Posts Tagged ‘Defense’

Self Defense Benefits of Boxing

September 3rd, 2010


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Today we discuss the Self-Defense benefits from enrolling in a boxing class. If you are learning self-defense and are considering taking a boxing course to supplement what you’ve been learning, this article will be of particular interest to you.

First and foremost, find a good teacher! Ask people you know whom they would recommend. Watch a class by each prospective teacher. Do they take the time to work with students having issues, or are you left on your own to repeat bad technique over and over? Do they show equal attention to all the students, or have their favorites they spend more time with? Are there warm-ups before class? Do they make sure you are solid on the basics before showing you more advanced material?

A good boxing coach will show you proper ways to warm up, including stretching. Avoiding injury during your workouts is key. A common complaint is “but I don’t have time to warm up while being attacked!” That’s correct! But, you are not in a self defense situation now, you are performing demanding physical activities in class. If you are working out, practicing self-defense techniques, or taking a boxing class, then you owe it to yourself to prepare your body for what is coming.

Studying boxing will teach you the importance of your stance and how to move. These are the foundations not only in a self defense situation, but in any fighting style or sport. You can quickly gauge someone’s experience as a fighter by observing how they stand and move.

Boxing classes teach how the stance maintains balance. You don’t want to be out of balance after a punch or self defense move. Everything in boxing, karate, self defense, or any fighting style happens in split seconds. Being out of balance for even a brief period makes you very vulnerable to your opponent (not to mention embarrassed if you fall during class).

A course in boxing will reinforce what self-defense training preaches: keeping your hands in proper position. Hands must be up at all times (but not in front of your face. Your vision is obscured and you can be whacked in the head by your own hands if someone punches them). You must be ready to block a takedown, grab, punch, or kick.

Have you ever walked by the type of school that has the big glass windows in front? Watch the class for a few moments. If the teacher yells a command, and the students throw a punch, but keep their arms held out at full extension after the strike, waiting for the next command from the teacher, AVOID that school. The way you train determines the way you react in a self defense situation. Things happen very quickly, and you don’t have time to analyze what you will do next. If you don’t train to bring your hands back to a defensive position immediately, you will leave them out there, and you WILL get hit. Hard. If you need proof, turn on the television and watch a boxing or UFC MMA fight. The fighters quickly bring their hands back to position after every punch to prevent themselves from being hit by a counterstrike from their opponent.

Physical fitness is another major benefit of boxing classes. Your cardiovascular health will increase by leaps and bounds. Your entire body is used during boxing. Legs are moving constantly, abs are twisting as you throw punches, back, shoulders, biceps, and arms are worked non stop. Hitting the bags over 1000 times during an hour long class is not unusual. Using the speedbag for 10 minutes straight will make your traps burn. When class is over, you are dripping in sweat, and it’s clear you’ve had one of the best all around workouts possible.

Finally, sparring will definitely sharpen your self defense moves. Lets face it: anyone can throw punches at a heavy-bag. The bag doesn’t move, and it doesn’t hit you back! Put the gloves and headgear on, step into the ring, and your whole perception changes. It doesn’t matter if you never want to be in a boxing match. I recommend you spar at least a few times with your training buddy or coach. You will understand clearly what it is like to have someone trying to hit you. You will see just how fast things happen, which is why I stress over and over to my self defense students to train the techniques into muscle memory. They must happen automatically, without thinking. Trust me, sparring will quickly make a believer out of you.

How do you transition what you learn from boxing into a self-defense situation? After all, when you are boxing you have big pillows on your hand to protect your face and body with. On the street, you don’t. Well, stay tuned for a future article!

Jerry Slagowski, host of http://www.CriticalSelfDefense.com/ is a Master of many fighting styles including boxing, judo, karate, kickboxing, and more. A champion himself, his students, including UFC fighters, have won at the highest levels of competition. Jerry shares his lifetime of experience teaching self-defense with you. Visit us, and sign up for our free self-defense newsletter which provides free videos, articles, and tips on self-defense.

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Self Defense Has No "Ranges of Combat!"

August 11th, 2010


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I often get angry at the majority of self-proclaimed “master close-combat instructors” trying to make a quick buck by selling impractical and dangerously ineffective “self defense training programs” to the uninitiated. Although there certainly is some good material out there, it seems to me that almost every time that you see a self defense instructor trying to look like a scientist and act like he really knows what he is talking about, he ends up just proving that he has no idea whatsoever about what he’s trying to talk about!

For instance, there’s a lot of talk these days about “ranges of combat.” You often see an instructor lecturing to his video audience about kicking range, punching range, trapping range, grappling range and ground fighting. Then he goes on to tell you what techniques you are allowed to use in each range.

What’s wrong with that? Well, let me tell you as someone who has not only a lot of experience teaching self defense, but also much experience dealing with street violence myself that the last thing you want to do is limit your students in their way of thinking!

When I teach someone to fight, I show him where to hit to get immediate effects and I explain a few ways to effectively strike or crush those areas. Of course, there’s a lot of mental training and tactics that are also covered, but one thing that you will never see me doing is telling someone that he should not use a certain technique from a certain distance!

Listen, there are no “ranges of combat” on the streets or in self defense. There’s damaging an aggressor or aggressors and there’s limiting yourself as to how to damage an aggressor, which results in giving him the opportunity to damage you first, resulting in him winning and you being raped, injured or killed. How you injure an aggressor doesn’t matter to me and it shouldn’t matter to you, either, as long as you survive the attack!

For instance, kicking range is supposed to be the range where you are close enough to use an ineffective long-range kick, but are out of boxing range, or too far away to reach your opponent with your arms. In boxing range, you are “allowed” by your instructor to hit your opponent with arm techniques, but not allowed to kick, because you’re supposedly too close to kick effectively. In the clinch, or grappling range, you should only use throwing and locking techniques.

I don’t know about you, but if I’m in so-called “grappling range,” where I’m only “supposed” to use wrestling techniques and I see the opportunity to stomp on some degenerate’s knee joint and tear various ligaments and tendons, I’ll certainly do so and be happy to have survived the attack! Even if that means having used what another instructor would have called “the wrong technique.”

If an aggressor goes to the ground, whether I tripped him or he simply fell, I won’t hesitate to kick him while he’s trying to get up and attack me again. Ask me if I care about having kicked someone in so-called “groundfighting range,” where I should have gone to the ground with him and try for some submission hold. Why go to the ground if he’s laying and you’re standing anyway? To give him the opportunity to stab me with a knife that I wouldn’t have seen coming from so close or to give his friends, who weren’t aware of the fact that kicks aren’t allowed in “groundfighting range” the chance to kick me into a bloody heap?

The bottom line is this-if someone attacks you, your only job is to injure him as soon as possible, without being injured in the process. And I don’t care how you do it, as long as you get the job done!

Christopher “Bob” Roberts is an ex-soldier who relocated to Europe and now earns his living as a tactics and close-combat instructor for military, police and private security companies.

For more information about armed and unarmed self-protection, subscribe to his free newsletters at www.extreme-measures-institute.com and receive access to an exclusive video interview series, where he explains the fundamentals of truly effective self defense.

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Why Learn Self Defense?

March 26th, 2010


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I was recently visiting some friends in El Paso TX. A large group of us met at a new club and I ended up meeting several new people that night. One of these guys was named “John” (for the sake of this article)

John had had quite a few to drink that night and it seemed like the more he had, the more talkative he became.

He told me that he didn’t like the bouncers. I had to agree with him that they seemed a little too intense with the black BDU pants and German style tanker boots.

It seemed everyone in the establishment was having a good time and staying out of trouble.

I saw John again later that night. I noticed he was carrying something in his hand which was down by his side. He was carrying a handful of wooden skewers. He had somehow gotten them from behind the bar and was walking around with them.

“Why do you have those?” I asked.

“If the bouncer asks for my ID I’ll ******* stab him.”

I found out much later that John had a serious criminal record and was lying low for the moment. He was actually dodging a five year sentence that he was set to begin serving earlier in the year. He skipped out on his bail.

The bouncers were walking around checking IDs for most of the night and would have gotten a terrible surprise by asking John for his. I don’t know that he even had one.

In this particular situation, the bouncer may have spotted the threat because he has dealt with these situations before. Perhaps he has gone through these situations mentally and has prepared. Or maybe he would have been turned into shish kebab.

Most of us are not bouncers but the threat exists for everyone. Start your training immediately. Many situations can be avoided if a threat is spotted and then avoided. For those that can’t be avoided, it’s great to have a basic set of combat skills to fall back on.

Go to http://www.EndTheFightNow.com and sign up for the free no BS hand to hand combat newsletter

Ryan Wolfenbarger

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Practicing Boxing on a Double End Bag : One-Two Variations & Defense on a Double End Punching Bag

January 13th, 2010

Jabbing 1-2 variations with a double end bag.Learn about practicing boxing techniques, punches, and jabs on a double end bag in this free training video on basics for boxers. Expert: Bill Lefebvre Bio: Billy Lefebvre is the owner & head coach for Bantam Boxing. He has been involved in boxing as a successful amateur regional, national and inter-national competitor, coach & trainer for 35 over years. Filmmaker: Christian Munoz-Donoso

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The Art of Boxing Isn’t For Self Defense

November 29th, 2009


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Boxing is an exciting sport where two superb athletes square off in a ring and battle to the limits of human endurance. But while boxing is a brutal competitive sport, it is trully an ineffective method of self defense.

Boxers are some of the toughest athletes in the world, but being “tough” and simply being an “athlete” (even a combat athlete) does not mean that you are prepared for the chaotic violence of a street fight. Like all modern combat sports, rules, regulations, and big money have diluted much of boxing’s destructive power. When it comes to real world self defense, the only thing that should be expected is the worst, and boxing as a fighting system isn’t up to the challenge.

Some years back I was drinking in a pub in London, and I met a couple of local amateur boxers who had sparred with Mike Tyson when he fought in Ireland. One poor bastard suggested to Tyson that he should use more combinations instead of his power punch. Tyson promptly replied by completely lifting the man off his feet with an bone-crunching uppercut. You’d assume with all that power Tyson would easily win any street fight, but throughout his career he was often in the news getting hurt in fights with ordinary run-of-the-mill bar brawlers.

The truth is that the preparation for a fight will make a boxer tough, but they are only preparing for one match. Even in tournaments a boxer gets a moment to recoup, and never has to worry about an opponent’s buddies jumping into a fight. A referee penalizes and controls techniques like head butts and biting, and gloves prevent deep eye gouging, effective grappling, and even striking properly. While banning those moves make for a clean, skillful match, they’re all necessary for self defense.

Close combat founding fathers Rex Applegate and Anthony Biddle were both big boxing fans, but they recognized boxing’s severe limitations on the battlefield. Before joining the Marines, Biddle was an active amateur boxer who even sparred with heavy weight champion Jack Johnson, but when it came to military combatives Biddle only used boxing for body conditioning and to teach the fundamental footwork of bayonet fighting. When Applegate taught his recruits hand-to-hand combat he told them to forget what they learned from boxing and to start thinking of self defense in more practical terms. Though both men loved the sport of boxing they taught their troops a deadly mix of Jujitsu and Judo for self defense on the battlefield.

Boxing takes an incredible amount of discipline, endurance, and dedication, but it is a civilized sport. Street fighting [http://www.topsecrettraining.com/martial-arts-fighting.htm] is a fierce battle for your life and nobody will stop the fight if you’re hurt. Boxing gives you bad habits like a sense of fair play and makes you believe the only lethal part of you body is your fists. A real fight is a dirty mess and you have to use all your aggression and power.

In a real fight you don’t know who you’re fighting or what their abilities are or a million other factors, but in boxing that has all been figured out for you. In a street fight you can’t postpone things if you’re tired or injured, and there will be no mercy. So enjoy boxing, but remember that just like all combat sports, it’s only a small part of learning proper self defense. Perhaps heavyweight champion and World War II veteran Jack Dempsey said it best when he commented, “You’re in there for three-minute rounds with gloves on and a referee. That’s not real fighting.”

Captain Chris Pizzo has dedicated his life to not only spreading the “truth” about martial arts and self defense, but also to teaching the very same simplistic, and easy to learn answer he discovered after nearly being stabbed to death during a road rage attack. You can learn more about him and take a no-obligation “test drive” of his award winning Close Combat Training system absolutely free at http://www.CloseCombatTraining.com

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