Retzef & Attacking Soft Targets

Your goal in any violent encounter should be to shut your opponent down in the shortest possible time. This is accomplished by using two Krav Maga principles: 1) a continuous (Retzef), unbroken assault on your assailant and 2) by attacking soft targets. In today’s post I want to examine these two principles and how they fit together to form a single and unified strategy.

The Hebrew word Retzef, means continuous; literally, one thing after another. It’s a term I first became aware of (though I’d been aware of the concept earlier), when training with David Kahn and the IKMA (Israeli Krav Maga Association) in Netanya, Israel. The idea of Retzef, is to lay down a continual barrage of attacks that basically alternate between high and low targets on the body. The aim is to so overwhelm the assailant to the point that they literally become short-circuited and unable to both resist your assault and make any further attacks of their own. If you give a person space and time they will have an opportunity to continue with their assault: take both away and they are forced to become purely defensive. Turning your predator into prey, both emotionally and physically is fundamental to surviving a real-life assault.

Becoming the attacker, rather than being the attacked, is the only way to deal with real world violence; the Ideal is to avoid falling into this role all together by acting preemptively and not ever assuming the role of the attacked. In my experience the person who makes the initial attack is 8 times out of 10, the one who comes out of the situation in the best condition. Most people mentally crumble when assaulted and take themselves out of the fight, even if they could physically continue. If you’ve ever been hit hard in a real life scenario you will know of the shock that this causes and how it can cause you to hesitate long enough for the other person to make a 2nd and even 3rd attack. This might be all it takes

This is why it is important if you are attacked to immediately move from a defensive position and mindset to an offensive one and begin your continuous assault on the other person (I will talk more about this in the next blog article), following the disrupt, damage and destroy continuum I spoke about in my last article.

In your initial assault, in the first cluster of attacks, you need to be attempting to hit soft/vital targets that will have the effect of shutting the person down e.g. eyes, throat or groin etc. A street fight is not a prolonged affair where you have time to feel an aggressor out, like you would in a sparring match or competitive fight. If you've ever seen a ring fight or sparring in your training hall/dojo/studio you'll have witnessed that there is a lot of time spent with each party looking for an opening and trying to formulate an attack plan. None of this time is available on the street/in reality; you need to finish the fight as soon as possible - to prolong it could result in a knife or third parties getting involved. This is why soft targets need to be attacked - attacks to the eyes, throat and groin have an effect that bypasses most people's pain tolerance/management systems.

One of the reason's I am so keen on attacking the throat both with strikes as well as chokes and strangles is that the effect is immediate. It doesn't matter how many hours a person spends in the gym, their neck is always vulnerable (the same can be said of the eyes and groin). If I can get to the neck, I can shut a person down. My Retzef/Continuous Assault aims to get me there as quickly as possible in one uninterrupted fashion, by way of attacking the eyes and groin along the way.

Imi Lichtenfeld once said (I paraphrase), Muhammed Ali's balls are as weak as a newborn baby. People may laugh and joke that Krav Maga focuses so heavily on groin strikes however there is a reason it does so. Not only is an attack to this area painful it will also cause a person to pull their hips back, a position from which they cannot generate any power. This disruption to their assault is a good opening in which to continue and press home your assault; disrupt, damage, destroy....