Quit offering idiotic and potentially criminal self defense advice

a reply to: dismanrc

I want to say firstly everything you aid has been discussed at length. You took portions of my arguements and left out any retractions.

First or second post I made I said a shotgun because of its spread was one of the only guns that doesn't need extensive training.

Second not all competition based martial arts pull punches. In fact grappling sports were designed to go full out. I guarantee you my expireince in competition allows me and edge over a significant portion of the population. I get a hold of you and throw you on the pavement, break your arms (which would be tapped in competition usually before that), choke you out, break your knees or ankles, or shoulder its a bad night. Not only that I have competed internationally against other blackbelts who actually train and know how to defend and attack.

You would see the point of my conversation was to say a ccl style hand gun and really any hand gun takes extensive training. If everyone were to carry them without training the accident level would go way up. A lot more people use ladders than hand guns. Or any other stat you through out. It's common sense if you have more hand guns more accidents wi happen. One way to lower that is training. Could be in schools. Could be outside schools and heavily promoted on the radio etc.

Having a safe room and an alarm system for someone without training in firearms and possibly unwilling to pull the trigger is much better advice than having a gun. Sure a shotgun is effective in home defence. I prefeced my whole arguement saying that.

I have hours of tactical traing every month and ha e competed in marksmanship for fun. It's not easy to shoot moving targetswith a hand gun and statistically speaking they won't do a damn thing if your jumped and can't get it. Which is common with muggings etc.

So if you want to be trained to defend yourself you have to train your mind to recognize danger and your body how to react including drawing your firearm the proper way to stand in combat etc.

a reply to: Domo1

I agree that some advice regarding one's defense may be less practical than others, I disagree with your vehement retort against certain self-defense methods that may be illegal.

Personally, I would much rather stay alive and face the possibilities associated with breaking the law, as opposed to dying. Any law that prohibits the individual from defending himself in a manner deemed "unnecessary" by some, should be ignored. We should have all information regarding different methods of self-defense, including questions of legality, because only the individual has the right to make the final decision.

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
my personal opinion is weapons are relatively useless for self defense. if a person is ambushing you because they think you look like an easy mark chanced are you didnt see the pre incident indicators and now don't have time to fumble for a weapon. so pepper spray, stun guns, a knife or even a handgun are fairly useless unless you already have them deployed. and in that case you're walking around brandishing a weapon so that won't work out well when the cops drive by and youre walking down the street.

This is a good point, but what I train in (Krav), the idea that the entire combat system is based on is being in a life-threatening scenario where the attacker may or may not have a weapon. While there are three different tactical pistol training courses that my instructor now offers, it is worth noting that Krav Maga consciously considers the scientific principal that a person cannot think both in a defensive and an offensive manner at the same time, so Krav only has "defenses," which are reactions to attacks or aggression, but end in offensive movements to disable the opponent so that you can either flee or create distance between you and the individual(s).

The latter is where my point comes into play--in Krav, we're not necessarily taught as part of the curriculum to use weapons offensively (at least not in the early levels or any of the levels I've seen--we only have through level 5 in our school right now). We are, however, taught to disarm individuals that do have weapons, and then use them to our advantage if necessary. And people like me who carry a firearm everyday, when we "tactically disengage" from the fight, our instructor encourages us (if we want) to practice the motion of drawing our pistol AFTER the threat is either disabled or you have enough distance in order to draw the weapon effectively.

krav guy. just wanna talk shop for a second. you mentioned knife skills and broken arms. how do you Defang the snake in krav? guntings or something similar like in kali. also does krav have any tapi tapi drills or something similar for counter trapping and opponents weapon control.

also, in krav do they teach any offensive blade work?

just curious.

I don't know to which 'krav guy' you're directing your question, but I'll chime in with my two cents, if that's okay. Keep in mind, I've only been practicing the combat system for 1.5 years, so my knowledge about what is taught in the mid-to-upper levels is severly limited.

"Gunting" (or a similar technique) isn't something that I've come across in Krav, but one must remember that the system of Krav Maga is designed around gross motor skills, so there is not a lot of technique involved in regards to disabling certain parts of the body as much as speed and power to disable the entirety of the individual through broken ribs via knees, eye gouges, groin kicks, boxing the ears, elbows, hammer fists, face stomps, etc. We do, however, take advantage of arm bars, wrist and arm trapping, wrist breaking (via trapping and an elbow in certain scenarios), etc. And like I said, as I progress, I'm sure that the fine motor skills of aiming for specific points of the body and whatnot might come into play, but as it goes with the strict Krav curriculum, I haven't encountered much like that. That doesn't mean that many of the moves we learn won't break arms or disable knees or whatever, but it's not a very commonly specified goal, at least in my training (other than the goal of breaking ribs with knees...if the opponent can't breathe, he can't fight). Of course, the training will differ dependent upon which system the individual school follows--our curriculum come relatively direct from Ran Nakash in Isreal.

As for opponent's weapon control, we are taught methods to block weapons strikes and disarm the individual. Defenses against sticks and knives start in level three, gun defenses in level four.

The great thing about my instructor is that if you pay for one of the three main martial arts that he teaches (Okinawan Kempo, Jeet Kun Do, or Krav Maga), you have access to ground combatives (combative jiu-jitsu, which is also introduced in level 4 of Krav), and eskrima/kali (where you would learn the tapi-tapi drills that you mention) for free. So, you basically get three classes for the price of one, which is really nice if one has the time to go to all of them. With two kids and a wife, I'm lucky that I get to Krav on a regular basis--anything else is pure kindness on my wife's behalf.

As a general rule in the levels that I have access to, offensive use of weapons is not a focus of the 'civilian' side of Krav training. That doesn't mean that my instructor doesn't teach us some, but I don't believe that it's part of the official curriculum, but don't assume that my knowledge of that part of it is 100% accurate.

I train at this school for my Krav (and other stuff), if you're interested in seeing all the stuff my instructor teaches and knows. The reason I go to him is because in each thing that he teaches, he tries to get as direct a line as possible with the top experts in each art, and everything that he teaches is training for real self-defense, not tournaments. Plus, he's the antithesis of what a McDojo is.

Anyhoo, I've talked too much at this point, but you seemed like you had sincere questions, so I thought I'd give it a go. Take most things I say with a grain of salt, as like I said, I haven't been practicing very long, but that said, I have don't plenty of research into the Krav system, and I always ask a lot of "why" questions during training so that I have an understanding behind each thing that we are doing.

Slapmonkey,

Hey Just checked out the link you supplied for your school. You are correct your instructor does seek out the top guys in their respective systems.

Noticed that your school teaches the Doce Pares System for Escrima. That's a treasure of a system for sword and stick. Not sure how far you've gone into it yet or if that comes later in your curriculum but in my opinion they have the most diverse stick and sword work in the philippines.

For those that don't know, Doce Pares was a system created by he top 12 swords/Stick men in the city of Cebu in the Visayan Islands of the philippines. The visayans being centrally located had a good mix of the european (predominately Spanish) sword techniques brought over to the islands, and the southern "Kali" systems with the more indigenous Indonesian arts (A Mix of Jungle know how, Indian, Persian/Muslim, and Chinese arts. ) Each master was a specialist in one of the contributing arts. Some contributed a lot of stick work. Others sword play. Others shorter machete like blades, and some knife & Sword combined. The Sayaw (Forms) for the art are in my opinion beautiful. That's a great art your school picked up.

You brought up a great point gross motor skills. That's something I like about Krav. They address that. A lot of systems don't and expect you to somehow be able to pull off overly complex techniques you won't be able to even remember to do let alone be able to fumble through when terrified and ambushed.

With a similar combative thought process, Pekiti uses whats known as Pangumut as their base striking system for the hands. It's only got 4 moves. 1. Finger Jab to eye used as said and as a check for a forthcoming blow. 2. Forehand bear paw or open hand slap. 3. Backhand hack or hammerfist. 4. Elbow. It looks overly simple but it is easy to remember, uses gross motor skills and allows the body to generate and deliver safely (to themselves) maximum power. They believe the open hand is superior to the fist. Often when asked they will tell you to go to a brick wall. Your challenge is to hit the wall as hard as you can. Your option is punch it or slap it. You have 2 seconds to decide. 9 times out of 10 you'll opt for the slap. Protects you from injuring yourself. Knocks out better. Allows you to retain usage of your hands should you transfer to a weapon. Also the slashing and hacking techniques of Pangumut are the exact same as those used for a blade including the elbows. So you never have to learn two systems one for weapon and one for empty hand they are one and the same.

Excellent posts you've made in this thread so far and you certainly are learning from a great teacher.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

Krav does take a lot of the striking from boxing, so we do have the 'standards:' Jab, cross, hook, & uppercut, but then we also have "finger punch" (fingers to the eyes), palm strikes, hammer fists, and all eight different elbows that come into play in our defenses (well, a few of them do, so far). ETA: Forgot the back fist...can't forget the backfist, poor little strike.

But in reality, it's really not all that hard to remember, because some are basic and don't require much memory, while others just flow naturally in the defenses/scenarios and therefore don't take much time to move past the point of just being comfortable with them.

Keep in mind, though, that Krav Maga has evolved into being designed for soldiers who are assumed to have heavy packs and a rifle on their person, so some of the moves do come across as odd until you keep that in mind. But, my instructor always reminds us that once we have tested out of the level, we adapt whatever effective move suits our style and abilities. That's what I like about him being a follower of Bruce Lee's philosophy when it comes to martial arts--nothing should ever be rigid, and the style should never stay the same, but adapt to the situation. That's a little harder in Krav, since there are so few moves from which to choose, but at the same time, that's what I love about the system, because we don't have to thumb through a massive mental rolodex to find what will work.

Anyhoo, I appreciate the compliment on my posts, as being so relatively new to the self-defense community, I sometimes question my own memory and understanding at times. Thanks for the discussion (and the knowledge...I had to look up a few things to know what you were talking about )

originally posted by: Gothmog
Since this is the rant section

Run away, if you can, it's the best defense.

"Not goin out like that , no way"

right! why escape with your life when you can put yourself in even more danger! to hell with common sense!

originally posted by: JourneymanWelder

originally posted by: Gothmog
Since this is the rant section

Run away, if you can, it's the best defense.

"Not goin out like that , no way"

right! why escape with your life when you can put yourself in even more danger! to hell with common sense!

Oh , so another one that believes you can run away . Silly advice. They will only die tired,,,,Your way does work , but only dependent on the weapon and if you are already out of the weapon's range.
The best advice - enroll in some good self-defense training. I had some of the best training provided free of charge from Uncle Sam,

a reply to: Domo1

Having a bad day?

Pepper spray and mace is legal to have and carry in all 50 states. Not sure what you are talking about there, nor what state your in.

Killing someone with a pencil, pin, pen, paper clip is very possible even If you have no Khufu panda training. I'll let you figure how to do that.

anyways, hope you have a better day!

a reply to: Domo1

So you are saying if there is a person shooting people and I stab him in the ear and kill him that I am going to go to jail? What planet are you from?