Sunday, December 13, 2009

Universal Wristlock Escape

Small joint locks do work. I've used them, very successfully, many times. Even on enraged freaks who were huge.

They work best, however, on people who have had a little martial arts training. Put a martial artist in a sankaju (inside turning wrist lock with elbow up) and he obligingly goes up on his toes. Put him in kote gaeshi and he twists with it and goes down (or sails through the air, if he has been taught to do that.) The skilled ones go with the lock and try to essentially outrun the pain. Sometimes it works.

Interestingly, completely untrained people, especially if a little drunk, tend to do the same thing when placed in a wristlock. It doesn't matter which wristlock- whether you take out yaw, pitch or roll or any two of the three or all of them, the escape still works fine.

It works better than any technique I have yet seen from a trained martial artist. It is simple.

They reach out with the other hand, say, "Ow!" and pull the trapped hand to their chest. It works beautifully. Give it a try. And don't forget the 'ow'- consider it a primitive but pure kiai.

There is a valuable lesson here...

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Would this be in the same vein as the "Don't touch me!" defense?

Anonymous said...

The reason that escape is common amongst the trained martial artist and the drunk is that a rolling motion of the sort conducive to breaking a wristlock is upsetting to the balance centers in the brain and inner ear.

If someone isn't trained to overcome that aversion, or if they are too drunk/drugged to get hit with it immediately their instinct will be to roll. Someone sober or untrained is going to stay put due to a natural aversion to falling. The training can fail though or it might be implemented imperfectly.

The drunk though with his chemical induced stupidity has no problem at all falling. Sometimes stupid is an asset.