Kidney shots depend massively on the other individual. High adrenaline reduces pain, which is the largest contributor to a kidney shot taking someone down. Kidney shots are more for long-term damage, such as in a ring. They are generally nearly useless in a street fight. If you want to take someone down quickly; eyes, nose, throat, sternum, groin. Head shots are risky with a fist. The skull is stronger than your knuckles. Knock-outs from a punch to the head generally strike the jaw, which is full of nerves and causes jerking motions to the head that damage the brain (which is what causes a knock-out). I rarely if ever punch due to the likelihood of self-injury (ask any ER doc about how often they fix broken knuckles from fights) when an open-hand strike does just as much damage with a significantly lower risk of injury, higher speed and more versatility. That being said, most people, including most trained people, will punch in a fight due to its prominence in martial arts and movies (watch two young children go at it to see how we fight instinctively). Anyone aiming for the stomach in a street fight has a recipe for disaster. It'll be painful to get hit there, but it's not in a good line of fire and the squishy internal organs covered by the abdominal muscles are hard to damage. They have the tendency to move around and those abs tense up in a fight. Exhaling sharply while being punched in the gut prevents all damage other than some pain. Even if you do cause damage, it is long-term, not short-term. Finally, the most important thing in a street fight is aggression. Giving your opponent time to think is like giving a sniper a chance to line up his shot. Attack, attack and counter-attack. If you block a strike, you should be striking your opponent simultaneously. If you eat a strike, it should be because you were attacking and didn't have a blocking arm up.
jmhoffer, I agree with everything you said. One of Finland's most prominent self-defense instructors, Risto Väntär, said in an interview that nowadays he uses only palm strikes when hitting the head while working the doors because his fists have been broken... 17 times was the number, I think. So yeah, open hand strikes, definitely. I still need to work on those because as a kid I trained so much punching that when the shit hits the fan, I always instinctively revert to using fists, a habit I'm trying to break.
Yes. You don't wanna have the dude in an armbar just to have his mates walk out of the pub and stomp your head in haha. I have to say, I'm not familiar with this Thompson fellow, but what you've described is similar to how they disarm a gunman in Krav Maga. A similar thing I've seen pulled on the street is offering a guy a cigarette (if you know he smokes obviously), and cracking him in the jaw once he opens his mouth to put his cigarette in. Maybe I've changed, but if a guy seems like he doesn't want to fight, I'll do him a favour and buy him a drink. If I've gauged him right, he'll accept it gladly. I don't see a need to go apeshit unless I'm looking for a fight myself. I generally agree with this, but I'm skeptical about the "learning to control your adrenaline etc." stuff. I think control comes with experience rather than learning. Unless that's what you were implying. A side note: I asked a mate of mine who's an ex-heavy (gang enforcer type guy with a much more extensive history of violence than myself) what he'd do when he went up against a bigger guy. He replied, "I'd boot him in the fuckin' nuts and hope he's not a eunuch." Of course he'd follow that up with some hardcore shit, but it's a good start. It seems like a LOT of Krav Maga drills also open with some kind of damage to the groin. The point is, you can slug it out trying to impress all your girl friends outside the club and end up arrested, pepper-sprayed, in the fetal position getting the shit kicked out of you or hospitalised; or you can get the job done, fuck off outta there and enjoy the rest of your night. BTW, this has gotten way off-topic.
It's a really hard habit to break. I'm an instructor-in-training with our Krav Maga group. Breaking that habit is harder than any other part of the training when dealing with people that have previous martial arts experience. You can actually knock someone out with a slap if you do it right. All of Krav comes from the hips. Throw your whole body weight into a slap, with the cuff of your hand striking the jaw. Even a 110 pound woman can knock someone out when her whole body weight is behind the strike.
Okay, now you're just getting cute. At least I pointed out a realistic situation specific to the place I live in while not denying the effect of such a hit. I feel quite silly arguing over this though, but maybe some writers dabbling in hand-to-hand will pick something from it so this won't be entirely OT. I see why you'd feel that way as it's true I like to do both, do the stuff and read about the stuff -- and with reading comes the analytical side of it that makes you think of dungeons and dragons (no, the jibe didn't go unnoticed. I know by now you're good enough a writer not to make communication blunders in your post, AV). Being a writer, this analysis and dissection of concepts come rather naturally. But believe me, I have no delusions when it comes to my size or skills and what I write here is stuff I've picked up while most of the time I'm a lurker, but I felt a female's input wouldn't hurt this thread. On a sidenote, I do like to look at this from a female POV (duh, because I'm a girl). I got muscle, yeah, but I'm still at a considerable disadvantage if pitted against a male or multiple assailants. This is another thing that may be relevant to the readers of this thread. If they are writing a female, it's difficult to ignore the effect of sex on the outcome of a tussle.
Ouch. Getting punched hard while wearing a boxing helmet, a mouthguard, and having your jaws clamped shut hurts like hell; I wouldn't want to learn what it feels like getting whacked full force in the jaw while my mouth was open. Oh, I think you've misunderstood (I explained it badly). I mean a situation where the other guy is still picking a fight with you and acts threateningly, but he seems hesitant, like he doesn't have the guts to throw the first punch, so he's trying to get you to start by insulting you, shoving you etc. Those are instances where you can (but don't have to) choose to go for the psych out. I've had some success with that while if the other guy has seemed, well, not that hostile and able to listen to reason, I've managed to talk him down and a couple of times we've had a drink afterwards. Over the years I've gotten decent at reading aggressive people, while as a kid I sucked horribly at it. That's what I meant, yeah: all the booksmarts won't help you unless you actually train this stuff. Geoff Thompson's methods include pressure testing. I.e. you put on mouthpieces, groin guards, and gloves, and go (almost) full force (1 vs 1, 1 vs several etc) just to expose yourself to large quantities of adrenaline on a fairly regular basis. He also does what we did in senshido: role playing, i.e. one is the bad guy, one is the good guy, and the bad guy shouts, curses, shoves, and slaps the defender while the defender tries to talk himself out of the situation while maintaining the fence. This is to add realism to the exercise and when all participants really get into it, it does work, adrenaline starts flowing and some new guys actually freeze after the first slap in the face: they just lock up completely and can do little else except back into a wall and get their asses kicked. It happened to me too the first time I tried it because it was such a strange situation to be in for someone who's never done anything like that before. The thing Thompson talks a lot about is that you have to understand why the body releases adrenaline and what it does to you as well as how you can turn its effects from negative into positive: go from freezing up and shitting your pants into a mode where you are more aggressive, have sharper reflexes and senses (this is what causes time distortion), have a higher pain threshold, more strength etc. You also need to practice breaking tunnel vision so you can keep an eye on your surroundings before, during, and after the fight etc. He also talks a lot about how to manipulate your opponent's adrenaline and how to use it to your advantage. I highly recommend you check out his book "Dead or Alive, the Choice is Yours." I got it from my dad as a Christmas gift a few years back. Great stuff (although some of the material is a little dated, for the most part it's golden). You can generate incredible power with a slap. Peter Consterdine has some really good stuff regarding slaps and open hand strikes and his double hip slap is just insane. Then there's a technique some call the power slap which I can do on a heavy bag, but I've yet to get it down good enough that I could use it in an actual fight because the body mechanics, even though perfectly logical, feel a bit different from the traditional boxing punch (be it with a fist or palm heel). A friend of mine knocked out a guy in a bar with an open hand hook: one blow and the guy toppled like a rag doll. It's a good strike from a tactical point of view as well: onlookers who don't understand much about fighting only see a guy slapping another which is a definite plus if things go to court. After all, you didn't even punch the guy, just gently slapped him.
I read the first line of your response and realised I just don't care about the outcome of this discussion. Don't write about hitting someone in the kidneys or do. I really cannot believe the amount of time I've spent debating whether or not attacking someone's vital organs is a good combat strategy. I do believe I just had a life's to short moment. I'm going to go and ride a bike, or whatever it is people do when they're not involved in circular, web-based discussions.
Haha, of course. Here in Finland krav maga schools openly teach their students about legalities, about Finland's law regarding violent crimes, what the law allows you to do, what it doesn't etc. Of course our teachers also mention stuff off the record, but the general legalities are a part of the normal curriculum (I think they do it in defendo and senshido schools here as well). ETA: AVC, enjoy the ride and welcome back anytime.
Ah. In that case, I'd tend to point a firm finger at him and deadpan quietly, "fuck off, you little cunt". I'll make a note to check this Geoff Thompson out. Speaking of slaps... watch this gentleman kindly slap the holy spirit out of a guy and proceed to place him in the recovery position.
Very nice. I think the knockout came from his head hitting the ground, though. Notice the second 'thwack' when he goes down. The slap was definitely hard enough to knock the guy over, not sure if it would cause a knockout. Not enough movement from this hips to throw the necessary body weight behind the strike. Sorry, I like dissecting fights and fight scenes. Yes, it makes almost every action movie I watch turn into a joke.
screws give us 10 minutes on the machines, I suggest a) Go for the eyes. Rip out a man's eye with your thumb and fingernail. You hold it up to the light, then drop kick fella's lost goggle through the lamp posts. That puts em off most times, you're laughing coz they chase after it, leaves you with the lady friends to master, otherwise galloping gooly grip is effective - rip and share like the bread. Technique again. Only personal experience mind...also Rocker's right about having a glove handy for fighting, like for challenges and such. 2) Biting is good: throats, ears or nibble the chin if is not so serious, get some whiskers in your teeth and you can howl. 25 years experience Rampton (rel 2015 Easter) Same next month, looking for pen freinds
Haha, I went on a 5-mile run after I wrote my last response on the kidney-shots x) Yeah, it's good to air the brain every now and then.
That was nicely done. Looks like the guy's done it a few times before, had a good routine to it, good aggression, no hesitation, the recovery position, everything. And a slap + taking care of your unconscious opponent looks good for eye witnesses if the law gets involved. The slap is also good because I've noticed it's easier for me to generate more power with slaps because my subconscious isn't worried about breaking my fist. jmhoffer, I also (over)analyze fight scenes in movies and books. The sad thing is, unless it's written by an ex-military/LEO guy/gal (and not even always then), most fight scenes are just ridiculous or the author circumlocutes the action because they don't have the knowhow to pull off a credible fight scene. Combat is a tricky beast, but what research is more fun than taking up a krav maga class? Too few authors go the extra mile and, alas, it shows. The worst are writers who don't know much about fighting and try to hide it by going in the opposite direction than the circumlocutors: they try their all to make the fights as brutal and graphic as possible, but there are just so many pitfalls in fight scenes that you can spot these authors a mile away (*cough* Richard Kadrey, Jim Butcher *cough*).
"I also (over)analyze fight scenes in movies and books. " Movie fights are choreographed for the visual effect. Remember, you are writing fiction, not a police report. Supply the emotion, and let the reader supply the details. Imagination is stronger than reality. Sometimes Stephen King exemplifies this.
Exactly. I've fucked up my fist a few times and I can't close my index finger fully when I clench it. That's a shame. As a film-maker with some fight experience, I am wary of the level of realism in films. However, I can also appreciate good choreography, even when it's not realistic at all. The tone of the film/book will call for the amount of realism necessary. It'd be ridiculous to see like a 5 minute long kung-fu scene in a gritty, crime drama set in Boston. But if it's an action flick, I'll forgive it and happily suspend my disbelief. Have you guys seen The Raid: Redemption? The choreography + camera movement in that was delicious.
Steve Day, sanco, I do understand that and I like a lot of unrealistic stuff (Buffy The Vampire Slayer is one of my guilty pleasures), but I mean films and books that are going for the realistic and gritty, yet fail to keep up that realism and grittiness in the fight scenes. Those are the ones that make me cringe, sometimes even put down the book / stop watching the film. I loved Appleseed Exmachina even though realism was nowhere near the film, but the coreography was just so awesome that I had to tip my hat at the folks who made it. Sandman Slim is a literary example where the author is going for realism (even though it's urban fantasy) tone-wise, but fails miserably in the fight scenes. I don't think lack of knowledge is a good excuse because it doesn't take that much effort to get it right: ask someone who knows fights to proofread your tussles or, better yet, join a martial arts club that caters to your style of writing, like krav maga, defendo, or senshido. It gives you more insight because first-hand knowledge is always better and supplement that by interviewing folks more versed in the art of pugilism than you and you're good to go. I have trained martial arts for 24 years and shot guns and competed in IPSC for a few years, yet I still pester more experienced friends about my combat scenes because nobody can be an expert at everything, so I interview a SEAL about an underwater demolition scene, an ex-narc about writing an undercover operation gone south, an instructor of medieval European fencing about fight scenes involving longswords etc. So far every single one of the people I've interviewed have been very gracious and enthusiastic about sharing their knowledge, so I see no reason why authors who want realism in their stories wouldn't go the extra mile to get it just right. Besides, if they do, the readers who understand these things will appreciate the book even more even though the regular joes and janes won't notice the difference. But I'm probably preaching to the choir here.
Good point(s) T.T., about 'realism' in scenes! Nothing can make a firearms aficionado drop a crime novel faster than reading "He checked the safety on the revolver. . ." But realize that most general readers do not know what krav maga, defendo, or senshido are, let alone have 24 years experience with them! I suspect that you could write intelligently about the SEALs by watching G.I. Jane a few times. No need to experience Hell Week to write about it.
Steve, yeah, no need for Hell Week, but if I can't experience something myself (be it Hell Week, riding a horse, hacking a computer, or whatever), I like to interview people who do have that experience because I feel it adds authenticity to the story that some readers will notice and others will "feel" if only subconsciously (e.g. when I was 13 and read Eddings's Belgariad, I knew the fencing scenes were unrealistic even though I didn't know why)... and not only do you learn a lot by doing this research, it's a lot of fun to boot. Uh, no, I'm 30, and started training boxing with my dad when I was... 5, actually, so it's 25 years (although I haven't trained in a school / club all of those years, some I've spent training by myself / with my friends). And I've browsed through quite a few martial arts / combat sports since then, but I'm still far from being an expert. What's wrong with defendo? At least the variety they teach here is very close to krav maga except that while a krav maga student would whack the bad guy in the balls and skedaddle, the defendo student would take the bg's back, choke him out, and then skedaddle. Well, the caricatures aside, they are very similar around here, only with a slightly different emphasis: defendo is favored more by security guards, bouncers etc. who need to be able to disable an attacker without hurting them seriously while krav maga is favored more by "regular people," who just need to disengage and escape the situation.
That depends on who's Krav Maga you're taking. I learn the military combat form, so we teach everything from 'subdue and control' to 'the only way you'll survive is if you are willing to end a life'.
Definitely. It depends largely on not only the organization and the school, but the teacher, because different teachers teach with a different emphasis. The school where I trained krav maga followed the curriculum of IKMF's Finland's branch. The training methods have also changed over the years. When me and my friends snuck to the gym when we were 16 (here you should be 18 to train KM, but we were so eager to train, we were hush-hush about our age ), there was more contact, we only used mouth guards and groin cups (no gloves of any kind), and on the third lesson we already had 1 vs. 2 and 1 vs. 3 sparring (with light / medium contact though) whereas when I returned to the school at 21, the teaching was much more methodical and safer (we sparred with MMA gloves when grappling was included and with 12-18oz boxing gloves, helmets, and shin guards if we only did stand-up). At least it was nothing like the blood and gore sessions of our senshido group where at the end of almost every training session there were nosebleeds, broken fingers, tender balls, or bleeding eyebrows. I was lucky enough to only get a broken thumb, three nosebleeds, a ton of bruises, and a dented shin (an almost full-force shin on shin collision). It was crazy, but man was it fun! The craziness aside, I did learn a lot and we had a good team spirit. Granted, ours was an odder group because I was among the least experienced participants even with 16-17 years of training under my belt, so that's why we got much more leeway when it came to sparring / scenario training; I later learned that the same teacher teaches "normal" beginner groups with much more control and safety precautions, so I'm glad I got to be a part of that "experiment."
