Here is an age old question

Do you have to wait until someone actually hits you to begin your action of Survival?

 

Personally I thnk you woul be crazy in some cases...no make that any case, to wait until someone actauly hits you.  Unless they catch you off gaurd.

In my school I teach SURVIVAL classes, not self defense classes.  Why?  Becaue it does not take a mule kicking me in the head to know that if a person draws  back their fist or a baseball bat, to know they are about to attack.

 

Same goes for teaching only certain situations instead of teaching a more runded veiw of what it can really be like.  It alo goes for those beleoved "one step" fighnt techniques that require you to WAIT until the other person throws a punch before you defend.  

 

Get real forls in the street, when the action begins, NOT when it  actaully happens, you had better be doing somethng, or your are dead.  It is just that simple.

Tae I have to agree. In my line of work I really cannot wait for the person to always throw an attack first because one too many people may get hurt or millions of dollars in hospital equipment may get damaged. I will admit that thanks to my martial arts training along with training from the police academy and training given to me at my job I have gotten really good at reading body language. Granted sometimes it will appear to the untrained eye that I may be coming in somewhat aggressive but when my boss reviews the tapes though he will see that I had acted within reason to keep the situation from getting worse. 

I have gotten in to the habit now of looking for certain tell tale signs when dealing with patients such as pacing, clenching fists, the tightening of the body's muscles or when they begin to try and invade my personal space. 

Those signs are enough for me to be ready but that is at the hospital. In the street though it is different because you will not always be face to face with the attacker. Granted you cannot go walking down the street like a member of the SWAT team but still must be aware. 

When I did Shotokan there were no set one steps and as we got more advanced we would actually stop announceing the attack so you didn't know which attack was coming. Yes many a ding and some bruises but I feel that type of training when I didn't know what type of attack it was did help me have better reaction.

P.S I did take that black belt's belt away from him and informed the Grand Master. Thank god he has security cameras in the school too. He reviewed them and saw how the kid was acting and now he is (the kid that lost the belt) is not getting his belt back for six months until he proves to the school and the organization that he is deserving of such an important rank.

no the law says if you are in reasonable fear of being attacked. then you do not have to waight for the actula attack

In what state JW.  The law here is different then there, of course we also have the "leave whre they lie" law.  Most states(notice I said most)  require that if you do not wait, and you are trained, then you had better have witnesses.  However, if someone is aobut to attack me,  hang the witnesses.  LOL  :^)

"Those who are afraid of death, never truly live. Living life to the fullest means taking a chance."

Check again JW, I pronmise if you attack in NEW York and you are trained, with no witnesses, you may end up in jail.

I ma not saying you should not do it, only know of all the consequencs before doing it, so you can prove you had good reason.

 

Like I said, some states say you have to have witnesses or let them throw it first.  Which I think is a little corney myslef.;  LOL, guess they need that mule.  :^)

"Those who are afraid of death, never truly live. Living life to the fullest means taking a chance."

Russian stick exercises

We started out the session working on some interesting old Russian stick exercises and then applying them to the mountain axe. Last week I bought a number of table runners to use as sashes or faja...so we worked quite a bit on our technique using the navaja and faja together. We used two methods, first the faja n the off hand and then the faja stretched between the hands with the navaja in the right hand. We did some bouting both with and without the sash.

Next up we worked on the recortes as a counter to both a straight thrust and a jiro. Once the recortes was finished we were throwing a rear leg fouette at the opponents midsection. Fun mixing savate and navaja play:)

We finished the session with some drills developed around the madeja (skein of yarn, figure-8 ) A thrust comes in and the counter is made in the madeja pattern and a series of cuts follow all along the same pattern as the defender moves either to the outside or the inside of the attackers blade. So a short session, about an hour and a half, but we got some good navaja work in.

if you have andre's book on french defense dans la rue--there is a chapter on navaja with some savate kicks---they changed the navaja to the french knife and took the info from the spanish book and did a bit of a mix--adding some cape and kicking--

Sounds like lots of fun!

-- 

"In these modern times, many men are wounded for not having weapons or knowledge of their use."

-Achille Marozzo, 1536

-- 

"...it's the nature of the media and the participants. A herd of martial artists gets together and a fight breaks out; quelle surprise."

-Chas Speaking of rec.martial-arts

Session 2-6-11 NEOHEMAS

Some days it is a good idea just to work on what you already know. It is easy to fall into the trap of being a technique collector. For unarmed, I like the following progression that we used on Sunday...boxing then add kicking then add the grappling. Then if we go further add the weapons in like we did...grappling is less attractive with the navaja pointed at you but for some reason happens frequently int eh e-tool bouting, most likely due to the slower speed of the heavier weapon.

2 rounds boxing

2 rounds savate

2 rounds combat sambo

The combat sambo lead us to a good deal of fighting against the wall both on the feet and on the ground. This lead to some work on using the wall to help get better position and or leverage both on the feet and on the ground.

1 round navaja and faja vs same

1 round navaja vs same

2 rounds of e-tool

The e-tool fight is much like the knife fight. often there is not way to come out unscathed. At time the only option was to come out of an engagement with less damage than you inflict. So what have you folks been up to this week?

On Wednesday Night I'll have my first group training session with two folks plus myself - I am mentally prepared.

On the solo front - I have switched from a primary focus on Kettlebell Complexes, "resistance cardio" and basic conditioning, and moved into a heavy focus on systems and skills. I am alternating days between pugilism, primarily Frank Lewis' system, and walking stick, mostly AC Cunningham's system. Performance-wise I am working on getting my repetition rate up during timed rounds, 3 minutes each for pugilism and 5 minutes each for walking-stick/cane.