Archive for the 'Self-defense' Category

I started learning about martial arts buying books such as Ketsugo, Jukado, and various karate manuals. The thing was I was a 10 year-old-kid and money was tight. I wanted to learn to fight so I learned some moves by pictures in books.

After I grew up and went back to college, I ended up taking one online class from the University of Phoenix. My initial assessment was I could learn this way but the question then became more of what suited me. In this post I will examine karate distance learning in many of the modalities found today and ones I have personally been involved. Now here is a link to one lesson online I found on youtube. Embedding has been disabled so please just select the link to view.

Women’s Self Defense Against Frontal Attacks : Self Defense Against Two Hand Chokes

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I was thinking about boys and girls in today’s society taking on responsibility and becoming Men and Women. I have an idea of what a man or woman is but I’m not all that sure my definition is universal. My wife and I watch TV shows such as Judge Judy and are amazed by the childish behavior some so called adults do to each other! Well I will not attempt to discuss all of the definitions of what it means to be a man or woman but focus on the rites of passage from a self-defense point of view.

When I was a boy I had a good example of what a man was by watching my dad. He was a marine and took his responsibilities seriously so that early in life – I learned that one was supposed to work hard and not shy away from adversity. My guess is each child learns important lessons from one’s parents and society at large. What I’ve never understood is why self-defense and standing up for one’s self is not understood by all. I will expore one Iesson that I think every boy and girl should learn before they become an adult. Here is the introduction from the TV series, “Kung Fu” that shows Kwai Chang Cane’s rite of passage into manhood.

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You are walking to your car from a downtown club late at night, after downing a couple of brewskis (hopefully not too many beers as you are about to drive)… and all of a sudden you notice a guy coming at you with knife!!! What can you do?

First off if you are a trained fighter – you are lucky. You have noticed the guy before he is on you! If you are not a fighter I guess it is time for lets make a deal! Ok all kidding aside, you are in one tough predicament even if everything goes right.

In this post I will go though your options in this scenario and what your options are if the guy is already on you. I’d like you to also review this excellent post by Mathew over at ikigaiway.com in his post entitled, “Knife Self Defense – It ain’t gonna be pretty.” Here is a quick video I found on youtube that seems reasonable to me.

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A parents worst nightmare is if their child gets kidnapped. When I was a kid I remember having the run of the neighborhood during daylight hours. Why I could explore the nearby woods so long as I was back by dark. That was another time but there was crime even back then. I did save a couple of girls from my school in the woods on day as they were surrounded by four guys. More on this later but first I would like to draw attention to stories in the new about some girls escaping kidnapping attempts!

Hereis a link to the Modesto Bee story about girls walking home from school and in one case a car pulls over and the guys said her mother asked him to pick her (the girl) up. The girl ran to her grandmothers house! This girl was not so easily fooled by the would be kidnapper. The girl did exactly the right thing here. When my oldest son was about eight years old a similar thing happened. A truck pulled up and tried to cut my son off. Some ladies noticed the weird behaviour and yelled at me son to run! He did and my son was safe! I will look at the second kidnapping attempt and speak about how children can be safe. I will tell you how the girls from my school made out but first here is an example of what a girl can do if a guy tries to attack.

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We have all seen Kung Fu and Karate masters fight many attackers with a staff but have you ever questioned the effectiveness of a staff? I took a look on youtube and found lots of advice on how to use a staff and I will share a couple of these videos but keep in mind that most of these methods come from katas. Will the staff or bo really work in a fight? Maybe! It depends on how you use it. I’ll explain.

I will explore the differences in kata (forms) and kumite (sparring-fighting) with a staff. I will evaluate the effectiveness of the staff techniques through the filter of – would this work in a real self-defense situation? I will talk about some of the claims made on one of the videos from Fight Science. I will close with self-defense applications of the staff against armed and unarmed attackers and how I would use a staff/bo in a fight. Here is a video of some Shaolin monks demonstrating a staff fight.

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What do you tell your children about getting away from kidnappers! Do you tell your child to listen to adults? I remember when I was a child I was taught to answer the phone and answer questions politely to adults. I don’t remember worrying about an adult ever harming me. Well nowadays you simply not afford to take such a lackadaisical attitude towards bad guys – they are emboldened!

I found one story here (1/29/2009) where a guy stopped outside of a Canadian school with a loud speaker asking the girls to come and see his puppy. Soon adults came out so see what was happening and the guy took off! Never would I have ever thought that a molester would come out in daylight and call out for the whole school to hear – trying to get kids to come away with him. I was happy to hear on the video that some parents had already discussed this topic with their kids. I will close with a kid that was saved by techniques he learned at his karate school! Here is a short video.

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I saw this story and was amazed at the boys quick thinking. The boy was walking home from school when a Pit Bull dog started attacking a girl’s dachshund. She stepped into save her dog and got attacked! Drew Heredia who just started taking Brazilian BJJ classes, came to the girl’s rescue by putting the dog into a rear-naked-choke hold for 20 minutes until the cops got there!!!

This is a very brave boy to step in and do what was needed in this attack. Children often start various classes but the BJJ really helped this boy out. When I was a kid this choke hold was called a sleeper hold. I found a video demonstrating its use.

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I went to a garden party one time and did not see Yoko with a walrus (sorry for the Ricky Nelson reference for you young-ins) but did have an interesting conversation with a formal karate stylist. During that interchange it came out that he (the formal stylist) did not think much of sport karate as it might be applied to self-defense.

I was quite interested in his perspective and made the point I fought effectively in street-fights with sport-karate! At the time I had won tournaments in SoCal and had also worked as a bouncer at a bar for two years.  I will try to highlight his and my points in our conversation and then close with my opinion now.

I searched youtube for a video of a proper low snap-kick to the shin or knee and could not find one in 20 minutes. I saw plenty of high snap and jump snap kicks that would be marginally effective in a street-fight. So I found the shortest karate guy I could find to demonstrate a excellent street technique (although even this guy was kicking too high)

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