Krav Maga Class 54: Thai pads, overhand punch, headbutts, long gun

TJ’s Saturday morning class. Warm up by Eric (“Thor”) which went 10 minutes and was pretty effective. Then TJ was done with his administrative duties or whatever and took up teaching the class.

We started with Thai pads, combos with kicks. I partnered with Eric, and he taught me a little bit. It’s nice partnering with a black belt. :)

Next was a little bit of overhand punch practice into the tombstone pads. I kind of hurt my hand a little bit, but not too bad. After that, we learned that the counter to an overhand right is an overhand left while tucking the chin into the left shoulder.

Then we learned and practiced headbutts. Front headbutts, either with a grab or without. A front headbutt without grabbing the target is really a brute power move, but if you grab the target and line it up (like driving their head back first to get a straight shot at their face) it felt like I wasn’t able to generate nearly as much force. Anyway, we did side headbutts (turn while tucking your chin and then headbutt with the forehead) and back headbutts (keep chin tucked and thrust hips forward as the head smacks backward) and upward headbutts (bent over, whip the head up into the chin).

At the end, we did long gun defenses. Two techniques moving to live side, and one while moving to dead side.

The first live side defense involves first a redirection, moving the barrel to the side with your palm while blading your shoulders. From this initial redirection, drop to a lower level so the barrel is above your shoulder, so you can burst in under the gun level, sliding your redirecting hand up to the back part of the gun while the other arm underhooks the gun. From here, put weight down on the gun while sending combatives, mainly headbutts and kicks to the groin. Your hands are occupied so you can’t really throw punches or elbows. From there, re-grip the barrel toward the end (for best leverage) and torque the weapon by pulling down on the butt end while attempting to drive the barrel overhand into the face of the gunman. This should let you get the gun away.

The second live side defense starts the same (redirection and blading) but then the other hand traces down the redirecting hand to control the barrel. Then the redirecting hand is free to move down the weapon and grip it toward the butt end and put weight on the gun. Combatives are then deployed to distract the gunman and loosen the grip, and then the take-away is very similar to the first technique.

The dead side approach involves moving toward the attacker’s back after redirecting the gun the opposite way (towards their live side). After the redirect, grip the weapon and land a punch to the face with the off hand. Use the resulting reaction and/or disorientation to grab the butt end with the punching hand. Headbutt to further loosen and distract, because there’s no soft target for the knees at this angle. Then “paddle” the gun out, pushing it down and out under the attacker’s elbow to break the grip, then bringing it up and out to take it away.

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