i know i know. its been debated to hell here and there. but there are a couple of things i'd like to ask and say about the matter. I've read a lot of things about groin strikes here in MAP and one of them i don't get. See, alot of people have said in T3H StR33tZ if you hit someone with a groin strike it won't work cuz, 1. Men naturally defend their dragon balls. 2. The adrenalin will help them fight through the pain easily and they'll pummel into you/ catch your leg. Although i can understand the rationale for 1. but 2. just seems silly to me by my experience. See i've seen my fair share of accidental groin strikes in kyokushin during sparring and the guy who didn't wear a cup ALWAYS landed in a whimpering heap for a good 10 seconds atleast. and there's LOADS of adrenalin in kyokushin sparring. Especially among the white belts *where i've seen most occurances of this =P* So it seems moot to me if one says that it wont work in a real fight. to me, its an actual good area to strike, on par with throat or eyes or exposed ribs yada yada. 1. can be easily overcome to. a feinting jab is one of the basic things all striking MAers learn i believe. other arguements i've seen are 'its not easy to do a good groin strike.' and 'why not hit the throat? its right there' To which i say that its neither easy to throw a good jab or low kick either, practice is the key. and why not hit the ballz, they're just hanging there. Sorry if someone let out a huge groan/roll eyes after reading this, but a healthy discussion is key to learning no? Thanks
In regard to point number 2, it is damn near impossible to replecate the adrenaline you will encounter in a real street fight inside of a dojo. I have found when teaching a class where one of the guys takes the role of the mugger, that the defender finds it difficult to act aggressively back. Many people do not have it within themselves to act nasty, with all the spitting, swearing, posturing and piercing stares that come with it. if you can't do it in class, you can't do it outside of class and that is when the adrenaline dump will hit and hit hard. The street fighter has trained himself to understand all of this. He has practiced full contact every Friday and Saturday night, while we are in the dojo doing semi-contact point scoring. He is hell bent on your destruction, no instructor to shout break and no rules. A straight jab is not going to bother him and often a kick in the soft dangly collection of objects in his underpants won't either.
I have a classic video of a student getting caught in the nuts in training (low intensity - first time in contact with verbal): [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=151estO8pD8&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL"]YouTube - That's got to hurt!‏[/ame] Only this week I witnessed two chaps reduced to the foetal position through the lightest taps in low intensity training. By contrast, I've been caught in the nuts a few times over the last few years (including at a MAP meet) and not noticed it until about an hour later when I've then had to endure 1 - 4 hours of agonising pain. Oddly though, at the time my brain was focused elsewhere and I didn't even register the strike. In general when training, unless a pain compliance hold is being put on me in low level training, and I know in advance the pain I'm going to feel and am directly focused on it, I don't notice any knocks other than those to the neck and head.
On a night many moons ago myself and a friend were pratting about, doing a little free spar on my front lawn when he caught me in the boys with a stray knee. It really hurt but i held my own (hehe) for a few more seconds, long enough to get a good sweep/arm lock on and i then proceded to sit on his neck for five minutes whilst the god awful gut pain subsided. Moral? It might work, but don't rely on it. Particularly if they are off their faces or totally mental.
I think the main problem , is the amount of people who think a groin strike will result in an instant win , generally backing this up with some statement about them being illegal in mma. The reality is that the groin is just another target , just like eye gauges , throat strikes and all the other "deadly" stuff that gets thrown around.
I have been floored by the littlest of taps to all sorts of vulnerable spots and I've also gone straight through some fairly major 'ouches' - it all depends. Ditto for sparring partners, students, people I've seen at seminars - yadda yadda yadda - So where am I going with this.... Any fight is situational and you will not know what is going to happen until it happens - the whole point of training in any martial art that is interested in 'street effectiveness', is to develop the ability to smoothly and quickly respond to an attack (or the threat thereof) in a manner that allows your defence to carry on until the threat is stopped. Oh and by stopped, I mean literally that they are no longer threatening you - not some macho rubbish about killing anyone who gets in your face.
Osu, I think what has been said about groin strikes is that although they may work, it is better not to rely only on them because, for various reasons, they may not! Still a good tool in the box, either kin geri, hiza geri, a powerful shin drive or uraken. Osu!
Groin shots are seen as a panacea by most of the RBSD crowd, but nothing ever works in isolation - and I do mean nothing. For me a groin shot is a "starter for 10"; a distraction that gives me an opening to close onto the head where I can REALLY go to work. Psychologically it is very scary if your beautiful groin kick does not stop an attack when that is what someone in a t-shirt and cargo pants has sold you as the latest and greatest move. Techniques are only the tools - YOU are the weapon.
I agree with most of the post on groing strikes, while in class i have seen people drop from the slightest tap in the " boys" but have also seen someone take a full "clean" shot on the street and mearly flinch. I would imagine most of us have taken a full contact hit in training and tried to figure out the next day where that ridiculously large bruise came from... Tried to explain that to my doctor once, had a black briuse the size of a melon...he could not understand how i could sustain a briuse that size and not be sure how it got to be there.. adrenaline , in the moment. I was sparing with a mma guy who is either full on or off. He was on When training, we term the groin strike as a "distraction" to change range to where we want to be. the kick is not a big flailing kick and is in no way planned as a game ender, simply a step to the next position. sorry longer than i thought.
IMO they're like anything else...they might hurt someone and if done hard enough likely will, but there's always going to be someone who has an uber high pain tolerance.
I love watching guys getting hit in the nuts :woo: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB7gnB31NnI"]YouTube - Sports Science: "World Record Kick to the Groin" Part 1‏[/ame]
I don't. I've been hurt in that area myself and I'm a woman... it wasn't fun. Now translate that to what is essentially equivalent to having, say, your ovaries outside you in a thin membrane...nope, not funny, just freaking brutal.
I can remember a fight I had in school after cricket in the school changing rooms. Must of kicked & kneed this lad in the groin maybe 10 times with reall hard shots. It was o ly after I found out he was still wearing his box!
A groin strike is something you use to set up something else. It's not any more of a finishing move than a good strike to the lower ribs; Your opponent might be finished but he might not... It's something you have to be realistic about and not place yourself in a position where you're screwed if it doesn't work.
I had an experience in the mid 70's that put me off teaching a basic groin kick for years. I was in a bar, went to the mens room and when I was exiting a biker was standing in the hall hands on hips, legs spread and said... "I'm gonna kick your ass" He was about a foot taller than me. I was walking out the door when this happened and never missed a beat and used the walking stride to deliver a shin kick right on the target.... full force.. it was perfect.. He fliinched... for just a second then his eyes bugged out , he reached both hands towards me , screamed like a banshee warrior and yelled " NOW I"M GONNA KILL YOU" he then proceeded to chase me to the parking lot, over a couple of fences and I finally lost him in a backyard where I was faster than the sleeping dog on the porch and he didnt.... In otherwords, I hit him right on target... full force.. and it didnt work.. mentally that threw me for a real loop and all I wanted to do was get out of there. I have been told that those who have alot of experience in actual combat or street fighting can sometimes develop an involuntary response. That is to say that their testicles can sometimes ride up inside as part of a flight or fight response. This is not something that can be learned... it is just something that those that fight alot "PERHAPS" can develop.. kind of a reflex action. In the 90's... I was was working in a combative situation. My partner had kicked a guy who was way out of hand and in a very real situation of potentialy doing real damage to someone. His kick also had no effect.. he immediatly gave him a low punch to the pelvic region.. and guy dropped like a stone... My partner then told me about this and said he had encountered it a few times before... and figured since they were riding up into the pelvic region... to strike there.. and it worked.. This makes sense, and there are animals in nature that it also happens to... If you had tole me this years ago without the demo I recieved I may not have beleived it.. But I saw it and the guy definetly reacted as if he had been kicked in the groin... Just thought I would throw this in.. I do not teach the groin as a primary target.. and this is why.
The groin kick to the small intestine with the ball of the foot is my recommendation for training. Not only can it down a person, but it breaks the posture of the opponent, causing their head to drop forward. The kick to the small intestine is easier to train with control so as not to cause permanent damage to your training partner. Other groin kicks are less predictable in results. Upward shots to the conception vessel or testicles are commonly taught but they don't always have an immediate effect -- a hard kick there can end up having little effect during a fight but hours later could cause death from shock to the area... and a softer hit can sometimes get an immediate effect... too unpredictable for my recommendation. The kicks are from underneath are hard to train with a partner too because cups don't really protect well from that angle of attack. So you end up with a technique with unpredictable results and one that you can't really train in sparring. About the only time it can be trained with control is with combination with something like a tomoe nage, thrust the shin under the groin as part of the throw and roll them to the side instead of a throw over the top. Here is a summary of how I teach the preferred groin kick: http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?p=627733 http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?p=627767
