Block or Cover?

Last week, I wrote about some of the lessons that those of us concerned with reality-based self-defense  can take from MMA and Combat Sports, such as recognizing that catching punches from blocks etc. isn’t practical or viable e.g. if it was possible to do, with all the money that is in these sports, somebody would have found a way to do it etc. In this article, I want to look at some of the things I teach and practice in Krav Maga, and why these things aren’t seen in MMA and Combat Sports. I have heard and seen several arguments made, that if somebody doesn’t do something in an MMA match, it’s not applicable for real-life, and whilst I do believe there are things we in the reality-based self-defense world can learn from combat sports (as I wrote in last week’s article), the argument itself fails to take into account the differences between sport and reality.

You are unlikely to see a Krav Maga 360-block replicated in an MMA or Combat Sports match, and there are several reasons for this; these blocks see the forearm at a 90-degree angle to the upper arm, intercepting circular attacks. In most combat sports, where striking is involved, fighters tend to cover rather than block per se – incidentally, I do believe covering, and riding punches and strikes has a place in real-life confrontations. Covering works well against unarmed attacks, when you know that your assailant doesn’t have a knife in their hand; but against a blade, it is not so effective. In dealing with punches, covering can work well, but when you are simply reacting to a movement, where you don’t know if you are dealing with a knife slash or a haymaker swinging in against you, it is safer to try to block. Often, you will not have the time to register the nature of attack and will simply have to react and respond to the movement/motion. In such instances, it is better to try to block the attack, rather than cover. In an MMA match, both fighters know that the other will never have a weapon and so, don’t need to worry about blocking an attack in this way – they don’t have to account for the risks of covering and being met with a blade to the back of the neck. If knives were ever introduced into a cage or ring fight, my guess is that blocking would start to become a much more important tool in a fighter’s arsenal. Another reason that 360-blocking is rarely seen in sport, is that both fighters are switched on and ready to fight i.e. they aren’t often caught by surprise. This type of blocking is based on your flinch reflect, where an unexpected movement crossing your peripheral vision, and stimulates a reflex, which sees you bring your arm in initially to protect, and then outwards to “attack” the attack coming in. You will occasionally see fighters make such movements if they are caught by surprise, but more often than not they are able to recognize an attack/punch as it is being made, and deal with it using a “trained” response. One of the lines I often use to describe Krav Maga, is that it is, what you will do, rather than what you may want to do e.g. you may want to cover to deal with a swinging haymaker, but if you are caught off-guard, and your flinch reflex is stimulated, that won’t be what you will do.

Another reason you are unlikely to see 360-blocks in an MMA match is that the striking is much tighter and more controlled. Whilst, occasionally you may see one fighter wailing on another, wind-milling and flailing their arms as they punch, most professional fighters will try to minimize their movements when striking, so that they don’t telegraph their strikes. An untrained individual, looking to generate as much power as they can, is usually unable to do so with any subtlety and so loads weight on the rear leg, transferring it forward, as they swing in their punch with as much movement as possible. It is these large movements which tend to stimulate our flinch-reflex, rather than smaller ones. As stated, I believe covering from punches has its place, and is a useful and necessary tool, however I also believe that 360-blocks (coupled with movement, away from the attack, and towards the attacker), are important to learn, because of the nature of reality – not everything in the cage or ring can, or should, reflect real life.

In the same way, you are unlikely to see Krav Maga responses to chokes and strangles, in MMA fights. This is not to say that the MMA solutions to these attacks are wrong or ineffective, rather that they assume that the person being attacked has a level of preparedness, and is ready to deal with such attacks, recognizing them as they are being applied. With Krav Maga, we are working with the body’s natural responses, which will be triggered whether we are prepared or not e.g. when the throat is attacked, and the airway blocked, our hands will naturally come up to try and clear the hands or limb that is obstructing it. There is no need to train this response, it occurs naturally. I am not going to argue or debate that there may be more effective ways, in MMA or other systems, to deal with such attacks; if caught by surprise that is the first movement you will make, and for speed and efficiency it should form the first part of our defense, as we don’t know what else we may have to deal with, such as a second attacker. In the ring or the cage, you must only deal with that attack, meaning you have a degree of time, and the ability to focus your attention on the choke or strangulation. In a real-life altercation, you often don’t have time to dedicate and direct all your focus on that one attack, as you will need to be aware of everything else that is going on in your environment.

As reality-based practitioners, there are a lot of lessons that we can take from MMA, including some of their training methods, but it would be wrong to assume that outside of the controlled conditions of the cage or ring, everything is applicable for reality; just as it would be wrong to say that Krav Maga techniques, would be the most suitable ones to use in an MMA match. Those of us who train in reality-based systems should look at the lessons combat sports teach us, but at the same time recognize that the context and environments that we are fighting in are not fully replicated in such fights, and that we have good reason to do some of the things – such as making 360-blocks – that professional fighters don’t replicate.