As civilian Krav Maga practitioners, we generally avoid takedowns because our goal is not to restrain or eliminate an attacker, but to eliminate the threat and go home safe. Throws and takedowns serve an important purpose for military and law enforcement, but for the rest of us they may unnecessarily prolong the fight and greatly increase the chances of creating a grappling match or going to the ground. Perhaps the most fundamental reason why we de-emphasize takedowns is because what we do emphasize are techniques that can be performed by people of all shapes, sizes, and abilities. Compared to a swift groin kick and a punch in the nose, an effective takedown generally requires greater athleticism and much more training time. But this is not to say that takedowns are never of use to even the least trained and least athletic of us. In this week’s Fight class, we trained some scenarios in which takedowns were our best option for regaining control of a bad situation.

I’m not going to reiterate the details and nuances of the techniques and drills. (You should have been in class!) Rather, this is just a quick recap of the highlighted situations. Be aware that these are not the only applications for these particular techniques.

Single-leg Takedown

When we throw knees, we do so in such a way to limit the possibility of our leg getting grabbed. If our leg does happen to get snatched up, we have a powerful counter for it. What if, though, the roles are reversed, and we find ourselves on the receiving end of knees? The single-leg takedown is one of our best options. Though the preference is to have the head on the inside, body positioning may dictate that the head be on the outside.

Knee Taps and Toe-Picks/Single-leg Hyperextension

From early on in training, we teach the following sequence (simplified here) for when you’re going to the ground: Fall break, tactical position, move, kick to create space, get up. In most situations, this series of techniques (with minor variations due to the dynamics of the fight) will serve you best in getting back to your feet and finding an exit. But when would it not be the preferred option? How about this: you’ve fallen to all fours and you’ve got two or more people stomping on you. Do you think being in Back Position is going to facilitate our strategies for handling multiple attackers [1, 2]? No, better would be to snag the leg of the nearest assailant; slam him or her to the ground (preferably hyperextending a knee along the way); then get up as protected as possible, using the fallen thug to stack the remaining threats.

These techniques are newly added to Krav Maga. For those who trained them this week, what did you think? Effective? For those who didn’t, are you excited to attend Fight class?!

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