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One big difference there is in gun defenses is that they put their hands up first, then go for the redirection. This might be easier for the attacker to see then redirecting the way we do, starting with the arms down.
Another difference in knife attacks is that after a straight stab they will grab the attacker’s forearm with both hands, one by the elbow, one by the wrist, then do knee strikes and kicks and finally end up with a shoulder lock (taking the opponent down and following him down instead of running). There is no cavalier in the video, although there seems to be one in the notebook.
For stick defenses, they don’t seem to have a baseball bat defense. They just do the same defense we do for overhead stick. They also have a defense for a stick swung to the knee, which is basically similar to a low round kick defense. Lift your leg up, then defend against the attacker’s forearm. Of course, if your timing is off, you might catch the stick instead, which would probably hurt or even shatter your shin bone.
They seem to like takedowns. Almost any defense ends in some type of takedown and there are several takedowns explained in the notebook. Their brown belt and black belt curriculum consists only of fighting moves (stand-up and ground), based on Bas Rutten’s Big Book Of Combat and there are no more Krav Maga defenses. Also some defenses that are brown belt for us are yellow belt material for them.
I guess those are the main things to point out. There would be many others, but it would be to long.
Overall, I liked the notebook better than the video, because the defenses look better than on the DVD. I liked the notebook’s layout, it’s very similar to Bas Rutten’s Big Book Of Combat. I liked the action scenes at the end of the video, some nice scenarios, although, again, a lot of the defenses aren’t really clean.
One more thing about the notebook: The English version has a lot of grammatical errors, which isn’t really that big a deal, but it can lead to confusion sometimes as in \”Clear your body to the line of fire\” or funny ones such as underneath a picture of two guys ground fighting, one side mounted on the other, chest to chest: \”Catch the wrist of your opponent and put your body weight on his billy\”. I was kind of wondering which body part they meant by \”billy\”, but I guess they meant to say belly… 😆 I also like the often repeated expression of \”armed arm\” as in \”Disarm the armed arm\”. 😉 Oh, and the DVD is dedicated in part to John, Darren and Bas.
So, to summerize, I think they have potential, but they should really work on cleaning up their techniques, so they won’t show the wrong things to students and new instructors, which could prove dangerous in a real life situation when the opponent isn’t complying.
Hi, I just got a very detailed answer to my review on the kravmagaonline forum. I will reply to it. If you want to see it or join the discussion go to:
http://www.kravmagaonline.com/forum/index.php
Scroll down to the English version, click on General Topics and \”DVD and Notebook – my comments\”
Hello Giantkiller,
I saw that my friend Eric gave you an answer on the WKMF forum…
Like him, I want to thank you for having taken the time to review the material in a fair manner.
I won’t comment point by point because most of my comments would sound like his. Don’t worry, I will tell Eric what plucking the thumbs mean ;-).
As far as the grammatical mistakes, it would be nice from you to pinpoint them to Thierry. As we are not from a English speaking background, any tip is appreciated.
Anyway, we are all moving in the same direction toward a better way to defend ourselves…Best regards,
Rod
Hi Rod!
I gave Eric an answer on your forum. Thanks for clearing up the \”pluck\” thing.
Don’t want to sound mean, but the grammatical errors are really too numerous to point out. Most of the time one can understand the meaning though, but some are a little unclear. There is one that had me stumped for a few minutes: \”Front threat to the throat: Doesn’t preceed your action by a call action\”. Then I saw that in an earlier technique it was mentioned to distract your opponent by asking him a question such as :\”What do you want?\” and I guess in that other exercise you weren’t supposed to do that.
Maybe best thing to do would be to give the whole notebook to either a native English speaker or someone who speaks English very well and have him review it. It’s really okay the way it is, but it might look even more professional if it were in perfect English. 8)
I actually just got the notebook in the mail the other day and I agree with Giant. The captions are a bit, simplified for lack of a better term. Not only should you guys give it to a writer whose native language is english but you might want it to be someone who also trains in Krav.
I found that a few of the descriptions were odd, but since I’ve been trainging for a number of years and teaching for a while now I gleened what was meant from the pictures.
Other than that I found the book informative and put together very professionally. Worth the bucks.
chris
Hi,
I’ve been having a discussion with Eric, who is one of the WKMF instructors, on their forum. He gave very detailed explanations of the techniques they are doing over there. If you want to see it, follow the link I gave earlier.
Anyway, one of the biggest differences he mentioned was that for knife defenses they do not go wrist to wrist, but go forearm against forearm instead. He said he found that to be stronger and easier to do under stress. So, what do y’all think about that? I personally much prefer wrist against wrist and I told him so, but he said he had tried that and thinks forearm against forearm works better. Has anyone else tried this? What do you think?
I think we all practice for perfection but I don’t believe we will achieve it on the street with a real factor of pressure and stress added.
I kind of go back and forth on this issue. On one hand, there is the point that using the forearm gives more power (which some one small may well need) It also requires less acuracy.
But in turn, it leaves one’s hand farhter away for control. And a knife being one of the hardest to defend against, I want control as soon as possible. I learned wrist to wrist, and that’s the way I do it.
Funny, because I had this discusion with one of my guys, a great big officer who felt in the downward stab the defender should go for control right above the head and take the attack right into a lock. I pointed out that in his position (which is atleast a foot taller than me) he could afford to do that. When I showed him that from my position his move was not achievable, he understood why we swing down and cavilier at the waist.
I think we all tweek things eventually to work best us. That’s the beauty thing about Krav Maga. It, in no way shape or form, stagnates.
chris
I can see how a police officer would have more use for a shoulder lock or the like, because he will have to restain the attacker, while as a civilian it’s okay to just run away.
I’m not too big either and often practice this against taller opponents. I find that there is a big tendency to reach when the opponent is bigger, because his arm is so far up that you simply won’t get there when the arm is bent 90 degrees. So then you might wait until the arm comes down to your level, but by that time the stab is already very strong, all of his speed and power is in it and its quite hard to do a proper block with all of that weight and velocity crashing down on your little wrist, especially if you are trying to defend by putting your bent arm right above your head. A smaller instructor finally told me once that instead of putting the arm right above your head, just hit his wrist more from the side, but with your arm further away from your body (that makes your defense a lot stronger). Anyway, hard to explain, but it’s also a lot easier if the taller person is about your own weight, just tall and skinny as opposed trying it against a tall guy, who is also much heavier.
That said, one would think the forearm is naturally stronger than the wrist. But if you go forearm against forearm, then his forearm is also stronger than his wrist and then that might negate any advantage you thought you were getting from going forearm against forearm. If anything, how about your forearm against his wrist? Would that make your defense stronger? Anyone tried that one? My instinct is telling me that might not be a good idea, but I haven’t tried it.
I don’t know, I feel stronger going wrist against wrist, but maybe it’s because that’s what I’ve been practicing for so long. I also feel going wrist against wrist keeps the knife further away from my upper body and it is less likely to slide past the defense and into my ribs. And if I’m inaccurate in a real situation due to stress, if I practice wrist to wrist, and then only hit the forearm I might still be okay. But if I practice forearm against forearm I might end up defending against the crook of the elbow (as happned twice in the \”action scenes\” on the video) and the knife might end up swinging around the defense and still hit me in the head or neck.
I wonder if there are other Krav Maga organisations who rather go forearm against forearm? Just curious, because it’s the first I’ve heard of this being a possibility.
Direct Links?
Does anyone know where these clips can be downloaded? I can only get them streaming – Thanks –
Forearm to foearm risks the knife severing several importand muscles and tendons in your arm making your entire arm from the elbow down completely useless. I prefer wrist to wrist in knife defense because the back of your wrist where the knife is most likely to cut has less important muscles and tendons than your forearm, alot more bone, and it makes grabbing the wrist to control the knife alot easier from the wrist block than the forearm.
I have a friend of mine who got the underside of his forearm cut really bad. He had to have surgery to pull the muscles out of the inside of his upper arm where they had contracted to after being severed. He was in a weird wire cast thing for months.
Quick comment on the notebook I received today.
Keep in mind, it is not designed as a book to teach you KM but seems to be a notebook with visuals so that you can remember what you learned in class. Thus, ìnotebookî and the space for notes etc. As such, I do not think the English translations were a glaring issue as you would have seen/learned what they meant in class.
The technique differences have already been discussed so I wonít rehash them, besides, I am not a technique fanatic so long as it works. (I do prefer forearm over wrists as wrists are small and hard to grab in the real world.)
I thought the notebook was very well done for what it was designed for.
JC
Hmmmm…. interesting. Two people, who train with out organisation have now stated that they might prefer using the forearm instead of the wrist. I thought we always taught to use the wrist and if you used your forearm it was simply regarded as being wrong.
John,
Are you out there? Any official word on this? Would wrist to wrist be regarded as the \”right\” technique and anything else would be wrong or would forearm to forearm also be acceptable? Just curious…..
Sorry for the short hand. I have been in China and I’m trying to get caught up:
Wrist to wrist, for two reasons:
First, if you do manage to move from block/counterattack to control, it is much easier to transition to control his arm if your wrist is near his arm. if you block, say, with the middle of your forearm (regardless of where you make contact with his arm) it is much harder to transition to control.
Second, if you miss, it is very rare that you miss by having his attack slide toward you past your hand. Most often, if you are off in your defense, the attack will slide past on the elbow side. So if you think wrist to wrist, you have a better chance of defending.
Having said that, remember that the 360 defense is designed as a general block, which is all you will have time for on the street. It is designed to work so that some part of the defense — from the elbow to the wrist — makes the defense.
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