Knife Attacks on the Ground

The advanced Monday night class was full of fun and frolic on the ground. Coincidentally, most of the students participating also participate in Wednesday night’s ground fighting class. This made it a very interesting class, indeed.

The ground fighters easily made the adjustment from remaining on the ground with their opponents in order to apply chokes, arm bars and the like to striking, getting up and getting away. Later, intensity was heightened when punches and knife attacks came into play.

As I mentioned in a previous post, “Unless you’re a consummate grappler, have complete control of your environment (a plush surface to grapple on) and are sure you're facing a single, unarmed opponent, don’t go to the ground and grapple.” However, there are times when you end up on the ground through no fault of your own.

Warm up #1
Holding a tombstone pad moving around, our partner placed the pad in positions for straight punches, round kicks and groin kicks.

Warm up #2
Holding a tombstone pad moving around, our partner placed the pad in positions for straight punches, round kicks and groin kicks. Our partner dropped the pad and attacked us with chokes and bear hugs.

Drill #1
While standing with our eyes closed, our partner attacked us. We counterattacked and our partner fell to the ground. Our partner had to get back on his feet.

Drill #2
Straddling the tombstone pad with our knees in a mount position, we delivered strikes to the pad and then pushed off on the pad to get up and get away.

Drill #3
With our partner on the ground, we placed him in a scarf hold (kesa gatame) or headlock. We delivered strikes to our partner and then pushed off on him to get up and get away.

Drill #4
While our partner had us in a scarf hold or headlock, we practiced various escapes from those positions.

Drill #5
While standing with our eyes closed, our partner attacked us. We counterattacked and our partner fell to the ground. We went to the ground and placed him into a scarf hold or headlock. He had to escape from the hold.

Drill #6
With our partner on top of us in the mount position trying to stab us with a knife, we practiced 360 defenses.

Drill #7
While we had our partner in a scarf hold or headlock, our partner pulled a knife. We defended and got away.

Drill #8
We were on our knees facing our partner preparing to grapple. We both had knives hidden. We started to grapple and one of us pulled a knife.

“If the knife is present and used as a threat to induce you to hand over money, do so and get away as fast as you can; if a knife is going to be used to attack, your first option always is escape! If unable to escape, you have to counterattack, but wisely.”

– Peter Robins

I thoroughly enjoyed this class. It was like rolling on Wednesday night with a twist. In addition, it was a lot of fun with great intensity.

Related Posts

• A Night of Knife Attacks
• Principles of Krav Maga Reality Knife Defense
• Respect the Knife
• Defending Against the Knife… Counterattack!

Krav Maga True Colors

By Moshe Katz

We say true colors are beautiful but do we really see things that way? Do we really want to see the true colors or the colors we have become accustomed to?

Let's take a look at the martial arts. We have many traditionalists among us. A judo man will stick to judo, he will not dilute his judo with kicks or punches; he is a purist. A karate man will not go to the ground, nor will he put on boxing gloves and train with a boxer. A wrestler will not kick. Bruce Lee came along and said, really there is only one martial art. What you are seeing are just many different parts of one whole, it is time to put them all back together again. Real life self defense is not only kicking, or punching, or takedowns, or wrestling. Real life is all of the above.

When man first started fighting it was everything goes. That was the original "color". As time went on one school specialized in ground work while another perfected boxing or kicking. Yet another dealt with the art of pressure points. But in reality Lee said, they are all only parts of one original puzzle. That is the true color. The problem was that for so long we became accustomed to the red paint that was not real. It was just a way of preventing rust, and now that the real color has been restored it seems out of place, unnatural.

Bruce Lee, the UFC, Krav Maga, are all hitting on the same theme. The real color is the totality of fighting. Each martial art is but one school preserving and perfecting one limited aspect of this totality. It is time to reunite the pieces and recreate the whole.

We are very limited in our vision and in our perception. We are conditioned to see things as we are used to seeing them, even if it is not real, even if the color we are seeing is merely a preservative. True colors confuse us, they upset the apple cart. In life and in martial arts we need to be open to seeing real colors, even if they are sometimes confusing.

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