HDHH the night before may not be the best way to entice men to show up at 0500. It was a very good turn out for the festivities at the Hickory tavern and fun was had by all. Considering the late night adventures the F1 numbers on Todays events were impressive. As is the norm on Fridays, we shared the Q space with the men from the Intimidator,,,, so all in all, we had ten strong men pushing their limits.
So, how did we start of this morning. As we always do,,, we reviewed te techniques and studied the targets that would be available and affective. We did add three more main targets to the list. The ribs above the kidneys,the jaw (from the side and or back of the attacker) and the middle of the thigh. These dont normally get consideration as targets but when added to the Bicep, throat, jaw and front lower tibs – we are starting to get a functional list that will disable an attacker. Typically it is more affective to target these areas than to trying to hit the big ball of bone on top of the neck. But yes, we will target certain areas of that eventually. So, now that we know these targets we will focus on them when we are performing the attack drills. One of the main reasons for a failed encounter is te failure to target or even think about what we are hitting. The "head" or "body" is just too general of an area to be affective. We need to train our minds to recognize what liabilities are created by every move the attacker makes. And then we will target these liabilities.
The drills we practiced were the standards we have done from the start, the three point boxing drill, the double hook and the passing strike. After this was reviewed we found out that we have legs and elbows. The elbows were of special interest this morning as the hard bone of the elbow creates a very high level of damage when directed to the appropriate target. But the benefit of using an elbow is also the risk (or liability) of using an elbow. That is that you have to be much closer to the attacker in order to use them. So, when going against someone that likes to wrestle or has trained in some sort of ground fighting there is the risk of getting grabbed. To limit the risk we make certain that we are aware of the position of the attacker and we dont stay in one place to long. (Yes we will get to ground fighting soon) And most importantly we use the legs, hips and shoulders to generate a rotational force that drives the elbows into the attacker. This creates a very large amount of power that make grabbing us diffiicult and dangerous for the attacker. We practiced a variety of techniques for attack and defense that included the use of the elbow to the ribs and jaw. Making certain that we dont just stand still once the attack has been initiated and we move into a position of advantage. Since we are now exposing ourselves to the risk of being grabbed and taken down we went over some basic techniques that will become useful once we are on the ground. First we went over the leg Triagle choke. This takes some practice to get into but if the attacker is too aggressive, this techinique becomes fairly easy to deploy.
Sine we are using the figure 4 attacks it was best to discover the defense to this attack. Once it is on the figure 4 attacks are fairly difficult to defeat. But if we can anticipate or recognize the attack as it is happening, the defense and nuetralization of the attack is fairly easy.
YHC realizes that these first few training session are a bit confusing. The exposure to a variety of basic movements, attacks and defesnses will eventually make sense,,,,, and then the mind and body will make sense of the chaos that occurs in an altercation. Next week we will focus on the fundementals of the punch, strike, block and kick. They may seem very diffferent but the driving mechanics of all attacks and defenses are very similar. Once the basic mechanics are understood, the power generated will be sharply increased. We will then focus on balance and how to generate this power while maintaining a neutral balance position.
And then the fun begins, and the real learning of this art will begin.
Thank you for the chance to share this passion of mine with you fine men.
Stay safe
Tick Tock