Self-defense Tactics - 3 Keys To Effectively Escaping Grab Attacks
Every student of self-defense and martial arts should learn how to deal with a grab attack
. For some though, the prospect of letting an attacker get close enough to take hold of you isn't pleasant in the least. But, if we can stay focused on scientific principles, we can see that there are only three key points that we need for controlling a self-defense situation where we're being grabbed by our assailant.
The problem for most students though, is in knowing what to be prepared for. I've heard more than a few students express the "impossible" nature of preparing for a grabbing situation because...
...there are too many variables.
How will we know what he's going to do? At least with punching and kicks, they say, you know he's probably going for your head or your torso. But, against an attacker who likes to grab, you could find yourself defending against things like:
Single or double-hand frontal chokes
2-hand or cross-arm chokes from the rear
1 or 2-hand lapel grabs
Cross or mirror-side wrist or sleeve grabs
Body-grabs ("bearhugs")
Judo-style grabs, and...
Combination-type grabbing attacks (i.e. sleeve & lapel, etc.)
You have all of these possibilities without even looking at the grab-and-punch or grab-and-kick scenario. So, how can you learn to handle these types of self-defense situations without memorizing a ton of techniques?
The Secret Is In Thinking Strategically
The problem is that most students, and teachers for that matter, tend to think mechanically when it comes to learning self-defense. But, if you're going to develop any level of mastery with your skills, you're going to have to start thinking on a strategic level.
What that means is this: You're going to have to look at principles and ideas, rather than specific details.
When dealing with an assailant who launches a grabbing attack, you need to stay focused on three important elements. If you've done your prep work and learned more than just a bunch of pre-rehearsed techniques or kata "examples," you should be just fine.
What are the 3 Keys? They are:
1) Think outside the box. Unfortunately, most of us were raised in a society focused heavily on sports, competition, and "fair play." Avoid the common tendency to want to wrestle with a wrestler. What that means is this - avoid the tendency to grab him because he's grabbing you. You must have other skills and techniques that you can use to get him off of you.
2) Use leverage and attack weak-points rather than relying on strength. Learn the skill of using strong-points against weak ones as outlined in Sun Tsu's "Art of War." A little study about how the body works, specifically how and where it's strong and the same for how it's weak, will go a long way toward being able to escape from a bigger, stronger opponent.
3) Remain covered. Boxers, and martial artists who focus on punching and kicking, know the importance of covering their targets against the possibility of incoming blows. Wrestlers tend to forget or, worse yet, never learn this. But, you must remember that a self-defense situation is NOT a sport competition where you are both limited by a set of rules to doing the same things to each other. Just because you can execute that wrist-grab escape, doesn't mean that you've also eliminated potential targets for him to hit with his follow-up attack.
Keep these keys in mind when you're training, and make sure that you're learning from someone who does the same. There's much more to defending against a brutal attacker than simply executing a textbook perfect self-defense move.
Go ahead and learn the cool moves. But also make sure that you're learning how to think strategically.
Thinking strategically is one of the marks of a true master. Regardless of whether your focus is on martial arts, ninja training, or whatever... if your goal is real-world self-defense skills, then you need to avoid falling for, what I call, the Karate-Myth.
by: Jeffrey Miller
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