Surprise! Grabbed from Behind – Self Defense Follow Up

Getting grabbed unexpectedly is one of the most important situations anyone can train for from a self defense perspective. This is due to both the likelihood from a face-to-face confrontation escalating to a physical conflict and as a surprise attack in a mugging, abduction, or potential rape scenario. For sure there are many other ways that bad people attempt to get the jump on unsuspecting targets. These all require training and segmentation.

Take a look back at a broad range of self defense segmentation in the previous article Studying Self Defense

One reason that being grabbed should be a series of its own is that it requires an immediate response before things go from bad to worse. One of the “rules” in self defense is to never go with an attacker (not into a car, not into a building, not into an alley, not into a gangway). It rarely gets better if you do. If you are being grabbed, there is a chance that you will be taken somewhere. Facing that option, you must respond. Now, the response differs depending on the situation (weapons, attackers, environment, etc). However, the need to respond, and respond quickly, does not. If you do not respond quickly, you may find yourself being carried, pulled, or pushed into a new location with little to no control.

Grabbed Part 3: A Surprise Attack

Today’s self defense video will be the third installment in responding to being grabbed. We took a look at options when someone grabs your clothing, and when a face-to-face confrontation escalates into a bear hug from the front or side over the last couple of weeks. Now let’s take a lesson from Jerry on defensive responses when grabbed bear hug-style from behind, both with the arms trapped and arms free. Note once again that Jerry pays attention to the variety of situations that this may occur in, which should directly impact how you train even specific responses across self defense scenarios. Following the video, I’ll provide the step-by-step breakdown for both techniques, and then discuss a few details that I find important and worth expanding upon.

Step-by-Step:

1. Grabbed from behind in a Bear Hug with both arms trapped at sides. Immediately throw a distracting headbutt back with the intention of catching the bridge of the nose or orbital bone.
   • Tip: the headbutt should be a quick, sharp strike, not a belabored knock out attempt, with the goal of surprise, distraction, momentarily offsetting the attacker’s focus on a strong base
2. Drop hips low and back into attacker, while slightly flaring elbows to create base and space. Offset hips to either side and step inside leg out and around attackers near-side leg.
3. Keeping strong spinal alignment and base, grab both of attacker’s legs on the outside of thighs, utilizing grips on the clothing if easily established, or hooking under the thighs if clothing is not providing strong grip.
4. Lift attacker’s thighs up and forward while bumping with inside shoulder and head into attacker’s chest backward and simultaneously bumping under attacker’s hip with knee of  inside leg from behind to assist the forward lift of the attacker’s thighs and hips. The rotational push-pull of these movements will knock attacker off feet and backwards toward the ground.
5. Maintain control by following down in a side control (reverse Kesa Gatame), while keeping alert in case of need to spring back up or disengage.

Step-by-Step:

1. Grabbed from behind in a Bear Hug with both arms free. Immediately drop hips low and forward to create base and space further away from attacker’s hips and to begin breaking attacker’s grip.
   • Tip: dropping hips forward is important to avoid hip control and the easy lift from an attacker in the arms-out scenario
2. Use hands to complete breaking of attacker’s grip, establish cross-body wrist control with opposite hand while wrapping around attacker’s tricep (above elbow) with same-side hand.
3. Continue wrapping arm through to establish a Kimura grip and control on the attacker’s trapped arm.
4. Clamp wrapped arm down forcefully while spinning out and around the trapped arm, breaking attacker’s posture forward.
5. Use strong Kimura grip to force attacker’s controlled wrist behind back and upward to secure Kimura shoulder lock
   • Tip: in a real world assault scenario, make this final step quick and forceful destroying the shoulder function of the attacker

Some Final Thoughts

There are a number of options for defense in any situation. It is very important to become so familiar with a few good ones that your response becomes natural and quick and you do not rely on reaction, which can be instinctive and in error. Of course, with both of the techniques above, there are moments that you could easily dial the violence levels up and add some devastating strikes. I’m never against that should the situation call for that level of need. As discussed in previous articles, I do agree with Jerry that relying on pain tolerance for self defense is not as high percentage of a success rate as using leverage and position for a base (in which you can still choose to apply pain from).

There are some other options worth noting for the grabbed from behind scenario, especially for situations that your attacker may be considerably stronger or larger than you. This is why practice is so important. This is also why I agree with my colleague Stapho that sport Jiu-Jitsu training is great for self defense, even if all of the techniques learned may not be applicable to the real world situation. The anxiety, the pressure, the ability to respond instead of react is much better real world simulation than simply running through step-by-step techniques and heading home for the night. Be sure to practice step-by-step and then practice with high intensity.

As a final takeaway, enjoy this video that offers another option for smaller targets to avoid being lifted and fight their way out of a bear hug. While I personally find Jerry’s techniques above to be the better technique option, options remain important and subjective. What I like about this final video is that it displays the need for some level of real world pseudo sparring self defense training. Notice how the women in the class get better at overcoming the attacker the more they practice in a higher intensity session.

Image credit: http://running.competitor.com/2014/10/video/runsafer-defending-someone-grabs_115930

Image credit: http://www.brainjet.com/random/4112/13-most-terrifying-photobombs#page=2

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