Self Defense E-Course
Okay here we go onto week number two of the Self Defense E-Course! The GOYA Workout If you have ever been involved in any kind of a physical altercation, you will know that things are usually over fairly quick and the overall fitness level of the opponents usually has little to do with who wins the fight. Fighting inside an octagon in the UFC is one of the few places where overall fitness conditioning is a key element in determining the victor if both people are of the same skill level. This weeks workout focuses specifically on that 20-30 second all out anaerobic street fight stamina kind of situation. We are working on fighting muscle and stamina not training for a 5 - 3 minute rounds UFC kind of fight. This weeks work out is based on something called "The Tabata Protocol". The Tabata Protocol has been called by some as one of the greatest fat burning workouts of all time. Instead of exercising in your "target" heart rate zone, it pushes your heart and mental toughness to it's limits. Since it is a very strenuous and taxing workout for your heart and lungs the old medical warning comes out! The workout is actually very basic and takes minimal time and equipment. Instead of going on and on explaining what the Tabata Protocol is you can go directly to www.tabataprotocol.com, for more information. My version of the workout is different in the fact that it does not use an exercise bicycle or stair climber. Instead I look at it and say lets simulate what it would feel like to go "all out" in a self defense or street fight scenario! The workout goes like this...... 1- Warm up for three minutes by doing some shadow boxing or by jumping rope. Start out slow and gradually build up to a moderately taxing pace. You should still be able to stop and talk without pausing for deep breaths or be able to carry on a conversation while you are warming up. 2- Ideally you want to have a heavy bag to hit, but if you don't you can get just as effective a workout by physically committing 100% to shadow boxing. Just stand in a basic boxing stance or whatever stance is comfortable for you to throw a non stop barrage of punches. Punch full out, non-stop and from every angle you can think of for 20 seconds. Focus on striking with force, keeping your hands up, recoiling your arms fast and twisting at your hips for added power. A word of caution for those that are shadow boxing......be careful not to get overzealous with your strikes because the last thing you want to do is hyper extend your elbows/arms. 3- Rest by just bouncing lightly on the balls of your feet for ten seconds......Do not stop! Keep bouncing! 4- Repeat steps 2 & 3 at least three more times......you want to build up to doing this for a total of 8 cycles. 5- Cool down for 2 minutes by just lightly shadow boxing or walking. 6- Stop and completely rest for another minute before moving on to anything else. I can tell you from first hand experience that this is done inside boxing gyms to keep the fighters in top fighting shape. They just do a lot of other exercises and sparring before and after this. For the average Joe's in the world this short workout will do just fine. G.O.Y.A and do this Tabata based workout three times over the next week and you'll feel great!
Self Defense Technique Of The Week This weeks self defense technique can sometimes be controversial. The controversy comes from misinterpreting when to use it! The technique is the eye gouge. Note that I am not saying a flick to the eyes or a poke to the eyes. I am talking a full out stick your finger deep into the eye socket up to the second knuckle and scoop the eyeball out. This is obviously not something you do in a stereo typical school yard fight! The time to use it is when you have some beast of a guy on top of you or standing in front of you with both their hands wrapped around your neck trying to choke the life out of you. The pointers for this technique is to secure the back of the head on the person you are doing this to. The reasoning for this is that as soon as you come near the eye of the person you are doing this to they will instinctually flinch their head backwards. In order to rupture the eye or rip it out you will ideally want one hand behind and pulling or immobilizing the other guys head. The second thing is since you cannot safely practice this on a partner you will have to practice with a partner to get a feel for distance and securing one hand behind their head. You will want to go slow and just practice by pressing your thumb on the side of the bridge of your training partners nose and then visualizing the feeling and motion of actually doing this technique. As a strategic part of training you will want to know at what distance you need to be at to secure the one hand behind their head. This way in real life you can strategically play with your opponent by acting weak or passive until they get inside your successful eye gouge zone. Play possum till you know you can take them out! A poke, jab or flick into the eye will likely give you a second or so advantage on your opponent. The common finger dart or finger jab to the eye should not be used on its own as a one shot self defense move. If you are going to flick your fingers into the eyes of your attacker without the intent of scooping their eyeball out you better follow up immediately with another knockout or other human stopping technique. This next video is probably the best instruction that I have found online with regards to the eye gouge self defense technique. The only thing is that the audio is a poorer quality so you will want to turn your volume up before viewing it. Practice finding and accessing this target from different scenarios. Being choked with your back against a wall is a god one. You can take some of last weeks lesson on how to escape the mount and add it to this weeks eye gouge lesson. Run through a scenario where the attacker is mounted on top of you. If you cannot reach around the back of their neck with one hand you can thrust your hips up to buck the forwards forcing them to "post" out to the ground with their hands therefore closing the distance between you and them. Now you secure their head and perform the eye gouge. The following four videos are great eye gouge technique videos to supplement the previous video. What I wanted to point out was that in the second video at around the 20 second mark he discusses that you can also perform the eye gouge coming up from the cheek bone. He demonstrates that you can practice the technique with your eyes closed by moving up from the cheek bone as a land mark. Practicing with you eyes closed is an awesome training tip for this technique especially if the attacker does have you in a mounted position and you "bucked" them up/forwards in order to access the eyes. chances are their head will be above yours and you will not be able to visually target the eyes all of the time. Note the importance of securing the neck/head of your opponent is in both videos and therefore a crucial element of the overall technique. Remember the "monkey grip" from the Gracie Combatives video last week! The "monkey grip" will be the kind of grip you want to use on the back of your opponents head or neck. Now take this technique and practice the positioning and the feel of being close enough to another human being that you can secure their head and gouge their eye out. We'll see you next week with another technique!
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