate attacks and the student at the center of the Circle of Death defends against that attack.  The student then turns to face the next classmate in the Circle, who attacks.  The cycle repeats until the student again faces his or her first "attacker," at which point the two exchange places.  The new student in the center faces the next classmate in the rotation and the pattern begins again.

This simple drill framework is almost limitlessly adaptable to the instructor's training goals.  For example, if the teacher wishes to focus on and emphasize entering techniques, the students could be instructed to attack from within the center, initiating techniques rather than defending against them.  If a specific principle is to be trained – say, moving off the attacking line – the instructor can restrict the techniques used or specify required responses.  "When attacked," the teacher might stipulate, "do not use hand techniques.  Use only footwork to evade the incoming strike."  Alternatively, he or she could make demands:  "When you counterattack I want to see you strike your opponent at least five times."

Hands-on instruction is essential to getting the most
from Circle of Death drills.

Circle of Death training can be completely free-form.  In this, students attack with punches, kicks, or shoots and defenders do whatever they wish to preempt, meet, or counter the attack.  Training can also be used to drill specific techniques learned earlier in class.  Training free-form is a superb substitute for sparring, which can ingrain bad habits (such as pulling punches) and is done from an unrealistic "dueling" standpoint.  Effective self-defense more closely and more often resembles a sudden attack with which the defender must cope.  Compare this to the squared-off contest of sparring partners and the difference is clear.

Combat drills within the Circle of Death permit more realistic contact, too, in that the abbreviated exchange is less risky than the sometimes reckless interaction of sparring.  This is particularly true of lower-level students, who often have more enthusiasm than control.  All students must still use caution, of course, but they can go "harder" knowing the parameters of each brief "match" within the Circle.

When using the Circle of Death to drill specific techniques, the advantages of this format manifest themselves in mandating a variety of training partners.  Students tend to form cliques, or at the very least are predisposed to work with (or avoid) those training partners with whom they are more familiar.  This is natural, but becoming too accustomed to fighting a person of a certain size, or who can be expected to attack a certain way, again ingrains bad habits and limits the student's training.

The instructor can deal with this issue by assigning partners and switching those partners at command, but this can become tiresome and even unworkable with large classes.  The Circle of Death, by design, requires complete variety of available partners, for each student at the Circle's center has no choice but to work with each and every classmate.

Sifu Iglesias demonstrates a technique using the wooden dummy
to illustrate before having the students practice in the Circle of Death.

Another benefit of the Circle of Death training format is that it can be used to control pacing easily.  The instructor can verbally prod each successive student to attack, for example, or simply encourage all participants to initiate their turns as quickly as possible.  This leads to a very fast-paced, demanding session in which the student in the center must develop quick reflexes and has no time to rest or become complacent.

Adjusting the pace of the drill teaches the need for proper focus and concentration, too.  During one intensive evening of the Circle of Death, my instructor – taking a turn in the center himself – got tagged by an attacking student.  "I daydreamed and got hit," he warned us.  "You must have the proper mindset when you're in the Circle."

Permutations of Circle of Death training are limited only by the instructor's imagination.  Any training can be done in this format with slight adjustments.  Students can practice specific punches or kicks while the center occupant performs specific defenses, or each pairing could culminate in a quick grappling match or defense against a specific groundfighting technique.  The classmates in the perimeter could pass a training gun from person to person and the center student could practice gun defenses and disarms.  The Circle of Death is really just an organized tool for matching students and controlling the speed with which they interact.

One wrinkle Sifu Iglesias has introduced in the past is my favorite.  On occasion he will pass rubber training knives around the Circle.  He did this once without my knowledge while I was in the center, using a variety of Wing Chun techniques to defend against incoming blows and shoots.

I am very nearsighted.  Wing Chun is perfectly tailored to my needs, for it is built on the development of touch-go reflexes (practiced through "chi sao" or "sticky hands" drills) that emphasize fighting by feel rather than by sight.  I often train with my glasses off because I've had them knocked from my face more than once.  To be dependent on them for effective fighting would be disastrous, so I fight without them as often as not.  What this means, however, is that I cannot see a rubber knife in an opposing student's hand until it is close enough to "cut" me.

The "Circle of Death" during an informal SWCA knife-defense seminar.

When the knives magically appeared during that Circle of Death, it was a sobering reminder to treat every attack as if the attacker could have a deadly weapon you cannot see.  (This is, of course, very applicable to real-world self-defense, as many attackers will not brandish a knife to warn you that it is coming.)

Any school with a handful of students on hand can host the Circle of Death.  This is a simple tool, a drill framework that can be tailored to the instructor's requirements and adapted constantly to new goals and circumstances.  If you are a teacher and you aren't using this method, I encourage you to try it.  If you are a student and your instructor doesn't employ this drill, you might want to suggest it.

Constructive training should be challenging, goal-oriented, realistic, and fun.