The Infonian

Every student of self-defense and martial arts should learn how to deal with a grab attack. For some though, the prospect of letting an attacker get close enough to take hold of you isn’t pleasant in the least. But, if we can stay focused on scientific principles, we can see that there are only three key points that we need for controlling a self-defense situation where we’re being grabbed by our assailant. The problem for most students though, is in knowing what to be prepared for. I’ve heard more than a few students express the “impossible” nature of preparing for a grabbing situation because…

…there are too many variables.

How will we know what he’s going to do? At least with punching and kicks, they say, you know he’s probably going for your head or your torso. But, against an attacker who likes to grab, you could find yourself defending against things like:

• Single or double-hand frontal chokes
• 2-hand or cross-arm chokes from the rear
• 1 or 2-hand lapel grabs
• Cross or mirror-side wrist or sleeve grabs
• Body-grabs (“bearhugs”)
• Judo-style grabs, and…
• Combination-type grabbing attacks (i.e. sleeve & lapel, etc.)

You have all of these possibilities without even looking at the grab-and-punch or grab-and-kick scenario. So, how can you learn to handle these types of self-defense situations without memorizing a ton of techniques?

The Secret Is In Thinking Strategically

The problem is that most students, and teachers for that matter, tend to think mechanically when it comes to learning self-defense. But, if you’re going to develop any level of mastery with your skills, you’re going to have to start thinking on a strategic level.

What that means is this: You’re going to have to look at principles and ideas, rather than specific details.

When dealing with an assailant who launches a grabbing attack, you need to stay focused on three important elements. If you’ve done your prep work and learned more than just a bunch of pre-rehearsed techniques or kata “examples,” you should be just fine.

What are the 3 Keys? They are:

• Think outside the box. Unfortunately, most of us were raised in a society focused heavily on sports, competition, and “fair play.” Avoid the common tendency to want to wrestle with a wrestler. What that means is this – avoid the tendency to grab him because he’s grabbing you. You must have other skills and techniques that you can use to get him off of you.
• Use leverage and attack weak-points rather than relying on strength. Learn the skill of using strong-points against weak ones as outlined in Sun Tsu’s “Art of War.” A little study about how the body works, specifically how and where it’s strong and the same for how it’s weak, will go a long way toward being able to escape from a bigger, stronger opponent.
• Remain covered. Boxers, and martial artists who focus on punching and kicking, know the importance of covering their targets against the possibility of incoming blows. Wrestlers tend to forget or, worse yet, never learn this. But, you must remember that a self-defense situation is NOT a sport competition where you are both limited by a set of rules to doing the same things to each other. Just because you can execute that wrist-grab escape, doesn’t mean that you’ve also eliminated potential targets for him to hit with his follow-up attack.

Keep these keys in mind when you’re training, and make sure that you’re learning from someone who does the same. There’s much more to defending against a brutal attacker than simply executing a textbook perfect self-defense move.

Go ahead and learn the cool moves. But also make sure that you’re learning how to think strategically. Thinking strategically is one of the marks of a true master. Regardless of whether your focus is on martial arts, ninja training, or whatever… if your goal is real-world self-defense skills, then you need to avoid falling for, what I call, the Karate-Myth.

Author: Jeffery Miller

For most students studying martial arts and self defense training, there is a critical, life-threatening mistake that they’re making. This mistake is so important that, if not corrected, you could find yourself worse off in a self-defense situation than someone who never studied martial arts and self-defense at all. This critical mistake is part of what I call, the Karate-Myth. It, along with a host of other “”false-beliefs”" can not only render all of your hard work, study, and martial arts and self-defense training completely useless…

…It can get you broken, maimed, or killed in a real-world attack from a criminal attacker who isn’t going soft and slow like your training partners in your martial arts or self-defense class!

And you know what?

Its not just a mistake that students are making. This mistake is being made AND passed-on by so-called self-defense experts and martial arts black belts too!

Let’s get something very clear before I let you in on my little secret. And that something is this…

…It doesn’t matter_

• how well you think you know a martial arts technique, or…
• how good you are at doing that self-defense move in class.

All that will matter when the rubber-meets-the-road and you’re face-to-face (or worse) with a brutal attacker who wants you dead is…

…CAN YOU DO IT THEN?!

You must realize something right now, and make no mistake about it. You must understand that, unlike most people in your life – unlike your mom, significant other, or fellow martial arts or self-defense students…

A real attacker:

• doesn’t care what color your belt is
• doesn’t care how many techniques you know
• isn’t impressed with the names of the people you’ve studied under
• isn’t going to help you do your technique correctly like your friend in class does – and a ton of other things you might use to impress others with your skill and “knowledge.”

He only cares about one thing and one thing only. And that one thing is crushing or beating you down and getting what he wants from you.

That “”thing”" could be to:

• win the argument you were having
• get your money
• get what you were protecting
• make a point or statement (as in the case of terrorism or workplace violence)
• make you suffer, or…
• take your life!

So what is this grand mistake? I think you have a pretty good idea by now, don’t you?

The mistake I’m talking about is wrongly believing that training in either the martial arts or a self-defense class without the knowledge, understanding, and experience of what a real self-defense situation is like…

…will allow you to effectively defend yourself against a street punk with real knife, or a 280 pound drunk dock worker who has you in a bone-crushing bear-hug and squeezing the very life out of your lungs!

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that you go get into a bunch of fights, or walk through the worst parts of town looking to get mugged so you can get real-life self-defense experience.

But, you can at least make sure that the person you’re training with – that you’re learning self-defense from – HAS the experience and knowledge you need.

You must find a teacher, mentor, or master with real-world experience or your training will end up being like the “blind-leading-the-blind!” If you don’t know what you need, you have to find someone who does. And, if you don’t have the experience, you MUST find a teacher who does.

A street-fighting self-defense situation is not the time to find out that what you’ve been spending your hard-earned time, money, and effort on…

Doesn’t work!

Author: Jeffery Miller

Contrary to popular belief, the you have a set of default, built-in defense modes that can be brought into play in your defense in a self defense situation. In this article, I’ll briefly discuss these modes and how you can use them to imcrease your chances during an attack. If you look at most martial arts and self-defense classes, you can easily come to the belief that all you have to do is pickup a bunch of moves or techniques, train until you can execute them well, and…presto, that’s it. You’re a master or self-defense expert.

But, there is one aspect that’s routinelY absent from most self defense training. And that is the addition of your body’s emotions as tools for defense.

In the past few years, systems and programs have come on the scene that focus on what’s known as “adrenal response training.” These programs, however, tend to concentrate on just one of these emotional states, or modes.

There are actually four of these modes that we can find ourselves in when confronted with danger. Each state is a natural response to several factors including things like your:

1. Perception of danger or level of threat

2. Personality type

3. Rules and restrictions that your aware of as a part of your job

And many more

Each of these modes is more than a mood, state, or condition which we might find ourselves in. They also control, in many ways, how we process information, and even work to free or limit certain types of body movement.

The Four Response Modes Are:

Stable/Confident

Adaptable/Defensive

Direct/Aggressive

Slippery/Evasive

As I said, each of these modes is both a reaction to the current situation, and a strategy for handling a situation in a very unique way. As a general outline, I’ll briefly explain each mode from both a reactive and a controlling perspective.

Please note that these modes are in no particular order of importance, nor is one better than any of the others. Although you may find that a particular mode or two feel more comfortable or “natural” for you, each should be viewed as an added benefit that can be employed in a self-defense situation. And, as I’ve said time and again, the more options you have in any given situation, the greater your chances for getting the results you want.

Stable/Confident “Earth” Mode. This attitude is marked by a general sense of relaxed calm. You really don’t perceive a threat and you are in command of the encounter. Notice that I didn’t say that you stubbornly held your ground and forced a sense of command. In what I call the “earth-mode,” you use superior positioning and relaxed strength to stop his attacks and direct your strong points against his weak ones, using leverage and crushing pressure to halt his assault.

Adaptive/Defensive “Water” Mode. Just like water, you adapt to his movements. You use long-range, defensive angling to draw out his attacks and then crash back in with powerful strategic attacks of your own to his exposed weak targets. This mode is usually present when you feel overwhelmed by his size, strength, or other factors. You naturally want to create time and distance between you and your opponent so that he has to work harder to get you.

Direct/Aggressive “Fire” Mode. Either out of fear, anger, or a need to get him first, you move in and direct the fight to the attacker. In this “fire” mode, you are almost pulled in by a sense of urgency and a need to get things over with quickly. When I say “aggressive,” I don’t necessarily mean destructive, but instead there’s a direct, committed, “go-for-it” attitude that drives you directly in to meet the assailant before he can really get started. Again, this mode may be triggered by anger just as readily as it could be initiated out of a feeling of being cornered and needing to take action right away.

Slippery/Evasive “Wind” Mode. This mode is marked by a very free, open movement with a sense of last-second timing to slip, avoid, and trap the opponent with his own attempted strikes. The posture associated with this mode is very open and looks very different when compared against the more common martial arts and self-defense stances that you usually see. This mode could be caused by a complete desire to avoid the situation altogether. It could also be used in a playful, confusing way as you effortlessly evade your attacker’s punches, kicks, and grabs only to catch him with your own attacks from seemingly invisible and confusing angles.

Like I said, no one one mode is better than any other. Each is a natural response that is hardwired within us and a piece of our overall natural human self-defense mechanisms.

While all of us has steered toward one or another of these modes throughout our lives, and perceive our chosen one as being “only natural” for us. The reality is that, with training, each mode can be developed, re-activated, and honed as a very advantageous strategic option for dealing with a real-world self-defense encounter against a very real-world attacker.

Author: Jeffery Miller

When it comes to protecting our targets against an opponent’s attacks, especially striking attacks, a martial art student focusing on real-world\effective self-defense must be careful that you’re not overlooking one. While this target may be virtually invisible to most attackers, not to mention martial arts students and instructors, going up against a skilled fighter who knows how to exploit this weakness can have you on the losing end with a badly damaged arm, if not more, when everything is said and done it’s all over. What is this target?

And how can an attacker get to this target and you end up with a broken arm, or close to it, as a bare minimum?

Before I answer that question, here’s one for you.

Have you ever seen a boxer’s stance? Have you ever watched boxers move around during a match?

I’m sure you have.

Now, how do they hold their arms?

held almost vertically. Right?

And they do it for safety – to protect their heads and faces from being pummeled by the other guy’s fists, right?

Of course.

One more question.

Have you ever looked at pictures or film footage of one of the old-style boxers? You know, like Joe Lewis, or even those who came before him? Have you ever seen how those guys stood back then, or held their arms…before boxing gloves were used?

If you haven’t, you really should do some research so you can understand what I’m talking about. Especially if you’re serious about being able to survive against an assailant who’s serious about beating, breaking, or even killing you.

To cut to the chase, here’s a little about the old school, bare-fisted fighters. Even those who fought with gloves, didn’t have the kind of padding that you see today. So, they positioned their arms and fists in very different positions than modern boxers.

And why was that?

Because they knew that holding your arms vertically in front of your attacker’s fists, would get them beaten. They also knew that if their arms were hit while in this position, that they also stood the chance of punching themselves in the face with their own knuckles!

What does this have to do with anyone learning self-defense. Simple. Because many systems are teaching their students to fight or defend themselves with their arms in this modern boxer position.

“So,” you might be saying, “what’s the problem?”

The problem is that not knowing why something is done, or why it works in one context, can lead you to think that it works all the time. And, particularly when we’re talking about self defense and not-dying at the hands of some crazy maniac, this is certainly important.

The reason that modern boxers can position their arms the way they do is because of their gloves. Sport martial artists fighting in competitions can get away with this too. It’s because the opponent’s knuckles are covered with padding that keeps your arms from getting damaged. So, these fighters generally avoid the arms as a target. They know that it’s pointless.

But, without gloves, your attacker’s knuckles can deal a lot of damage to the narrow bones of the forearm. Something that’s just not a problem in in a sport fight.

The point here is this: if you’re studying martial arts to win trophies or to get belts, do whatever style you want and all the luck to you. However, if you’re trying to develop the ability to protect yourself against a brutal assailant who will do anything to win, there are certain mistakes you can’t afford to make.

So, regardless of what you’ve been told, avoid holding your arms vertically or at least turned with the broad back of the forearm toward your assailant and rely on distance to keep the attacker from going after your arms. After all, it’s going to be really hard to throw your own punches with arms that have been weakened or even broken because you put them out there for him to beat on.

Author: Jeffery Miller