Kempo & grappling

[delta1]

Sounds like we are all fairly similar here. AK does a lot of stand up grappling. Most of that can be adapted to the ground, s well as a lot of the striking techniques. I do think that training in a grappling style would make it easier to extrapolate those moves. Plus, it is not likely that you will beat a trained grappler at his game just from modifying some of your stand up game. But, for the average street punk...!!!

[Red J]

Well, we work from standup to the ground, knees to the ground and just from the ground. We also have submission matches. The groundwork is more than just adapted techniques from our standup.

 

The coolest thing that we do is have what we like to call "Kempo" sparring. You spar with your opponent and can do anything from our four areas of hands, feet, felling, and grappling. This can get exciting as people try to fight from their strengths while exploiting other's weaknesses.

[delta1]

Well, we work from standup to the ground, knees to the ground and just from the ground. We also have submission matches. The groundwork is more than just adapted techniques from our standup.

 

We do this as well, but our groundwork tends to be more like Pancration (from my limmited ground perspective). A lot of striking, even on the ground. I got took down once by a mixed type fighter, and did manage to get him with a good shin kick to the head as he tried to mount me. AAlso can use knees and elbows a lot on the ground. I suppose you could extrapolate a lot of submissions from our standup techniques. But with my limmited experience and resources I don't think it is feasable.

The coolest thing that we do is have what we like to call "Kempo" sparring. You spar with your opponent and can do anything from our four areas of hands, feet, felling, and grappling.

 

That's about the best way to learn if what you are doing works or not.

[Karate-addict]

We do block-grab-hit kinda stuff. All our blocks can turn into grabing at the end, so we can either proceed into a lock, throw or pulling the opponent on our punches.

[doubletwist]

So I had my first "ground-fighting" day in Kenpo last night. This is what we went over.

 

The main gist of the lesson was "Don't go to the ground if you can help it, and if you do go to the ground, do everything in your power to get back up"

 

We covered a few things we could do if we were knocked down, but the attacker was still standing. We use two positions on the ground.

 

1. Right on our back with our legs tucked up and hands guarding head/torso or

 

2. A bit on our side, up on one elbow with that hand guarding side of head, the bottom leg curled under [so they can't stomp on it], the upper arm guarding head/torso, and the upper leg cocked and ready to kick.

 

From that second position it is easy to roll over and rotate on your elbow to keep your leg between the attacker and your head at ALL times. [Yes, this would obviously hurt on pavement/glass etc, but it's better than getting kicked in the head

 

We learned to jam their knee to break their balance if they are stupid enough to step in and try to hit us; and hook our leg around theirs to bring them down to the ground [giving us time to roll away and get up hopefully ]

 

After that, we learned the basics of what a bjj guy will try to do. We started in the guard position, and had the guy on top try to bring a leg out into a half-mount. While the guy on bottom wrapped his legs around and arched his back to try to stop him.

 

Obviously This won't work in the long term against someone who's been training BJJ, but what it does is gives us enough time to bring our striking into play. If the bjj guy is used to fighting within the rules [even the fairly rough rules of UFC type fights], there are still a lot of things they will not be expecting that can be used against them to try to get out and get back up as quickly as possible. Things like eye-gouges, ripping the ears etc.

 

We also learned, as a previous post mentioned, how easy it is to modify our stand-up techniques to be useful on the ground. Again with the main objective of getting them off you long enough to get back up.

 

I guess the main reason for this is that one of Kenpo's [EPAK anyway] focuses is on dealing with multiple attackers. You can do this standing up, but if you are on the ground and there are multiple attackers, you are basically screwed.

 

Anyway, that's what I learned about ground-fighting last night. I definitely wouldn't want to fight a BJJ guy under his rules, but in the street, I can easily see the weak points in the way they do things. so I definitely feel that I have a fighting chance to get out in one piece.

 

DT

[Red J]

You can do this standing up, but if you are on the ground and there are multiple attackers, you are basically screwed.

 

Good point. It sounds like you had a good session. You can learn a lot from this training and you may want to let your sensei know that you appreciate it. It is something that many schools neglect, but as you know on the street people have all kinds of backgrounds and with a wrestler or bjj type you need to know enough to escape or prevent from getting taken down. Of course the best reason to learn grappling skills is to become a more rounded martial artist that can fight no matter what the situation dicatates.

[Red J]

Another point to make:

 

In the ground game, strength and size has it advantages, but I have seen many a smaller guy smoke a bigger guy using skill. Skill, technique and speed can make up for this disadvantage. Knowing how to maximize leverage using your body can make the difference. Just like the stand-up game, you need to learn to use your entire body to make a technique or principle work to its maximum potential.

[delta1]

Speaking from very limmited experience, but from what I've seen BJJ is a more sport (though a very rough sport) oriented art than some other grappling systems. I had a chance to work with some strikers who also studied BJJ, Sambo and Pancration last summer. It seemed to me that the latter two put a lot more emphasis on striking in their ground work- and consequently a lot more emphasis and awareness of it as well. BJJ seemed to be easier to reach with strikes on the ground, but very effective with their locks andsubmissions. On the other hand, the Sambo guys had some great counters to a lot of their moves.

 

One Sambo fighter (their school is very street/combat oriented) taught us one of the counters he did on a BJJer. They were on their backsides, facing each other, and the BJJer had the Sambo guy's right foot in his left armpit, left arm wrapedand putting a lot of pressure on his achiles tendon. He leaned back into the lock, and almost before any ofus saw what was happening the Samboka (da?) was kneeling above him, landing a strike that would have killed him if he'd done it for real. The secret to that counter is that as soon as he applies the lock, you turn your foot to 10:00 and tighten it up. As he rears back with the lock, his own leverage pulls you up and on top of him. The 10:00 position of your foot anatomically sets up your lower leg to handle the pressure. Who'd hae thought that a bunch ofmud rollers would knowanything about anatomy and useing principles?

 

My point is, they all know their stuff, and all are a little different in the concepts they emphasize to apply those principles. So don't get too overconfident that you can handle a grappler on the ground. American Kenpo is primarily a street defense art, though it is adaptable enough for sport or to be used with any kind of system. But if you plan on playing the ground fighters game, you'd better either make a real study of ground fighting or be prepared to eat a lot of pain.

 

doubletwist, what your school is doing is excellent, and I envy you having a school right there that is willing to put in the effort to train ground fighting. But we all have to realistically * our strengths and weaknesses. Going against a decent ground fighter for real and getting taken to the ground is a bad deal. You stand a better chance with your training. But you should do every thing possible not to go there, short of shooting him.

 

On second thought, blow his butt into the next dimension!