Welcome to the Blog of Krav Maga Instructor Gershon Ben Keren. A Boston based Krav Maga instructor who teaches civilians, law enforcement and military personnel Krav Maga, self defense & self protection. For his main Boston Krav Maga Website please click here
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Watch Sample Video Clips Of Gershon Ben Keren Teaching From The UKM DVD Set
Rear Naked Choke Defense
In this clip Gershon teaches how to escape from a standing rear naked choke (RNC). The clip can be viewed by
clicking here
Basic Bridge Escape From Mount.
In this clip one of the escapes from a mount position - where an attacker is sitting on your chest - is taught. The clip
can be viewed by clicking here.
Phases of Violence - 12/03/2008
The Phases of Violent Assaults
Violence situations rarely occur right out of the blue. When a person experiences a violent assault or attack it may seem at the time that everything just came out of nowhere but in reality violent situations don’t just occur, they develop.
There are 5 phases to a violent situation. These are:
The first phase: Non Conflict, is where an individual is in a situation, where there is no need to consciously consider the possibility of violence. This does not mean that there is no possibility of a violent situation developing just that there are no indicators to suggest that one will. It may be that you are sitting/standing right next to the person(s) who is/are going to assault you however at this moment there is nothing to suggest that they possess any harmful intent towards you.
When you realize there is something “wrong” about a situation or person(s) you are entering the “Conflict Aware” phase. At this point, there may be no discernible signs that you are to be an aggressor’s “target” or “Victim” and from an aggressor’s point of view they may not have identified you as the person they intend to assault however there are signs that the situation you are in is going to turn violent (even if you only end up as a bystander to it). Having good “Situational Awareness” and an understanding of the pre-indicators that signal violence are what allow you to be Conflict Aware. Many people fail to notice the warning signs that precede violence events and so rob themselves of the opportunity to either exit the situation or prepare themselves to deal with it.
The “Pre Conflict” phase is where/when you are aware that you are the target/focus of the aggression and violence. This is the last chance that you have to avoid a physical confrontation. This stage may be characterized by: an aggressor screaming or shouting at you, a mugger deliberately walking towards you or a sexual predator “grooming” you in order to gain your trust. At this stage you have been identified as a “target” for violence.
N.B. Sometimes the “Conflict Aware” and “Pre Conflict” stages merge i.e. the first time you are given a chance to recognize that there is the potential for violence is when you realize that you are the target of an assailant’s harmful intent.
The “Conflict” phase is the assault itself. This may consist of a single punch or strike or, for example, a prolonged rape/sexual assault lasting several hours (the longer a sexual assault lasts the more likely the assailant is to use fatal force).
The “Post Conflict” phase is that stage which occurs immediately after the conflict/assault. This could see you successfully surviving the attack and disengaging from your assailant or the reverse, with your assailant disengaging from you, leaving you in any number of possible states.
N.B. There is also a longer “post conflict” phase, which may see you attempting to come to terms with the longer term psychological effects of the assault e.g. PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Situational Awareness
Situational Awareness is the first line of defense that you have. If you can recognize a potentially violent situation at the very first signal given off, then you give yourself the best chance of avoiding a physical confrontation.
Situational awareness is simply having the ability to identify and recognize “harmful intent” within a situation. It is not our conscious mind which carries this out but subconscious thought processes. If we were to spend all our time looking for danger, we would exist in a state of constant stress and fear and have little time to do anything else.
Animals in the wild are the best educators as to how good situational awareness works. If you have ever seen a wildlife documentary about the African Savannah (or been on Safari), you may well have noticed how closely gazelle and zebra graze next to lions – a natural predator. They do this whilst remaining completely calm. They know both instinctively and through experience how to recognize when a lion is resting and when it is preparing to hunt (possessing harmful intent). When it is not hunting a gazelle is able to graze within 20-50 feet of a lion quite safely, whilst putting all of its conscious effort into grazing. If the situation is to change and the lion starts to get ready to hunt, the gazelle’s subconscious processes will pick up the signals and alert it to the potential danger, it will then make a conscious decision to move away. This is good situational awareness.
I believe that all of us have experienced at some point in our lives the feeling of the hairs on the back of our neck standing up: that feeling that something is wrong without being able to identify exactly what it is. This feeling of fear is our survival instinct (something that has been honed through several thousand years of evolution). Fear is believed to be the first emotion that man/woman developed and it probably the first real emotion that we experience in our childhood development. Fear is the first emotion that we learn as infants because it ensures our survival: it alerts us to dangers and prevents us from taking unnecessary risks.
It is believed that the first 3 things we identify that trigger our fear (survival) emotion is:
As these fears are the first learnt, there is good reason to believe that they become some of our strongest /most hardwired, as they get the most practice. This is worth understanding as we can recognize that sometimes are fear system is triggered without real cause e.g. we might be in a totally safe environment with no real, external threat and yet because the location is different/strange and we are alone we start to experience fear i.e. fear without an external threat. This is not good situational awareness and may lead us to start to imagine the possible dangers we might face, even when there is no evidence to suggest they are there. We are effectively self-inducing an adrenal response.
Taking a lesson from the gazelle, we should remain relaxed until our fear system (the hairs on the back of our neck) alerts us to an external threat: someone(s) possessing harmful intent towards us.
What we are not consciously aware of, at any one time, is how much information our brain is receiving, processing and filtering out: every square inch of skin in your body is sending your brain information about the feel of the clothes you are wearing against it, your ears are constantly picking up sounds of traffic and crowds but not alerting your conscious mind to these things because they are not worth a moment of real thought etc. However if your eyes noticed a rapid movement they would bring it to your conscious minds attention. This often happens, when you are driving. For a large part of a journey you drive on automatic (spacing out or thinking about something else etc) however if a car in front suddenly starts to slow down – to your subconscious mind it appears to speed up, as you are approaching it that much quicker – you “wake up” and put the brakes on, as this is relevant information to your survival.
It is worth knowing, that some fears you learn and some you are born with: fear through being alone you are born with, a fear of snakes you learn. Equipped with what you were born with and what you learnt in your childhood years concerning aggression and violence your subconscious mind has plenty of knowledge concerning the signs of violence e.g. if someone keeps eye contact and walks purposefully towards you at a quicker pace than the rest of the people around you your subconscious mind will alert you to the threat.
Sometimes however the warning signs of a situation are a little more subtle e.g. someone who has been standing in the same place on a street where everyone else is moving. Your subconscious mind/processes may alert you to the fact that “something” is out of place, without telling you exactly what it is. At this point you may choose to listen to what it is telling you or choose to dismiss the uneasy feeling you have as “just you being stupid”.
Your fear/survival instinct is pretty crude and simple. It is very much like a guard dog. My dog will bark when someone comes to the door, which I’m very happy about as it lets people know that there’s someone protecting the property when I am out. He will bark whether the person knocking at the door is a friend or a stranger (sometimes our survival instinct will fire when it’s not needed to). I could train him not to bark at all and the easiest way to do this would be to give no response to him when someone comes to the door. Eventually he would stop barking. If you stop responding to the alerts/signals to danger that your subconscious mind gives you, eventually it will stop alerting you. It will judge, that just like the noise of traffic it filters out and the feel of the clothes against your skin the signals it receives concerning potentially dangerous situations are not important enough for conscious processing.
The first step to improving situational awareness is listening and consciously responding to your survival instinct. Understand that the hairs going up on the back of your neck are an important signal and that they require a response: both a mental and physical one.
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Removing Decisions - 09/27/2008
Where possible all responses to attacks must involve a natural reflexive action and this reflexive action should be trained from both a state of being prepared and one where you are unprepared i.e. surprised.
Some attacks don't have a natural reflexive response. A bear hug from the rear doesn't really have a natural reflexive response. This is because it is not life-threatening in nature. If someone tries to strangle you from behind it is natural/reflexive for your hands to come up to your throat because you instinctively know that if you don't get the arm away from your throat you are going to lose consciousness. However a bear hug is not life threatening and so you don't have a preprogrammed response or defense.
Obviously though a defense has to be made, else you're going to be lifted (and carried or thrown to the ground) or held whilst somebody starts throwing punches at you. But how to respond?
There are two ways someone can apply a bear hug: trapping your arms or leaving them free. The issue is though, that under the stress of the situation you are probably not going to register this 'subtle' difference. It is appropriate to have defenses based on the two different scenarios i.e. hand free or hands trapped however if your initial response involves working out which situation you are in and which technique to use, for the average joe you're either going to be on the floor or punched.
A better course of action is to respond with a defense/counter that is independent of whether your arms/hands are trapped or free and then after attempting this defense start to work out your exact situation. This is where I prefer to teach an ankle fold that will put my attacker on the floor (or if unsuccessful set up my next technique – yes in real life you should be prepared for a technique not to work). Attacking the ankle doesn't require me to make a decision about whether my arms are free or not, I can work this out as I'm applying the attack to the ankle.
My first response, to be immediate, can't rely on me making a decision it has to be programmed in as reflexive and reflexes don't depend on decision making they just identify a threat/attack in a general sense and fire. Reflexes, work in potentially life threatening situations but I need non-decision reliant responses for those, which aren't life threatening.
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Instinctive Defenses - 09/24/2008
There are two concepts that work hand-in-hand in the Krav Maga that I teach these are: the first defense/counter made should be instinctual or at the very least bypass the decision making process.
For some type of attacks we have instinctual responses often referred to as 'flinch' responses. These are inbuilt safety mechanisms that are extremely difficult to train ourselves out of or if we are to involve us adopting an unnatural mind-set. This can be seen in many traditional martial arts where blocks against punches are conducted with a rigid forearm and a closed fist. If you put a beginner of such a system into a sparring situation they will struggle with these blocks as when punch comes in their natural reaction is to flinch and raise a protective arm, whilst moving themselves out of the way. With enough training they can train themselves out of this. However their training is primarily environment and mind-set specific, that is it works well in the training hall when they are thinking in a particular way however put them out of that environment (on to the street) and the chances are they will go back to a flinch response.
The 'flinch' response is one of the first automatic responses we develop: babies will automatically flinch at loud noises and fast movements. If you have ever nearly been hit with a cricket ball or base ball, only seeing it at the last moment, you will have invoked a flinch response: putting a hand up and ducking away. At the time you ducked, you hadn't even registered that it was a ball, your natural defenses recognized movement and reacted, only as you moved out of the way did your conscious mind process that the 'thing' that moved was a ball. In fact it could have been a fist or a knife. Your body reacted to the movement not the identification of the object: there wouldn't have been time for you to recognize the object, ascertain it was a threat or not and then make a decision on what to do. The speed of the situation called for a response.
Now assume that you're talking to a friend and suddenly out of the corner of your eye you see movement, what are you going to do? Flinch or your traditional, training hall block? The threat is not a ball now, it's a fist or knife. If you flinch but haven't trained how to turn this reaction in to an effective response you will have no point of reference from which to put all the other things you have learned into place. You won't recognize your 'flinch' response for what it is and understand that it needs to be followed up.
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Straight Knife Defenses - 09/18/2008
Continuing on the subjects of Knives, I want to say something about defenses against straight knife thrusts. The hardest thing about defending a straight knife thrust on the street is getting someone to do one! In reality the most common types of knife attacks involve slashes, upward thrusts, lapel grabs with upward thrusts etc. Straight stabs with a lunging committed body are as rare as Bin Laden’s Chanukah parties.
I am not saying they don’t happen and I am not saying there shouldn’t be techniques in a system to deal with them however the amount of time devoted to practicing them should be rationed according to the likelihood of facing one.
Committed straight knife thrusts are part of most army’s basic infantry combat training. The reason a committed thrust is taught is to help a soldier get over their natural aversion to killing. Humans have an inbuilt hesitation to killing and stabbing actions are understood to be killing actions, whilst slashing actions are considered to be maiming and injuring ones. Teaching a soldier, whose role it is to kill, to commit to the thrust with their whole body is important as it prevents them holding their attack back.
Krav Maga is a military system and so these attacks and defense to them are taught. On the street however the story is different and if you do face a straight stab it will in all probability be done with a fast non-committed delivery –using mainly the arm - with plenty of recoil. It is this that we should practice defending against rather than full body lunges with an outstretched arm and knife.
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Knife Training & Reality - 09/16/2008
I was once told by an Israeli instructor of mine, “your opponent is not a doll”. What he meant, was that if I make a defense or an attack I should expect the person I’m dealing with to respond and not necessarily in a predictable way. This is extremely obvious and yet much of our self defense training ignores this very important point. In fact as self defense instructors we often seem to suggest that when you make a response to an attack or assault the story ends there: one move/technique and end of problem.
The truth is that 99% of people do not engage in physical violence lightly. If they have chosen to assault you, you must assume that they are pretty committed to their cause – at least at the outset. It is highly unlikely that they will give up the fight as soon as you make your first defense and counter attack.
When you put a knife into the mix you can be assured that your assailant is even more committed. When someone is prepared to escalate a confrontation to this degree and level you know they are unlikely to give-up easily and yet often in the defenses we teach, we treat the knife attacker as someone who will be dissuaded from continuing after they’ve received a few punches and strikes. Not in my experience.
Also a knife wielding assailant is unlikely to continue with the same attack time and time again they will alter the angle and type of attacks that they are making and so to train against a partner who simply repeats the same attack as you block it, may not be treating them like a “doll” but it’s certainly treating them like a robot with only one program.
Instructors often shy away from the truth when it comes to knives because they want both themselves and their system(s) to appear invincible. Telling people that they will get cut if they are involved in a knife fight does little to increase class membership – most people want to hear that the self defense system/martial art they learn will teach them to block every punch, avoid every cut, whilst their heart rate stays below 80 beats per minute.
If you are involved in a knife fight you will get cut, how you limit these cuts and how quickly you can take control of the situation are the important factors and the only way to train for this is to practice with a partner who is playing the role of a knife wielding assailant properly. Yes, practicing this way is both frustrating and to a certain extent embarrassing (you will start to see how vulnerable and inappropriate some of your techniques are) but it is realistic and training realistically means the street and real life situations hold less surprises.
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Welcome! - 09/14/2008
Having been teaching Krav Maga in Boston for the past 2 months, it was suggested by a person who attended one of my classes that I should restart my blog.
As promised It's now been relaunched.
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