This past Saturday, we had a guest instructor: Sensei B. He has taught for us twice over Zoom, and he teaches self-defense. Saturday’s class was no different.
Sensei T led the warm-up: stretches, followed by ten of each kihon exercise straight through. He set a rapid pace, so that our kihon would not take up too much time. It was a challenging cardio work-out. F, S and I were out of breath at the end of it! Whenever Sensei B teaches over Zoom, the club normally asks participants to recruit a sibling or parent to serve as a practice partner. Roughly half of us had partners, but two students did not.
Two Self-Defense Techniques
Back-Pivot Strike
Sensei B first demonstrated a fighting technique that I found less intuitive. He says it was highly effective for him in two tournaments, and can be used for self-defense, if needed. Your opponent delivers a round-house kick. When the kick is delivered, you step closer to your opponent, into the kick, using both your hip and a sweeping down block with the arm to block the kick. Stepping in is certainly counter-intuitive. However, by stepping into the kick, according to Sensei B, you reduce its force.
He gave a simple demonstration to show how stepping into a kick can reduce its force. While throwing a punch in slow motion towards his daughter, he explained, “If you are at the end of this, you receive the full force.” His daughter stepped towards him, but to the side. “Just by shortening the distance, you reduce the momentum of the blow.”
So, after you’ve stepped in to block your opponent’s kick, uou pivot, pointing your heel at your opponent. Afterwards, you spin and deliver an elbow strike, followed by a back fist. In self-defense, you’d deliver these to the face. In a tournament, you’d choose a different target unless your opponent is wearing a helmet.
It took a bit of practice for me to get these down. F got this one pretty easily. S as well. Sensei B. spotlighted each group of participants over Zoom and coached us through, until we got it right.
Defense Against an Attack from Behind
The second technique, however, was purely for self-defense rather than sparring and far more intuitive. It is also highly useful for situations in which your attacker is much larger than you: so a good self-defense technique for children and women to learn.
The attacker comes at you from behind and encircles your chest with his arms. Coming from underneath, you place both of your hands over his hands or arms, to keep them in place.
- You go into a kiba or horse-straddle stance. A lower position is better, I discovered while practicing with S, since you can potentially pull your attacker forward and more off-balance.
- Careful to glance behind you so you know the location of your attacker’s head, you bash his head with the back of yours.
- Then you bump your attacker with your backside and deliver a second head-butt. This basically gives you more wiggle-room.
- From kiba, you step around your attacker’s leg so you have one of your legs behind his knee. Deliver a punch to the groin.
- Your attacker should fall backwards over your leg. You can accelerate in his fall backwards by grabbing and pulling his other leg upwards.
- It is likely that you will fall back on top of your attacker, and you should try to land on his chest. Deliver simultaneous blows to his face and groin area with both elbows.
S, F and I practiced this last technique on each other, dropping each other into the clover. We were careful not to actually hurt one another, but it was fun on top of being informative.
Other Self-Defense Techniques based in Jujitsu for Women and Children
I did some Google searches to see if I could turn up Sensei B’s technique or one that’s similar. I found two very informative videos. These focus on women’s self-defense. However, these techniques can be useful for teens, children or persons of smaller stature. Obviously when teaching children, you want to avoid frightening them.
The first is a jujitsu demonstration useful if your attacker is larger and potentially stronger than you:
Notice that the instructor often emphasizes how the defender is to take control back from the attacker: often the defender places her hand over the attacker’s hands to take back control. Also, the fourth demonstration is somewhat similar to the technique that Sensei B. showed us. The defender drops into a kiba, then steps behind the attacker in order to trip her. Again, similar to Sensei B’s instructions, from a lowered center of gravity, she pulls on the attacker’s legs from behind to make the attacker fall.
The second is from Aja Dang with Renner Gracie from Gracie University. Notice how similar the “stong, tightened neck” or “allegator neck” is to our “last defense” in kyokushin karate:
In both these self-defense demonstrations, when the attacker has attempted a choke-hold, the defender goes into a kiba stance so that her center of gravity is lower than that of the attacker’s. Also, in both of these videos, the defender aims her attacks against the attacker’s joints: often the elbows but sometimes the knees.
Conclusions
In these self-defense situations, we can take away three principles. First, take control back. Second, moving into an attacker’s strikes rather than away can rob the attacker of momentum. Third, attack the joints–the weakest areas of a person.
Obviously we hope that we will never be in a situation to use these techniques. However, they are useful to have as part of a karateka’s arsenal in case we find ourselves in the unfortunate position of needing them.
