A great job by my Grumpy Old Friend, next time he’ll know to choke the crook to death rather than let the wheels of injustice turn
A student of mine was with his family in Covent Garden last week, a middle aged guy who is able to train only occasionally, an hour-long class once per week from which he sometimes has to take several weeks off. A drunk confronted him and put his hands up into a fighting guard. Our guy immediately did the UKM technique of striking the guard so attacker gets hit with his own arms in the face. This put the guy on the floor, dazed.
Lessons:
If you cut out the bullshit you can teach people to defend themselves even when they can’t train often;
This is a technique taught my Father by Gypsies in the 1930s that he taught me, and I’ve adapted over the years. Beware styles that claim to be “pure” or the “real big, tough military deal and everything else is shite” Many nations/peoples have fighting traditions, many of which have benefitted from exposure to a variety of influences over many years; we’d be letting our students down if we limited ourselves to just one of those of relatively recent pedigree.
The first was a good job by one of our students in Miami after only 4 lessons from out lady in Napoli, Sara:
I arrived in miami and was waiting for the shuttle to the rental car lot when a guy tried to grab my bookbag and run i held on and he tried to push me up against the bus stop walls. I clapped his ears which caused him to stagger i pushed him away and he ran off
Lessons from this:
Be very aggressive, simple and direct with an extremely debilitating attack that screws the guy’s brain. A lot of attackers are on something and very fired up so an old fashioned punch in the gub doesn’t always do much good. This sort of attack is to be recommended, as is training people to respond under pressure so they can handle crap like this.
N.B. don’t allow students to make any contact with ears when training this, too dangerous.
The next took place in an unspecified overseas country. Nic (not real name) takes up the story:
I was at a bar the other night with my friends and all of a sudden i saw a guy know talking to another guy..it was a heated argument and before you knew it there was a fight. We managed to break them up and took the guy i know into the bar’s kitchen. He was so mad he grabbed a screw driver and tried to go out and stab the other guy. Immediately I locked his elbow and applied pressure to his thumb and he released it, just like we did at training ! I managed to talk him out of it, he went outside and the other guy was there calling him a cunt etc..This time my friend was holding a glass..I knew i had to do something because i was really close to him so I called another friend who grabbed him and started pushing him back and I did the same movement as before to get him to release the glass though i was a bit gentle this time because I didn’t wanna apply too much pressure and break the glass. I don’t know if that was the right thing to do, but that was the first thing that came in my mind! In the end, I managed to talk him out of it again and sent him on his way. No blood was shed, no one was injured or stubbed! Thank you Stewart for teaching me all these things, how to keep calm and how to handle situations! Darren keep up the good work, i’m waiting for you guys to visit !
Lessons: a bit of a contrast to the first story. Here Nic did a really good job in restraining his friends and getting the weapons neutralised without anybody getting hurt. Sometimes you need to be able to do this: it can be easier just to beat the crap out of everybody, and Nic is a useful guy, but you don’t want to do that with your mates after they have had a couple of beers so a truly comprehensive system will pay attention to “non-lethal” force and realistic techniques thereof.
Nic took a bit of a risk with that disarm against a glass but the alternative was to do something that could have done his elbow in pretty badly and what you did worked so you made the right choice.
Nic, we will gladly visit one day, just don’t take us out drinking with your mates.
Check out this clip from our forthcoming App/DVD, working title: The Bigger They Come, the Harder They Fall:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn_gNiOmHiE&list=UUdlRwrYhMMtAtue2bw1c7tg&index=1&feature=plcp
Here is an extract from a conversation I had with one of my colleagues about why thje girl in the clip put the arm-bar on the guy.
Alan:
Be interested in your opinion of this technique versus getting a knee/shin into the attackers hips to get a bit of distance and then striking to the face with the other foot. Intuitively I’d tend towards the 2nd technique. That seems to offer the best opportunity of getting back up on you feet in the shortest time. Happy to stand corrected though.
McGill:
Hi Alan, that technique is the best way of getting up but for female self defence the priorities can be different. Women are attacked one-to-one more often that guys so the pressing need to get up is not as great as it would be in a mob fight involving guys. And her’s the rub, check out the size difference between Theresa and Leo: if she kicks him in the face he’s probably going to get over it and when she gets up she’s going to have to outfight him or outrun him. Wouldn’t bet on either to be honest mate so it’s better if she can break something using a leveraged technique like this, then she can get up more safely. Make sense?
Alan:
Perfect sense. I like the fact that you’ve considered the context. As most sexual assaults are carried out in fringe areas (i.e. by definition where there’s no one nearby) then I suppose the girl can take time to finish the job on the ground.
Please see below. It’s from an e-mail sent to my fellow instructor Darren Selley. I post with no comment other than due respect to Darren and his student and a statement of dislike for facile sectarianism in Martial Arts.:
Hi Darren
I had my annual officer safety training today
I proudly wore our hoody
The instructor commented that he did real Krav Maga
And had not heard of Urban Krav Maga
And others noticed his annoyance
Lol
At the end of the training
The instructor said I was impressive
And he would be happy to patrol with me
When I told him I had only attended 5 sessions and had not trained since feb due to injury
He was further impressed
I think your skill as a trainer shines through
And the effectiveness of the system speaks for its self
