THREE THOUSAND POUND BLUNT OBJECT!

We at the USKMA strive to teach safety and self defense for the real world. In the real world we spend a lot of time in a car. What can we do to be safe in our car? Read on!

We teach some way cool car jacking techniques for handgun disarms while seated in a car. We use the door frame, steering wheel, etc. to beat the bad guys hand against or to use for leverage. When we are teaching self defense in class we teach 1) don’t be there, 2) run, 3) pick up something to use as a weapon and 4) self defense techniques. The actual laying on of hands for self defense comes last. It’s the same with our carjacking weapon disarm techniques….these come so late in the game that we’ll rarely get to them.

First, when in a car, stay the heck out of bad places. A friend of mine had a family member jumped while driving. He was messed up pretty bad. That’s terrible but it was 3 a.m., he was in an area of town known for drug dealing and he was jamming his tunes with the windows down. I’d guess with even a little common sense he wouldn’t have been harmed. If in a strange town never, ever get off at a ramp to park and look at a map or call for directions. Thanks to GPS people don’t do this like we used to but many have been victims by parking somewhere they shouldn’t have been.

Second, use the car. What would you do in this scenario? You are stopped by a biker gang and they are approaching you from all sides. Do you lock the doors and hope they don’t mean real harm? Do you get out to talk? Go back to the previous blog on mind setting. You should have already thought about this scenario because you aren’t going to come up with a plan now. My plan? I am sitting in a 3,000 pound blunt object. I am flooring the gas and going through them. I didn’t start this and I assume I am about to lose my life….and all of my family members that are with me. Justified in my head!

Third, if someone jumps into my car with a weapon I jump out. No technique, no wrestling for the weapon. I jump out. If they are going to shoot me jumping out they were planning on shooting me anyhow. I might as well only give them one shot at a moving target! If I have my family with me? I use those cool carjacking disarm techniques, get his weapon and beat his rear end!!

I have talked about never being moved to a second crime scene in past blogs. You are always in a lot more trouble if you allow yourself to be moved. He is taking you to a place of seclusion for a reason. You are way better off, if he is in the car forcing you to drive someplace and making it difficult for you to jump out, to crash your car. Aim for a tree, parked car, building, etc. The harm you and your family take in that crash is nothing compared to the harm he has in store for you. You have also just given him the choice of staying around to harm you or fleeing because there is now help on the way. Police and fire department resources get to auto accidents in just a few minutes. Other bystanders are rushing over to help. Another thing to like about this is that you and your family were belted in, the Scum Bags usually don’t take the time to do this!

Here is another scenario that needs to be pre planned for. Just because you are in a car and you see flashing police lights behind you doesn’t mean it’s a police officer. This has been done many times, especially to women. If you can’t see the police car (usually they have a spot light in your mirrors) don’t assume it’s the police. If the cop doesn’t look right or if you have any bad feeling at all it is always better to be safe than sorry. Yes, pull over but crack your window and simply tell the officer that you are afraid and need to know that he is a cop. A real officer should never be upset with a female who says this. The fake ones will scream and yell. Ask for a number to call to verify him or for the officer to lead you to a more public place. If he refuses I’d rather take my chances with a pissed off police officer than a Scumbag who wants to do me harm. I’m fleeing the scene. If it is a real cop I guarantee you that several cars will be chasing you within seconds! Will you be in trouble? Yep. Does that beat what the bad guy has planned for you? Yep!

Again, pre plan and mind set. People are car jacked, forced into cars and forced off the road every day. This stuff happens, we must have a plan. While planning think about simply jumping out and/or ramming something with your car! It is better to be in an accident than to be moved…always! BE SAFE!

FIGHT OR FLIGHT

My right hand man at the USKMA, Aaron Jannetti, is today’s guest blogger. Here is an article he wrote for Liftbigeatbig.com on why those work out freaks should add self defense.

Why Train in Fighting or Self Defense?

First and foremost it’s 2012 and whether you like it or not, all humans are NOT great people. Sorry to break the news to you. I live in Columbus, OH. In 2010 in the state of Ohio there were 476 murders and 3,699 rapes. That means on average everyday at least one person was murdered and 10 were raped. As an overall, there were over 36,399 violent crimes. Every day in 2010 in the state of Ohio roughly 100 people experienced some form of violent crime. Phew that sucks! Luckily for my man Brandon in Washington, only 7 people get raped each day and every other day someone gets killed. Defending yourself isn’t important though right? Interested to check out your own states crime rate? Visit http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/

Now I know what you are thinking. We on this website dedicate our lives to getting big and lifting heavy stuff, so in turn I should be able to easily beat the snot out of a would be attacker, correct?!? Unfortunately that is not exactly true. Strong hips from MOAR SQUATZ will without a doubt give you the ability to develop more power on your hitting, and being the size of our man Frank Burton will surely scare off a good percentage of those violent offenders, but unfortunately size isn’t all that matters.

Bad guys are smarter than the general population gives them credit for. They aren’t going to go out of their way to attack someone they feel threatened by. They will always stack the deck in their favor. They will go after the men and women who look like they lack confidence, are alone, and are unaware of their surroundings: The people that are smaller or weaker than them. In most cases they will attack in pairs or groups and if they are going to attack a larger individual it will be at gun or knife point. I don’t care how many times you’ve seen Rambo, Enter the Dragon, or Bad Boyz, knives and guns are scary as HELL and they are a reality. If you have never trained for any of these scenarios, or any type of attack in general then you are going to be at a severe disadvantage if you are ever the target of these crimes.

I train people in defensive tactics everyday and I travel around the country putting on seminars and trainings for the United States Krav Maga Association, alongside a brilliant man named Mark Slane. Both of us will tell you truthfully that no amount of training can guarantee your safety, but training can sure raise your chances of avoiding those scenarios or getting out safely if you can’t.

Finding a good self defense gym should be just as important to you as finding that right Coach who will get you that 800# deadlift. I don’t ever say that I have all of the answers, but I will say if you can find a Krav Maga gym in your area, it will be the closest thing to realistic training you can get without joining the CIA (who also train in Krav Maga). I took Karate when I was younger and it was great, but it’s not practical in real life by any means. I have yet to see a crane kick in a knife fight on YouTube, so let’s be real. You’re looking for someone who will train you how to punch, throw kicks to the groin, gouge eyes, bite, headbutt, stab with pens, etc… The real fighting style. If you can’t find a Krav Maga gym, look for gyms that legitimately specialize in defensive tactics, NOT MARTIAL ARTS! If you still can’t find one, you’re next best bet is to find a good Muay Thai gym and learn to hit and hit hard. It may not be geared directly at defensive scenarios, but being able to kick hard enough to tear a large human being’s ACL is a good tool to have in your back pocket.

If anyone ever tells you to wait for the first punch to be thrown or says something “always happens this way”, immediately leave. Fighting in real life sucks, it really does. Things can go terribly wrong in a heartbeat; you need to be prepared for the unknown and the unknowable not only in the gym but outside. (Think I owe Glassman for copyright infringement?!) Things don’t go the way you plan, if you are attacked, it will undoubtedly be when you weren’t prepared for it. If you’ve never trained under these stresses, I highly suggest it.

I know it isn’t feasible for everyone to find amazing training and dedicate themselves to that program, so in closing here are a few immediate tips/strategies to help make yourself safer:

- If you can’t afford training, splurge for a heavy bag and start beating the piss out of it. Think hips. If you punch, power comes from the hips, if you kick, power comes from the hips. Good thing we do all of those squats, deadlifts, and Oly lifts eh?

- Remember this order of operations to survive….

1) Don’t be there

2) If you are there, RUN!

3) If you can’t run, pick up something to use as a weapon

4) If you have no weapons THEN you are stuck with hand-to-hand fighting

5) Get aggressive and primal and beat that person until you see the opportunity to get to safety, but run as soon as possible

- Small weapons are great, but only if you mean to use them. Ladies: pepper spray does you NO GOOD if it’s in your purse. Have it in your hand when you walk places and point it the right direction (yes, people have sprayed themselves in the face under stress!). If you’re looking for a great weapon that is legal to use and carry without a license, buy a small, heavy, metal flashlight that sticks out roughly one inch on either end of your hand when you grip it with a fist. Preferably one with a bright light and a push button on the end. Use it to see around dark corners or in/under your car. If you get attacked, shine it in their eyes then bash them in the face with it!

- If you own a gun, do you really know how to use it? Are you willing to use it? You don’t learn how to shoot bad people in your CCW or NRA class, you learn to shoot paper. If you own a gun, find a defensive firearms instructor who specializes in personal self defense. Seriously!! It will keep you out of lots of trouble. Look up I.C.E Training, they have top of the line instructors.

- Mindsetting: everywhere you go take 5-10 seconds. Look around; find all of the exits, all of the things that could easily be used as weapons and all of the shady looking people.

Knowing these things and being aware of them will be huge when things get stressful. Make a plan in your head. “If someone busts through that door, I’m going to grab my chair, throw it then bolt out the back hallway.” YOU CANNOT FORMULATE GOOD PLANS UNDER STRESS. Attacks happen in a split second, don’t think you’re going to be MacGruber under stress. In the same respect, don’t become paranoid! Look around, find the exits, weapons and bad people and then go about your business, just be aware, not scared.

If you have any questions, concerns, or anything else pertaining to defensive tactics please feel free to contact me at Aaron@uskma.com

KRAV MAGA & TRADITIONAL MARTIAL ARTS

I re-post this blog about once a year. I have gotten more comments on this blog than any other one.

First and foremost we in the USKMA never bash any other system. Blogging about this topic by one system is almost always self serving and a put down to others. A few statements; 1) I was/am a 4th degree black belt in a traditional system. 2) I will say right off that any system can be used effectively if proficiency is achieved. We just don’t believe it is prudent that achieving proficiency takes years. When we in Krav Maga think self defense we believe it has to be easy to learn, easy to remember, come out of us instinctually and be effective. We believe this because of our study of the adrenaline dump and the effects of stress on a person.

There are many talented martial artists. I know of Tai Chi masters who could whip 99.9% of us. I especially admire BJJ. Those guys are the most in shape, best conditioned people I know. If my son was to do a martial art I would want him in BJJ. But….BJJ’s philosophy is to patiently control an opponent until they can be submitted. Add a second attacker, a knife, etc. and that philosophy isn’t self defense. I have often said if masters from other systems came into my gym and challenged me in front of my students most would probably kick my butt and make me look stupid. However (and this is self defense) if that same guy was in my house and going to hurt my family I would not lose. I would come from behind, break a chair over the back of his head and then take one of the broken shards and see how far into his throat I could ram it. I would not lose. Krav Maga is doing what it takes to be safe, and refusing to quit.

Martial arts are great for kids. It teaches them manners, respect and a host of other good behaviors. For adults martial arts are great exercise, great stress relief, great for socializing and meeting other good, hard working people. However, I personally cringe when a traditional martial art calls itself the ultimate in self defense. All martial arts were designed to overcome the problems that the founder was facing. Some martial arts were designed for the battlefield, some for unarmed peasants to overcome soldiers wearing armor, some for using anything found in nature to make a weapon of, etc. I spent countless hours in my traditional martial art in a front stance only to discover that the front stance was designed for balance when fighting on board of ships. I spent even more hours in a horse stance to discover that that stance was for peasants who were too poor to own a horse to practice for the calvary! Krav Maga was designed by the Israeli Defense Forces to keep people alive in modern times against enemies with handguns, rifles, knives, sticks, throwing fists, throwing knees, choking them, grabbing their hair, etc., etc. We have a friend from another system whom we train with who just doesn’t like Krav Maga. He over thinks everything and wants pressure points, joint locks, etc. What he does is better than Krav Maga….for him. He doesn’t get that he is an unusual person who wants to spend hundreds of hours a year for many years getting proficient. He loves working on the stuff. Krav Maga is only concerned with getting people as safe as possible as quickly as possible. Are we the best at knife defenses? Maybe not but instead of spending hundreds of hours getting awesome at a knife defense only to have a handgun shoved in our face we want to learn enough of a knife defense to keep us safe and alive and then move on quickly to learning the defenses to the other hundreds of ways a person can be attacked. I think most martial artists will admit that if someone takes their art for three months and quits that they aren’t very good and won’t be able to defend themselves very well. Three months in Krav Maga gets a person almost ready to be tested into level 2…and you are pretty darn good when you get that far.

Most martial arts made sense in their place in history or are now being designed by one man for modern problems. These that rely on one “founder” worry me. Techniques are designed in a gym with students as the attackers. I have seen a system that taught a straight knife defense as a crescent kick to the knife and a back kick to the attacker (you better have a quick crescent and a devastating back kick!!). I have also seen a system that taught it’s students a handgun disarm that consisted of doing a forward roll towards the gunman and then coming up from under the gun and twisting it away (with his students mesmerized at his awesome technique…scarey!!). A handgun defense that looks like it should work, and works with simunition guns, is being taught as gospel. Has the founder ever had someone try to shoot them, stab them, bash their head in with a brick? Krav Maga was designed by an entire military system. The bullshit didn’t make it through because there is no Grand Poobah who has an ego, there is no tradition to honor….there is only keeping people alive, period. When I hear someone say they have a way better handgun defense than what Krav Maga has I laugh. If their defense was easy to learn, easy to remember and effective it would be Krav Maga, we would have stolen it already. We don’t have a system that has to guard its traditions. We’ll switch to another technique in an instance if it works better. Keeping people alive and safe is all we’re about.

A lot of systems work for the head instructor. I can think of several systems where the head instructor is awesome and totally unbeatable (he’d kick my butt!) but the question is can that same system work as well for a 100 pound unathletic female as it does the six foot two, two hundred fifty pound instructor? In Krav Maga any technique that we use or add has that exact filter to get through. Will it work for our smallest, weakest practitioner?
A lot of martial arts are technique based while Krav Maga is philosophy based. For example, when a knife is coming towards our mid section we want to deflect it, counter at the same time if possible and then either get the heck out of there or control the weapon and beat the idiot senseless. The traditional martial art I took had of 30 different techniques for a straight knife stab. Hick’s law states that when we have more than one choice it takes time to decide between them. How much time do you have when a knife is being thrust into your gut? Another problem is a lot of techniques have many steps. If in practice I always must do A through F I get lost in real life when it derails at step C. One other big problem I have with martial arts and real violence is students buying into what they are taught and having it be bad training and getting them hurt. SGT Rory Miller in his great book Meditations on Violence talks about the time he visited a martial arts school and was sparring with one of the black belts. He got punched in the nose and threw a technique back at the black belt. The black belt stopped and bawled him out saying that they train realistically and that if he broke Rory’s nose in a real fight the fight would be over. Rory told the black belt that he has had his nose broken from a punch three times in his life and it never ended the fight, that he did indeed go after the puncher even harder! If that black belt is ever in a real fight he’ll deliver a nose punch that he was taught would devastate the other guy, stop fighting, and get creamed!

One last thought about martial arts and why some of them do not make sense for us today is “assumptions”. Too many martial arts make assumptions. For example, an art that teaches to take an attacker to the ground is assuming that you will only ever be attacked by one person. An art that relies only on joint locks and joint manipulations assumes that you will always have two hands. What happens to those techniques when you break an arm in the fight? We have our students at higher level tests put one hand in a belt that is tied around their waste and figure out how to defend themselves with one arm. Easy if you have a philosophy of “get rid of the danger and beat the attacker senseless”, not so easy if you are technique based. Another art may rely on high, jumping and spinning kicks. What do they do if they break an ankle first thing in their fight? Lastly, way too many knife and stick defenses that I’ve seen totally rely on the attacker coming from a distance and the practitioner seeing the attack coming. It is wrong to assume that you will always see the attack coming from a distance! We throw out any knife or stick defense that doesn’t work late (when you don’t see the attack until it is inches from striking you).

MMA? These guys have the Krav Maga philosophy for training. Be ready for anything. If you are great on the ground but are facing a stand up guy or vice versa you are in trouble. It makes sense to be good no matter where the fight is. The UFC has taught us that there is no unbeatable martial art but that you have to be good at several. The main problem with mma training is that it is for sport. One of my instructors carries around the rules for MMA in his bag and when someone asks him what we do in Krav Maga he shows them the rules and tells them “We want to do everything that is illegal in MMA fighting”. We want to bite, head butt, poke eyes, kick to the groin, etc. These are illegal in MMA because they cause damage. Causing damage is what we want to do in self defense. Really, self protection and self defense in MMA would be to bring a knife with you into the ring, to hit him from behind before the bell or to know that your fight is Saturday afternoon but find your opponent on Thursday morning, bring some friends with ball bats, and have at him. I certainly don’t condone this but the point is a fair fight means your tactics suck!!

Again, we are not bashing any other system. We just believe that when it comes to self defense people need to think about what real violence is. Flashy techniques, training incorrectly, training for situations that no longer exist and complicated moves get people hurt. Remember, if it is complicated it isn’t self defense. Our number one rule in Krav Maga is BE SAFE.

KNIFE STUFF

Things my partner and I said while teaching a knife defense seminar to a bunch of cops last week;

“we don’t even call it knife defense, we call it knife survival.”

“We don’t need to tangle with a knife wielding maniac, smack them to create distance and draw your sidearm.”

“There are really only two things to do, get an arm up to block and hit them as hard as you can.”

“We are seeing handguns stuck in holsters too much. Double tugging and even looking at your holster will get you killed. Every duty shift when you are putting on your belt do five draws (safely). This is getting you practice on 100 draws a month.”

“An officer wants that gun of his/hers. They will think of nothing but drawing it as they take stabs. Teach them to block and attack first, draw when it’s safe.”

“We teach to push off and draw. Being tangled up attempting a knife take away or trying to subdue while by yourself is a mistake. You would have to let go when their buddy shows. Every asshole has an asshole buddy nearby.”

“You will get cut….no doubt. Any instructor who tells you different is blowing smoke up your azz!”

“The defense for a punch and a knife must be the same. Most times you don’t see the knife and think you are being punched.”

“Pick up something to smack them with, we don’t need any hero BS!”

“During a shank go for the arm pit. The arm pit doesn’t move, the wrist is traveling six foot back and forth and is hard to grab.”

“I can’t tell you when to use lethal force but if I’m stabbed and by myself I take for granted that I’m about to go unconscious.”

“Any system that relies on you being able to move is a bad system. What if you are in a hallway or the aisle of a bus? The only two spaces you are guaranteed is the space you are in and the space the attacker is in.”

“The top ten knife experts in history all died the same way…knife wounds. If they got stabbed how am I going to tell you that you won’t?”

“I’d rather face someone with a gun than a knife if they are close. When the gun is directed off of me I am safe. The mindset of someone with a knife is they want to get close, want to cut and rip. I’d rather face a very proficient martial artist than a crazy with the will to kill any day!”

After our last drill where we slather ky jelly all over their arms and have them work on what we just taught…”What did we just learn? Blood is slippery and everything we worked on today was BS! What did you want to do with that slippery attacker? Push off/smack them to create distance and draw. The first and most basic thing we worked on today is what will save your butt!”

BE SAFE!

KRAV FOR KIDS?

A discussion on our forum a few weeks ago brought up teaching Krav Maga to kids. Our kids program has some krav maga in it, with bjj, Muay thai and some escrima. We have talked for years about a straight krav maga program for kids but the mix we have is a little better for them in my opinion. Straight Krav would be a hard sell for most parents but my main concern is we don’t BS people in Krav and tell them techniques will keep them safe if they won’t. Kids just don’t have the size or strength for most combatives, plucks, etc. to be effective. Think about it, have you ever seen a 9 year old who’s punch or round house kick to the body would hurt you enough for you to let go? To show them choke defense, headlock defense, carotid choke defense, buck and roll, etc. when they weigh 50 pounds and tell them that it would work would be blowing smoke up their you know whats! That’s something we won’t do!! The same would go for most of our knife, stick and handgun defenses. A four footer that weighs 70 pounds couldn’t use these defenses effectively. A lot of systems would have kids practice these and tell them that they would work. I don’t know how they could live with themselves when one of those kids get hurt in real life. We pride ourselves in the fact that Krav Maga is one system that tells it like it is. As you’ve heard me say in the past always put common sense and self experience before the majority opinion or a self appointed expert when it comes to your personal safety….or that of your kids.
For kids the stranger danger courses are great. I’ve had parents get upset with me when I teach their kids that there are bad people out there who may try to harm them. What are they doing in the martial arts if not to learn some self defense? Ignoring things won’t make them go away. If one of my students ever have someone attempt to abduct them I would think the parents would be mighty glad that we practiced for just that scenario. Teach kids to not put themselves in a bad situation of course, but teach them that bad things can still happen. Head butts to the soft part of the attacker’s face, kicks to the groin and punches to the groin would be effective even at their size. These must be taught as a way of escaping, not having them believe that these strikes would devastate the bad guy. I teach my son to just flail and be a hard target, kicking and punching to the groin, head butting the face, biting, scratching, screaming, etc. until the bad guy’s grip lets loose….then run like crazy! The movies where the little karate kids are beating up adults and knocking them over with kicks make me wanna puke!!
Use common sense, think for yourself and BE SAFE!

TRADITION CAN GET YOU HURT

I certainly don’t intend for this blog to become me railing against martial arts. Putting down others is a sure sign that you have issues, I’ve always thought. I do feel that the subject of tradition is worth looking at for our own safety. Please keep in mind that I was a 4th degree black belt in a very traditional system. Notice that I say was…I still have the certificate but it’s my opinion that if you haven’t kept up on something or practiced it in years you no longer can claim the rank!

You have heard us say that Krav Maga is an open system. We don’t have a Grand Poobah to bow to, don’t have a tradition to keep up to further our cause. Israel was only worried about staying a country and knew that they had to stay cutting edge and never waste any training on tradition or fluff. It’s still this way today in the United States Krav Maga Association because we have citizens to keep safe, and they are who we answer to…not to tradition, a system or a “master”.

The following is from Bruce Siddle’s Sharpening the Warrior’s Edge which is an exhaustive study on training methods for military and law enforcement applications;

Instructors who teach survival skills (i.e. defensive tactics, close-quarter combat, tactical firearms, or survival strategies) are still faced with teaching students a physical skill. The author proposes the level of student proficiency is directly proportionate to the instructor’s training psychology and system design. Subsequently, instructors have a moral and legal obligation to constantly research methods to enhance training and, ultimately, to assure the survival of their students.

Unlike other motor skill training, survival skills will be performed in the stress of combat. As such, motor skill training inherits a fair degree of learning and performance limitations. Although the learning roadblocks are multiple, there are three constant variables which directly affect survival and combat training. First, is the development of a system of skills which are appropriate for the arena of performance. For example, skills need to be designed to control specific threat stimuli. Second, the instructional delivery system must ensure that the students can learn and develop confidence in the skill quickly. The final variable recognizes that the influence of motivational principles has a direct effect on the student’s training intensity and subsequent skill development.

After reading this, why would you teach something that hasn’t changed in hundreds of years? The thugs have changed their tactics in that time! If you are teaching people stress relief, exercise, coordination, etc. feel guilt free to teach what you want. However, if someone is coming to you to learn self defense they are literally putting their lives in your hands. Do you understand the seriousness of this? They are relying on you to teach them to stay alive during the worst moments of their entire lives. Knowing this;
-how can you teach a kick to the knife as a knife defense?
-how can you teach a forward roll into the person with a handgun who wants to kill you?
-how can you teach small women techniques that obviously only work for bigger, stronger students?
-how can you teach ground for self defense but never mention or train for a second attacker or a blade?
-how can you teach self defense to women by telling them that you will show them how to beat up the attacker and win the fight, to stay there and keep hitting the bad guy? They need to always be fighting to escape.
-how can you teach techniques that take hundreds of disciplined hours to perfect to the point they would actually work? I have heard many martial arts masters tell their students that it takes 1,000 reps to become proficient at a technique. This is ok if they are learning an art. If it is self defense training this is ridiculous! If it’s complicated, it’s not self defense!
-For self defense, how can you teach any kind of sparring that has rules, only certain places you can target, or stoppages when a point is scored? How can you not start all sparring sessions with telling the student to run or pick something up to hit the opponent with?
-Why would you teach anything in a horse stance? Unless, of course, you are teaching them to defend themselves for when they are on a horse.
-how can you teach katas for self defense? I have been told that this is practicing fighting off multi attackers. Why keep turning your back on the last person that you whacked (as most kata’s I’ve seen are in an x pattern)? Do you know how we practice fighting off multi attackers? We pad up and have multi attackers come at us…and we fight them off.
-how can you never put students under stress or talk about the effects of stress, the adrenaline dump or the fact that they will be fighting injured?
-how can you not include cardio training in your students lessons knowing that if they are ever in a self defense situation that goes past 30 seconds their techniques will severely degrade with exhaustion?
-how can you teach 65 pound kids that they can devastate an adult with a punch or kick when they obviously don’t have the strength or power?

I am not railing on martial arts at all. I just feel very passionate about pointing out the flaws in any training that claims to be “the ultimate in self defense”, that claims to make it’s practitioners safe against real world violence. It infuriates me to see instructors make these claims when it’s all about their ego or making money…not caring that they will get people hurt. Again, your students are putting their safety, their families safety and their very lives in your hands. I say to heck with tradition!! BE SAFE!

FULL OF OURSELVES

I just spent some time on the internet looking at the popular self defense “experts” that are out there. Wow, we in this field are really full of ourselves! The one thing that they all have in common is that anything that they are teaching is the best & the only way to do it and if you are doing anything else you are an idiot. They all fail my first test when looking for someone to learn anything from. I will not listen to anyone who thinks they are THE authority and right about everything. I believe we in the USKMA have the most up to date, battle tested and best self defense system anywhere, however, we look at what others are doing, attend seminars and are always looking to learn. We will tweak a technique or even change it altogether if we find something that works better. We are looking to keep people safe, not looking to build a cult of personality. So, here’s what’s out there:

-There’s the “expert” who evidently has tens of thousands of dollars to put into advertising. Anytime I do a search for Krav Maga his ad pops up in the sidebar telling me that if I learn his system I will “fear no man” and can “easily defeat three knife wielding thugs”. Wow, what an idiot. First off, we had better be fearing man. There are some beasts out there who will slaughter your whole family and then laugh about it. “Easily” defeat three dudes with knives? I’ve got only two techniques that will keep me from being killed in that scenario. The first involves sprinting faster than the three, the second involves a bit of distance and a twelve gauge.

-There’s the famous “expert” who has made millions of dollars in the industry with a new way of doing things every couple of years. Ten years ago he was putting down Krav Maga and teaching a pressure point system because “you don’t wanna get sued, you have to use non lethal techniques”. Now his program is “brutal, there are times that you are in a fight for your life and anything goes.” I saw a bit of one of his seminars recently and his main technique was to palm the bad guy in the forehead to “disrupt his brain” and knock him unconscious. He proceeded to knock his big, muscular assistant out about ten times in a row. The poor guy is probably brain damaged now from being concussed like that. Anyhow, nobody else at the seminar must have done it right because nobody else hit the ground.

-The most popular guy out there right now teaches quickening reaction times and one main technique to defeat most anything. His thoughts on seeing things earlier and reacting quicker makes a lot of sense. If only he wasn’t telling me that he invented the whole idea when I can read books on the subject from decades ago. His “awesome” one main technique that he invented has been around for awhile as well. My biggest problem is that he is the worst at the “I am teaching the only thing worth knowing, everyone else is stupid” train of thought.

-Then there’s the expert who six years ago was running judo dojos but now has his own system that is the best and only thing worth doing. He has one technique for any attack and has blogged on why Krav Maga is so terrible because it has numerous “complicated” techniques. This was news to me. His one technique that is used for everything is on a video where it is being used against a knife and then a handgun. How he thinks a technique that isn’t controlling the weapon (it was flopping all over the place) is a good technique is beyond me.

-I came across a video by another “expert” who has a secret, revolutionary way of kicking. It was the exact stomp kick that we teach in our beginner level one class. Well, we teach it with hands up so we don’t get punched and his hands were down around his belly button, so it wasn’t the exact same.

-Lastly there is the Krav Maga expert who claims to be Imi’s heir. He has changed a lot of techniques lately to show that he is “cutting edge” and the one in charge of Krav Maga’s evolution. If you do a technique the way he taught it for fifteen years instead of the way he has done it for the last two months you are absolutely, totally wrong, an idiot and completely out of the loop. This same guy claims that if you attend a Krav Maga gym that has any kind of cardio classes that you aren’t learning real Krav Maga. Most of his seminars are taught in basketball gyms but it doesn’t apply to him, if you are learning Krav Maga in a building that also has basketball you can’t be learning real Krav Maga would seem to be the same thought. Sigh….

The point to all of this is to think for yourself. Don’t ever let the word of an expert overrule your own common sense or experience. BE SAFE!

MUSCLE HEADS

Are muscle heads (power lifters & body builders) scary? Are they the last people in the World you’d want to have to defend yourselves against? Well, what can they do with all that muscle? I’m not putting those guys down, heck, as ‘Mater from Disney’s CARS said “I’d give my two left lug nuts to look like that”…..but here are some things to think about!

At our gyms we have trained several competitive body builders, power lifters and even an NFL lineman, several weighing 300 pounds or more. As a group, when they started with us, as far as self defense went, they were terrible! They had strength but not a one of them could get through a class. They couldn’t go hard for more than 30 seconds at a time. To a man their cardio was horrible. We had a whole group of body guards quit after a couple of weeks because they looked impressive standing but couldn’t take the work in a basic level 1 class!

The other thing we noticed is that none of these guys could turn their hips to save their lives and their punching was with arms only. Now, their arm only punches were mighty hard but it always impressed them when my long time students who weighed 150 pounds less could punch harder! I would tell them that they can punch hard now but when they learn to turn their hips and use their bodies they will knock people’s heads clean off.

We have had three of these big ol muscle heads stay with us and become long time students. They are very good at Krav now but all three have lost a lot of weight…one of them has lost over 80 pounds. It’s funny that the general public thinks that the bigger and more muscle a man has makes him tougher when all three of these guys discovered that they are better fighters and better at self defense when they lost some of that muscle. When I see muscle heads strutting around I want to ask them “what do you do if a gun is put in your face?” All the muscle in the world won’t save them but I have 95 pound female students who would take that gun from the Scum Bag and beat his butt with it!! I actually had a class that I was showing handgun defenses to just a few months ago that hammered home this point. We were using an airsoft gun and firing plastic pellets. I had seven or eight students (mostly skinny teens) do the technique and not get hit. The one big dude, a sculpted 6′ 2″ and 240 pounds, was the only one who got hit…twice. His reaction time was a bit slower and that muscular width worked against him.

Take Mariusz Pudzianowski, the World’s strongest man. He started training to be an MMA fighter and lost his first two fights. His opponents knew that if they could avoid a big shot that his cardio would be gone by the second round and that’s exactly how they beat him. He got tired and they got him! If he wants to continue in MMA he needs to lose a lot of that muscle!

If I am ever attacked by someone who has a lot of muscle (and I can’t run) I plan on doing the same. I won’t fight his fight, dance and drag it out. He’ll be huffing and puffing soon enough and then it’s my time. If you do find yourself in this situation remember not to look at how big or scary your attacker is, look at targets. All you should see are knees, throat, zyphoids and groin! No matter how big he is he can’t build up those places! BE SAFE!

MY FAVORITE SELF DEFENSE QUOTES

Here are my all time fave self defense quotes;

“Self defense is recovery from stupidity or bad luck.” SGT Miller

“Self defense is a short list of techniques that may get you out alive when you’re already screwed” SGT Miller

“When self defense becomes complicated, it is no longer self defense.” R. Hoover

“No intelligent man has ever lost a fight to someone who said ‘I’m gonna kick your ass’.” SGT Rory Miller

“When any person, idea, technique, school, piece of gear, team or tactic is put on a pedestal, we risk stopping progress.” Rob Pincus

“It is much easier and safer to scare someone into submission than to beat them into submission.” SGT RORY MILLER in Facing Violence.

“Danger, if met head on, can be nearly halved” W. Churchill

“If I learn 1,000 techniques with my luck I’ll go out on the street and be attacked by number 1,001.” J. Whitman

“Every asshole has an asshole buddy nearby.” M. Slane

“Have you read my biography? ‘Cuz I don’t have one. You don’t know me. I could be full of crap, think for yourself and question these techniques.” A. Jannetti

”after initial contact all plans go to hell” Patton

“The wicked flee when no man pursues but the righteous are bold as a lion.” Proverbs 28:1

“No matter how enmeshed a commander becomes in his plans, it is occasionally necessary to consider the enemy” Churchill

“We don’t call it knife defenses, we call it Knife survival.” SGT MJR Nir Maman

“Everybody’s got a plan until they get smacked in the face” M. Tyson

“Home intruders are terrorists without a political agenda.” SGT Sanford Strong

“Listening to the average martial artists talk about real world violence is like listening to ten year olds talk about sex.” SGT. Miller

BEYOND BLACK BELT

I’ve been looking at other organization’s curriculum for 2nd degree black belt and above. A lot of it looks like they thought they had to have something cool for the higher ranks to learn…even if it makes no sense for self defense.

KNIFE VS. KNIFE; Most knife defenses are wishful thinking. A knife is scary and there isn’t much that is going to work against one! About the only thing that will keep us alive is to block the attack as good as we can while smacking the attacker as hard as we can in the noggin and groin. The knife on knife that a lot of organizations teach we just can’t justify. It’s Krav if you have a gun against a knife…a knife against a knife is an even fight. Even fights are stupid, we want to cheat and win! We have basically one group of offensive knife techniques in the USKMA. It is simple and as effective as can be. To think that a knife on knife technique is worth practicing forgets the old saying that “the winner of a knife fight is the one who dies tomorrow”. Our one group of techniques will give us a chance against the way 99 percent of attackers will use a knife against us…slashing and flailing out of anger. For that one percent who know how to use a knife we are in trouble. If we had a lot of offensive knife on knife training we would still be in trouble. We would have to put a lot of hours into our knife to be able to even come close to being as competent as a person who has studied knife fighting. We will get cut no matter how much knife we have done as the expert has put a lot more hours of training into it. This is why I carry a gun. If not a gun I’d want a ballbat against knife, that would be worth learning. Reach and blunt trauma are way better than hoping I’m better at knife fighting than the attacker!

STICK VS. STICK; We believe this is way too complicated in most systems. I have so much faith in our unarmed stick defense I’d probably just throw my stick at the attacker and do that technique. I believe that would work against 99 percent of the people who swing sticks like almost every surveillance video I’ve seen. Again, the guy who knows stick fighting I’m not going to beat even if I have stick on stick techniques in my system, he’ll always have more practice time in. What I would rather have is a chair. Stab the four legs at the attacker and kick to the groin under the chair. Better for me than hoping I’m a better stick fighter than the attacker. Of course, I’d rather have that gun.

MILITARY/URBAN WARFARE TRAINING/VIP PROTECTION, ETC.; If someone needs this training for their job we’ll teach it. For the average person? I’d rather spend the time learning to kick to the groin, punch to the throat and knee to the body better.

We in the USKMA are a bit guilty of this as we have some jumping and spinning kicks in our curriculum for black belt. This was a recent addition after spending time with Grandmaster Yaron Lichtenstein who is one of only twelve that Imi trained to black belt and the only one still teaching Imi’s original curriculum. We thought that if Imi thought jump and spinning kicks were so important that we would honor his memory with keeping those techniques in our Krav. This is how I justify it anyway!

The one thing we have in our curriculum that a lot of other organizations don’t? Handgun. To test for black belt a student must attend the NRA handgun safety course. We also highly recommend a course such as Rob Pincus’ Combat Focus Shooting. Seems to me that ten hours of training in this will defeat the dude with hundreds of hours of training in knife or stick.

We in Krav are lazy…just give us the bare minimum that will actually work. BE SAFE!