There’s four principles to all Krav Maga gun defenses: redirect, control, counterattack, disarm. The principle students have the most trouble with when learning the Defense against Gun from Behind (Touching) is control. This video explains in detail all the key points to controlling the gun properly. These details include wrist, hand, shoulder, and elbow positioning, as well as keeping your attacker at your 12 o’clock. This video also shows you all the potential problems that can come up if you fail to use these details properly while controlling the gun.
Transcript:
“Hello everyone. This is Randall and Glenda with KravMagaTraining.com. And in this video I’m going to address how to defend a handgun threat from behind when it’s touching you. But specifically, all the details to how you control it properly because I’ve found out of all the components to this particular defense that’s the part where students have the most trouble.
So let me explain. As you guys know, there’s four important principles to every Krav Maga gun defense. So the first one, is obviously, is redirecting the line of fire. So I take a look. I redirect it. I’m not in front of it anymore. Now, principle number two is to control the weapon and this is the part I want to get into. This is the part where people screw up the most.
Okay. The first thing is make sure that when you go for, after you redirect it, to reach in deep. Reaching towards the person’s armpit. Don’t make the mistake of just going directly for the wrist because, as I’m stepping in, yeah, it’s going to be real natural, she’s going to be fighting back after she recognizes that threat. She recoils. I miss it. Now I have no control and I’m in danger. So very, very important, as we discussed before, you reach into the armpit so as she’s recoiling the weapon back I can catch it and I always can slide back out. I would rather be in too deep because I can always correct it by sliding out. Where as if I miss it, obviously, I can’t go back in. And the key is when you slide out, even if I’m up too high like this, is to keep control of the arm the whole time. Notice how I’m making a fist. I’m curling it down. I’m sliding it down and until it hooks the wrist.
Now a real big problem beginner mistake is they want to use their hands too much. They cup it and grab it like this. Like they are hooking it like this. You’re not doing that because you don’t have maximum strength in the control. Instead, think of that you’re hugging it to your chest. That’s why you just make a fist, overlap it on the top, Hug it down really tight. Don’t grab it. Your hand shouldn’t be open. You use that more for like long gun defenses. But for this particular one, tight fist. Use your fist. Use your arm to curl it in.
Okay. Now, here’s a few important details. First of all, when you slide it down you want to catch it at the wrist. Just like if you’re putting handcuffs on someone. You want to hook the wrist because that’s the thinnest part of their arm. It’s a lot thinner than up here. It’s a lot thinner than the hand. So, it catches right there. That’s what will give you the maximum amount of control. That’s why when people put handcuffs on they go around the wrist. Well, same concept here. I want to be around the wrist. If I’m up to high like this, I don’t have any control. She can point the gun at my head very easily. This is a big issue.
But at the same time I don’t want to slide out too far. This is a common mistake too is students will think that they’re sliding it down but then they go over the hand like this. And, I’m not hooking her wrist anymore. Very easy, yeah, she can slide that weapon out very easily. So I need to hook at the wrist here so when she tries to pull the weapon out, see how it catches right there.
Now, here’s another important detail is make sure that your elbow isn’t flared out like this. I don’t feel like it’s very tight. Can you move the weapon around Glenda? It’s just, yeah, there’s too much give here. Another important detail is to take this elbow and anchor it into your ribs like this while you hug. So when you do this you will have a lot more control.
Now a very, very important detail, and I’m a big, big fan of this. I probably emphasize this more than most Krav Maga instructors. And that is shoulder pressure. Here’s the front of my shoulder. I like to take that front of the shoulder and I lean it forward like this. Now, not only does it put pressure on her wrist but it helps me get more control of the weapon and keep the line of fire off to the side. If I keep my shoulder relaxed like this she can move the weapon around a lot more. If I do this it tends to lock into place.
And I found also when you get into sparring and get into some resistance with your partner, that if you take your shoulder and drive it forward it’s harder for them to punch the weapon through to counter it. And this is what I mean is: Most bad guys will try to pull it away like this and you’ll catch it. But, when you start doing resistance and your partner starts to get sneaky, what they’ll do, what Glenda will do is she’ll take her hand and actually punch it forward. Go ahead and punch it forward Glenda. Now she can, ‘ah’, she can point it back at me. Switch hands. It’s a big problem. A lot of people don’t think about that. If it’s someone who’s clever they’re going to do that to you. So, I can’t just defend against it being pulled backwards. I need to also address them possibly punching it forward if they are smart. Especially, if they decide to get aggressive with me and start fighting back. I prevent that by taking that shoulder, rolling it forward so now when she tries to punch it my shoulder blocks it.
She tries to pull it it locks into place. If this hand is overlapped on the top like we were, I mentioned earlier, she can’t pull it up either. Don’t leave it hanging out like this. Now she can punch it up. Now you lose that as well. And then the elbow, that has to be anchored too. She can slide it down. If I anchor the elbow into the ribs that gets sealed off too. So all those little details basically address how to shut her potential ways of getting this weapon free in all different directions. Hooking the wrist prevents it going this way. Rolling your shoulder forward prevents her from punching it. Anchoring the elbow prevents it from going down. And curling the wrist over and making a tight fist prevents it from going up. So these are very important details to seal it into place all around.
Now, I’m going to backtrack to the shoulder pressure. I think and this is really important for a couple of reasons. One is, if my shoulder is relaxed I tend to be bladed to my attacker and I don’t like this. I want to be squared up. I want to be at 12 o’clock when I fight them. I do this by rolling my shoulder forward when I control her. When I do this, when she’s at my 12 o’clock, I have more weapons to use like my headbutts, my knees, more elbows. When I’m turned sideways like this now she has more weapons. Yeah. This is a problem. I want to be squared up.
And even more so, check this out. Move back here a little bit. I don’t have to stay directly in front of her. I can angle off off to the side because she does have a free hand over here. Let’s switch sides Glenda. You start sparring getting into some resistance, start fighting, where squared up. Yeah, she can hit me. I can hit her. But let’s cheat a little bit. If I roll that shoulder forward watch how I can angle out. Stay away from her free hand which gives me more options and gives her less options.
The rule is in all fighting is I want my opponent at my 12 o’clock as much as possible. However, we need to flip that. I want to not be at my attacker’s 12 o’clock. I want to be as far away as possible from that. So, by punching that shoulder forward it allows me to move her off to the side and get away from her 12 o’clock. So I can still attack her. Attack her but she can’t fight back as easily.
Now if I did this without her this is all I’m doing. I’m taking my shoulder, rolling it forward like I’m trying to make my chin touch my shoulder. I’m just doing this. Using like I have really bad posture. You’re always taught, you know, to stand up straight like this. You’re basically doing this. That’s all it is. Use that subtle little detail and it makes a big difference on controlling that weapon. So I’m a really big fan of that.
Here’s another reason why I’m a big fan of this is this. I see this happen a lot. When we get into the takeaway, if you don’t have that good shoulder pressure and keeping your attacker at 12 o’clock, I see this a lot. They go for the gun, look how my back is turned. This is a problem for a lot of reasons.
One is, if she decides to get aggressive with me it’s hard for me to turn around and attack her again. If I keep her at my 12 o’clock, when I go for this and I realize she’s fighting back, see how it’s very easy to start fighting back. Throwing a hammerfist. Go back to tying up. But I can see that. If I turn like this with my back turned, I’m blind to what she’s doing to me.
And also, it makes me a lot more vulnerable for her to potentially take me down. If I turn my back like this she can bearhug me, shoot in. If she bearhugs around me she can switch the weapon over to the other hand. Lots of potential issues with this. If I keep her at my 12 o’clock it allows me to keep my forearm down it a lot easier. So when I’m going for the weapon and I see her, see how I can drop my forearm back down. So I’m here. I’m going for the weapon, she tries to tie up with me, I can control her again. And it all has to do with that shoulder pressure again. Keeping her at 12 o’clock.
So those are a lot of little details but I think that they are all very important. And like I said earlier in the video, out of all the principles, redirect, control, counterattack, takeaway/disarm, that’s the part that gets screwed up the most is the controlling aspect. So that’s why I decided to, with this particular video, is to really emphasize all those key things.
So practice all that. Be aware of all those little things. The shoulder pressure. Curling the hand over. Anchoring the elbow. Keeping your partner at 12 o’clock. All these little details. And if you do that, in the long run, especially, when you start like asking your partner to start resisting and not letting you take the weapon away to make it more realistic, you’ll find these little details will come in handy. Especially, even more so, you start putting on headgear. Put on some gloves and start sparring and fighting then it becomes essential just like a real fight.
So anyways. I know this is a long winded video but, to me, those are all very, very important parts to controlling the weapon properly with this particular gun defense. So thanks for watching. I hope that helps.”
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