Here's a couple more quick tips for extreme close-quarter stuff:
A lot of times—fights aren't perfect—so you'll see people practicing, they're up in front of a bag,
firing stuff at the bag and everything's technical. And
if we were sparring and fighting we'd be in a stance and
we'd be moving like that. But in a real fight,
you get smacked, you get hit, you get knocked up against something.
So if I ran Jeremy into here and I—BOOM!—
hit him in the gut and I'm choking him or nailing him,
what ends up happening is the hands come up into spontaneous positions
of protection, right? Push away danger, startle flinch.
So what we want to have is not just that palm strike,
but from in close you might have that kind of dip drive
stuff that we've already covered where you're coming up here
but what I love to show is also the weapon system of the
the forearm and the elbow. So I'm gonna cover
some elbow stuff here. One of the
classic elbows if you've got space to move, is
firing a vertical elbow up and inside here. When people
practice it, you'll see people do it in class, they're throwing
the elbow and they're trying to hit like that. Let me grab a ball here.
So you see people like this and they're trying to hit with an elbow
and you'll see them doing that sort of stuff. And
one of my favorite, kind of like, lightbulb cues is "Hey, do you know how to do a front rack? Let me see
a front rack in terms of movement."
You've got the mobility and guess what? If we reverse
or backtrack this here from the front rack, look where the hand
position is. So if you remember our
first in the series here, it was hands out fingers splayed outside 90.
So when I come up and I rotate through that front-rack angle,
I've got that mobility already there. What we
need to do—again, I'm not saying the front rack is the elbow, I'm showing
you that you already have a motor-recruitment pattern, you already have some
neuromuscular relationship of getting in that position.
So now if I change that same thing here,
where Jeremy squares off again, always laces back,
I'm in position. The only thing we modify is this.
Because the elbow is going to follow this trajectory,
you want to make sure that we're not standing—see how close I am here—
where the risk is him actually hitting me. Always
step off line. And what I'll have him do–if you're going to
fire an elbow, how close is the bad guy?
So you want to think about this. Extend the palm straight towards me.
If you can hit my with a palm strike, I tell people don't go for the forearm or the elbow just because you like
the shot.
The bottom line is you want to understand little bit of proxemics. If I'm
over here, palm strike is the move to go to.
If I'm over here, maybe it's the palm strike or the forearm.
If I'm in close here, the palm strike might be be negated,
you don't have room to extend it, and now what you're doing is forearm or elbow.
But what you want to do is you want to turn that over and get that torque there, so
I want you to combine that front-rack speed, but
violence of action—you're trying to pop through that.
So we set it up where I'll set him down a little bit
so he's a little broken—
I call it broken Karen. You know, you start off and you're clean with Karen but at some point,
you get hit with the ball because you're tired and now you're in this position
I call it the broken Karen position. I set it up, laces back
Core to extremity, explode and just rip that elbow when you're ready.
And you can imagine that hit coming up when somebody's in close.
All of these moves, like a lego block, work together
so non-violent posture, palm strike
firing that elbow—they can all work in succession.
Let's see that one more time.
Again, when I give examples of mountain climber,
or front rack, or push-up, you can't take them literally
they're just so you remember the 10,000-hours metaphor—hey
I've done a whole bunch of these reps, I didn't realize I could apply it to protect myself,
my family or property, and now I'm gonna go for it. 3, 2, 1 ... go!
So when you're ready, 3, 2, 1 ... go!
And I'm getting hit back—you can feel it
and if he did it on somebody's sternum and felt just that shot come up there,
you get a real sense of what type of damage that would do if it caught you under the chin.
One other elbow that I want to show you real quick while we're on the subject
of elbows is, again, you're in the same position, you're hands are
covered up, you're practicing, and all I want you to do is
think about reaching for your seatbelt as fast as you can. So
if you reach for your seatbelt—you're coming around, you're torque. So I'm in the car
I'm speeding, all of the sudden I see a car behind me and I go, "Shit, that's a police vehicle"
"I don't have my seatbelt on." I don't go like this in the car,
and do some sort of complex motor skill to get my seatbelt.
It's like "Oh, shit!" And I grab my seatbelt and put it on, I'm trying
to camouflage it but make it real fast and get it in there.
So what Jeremy's gonna do from this position—again, we set up the distance—
so I don't want to be here where I make him jump into it because now I'm messing with proximity. Keep this
behavioral, keep this, again, uncommon sense, just logical.
Set up the distance where the elbow would be the go-to move.
And then what I do is replace where my head is with the ball, I might step off line,
and then he's going to go as fast as he can—create that tension here—as fast as you can
he's going to reach for his seatbelt.
And he gets hit. I want you to be more ballistic, more explosive, get your legs in there.
You can see a lot more aggression like that.
You can imagine this has happened here and he's like "Hey man, take it easy" and
then from here—WAP!—rips that across there and that
bone comes across there. So a couple of real
simple things: If you're having trouble with your mobility or range of motion,
just think front rack and it will dial it in a lot more.
Don't take these moves literally. You're not going for your seatbelt, you're not doing a front rack,
but that range of motion and muscle pattern is all there for you.
God forbid you had to use it, just fire that 3, 2, 1 ... go,
Practice a little bit on the med balls, get the laces back, you'll be good to go.