Kenpo Budokan Karate: White Belt: Lessons: 11 – Knife Held to the Stomach from the Front

On February 1, 2016 By masterkenpodragonIn 10 Kyuu - White Belt, Belt Requirements, Hakko Goshin Jutsu, Hamono Goshin Jutsu, Kenpo Budokan Karate, Lessons, Self Defense Techniques, Techniques and FormsLeave a comment

Knife Held to the Stomach from the Front (十級刃物護身術)

The first thing to remember about the white belt self defense techniques against a weapon is that they are not designed to be complete techniques, but are designed to start building your skill and confidence against weapons attacks. As you go through the motions and start watching other video lessons on the subject, the scenario described in this technique is not only relatively rare, but relatively unrealistic. The person is not likely to just stand there and threaten you with a knife, there is probably going to be a lot more motion, and a lot less notice that you are going to be attacked with a knife.

The primary rule of knife fighting is to protect your inner wrists and neck. Beyond that, your biggest issue is not slashing, but stabbing. In later levels we will deal with stabbing motions, but for now we will address a static attacker holding a knife to your stomach. Again, as with all the weapons defense techniques, after you feel comfortable with the static moves, you should add a lot more realism into your defense practice by adding dynamic motion.

Instructions

This assumes the attacker is holding the knife out with their right arm (since most people are right handed).

Using the outside of the right hand you are going to parry the knife to the outside as your turn your body and “catch” the attacker’s arm between your left and right hands.
Rotate your body towards the attacker, collapsing their elbow, and pointing the knife at their face
Grab their head and drive them downwards into your knee
Finish the twist of the knife out of their hand to end the disarm
Cover out, and discard or put the knife in a safe place

Breakdown

The focus of this movement needs to be on control. As soon as you start moving, the attacker will either try and continue the motion and stab you, or will try to pull away. You need to use this motion to your advantage and ensure that the attacker is not able to completely pull away from you so they can come back at you with a stabbing motion. The key here is getting their hand locked after you parry the blade off to the side. Once you are in this position, the knife as a stabbing agent is fairly neutralized, and you have a bit more leeway in terms of your defense technique and motion. The ultimate scenario is one where you are able to twist the knife out of the attackers hand by sliding your hand down to the hilt of the knife, and taking control through the twisting torque motion, and throwing the attacker off guard by driving them downwards and a knee towards their face.

During this maneuver, however, you need to be careful that the point of the blade is facing away from you. If you are in the situation where the point is still facing you, you do not want to drive a knee upwards as this could potentially expose you to getting stabbed in your leg. Here is a fun fact when it comes to knives – most knives attackers use aren’t designed for stabbing, and therefore the potential for injury is limited to your ability to control the situation. Now, if you do find yourself in a situation where you are faced with an attacker with a “proper attacking knife” who knows how to use a knife (trained knife fighter), then most likely they aren’t just coming up to you and trying to threaten you with a knife in your stomach. They will be moving the blade around, as well as using their other hand to distract you enough to stab you through the weakest areas of your body. This is why, in this scenario, it is vitally important that you get control of the attacker, and neutralize the knife and their ability to maneuver it.

Things to Work On

Just like the gun attacks, we are focusing our efforts on getting to the outside of the attacker’s body. It is a lot harder for them turn their elbow outward then it is for them to turn their elbow inwards. One thing to notice as you begin the practice, holding your arm out straight is relatively easy, but it even easier to collapse your attacker’s elbow and roll into their attacks. Make sure you aren’t trying to strong arm this technique, but rather focus on using the leverage you have outside the arm moving the attacker into their own knife.

Concluding Thoughts

As with all weapon attacks, it is critically important that you practice this until you not only feel comfortable with the maneuver, but also able to perform it from both sides and in a dynamic motion and situation. The sooner you can move to this phase of training the better. Additionally, get your hands on some dulled knives to practice with rather than rubber or plastic weapons. The more realistic you can make the practice, the better your chances for success are in the field.

Kenpo Budokan Karate: White Belt: Lessons: 10 Gun to the Stomach from the Front

On February 1, 2016 By masterkenpodragonIn 10 Kyuu - White Belt, Belt Requirements, Hakko Goshin Jutsu, Kenjuu Goshin Jutsu, Kenpo Budokan Karate, Lessons, Self Defense Techniques, Techniques and FormsLeave a comment

Gun to the Stomach from the Front (十級拳銃護身術)

As we mentioned in the previous lesson introducing weapon self defense techniques, the primary focus of defense against a weapon needs to be your ultimate safety. For the vast majority of situations, giving up the wallet or car keys is going to be your best option. In addition, if you just practice this standing still with the attacker standing still, you aren’t going to be very realistic in your practice, so it is highly encouraged that you start practicing the moves using a more dynamic practice, as well as using real weapons (empty) in the mix. If you really want to change things up, try practicing with an air soft gun and some thick padding to prevent any serious injuries with the rules the person is not allowed to shoot until they sense you trying to move.

The ultimate goals of these self-defense techniques is to build up your confidence, so that when you are faced with these situations, you will know how to properly react – including just giving the attacker your money and walking away. The thing about Kenpo is that it teaches you to mentally prepare for any and all eventualities, so we introduce weapons defense at the early stage – as weapons are very frequently found in these situations.

Instructions

These assume the attacker is attacking with the right arm extended.

With your left hand you are going to grab the barrel of the gun as you push it off to the side as you rotate your body.
Your right hand comes up under the gun, and rotates the stock of the weapon disarming your opponent.
Re-grip the weapon, train the weapon on your attacker, and step backwards to give yourself distance and prevent the opponent from reacting further.

English: Selection of internal organs in human... — Selection of internal organs in human anatomy. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Breakdown

So many thing can go wrong, even in the static movements, that we can’t stress enough that this should be done as a matter of ultimate defense, and not as a first reaction to the situation. In this technique, your first order or business is getting out of the direct aim of the gun, wherever the gun is pointed, is where you should expect for it to fire. As long as the gun misses the internal organs and major blood vessels, you should be relatively ok. This is why the motion to move the gun has to coincide with turning the body and stepping out of the way of the gun. If the gun does go off during the move, don’t freak out, but continue to defend yourself. It is for this reason, that we recommend that everyone training against gun self defense spend at least some time out on a firing range to get used to both the mechanics of a firearm as well as the sound and movement it will make when/if it does go off.

The first thing to note is that most guns do not have hair triggers, meaning there needs to be significant motion on the trigger (force and distance) before actually firing, this time of firing is usually sufficient time for you to react enough to get out of the direct line of fire – most attackers, while their finger is on the trigger, won’t have the trigger pulled back far enough for a split-second reaction, but will take a few milliseconds between squeezing and actually firing. The action you perform moving the gun to the side and rolling the stock to disarm can be sufficient enough counter movement to prevent the gun from actually firing.

The second thing to note is that you always want to attack to the outside of the attacker’s body, it’s a lot harder to turn a wrist outward to fire at someone then it is to turn an elbow inward. With all weapon self defense moves, you want to be attacking the attacker and not the weapon – yes you need to disarm the weapon, but you do this by attacking the attacker. In the case of this movement, you are taking advantage of their hand position on the gun itself. The force of the attacker on the gun consists primarily of the squeezing motion on the handgun, this means any attempt to pull the gun forward or push the gun backwards is going to leave the attacker at an advantage. However, lateral movement against the fingers, or rolling motion against the thumb should be sufficient to move the gun out of the attacker’s hand. This is why it is vitally important that during the practice sessions you get the mechanics of the disarm down cold. Have the attacker stand there and hold onto the gun and not let it go, have them squeeze it as hard as possible. Using leverage on your side, get the motion down so that in a situation, you will not only be confident about the movement, but also sure that you know you can disarm the attacker. Having bigger partners for this drill is highly recommended.

Things to Work On

“Move. Get out the way. Get out the way. Move!”

In the lesson on environmental awareness we discuss the issues surrounding self defense situations involving you and others, but it is something we need to bring up at this juncture. When dealing with a projectile weapon, it is VITALLY important that you are aware of your surroundings. Let’s say you get held up at gunpoint while you are walking along the street with your boyfriend/sister/mother/son/etc… If your escort is standing at your right side, and you go through this movement as described, you are likely to get them shot in the process. You will need to see where they are standing to determine what is going on and how best to maneuver the muzzle to ensure they aren’t caught in the crossfire.

So what if the disarm doesn’t work and the two of you are struggling over the weapon? In this situation, you want to be aware of where the gun is pointing, but instead of focusing on getting the gun out of the hand of the attacker – you want to keep your grip on the weapon, but then you want to start attacking and striking the attacker, not focusing on the weapon itself. In the worst case situation, you need to lock onto the weapon and keep it pointed away from everyone and hold it there until help arrives.

Concluding Thoughts

Gun self defense techniques are some of the most dangerous ones out there because too many students either practice too little, or jump to defense too quickly rather than looking at many of the alternatives. The other problem is that most gun self defense practices are very static and use plastic or wooden weapons and not take into account the dynamic struggles that a real weapons self defense scenario involves. As you start practicing this technique, make sure to rapidly move onto the more dynamic situations so that you are better prepared to survive in a situation involving weapons.

Kenpo Budokan Karate: White Belt: Lessons: 8 – Handshake Defense (Gift of Destruction)

On February 1, 2016 By masterkenpodragonIn 10 Kyuu - White Belt, Belt Requirements, Hakko Goshin Jutsu, Kenpo Budokan Karate, Lessons, Self Defense Techniques, Techniques and Forms, Yonko Karate Goshin JutsuLeave a comment

Deadfish handshake (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Handshake Defense (Gift of Destruction)

When the original Kenpo system was developed by Ed Parker, the world was a pretty different place. In today’s society, the prospect of a stranger coming up to you to shake your hand and introduce themselves to you is a pretty remote scenario. However, the fact remains, that you may be in a situation when you are shaking someone’s hand that the conversation gets a bit dicey, and you find yourself in a situation needing to defend yourself. The focus on this technique is not so much as a defense against a handshake, but on the concept of first strikes.

As we mentioned in the self-defense lesson, if you know that you will need to defend yourself, your best defense (other than not being there in the first place), is to create your own windows of opportunity by striking first, before being put on the defensive. There are also a lot of things to consider when doing the technique – thinking about range, angles of attack, and what if scenarios. Pay particular attention when doing the movement to ensure that you are focusing on these concepts.

Instructions

The attacker is shaking your hand – usually the right hand across to your right hand.

Pull your right hand back into your body, as you strike to the outside of the attackers arm with your left arm
Jam the opponent’s arm into their body as you shuffle forward
Strike with your right knee into the groin

Breakdown

The first movement is designed to get the attacker off balance as well as positioning you on the outside of their arm. You want to get outside the attacker because it limits both their ability to strike you with their left arm, as well as limits their options with their feet. After you’ve pulled them off guard, their reaction is most likely to try and pull their hand back, using this motion, push the arm into the attacker jamming their distance and preventing them from coming across with a counter attack. At the same time you want to knee the attacker in the groin. By this time, the attacker should have released their grip on you, freeing you to cover out from the movement.

This movement, at this level, is not in its final form, so is not designed to bring the attacker to a complete level of incapacitation, but rather designed to get you out of the immediate situation, and hopefully get yourself to safety. As part of crossing out, you should maneuver yourself behind the attacker so that you are in a better position to anticipate their movements as well as placing an obstacle between you and the attacker’s weapons. In the situation when you are facing multiple attackers, you should position this attacker between yourself and the other attackers – preventing them from being able to reach you directly without having to go through the former attacker.

Things to Work On

Range and targets of opportunity are the biggest things to work on during this movement. Remember we talked about striking to the groin in a previous lesson, it’s not important to necessarily strike squarely in the groin area, but striking in the general area should be enough to cause enough injury to the attacker to hopefully stop them from proceeding. In addition, the act of bringing up your knee may be enough for the person to flinch and let go of their grip.

Make sure you are jamming the opponent close enough, otherwise they can come across with their left hand and try and strike you. It’s important when practicing this technique that you progress from staying still and performing the movement, and move quickly into a more dynamic role, where you have the attacker move and try and strike you as you perform the technique. In a self defense scenario, the attacker is most likely not going to stand there and just let you strike them – however, the element of surprise and your sudden movements may be enough to keep them off guard as you complete the movement in it’s entirety.

The other thing to think about is working the technique from the opposite hand. The idea with this is you have a person pecocking, and you close in to jam their arm as you drive your knee up to their groin. This technique doesn’t have to start out with a person in a handshake, but the motion can be used in any scenario when the attacker has an outstretched arm – grabbing them by the wrist and going through the motion of the technique. It’s all about bring the attacker off to the side and striking them as you move them through the motion. In addition, you should be aware of the attacker’s motion and reaction, when you pull against them, they will likely pull back, and as a result you can use the force of their pull to drive your knee into their groin (think push pull motion across two people).

Concluding Thoughts

One of the nice things about this movement, is that it can be applied in a variety of situations. In addition, remember, when doing this and all the movements, that you are using your “karate breathing” as well as shouting to ensure that any bystanders understand that “hey get away from me”, and that you are the one being threatened instead of the other way around. Be a bit careful with this motion as well as this technique, as moving into the reactionary phase can get you into trouble. The idea is not to react as soon as someone starts to shake your hand (like other techniques), but to be aware that you need to defend yourself before reacting.

What you don’t want to happen, is get into the reactionary mode, and wind up kneeing everyone who comes to greet you in their groin because you are so used to reacting when someone shakes your hand. Take time to practice this skill, and work on your reactions, but also start being cognoscente of your surroundings and the situation to start reading the scenario rather than just automatically jumping onto the movement. Students, especially beginner students, tend to quickly get into the reactionary stage, and wind up in trouble defending themselves in situations that don’t warrant such a reaction. I had a younger student once caught sleeping at their desk at their high school, and the teacher slammed their fist into the desk, creating a noise and waking the student up. Instead of just waking up, the student reacted like they would in a self-defense situation and flipped the instructor over the desks. Not a fun situation to have to go into the principles office to help explain and apologize for the student’s reaction.

Keep up the training and looking forward to starting working with you on your weapon self defense techniques next.

Kenpo Budokan Karate: White Belt: Lessons: 7 – Single/Double Lapel Grab (Lone / Twin Kimono)

Japanese woman in a wedding kimono. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Single/Double Lapel Grab (Lone / Twin Kimono)

These two moves are for when someone is grabbing your shirt, usually in a pretty threatening maneuver. Since both techniques are relatively the same, we are lumping them both together here for practical purposes. Just as with the other material, the key here is reaction. If you let your attacker grab and solidify their hold, it becomes much harder to escape. One of the key points of this maneuver is the introduction of the Kenpo Shock and Awe concepts.

The move originally gets its name from the Japanese Kimono. Most karate Gis have lapels which are easily grabbed during practice, but most individuals aren’t walking around on the street with a karate Gi. You might be wearing a jacket, or sports coat, and the attacker comes up to you and grabs with either one or both hands. Again, situational awareness should be emphasized so that you don’t wind up in a situation where someone is randomly coming up to you and grabbing your coat.

Another concept with these grabs, is that it introduces the concept of reciprocity. If I’ve committed to grabbing you, and somehow succeed in grabbing you, I’ve lost a great deal of control over the situation, and the defender has a huge advantage here. As an exercise to illustrate, get with your partner and grab their wrist. Without them trying to get out of the move, have them just walk around. What happens? More than likely you are being pulled around with them – even though you still have a strong hold on them, they are controlling your motions. So in these instances, who is really in control?

Self-Defense Tenet #1: Don’t grab.

When you end up grabbing someone, unless you have them in a joint lock or other controlling position, the “grabbed” shares 50% of the control of the situation. Because you want to be in complete control of the situation, we stress that you should limit your grabs of your attacker as much as possible (and when you do, limit them to a controlling position rather than a simple grab). Any grabs you do, should only be transitory as part of a series of movements, and not considered the ultimate goal.

Instructions

Step back with your left leg into a horse stance, as you do so use your left hand to grab the attacker’s hand(s), pinning them to your body.
Execute an upward break with the right arm against the attacker’s arm(s) to shock them in order to loosen their grip and send them off balance.
Execute a right outward back fist to the opponent’s stomach or groin (target of opportunity).
Execute a right inward back knuckle rake against the opponent’s face (target of opportunity).
Break downward with the right arm as you knock the attackers hands off of you.
Execute a right outward chop to the attacker’s throat (target of opportunity).
Cover outwards

Breakdown

As discussed in the introduction, this technique introduces you to both the rule of kenpo shock and awe, and reciprocity. When you are stepping back, you are lowering your center of gravity and the complete movement should be enough to pull your attacker off balance. At the same, time you are striking to loosen their grip on you. All of the strikes should be aimed at the target of opportunity that presents itself to you, and are designed stun and shock the attacker in order to allow you to successfully escape. Just as in the circling wings, you shouldn’t try and strike only the “named” targets above, but rather understand that the strikes are there to add an additional level of efficiency and effectiveness to the move. If you can reach the face for the back knuckle rake, then strike the side of the throat, or the chest. While not as effective as a strike to the face, it still serves its purpose of getting the individual’s grip loosened enough that you can break out by striking down on their arms.

The final strike to the throat is designed to stun the attacker, enabling you to prepare for future encounter, or escape fully to safety. At this level, this move is not considered in its terminal form, and as such, the attacker is most likely not incapacitated. This is why the need to cover out and prepare for future attacks, or better yet, get yourself to safety and out of the situation.

Things to Work On

So what happens when you are attacked by the 7’1″ 650lb bodybuilder and can’t get out of the grip? Can you kick them in the groin? Can you spit in their face? Can you bite them? Lots of different things you can do to the attacker at this juncture to get them to loosen their grip and possibly release you so you can get to safety.

Concluding Thoughts

Make sure you are working this with a partner and covering both sides, left, right and both hands so you get a full coverage of the technique. Lone Kimono is considered one of the key techniques within Kenpo, so proper execution and practice really needs to occur. Slow tension is also a good practice to start incorporating into the practice sessions.

Kenpo Budokan Karate: White Belt: Lessons: 6 – Rear Choke (Circling Wings)

English: Rear Naked Choke as demonstrated by t... — Rear Naked Choke (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Rear Choke (Circling Wings)

Whereas Parting Wings was designed to be reaction before the attacker had their hands all the way around the throat (as they were reaching), circling wings (while still designed to be reactionary), it is designed to occur after getting yourself stuck in a choke hold. In the ideal world, you’ll never have an attacker behind you, and if you do, you’ll have a lot of foresight to prevent you from getting into a situation where someone is behind you choking you.

With all the self defense techniques we teach here, the key is reaction. The faster you can react, the better off you will be in the situation. As soon as you feel the attacker starting to grab you, you should start reacting. The issue at point here is that as the attacker continues their hold on you two things start to happen – in a choke situation, the blood flow starts to lessen, and therefore your abilities start to drastically reduce – the second thing is that as the attacker continues to hold, they will adjust their grip to lock in the hold, increasing the difficulty for you to get out of the situation.

A drill to work on to see this difference is have your partner come up behind you and start the choking motion. Instead of squeezing or choking, have them just rest their hands on your shoulders. Step forward to do the circling wings and notice that their hand just come off, no need to do anything else. Next, have your partner grab you and start squeezing, make sure they have a solid grip on you and have them try locking their fingers together as well. Do the same motion, stepping forward, and notice that they are still holding onto you. Go through the motion and notice that it is much harder to trap their arms during the initial circle then the first scenario.

In a self defense situation, the attacker who is holding onto you is going to take some time to get into a finalized hold, and it is during this small initial window, that you need to react and get out of the situation.

Instructions

Step forward with your left foot, to around 1:30
With your right arm perform an elbow to the person’s face as you come around trapping their arms under your arm.
Execute a left handed spear to the eyes or palm to the face.
Using your left hand, check their arms down as you drive your right elbow upwards (to their jaw or their solar plexus – wherever you have an easy target).
Shift backwards away from the attacker and drive a hammer fist with your right hand to their groin
Cover out

Breakdown

Just like parting wings, this all comes down to distance. Depending on your size and the size of your attacker, the targets you are looking to strike against are different. The end result is that you want to get their hands from around your neck and you move to escape to safety. By and large, the attacker should be close enough for you to drive a spear hand or palm to their face, if not, attack their lower body with a punch. The rising elbow is going to be the most dynamic one, as you will need to adjust your targets based on your sizing against your attacker. If they are much taller than you, drive the elbow upwards to their solar plexus, don’t try and jump/reach their face if it’s not comfortable. One of the key points of kenpo is that you want to attack the best targets of opportunities. If you go through the movement, and they start defending against it, your motions will have to be adjusted to compensate. Just because you can’t hit them with the elbow, don’t stop, waver around, and try to hit them with a useless elbow, move into the next movement, the motion of raising the elbow upwards, should at least cause them to flinch upwards, allowing you better exposure to their groin or bladder.

The trick with this movement is your act of turning your body is usually sufficient to get yourself out of the grip, but you need to be careful with the movement as you may wind up with the attacker transitioning into a front choke. This is why you are using your right arm to elbow trap their arms and prevent them from executing this transition.

Some considerations

Groin shots are one of the most common self-defense efforts that are taught across styles. The problem is that most people, especially men, are highly aware of their nether regions and are highly susceptible to flinching and over compensating to block strikes in that general direction. In order to be successful you will need to either use the concept of alternating zones, or understanding the beautiful parts of the human anatomy that allow you to strike in general areas that gives the same sort of shock and reaction as a direct shot to the groin. There is a very large nerve running up the inner leg, so any strike happening to the inner thigh will have the same painful reaction as getting struck directly in the groin. Additionally, getting hit in the bladder is also quite painful as the muscles of the lower abdomen are much thinner and therefore, the vibrations on the bladder that much more potent.

The other thing to pay attention with this move is the circular movements that are used. Whereas parting wings is very linear, circling wings (hence the name), follows a flowing circle pattern. When doing the movement focus just on the right arm. It comes up and around to capture the attacker’s arms, then bounces up into an elbow strike, following through it and around to drop down driving home the hammer fist to the opponent’s groin area. If are thinking ahead, what do you think the next motion of the extended self defense movement be (thinking of this circular pattern)?

Things to Work On

As with all techniques you should be focusing on performing the technique in various modes. By yourself, with a partner, slow tension, and the opposite side. Try switching things up, get some more dynamic motion into your drills, instead of just standing there and having the attacker grab you, try having the attacker push and pull you. Make sure your partner does not just let go because it’s expected, but let go because they are forced to do so, see if they can try and hold on and turn the rear choke into a front choke.

Once you feel comfortable enough with the movements, try practicing blindfolded – having the attacker grab you in various techniques, so you will need to work on both defense, reaction, and ability to pull out the moves from your tool bag.

Concluding Thoughts

Two moves down, 46 to go! Continue working on the movements until you feel very comfortable with them, and can easily perform them with your partner. Remember, you need to be practicing these movements with a partner in order to get the most out of your training sessions. Yes they techniques need to be practiced solo first, but you should start working with a partner ASAP so you can start to feel and see what works vs. what does not work.