Hi John,

I hope you are doing well, I have a question about this technique.  I have to tell you that I love the “no scared cows” mentality and it has improved my training by reviewing all the techniques and making sure that I have the right understanding of them.  This leads me to my question:

I have reviewed the instructor manual, the Krav Book, and discussed it with our instructors here in dallas and all of the descriptions and our understanding is that the defense should be done with the “meat part of the arm.”  The questions is;  What is the “meat” part of the arm?

In all the pictures in the manuals it shows the palm of the hand facing the leg which puts the back of the hand at the same angle as the bat is coming, we have also seen other variations where the hand is turn out more and the thumb is leading towards the stick which seems to put more “meat” for the stick to hit. 

Can you clear this up for us please.

Thanks,

Tony.

I think it’s “sacred”, not “scared”, lol…

As for the defense, as far as I know, the thumbs would be turned in slightly, at maybe a 45 degree angle and toward the attacker’s legs, and the “meaty” part would be the side of the arm, between elbow and shoulder, basically parts of your triceps.  If you turn your arm like that, you can feel “meat”.  I’ve never heard of the thumb being turned toward the stick, it seems that would expose your bones to the stick and might get them broken.

I am going to blame the spell checker for that one!

I see what you are saying about the meat part of the arm and that makes sence with what I have been thought before.  So, if the swing is vey low, for example, below the elbow, should we try to lower our body to catch it with the meat part of the arm?

It is NOT the thumb leading toward the stick.  Think of the back of the hand pointing at the stick.  That will help.

The idea of dropping low to deal with a low swing is theoretically sound, but impossible in practice.  The stick may start out held high (say, shoulder height) and the swing may then go low. It will happen too fast to make that sort of body adjustment.  Also, most low swings will go for your legs, which is too low anyway.  Bursting in is the solution!

So, if you are very late for a low swing, what would you do?  Would you still keep your arms in the same position and try to burst in if you can?  What if you don’t have time to burst in?  Would you ever use the method of lifting your leg (as in shin vs shin round kick defense)?  I have never practiced this, but I think some other KM organizations do.

I don’t believe in that lifting your leg technique because I don’t think you’ll see the swing coming low in time.  So either you have to practice that leg movement against ALL baseball bat swings, or none.  If you practice it against all baseball bat swings, OK, I think it has some merit (although even that’s debatable, given the velocity of a sting swung at your shins). 

Even if you don’t have much time to burst in, you can still lean it and begin the leg movement that reduces some of the impact.

Yes, it seems that in the time it would take to lift your leg, you could instead step forward and angle your leg, which would reduce impact.  Something to play with in class sometime.

I don’t think I would like practicing the leg lifting technique for all baseball bat swings.  If the swing is very high, I don’t know if I’d be able to lift the leg up high enough, especially if the attacker is taller.  Also, if I lift my leg up high, but the attacker is changing the angle and swings low, he might go underneath my lifted leg and hit my base leg, which will have all of my weight on it and thus break easily.  And then there is the issue of a bat/metal bar versus my shin.  Even with correct technique, I’m not sure I would win that one.

Thank you for the clarification and feedback.

I tried various different variations today (I have a very sore arm )  and as John stated the biggest factor is the bursting in.  Even if I was very late just a little bit of bursting/lean in made a big difference.  I did try the leg defense but found that most of the time I would get the end of the stick and would get hurt if it was something stronger than a thin stick. 

I also think I know why there was a bit of a disconnect with the hand position (short attacker v. very tall defender) however, even with very low swings, I felt that I got more benefit from bursting in than trying to adjust my body position.

Again, I want to thank you for the help.

You can see the leg lifting defense at about 3:20 of this video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ft2Tbth6bQ

Looks like the defender moves in deep and makes contact with the low part of his shin against the low end of the stick, near the attacker’s hands.  He really steps into it, making me wonder what would happen if he was late.  He’s also about the same size of his attacker and the swing comes low, still he had to lift his leg up very high and even jump up a little to get to the right position.  If he were shorter, maybe he would not be able to make it.  Not sure, though, because I haven’t tried it.  Defending against the low end of the stick would probably lessen impact, but, as you said, if it’s something heavy, such as a metal bar, or maybe even something stick-like, such as a chair, and if you were late, maybe the defense wouldn’t work as well.

As for the hand position, again, I’ve never seen anyone point their thumbs out.  I wonder if that was maybe something that was introduced by someone eager to make the catch after the initial defense and, instead of defending with their thumb pointed in and then turning it over to grab the attacker’s arm, they thought it would be simpler to keep the thumb pointed out right from the start?  Not sure, but this might have been a reason.  Anyway, pointing the thumb out would likely be a bad idea, no matter the size difference between attacker and defender.  I’m usually shorter than my opponents and I always keep my thumb pointed inward, it just makes more sense that way.

Regardless of density of the object, if you can burst in, I think you’re OK. The issue is burst in, and knowing whether the swing is high or low.  I’d rather burst in the way we do, which I think helps us if we’re later.  It is extremely difficult to burst in with both your lower body and upper body—either you burst in a little slower, or your upper body leads, or your lower. We choose to lean the upper body in, then burst with our legs.  This technique seems to defend the legs first, leaving the upper body a little behind. 

I see they’re thinking, and I agree with their concern. I just think we reach different conclusions and solutions.

I would also say that our defense seems to be more instinctive.  If someone swung a stick at you, instinctively, I think you would be more likely to cover your head with your hands, tuck your chin and roll your shoulder up, than you would be to lift your leg.  Also, I wonder if you could always be accurate enough under stress to defend at the right area of the stick.  If you defend against the far end instead of near the attacker’s hands, the impact on your shin would be much worse.

aporras - 28 May 2009 05:01 PM

I am going to blame the spell checker for that one!

I see what you are saying about the meat part of the arm and that makes sence with what I have been thought before.  So, if the swing is vey low, for example, below the elbow, should we try to lower our body to catch it with the meat part of the arm?

Hay sorry for jumping in. But agree with you Newbie yap it is the spell checker error. But how could get rid from this problem?

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