Defensive Knee Strikes

I have constantly referenced the thread of simplicity. Keep everything as simple as possible, because if you're under stress in a violent situation the last thing that you wanna do is try to remember small details of a move that you can use to get yourself out of that situation altogether. So we're gonna continue with that, but we're gonna change the scenario and we're gonna change the tool. Now we've already talked about using your hands as a very simple solution to get somebody away from you if they grab you. We've talked about elbows and how you can work elbows on a straight line, you can use them across, you can use them when you're being held, you can use them if you're up against the wall. You can even use an elbow strike if somebody has you off the ground. So we're going to assume for this scenario that now you don't have the use of your hands and you're going to have to rely on your knees. Knees are just like elbows, incredibly devastating if you utilize them really well, and it's not a complicated movement. One thing I want you to keep in mind as we demonstrate this is getting the knee strike to the actual target with power and precision is going to be your greatest ally. So we don't wanna make it complicated. There's not gonna be a perfect way to do this. We're gonna rely on the concepts that we talked about earlier. Now to keep it simple we're gonna have Randy and I run through two exact same scenarios that we did with elbows, but again, taking away the use of our hands. Now, Randy, are you ready? Ready. The first one we're gonna talk about is the basic waist grab. And we referenced the fact that if somebody is grabbing you by the waist, they could intend to throw you on the ground. And we're trying to stop that from happening, because once you get to the ground, it's a whole different fight. So Randy's gonna come through, and he's gonna grab right toward my waist. We're gonna, again, go through it very, very slowly, but this time I'm going to assume that my hands got caught in that natural response position, and I can't elbow strike, I can't break loose, and I need a tool to break his hands from my body so that I can utilize a secondary tool or I can leave the situation. So Randy, come on in. Let's set this up slowly. Okay, here's the grab. Now I could go ahead and try and fight my way out of this. I could slap him, but again, completely impractical. Now, remember what we talked about with elbows and with the grabs, too. It's critical that you just relax enough to think your way through this. This is not a devastating situation. Scary, absolutely. It's overwhelming. This big man has a hold of me, but look at the tools that I have. Hands are gone, but my knee is in a perfect position to strike his leg. Now this, again, isn't gonna be disabling. If I hit it perfectly, maybe. But probably enough just to tap him to get him to think about what's happening to his knee. Maybe enough to loosen up this grip. So very slowly, you can go ahead and maintain the hold. All right, from here, my left foot is gonna come up. It's about four inches from here to his knee, and I'm just gonna pop his knee on the side, very slowly to keep him safe. If I need to maintain balance, I can grip onto him, not trying to pull away from him, but going toward the threat. Left knee comes up. There's the pop. Very small, but you'd be shocked at how painful that can actually be for the person that's in Randy's position. So let's try it again, Randy. One more time. Okay. Okay, he grabs. I'm tied up. Hands are useless. There's the tool. Boom, right there. If I need a secondary tool, my right leg is ready to go because I've got that vertical center. We talked about that posture, that balance. Right leg comes up. There's another strike. This could go on, and trust me, this isn't gonna take a lotta pressure. So it's pop, pop, and at full speed it's certainly gonna be enough to get him to think about what's happening with his knees so that I can move on to a different tool, get away from him. One of the things to keep in mind when we're talking about knee strikes or elbow strikes or basically any defensive strike is that we aren't going for the one big strike. Sometimes it's gonna take more than that, and you wanna set yourself up. So if I tap Randy with a knee strike, and it's not enough to take him down, but it's enough to get his thought process to short circuit a little bit, that's perfect. That's what I want. But it's important then to follow up with a different tool. These skills that I'm giving you are very, very few, right? Just quick review. We've got the hand, we've got the elbow, I've got the knee so far. They work together extremely well. And we didn't give you many target areas, but we gave you the right ones. We gave you the effect of target areas. So as I work through this with Randy, especially on this next example, we're gonna use the same setup that we used with one of the elbow strikes, again, taking away the arms, but I'm gonna go ahead and demonstrate a couple of different techniques that I can use after the initial knee strike. Just reminding you that it's not just about one technique. It might be the one after. It might be the one after that. So Randy, if I can have you on this side. All right, so Randy, I'm gonna have you go ahead and come on in very loose headlock, just so that we can go ahead and work through it and demonstrate it. Now he's got the headlock, just a quick mention again, it's that moment of panic right here. There's somebody trying to take my win. I need to keep my bearings. I need to be able to think through this. Now, in reality, this is not a headlock. This is somebody just grabbing my neck and pulling me to the side. If he really puts me in a deep headlock it's a huge possibility that my hands are either not gonna be able to reach him, or I'm not gonna be able to do anything here that's gonna cause enough damage, distraction, or destruction to get him to let go. So I'm gonna go ahead and have him put me in a nice deep headlock, and as he does, real tight, tightens me up, can barely breathe. And this would be a moment of panic, but look at where my knee is. You can go ahead and keep it. From here. Go ahead and come back up again. Just quickly showing how close in proximity my legs are to his. In a moment of panic somebody would lose that opportunity to actually use that tool, hit the knee, so that this loosens up. You can't lose that opportunity. So even though in that, what, four seconds that he had a hold of me, I couldn't breathe. It's unsettling even here. But you can't forget that these tools are right there and they're easily used. So let's go through it very, very slowly. This time go ahead and grab. Okay, huge headlock. He's gonna keep a loose grip so I can talk through. Go ahead and pull me down a little bit. Now, from here, I may not be able to reach up. Here I might be able to, but if I take my right knee and tap right on the bottom of his, very painful right here. My left leg is in a perfect position to hit the back of the knee. And again, get him to start thinking about what's happening here so that this will be a little bit looser. Then I can use a secondary tool if I need to. All right, let's take a look at it a little bit faster. This time, a nice deep headlock. Go ahead put some pressure on me. Okay, and come back up. All right, great example of how little pressure it takes to get him to move. And I know you felt that. It's a very small amount of space, but even in a very controlled environment with a small pop to the knee, I could feel his knee move. And that wasn't something that we choreographed. That was a natural response to me hitting Randy's knee.