Takedown Defenses (Yellow & Orange Belts)
This course teaches how to defend against the most common takedowns from the front and rear. Tactics include preemptive combatives, evasions combined with combatives and sprawl variations.
Takedowns and tackles are common street attacks, especially, if two attackers grapple with one another. Hence, the importance of developing your anti-takedown capabilities to remain standing. If you are taken down, you risk a second assailant or multiple assailants attacking you. To state the obvious, fighting multiple adversaries on the ground is extremely difficult. In short, do not go to the ground if it can be helped.
Krav maga ground survival techniques incorporate both defensive and offensive tactics and can generally be summarized as: “What we do up, we do down.” In other words, in krav maga, whatever is done from an upright position, is done (with modification) from a ground position. As there are no rules in an “up” fight, there are no rules in a “down” fight. Groin strikes, throat strikes, eye gouges, and biting are all viable ground survival options.
You must be able to defend against an attacker changing his level of attack. Allowing an attacker to successfully change his level provides the attacker with the opportunity to attack your legs with significant force and speed. Successful takedowns are set often set up by an attacker using a distraction (usually an upper-body strike feint). While the combative distraction may or may not connect, it will allow the attacker to lower his level with proper posture to protect his head from counterattack. Thus, a strong attack against your legs is made possible by the attacker’s gliding forcefully under your lead arm while he uses his lead shoulder to make takedown contact against your hip and thighs.