Ground Kicking

[clfmak]

Most techniques work under thee right context. For instance, the roundhouse kick from the ground is not something I’d probably use against a standing opponent in front of me. But lets say there’s a guy in front, and I kick the knee, groin, then scissor the leg and drop my heel on his head. From there, His friend starts kicking me in the head from behind. I pivot on my back and use the momentun to spin into a roundhouse to the knee (also to point my feet at the attacker). My point being that a technique that might not fit into one situation will work in another.
So, the trip can work, but it can be tricky. You usually see this wide scissoring motionthat hits an opponent in the back of the knee and the base of the shin and the bad guy falls over. That might work if the person is sideways, but they probably won’t be. This will work well if you happen to grab one of his legs so you can isolate the scissor on one leg. There are some other scissoring motions that I like. There are several that work in a more linear fashion. For instance, you hook one leg around the ankle and pull towards you as you side kick the knee. This works well at a slight angle. I’ve learned techniques where you do the opposite- hook the knee and kick the upper ankle- but they fall on you so the technique continues on to use the falling momentum to your advantage, maybe by immediately by attacking to the throat or chin with open hand strikes, and/or roll them to the side and achieve a mount. If you have a cane with a crook, you can use the crook to do the hooking and then kick as usual. Or, using the same technique, you can hook the neck of a crouching opponent, then pull as you kick the face or chin, possibly causing a really uncomfortable neck crank backwards at high speed. In a chinese military martial arts video I have, there’s a sort of takedown from the prone position where you are facing the opponent on your knees and elbows (not the best idea, but it might happen), as if feigning fear and submission (this works best at an angle). You grab your opponent’s ankle and drag it towards you as your upper body rolls like a log over onto their knee, making them fall on their back. The follow up presented is either continuing the roll and smashing with a back elbow or a backfist- I forget, and my DVD seems to be busted. From a military perspective, it seems that from the position described, you’d be better off stabbing the knee or something.
If you’re in grappling range and you’re considering the guard, you’re probably too close (but some of these are similar to sweeps from the guard). From the guard, you can use the Gracie kicksto the kidneys, but often times it’s better to heel kick to the legs because the feet can be out of range for the kidneys.
Personally, I’d rather just try to kick the person away since I don’t train the scissoring motions, and I’ve seen these fail when people try them- at least regular kicks will work.

[anonymous]

I guess the reason I’m worrying about whether the trip will work or not, is because I don’t train it very often, so I’m probably not very good at it, but if the attacker happens to be in that perfect position, I guess it’s something to try.

That Chinese thing sounds like a toe pick. I like the toe pick, it’s one of my favorite takedowns, because it can even work on big people. If the attacker is standing, and i am sitting up (in a type of open guard), maybe I could roll toward one of his legs and try for that toe pick, taking him down, then either get on top or get up and run.

There is also that takedown, where you wrap your leg around his and use your other leg against his other leg, pushing him down. For grappling purposes, you might end up in a position to do a heel hook, but for a street fight, you could simply get up. This might work better than the trip.

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Giantkiller

[clfmak]

The technique is like a toe/ankle pick, at kind of a funny angle. Instead of driving forward with the shoulders square, you apply the pressure with the side, rolling the rib area onto the leg. The only real advantage is that you are set up to keep rolling, and the next move depends on it (the rolling back elbow to groin). I thought it was funny how it was presented- the fighter acts like he’s surrendering by assuming a turtle sort of position with the head covered.

[anonymous]

Usually, when they show the toe pick, they show to push the shoulder into the guy’s shin and push him straight back. What I like to do is take his foot, isolate it, get really low and push sideways, with my shoulder against his ankle, so that he falls to the side. All my weight goes against his ankle, so even if he is bigger, there is a good chance he will fall (greater than when I’m going against the shin). This works best when the person has shoes on. It’s still possible to do against a guy who is barefoot or has wrestling shoes, but it is harder (it’s more difficult to keep the foot in place and you have to get lower to get to the ankle). Anyway, I’ve done this against some pretty big guys. It’s also harder for the opponent to keep himself from falling once he is going over, since he is falling to the side and can’t use his other leg to stop himself from going back. And it may be harder to pull guard for him.

Went to fight class yesterday, there was one situation where a guy was standing and I was on the ground. I thought about doing the trip, but while I was still figuring out which foot goes where, he had already passed and jumped on me. Oh, well, it’s a work in progress! 8)

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Giantkiller

[clfmak]

I recently started training a friend of mine as a training partner for the upcomin Cold Steel Challenge (http://www.coldsteel.com/06challenge.html), teaching weapon basics. Anyway, he wanted to learn some other things as well, and went over some ground kicking stuff along with the basics of standup fighting. While trying to get past his legs to attack, he would attempt a sort of ax kick that would attack the top of the thigh (I was in a pretty low stance). It reminded me of that possibility- usually I just drop the heel on the instep. If you go from a low roundhouse kick from the ground and circle around to drop the heel, you can get impressive impact- to the instep, thigh, head/face of a croucher, head/neck etc of a downed opponent. If you wear boots, its downright nasty. Its kind of cool because it doesn’t have the drawbacks of the standing ax kick (which is not very useful for self defense). Try it on a heavy bag- the power comes from turning from sideways to square again. This sort of continuous rotation powers lots of those kicks in those Attack Proof videos. The drawback is that it doesn’t push them away like front and side kicks.

Anyway, anyone else want to go to a pointy weapon tournament? Can you fight with or throw an edged weapon? If so, I’d like to meet you on October 7.

[anonymous]

Throw an edged weapon? What’s the defense for THAT? 🙁 Where is that tournament being held? I don’t think i could participate, but maybe check it out.

The ax kick is another good idea. I will try it next time at the gym. Hitting the thigh could probably hurt the guy, especially if he is not expecting it. I’ve been trying to remember to hit the thigh with punches during stand up fighting, since my opponent’s legs are easier for me to reach in some cases than his face. A strong punch could probably hurt or at least distract the guy.

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Giantkiller

[clfmak]

Here’s the link for that thing:
http://www.coldsteel.com/06challenge.html
Its in Ventura- you could probably make it. The throwing division includes knives, tomahawks, spears and torpedos (one of the most effective looking throwing weapons out there- check the site for what it is). I’m in no shape to compete in a throwing contest with anything. The padded weapons are in sword and knife length. They award awesome prizes- Cold Steel katanas and such. I probably won’t win- the competitors com fro backgrounds more well suited for things like that- kali places with lots of sparring and such. But I’ll definitely try my luck.

[anonymous]

You are competing? That’s pretty cool. In knife fighting? Well, good luck. I’ll check out the website for more info.

Throw torpedos???? 😯 😆 Wow, I can’t wait to see that! Although, I can’t imagine you’ll be able to get much distance without an electronic launching system….

All this talk about throwing weapons makes me wonder about a possible defense. Probably blade yourself to be a smaller target and run if you can.

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Giantkiller

[clfmak]

This is the torpedo I’m talking about:
http://www.coldsteel.com/fixed-blades-throwers.html
It’s a big piece of metal that would totally ruin your day if it hit you.
I’m still not sure about competing- my training partner has been absent a lot, so I haven’t gotten much weapon sparring in, and its been a long time (like two years since it was regular). Fencers or FMA people train for just such an event. I have no problem losing to a more experienced person, but I’d rather not pay for it. I might end up competing in the knife division, and/or the sword one- just not the throwing one. It depends on how I feel about my sparring in the next few weeks. I’ll show up if I don’t compete though.

[anonymous]

Yeah, I can see how it would ruin my day. 🙁 Do people actually carry those as weapons, or are they just made for competitions? Do people ever use them as stabbing weapons? This could cause some extra problems for the defender, because of the two pointy tips.

Okay, off to Vegas, I’ll check back in on Friday probably. 8)

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Giantkiller

[clfmak]

Although Cold Steel doesn’t mention it, I believe the design is modelled after an old Soviet weapon. It was designed as a last ditch sentry kill weapon, if I remember correctly. It seems like a bad idea for a few reasons- 1. it weighs as much as a small silenced pistol, 2. if you miss, you are outside of hand to hand combat range and will probably get shot at, 3. Even with two points, it can hit with the middle and not be as efective, 4. You’re throwing your weapon away, and 5. just because its not a firearm doesn’t make it silent- they make a distinctive ring when they hit solid things. It does have its upsides, though: 1. It doesn’t jam, run out of bullets or malfunction like a gun might, 2. Even if it hits with the bar, it is still a big piece of metal and could break bones. The strategy might have been to throw the thing while rushing the guy- throw it on the run, and if it hits, great, and if it doesn’t hit as you planned, you follow up with an entrenching tool or something. I’ve read that in the frontier days of America, some people would sling an Arkansas toothpick over their back so you could draw it and fling it at your opponent before going to other combatives (an Arkansas toothpick is one of the forerunners to the Bowie knife- its’a a big dagger that looks like this: http://www.jbrucevoyles.com/Auction%2025/DSCN1964.JPG ). There’s some other interesting combatives information from these days- using a bowie knife with a hammer grip with the edge facing in to facilitate some gruesome attacks, etc. As far as the torpedo goes, you could use it as a stabbing weapon in close, and has probably been used as such at some point in history. Its length and weight could even be used to bludgeon. The weight would cause a lot of extra damage while stabbing.

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