See within the Fight | Boston Metro Kenpo Karate · Krav Maga · Fitness

Krav Maga Knife Defense Drills: Quick Observations

Cold Steel Knives We’ve been focusing on knife defenses in Fight class for the last several weeks, gradually increasing the intensity of the drills by combining the defenses with higher levels of contact. One drill looked like this:

The knife-wielding attacker wore headgear, mouthpiece, and a body protector. He or she was restricted to upward and downward stabs with the right hand, but the assault was frenzied and relentless.

The defender wore headgear, mouthpiece, and a 16-oz glove on the right hand only. Ideally, he or she made a 360° Defense against the first stab with a simultaneous counter with ACTUAL impact, transitioned to a control position, and continued with combatives until the threat was neutralized or enough space was created to escape the room.

The defender performed the drill five times consecutively. Each iteration began with decreased space between the participants. The first began with enough space that the defender could use a Defensive Front Kick if he or she chose. The last began nose-to-nose.

[Read more…]

Law of the Instrument

11.04.10 By Patrick 1 Comment

You’re probably familiar with Abraham Maslow’s maxim, “It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” It is actually a variation on a concept written by Abraham Kaplan two years earlier: “I call it the law of the instrument, and it may be formulated as follows: Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding.”

You’ve likely also heard “Never box a boxer, never wrestle a wrestler,” an adage attributed to various martial arts figures, depending on whom you ask. Each of these fighting styles becomes its practitioner’s Golden Hammer: a boxer and a wrestler will each rely on his or her respective skill set, no matter the situation. I’m generalizing, of course, but this is a fighting reality and is especially evident in many MMA events. A fighter who is dominant in one aspect of the fight game (boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, BJJ) will try to keep the fight in that mode at all costs, even when his or her corner is screaming otherwise.

Our system of Krav Maga is designed with this in mind, so our techniques are well-rounded and cover both stand-up and groundfighting. Standing and trading blows with a boxer or groundfighting with a wrestler is not an effective means of finishing the fight and going home safe. However, even within our versatile training, we are no less subject to the Law of the Instrument. Our Golden Hammer? Almost without exception, it’s knee strikes. Early on in our Krav Maga training, most of us discover that knees are devastating close-range weapons; true fight-finishers. Knees become the go-to combative, and most of us throw them regardless of how our partner is reacting.

Does that mean that we should ease up on the knees? No! Just don’t try to force their application in a scenario where a more suitable tool could be used. Try to keep these important points in mind:

Am I using my nearest weapon against the nearest target?
Am I using the most effective weapon against the most vulnerable target?
Am I unnecessarily leaving openings in my defenses in order to throw this type of combative?

If knee strikes fit those criteria, then keep these points in mind (see also Knees in Review):

Establish a secure control position with your elbow down, forearm against the neck, weight down, hips and legs back in a strong fighting stance.
See within the Fight. Your opponent might instinctively be covering his or her midsection, so instead of automatically launching a knee to the solar plexus, hunt for the nearest open target.
Once you’ve homed in on an open target, it’s tempting to rip off a half dozen knees to same place, but your opponent is going to wise to this pretty quickly. Think about alternating between high and low targets to create new openings.
It bears repeating: at every stage, be mindful of your hip and leg positioning! Don’t be a textbook takedown dummy!

“All’s you have to do is _____.”

06.22.10 By Patrick 7 Comments

Vulcan nerve pinch — – "What the hell are you doing?"
– "The Vulcan neck pinch?"
– "No, no, no, stupid, you've got it much too high. It's down here where the shoulder meets the neck."

One of our Phase B instructors, Pete Hardy of STW Krav Maga in San Antonio, derided and warned us against ever using the phrase “all’s you have to do is [fill in the blank]”. As in, “if someone tries to attack you, all’s you have to do is apply the Vulcan nerve pinch.”

Sounds ridiculous, right? Sure, my example uses a much-lampooned chop-saki-type move, but it’s not too far off from the reality of claims within the self-defense community. There are many “systems” and many “experts” out there that assert themselves as The Ultimate Self-Defense Solution in disabling an assailant with one technique for which there is no defense. Don’t get me wrong, I fully believe in the power of pressure points and strikes to sensitive areas. (A lot of the more esoteric George Dillman no-touch knockout stuff, however, is a leap a bit too far for me.) But anyone claiming that something of the sort is the singular key to walking confidently down a dark alley is selling you a bill of goods.

Krav Maga, for all its effectiveness, is not The Ultimate Self-Defense Solution either, but it has also never claimed to be. It is easy to learn and implement, but you still must constantly train. Its techniques are comprehensive and can be applied to multiple scenarios, but you must be able to see within the fight to the next “thing”. This is where most other systems fail, relying on one technique to end a fight.

Will a swift kick to the groin demolish the will of most attackers? Yes. But what if it doesn’t?

Will our rotating defense defeat a choke up against a wall? Yes. But what happens when the attacker pulls his arms free and throws a punch?

Fighting is dynamic. Don’t fall into the trap of believing that once you’ve learned a technique for a specific scenario that an altercation would immediately end upon the technique’s successful execution. Admittedly, this can be a slippery slope to 27 ninjas, but not if you stick to the see-within-the-fight concept and hard training.

I will offer one possible exception: In many instances “all’s you have to do is” have situational awareness. It must always be stressed that by being aware of your environment you can avoid most dangers. Being able to read a person’s body language and verbiage, you can hopefully avoid or deescalate a tense situation. Or at least surprise them with the Vulcan nerve pinch.

Wait, I think it’s your turn…?

05.13.10 By Patrick 4 Comments

In the last several Level 2 classes, we’ve been adding piecemeal to a long give-and-take sparring drill to develop our use of combinations, our ability to see within the fight, and our ability (willingness?!) to take some impact. It also began challenging concentration and memory! Everyone learns differently, so just for fun, here’s the drill in some different formats.

In text format:

A throws a left-right combination at B.

B uses Inside Defenses to redirect the punches, stepping to the dead side of A‘s right punch and throwing a right round kick to A‘s midsection and a left hook to A‘s head.

A absorbs the kick and uses the covering defense against the hook, which loads him/her for a liver shot / left hook / right straight combo.

B absorbs the liver shot, uses the covering defense against the hook, uses Inside Defense against the right straight, then throws a right round kick to A‘s midsection and a left hook to A‘s head.

A absorbs the kick, bobs under the hook, weaves to the dead side, then throws a right round kick to B‘s left leg.

B uses the Defense against Low Round Kick (Using the Shin), then throws a groin kick.

A uses the Defense against Front Kick (Redirecting with Shin)

– Try to remember who started last time, then switch roles and repeat!

In graphic format:

Click to enlarge

In binary:
0100000100100000011101000110100001110010011011110111011101110011001000 0001100001001000000110110001100101011001100111010000101101011100100110100101 1001110110100001110100001000000110001101101111011011010110001001101001011011 1001100001011101000110100101101111011011100010000001100001011101000010000001 0000100010111000001101000010100100001000100000011101010111001101100101011100 1100100000010010010110111001110011011010010110010001100101001000000100010001 1001010110011001100101011011100111001101100101011100110010000001110100011011 1100100000011100100110010101100100011010010111001001100101011000110111010000 1000000111010001101000011001010010000001110000011101010110111001100011011010 0001100101011100110010110000100000011100110111010001100101011100000111000001 1010010110111001100111001000000111010001101111001000000111010001101000011001 0100100000011001000110010101100001011001000010000001110011011010010110010001 1001010010000001101111011001100010000001000001100100100111001100100000011100 1001101001011001110110100001110100001000000111000001110101011011100110001101 1010000010000001100001011011100110010000100000011101000110100001110010011011 1101110111011010010110111001100111001000000110000100100000011100100110100101 1001110110100001110100001000000111001001101111011101010110111001100100001000 0001101011011010010110001101101011001000000111010001101111001000000100000110 0100100111001100100000011011010110100101100100011100110110010101100011011101 0001101001011011110110111000100000011000010110111001100100001000000110000100 1000000110110001100101011001100111010000100000011010000110111101101111011010 1100100000011101000110111100100000010000011001001001110011001000000110100001 1001010110000101100100001011100000110100001010010000010010000001100001011000 1001110011011011110111001001100010011100110010000001110100011010000110010100 1000000110101101101001011000110110101100100000011000010110111001100100001000 0001110101011100110110010101110011001000000111010001101000011001010010000001 1000110110111101110110011001010111001001101001011011100110011100100000011001 0001100101011001100110010101101110011100110110010100100000011000010110011101 1000010110100101101110011100110111010000100000011101000110100001100101001000 0001101000011011110110111101101011001011000010000001110111011010000110100101 1000110110100000100000011011000110111101100001011001000111001100100000011010 0001101001011011010010111101101000011001010111001000100000011001100110111101 1100100010000001100001001000000110110001101001011101100110010101110010001000 0001110011011010000110111101110100001000000010111100100000011011000110010101 1001100111010000100000011010000110111101101111011010110010000000101111001000 0001110010011010010110011101101000011101000010000001110011011101000111001001 1000010110100101100111011010000111010000100000011000110110111101101101011000 1001101111001011100000110100001010010000100010000001100001011000100111001101 1011110111001001100010011100110010000001110100011010000110010100100000011011 0001101001011101100110010101110010001000000111001101101000011011110111010000 1011000010000001110101011100110110010101110011001000000111010001101000011001 0100100000011000110110111101110110011001010111001001101001011011100110011100 1000000110010001100101011001100110010101101110011100110110010100100000011000 0101100111011000010110100101101110011100110111010000100000011101000110100001 1001010010000001101000011011110110111101101011001011000010000001110101011100 1101100101011100110010000001001001011011100111001101101001011001000110010100 1000000100010001100101011001100110010101101110011100110110010100100000011000 0101100111011000010110100101101110011100110111010000100000011101000110100001 1001010010000001110010011010010110011101101000011101000010000001110011011101 0001110010011000010110100101100111011010000111010000101100001000000111010001 1010000110010101101110001000000111010001101000011100100110111101110111011100 1100100000011000010010000001110010011010010110011101101000011101000010000001 1100100110111101110101011011100110010000100000011010110110100101100011011010 1100100000011101000110111100100000010000011001001001110011001000000110110101 1010010110010001110011011001010110001101110100011010010110111101101110001000 0001100001011011100110010000100000011000010010000001101100011001010110011001 1101000010000001101000011011110110111101101011001000000111010001101111001000 0001000001100100100111001100100000011010000110010101100001011001000010111000 0011010000101001000001001000000110000101100010011100110110111101110010011000 1001110011001000000111010001101000011001010010000001101011011010010110001101 1010110010110000100000011000100110111101100010011100110010000001110101011011 1001100100011001010111001000100000011101000110100001100101001000000110100001 1011110110111101101011001011000010000001110111011001010110000101110110011001 0101110011001000000111010001101111001000000111010001101000011001010010000001 1001000110010101100001011001000010000001110011011010010110010001100101001011 0000100000011101000110100001100101011011100010000001110100011010000111001001 1011110111011101110011001000000110000100100000011100100110100101100111011010 0001110100001000000111001001101111011101010110111001100100001000000110101101 1010010110001101101011001000000111010001101111001000000100001010010010011100 1100100000011011000110010101100110011101000010000001101100011001010110011100 1011100000110100001010010000100010000001110101011100110110010101110011001000 0001110100011010000110010100100000010001000110010101100110011001010110111001 1100110110010100100000011000010110011101100001011010010110111001110011011101 0000100000010011000110111101110111001000000101001001101111011101010110111001 1001000010000001001011011010010110001101101011001000000010100001010101011100 1101101001011011100110011100100000011101000110100001100101001000000101001101 1010000110100101101110001010010010110000100000011101000110100001100101011011 1000100000011101000110100001110010011011110111011101110011001000000110000100 1000000110011101110010011011110110100101101110001000000110101101101001011000 1101101011001011100000110100001010010000010010000001110101011100110110010101 1100110010000001110100011010000110010100100000010001000110010101100110011001 0101101110011100110110010100100000011000010110011101100001011010010110111001 1100110111010000100000010001100111001001101111011011100111010000100000010010 1101101001011000110110101100100000001010000101001001100101011001000110100101 1100100110010101100011011101000110100101101110011001110010000001110111011010 010111010001101000001000000101001101101000011010010110111000101001

The Repetitive Nature of Training Is Not Killing Me

04.23.10 By Patrick 5 Comments

$fractal$

Subtitle: Krav Homework Sucks a Lot Less Than Trigonometry

There’s a very important but sometimes neglected concept in learning self-defense. Really, it applies to developing any new skill, be it Krav Maga, playing piano, or knitting. It’s practice, or as we like to refer to it to make it sound more intense: training.

Krav Maga as a system is designed to quickly build proficiency in students and provide them with tools that remain effective under stress and/or from a position of disadvantage that will neutralize a threat and keep them safe.

[Read more…]

Krav Maga Knife Defense Drills: Quick Observations

Law of the Instrument

“All’s you have to do is _____.”

Wait, I think it’s your turn…?

The Repetitive Nature of Training Is Not Killing Me

Subtitle: Krav Homework Sucks a Lot Less Than Trigonometry

Our Instructors

What People Are Saying

Academy News

Easy Like Sunday Morning

Fall 2020 Live & Online Schedules

COVID-19 Update 03/20/20

Contact Us