krav maga video on joint manipulations; im not a fan

[Gerry Seymour]

We use uke and tori universally. Some styles (Yoshinkan) also use aite and sh'te.

I believe that "nage" could well mean "the one that throws" but I'm not sure that there's this kind of semantic link between tori and locks.

That's what I was taught, but our (within NGA) grasp of Japanese terminology is tenuous, for the most part. We have no real link back to Japan to make it necessary to use the terms correctly, so we probably bastardize on a regular basis.

 

[now disabled]

Yoshinkan also use uke to mean the one who receives the technique

 

[hoshin1600]

for me, uke is the one who starts the action and receives the throw or lock. i use nage and tori interchangeably but nage would be in reference to a throw and tori to anything that is not a throw.
however in my actual teaching i use more technical terms just to aggravate people i use assailant/ defender, defendant, the guy that got wacked, the poor SOB that was having a bad day and get off my lawn dude.

 

[now disabled]

The reason I say I can see Iwama in him is he has spent time around Patrick Cassidy and Miles Kessler and thet were deshi to Saito in Iwama (and I mean Saito snr )

Iwama now if you want that style you really have to look probably more to Saito Hitohiro

 

[now disabled]

for me, uke is the one who starts the action and receives the throw or lock. i use nage and tori interchangeably but nage would be in reference to a throw and tori to anything that is not a throw.
however in my actual teaching i use more technical terms just to aggravate people i use assailant/ defender, defendant, the guy that got wacked, the poor SOB that was having a bad day and get off my lawn dude.

Yeah those terms are universal lol

 

[dunc]

Just adding that in my experience it's very difficult to apply a wrist lock in a (resistive) standing situation without strikes - so I don't buy the theory being presented as "wrist manipulations are an alternative to strikes"

As others have said the execution shown in the video is poor (not gripping to maximise leverage on the wrist, insufficient pressure being applied by both hands etc) and dangerous (eg the uke/opponent can easily drop and strike with their free hand)

 

[hoshin1600]

Just adding that in my experience it's very difficult to apply a wrist lock in a (resistive) standing situation without strikes - so I don't buy the theory being presented as "wrist manipulations are an alternative to strikes"

its all about context.
law enforcement, doormen/ bouncers and prison guards use them all the time.
for civilians,,different context and in that case yes very difficult.

 

[dunc]

Yeah you can catch untrained beginners with them, but anyone who’s had their wrist locked a few times requires a bit more sophistication

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Yeah you can catch untrained beginners with them, but anyone who’s had their wrist locked a few times requires a bit more sophistication

That's true of anything grappling.

 

[now disabled]

That's true of anything grappling

I agree esp if they know what is coming and are going to try and reverse it on you if you don't quite get it right

 

[dunc]

Agreed and predominantly the additional sophistication involves strikes of some sort

 

[drop bear]

Agreed and predominantly the additional sophistication involves strikes of some sort

Nope. Just need to be slicker at wrist locks.

They are mostly trained wronf for a live opponent

 

[hoshin1600]

Agreed and predominantly the additional sophistication involves strikes of some sort

Punching someone in the head is not very sophisticated.
However the complexity level of how to successfully apply locks is all in the set up and the when to use decision.

 

[TMA17]

Showed this to my Krav instructor and this was his answer "that's bull **** not real Krav Maga. That is dangerous and dumb"

Just curious, what Krav do you study? IKMA makes a strong effort to mention how not all Krav Maga is the same.

Home

 

[Martial D]

Punching someone in the head is not very sophisticated.
However the complexity level of how to successfully apply locks is all in the set up and the when to use decision.

Maybe not the actual knuckles to the face, but the steps to get there can be. especially if the opponent is defending himself and also knows how to strike and grapple.

 

[now disabled]

Maybe not the actual knuckles to the face, but the steps to get there can be. especially if the opponent is defending himself and also knows how to strike and grapple.

ok tables turned

Do you know how to apply locks and how to set them up and finish them ?

As punching by comparison is very much simpler

 

[Mark Lynn]

i watched this video to see how krav uses joint manipulations.

i was really hoping to see something good since Krav claims to be real self defense. i do understand that one instructor and one video should not be a reflection of an entire art but this video is a good catalyst for discussion. im going to give it a critique, let others post and ill come back to give some thoughts in another post.

Hoshin1600 I think you are expecting to much from a 2 minute instructional video on joint manipulations. I believe you are being way to critical for such a short video on this subject.

the first sentence out of his mouth made me raise an eyebrow. he called what he is about to teach as a wrist manipulation but then says that he is talking about anything on the arm. so why did he call it a wrist manipulation? i think the better terminology would be joint manipulation. small detail yes, but it stood out to me that the lack of detailed terminology might be an indicator that he doesnt know the material that well. ill let it go and continue on.....

Hoshin have you ever considered that English might not be his primary language. When I googled the instructor, his bio says he learned KM starting at age 7 from Imi Lichtenfeld and is certified by the Wingate Institute in Israel. When I listened to him talk I thought there were other phrases that slightly seemed out of place like when listening to someone trying to translate something in their head and then express it. His wording wasn't way off, just slightly.

While he calls it a wrist manipulation he then clarifies that by saying "wrist manipulation, or or the manipulation of the wrist, the elbow, or anything on the arm......." leading to his bigger point as to why to do a manipulation in the first place. I don't believe this was lack of knowledge in his phrasing but possibly loss of thought on how to phrase it properly. Maybe he didn't have cue cards with all of his words scripted out, maybe he was nervous in front of the camera who knows. My point is you take a pretty big leap here to say

"but it stood out to me that the lack of detailed terminology might be an indicator that he doesnt know the material that well."

next he says;
"we want to remember that when we deal with that material in the art, we apply manipulation to the wrist for two purposes. one is a defensive purpose, and we have to keep in mind that the art to some degree, was designed for the law enforcement community as well. therefore you cant just hit everybody and sometimes its easier to solve the problem with wrist manipulations.

he continues to say that he also uses it for take downs. at this point in the video he hasnt demonstrated anything and im already disappointed.

I'm sorry your disappointed. Again I feel the guy is trying to cover his bases here explaining how KM is a broad scope art that was designed for both civilian and LEOs and sometimes it is easier to solve the problem with joint manipulations (i.e. joint cranks, locks, arm bars etc.etc.) rather than just beating on the person with your fist.

for one, the part i put in italic is screaming apology because he doesnt believe it works. the words he uses is a direct apology and justification because he knows people are going to watch the video and say " why not just punch the dude, it would be more effective" he feels it doesnt work because he doesnt know how , why and when to apply it. so he justifies using the manipulation saying its for law enforcement because they are not allowed to punch.

Sorry again I disagree with you, I didn't get that at all from watching and listening to the video. I never heard him say "I apologize for this next part (of the video) because it doesn't work. I don't believe this works but I have to put it in here cause this is a video on joint manipulation ad that why your viewing it so here goes. But in reality I'd just hit the guy cause beating on him works every time. hehehehe sinckersnicker cough cough" What I heard him say was a short description on what to look for when applying the lock/crank/manipulation such having the arm bent, the forearm horizontal to the floor, pressure applied to the side of the wrist and from the outside of the elbow, along with rotation of the wrist. Then a quick demonstration when he applied the rotation. After explaining the mechanics of the crank or manipulation he then shows how you could do this off of a hand grab (here's where he says what he does about not punching), then he shows the technique again from the grabbing of his shirt. Off of the same basic technique he showed three basic ways of getting the same lock along with two demos of how to apply the technique. I don't see it that he doesn't understand the technique, nor that he doesn't believe it works.

when he does the technique he is grasping only the 4 fingers at the third joint of the green belts hand and not grasping the thumb as well. i believe that when you do this the receiver of the joint lock has the equal ability to grasp your thumb as a counter move. so when i grab the hand i also grab the thumb as well.
i hope i explained that well enough. for you guys that use this technique do you grasp the thumb or just the fingers?

So you grab the fingers and the thumb good for you. He shows grabbing the meaty part of the hand at 1:41, then at 2:01 he shows trapping the fingers to his wrist as he rotates his hand over their wrist, and at 2:16 he shows the capture and rotation of the wrist off of the tee shirt grab again grabbing the meaty part of the hand but this time he applies pressure downward on the elbow as if to prevent it from rising upwards. I listed this as a variation of the basic technique because I didn't really see him apply pressure on the elbow back towards the wrist so that he got a combination compression lock along with the cranking of the wrist which he demonstrated at first. Because I thought he just went into variation where he is preventing the elbow from rising, but he might have just been taking it easy on his partner.

I didn't see anything worth criticizing him about.

next he gives examples of how this manipulation can be applied

" in many many ways"
this is where i cringe and yell at the computer screen.

What's wrong with him saying " in many many ways"? Let me see should he have said "let me count the ways" and then go off listing them, or demoing them. So much for the short 2 minute video.

so your a Krav self defense guru and your going to show the same old lame wrist and lapel grab as an attack??? this is a perfect example of why people think this stuff doesnt work. these attacks are lame and unrealistic. everybody and their brother who knew someone who had a cousin who did karate did these exact same wrist grabs and defense.

It is a short demo video showing how to do a specific lock with a few applications. It's not a course on wrist locks. The cross body wrist grab is a common way for someone to grab your wrist. A person grabbing your hand doesn't really give you the right to beat the crap out of them with your fist. It doesn't give you the right to crank their wrist so hard you strain it or damage it either. You need to learn to apply it without hurting your training partners, so you can start from here at this point safely.

People don't think wrist cranks work because we are gentle in the dojo. The difference between the lock being "ON!" and "off" is less than an 1/4 of an inch (or so) so it can't be seen it has to be felt.

I once asked GM Remy Presas to help me with a lock. At a camp my friend and I had issues with the two finger over the shoulder take down. Similar entry to Sankyo (stepping under the arm and applying a joint crank capturing two finger then over the shoulder take down) but we felt we could counter the technique since we would lose the lock in the transition for the take down. He said grab my hand,I grabbed, I then felt incredible pain as my fingers felt like they were being ripped out of my hand and then I was on my back with him standing over me asking "Do you understand". Remy showed me right then that allof the abscessing we had been doing over "well I could counter here and there" was just BS when it was applied with the intention of locking the fingers and taking me down to the ground for real. I had no time to counter, I had no time to think about countering, I just felt PAIN!!!! and then I was on my back.

Another time GM Remy applied to me the same wrist lock from a hand grab that is demonstrated in the video; again I felt tremendous pain and then I was on my knees in the dirt pleading for the pain to stop. There was no way for me to counter, no hit to the groin no trying to grab is leg etc. etc. Remy was showing me how to have faith in the technique, to believe it works by having felt it. I don't need to do the same thing to my students to practice the technique.

as martial artists we all know this is a static non realistic attack why is this still being taught?

Because the locks/cranks work and are painful. You have to start somewhere and these are valid ways (speaking of the wrist grabs etc.etc.) to teach the material to beginners. After this they can begin to see all of the different variations of the locks but you have to start somewhere.

so disappointing. this video was on par with a Mcdojo video.
but the kick in the pants was that all the comments on Youtube were about how great it was. blahh

Hoshin I don't teach KM, practice KM etc. etc. I know nothing about this instructor his teaching methods or his abilities. I just think you expected to much from a 2 minute video and you unjustly made comments about the guy that were uncalled for.

 

[Mark Lynn]

valid point there as if certain things are not in place the lock will not work and I don't just mean taking his centre etc but the mere fact that in one of the moves in fact nearly all if the arm is straight then it not work ...at least in my opinion

If you mean uke's arm, you're mostly right. There's a complementary technique that locks the wrist differently (can actually be a bind on the smallest metacarpal) that works nicely as a simple transition if the arm straightens. I believe this exists in Aikido, as well, though maybe only as the finish to another technique (sankyo, maybe? - I am lousy at Aikido technique names).

Gerry and ND

Not sure if I follow you right so please forgive me if I'm intruding. One technique I've used in several different applications when someone straighten their arm and I'm trying to get to the "S" (I don't call it a Z lock, but I think it's Nikyu (?))thus preventing the lock. Is to go around the wrist to crank it back in towards the person thus getting them to bend the arm and then reapply the lock. So if the wrist is horizontal but the arm is straight, then apply pressure to rotate the wrist vertical thumb down and back in (or towards the outside bending the elbow) and apply the lock that way just a thought.

It's my experience that most instructors, when teaching this technique (in any curriculum that has it), spend too much time on the mechanics of the lock, and not nearly enough on the structure issues and when to use/not use the technique. My best analogy if if a boxing coach taught a slip, and spent 80% of the time talking about the hand that guards the head, 10% on placement of the leading foot, and 10% of the time talking about the body movement that actually does the slipping. Technically, nothing would be wrong, but very little would be right in that situation.

Gerry
I see the point but by understanding the technical aspects of the mechanics allows the student to then see how it can be applied in many different situations. For instance taking the same wrist lock as shown in the video. When I teach it it is generally from the wrist grab as shown. Now later when that same position comes up in training; whether it is with a stick release, or a counter to a stick defense, or when the person grabs your knife hand, or a move in a bo kata, as a teacher I can't possibly cover all of those and many others in a single lesson, however by covering the physical details of the lock in good detail then my students learn to see it in the other situations as described. Thus they learn to teach and see things for themselves.

 

[Mark Lynn]

Fact is a lot of online videos are from fakes because they want to impress people because they have little confidence in themselves.

How do you know what everyone's confidence level is. How do you know they are fakes?

Most legit don't even bother with these kind of videos because they'll teach in their school they don't need to show off

I disagree some use them as resources for their school, as in to have their students watch them and use them as references. At the same time using them as a way to advertise their school or their abilities.

On line videos are a great resource for your school, whether it is in the public domain or in the private subscription domain.

 

[Mark Lynn]

Showed this to my Krav instructor and this was his answer "that's bull **** not real Krav Maga. That is dangerous and dumb"

Headhunter
Why is this bull****and not real KM. What is dangerous and dumb?

Is it the lock is wrong? His foot placement? Body position? Hand placement" Not grabbing the fingers, or the thumb?

Or is it the applications shown?