460 - Head defence: various methods with ten instructional video examples / Head frames / Offering the elbow

Aide-mémoire: January '24 week two and home training resourc: Keysi / 52 Blocks / Defence Lab / Andy Norman / Straight Blast Gym /Old school boxing / Vunak /Skull n Bones /Archie Moore /George Foreman

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Defence for the “self”, the spirit and the soul - as the outside landscape becomes uglier, look inward and improve the inner world. Make things better.

If only you see it, that is enough.

J

Tuesday 16_01_24 (Open training)

Many thanks to the gents that came along to this workshop, a varied group of backgrounds ( from no-longer-beginners to experienced in the form of former police and security work) which always makes for a great mix and experience in terms of sharing info and the directions that it can take.

Thanks for the focus and hard work!

Two main topic areas:

Defending blows to the head from close range

Defending stabs to the stomach, chest, neck, and face (see end of post for notes and video).

Head defence

The single or multiple blow(s) to the head are a common opening move by many aggressors. If there is awareness of intention, there is the possibility of disrupting these blows to enable a response to the attack.

Getting them to fracture their hands on your elbows is also a good tactic for escaping the fight.

Defence work for all trainees present has increased to full contact. This gives great confidence in the tactics chosen and enables the individual to consider realistic follow-ups.

We looked at various versions of the head cover defence from several different sources - most are the same but with slight variations as to the placement of the hands and are similar in ways to some old-school boxing and Thai Boxing guards as well, see below for videos.

This is not some sort of “default” position for me and I don’t like the idea of building an entire platform from a single tactic and then passing it to others as a catch-all solution but rather a solid tactic for each individual to consider and use as they see fit would seem to be a better place to start from, so as long as it’s clear that I’m not pushing this as a “you must do this!” type solution.

It’s also ages old, in no way new and I’ll list some other names lower down for you to check out and research yourself.

There are so many iterations of this idea and it is now very mainstream as a tactic. I’m an independent trainer and do not have any affiliation with these following guys (I simply share an amalgam of what I’ve personally learned over the years) but their work has been “borrowed” heavily from by others so it’s good to give them some credit.

For those who trained on Tuesday and anyone else reading, here is a large list of video resources to consider for your training.

Examples from other systems of this defence tactic:

This first video is a good intro to the concept (ignore all the tedious martial catfighting as it seems to be a response video to someone else criticising it), there are some useful descriptions to consider.

Defence Lab:

Here’s two great instructional videos with Keysi’s Andy Norman (KFM) cross-training