VIDEO LESSONS-Pushes and shoves
Here is the original “promo reel” I did for my internationally best selling self defense APP “THE TOP TEN MOST COMMON STREET ATACKS“. In it, I outline the 10 most common street attacks that you are statistically most likely to encounter in the real world. The idea was to make sure that people firstly understood what the very most common types of attacks were, not the unfounded opinion of some “Black Belt” or “champion” who had never been in a real fight in his life, but what objective statistical sources were telling us was actually going on in the real world and not in the martial arts or tournament fantasy land. Secondly, I then wanted to show the techniques that were the simplest and most effective and had worked for me, and others, in the real world as the smaller “out gunned” people. Many of these techniques are standard in most Brazilian Jiu-jitsu curriculums but many of them are modifications or personal developments that I specifically designed after analysing the problems I encountered or observed, with the standard techniques, in real live self-defence scenarios. Different statistical sources might rate the attacks in different orders so what I then did was to also try to rank these attacks in a progressive conceptual way so that each new scenario or method builds on the technique before and we start seeing what the real threats of these attacks are and begin to see them as variations on a very common yet poorly understood (by most so called “self-defence experts”) theme.
Therefore, although just a promo reel, I think we did a pretty good job of demonstrating what the actual attacks would look like and the real world problems of dealing with these kinds of assaults that far to many “experts” think will be so easy. The biggest factor missing from most approaches to self-defence is factoring the movement and pressure that an aggressor will put on you. In other words, they just “pose” the hold , by standing there with the attacker doing nothing but waiting for you to do your counter. This creates an illusion that just about anything is possible, but in reality as soon as you are destabilized your options become a lot more limited.
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THE “SHOVE”
Pushes and shoves are by far the most common and wide spread acts of physical aggression that we are going to have to face in the real world. Surprisingly it’s a Paradox that the very thing that we are most likely to have to deal with in real confrontations is the very thing ignored by most self-defence systems. Those systems that do try to address the problem usually advocate poor quality untested methods or, “over the top” counter attacks that no reasonable person wants to actually try in a low to medium intensity altercation. There are a few reasons for this neglect. One of the primary reasons is that many people, self-defence instructors included, do not view “shoves” as actual “attacks” or at least not dangerous enough to worry about. In other words, they tend to see “shoves” as more of a nuisance then a harmful attack. While on a certain level this may be true, it is still a mistake not to take “shoves” seriously and be well prepared for them. For a detailed discussion of the importance of “push” defences, check out my blog post The Legal and Psychological Aspects for Defending Pushes and Shoves.
The Methodology
If you can manage to counter his pushes with even less force then he is trying to use on you, you will have created a tremendous physical and psychological advantage and reduced the chances that he will continue escalating to almost nil. The trick is to resist the urge to want to stand square in front of him. This is more than just a natural inclination it is an evolutionarily programed throw back to animal dominance displays. Watch two chimps on animal kingdom, they stick their chests out and puff themselves up while getting square so that they look larger and more intimidating (it also lines the person up in your “zone of operation”). Well, assuming he is larger and more intimidating (that is why he is pushing you) there is no good reason to play his game and it sure makes you a good target for a push. He is using his little animal brain, you need to use your big higher brain and remember that in the late Middle Ages armor was made with slopes and angles so that weapons would slide off and not hit full on. In world War two the armor plates on tanks were designed the same way and for the same reason.
THE “SHADOW” EFFECT
When you see the push coming start turning your shoulders and “base out”, You need to be stable, even a little of the force of the push can start to destabilize you. If you have enough time you want to “base out” while stepping out at a 45 degree angle. This is a lot easier if you were already more side ways to him with one leg back, think of pointing your shoulder at him and not your chest or heart. When you combine this with your shoulder turn and waist twist, his hand will slide off across your chest. I call this the “shadow” effect. Like an unsubstantial shadow he can see you but he cannot feel you. To have this done to you is very psychologically disarming. Our whole lives we push against solid objects and can feel them push back, it is an understatement to say he will be expecting to feel that contact and when he does not his brain will be more than a little confused. At first this will seem difficult to do since it does take some timing but after 3000 reps you will see that it is actually fairly easy to do under a lot of circumstances. The idea is not to try to have the hand miss you which his brain can actually understand and adapt to faster. But to let it glance across your chest which will make him keep pushing since his brain has not yet gotten a clear message of either a “hit” or a “miss”. If he keeps pushing and you have angled appropriately he may very well pass right by you. You are now out of the “danger zone” and he would have to catch himself and turn around and figure out exactly where you are before he could take another pass at you. This allows you the time to keep going and get away from him or to get behind him for a positional advantage. You can very effectively attack from behind while he is groping around “trying to feel the shadow”. This would be an optimal “early” response and a truly masterful one if you can use less force then is being used against you.
As I mentioned in the training section, the only hard part about this is training in a realistic way. Your partner cannot anticipate what you are doing in any way, this is hard to do, the pusher has to really believe he is going to successfully push you and act accordingly, (if the brain does not believe it the muscles do not), nothing else will do. This acting naturally is far more important than how hard he is pushing. That only becomes important later if the naturalness is in place.
WEB OF THE HAND SLIDE
The next phase and one that helps you if you are a little later in your response is to add the “web of your hand” slide. This method also gives you a surprising amount of control over the aggressive “pusher” and gives you a lot of technical and tactical options while also using less force then is being applied against you. The key to really making this method work is to apply that same “shadow effect” to the action of your hand as you do with your chest. Open your hand wide so you form a large “V” between your thumb and index finger, you can call this area the “web” of your hand. Open this “web” up as wide as you can since this will give you more surface area to work with and greater odds for good application.
The best outcome is for you to end up in control of the “pusher’s” arm at his elbow. The web of your hand will naturally lock into the boney area right behind his elbow, with your thumb up. There is surprisingly good leverage from this position and even against a very large person, you can push his arm across him and even turn him away from you by making his shoulder rotate away from you. This is because you are pushing from a strong position from your chest and the whole side of your body while you have isolated just his triceps muscles in the back of his arm. If you are lucky he will try to push back with just those triceps muscles and use his strength. It will take a moment or two for him to realize that he is pushing back against his own shoulder joint and probably won’t actually be able to turn back into you without moving his feet and realigning his body. If his feet are too close together you may well have destabilized him and shifted his weight over one leg, this would make it fairly easy to move even a big man around until he catches himself and plants his feet wide and solidly. This gives you a lot of opportunity if you know how to take advantage of it. The main advantage is that these are simple and seemingly passive and nonaggressive moves, any witnesses would not see you hitting someone or even pushing back but merely placing your hand on his arm. You would definitely be perceived as using less force then the aggressor, yet you are gaining a considerable advantage over him.
The technical “secret” to making this work optimally, is not to try and move your arm across you, by trying to make contact directly at the aggressor’s elbow, but to make contact on the outside of his forearm and let your hand slide up his arm to his elbow. This is the same “shadow” effect and will have the same effect on his ability to feel what you are doing. This will also vastly improve your timing since you will not have to aim for a specific spot but can just let your hand slide up his arm until it is caught on the boney protrusions of his elbow. This is very important since trying to move your hand around to his elbow in a circular path will take longer than the direct path of his pushing arm. Therefore his hand will usually make contact with your chest before your hand gets to his elbow, combine this with the fact he is moving first and it really reduces your odds of success. Instead slide your hand forward and in, at about 45 degrees, trying to make it just make contact, not trying to push it aside. You don’t have to be specific about where you make contact on his arm and his own force will cause his arm to glide along the web of your hand until you feel his elbow. Turn your shoulders and step out into “base” the same way and you can move right past or behind him.
For training purposes your partner must actually mentally and emotionally “intend” to push you and “believe” he is going to succeed. Without this “intention”, as I mentioned, the whole exercise can break down. A very common problem is that without ever knowing it, your partner or at least his arm will begin to “help” you. In other words, without any forces acting on it, his arm will start to push across at an angle (the angle it is getting used to moving at because of the repetitions) all by its self. This makes the exercise both silly and actually more difficult. When this is happening, I find that my web ends up jamming into the middle of his fore arm and makes his arm bend. This is because the unrealistic and unnatural direction he is pushing inadvertently forms more of a “right angle” between my hand and his arm instead of the subtle sliding effect as your web glances up along his arm on a more parallel/45 degree trajectory. If this were to actually happen in a real situation it is no great matter but you have done little more than slapped his hand away which may or may not send the message you want in the way that you want it. It is easy for him to feel what is happening and you have gained no leverage or positional advantage not to mention pycologicaly disarming him. Therefore, all you can do for traning is be vigilant and try to “keep it real”. With lots of reps pre conditioned movements are going to creep in so every few reps look like you are going to defend but just stand there and let the push hit you, you will instantly see and feel if your partner is on target. You would find it humerous to find how often the persons arm just misses you and while this is good for a laugh it is also an utter waste of your time and energies.
A further real world application to consider is that a heavy person may not be easy to move or destabalize so do not relie on that. As you lock onto their tricep area it is possible they can plant their weight and tense themselves so that they are very immobile. Don’t get sucked into the paratinme that you have to push them instead use their imbolitity against them and move around them. It is easier to move you than to move a big heavy object.
LATE RESPONSES
If you are “late” you may have to step back to dissipate the “shock” of the push. In that case step back with one leg so that you can form the same angle with your body using the same shoulder and hip twist. He still may go past you, but you are creating more space and staying in the “danger zone” with this version you may be able to give him a pull once you are in contact with his elbow and help him along past you. This is fine, but it is preferable to slide around past him and out of his “zone of operation”, if possible.
THE “RUSSIAN DRAG”
A better pulling action can be performed with the opposite arm to his pushing arm. In other words, use your right arm against his right arm push. The best way to do this is with what I call a “Russian arm drag”. This is just a way to pull an attacker past you without having to rely on griping with your fingers or hand. All you are doing is holding his arm in the crook or bend of your arm and reaching over top with your hand to hook at his triceps. In the same way as the web hand grip, you have good leverage on his arm and can pull it across him or past you. This is very natural and smooth to do as you twist your shoulders to get your angle. This second arm action can be used with the web hand or the upcoming “forearm slide”. You can partially deflect or push his arm across with your left web hand or forearm then catch his arm in the bend of your right arm and be able to pull him past you even if you had stepped back. Remember, any “pull” has to be in conjunction with his “push” so that you are using his force and momentum. If not you are just using your strength of which you may not have enough against the larger person and he will easily feel what you are doing and take counter measures. This “Russian drag” can be used by itself as an alternative to the web hand slide as you get your “shadow effect”, as his hand slides across your chest you can just raise your right arm and catch his arm in the bend of your elbow and keep moving behind him. This gives you different locks and chokes if you feel the force level warrants it.
FOREARM SLIDE
This next variation will also help you compensate for lost time if you are a little late in reacting. It is probably somewhat easier to do under real world conditions of poor light and thicker clothing that can wad up during the sliding affect. It can be faster because you do not have to raise your hand and if your arms are down by your side then that can save you valuable milliseconds of reaction time. Furthermore, this motion is mechanically stronger and is therefore a better choice against faster, harder and more aggressive shoves. The only drawback is you do not gain control of the aggressor’s arm and lose those counter options. The movement is nearly identical, step forward and out at about 45 degrees while turning your shoulders and hips but instead of using the web of your hand to slide along the pushing arm, use the back of your forearm. Keep your arm straight and let it come in front of you as your front shoulder twists to make the angle. Like the web hand slide, don’t become stationary and try to push the aggressor’s arm across you, but keep moving forward and let his arm slide along yours. While there is some pushing across don’t try to move your arm beyond that natural diagonal line from your lead left shoulder to your right hip, (assuming a right hand push). You have a lot more surface area between your wrist and elbow so there is more margin for error and when you combine this with the “shadow effect” you have a very simple and practical response to a shove. Move forward and around the aggressor and his “zone of operation”.
This forearm method can be used against two handed pushes as well and is the transition technique between the lower force “shoves” and the more dangerous “big pushes”. How much time you have to react will dictate which one you use, a lighter two handed push will be faster because there is less wind- up and space between you, you may only have time to turn your shoulder and deflect with the forearm. These defenses work best before the aggressor’s hands make contact with your chest or just as the contact is beginning. Once you are being moved back, don’t try to fight it but concentrate on keeping your balance and angle as you step back, you may still be in the “danger zone” but the angle of your body makes the next push more difficult for him. Casually circling to one side also makes it more difficult for him to line you up for his next push.
CONTACT PUSHES
Sometimes, the aggressor will leave his hands in contact for longer instances and walk forward instead of pumping the push in. This gives you the chance to manipulate the “joint alignment “of his arms. In order to push properly the aggressor has to have his joints lined up properly with his elbows behind the wrists and the shoulders behind the elbows. If this alignment is broken the aggressor cannot push in a straight line. Pull his elbows out (as we will discuss later in “chicken wings”) or push them in close together and you have messed up the joint alignment of his push. Pushing his elbows together tends to change the angle so that his hands slide up your chest try to incline your chest upward and his hands will slide up as you do a “web slide” and move to the outside.
If you lock out the elbows it takes away the bend in the arms and there is no “spring load” to power the push. If he is taller than you this often changes the angle in such a way that he is now pushing downward on you and helping to root you into the floor-thus stabilizing you. The idea is to push up from under his elbows, this moves his elbows above his hands and changes the force to a downward angle helping to “root” you to the ground.
We can see from the video tutorial just how versatile this “web of the hand” slide can be, even though this is seldom if ever taught in standard Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and is certainly not part of the classic standing self-defence curriculums that I have been exposed to. Nevertheless, it should be a standard part of your training in order to be able to realistically deal with the problems of pushing and shoving as they occur in the real world and not just on the Academy’s matts. Once you understand how simple it is to get behind your opponent using this methodology, you can then use it in “higher force” situations with great confidence. By simply changing where you place your second arm, as you go behind the opponent, you can go from a low level of “bargaining” force, to being able to apply a choke to your opponent. Choking is considered to be the highest expression of “maximum efficiency” in Jiu-jitsu because it requires little strength but completely incapacitates your opponent .
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HARD PUSHES (TWO HANDED PUSHES)
Big, forceful, pushes, with both hands, are another paradoxical area. They may not be perceived as a serious threat but they can be very dangerous. Not only can the aggressor use these pushes to “probe” you in the same way as the single handed “shoves” but any time you are seriously destabilized you are in real danger.
I can’t over emphasize this enough. While I have discussed “destabilization” before in other sections I believe its importance warrants even more attention. One of the main reasons I have to go back to this fundamentally crucial principle and keep reminding people about it; is because of how often it’s simply ignored by the “pseudo experts”.
There is any number of things you can be pushed into, over, or through. I have seen people pushed through the plate glass window of a store front and badly cut, others were pushed down flights of stairs which can be extremely injurious and I carry a scar over my eye where I had to be stitched up after being pushed into something in the middle of a multiple opponent attack. In the middle of that chaos I wasn’t sure what it was! People are often pushed against walls and hit their head harder than punches that they would have taken more seriously. One of my students was pushed from a side walk into traffic, struck by a car and very nearly killed.
In some North American cities one of the leading causes of homicide is to be pushed off the roof of a building since the older sections often don’t have the modern safety designs. Likewise in these older urban centers, public transit areas may also lack modern safety designs and it is not uncommon to read of people being pushed in front of subway trains or down dangerously long stair wells. Let’s not forget in the movies all the villains who try to push the heroes or heroines off of cliffs, if you live in Hawaii or the Rockies who knows.
The point being, that nothing exemplifies the danger of being destabilized more than the simple push. An attacker does not need any training or skill to potentially cause you great harm, once your body is in motion and you can’t stop it anything can happen. While many instructors are warning you of the dangers of weapon attacks and multiple attackers they are completely ignoring the danger of the most prevalent attacks.
Part of the reason for this is that pushes of this kind are not that easy to deal with in the real world, especially from large heavy people. It is actually easier for them to be teaching gun disarms that you can’t test and may very well never have to face then to deal with a problem that they can’t solve but is painfully easy to test.
The problem is simple, when that heavy person gets moving toward you there is a lot of momentum and mass moving at you. In order to maximize this effect the attacker will need more space between you so he can wind up and get his momentum going. This greater space gives you a little more time and an instinctive idea is to get out of the way. While not a bad idea, anyone who has played football or rugby as I have can tell you that it is not always that easy to get out of the way of someone charging full-bore at you (and this is on an open unobstructed field with sure footing and lots of clear space).
If you move too early they can track you and adjust and if you move too late you obviously get nailed but possibly at a worse angle then if you had stood your ground. The worse option is to try and back up. You are staying smack dab in the middle of his “zone of operation” while he is building more speed and momentum. Everyone, even most “experts” understand this part but it is still the most common natural response! When that freight train starts a`rollen you do not want to run away up the tracks.
I want to explore this in a little detail because it is a very natural reaction and not only to big pushes but to punches and any kind of lunging attack where the aggressor moves suddenly and rapidly at you. Everyone seems to understand that you should not back up, easy to say, but under the effects of stress and surprise they almost always do. It is so common and critical to real world Self-defense that some studies have been made on it. It’s a basic instinct to recoil from any threat and seems to have physiological components as well; apparently a shrinking visual field startles the brain which desperately wants more information so it can assess things so you move backwards to be able to increase your visual field and in theory, buy you more time.
In many survival situations this makes perfect sense, if you are a cave man walking down some forest trail and you see a bear up ahead, it is instinctive to stop and start backing up so that you can keep your eyes on the danger while making distance. However, in close quarters this is counterproductive since any human can move faster forward then he can backwards. Therefore, many things that seem simple in theory-and at low velocity-become much harder when natural reactions are factored in, but many self-defense systems have absolutely no idea about these factors because they only appear under full speed, surprise conditions; In other words , real world conditions. As I have mentioned before, these real world conditions are very difficult to simulate under class room or sportive conditions and are the very simple but critical reasons why real fights “feel” and look so different from training or sportive competitions.
The result is that while you are trying to figure out which way to move as a huge guy comes charging forward, you also have to fight your natural instinct to back up which either takes over or causes you to freeze in that spot and you get pushed over. This brings up the very important concept of making choices of where to move to when you only have a split second to make these choices.
Would it not vastly speed up your reactions if you could make these choices of where to move to in advance? Nice idea but how can you possibly know where you would want to move to in advance? No, you do not have to be psychic you just have to be a little logical. The truth is, you have far less choice then you imagine. Thinking of moving left or right is just going to slow you down and you should not move into any space that you cannot see into. It is simply too problematic in an urban environment with all the chairs, tables, people and pets for you to run into and get knocked over anyhow.
Moving back only makes the situation worse unless there is so much space between you that he is not in range to attack anyhow. Standing your ground is what he usually expects on an instinctive level and often happens because you “freeze up” under the sudden stress and trying to think of where to go. The best idea is also the most counter intuitive one but also the most proven and tactically sound.
If you stop, think about it and logically analyze the situation you come to the conclusion that the only space you can guarantee to be open is the space between you and the attacker. He has chosen this space because he has to have an open space in order to reach you. He is not going to lunge at you only to smack into a shopping cart or bystander (which you might very well do trying to move away from him). Therefore, he has made the choice for you which takes all the thinking out of it. It may seem dangerous to move into the attack, but as a rule the opposite is true, an attack needs space to function, take away the space and you jam the attack.(see most blog post on weapon defenses for the street)
This is a key concept that I want to introduce here because it is so important and will be central to all our tactical thinking from here on in. When you only have a millisecond to react there is no time to make choices you have to have it pre-trained. If you think it is counter intuitive to move into an attack, think how the attacker will react to it. He needs space to operate, take away his space and you take away his ability to do the attack; most of the time you don’t even have to know what the specific attack is, in the real world of split seconds this is priceless. We will be discussing this lot more in the punching defense sections but it is actually more challenging to do it against the push because the aggressor’s arms are right in front of him forming a barrier. Therefore, this is a perfect conceptual drill as well as a highly functional technique. With a little practice you can do this at increasingly high speeds because it is relatively safe with your chest as the target. You will get instant feedback and will literally feel what is working and what is not.
PART THE RED SEA
I call this technique “Moses parts the Red sea”; you want the aggressor’s arms to flow past you like water. The less you think about this the better it works. You just need to get your arms and body into position and let the aggressor do the rest. If you try to respond specifically to the arms and try to push them out word the sliding “shadow effect” is lost and so is the smooth execution of the technique.
In order to push you hard the attacker needs more room so you will generally be too far out to get contact with his arms and move to the outside. Therefore, you need to go between his arms and you will have the space to raise them straight up. Simply raise your arms like you are diving and reach for the attacker’s head. As he pushes, your hands will fit nicely between his arms and as they continue forward they will make contact on your forearms because of the triangular shape of your “dive” position.
Do not try to push his arms apart, instead; move forward and concentrate on getting a hold of his head (remember the human brain can only think of one thing at a time). Make sure you are stepping forward with one leg (which I am not doing in the video segments) this will help stabilize you and inclines you a little forward so that you have an even better “long wedge” position of your arms. Put your chin down as you would in the punching defenses (which we will discuss later in detail), this protects your head if the arms come flying at you for some unanticipated reason but more importantly, if you miss time this you are likely to crash head to head with the attacker so you want the hard part of your head to make contact (depending on the relative height). This is very safe for you and very bad for him. Usually, however, his arms will slide right up yours and part like the Red sea did for Mosses. If you are concentrating on grabbing behind his head the feeling of his arms is really going to enhance your timing. This is one of those moves that works better the faster it is done. I can describe this in all kinds of detail for you but by trying it and feeling it you will understand much more than the written word can ever convey.
You just need confidence in the technique so let me point out, that I originally designed this technique as a last ditch defense because the other ones I had been taught were too slow or weak for this situation in the real world. It worked so surprisingly well that it became my “go to”, or first choice for this situation and I have “field tested” it often in the real world.
If you are very late and cannot move forward in time or you just have too much weight and mass to deal with, you will have to stand your ground, the safest way to do that is to “level change” and perform the “moose defense” which we will explore in the upcoming sections. This kind of defense is also seen in Rugby and football so is a proven tactic.