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Lionel Froidure
Lionel Froidure's picture
Problem on grab

Hello everybody and Happy New Year! Wish you a good health as it is the base of everythong else, witout it we cannot reach our goals our dreams, so I really wish you a good health and of course a lot of training :-)

I noticed a lot of people are defending themself against grabs but the problem is that the grab is neutral : with no move at all (push-pull) or something after. I always found that weird and not realistic at all. So I decided to make a video about it. If there is grab, there gonna be something after or if he grabs you, he will pull you. Does it make sense? 

Here is the video. Don't forget to turn on Close Caption ;-) 

Looking for your point of view. 

Cheers,

Lionel

Mark B
Mark B's picture

Hi Lionel Definitely important for people to understand that people will not passively seize and do nothing. It's also important to appreciate the aggressive nature and mindset of the person doing the grabbing. I teach the same myself in these examples

 

 

Les Bubka
Les Bubka's picture

Hi Lionel

In any realistic set up there will be action, pull, push or hit, your partner have to work. In our dojo we use a "static" attack, for learning the technique, athen we upgrade that to partner is working and resisting. Last stage is  putting the headgear and try to do it as it meant to be, most of the time techinque which we planned to use is modified to suit the situation.

I think reason for so many clips of static holds is that every one wants to show technical aspects of their art. If we recordclips of how it meant to look,people would't see what is going on, and it wouldn't be pretty.

I like your video 

Kind regards

Les

Lionel Froidure
Lionel Froidure's picture

Leszek.B wrote:

I think reason for so many clips of static holds is that every one wants to show technical aspects of their art. If we recordclips of how it meant to look,people would't see what is going on, and it wouldn't be pretty.

Hi Les, 

I totally agree, most want to show the technique without the pull or push to feature the arm bar, the throwing or anything alse and being pretty to watch. But that would be interesting to show after that pretty video a more "realistic" approch? I think it would help. 

Leszek.B wrote:

Last stage is  putting the headgear and try to do it as it meant to be, most of the time techinque which we planned to use is modified to suit the situation.

Yes, putting headgear and resisting will help us to improve on a practical realistic approch. 

I am often saying to my student or during seminar, that you need to learn how to attack before knowing how to defend yourself against it. If you don't know what could come to you, you won't be able to defend correctly yourself. 

Cheers,

Lionel

sarflondonboydo...
sarflondonboydonewell's picture

 Lionel thank you for your post and how you build up and teach the method. Personally the problem with  grabs is that instructors spend to much time on the grab! I have never known a grab to be static; certainly in the very distance past instructors would teach it as such as they were teaching partly from book illustrations/pictures. When an attacker’s grabs their first aim is to dominate the defender psychologically and put them on the back foot physically, not only is the striking distance gauge by the grab but it also helps to pin and restrict the defenders movements followed by a punch/strike this above all happens within a split second.

I teach for a single grab ignore the grab; move off at a 45 degree angle (which stretches them out and lessens the power of the blow should it hit you) striking at the same time (this does not necessary need to be hard) only that it is quick so as to for a split second disrupt the attacker by putting them psychologically on the back foot.

karate10
karate10's picture

Grab in static won't be the case in the street as the perpetrator will grab you, shake you and verbally say stuff to you as it can distract you psychologically....Static practice is good to practice at 1st in the dojo, then work your way up into real time practice. Good videos Lionel!!

Gerald.

Mark B
Mark B's picture

In my experience a single hand grab to the jacket lapel is usually a "locator" to allow the attacker to both hold in place and judge distance to increase the chances of delivering an accurate strike. The grab is usually quickly followed with a punch -it's ballistic, it rarely is a pushing and pulling thing. Essentially the attacker is doing exactly what kata would teach - hold in place to locate and strike, I believe Iain uses the term "datum setting", that's exactly what the attacker is doing but the intention is not to rag someone around, rather a setup for a more efficient attack. Double grabs however do often precede an aggressive pull. That makes sense, both hands are now occupied so to deliver the most probable attack (head butt) an aggressive and ballistic pulling of the lapels is necessary to gain full value. Regards Mark

JWT
JWT's picture

I think with the clothing grab it's important to envisage a context. Its mechanics are going to vary according to the intent of the grabber which in turn will vary as to whether it is an initiator (which could be a locator mechanism,a controlling mechanism or an unbalancing mechanism - all designed to maximise the chance of a follow up landing) or whether it is a mid physical event action where both parties may well be moving in opposite directions. The Gi can be useful in this regard as I find that 

  • a tied and belted Gi jacket moves very like a zipped up jacket/coat
  • a belted (but not tied) Gi jacket moves like a t shirt - the amount it pulls open niv=cely replicates a torn shoulder seam - soething I've had happen to me in an altercation
  • an untucked untied Gi jacket moves like an open coat/jacket.
     

 

So the grab can be more of a locator push or (and I've seen both) it can be used to push bac and jerk forwards in an unbalancing motion that disorientates the inexperienced and makes it harder to protect the head without training.

Static training only is problematic. If you've not taken it to a more dynamic level then you haven't tested it, looked for flaws, and seen what you need to tweak. Dynamic training is problematic. To learn effectively skills / movements need to be first taught in an unpressurised environment. Good training designed to optimise student potential and skill development requires both.

I personally prefer to teach static drills initially and then move to dynamic and/or alive before returning to static.

I find headgear and (small) gloves can be useful, but generally more for their psychological impact. There is no headgear that enables the wearer to cover their head in a natural fashion which does not present essentially the same risk of brain injury with impact as not wearing any headgear at all. What cage head gear can do however is remove the risk of facial cuts, abrasions, infections, split lips, bloody or broken noses etc. Perhaps more importantly head gear can improve the more pressurised testing by limiting peripheral vision and giving the wearer the real sense that the attacker is trying to hit them

You can see two of my juniors  doing an imperfect (but spirited) open jacket pull punch at 01.03 on this video of my training.

All the best

John

Paul_D
Paul_D's picture

Lionel Froidure wrote:

I noticed a lot of people are defending themself against grabs but the problem is that the grab is neutral : with no move at all (push-pull) or something after. I always found that weird and not realistic at all.

Mark B wrote:

Hi Lionel Definitely important for people to understand that people will not passively seize and do nothing.

On more than one occasion I have witnessed drunken couples arguing in pubs and the girlfriend puts her hands up to try and push the boyfriend away (because she has had enough and wants to leave) and he will seize both her arms.  Due to being him being stronger, and her having no knowledge of how to escape) he is able to prevent her from leaving and so they stand their continuing their argument with the girlfriend unable to escape. In these cases this is exactly what we do have, a garb with nothing that follows, no strike no push, it is simply used to prevent the other party escaping.

It would be safe to assume then that similar things happen inside the home during domestic altercations.  I seem to remember a while back Iain looked at the crime statistics for England and Wales and found that whilst the second most common way for men to be killed was to be beaten, by a stranger, in or near somewhere that sells alcohol, it changed dramatically when yo looked at the secodn msot common way for woem to be killed which was  in the home, by someone known to them (i.e. partner or ex-partner). 

I don’t know up to date that statistic is now, but it goes to illustrate that whilst somethings can seem very unrealistic to men, it is important to remember not everyone faces the same threats & attacks.

Marc
Marc's picture

Paul_D wrote:

On more than one occasion I have witnessed drunken couples arguing in pubs and the girlfriend puts her hands up to try and push the boyfriend away (because she has had enough and wants to leave) and he will seize both her arms.  Due to being him being stronger, and her having no knowledge of how to escape) he is able to prevent her from leaving and so they stand their continuing their argument with the girlfriend unable to escape.

In these cases this is exactly what we do have, a garb with nothing that follows, no strike no push, it is simply used to prevent the other party escaping.

This is a good observation. And I feel that the trained response to this kind of restraint should be effective but still reasonable.

So the girlfriend wants to leave the pub and therefore needs skill to free herself from the boyfriend's grip. But if this is "only an argument" between them and none of them actually wants to harm the other, then she should have the means to assertively break free without actually breaking any of his joints or balls. Whether they want to continue their relationship after this happened they can then decide the next morning when they are sober again. It doesn't have to end in court or jail.

I don't want to play down domestic violence in any way. I just want to point out that force can be scaled to the level of aggression, and we should be aware of that in training.

(By the way, in the scenario you describe, does she need to push him away or could she simply have left?)

Paul_D
Paul_D's picture

Marc wrote:

(By the way, in the scenario you describe, does she need to push him away or could she simply have left?)

The most recent one I remember, the way the chairs/table were set out she was boxed into a corner with him stood in her way.