0114 – Tools of Unarmed Self-Defense: Your Knees
The premier striking tool we posses as unarmed combatants is without a doubt our knees.
Advantages of the knee
- Built of bone
- Surrounded by powerful muscles
- Can be deployed when we are tied up up top
Disadvantages of the knee
- Range
- Stability
- Patella
Technique
- Strike with the knee of the leg that is to the rear of our fighting stance
- Lift the foot and drive the knee straight into your target
- If the opportunity arises to strike upward
- Strike with the knee of the leg that is to the rear of our fighting stance
- Lift the foot and drive the knee up and forward into your target
Targets
- With an attacker directly in front of us any part of the body from just above the height of our knee to just below our belt is a reasonable target
- Targets of opportunity
Comments about hands, elbows and knees
- My comments have often directed to situations where you and your attacker are both standing
- These unarmed defensive skills are applicable in a wide variety of situations
- Attacker and Defender on ground
- Attacker on top
- Defender on top
- Attacker on ground Defender standing
- Attacker standing Defender on the ground
- Our target of choice is the head but we must be ready and willing to strike any target of opportunity that presents itself.
- There is not one strike that is better than any other strike in every situation
- We must consider the fact that we will need to work in combinations
- When the focus is up strike down
- When the focus is down strike up
- Same is true for left and right
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