Throws - are they useful?

[Touch Of Death]

By way of introduction, my name is Mark and I have been studying Shaolin Kempo Chi Sao for 6 years in Massachusetts. I'm new to this board and this is my first post to this forum although I have been reading it with great interest for the past month since I found it.

I just posted a thread in the Technique forum asking about throwing techniques and how to teach them.

I don't have many techniques that throw my opponent and it made me wonder.

Are throws still a useful part of kenpo/kempo? (There are a number of ways to ask this. Another way to ask it is: Do throws still belong in the kenpo system?)

To be clear, I am talking specifically about shoulder throws and hip throws. And this is just speculation. I'm interested in hearing people's opinions.

Thank you.

Of course, you can add a throw at any point during a tech.
Sean

 

[MJS]

Are they useful? Absolutely! Its another tool, and if the moment presents itself and its the right move at that time, I say go for it. Of course, we ultimately control how they fall, and I've heard people question the aftermath of it. In other words, what if, during the landing, they hit their head and die? Then again, what if our punch makes them fall and they hit their head?

And if you saw the attack coming, why not just kick him? Why wait until contact to defend your self?

Ya know, thats a good point and something I've said as well. An attempted grab is similar to a punch, so why wait until they grab? But then why have techniques against a grab?

Mike

 

[stone_dragone]

I have always taught that the ground is a very powerful weapon. the primary issue I take with saying that "I would just kick him" or " I would do X throw" is that all responses are situationally dependent. What shoes am I wearing? How snug are my jeans? Did I have one too many rolls at dinner? Did I take one too many rolls at practice?

It goes without saying that one should have avoided the situation, but the proper physical response is dependent on so many variables that a discussion of throws vs kicks is pointless. Should people training in self-defense arts work on throws? Yes Should they work on kicks? yes. should they work on throwing thier keys and running like hell? yes.

 

[whitedragon_48]

Ok, I will answer this one. There's a lot of pointless fear out there with people being afraid of defending themselves from an attacker. Let me make one thing very clear, SD is legal. You can legally use as much force as needed to stop the attack and preserve your life and/or limb. If in the unfortunate event where the use legal of SD causes the de-animation of the attacker, well boo-freakin-hoo, too bad, so sad. What we cannot do is continue to use force once the threat has ceased. If your response to someone armed or otherwise was to use a hip throw that drops him on his head and he dies, he's SOL, me sez. Your choise of SD should not rest on what might be too dangerous to use. Too much force can be bad, but too little can kill you. Actually, studies have been done that show that while under attack is very hard to control the level of force used given the instinctive response towards survival. I seriously doubt that if you use reasonable SD in a situation and the attacker dies that you will be convicted, unless your lawyer is extremely incompetent.

When someone decides to phycally assault another, he gives up his right not to be assaulted himself in response. Any SD move can potentially kill given the circumtances so if we are to go to prison for that, why even bother to train? Ridiculous! Just make sure to use a reasonable amount of force, enough to justify dropping him on his head and once done, don't continue to kick the unconcious guy on the head! No matter how satisfiying it might be.