Techniques from a Chair

What's that worth in new money?

Sit crosslegged on a chair in front of a heavy bag, to prevent yourself generating power with your legs. Hit it. You won't be able to to hit with anywhere near the usual amount of power and you'll have to work hard not to fall over.
Now get someone to swing the bag for you and try and hit it while your sitting there.
Now imagine that it was a person attacking you.

See? You'd be screwed.

 

You have to remember that defending yourself is not a boxing competition. Being injured or in a chair is a distinct disadvantage, but not unassailable. Afterall an attacker is likely to be over confident when faced with a person in a wheel chair.

Having a knife or other weapon as an equalizer would be nice, but no legal in the UK.

Like all situations the unexpected can happen and the obviously weak find reserves they did not realise they have. In others they are over powered and destroyed, but saying they are incapable of something and telling them not to bother is no help to no one.

Paul Genge
Russian Martial Arts Northwest

 

Good videos from you Paul. I'm not too fussed about the spirit in the clips as we can add that later, I'm on the lookout for the techniques. Unfortunately the wrist locks and pressure points etc for this kind of thing are a bit subtle for videos like this. Good ideas though, I think I'll suggest we do some work like this in class.

PS - I see you're in Manchester, is that bald guy in the chair video Danny Ram? Looks like him...

 

I'm not saying you dont train alive, i just didn;t see any in thoes videos.

 

If you sitting in a chair.... use it. Smash it around someones head if needed!

 

I'd have to agree with non-lethal weapons to extend the range. Without the quick movements provided by legs to close range or escape, increasing one's range of attack seems like a good thing. Stick fighting a la dog brothers, krabi krabong, or an FMA would probably be beneficial. As well you could conceal a pair of short sticks on a chair pretty easily.

I'm not sure on the law but I'm thinking knocking out or injuring an attacker with a stick is going to sit with judge/jury a lot easier than a knife wound or kill. I like the cane idea but wtf is someone in a wheelchair doing with a cane and where would it be kept? I guess it does depend on the level of disability and a cane by nature is not considered a weapon so no need to conceal one.

For my brother however, there is no way he could use a cane, or carry one very well on his power chair. A shorter stick with a little weight to it could fit in a number of places and be used much more efficiently. It all depends on the individual though, of course.

Also pure upper body (and grip) strength, and even mass to some extent would be very important. I know a lot of big guys that I wouldn't want to try to take, even with them sitting in a chair because of their strength. If they ever got a hold of me, they could tear my arms off.

Oh something else - chair modification for more stability would also be beneficial. If the large rear wheels were smaller and moved further back, the chair would be more difficult to tip, at least backwards. But then it would also be less maneuverable... hmmm. Still, I'm sure there would be some chair mods that would help. Like Homer said... use it if you got it.

Hand-to-hand would be a worst case scenario imho. Blocking or parrying is good but again without the range or movement a pair of legs can offer, the disadvantage would be very hard to overcome.

 

A few years ago I did chi sao (wing chun training exercise) with someone in a wheelchair. It seemed to work pretty well considering his situation. Obviously, no footwork, but he was able to shift around in his chair to illicit the turning in wing chun.
In terms of practical defence, I'm not sure it would be worthwhile, as I was sitting in a chair at the same height as him, and in reality most attacks would come from a higher angle (I don't know if wing chun angles would be effective if I were a standing attacker, though I've never tried). It would definitely help contact sensitivity though.

 

Thanks for the replies, however evading and letting your weel chair roll you away is good also breaking ankle with chair and pinning a foot or feet in oder to bring them down with nerve strikes. Have you ever been pinned to the ground and had mace emptiied into face after a wheel chair fighter used your groin for a punching bag. It's been done you know!!! The only way you are "screwed" is if you give up. I have seen documentaries were abled martial artit's could not get with in of grabbing rang of a parapalegic. Attitiude wins over shear brute force, not always but the majority of the time. Be prepared and don't present youself as a victim.

john Runer
Defense Abled instructor

sorry I hve not respondend much I am currently seeking grants.

 

(bold face added - Thomas)

Awesome post!!!! Especially the bold-face part!

 

A few years ago, we were teaching a self defence session at a local school. One girl was in a wheelchair - she had a progressive disease, gradually losing muscle strength, and operated the chair with a single 'thumb-switch'. Obviously, she couldn't use the skills we were teaching to most of the group, but she had thought about self defence. Her preferred method was to spin the chair (using the thumb-switch) to crack an attackers ankles with the 10 pound battery on the back of the chair! She hadn't given up!

 

I agree with these last posts 110%. The batteries in my brothers chair weigh more than 10 lbs each, as well the foot rests are pretty thin and hard, could do some damage as the chair can generate some pretty good torque.

Can of mace or pepperspray in a chair pocket is a simple one I hadn't even thought of. Quick spray in the face and then a 200lb chair smashing shins or rolling over ankles would be quite effective.

I know my brother's chair also has a speed or power dial on the control. Its very difficult to control speed efficiently with just the control stick. It is closer to an on/off switch with steering. However the speed dial allows control of how much power gets to the wheels for driving inside or outside. I think having the ability to crank the chair quickly up to full speed for a getaway would help as well. Anyone without a power chair - well were back to upper body conditioning. Think wheelchair athletes who do sprints - those dudes can move!!

 

There is also the guys who play wheelchair rugby. There was a movie recently about it,a documentary called Murderball that was getting good reviews.

Those chairs I think are reinforced and much more stable and the guys who play are tough as nails. Anyone interested in chair self-defense might do well to check out the game and their training as well.

http://www.abwheelchairsport.ca/images/scrapbook/rugby/images/6_jpg.jpg

Hell same goes for rugby and full able-bodied people. Rugby players are just tough (maybe not all there upstairs though if you know what I mean!) ;-)

 

Wrong. That's simply perpetuating the myth of the helpless cripples, to which I take offense. If you've never trainied with a differently abled person, you have no clue what they are capable of.

Really? I'll have to introduce you to my classmate. And a few handicapped powerlifters I know. You have no clue what these people are capable of, as usual another keyboard warrior shooting off his mouth.

He can strike, grapple, and use weapons. He earned his black sash. And if all you can see is a cripple, then I think you need to train with someone in a wheelchair and see what they're capable of. Until then, I really don't see any of your contributions as valid.

 

I'm not trying to be funny but does a powerlifter in a wheelchair just do the bench press?

I think I covered this well in my first post. If you have exceptional upper body strength you can drag someone down and pound them in the face. In all other respects, someone in a wheelchairs' striking game is profoundly handicapped. If you want to argue the point, feel free to point to any wheelchair bound boxers or kickboxers that still compete.

What grapling does he do? Off the top of my head, I can not think of any judo throws or no jacket throws that would work from a wheelchair, similairly on the ground he would be unable to control people from guard or base up to pass guard, unless he had working 'stumps', for lack of a more PC phrase.

Incidentally, I have seen footage of someone like that at a bjj competition and it was awesome to watch, although of course, the other guy had to start from his knees.

Belive it or not I do think of the wheelchair bound as being human beings. However I think of them as being human beings without effectively functioning legs. To pretend that this doesn't pose serious problems for them, when practicing a whole body discipline such as martial arts is insulting to their intellegence and shows ignorance of the problems they have to face in daily life.

 

He got strapped to the bench. Pretty simple solution. And he was hella strong...

There is a difference between saying "they are at a disadvantage". Your exact words were "they're screwed", and I take umbrage at that.

We do Chin Na, jointlocks, and groundwork. Full groundwork. When he gets grabbed from behind, he can execute throws. When he is on the ground, he can grapple. Yes, the techniques are modified (d'uh), but he was required to complete as much of the curriculum as possible. And he is quite good.

And that's fine. *shrug* But they're not helpless.

My issues are several with this statement:

1. Not all of them have useless legs, some of them just don't work "normally".
2. While I recognize that this poses a problem, to just make statements like "they're screwed" doesn't really say to me that you respect or understand the work they do. Perhaps we do agree, but your initial word choice sucked, Jekyll.

 

Because I'm currious about everything, do you know what other exercises he did? Weighted chinups and dips or work on the gymnastic rings? Deadlift, Squat and bench press is generally considered a fairly good whole body workout, but I wouldn't say just bench pressing is sufficent for the upper body.

They don't function effectively by normal standards, hence the wheelchair. I think this was a fair statement.

Maybe. When someone good gets me in back mount and starts working for a choke, I say I'm screwed. It doesn't mean I won't try and fight my way out with some sucess. I really wasn't advocating that they should just lie on the ground and wait for someone to run them over with their own chair.

I think it's fair to say that Jo Average would be screwed in a fight against a Andrei Arlovski and I do feel that the disadvantages an average wheelchair user would face against Jo Average in a fight would be similar in scale.

Just as a blackbelt wouldn't prevent Jo from recieving a beating from Arlovski. A blackbelt in a wheelchair would face similar problems against Jo. Their priorities have to lie in taking Jo out before he realises there is a fight and they have to do so with weaker strikes and much less grappling and mobility than is avalable to the rest of us.

I still say they'd be screwed in a striking match up.

 

Having just read through all this..

i've got a couple of questions. I whouldn't consider myself "screwed" if i got jumped at present (though i'm in a wheelie now), i'll simply have to adjust my 'arsenal' a bit to adapt to my new fighting-position. I might be at a slight disadvantage, but i think it got mentioned earlier, there are a lot of jointlocks and throwing-techniques that are still easy to perform while in a chair.

 

This is probably the single best line in this thread.

 

Thank you Heretic!! Currently a lot of people are less than supportive of my efforts to start a disabled martial arts class. But giving up is not an option! I also think a Wheel Chair is an advantage, like the surprise you have when a wheel chair fighter knows how to fight back. Most thugs would not expect a fight.

John Runer

 

I think you should. It takes hard work and dedication, but why on Earth would people not support these efforts?!?