Archive for the 'Self-defense' Category

I have been doing karate for years and have not really thought about this from a beginning students perspective recently. I had a buddy ask me my take on teaching students how to kick the groin as beginners can miss the mark at first. Also (understandably) guys do not want to volunteer their family jewels as target practice!

Ok – one of the first kicks a student learns is the front snap kick in most styles. You bring the knee up, snap the kick out (kicking with the ball of the foot or instep), bring the kick back and land it. This method fast becomes second nature but before a student learns actual sparring (if they style they are learning does that), how is a student to know their kick is going to be a real ball buster? That is the question I’ll deal with in this post.

First for some comic relief Master Ken is going to demonstrate some ways to create more sopranos in the choir.

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I want to learn karate so I can protected myself against “any” attack! How often do you hear people saying that they can protect themselves because they know how to fight? I’ve heard it all of my life and bought into it sometimes. For instance if you have muscles – no one will want to fight you on the beach because you are not an easy mark (assuming muscles equate to fighting ability). Or you are a prize fighter superstar and become a jerk in a bar… thinking no one “can” get the best of you.

This over or sometimes no confidence is common among karate students. Students take lessons to learn how to protect themselves after all. In this post I’ll go over what karate can and cannot do for you as part of your self-defense strategy.

Once when I was working restaurant for a living (a long time ago), one of the cooks wanted to know how to win a fight with a karate guy. I was honest with him and told him his he had better sucker punch first and hard because if he did not get a fast advantage – he was going to pay dearly. More this story later but please read on if you want to hear my thoughts about karate protecting you from an assassin’s attack.

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The Summer of 2014 brought fear to the women of North Park, a community of San Diego. You see there was an attacker on the loose apparently trying to sexually assault women in the neighborhoods. Here is the story: STORY.

The interesting thing to me about this story and many more like it is the normal advice for women to not walk alone at night, walk in a well lighted area, or avoid walking the streets at night seem like the normal advice parents have told their children ever since they were little – seems to have been ignored. So now that this suspected has been caught, are women now going to walk on dark alleys at night and feel safe?

This post is going to speak about common sense and yes I realize that everyone knows how to stay safe. I will speak about social norms that have changed and how it is not affecting the safety of women and what can be done about it. Oh yes – I will also cover self defense from a martial arts point of view.

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I’m sure most of you have heard the advice to get pepper spray, stun-guns, knives, or hold your keys in between your fingers when walking out to the car at night, but are you really ready? I mean  you may have the self-defense weapon in your purse or pocket but how many times have you walked to your car and nothing has happened?

There in is the challenge. Complacency. Whatever you told yourself that would make you ready might not be ready. I have always been an advocate of learning a martial art or at the very least (and I mean least), a short term self-defense course but how many people do you know that do martial arts, self-defense courses and still workout (hopefully a lot!)? The realistic answer is very few.

Another trend is electronic distractions. Everything from music and texting is keeping people from being aware of their surroundings (assuming they had kept up with their self-defense training)!

What you need for your distracted loved one is a workable self-defense strategy! Something that your daughter will be holding along with her smart phone while walking and updating her facebook status. One such product I will breifly review here is the Self-Defense Lanyard!

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As you know this is a self-defense blog dealing with real self defense issues? It is not a political correctness blog where we try and say how we wish the world really was! For instance when I was remarking to my step-daughter one time my views about women in the military front lines and started extrapolating about women in other potentially dangerous jobs such as police or firefighting… she started accusing me of pulling the “woman card.”!

More on that conversation later but here is the question. Should be look at our self defense strategy from how we would like the world to be or how the world is? I would argue that a child or woman should not go running/walking at night unless the areas are well lighted and there are lots of people around (for instance at a beach boardwalk in the summer evenings would be safer). Read on for my supporting arguments and how I answered my step-daughter.

First take a look at this video – if you go to the 60 second mark, she starts talking about running at night and her concerns.

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Way back when I first started in the Hawaiian Martial Arts, the first one I tried was Lima Lama (I later transitioned to Kenpo). That was a really cool – flowing martial art where I was first exposed to self-defense techniques. One would learn how to defend against a right cross or a club attack. The attacks and defenses seemed to go on forever from my beginning karate mind.

I recall telling my instructors that these techniques were really complex and when would I ever use one? I mean after you blocked – you then counter punched, kicked out the leg and dropped a knee and punch. That was a lot to remember and even back then – I did not believe if someone threw a right cross – I was going to do all of that.

In this post we will ask and hopefully answer the question of why we learn complex self defense techniques and are they relevant. But first watch this example of one such technique.

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One of the challenges we all have as we age is how to workout and keep a balance of cardio-pulmonary stress and reduce the likelihood of injuries. Well one way the practitioner of karate can connect to his/her inner dojo is to practice your art! I mean the “fluff” you learned coming up in the ranks such as kata, techniques and basics do not have to be just for belt testing! You can slowly transition from sparring and bag work to increase the ratio of kata and self-defense techniques!

In this posting I’ll explore what I think the transition is necessary and why I have not kept up with the “fluff” after achieving rank – well overdue to jump back in and it is the smart move. But first take a look at a kenpo kata I found on the web.

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