This poll was started a while back and I think we are at the point where I have gotten as many responses as I am going to get regularly. I was trying to find trends in martial artists and street fighting. There is a pretty famous quote about how 90% of all fights will end up on the ground. If you have done your homework, you know this was a misquoting of an LAPD study that found that 60% of altercations between police officers and suspects end up on the ground (Remember that number for later). I know a lot of my karate buddies don’t do any kind of grappling, so I was curious if we should even be concerned about grappling. Here is what I found:

Correlations

One of the things I tried to find was correlations, patterns that would suggest a relationship between one thing and the other. Here is a quick breakdown of the things that correlated:

• How Often Your School Teaches Grappling and If You Grappled in a Fight: 22% (Those who study grappling are more likely to grapple).
• # of Years in Martial Arts and If You Grappled in a Fight: -14% (Those who study longer are slightly less likely to grapple).
• If You do Karate and If You Grappled in a Fight: -3% (Those who do karate are marginally less likely to grapple).

Percentages

When I was looking at the numbers I found a few facts about fights (according to our poll of 40+ martial artists):

• 74% of people considered their school less focused on grappling.
• 62% of people who got into a fight said they grappled during the fight.

This is in no way conclusive of anything, but it should make you think. Most people say they ended up grappling during their fight. Shockingly, 62% of martial artists said they end up grappling – almost exactly the same number as the police study. At the same time, most people said their schools don’t focus on grappling. What this means to me, is that the odds suggest you will end up grappling should you ever get in a fist fight. Are you ready? 74% of the people who responded are hopefully asking themselves that right now.

Next Poll

I am going to keep polling everyone on various things in the martial arts community. Please know, I don’t make money off of these polls or sell your info in any way. I do research to help offer interesting thoughts to the world about martial arts training. The next poll can be found here. Please take a few minutes and fill it out and pass it on to your martial arts friends, the results help all of us make our training more effective.

If you were wondering about my first poll that I rarely talk about, more to come on that soon.

While there is no doubt in my mind that those with proper training have an advantage in a fist fight, having a strong body is equally important. To quote Theodore Roosevelt Sr., “…you have the mind but you have not the body, and without the help of the body the mind cannot go as far as it should. I am giving you the tools, but it is up to you to make your body.”  This could not apply more to Karate training. A teacher can give you all of the techniques, but without the proper conditioning, there is no way to do them as effectively as possible. Does this mean you need to look like a body builder – no. Does it mean you have to stay fit – yes.

The Pushup

One of the finest exercise in the history of mankind is the pushup. It builds a strong core, chest, shoulders, and arms. If done correctly, I am even told that you can “rest” in it. For many though, this is a daunting task that given there best efforts in only five pushups. I am going to teach you how to fix that and work your way up to more pushups than you have ever done.

Pushup Endurance

To increase your number of pushups, we will do increasing sets. Follow this simple routine three days a week and you will increase your number of pushups dramatically.

Week 1

Day One (60 Second Breaks): 2 Pushups, 2 Pushups, 3 Pushups, 2 Pushups, Max Pushups

Day Two (90 Second Breaks): 3 Pushups, 4 Pushups, 3 Pushups, 2 Pushups, Max Pushups

Day Three (120 Second Breaks):  4 Pushups, 5 Pushups, 4 Pushups, 4 Pushups, Max Pushups

Week 2

Day One (60 Second Breaks): 4 Pushups, 4 Pushups, 6 Pushups, 4 Pushups, Max Pushups

Day Two (90 Second Breaks): 6 Pushups, 8 Pushups, 6 Pushups, 6 Pushups, Max Pushups

Day Three (120 Second Breaks):  8 Pushups, 10 Pushups, 8 Pushups, 8 Pushups, Max Pushups

Week 3

Day One (60 Second Breaks): 12 Pushups, 13 Pushups, 15 Pushups, 12 Pushups, Max Pushups

Day Two (90 Second Breaks): 14 Pushups, 16 Pushups, 16 Pushups, 12 Pushups, Max Pushups

Day Three (120 Second Breaks):  15 Pushups, 16 Pushups, 18 Pushups, 15 Pushups, Max Pushups

Week 4

Day One (60 Second Breaks): 18 Pushups, 20 Pushups, 24 Pushups, 19 Pushups, Max Pushups

Day Two (90 Second Breaks): 22 Pushups, 25 Pushups, 25 Pushups, 20 Pushups, Max Pushups

Day Three (120 Second Breaks):  25 Pushups, 28 Pushups, 30 Pushups, 26 Pushups, Max Pushups

Week 5

Day One (60 Second Breaks): 28 Pushups, 30 Pushups, 32 Pushups, 30 Pushups, Max Pushups

Day Two (90 Second Breaks): 30 Pushups, 32 Pushups, 35 Pushups, 33 Pushups, Max Pushups

Day Three (120 Second Breaks):  32 Pushups, 35 Pushups, 34 Pushups, 33 Pushups, Max Pushups

Week 6

Day One (60 Second Breaks): 35 Pushups, 40 Pushups, 45 Pushups, 40 Pushups, Max Pushups

Day Two (90 Second Breaks):40 Pushups, 42 Pushups, 47 Pushups, 45 Pushups, Max Pushups

Day Three (120 Second Breaks):  45 Pushups, 50 Pushups, 52 Pushups, 48 Pushups, Max Pushups

Form

Ensure that when you are doing pushups:

Your back is straight.

Your butt is down.

You are break 90 degrees with your elbows when you lower yourself

You do NOT touch the ground.

You are drinking plenty of water.

Take the Challenge

Ready to build up your strength? Start the pushup challenge today and tell us how you are doing!

The multiple attacker drills started off with four people holding large kicking shields surrounding one person and randomly pressing toward them, sometimes one at a time, sometimes two at a time, sometimes three at a time and sometimes all at once–we didn’t plan it at all so whoever decided to press forward did so.  The person in the middle had to keep the people with the pads away, and we all had different methods of accomplishing that goal.  Khang, one of our teen students who is plenty tough enough to work with the adults, used non-stop barrages of punches, kicks, knees and elbows on the pads to keep us away.  I used bursts of kicks and elbows while evading and pushing the people with the pads so I could escape.  Mr. Getz alternated between evading like I had and throwing fight-ending combinations of kicks, knees and elbows.  Mr. Allred mostly kicked us all away because he’s big enough and strong enough that he created a lot of space doing that.

After that we worked a similar drill, but aimed at escaping a crowd and countering a pursuer.  The people with the pads all squeezed against the person in the middle to close them in and the person in the middle had to slip out and strike the pads of anyone who followed them.  This one worked out pretty much the same for all of us, to differing degrees of success.  Khang, being smaller than the rest of us, had a harder time breaking through and ended up opting to duck down to slip out of the crowd, while Mr. Allred, being the biggest and strongest of us, simply started walking the direction he wanted to go.  Mr. Getz and I both have a bit of a judo background and didn’t have much of a problem feeling the gap and slipping out quickly.  As a continuation of this drill, we also did it with the defender lying on their back on the ground with the pad holders standing over the top of them, which worked out much the same except with a lot more up-kicks and awkward rolling.

At this point we dropped the pads and moved on to having the four attackers randomly attack the defender with whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and the defender had to do whatever they could to get away.  This drill was pretty hectic and high-stress because you didn’t know what was going to come at you from what direction.  In addition, Sensei Poage jumped in at random with a training gun so we had to randomly work gun disarms as well.  I really liked this drill, and would love to do it more.  I threw Khang and Sensei Poage to the ground in this drill, but with Mr. Getz and Mr. Allred (who are bigger than me) I stuck with a lot of knees and elbows.

To expand on this, we picked up the kicking shields again and the defender was now responsible for keeping the attackers away from him AND from Rachel, who was acting as our person in need of defending (even though she is more than able to defend herself ) while escorting her from one side of the mat to the other.  I noticed that this worked out very much like our first multiple attacker drill in that Khang was striking non-stop and Mr. Getz was evading and blitzing.  The differences were pretty evident in the way I went about it and the way Mr. Allred went about it.  I worked plenty of moving and throwing the occasional kick, punch or elbow to keep them away, but I also grabbed a hold of Rachel’s gi to make sure I knew where she was and could pull her along with me.  Mr. Allred just picked her up on his shoulders and ran, which was hilarious even though it defeated the purpose of the drill.

At the end of class, Mr. Street discussed with us some of the tactics that he has used in the past as a bodyguard and working security for concerts, which added some great context and ideas to our drills.  Overall, I really found a lot of value in those drills and believe that everyone needs to work at least some multiple attacker drills, because 1-on-1 is an ideal scenario and you should always be prepared for the worst.

Before I left on break (sorry for the decline in updates because of that), I had talked to my handful of yellow belts about testing for the orange belt after we got back. I said to expect a few classes of review and then a test in mid-January. Upon our return to the Air Force Academy, we started right back up into Karate and I immediately began prepping them for their test (the few higher ranking guys practiced as well). The main portion of their test is over their ability to perform Naihanchi Shodan and properly apply the movements within it during a fight. There were a few other things: crescent kick, a simple complex, and some vocab, etc – but the main portion was Naihanchi Shodan – inside and out.

We started practicing on the 4th and it was immediately clear that both Brett and Jeremiah (the two who showed up) had not forgotten anything and were perfectly proficient in performing the kata. We then moved on to practicing the application with each other in some various attacking and defending drills and then finished class with some wrestling. On the sixth I started asking myself at the beginning of class what I needed to review with them to test them for their orange belts and realized they were ready. It was at that moment though that I started asking why I was “testing” them if I just told myself they knew everything I wanted them to do? So we had an on the fly change in plans.

New Testing Method

I explained to them that they would be testing that day (I like surprise tests) and that rather than just showing me what I already know they can do, they would instead be fighting everyone in the room using the skills they had learned from Tegumi, Naihanchi Shodan, and anything else they felt useful. My goal was to give them a practical reality check on what they had been learning and to validate that they could defend themselves better than two months ago. I had them pick a number one through ten and whoever was closer to my number (10) would face Warren (a shodan-ho) first and the other would face me first. Their second matches would be against each other and their final match would be against the black belt they had not faced yet.

Rules

The rules were pretty simple. Both of the yellow belts had to wear chest pads and head gear for safety reasons. It was optional for black belts. The match would begin standing three to four feet apart and go till the judge called “Yame” or until someone was clearly pinned or at the extreme disadvantage. Takedowns and ground fighting were encouraged. Controlled attacks were better than making contact. Anything was allowed, but breaking an opponent was discouraged. We are all friends so I did not think it would get too out of control. My big emphasis was that unlike our normal wrestling (Tegumi) after classes, ground fighting meant that strikes to the body or face were allowed and encouraged.

Standing Fight

The three standing matches were excellent. Both sides threw a handful of jabs, punches, hooks, and even one knife hand attack. Defense was equally awesome with slight parries, knife hand blocks, simple deflections that led straight to counter-attacks. The neat part was to see the fight always lead into standing grappling – much more realistic than point sparring we see at most karate tournaments. I was impressed to see plenty of solid defenses against grabs and a few reversals. Two of the matches went straight from standing to the ground. The one that didn’t, I called yame and placed both the opponents on the ground two feet apart with the intent that it would start in a ground fight.

Ground Fight

The ground fighting was stellar as well. Plenty of reversals, solid full mounts, headlocks, and I even got caught in a guillotine by one of the yellow belts. What was interesting to see is how well everyone combined short powerful karate punches into their wrestling to make their opponents really work for a hold rather than just rolling around olympic wrestling style. Ideally when we do this for their next test we will work on a lot more chokes and submissions to be used in addition to the few they know now.

Realism

I imagine there are a lot of people reading this questioning how it could have been a “real” fight without any injuries or real safety worries on my part. Admittedly, there is always that safety barrier preventing a full fist fight, but having taken combatives where we pad up and go at it, this felt more realistic. Having been in a few fist fights, I would say on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being point sparring at a tournament and 10 being a real fist fight, this felt like a 7 or an 8. The right direction. The best thing that came from it was the realization by the yellow belts that they have come a long way and felt comfortable being attacked full force, which was a massive improvement from a few months ago.

Promotion

Both Brett and Jeremiah (not pictured) were awarded their 8th Kyu and we had a formal hand shake and bow. Your typical test? No. A good idea? Let me hear what you think.

Kihon Kata

Like every good Shorin-ryu class, Jeremiah and I went over Kihon Kata. He has been working with me for about 6 lessons now and I wanted to make sure he had the pattern down. When doing Ude Uke (Arm Block), he was over compensating by bending at the waist. I explained that this will put him off balance and open up his kidneys and ribs as a target. Other than that, no problems.

Kihon Kata and Naihanchi Shodan Bunkai

I have always been of the belief that karateka should start learning the bunkai (application) of the kata long before they get their black belts. It gives them perspective and helps them remember the katas by thinking “I am blocking his arm”, as opposed to, “This is the part where I do that thing with my arm.” Ben got down to class about this time so the three of us went through all of the moves in Kihon Kata and Naihanchi Shodan. I explained that with many of the blocks, you don’t perform them by stepping straight back, but rather taking an angle on your attacker to give you the advantage, both in doing the block and in being able to counter afterwards.

Ben had some trouble with making a solid fist. He likes to make this “Panther Fist”, which isn’t necessarily wrong, it just isn’t what I want him doing at the moment. I have been considering making him wear thin sparring gloves to fix the problem, but I don’t want it to come across as me looking down – his Karate is great, but he is learning a different style.

I focused on making sure everyone was stepping, then punching, as opposed to stepping and punching simultaneously. Also made sure when doing the opening move to Naihanchi Shodan – open handed “lay” – that they were pushing directly outward from the body, rather than trying to literally “lay” on top of the opponents arm.

Naihanchi Shodan

After practicing all of the moves to Naihanchi Shodan, we did the kata itself. I told them to do as much as they remembered and when they got lost, I would show them the next part and they would start over. Jeremiah did this for the majority of class to help him learn the pattern (first time doing it). Ben knew the pattern almost perfectly, so we focused on his timing in combinations. “Block, hit, set. Pause. Block, Hit, Pause…” This makes the kata crisp, more like a fight, and far more likely to look like you know what you are doing. It looked awesome when he did it on his own at the end of class.

Balance and Timing Games

With about ten minutes left in class, we started to play some of my favorite games. The first one, two people stand about three feet from each other with the backs of one hand touching. The other hand is placed behind the back. One person is trying to touch the other person’s cheek (touch – not hit). The second person does nothing but smack the “attacker’s” hand in order to prevent him from touching their face.

The game is meant to build reaction time and coordination.

The second game, is for balance. Two people stand on one foot. The object is to make the other person touch the ground with both feet (or fall on their butt). It involves a lot of hoping and pushing each other. Great for building balance and teaching karateka to not over compensate.

The final game we played – just combined the two. It probably wasn’t as useful, but was a lot of fun.

Questions

That was the class for today. If I didn’t explain something well enough, please just ask and I will do my best to expand upon it.

Up
Out
Back
Down

If you skip steps, it will become a weaker kick or you will make yourself vulnerable to a counter attack. While different styles will have different stances to start this technique from, I have yet to encounter a style that does not follow these basic movements. For the purposes of explaining, we will assume that we are standing in zenkutsu dach (front stance) when performing this attack.

Up

The first part of the attach is to bring the back knee up as high as possible towards the chest. The higher the knee is pulled, the easier it is to perform the attack with out getting blocked by the opponents knee. You want to have your knee pointed at your target. One way to practice this part is to have a partner hold a bo (staff) or shinai (kendo sword) out in front of you about thigh high so that you can practice pulling your knee up and making sure your foot is higher than the object they are holding. If this part of the kick is done correctly, it can also be used as a shin block against an opponents kick.

Out

The second step is to thrust your foot out towards the attacker. Some styles I know of practice kicking with the toes of their feet to cause more damage (reduce the area and maintain pressure to cause more pain). I personally think that is an excellent way to break a toe and choose to kick with the ball of my foot by pointing my toes to the ceiling. This is the most important step in terms of successfully inflicting pain. You have to think of the kick like shooting a gun. The Up step is the hammer of the gun coming down on the firing pin. Once it hits the firing pin we move on to the Out step. Here everything in your body has to explode outwards into the kick.

Back

At this point, we pull the foot back to the initial Up position. The knee is pointed at the opponent and is high towards your chest. It is extremely important to pull your kick back fast so that the opponent does not grab your foot and pull you to the ground. If you are kicking and moving forward, you want to pull your foot back to this position before placing it forward. If you kick and then just drop your foot down into the new stances, you are likely to be off balance or have your opponent grab your leg for a take down.

Down

The final step is pretty simple. Place your foot on the ground into zenkutsu.

Mae Geri is a powerful kick, if done correctly. It can also be a crucial way to gain points in an ippon kumite (one point fighting) sparring match. This kick can be done from many stances and works great with the front kick in neko ashi dachi (cat stance). Do you have a different way of teaching front kick?

Pros

Let us for examine reasons why it would be beneficial to have floor mats, as opposed to a wooden floor. The most apparent benefit is that foam padding feels much better on your body when you get thrown to the ground. In Karate-Do schools that practice take downs, sweeps, and throws, this is a huge benefit. When your fellow Karateka are not broken, they are more likely to come back and train with you again. Even with thinner mats, such as a 7/8″ mat, this is still significantly better for your body then falling on a wooden floor, or worse, concrete. I currently train in a former racquetball court with all wooden flooring. There are numerous times that we have to perform our movements at a slower speed or without actual completing the full movement for fear of hurting our training partner. This does not make a huge impact on our overall training, but it is a limiting factor and can be quite annoying at times. One of the benefits that I have taken advantage of at my Sensei’s dojo is that with different colored mats, we were able to define a space for sparing. While using duct tape or masking tape to make a square will work, it is not as apparent as two distinct colors on the floor. While you can find tape as you are trying to fight someone, it is hard to miss when the floor suddenly changes from blue to red. Another neat benefit is being able to track where you move during kata or exercises. The mats are normally either 20″x20″ or 40″x40″ and make distinct lines. These lines can be used to quickly line up a class of children or help you keep track of where you start and end a kata.

Cons

Now that we know all of the reasons a Karateka would want to train on these awesome mats, lets consider some of the pitfalls. The biggest one that I can remember is stubbing your foot. This normally the result of carelessness, and in retrospect the wooden floor may hurt more, but I have stubbed my toe on the mats and it leaves a pretty bad brush burn on your skin. Another problem is that, while a Karateka may be unwilling to try a movement for fear of hurting his partner on a wooden floor, that same Karateka may be willing to try a dangerous movement when they feel reassured that the mat will prevent any injury. Practice and proper instruction are the only things you need to prevent an injury, and more often than not, when you do not have proper instruction, no amount of padding will prevent the injury. The final argument that I can see against mats in a Karate dojo is one of nostalgia. If you compare photos of the Matayoshi Kodukan with that of an American Family Martial Arts school, you can quickly understand why people complain that using mats takes away from the look of a traditional karate school. If you however are in a racquetball court like myself, then you didn’t look like a martial arts dojo before and haven’t lost anything by adding mats.

Conclusion

There are many arguments for and against mats in a dojo. I am going to lean towards the side of safety over nostalgia. Although I think that every school should dream of having the kind of reputation that the Matayoshi Kodukan gained, there is no reason that this can not be done while providing all members the best safety equipment available. If anyone has differing opinions, please feel free to share them. Additionally, if you have a suggestion of a great mat/retailer, I have not placed my order yet for our new mats.

What should you do if the fight still ends up on the ground?

The What If

Maybe, despite your best efforts, you trip over something or you are caught off-guard and are unable to defend against a takedown.  What do you do at that point to protect yourself?  The answer is simple–you stand up.  Standing up after a takedown may be a simple matter of stumbling back to your feet after being knocked off balance, but if your attacker ends up on top of you or in your guard you are going to have some work to do before you can reach your goal of getting back to your feet.  This article will discuss some methods to defend yourself on the ground and get back to your feet so you can escape the threat.

When you go to the ground in a self defense situation there are a lot of things for your brain to process all at once in order for you to defend yourself.  Are they in the mount position?  Are they in your guard?  Are they about to start punching you?  Are they going to grab you and try to smash your head on the floor?  Are they going to pull a weapon?  All of these things have to be processed as you hit the ground in addition to processing the actual feeling of falling, keeping your head from hitting the ground, and the feeling of your body hitting the ground.  Unfortunately I do not have any sort of secret trick I can teach you for this–you simply have to work these takedowns with someone over and over with them trying to reach different positions and attack you different ways so you can become accustomed to subconsciously processing all of these things.

Defend Yourself

Once all of those things are processed, you have to defend yourself from whatever method of attack your assailant has chosen.  Keeping your arms up in front of your neck and face with the backs of your hands turned toward your attacker is a good start because this will protect you from being struck in the face and can help you block swinging punches to the side of your head by moving your hands a short distance, and keeping the backs of your hands turned toward your opponent helps to keep the veins in your wrists away from any potential knife attack.  If your opponent does have a knife, however, be aware that they are very likely to hold the knife blade-down and stab at your chest and face and a knife is a “rage weapon”–people stab someone and see blood but not the reaction they want (instant death, Hollywood style) and they go into a fit of stabbing rage.

Whether your opponent is stabbing you or hitting you the most important thing for you to do to protect yourself is to control them.  If they are in your guard you already have an advantage because you can control their hips (I won’t go into all of the different guard styles and control techniques, but I highly suggest working with your guard for these types of situations even if you don’t study a grappling art).  From the guard you can twist away from strikes and stabs as they come, and in this process you can block and trap your attacker’s hands, but if they are in the mount you do not have control over their hips so you will need to utilize kuzushi (off-balancing) before you can gain control of your opponent.  By bridging (pushing your hips up off the ground on your feet and shoulders, creating an arch) you will throw your attacker’s balance forward, most likely causing them to reach out and catch themselves which will leave at least one hand braced on the ground–trap that hand immediately, and trap both if at all possible.

Once you have reached a point where you are controlling their weapon, or at least one of the hands they are using to punch or grab at you, you have to get them away from you.  If your attacker is in your guard you can simply sweep them onto their back or push them back and give them a good kick to the face with your heel.  Either of these will give you at least a little time to get to your feet and RUN!

Do What it Takes

If your attacker is in the mount position and you have off-balanced them forward and trapped their hands you can roll them so that you are in their guard, then break out of that and stand up so you can run away.  If you find that you are grappling with their hands and you are weaker than they are then your best option for success is to use one of your hands (not the one controlling your attacker’s weapon, if there is one) at your first opportunity and gouge their eye with your thumb and if your fingers are long enough you can grab their ear while you are gouging.  This is a potentially gruesome attack but it causes a lot of pain and blinds your attacker in one eye (which will cause them to lose their depth perception).  They will probably pull away from the eye gouge immediately, so if you have a hold of their ear you should be able to rip it off (it really doesn’t take all that much force) but you will also have caused them to shift their balance.  You can take this opportunity to sit up and use their own momentum to force them back and off of you, and if it all possible get to your knees in the process so you can hop up and RUN!

The Goal

Remember that the goal of these techniques is not to kill your attacker, or even maim them, but to allow you to escape from danger.  If you are ever in a self defense situation where you can escape in a way that doesn’t require you to harm someone that is almost always what you should do.  Remember, also, that these are all relatively basic techniques that anyone from white belt to black belt can learn and develop, but there are other techniques out there and you should always endeavor to learn and train all aspects of your art and strive to include aspects of other arts into your training.  Shorin-Ryu teaches takedown defense, sweeping, trapping, joint locking, eye gouging, etc. but that does not mean you shouldn’t work Judo, BJJ/Jujutsu, or wrestling to develop those methods even further if given the opportunity because the things you learn in your cross-training could one day save your life.