Greg Newton
09-16-2011, 02:53 PM
Bruce Tegner has always been one of my favorite martial arts authors. Why? Mainly because he always injected his writing with a high dose of ethics and common sense. Over the decades a lot of people have dismissed his books as not being authentic. Did he really understand karate and kung fu? Maybe or maybe not, but one thing he did know, and he was a champion to prove it, was Judo.
One technique I learned from Bruce Tegner and I have found very useful for sport and for restraint has been the shoulder spin. It is a very basic technique and easy to learn. Place one hand to push your opponent's front shoulder and the other to pull behind the opposite shoulder. With one hand you push and with the other you pull.
This spins your opponent around where you can evade him or it sets him up for a lateral cardio-vascular restraint hold. This is where you scissor the sides of the neck with the forearm and bicep of one arm. This is not a naked choke where you apply pressure to the trachea and can crush the larynx. The pressure here is on the carotid arteries to shut off the blood supply to the brain. It is what police officers used to be taught to render a suspect unconsious and is often called a sleeper hold.
However, this is considered deadly force, and is not taught police officers anymore. The reason being, some suspects never regained consciousness. Their arteries weren't elastic enough to regain their shape because of heart disease.
For a moderate level of defense or restraint against someone your body frame or weaker, spin them into position and only use enough pressure that if they resist, they tighten the restraint. Then take them down by stepping into the back of the knee. Use verbal commands for them to stop resisting and/or to get down.
This spin technique wouldn't be useful against people much larger or with a low and heavy center of gravity. However, it works well for drunks who have lost their sense of balance. It also works well in sport, when you are practicing grappling against multiple opponents. You can spin your assailants into one another.
A variation of this is to grasp the clothing at one shoulder and the sleeve of the other arm. When your oponent moves forward, pull down on the sleeve and push up on the opposite shoulder while you turn to the side of the sleeve you are holding. If you lower your center of gravity under theirs, you can throw them easily.
These are simple tools to put into your self-defense arsenal that requires little practice to retain. They are also flexible and adaptable to multiple situations.
Greg Newton
One technique I learned from Bruce Tegner and I have found very useful for sport and for restraint has been the shoulder spin. It is a very basic technique and easy to learn. Place one hand to push your opponent's front shoulder and the other to pull behind the opposite shoulder. With one hand you push and with the other you pull.
This spins your opponent around where you can evade him or it sets him up for a lateral cardio-vascular restraint hold. This is where you scissor the sides of the neck with the forearm and bicep of one arm. This is not a naked choke where you apply pressure to the trachea and can crush the larynx. The pressure here is on the carotid arteries to shut off the blood supply to the brain. It is what police officers used to be taught to render a suspect unconsious and is often called a sleeper hold.
However, this is considered deadly force, and is not taught police officers anymore. The reason being, some suspects never regained consciousness. Their arteries weren't elastic enough to regain their shape because of heart disease.
For a moderate level of defense or restraint against someone your body frame or weaker, spin them into position and only use enough pressure that if they resist, they tighten the restraint. Then take them down by stepping into the back of the knee. Use verbal commands for them to stop resisting and/or to get down.
This spin technique wouldn't be useful against people much larger or with a low and heavy center of gravity. However, it works well for drunks who have lost their sense of balance. It also works well in sport, when you are practicing grappling against multiple opponents. You can spin your assailants into one another.
A variation of this is to grasp the clothing at one shoulder and the sleeve of the other arm. When your oponent moves forward, pull down on the sleeve and push up on the opposite shoulder while you turn to the side of the sleeve you are holding. If you lower your center of gravity under theirs, you can throw them easily.
These are simple tools to put into your self-defense arsenal that requires little practice to retain. They are also flexible and adaptable to multiple situations.
Greg Newton