JamesB
Green Belt
Had these techniques on my mind for a while. Only concerned with the initial defence at the moment:
Attacker: from a crouching/lowered position, launches in for a tackle around your lower body with intent to take you to the ground. We practiced just this attack a few times on each other with mats on the ground, to make sure we all knew what the deal was.
Defense (both techs): drop your left foot back to a rear-twist at 5 o'clock (so your right foot is forward). Execute a *good* left outward extended block to the base of the attacker's neck. In other words, hammer *down* on his neck, forming a strong brace between you both with the blocking arm.
What I'm wondering about is the footwork. Firstly, we found this defence failed to work (at all) if we simply 'stepped back'. It didn't just 'not work' - it was pretty disasterous. Our test was simple - crash matts behind the defender, and the attacker (always stonger/heavier for the test) had instructions to take the defender to the ground. Not once could the defender stop the attacker's forward-momentum - each time he was swept off his feet.
Adding a foward-adjustment with the right foot worked a little better - so the footwork became 'step back to a rear-twist' with left foot, then step forwards with the right foot, still maintaining the same rear-twist, but it basically became a 'front twist' because of the _small_ forwards movement. At any rate the stance was much more stable like this (with the step forward), however it still only worked if you got the timing right, correctly gauged the distance with which to work, and executed a *strong* block to the neck (we wore padding!). Very little margin for error, and not convinced this is at all sufficient - we definitely need additional 'aborbing' footwork to stay on our feet.
Also made some interesting observations whilst conducting these tests: From a the attacker's point of view it was actually really hard to perform the take-down. Because the defender was moving off-center and away from you, it was really quite difficult to get a good hold and take them down. Could still do it, but we had to be determined. Got a lot more respect for grapplers now, who I guess can do this kind stuff in their sleep.
More interesting was the attacker's posture when he attacked. Invariably the attacker went to their left, going in with their right-shoulder first (i.e. leading with the right shoulder). As soon as I reversed the roles and taught the defence to the attackers, the next time they attacked they always went in with their *left* shoulder first - so there was a fair amount of cooperation from this point on, because the attacker wanted to give the defender room to do a successful technique.
Basically what we noticed was the natural instinct of the *comitted* attacker to go in with the right-shoulder making contact. It made the techs *much* harder to execute, because as the defender moved off to their right, the attacker was naturally going in that same direction. We did try Charging Ram with a downward-outward parry to the outside of the attacker's left arm (to redirect them) - it failed miserably because it was too easy to get caught up in the attacker's arms.
My hypothesis at this point was to do the technique off the other side - so as we defend, we move off-center to our *left*, into a left rear-twist, and execute a right-outward-extended block to the other side of the attacker's neck. It worked waaaaaay better - firstly we were blocking with our stronger arms, secondly because the attacker was not moving towards us so directly anymore.
This left me wondering why Charging-Ram and Broken-Ram taught this way - makes sense to me (at the moment) to do always attempt these 'off the other side'.
In conclusion, these were very simple tests, not at all scientific, but the results were interesting to me at any rate. Correct footwork is the key here. I know I'm missing something vital, and I'm asserting that the 'by the book' method is flawed from the outset and needs serious some modification to be successful. Only really interested in footwork at the moment.....Thoughts anyone?
Attacker: from a crouching/lowered position, launches in for a tackle around your lower body with intent to take you to the ground. We practiced just this attack a few times on each other with mats on the ground, to make sure we all knew what the deal was.
Defense (both techs): drop your left foot back to a rear-twist at 5 o'clock (so your right foot is forward). Execute a *good* left outward extended block to the base of the attacker's neck. In other words, hammer *down* on his neck, forming a strong brace between you both with the blocking arm.
What I'm wondering about is the footwork. Firstly, we found this defence failed to work (at all) if we simply 'stepped back'. It didn't just 'not work' - it was pretty disasterous. Our test was simple - crash matts behind the defender, and the attacker (always stonger/heavier for the test) had instructions to take the defender to the ground. Not once could the defender stop the attacker's forward-momentum - each time he was swept off his feet.
Adding a foward-adjustment with the right foot worked a little better - so the footwork became 'step back to a rear-twist' with left foot, then step forwards with the right foot, still maintaining the same rear-twist, but it basically became a 'front twist' because of the _small_ forwards movement. At any rate the stance was much more stable like this (with the step forward), however it still only worked if you got the timing right, correctly gauged the distance with which to work, and executed a *strong* block to the neck (we wore padding!). Very little margin for error, and not convinced this is at all sufficient - we definitely need additional 'aborbing' footwork to stay on our feet.
Also made some interesting observations whilst conducting these tests: From a the attacker's point of view it was actually really hard to perform the take-down. Because the defender was moving off-center and away from you, it was really quite difficult to get a good hold and take them down. Could still do it, but we had to be determined. Got a lot more respect for grapplers now, who I guess can do this kind stuff in their sleep.
More interesting was the attacker's posture when he attacked. Invariably the attacker went to their left, going in with their right-shoulder first (i.e. leading with the right shoulder). As soon as I reversed the roles and taught the defence to the attackers, the next time they attacked they always went in with their *left* shoulder first - so there was a fair amount of cooperation from this point on, because the attacker wanted to give the defender room to do a successful technique.
Basically what we noticed was the natural instinct of the *comitted* attacker to go in with the right-shoulder making contact. It made the techs *much* harder to execute, because as the defender moved off to their right, the attacker was naturally going in that same direction. We did try Charging Ram with a downward-outward parry to the outside of the attacker's left arm (to redirect them) - it failed miserably because it was too easy to get caught up in the attacker's arms.
My hypothesis at this point was to do the technique off the other side - so as we defend, we move off-center to our *left*, into a left rear-twist, and execute a right-outward-extended block to the other side of the attacker's neck. It worked waaaaaay better - firstly we were blocking with our stronger arms, secondly because the attacker was not moving towards us so directly anymore.
This left me wondering why Charging-Ram and Broken-Ram taught this way - makes sense to me (at the moment) to do always attempt these 'off the other side'.
In conclusion, these were very simple tests, not at all scientific, but the results were interesting to me at any rate. Correct footwork is the key here. I know I'm missing something vital, and I'm asserting that the 'by the book' method is flawed from the outset and needs serious some modification to be successful. Only really interested in footwork at the moment.....Thoughts anyone?