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

Most self-defense and martial arts programs avoid the emotions altogether. Others limit their focus to a somewhat over-simplification of emotional response during a self-defense situation. But, other than being scared or angry, what role do your emotions play in dealing with a dangerous situation? Did you ever think about that?

Other than being reactions to the moment-to-moment occurances as we move through our days, what role do our emotions play. For most of us, it’s kind of like our blood type. Apart from knowing what it is so we don’t end up with the wrong one if we need it, it and the emotions are just things that we “have” and have no control over.

In reality, our emotional states are actually tied to our body’s own natural, human, defense system. That’s right. Your body is already hard-wired for self-defense by design.

The trouble is that, our modern brains, social systems, and cultural, academic, and familial education has virtually made us completely clueless that we have these abilities and functions.

So, what’s the function of our emotions, and how can they help us for self-defense? Excellent question.

It’s not the focus of this article to explain all of the inner workings of your human brain. Let’s just begin with some very simple responses to stimuli from the world around us.

You see, everything that we encounter, causes a feeling, or response at a base, primitive level. This occurs without your even being conscious of it, and also happens below the level of what we normally call our emotions.

These base “feelings” or responses can be generally identified as feelings of:

Attraction – we like it

Aversion – we don’t like it, or…

Apathy – it doesn’t cause us to move either way

Don’t confuse these simple feelings with higher, more involved emotional states like:

Love

Hate, and…

Ignorance

The ones I’m talking about are much simpler and tied not to the higher brain functions, but actually come from your primitive “reptilian” brain – also known as the R-complex – the part of your brain that is primarily centered on self-preservation activities like eating, procreating, and not-dying.

“Why,” you may ask, “do I want to know all this scientific mumbo-jumbo? All I want to do is pick up some moves to defend myself?”

And I would answer, “you don’t have to learn anything.”

Not if you just want to learn your “moves” and then hope that you’ll be able to use them in a real street self-defense situation.

Remember. When you’re training in a martial arts or self-defense class, you’re in a different state – pumped up, happy, having a good time. Right?

Looking at the base feelings I described a minute ago, that would put you in “attraction” mode, where you like what you’re doing and want more of it. The activity – the training – it feels good and, while challenging, probably not very threatening or dangerous at all.

Now, it doesn’t matter if you’ve ever been in a real fight, or ever been attacked by an enraged individual out for blood, I’m sure you can imagine what that’s like. Can’t you almost see his eyes and the angry look on his face. Add to that, the pressure and aggression he’s projecting and the smell of him – we can’t forget the smell and feel of him as he moves in on you.

Are you still in “attraction” mode? I bet not. And you’re not even in the real situation. I’m just describing it and you’re having an “aversion” response.

How do you think it’s going to feel actually being in the heat of the moment?

Absolutely. Very different than in class or your own personal training sessions where there is no real danger.

If you get the idea of the role and great value that your emotions play in keeping you safe. And, if you learn about what role they play in spearheading your body’s own defense mechanisms, then you can also learn to tap into their power and use them as tools for your own defense.

Realizing this will help you to tailor and adjust your current training methods to accomadate, acknowledge, and exploit your emotions as the valuable tools they are.

Remember, any monkey can learn the moves, but a real expert – a real master – takes advantage of things that most students don’t even know about, or don’t know exist. So, do you have to study and use your emotions in your self-defense training? No.

But then, you don’t “have” to breath either. But I’d highly recommend it!

Are you a private individual, law enforcement or security specialist, member of the military, or company manager looking for real-world self-defense training that works?

Get the information you need to survive a real world self-defense situation.

Author: Jeffery Miller

‘Muay Thai’ is one of the most popular spectator sports in Thailand that is also growing in popularity in other countries as well. The furious punches and level of intensive competition becomes ever more intense when watching the fighting up close and personal.

Thai boxing matches are not only frenetic when it comes to the actual fighting but also in the spectators as the furious making of bets takes places with every fight. Other highlights of the matches are the musical accompaniments that feature at the start that utilize a diverse range of instruments.

Boxing in Thailand is more important and symbolical than normal boxing as when fighters enter the ring they perform a special dance and don a headband that is given by their trainers; a sign of their dedication to the sport.

Before the actual commencement of the fight each boxer performs a standard dance that is known as ‘wai khru’ and involves each fighter bending their knees and bowing three times as a sign of respect for their trainers.

Bouts consist of 5 rounds that are each 3 minutes long and are accompanied with a varying level of music that matches the action that is taking place which provides a level of entertainment that is not commonly seen around the world.

These bouts are an important part of Thai culture and heritage representing the rich heritage of the country and its way of life. Visitors to Thailand can catch these bouts at several venues around the country. Matches are held on Fridays at the Boxing Stadium in Phuket while various demonstrations of the boxing style are demonstrated at various tourist destinations around the country, but these are purely for show and are not actually fights.

The Millennium Resort Patong Phuket provides hotel accommodation in Phuket that provides convenient access to the Boxing Stadium offering its guests ample opportunity to visit a spectacular bout.