to Real World Violence (published by Tuttle), as I didn’t want to duplicate any of the information or techniques contained therein. Once again, I have tried to demonstrate the simplicity of Krav Maga, the concepts and principles upon which it is founded, and the way it reuses and builds on existing techniques and movements, rather than trying to create new ones. Ultimately, this book is about survival. It is not about ego or being right; as the Hebrew Bible states, “It is better to be a live dog than a dead lion.”
PART I
Striking
The majority of violent situations you will find yourself in will occur face-to-face (Panim-a-Panim), regardless of whether you are dealing with a sexual assailant, a mugger, or a drunk in a bar. This means that in most situations, your solutions will involve striking (preferably preemptively) to a greater or lesser degree, and so you should therefore learn to strike hard and accurately.
If you look at what you are attempting to do in a violent altercation, 80 to 90 percent of it will be to try to deliver pain and concussive force through striking, with the goal of emotionally and physically debilitating your assailant so that they are either unable or unwilling to continue the fight. To this end, your striking should be conducted as an all-out assault against them, to be carried out with full emotion and aggression. It should look very different from the way that you spar—sparring is something you do with a partner; real-life striking is something you do against an assailant.
Your striking will be given its power and potency through your aggression and your emotion; a poorly executed strike delivered with full emotion and aggression will be more effective than a technically perfect one that lacks any emotional commitment.
Upper-Body Combatives
Many people who practice punching on focus mitts are surprised when they’re not able to generate the same type of power when striking the head with bare knuckles. The same will often be experienced by individuals who train/spar wearing gloves—the bigger the gloves they wear, the more difficult they will find the transition. When you strike a focus mitt, you are hitting a flat surface, so you are able to hit it square on and deliver driving force through the target. Gloves create the same effect by “flattening” the striking surface and spreading the force into the target. When you punch bare-knuckled to the head, you are rarely striking a flat surface—especially if you are striking someone who is directly in front of you. If, on the other hand, you move to the side of the person and strike, you can present the face as a flatter surface, and you can deliver greater concussive, damaging force. The effect of punching a face positioned directly in front of you is that your punches will often “roll” off the target. The risk of this increases if the head moves with the initial impact of your strike. This is why, if you are going to deliver straight punches, positioning yourself before striking is so important.
When you practice on striking surfaces that offer you a flat target, you can generate and focus power relatively easily. This is the purpose of such training aids. The problem is that in real-life altercations, where you are aiming strikes at the face/head, and other targets, you aren’t striking a flat surface, so it isn’t always possible to focus your power in the same way.
When you strike the face/head you are punching a spherical surface rather than a flat one. This may result in your fist rolling off the target rather than driving through it. It is also worth noting that a human head isn’t fixed; it is able to rotate on the neck, which may also cause your punch to roll off the target.
If you move to the side and strike the face/head at an angle, you will be striking a flatter surface than you would be if you were face on. This means you will be able to deliver driving force into the target. This is one reason you need to position yourself correctly before you deliver a punch.
It is not always possible to get into such a position, so it is worth having other striking tools that can be delivered when directly facing your assailant.
Because of this, it is good to have other striking options/tools in your arsenal that can often be more effective at delivering force into an irregularly shaped target such as the face/head.
Thumb Strike to Eyes
A thumb strike to the eyes is a very effective initial strike for a variety of reasons. Firstly, it doesn’t require a great deal of force to be effective, which means that you can throw it without having to first get your body aligned and into a position from which it can deliver real power. In the first moments of a fight, being able to do something that will disrupt your attacker is essential, as once an assailant gets some momentum and a rhythm to their assault, even relatively simple punches and strikes can be difficult to defend against. If you can interrupt your attacker’s momentum and flow at the outset, they will find it difficult to put a series of strikes together. Getting a thumb into one of their eyes is a great way to do this, as it will prevent them from moving forward into you and will allow you to move into them, taking the role of attacker from them and assuming it for yourself.
There are few strikes that are as simple and as effective as eye strikes—and one of the simplest ways to deliver an eye strike is to use the thumb. Simply moving your hand toward your attacker’s face at speed will usually result in them closing their eyes, which means that even if your aim isn’t good you will have caused them to pause/hesitate, allowing you the opportunity to follow up with other attacks/assaults.
If you aim your palm at someone’s face and stick the thumb out, it will find one of your attacker’s eyes. Once you have made contact, simply drive your thumb into their eye socket with all of your strength. Don’t try to measure the force you use; simply push into their eye as hard as you can. This is not a subtle technique. It is a great opening attack, as it doesn’t require much accuracy or force to be effective.
Eye strikes are painful—you are aiming to drive your thumb as far into your assailant’s eye socket as possible—there are no half-measures when it comes to dealing with violence. They are also disruptive: if you can affect your attacker’s vision, you will be depriving them of one of the tools they would be using in order to attack you. Even after the initial pain subsides, the eye(s) will be watering, making it difficult for your assailant to see you.
Another reason eye strikes are effective is that the type of pain they elicit is hard to gear yourself up for. When we become adrenalized and ready to fight, we switch on various “pain management” systems, because we expect to get punched, kicked, hit, etc. If your attacker is fully adrenalized and highly aggressive, they may not initially feel or experience the actual pain that a blunt-trauma strike such as a punch should deliver. In my time working in the security industry I have been hit with beer bottles, pool balls, and similar objects, and have been able to continue fighting, only to experience the true pain of these strikes after the event. Sticking a thumb into an eye bypasses these pain-management systems and “wakes” your assailant up to the sensation of pain, within the fight.
Palm-Heels to Nose
Palm-heel strikes are extremely underestimated, and for some reason tend to only get taught as a second-class type of strike to the closed fist. Yet the palm-heel strike is highly effective, and should be part of everyone’s toolkit. In my belief, it is wrong to rank the effectiveness of strikes against each other; it is more practical and useful to look on them as different tools, which are used to accomplish different goals and solve different problems. The open-palm strike should not be compared to a closed-fist punch and looked on as the “poor man’s” alternative to it; rather, it should be looked on as a standalone strike with its own advantages and