Defense Against the Hair Grab

[ShoriKid]

KarateGeorge, sounds like your school runs things like we're trying to. Most of our students are moving out of the beginner's stages. Even as beginners, the sterotypical, stiff armed grab, where the attacker's elbow is locked straight is gone. They get grabbed with a nice, bent arm, the same sort that allows you to have a nice strong push/pull. It gets rougher, and a follow up attack is coming as you reach intermediate level.

Some schools will advocate starting rough and push/pulling right away. I'm of the opinion that that sort of training leads to sloppier technique that requires more work to clean up than to start slowly in the beginning. Staged learning is the best way for any technique that has good application.

[KarateGeorge]

KarateGeorge, sounds like your school runs things like we're trying to. Most of our students are moving out of the beginner's stages. Even as beginners, the sterotypical, stiff armed grab, where the attacker's elbow is locked straight is gone. They get grabbed with a nice, bent arm, the same sort that allows you to have a nice strong push/pull. It gets rougher, and a follow up attack is coming as you reach intermediate level.

Some schools will advocate starting rough and push/pulling right away. I'm of the opinion that that sort of training leads to sloppier technique that requires more work to clean up than to start slowly in the beginning. Staged learning is the best way for any technique that has good application.

My philosophy has tended to be more of controlling the variables in the beginning and let the student focus their attention on performing the technique propertly. The beginning student has enough to worry about just trying to think through how to do the technique correctly. Introducing too many outside elements can be a bit of a distraction at that level.

As time progresses and they gain more comfortability with the techniques, we slowly start introducing more into the technique...grab them harder, not letting go immediately so that they have to think of how to react if the technique isn't as successful as they'd hoped, introducing greater aggression and resistance, and expecting more out of them than just a basic "break the hold." In a real life situation, if all you've done is break the grab, they may just re-grab you, so introducing retaliating attacks and takedowns may provide the opportunity for escape.

[bushido_man96]

Those sound like good progressions. Very nice ways of building on the technique.

[RichardZ]

Well, as far as a mteghod goes, one has to know or learn how to gwt away before applying any further. If you cant get away or break the hold, any followup will be useless