The deadly Handshake!!!

[J. Pickard]

I keep seeing "self defense" videos of hand shakes and wrist grabs where a person shakes another persons hand or gently grabs their wrist and just stands there. When did this become something that is considered threatening? in order for someone to shake your hand you have to willingly reach out and shake it, if you then go on to break their wrist, elbow, nose, jaw, etc. that is not self defense, you just violently assaulted a person who was just performing a typical social greeting. If someone grabs your wrist and just stands there doing nothing else that's not an attack, that's just a weirdo with no concept of personal space and does not warrant the breaking of any bones. Where did this idea even start?

Times when a handshake is a threat: never, because a handshake by definition is mutual and if you deemed the person is a dangerous stranger you shouldn't be shaking their hand in the first place.

Times when a wrist grab is a threat: When the person is using it to control you in some way i.e. to set up a strike or throw, to forcibly move you to another location against your will, pull you to the ground, or prevent you from leaving the area against your will. Not when they just grab you and stand there doing nothing. Violent criminals don't do that. You know who does? Children and adults with social quirks that can't think of another way to get your attention.

 

[isshinryuronin]

When the person is using it to control you in some way i.e. to set up a strike or throw, to forcibly move you to another location against your will, pull you to the ground, or prevent you from leaving the area against your will. Not when they just grab you and stand there doing nothing.

Sometimes, "when they just grab you and stand there doing nothing," they are doing something - intimidation. This may be threatening to some but is just a mental game and not worthy of physical reaction.

If the person has ill physical intention, there will usually be tells (unless he's a pro), like tension in body or facial expression, to tip you off an attack may be coming. Or preceding behavior that is inconsistent with a friendly handshake. The question then becomes, do you do a pre-emptive attack or ready yourself to counter.

Another way is to stall or put off a handshake attack. Take a quiet half step back and to the left as you gently pull to your left leg. This will negate an effective attack (without being offensive yourself) till the other guy's intensions are more clearly revealed.

Unless one is naive, unobservant or plain dumb, danger from a simple handshake or even grab should be minimal. If the person's motives are suspect, don't extend your hand to them. EPK does have a technique, "gift in return," that is an attack from the handshake position. IMO, there are more useful things to practice.

 

[Buka]

Wally Jay taught me some nifty handshake stuff back in the day. Mostly to do with someone trying to crunch your hand with a stronger grip - with your knuckles bent inwards toward your palm side. That's what they do when they want to show off with you, they push the back of your knuckles that way with their thumb.

Years later I was at Billy Blanks' dojo in L.A. We were outside getting some air in-between classes. There was a whole crowd out there, as there always was between classes. Billy calls my name and says "Check out how strong this guy's grip is."
The guy in question was Shaq's stunt double, Brad W.

Billy calling my attention to it was him saying to me "teach this guy a lesson."

I walk over, get introduced, and shake Brad's hand. He immediately tries to crush it, but I knew what was coming. Brad is six feet eleven. Standing up. Writhing on the ground in considerable pain he's much shorter.

I lectured him while he was on the ground. Then we got up and I trained him for several months, we became friends. And he was a good student. Years later he told me he never did that hand squash to anyone again, that he had learned his lesson.

Thanks, Wally, you were the bomb.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

I was taught, and I have no idea the validity of this, that those were meant to be in response to weapons. So you would be someone with a weapon (gun in modern times, maybe a knife, sword, bat, tazer, who knows) that you're trying to reach at your belt. Preferably in response to an aggressor, so it counts as self-defense.

At that point is when the 'attacker' would go to your hand/wrist as the first step of stopping you from grabbing said weapon. That's when you would do a wrist escape.

So in modern times the interaction would go, with the cast V: Victim who carries a tazer, A: Aggressor trying to attack/mug victim

A: Goes to punch V
V: Avoids said punch, backs up and goes to grab their tazer.
A: Sees V going to their belt/pocket, does not know what weapon they have. Goes to try and grab the hand to stop them from pulling whatever they've got.
V: Performs wrist escape, and before A recovers grabs tazer. Stuns A.

It's a bit convoluted, and like I said I don't know the historical accuracy of the claim this is why they were taught, but I can definitely see the above sequence or something similar happening when you try to grab a weapon to defend yourself. Even moreso nowadays since the person attacking you doesn't know if you're grabbing a gun or not, so they can't really ignore it-they've got to try to stop you from grabbing it, run, or stop their attack and hope you don't escalate. Only one of which requires a SD technique to assist.

It also would make sense why it's taught at the beginning of training, since one of the most important things for a beginner would be to be able to pull their SD device out safely.

 

[punisher73]

A couple of things.

Most people don't train grab attacks of any kind realistically. But, what you are usually seeing is the first step/level where both parties are cooperating and not resisting to learn the technique.

A handshake is used sometimes as a set up for attacks. It does a couple of things. First, you usually look down at their hand which is a distraction technique. Also, most people in the US have a conditioned response that when someone wants to shake your hand you almost automatically put your hand out to shake it. Also, as others have pointed out some may try to "crush your hand"

Next, the handshake isn't a handshake in most older styles that have passed it on. It was the attacker grabbing your hand for a joint lock of some sorts.

 

[_Simon_]

Times when a handshake is a threat: never, because a handshake by definition is mutual

@drop bear , good times

 

[TularosaKungFu]

Hammer at that forge. You will get kung fu grip and hammer arm hammer fist. Your arm can hurt your fist.

But I thought this was gonna be "wax your hand and put digitalis on it!"
I wanted to see if a living person was ever nuts enough to try poison hand and survived? I suspect there's a reason we never see "tips"

Handshake is a western deal sealer. 300 years ago, if you stuck your hand at a guy in asia he would probably grin or? just take the offer? But it would be crazy.
They were down to bowing at a distance and watching that.

I never noticed the thumb knuckle push trick? Good to know.

 

[wab25]

I always looked at the "from a handshake" moves more as a very beginner drill. We teach a standing arm bar from a handshake. But really, that is so we can focus on all the other parts of the arm bar.

Starting in the handshake grip, you can easily control the direction, go towards the pinky and away from the thumb. You can focus on which direction to aim the pinky at... you get different responses as you change the angle of the wrist with respect to the elbow. You can focus on separating the arm from the body, breaking the structure, taking the balance... all while using this grip.

Additionally, this grip helps the beginners remember to move slowly, while learning to feel what its like to apply the arm bar... this is important in developing control.

Yes, if you stop there, you have taught them an over reaction to an unlikely attack. But, a good instructor will then move on and show how to apply these fundamentals and details in more appropriate situations. Every one of the fundamentals and details practiced here can and should be applied also when doing an arm bar from guard or arm bar from mount, or arm bar from anywhere....

People these days forget that the grab my wrist attack, was designed to prevent you from getting your hand to your sword. It involved taking your balance, breaking your structure and preventing that hand from getting to your sword on the other hip... it also quickly led to a take down. But since we forgot the full attack, it has morphed into passively grabbing the wrist and waiting patiently. Thats on the instructors for not ever moving past that part and or teaching the real intent of the attack. People don't wear swords today, but they do carry knives and CCW. The same grab your wrist attack, can also be used to prevent you from getting to your modern weapon, and should still include breaking your structure, taking your balance and lead to putting you on the ground very quickly.

 

[isshinryuronin]

The same grab your wrist attack, can also be used to prevent you from getting to your modern weapon, and should still include breaking your structure, taking your balance and lead to putting you on the ground very quickly.

A lot of people don't understand that a hand grab, alone, does not end a confrontation, and extending that into further advantage, i.e., joint lock or takedown, is not a given. As you so correctly pointed out, the grab is just the start of a chain of events, each dependent on the one before it.

Once the initial grab is achieved, the next move IMO is most important - Breaking the opponent's structure. This can be done by a strike or leg buckle of some sort. This is needed as the next step, setting the controlling technique, is the most technically difficult/complex link of the chain and the opponent must be as immobilized as possible. Now that the controlling lock is set it can be safely and effectively extended into a break, takedown, and/or submission.

The same grab your wrist attack, can also be used to prevent you from getting to your modern weapon,

I'm not sure this is valid. My reasoning is this: If the hand is going for a weapon, it's in motion and grabbing it is problematic. And if you're close enough to grab him, you're close enough to immediately strike him (while he's busy going for his knife/gun). Even better, check/immobilize his arm as you simultaneously strike him. Then you can employ the chain of events as described above.

 

[wab25]

I'm not sure this is valid. My reasoning is this: If the hand is going for a weapon, it's in motion and grabbing it is problematic. And if you're close enough to grab him, you're close enough to immediately strike him (while he's busy going for his knife/gun). Even better, check/immobilize his arm as you simultaneously strike him. Then you can employ the chain of events as described above.

The way I am looking at it is from the armed person point of view. If you were a uniformed police officer, the other guy would know you had a gun, and where it was. It would be valid for him to grab the wrist of the officer to prevent it from getting the gun. Yes, it would immediately need to be followed up with breaking structure, taking balance and moving on.... As the officer, you would want to regain you structure and balance, in order to get your hand back to your gun. You could use the same motions to regain those as you practiced in the dojo, when they were preventing you from drawing your sword. The same could happen if you were carrying concealed, and the other guy saw it before attacking, or knows you carry or suspects....

The exact details would be a little different in each case. But, understanding how to get your hips back under you, get your hand / arm back into a range where it has power will be useful here... even if you want to hit him instead of drawing your weapon. Finally, nothing prevents you from training this in the dojo. Use your training weapons, and have the person doing the initial grab, grab to prevent you from drawing. The attackers goal is to prevent the weapon from being drawn, to control you, take you down and finish you. The defenders goal is to regain his balance and structure, to a point where he can draw the weapon or deliver meaningful strikes, or initiate his own control... Lots of ways to build on these drills. The main point being that once people can do the static escape from a wrist grab... you need to make the wrist grab have real intent. Changing from prevent a sword draw, to prevent a side arm draw, to prevent a CCW draw, to prevent a knife draw... changes the details, but not the principles needed to respond. (the window of time to respond can be different in here as well.) You can also switch it up totally, by making the wrist grab a grab and pull, to pull someone into a car, out of a public place... again details change, but the core principles should be the same.

If you have other situations to drill I am all ears...

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Wally Jay taught me some nifty handshake stuff back in the day. Mostly to do with someone trying to crunch your hand with a stronger grip - with your knuckles bent inwards toward your palm side. That's what they do when they want to show off with you, they push the back of your knuckles that way with their thumb.

Years later I was at Billy Blanks' dojo in L.A. We were outside getting some air in-between classes. There was a whole crowd out there, as there always was between classes. Billy calls my name and says "Check out how strong this guy's grip is."
The guy in question was Shaq's stunt double, Brad W.

Billy calling my attention to it was him saying to me "teach this guy a lesson."

I walk over, get introduced, and shake Brad's hand. He immediately tries to crush it, but I knew what was coming. Brad is six feet eleven. Standing up. Writhing on the ground in considerable pain he's much shorter.

I lectured him while he was on the ground. Then we got up and I trained him for several months, we became friends. And he was a good student. Years later he told me he never did that hand squash to anyone again, that he had learned his lesson.

Thanks, Wally, you were the bomb.

Wow! You trained with Wally Jay, that is really cool. I only met him once in Long Beach in the eighties, he made a real impression on me.

 

[RTKDCMB]

Haven't you ever seen somebody try to crush someone's hand with a handshake when trying to intimidate them? Or using a handshake as distraction before punching the other person in the face? That's why they are trained.

 

[Buka]

Wow! You trained with Wally Jay, that is really cool. I only met him once in Long Beach in the eighties, he made a real impression on me.

Wally and his wife, Bernise (also a Martial Artist) are two of the nicest people I ever met in the Arts.
I have some photos, I'll see if I can find them. But this is my favorite Wally Jay story...

I had trained with him a bunch of times. Then he had a five day training came at Merrimack College, so of course we all went. Great camp, long hours, lots of fun. At the lunch break one day, I'm talking to Bernise. She tells me that they have a dojo in their basement at their home in California.

Tells me that everyone always comes over and goes down stairs with Wally and they train all day or night. Then she tells me, "the only one that never went downstairs was young Bruce when he used to come by, which was often, they trained in the living room because they liked the light there better."

I asked, "Do you mean Bruce Lee?" She says "Yes, wait I have a photo you might like."

She goes in her purse, gets her wallet, finds a photo and shows it to me.

It's Wally Jay and Bruce Lee. They are drenched in sweat, standing in her living room. The furniture is pushed against the wall, the rug is rolled up, there's chairs knocked over, pictures on the wall askew, lamps tipped over on the floor. They're grinning at Bernise who took the photo.

She says "They used to wreck my living room. But young Bruce was such a sweet boy, I never minded."

That was the coolest Martial Arts photo I ever saw.

 

[J. Pickard]

Using a handshake to teach beginner grappling techniques aside, Im still not convinced. Think about the situation you would be in when you would expect someone to shake your hand. It's usually in a gathering where you are expected to be introduced to new people, a business situation, or someone introducing a new person to you. If a random *** person that you have never met just randomly walks up to you while you are minding your own business and reaches out to shake your hand that itself is suspicious and chances are the handshake is a setup for something else and your first line of defense should be NOT shaking their hand back but instead be asking yourself "who the hell is this person and why do they want to be so close to me?". Maybe I'm just too much of an introvert, but if I'm minding my own business walking somewhere and someone I don't know starts to walk toward me I'm gonna try to make some space and I am definitely not going to get close enough to shake their hand.

 

[jks9199]

You're starting from a number of assumptions about that handshake or lapel grab (similar arguments can be made about it.)

You assume they must be mutual.. are you certain? What's the difference between a grab and a handshake?

You're assuming a handshake isn't a set-up... but I've seen it used more than you might think. And I've used it that way, too...

I think it's good and smart that you're questioning what you see -- but maybe question your own assumptions, too, huh? Some instructors deliberately obscure real meanings and keep students at basic levels, and others just never learned to go deeper.

 

[_Simon_]

How bout this one... any defence against it? Anyone ever used it on dah streetz?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I keep seeing "self defense" videos of hand shakes and wrist grabs where a person shakes another persons hand or gently grabs their wrist and just stands there. When did this become something that is considered threatening? in order for someone to shake your hand you have to willingly reach out and shake it, if you then go on to break their wrist, elbow, nose, jaw, etc. that is not self defense, you just violently assaulted a person who was just performing a typical social greeting. If someone grabs your wrist and just stands there doing nothing else that's not an attack, that's just a weirdo with no concept of personal space and does not warrant the breaking of any bones. Where did this idea even start?

Times when a handshake is a threat: never, because a handshake by definition is mutual and if you deemed the person is a dangerous stranger you shouldn't be shaking their hand in the first place.

Times when a wrist grab is a threat: When the person is using it to control you in some way i.e. to set up a strike or throw, to forcibly move you to another location against your will, pull you to the ground, or prevent you from leaving the area against your will. Not when they just grab you and stand there doing nothing. Violent criminals don't do that. You know who does? Children and adults with social quirks that can't think of another way to get your attention.

You’re seeing drills for practicing movement and technique. Like many drills, this has an “easy” level where your partner is static. Done at a higher level, those grips become pulls, or are accompanied be a punch or such with the other hand.

 

[Flying Crane]

Using a handshake to teach beginner grappling techniques aside, Im still not convinced. Think about the situation you would be in when you would expect someone to shake your hand. It's usually in a gathering where you are expected to be introduced to new people, a business situation, or someone introducing a new person to you. If a random *** person that you have never met just randomly walks up to you while you are minding your own business and reaches out to shake your hand that itself is suspicious and chances are the handshake is a setup for something else and your first line of defense should be NOT shaking their hand back but instead be asking yourself "who the hell is this person and why do they want to be so close to me?". Maybe I'm just too much of an introvert, but if I'm minding my own business walking somewhere and someone I don't know starts to walk toward me I'm gonna try to make some space and I am definitely not going to get close enough to shake their hand.

Some of these things are meant to be a foundational beginning place for an exploration of mechanics and physical interaction, which can have more broad application in other situations. It may not be meant as an actual self defense solution against a handshake, although it can be used in that way if it ever becomes appropriate. Not everything is a literal or direct interpretation.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Wally and his wife, Bernise (also a Martial Artist) are two of the nicest people I ever met in the Arts.
I have some photos, I'll see if I can find them. But this is my favorite Wally Jay story...

I had trained with him a bunch of times. Then he had a five day training came at Merrimack College, so of course we all went. Great camp, long hours, lots of fun. At the lunch break one day, I'm talking to Bernise. She tells me that they have a dojo in their basement at their home in California.

Tells me that everyone always comes over and goes down stairs with Wally and they train all day or night. Then she tells me, "the only one that never went downstairs was young Bruce when he used to come by, which was often, they trained in the living room because they liked the light there better."

I asked, "Do you mean Bruce Lee?" She says "Yes, wait I have a photo you might like."

She goes in her purse, gets her wallet, finds a photo and shows it to me.

It's Wally Jay and Bruce Lee. They are drenched in sweat, standing in her living room. The furniture is pushed against the wall, the rug is rolled up, there's chairs knocked over, pictures on the wall askew, lamps tipped over on the floor. They're grinning at Bernise who took the photo.

She says "They used to wreck my living room. But young Bruce was such a sweet boy, I never minded."

That was the coolest Martial Arts photo I ever saw.

Wow that is awesome! Sifu Woo and Sifu Gale both knew and respected him. I thought he was the most gracious teacher I ever met. Gentle and kind. Anyone who had a chance to train with him directly was lucky indeed. It was his small circle jiu jitsu that was my first introduction to martial arts about the same time I started learning to box.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

How bout this one... any defence against it? Anyone ever used it on dah streetz?

View attachment 28665

Lol!