Las Vegas Martial Arts Blog

Continued from part one.

WHERE are you at when attempting to kick?

Where you are at has a tremendous bearing on your ability to use your kicks effectively. For example; are you in a crowded bar, on a sandy beach, an ice covered sidewalk, a grassy hill, in a gravel covered parking lot, or how about an open area free of obstructions? Each one of these places has special characteristics that need to be taken into consideration when deciding whether or not to kick. Does the crowded bar offer you a large obstacle free area in which to execute your kicks, or is it full of obstacles including bystanders, chairs, tables, stools, slippery drink spilled hardwood floors, etc. Does the sandy beach, ice covered sidewalk, or the gravel parking lot offer the stable surface area needed to balance on one leg and kick? How about the grassy hill? Are you on the top of the hill kicking down, the bottom of the hill kicking up, or the side of the hill kicking to the side? Always remember that the environment that you are kicking in has a deciding factor on the effectiveness of your kicks.

WHEN are you attempting to use your kicks?

Are you using your kicks as an initial attack, or are you using them after you have already set-up and/or staggered your opponent with another technique or techniques? For the most part, I am a firm believer in setting up your kicks by utilizing hand techniques and/or stand-up grappling skills first, in order to keep your opponent off balance in order to increase the chances of landing an effective kick. Although there have been occasions where I have personally initiated a successful attack by using one of my kicks first, I would still prefer to utilize another technique or techniques prior to executing a kick.

A jab is generally considered the easiest and fastest punch in boxing. Why? Well, simply put the jab is closest to the opponent and is thrown with more speed than force behind it. This makes the jab a very effective punch for the purpose that it was intended. That is to keep the opponent at a distance, confuse him, and to set-up the more powerful right cross and the left hook that are sure to follow.

The same exact thing works with you kicks. Utilize the hands, which are generally faster and easier to use than the legs, to keep your opponent at a distance, confuse him, and to set-up the more powerful kicks. Just like in boxing.

WHY are you in a situation where you may have to kick, and WHY are you attempting to use your kicks?

Why are you in a situation where you have to consider defending yourself? Are you their because of no other option, or did you allow yourself to be put in this situation? It has been my experience that over 90% of all physical confrontations could be avoided if the individual first knew how to avoid them, and secondly, if the individual tried to avoid them. Depending on the circumstances, you should always try to avoid a confrontational situation if at all possible. However, there are times when it is either unavoidable, or a situation where you cannot avoid it. Remember the famous line from Bruce Lee s movie Enter the Dragon, My style is the art of fighting without fighting. Are these words to live by? You decide.

Why are you attempting to kick? Is there an opening that you can exploit, or are you trying to show off and impress somebody? Here is a saying that my father told me when I was younger, and I am sure a lot of fathers told their sons throughout the years. It goes something like this, Never carry a gun unless you intend to use it. Never pull that gun unless you intend to shoot it. Never point a gun at a man unless you intend to shoot him. And never, shoot a man unless you intend to kill him. The same can be said for you kicks!

And finally and perhaps most importantly, do you know HOW to correctly execute your kicks, and do you know HOW to correctly apply them?

These are perhaps the two most important factors that you need to consider when deciding whether or not to execute a kick in a self-defense situation. Do you truly know how to execute your kicks in order to make them the most efficient and effective kicks that you can? Do you know your kicks inside and out, forward and backward, upside down and right side up? Have you practiced those kicks thousands upon thousands of times correctly, under the watchful eye of a qualified and competent instructor? For the sake of argument let s say that you have. Now here is the rest of the how.

Do you know how to correctly apply them in a self-defense situation? The how encompasses all of the above mentioned items put together into one package. Along with the knowledge of what circumstances will best suit the use of your kicks. Would you try to kick my 7 basketball player in the head while he is standing in front of you? How about kicking the guy coming at you with a knife while you are standing on an icy sidewalk? How about you obnoxious brother-in-law at the family reunion? Remember, there is a time and place for everything, and that includes kicking.

So are the self-defense experts and others like them right? Well, the answer is yes, if you don t know what you are doing, and no, if you do know what you are doing. Can you achieve this ability overnight, of course not. Can you achieve this ability over a period of time, definitely! With time, patience, and proper practice, you can learn how to effectively utilize your kicking skills in a real life self-defense situation.

Shawn Kovacich is a high ranking black belt in both Karate and Tae Kwon Do. He is also a two-time world record holder for endurance high kicking as certified by the Guinness Book of World Records. Shawn is the author of the Achieving Kicking Excellence series and can be reached via his site at: www.KickingBooks.com

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Taekwon-do is Korean for foot (tae), hand (kwon) and way, or art (do). It can thus be rendered, “the art of fighting using the hands and feet.” The word “do”, essentially the key to the art itself, implies a totally dedicated way of life, the pursuit of excellence.

Strictly speaking, the nomenclature, Taekwondo, is relatively recent, being coined by the Father of Taekwondo, General Choi Hong-hi in 1957, but its roots go back over 2000 tears to c.60 BC to the art of Taek Kyon. Taek Kyon was developed, like karate and Kung-fu, as a devastating, surprise tactic against the depredations of marauders, ironically, in this case, Japanese pirates.

The Japanese were both directly and indirectly responsible for Taekwondo’s development. Indirectly, as they banned martial arts during their Korean occupation from 1909 until World War 2, forcing Taek Kyon, also known as Subak, to be pursued secretly in Buddhist temples. At the onset of war, the Japanese forced Korean subjugates, to learn karate in Japan, where Choi, himself, became proficient in Shokotan karate, later attaining the grade of 2nd Dan.

To learn tae kwon do accordingly involves many of the rigours of karate, thanks to Choi, typically, intense body-conditioning and muscular development. It’s a hard style involving direct, forceful blocks, powerful, linear attacks, and angular movements. Its also an amalgam of T’ai Chi, Kung-fu, judo, and other styles, incorporating spinning motions, punching, high jumping kicks, dodges, and parrying with both hands and feet.

For Taekwondo students, its military background is crucial. Latterly, as it was incorporated into the military training of both the Korean, and US forces. But far more importantly, because of the ancient parallels with the Roman legions, the quintessential martial artists.

Initially, worshipping Mars in his most brutal, slaughtering aspect, as Ares, the legions’ beliefs progressed through Mars Ultor -” the Avenger”- to their ultimate devotion to Mithras, the Zoroastrian god of battles and victory. However, for Taekwondo, it’s as god of oaths, mutual obligation between the king and his warriors, protector of the righteous, and arch-foe of the powers of evil that he’s most significant.

Ultimately, Mithras represented friendship, integrity, harmony, and all that successfully maintains order in human existence. He thus accords with the highest martial art principles, extolled by the ancient promulgators of Taek Kyon, the HwaRang – “the Flowering of Youth”

It’s to this aristocratic elite that the latter 11 point honour-code of Taekwondo – respect, loyalty, and fidelity i.e. deference, adherence to the law, allegiance, and oath-keeping to country, ancestors, spouses, siblings, friends, and school – owes its origin; representing the most arduous task for the student.

But it’s the Buddhist respect for life, inherent in the HwaRang’s oath never to take life unjustifiably, the attainment of indomitability of spirit, and the completion of what one has begun that students will derive the greatest benefit from. Plus taking to heart the HwaRang’s Confucian directive that the noble man should study poetry, the arts, and play music, as martial arts are best left to the common, or even inferior, man!

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Dynamics of the Blade

In training, no matter how “hard-core” and “alive,” if you miss your pick-up of the knife arm or lose control of it as you grapple, you get poked, and you try again.

In real life, that “poke” can end everything for you! If it penetrates a vital organ, you may have only minutes (or less) to get emergency medical care–and even then, they may not be able to save you. Even if no vital organs are hit, if you’re cut well across the abdomen, it is unlikely you’ll be able to prevent him from finishing the job as you trip over your own intestines. Blood loss from “non-lethal” cuts can make you dizzy and unbalanced very quickly, as well as complicating attempted grabs by making things very slippery. Cuts and stabs that happen to transect critical muscles and tendons (of which there are many) can render you incapable of using your hands or arms to protect yourself. And we haven’t even gotten to the physical and psychological effects of cuts and stabs to the neck and above. . .

But if you get very good at your grabbing and controlling techniques, you won’t suffer such things, right?

Let’s examine the dynamics of how a knife in the hand of a determined or psychotic attacker moves and maims:

Unarmed limbs require momentum and accuracy to cause damage. A punch or other strike will have little effect if it doesn’t have umph behind it, and even with some umph behind it, it will be most effective only against certain target areas (i.e. the ones we’re trained to attack in Guided Chaos–Ki Chuan Do [KCD] and Close Combat). The requirements of momentum and accuracy limit to a certain extent the ways unarmed limbs can damage you. For example, a hand that slaps lightly across your abdomen or a finger that swipes the inside of your arm would be of little consequence in a fight in terms of causing damage. On the other hand, a sharp implement requires relatively little momentum (almost none if it’s very sharp) and accuracy to generate massive injury! Therefore, a blade can move in many more ways, far more deceptively and quickly (because it doesn’t need to coordinate with the rest of the body), and still cause massive injury with virtually any contact with your body! Far less skill is required in moving the blade effectively, because far less accuracy and body unity are needed to cause damage. Of course, if you add accuracy and good body mechanics into the equation, things get even worse. . .

A psychotic attacker’s (i.e. one whose mind is not perceiving remotely the same reality as yours is–you may look to him like a devil about to eat his children) attack with a blade will be “predictable” only in two aspects: it will be fast and it will be furious. Adrenaline will cause his limbs to move as fast as they are physically capable of moving, which for most people is far faster than the eye can track at close range. He’ll pounce on you like an animal, moving the blade every which way except for where you think. And the sane, but determined attacker’s attack will be similar, only more efficient and calculated.

Anyone want to reach into this fury to attempt to grab the blade arm–bearing in mind that the attacker’s other limbs are likely doing everything in their power to disrupt and damage you as well?

What the truly experienced close combat pioneers realized is that you cannot count on a) grabbing an attacker’s knife arm out of the air in the midst of a violent attack, or b) preventing the blade from moving decisively even if you do get a good grip on the arm, unless perhaps you grab concurrent with or after doing serious damage to the attacker! Diminishing the attacker can possibly reduce blade movement potential.

How to Stay Alive

Because we see that we cannot count on controlling a blade being wielded violently, we must keep maximum distance between the blade and our vital organs, and/or keep something solid (preferably that’s not a part of us) between the blade and our vital organs! All of the close combat methods discussed above, and all of those taught in Guided Chaos, support this priority.

Here is a general (not exhaustive) outline of Guided Chaos tactics against an assailant trying to kill you (as opposed to scare you) with a sharp object (bearing in mind that everything depends on the specific situation):

1. If you can perceive the attack before the attacker gets within arms’ reach, here are your best options, roughly in descending order of preference:

A. Run to create a lot more distance! Use cover as you go!

B. If you can’t run (or you think he’s faster), get something solid (e.g. chair, trash can) in between you and the blade! Hurt him with it and/or create time and space to run!

C. Get something that can extend your destructive reach (e.g. a cane) and hurt him with it and/or create time and space to RUN!

D. Drop kick like lightning (hopefully with solid boots) to keep him away and hurt him (while covering your vital organs–note possible reach disparity, if his arm plus the blade outreach your leg)!

i. “Rockette” front and side kicks
ii. Kick with the leg that will cover your groin if possible (parallel leg to knife hand)
iii. Move offline while kicking if possible

2. If the attacker is already within arms’ reach or is about to breach that distance:

A. Dog-dig (Guided Chaos method of high speed, alternating circular parries with both hands) to keep the blade away from your vital organs while lunging away and offline to regain distance!

B. Go to the ground (Modified Native American Groundfighting style) to gain more distance between the blade and your vital organs and destroy his legs and body!

C. If you’re forced into a close-range, face-to-face fight,

i. Dog-dig to keep blade away from vital organs while attacking (destroy throat and neck, penetrate eye sockets, create traumatic brain injury) and while moving to get behind him!

ii. If you happen to grab the blade arm concurrent with damaging him, congratulations– but do not count on a grab to keep you safe– you must end him or regain distance!

This is a real test of your sensitivity, looseness, body unity and balance. Even if you get stabbed, your best bet for survival at this distance if you can’t get away is to shut him down immediately so that he can’t stab you anymore, not to wrestle with his knife arm as he cuts you anyway and rips your face off with his free hand.

Train your awareness to pick up signs of possible attacks before they breach the critical distance. The further away you detect a possible threat, the more time and options you have to avoid it.

Some may at this point bring up the issue of, “What if you don’t know he has a weapon? Many stabbing victims say they did not see the weapon and didn’t even realize they had been stabbed until they saw all the blood.”

It’s true, you may not see the weapon . . . but can you see the palms of his hands? Assuming you are aware of the approach of a potential attacker at least a second before he’s within range to strike, if you cannot see the palms of both of his hands, you must assume that he is holding a weapon!

If you’re not aware of his approach before he’s in range to strike, well . . . good luck. . .

“What if he has it concealed but is not holding it yet?”

This is why close combat and Guided Chaos emphasize the need to shut down an attacker right away, before he has the chance to draw a weapon.

Is it possible for an attacker to cut your leg while you kick him, standing or from the ground? Yes it is. Remember however that an attacker is not likely to expect kicks from you as he beelines towards your vital areas. You can further reduce your chances of getting injured by working diligently to improve you balance, speed and power in drop kicking and kicking from the ground (use wobble boards, heavy bags and groundfighting kicking exercises). Additionally, the boots (or at least sturdy shoes–right?) covering your feet are probably the least penetrable pieces of clothing you regularly wear, making your feet the most armored part of your body. Unless the femoral artery (which is accessible to a small blade only near the groin) is hit, cuts and stabs to the legs will generally be non-lethal, and will usually allow you to continue fighting, especially as the muscles and tendons in the legs are much bigger and tougher than those in the arms.

Could other methods work? Certainly, they have and they will. It’s a matter of luck and the specifics of the situations and adversaries faced. Not every knife-wielding attacker is a determined killer or murderous psychotic. However, a cornerstone principle of Guided Chaos and close combat is to train primarily for the worst-case scenario, so that you’ll be as prepared as possible no matter how bad it gets. While going for a grapple and takedown could possibly work consistently for a large, athletic bouncer facing severely inebriated bums wielding broken beer bottles, that’s hardly a scenario to base life-saving personal protection training on.

Reality Ain’t Fun

Unfortunately for enrollment in Guided Chaos classes, training for the reality of an attack with a small sharp weapon is difficult and not as much fun as wrestling around or doing patterned drills. Fortunately for the students, though, having a serious idea about the reality of such attacks and the stakes involved goes a long way towards improving their awareness, thereby reducing the probability that they will ever have to physically deal with such an attack.

And if someday they do have to deal with it, hopefully what they’ve learned and trained will help them.

Ari Kandel is a 1st degree Black Belt in Guided Chaos (Ki Chuan Do), the adaptive, free-form internal art created by former forensic homicide investigator John Perkins. He also appears in the KCD Guided Chaos Groundfighting DVD. See http://attackproof.com/ More articles and DVDs can be found at http://www.attackproof.com/FREE-self-defense-NEWSLETTER.html

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“What is defense? It is a countermeasure to aggression, an act of
protection from danger”. -Robert Anthony Bussey

Self defense is a myth. I know. I ve been studying and it for years. The false sense of security my sister might buy in the store or from some expert outright scares me. What would really work if she was threatened? Attacked? Worse?

Violent crime is everywhere, happening every minute. It’s random, and it
can happen to you. from Taking Precautions by Robert Bussey at www.busseystyle.com

Should she take a self defense course? Buy mace? Nice shoes won t make me dance and I wouldn t take an introductory gymnastics class and then go for the gold. What should I tell my sister to do? Learn about Personal Protection.

People ask what they should do specific situations? I tell them to get a foundation in movement and learn how to react, either one being more important than learning particular techniques. Learning about how attacks happen, how to react and how to move is more practical and valuable than learning the twist to pull out of a wrist grab or a shoulder grab.

What do I mean? Memorize 10 phrases to visit a foreign country. You can order a plate of food, ask for the bathroom, and call cabs all day long. That s self defense. You re not prepared to adapt to new situations. Instead, you could have a basic understanding of how the language works and you can perform, pronounce the words, hear the locals, and react to situations you ve never been in before. You feel better, and can go more, go farther, and live better. That s Personal Protection.

Of course, we all know that there are no guarantees that violence won’t occur; therefore, protective tools must be in place. These tools need to be effective, direct, and immediately useful or the victim runs the risk of making things worse by trying to defend herself with techniques that won’t hold up. Robert Bussey

Personal protection isn t just mental. It is not just physical. It s both. And it can be relatively simple, safe, and fun, to learn. That s something I feel good about telling my sister.

About the Author
Alex Iglecia is a Combat Advisor, Club Sanctioned for www.busseystyle.com and teaches Genuine Bussey Style to the Back Bay community at Body Evolver and to companies and organizations throughout New England. You can find out more online at http://www.busseystyle.com/

Tags: Wing Chun, Kung Fu, Las Vegas Kung Fu School, Las Vegas Wing Chun School, Lo Man Kam, Lo Man Kam Wing Chun, Martial Arts Self Defense

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