Monday night’s class started out warming up with the Tombstone Pad. Your training partner held the pad in position for you to deliver straight punches, groin kicks, round kicks to the ribs, round kicks to the outer thigh and round kicks to the inner thigh.
When the warm up was over, we exchanged our Tombstone Pad for a Kicking Shield so that we could work on some kicking combinations. Your training partner was instructed to make sure that you kicked the shield often. There was to be no lag time. In addition, he/she was to move around and change angles as well as distances.
Drill #1
Starting with your lead leg; execute an offensive front kick followed by a rear leg round kick making contact with the ball of your foot in both cases.
Drill #2
Starting with your lead leg; execute an offensive front kick followed by a rear leg offensive front kick.
Drill #3
Starting with your rear leg; execute an offensive front kick followed by a side kick with the same leg.
Drill #4
This drill involved all three kicking combinations. Your training partner would call out a number representing the kicking combination that he/she wanted you to execute.
Note: Kicking combinations are very exhausting!
Drill #5
While facing your training partner, execute a Sweep with Heel Kick. In Judo, this is called an Osoto Gari. Essentially, you grab your opponent and off balance him/her so that most of his/her weight is on one leg. As you off balance your opponent, you sweep (kick) the back of his/her supporting leg with the back of your leg driving him/her to the ground.
Since Krav Maga is essentially a close quarters combat system, this particular sweep is a good finishing move after you’ve neutralized and weakened your opponent.
Drill #6
This drill covered the Sweep with Forward Kick. In Judo, this is called Kosoto Gari. Like the Sweep with Heel Kick, you grab your opponent and off balance him/her so that most of his/her weight is on one leg. However, this sweep is applied to your opponent’s foot rather than the leg.
You might use this sweep when the dynamics of the fight has taken you to a position at your opponent’s side, with you either facing perpendicular to him/her or facing the same way. Since there is less power in this sweep, you want to sweep the foot with the least amount of weight on it.
Drill #7
We defended against the Full Nelson in this drill. A Full Nelson is a hold in which the attacker… standing behind you… slides both arms under your armpits, then up behind your neck, clasping his/her hands together.
There are three Full Nelson defenses in the Krav Maga Worldwide curriculum: Leverage on Fingers, Forward Throw and Sweep. We practiced the Leverage on the Fingers defense. Of the three defenses, this one should be used first.
Drill #8
We finished the night by delivering combination kicks to our training partner. In between combination kicking, our training partner would attack us. We defended the attack, used combatives and then finished the defense with one of the sweeps we learned earlier.
Another great night of Krav Maga instruction!
