Up Against the Wall!

[HanshiClayton]

At the 2010 UKAI seminar in Atlantic City, I found myself thrown up against a wall and pinned there by a Very Large Dude who was practically all muscle.

It was a drill. I was supposed to use my jujutsu to get off the wall and reverse our positions. Unfortunately my training partner had about six inches on me in height and another six inches more than I had across the shoulders. I felt like a bug on a windshield.

Frankly, I didn't do very well on that drill. As a karate sensei, I had never been in that position before. Whoops. Another hole in our training suddenly becomes clear.

So when I got back to the Claw of the Dragon, I put a mat up against the wall and started training.

When your opponent presses you against the wall, you can break his advantage by using any technique that moves you out of the direct line between his center and the wall. When that happens, all of his force manifests as a sudden tendency to do a face-plant into the wall.

I teach my students to let that happen, and then make sure that his face hits the wall a second time. One way is to use a horizontal elbow-strike to the back of the head, slamming the face into the wall again. The other way is to grab his hair, pull his head back, and then slam it against the wall. Either way, the following step is to grab his hair and take him backwards and down... kami-nage, the hair throw. Now run away! (Or move in for the submission and arrest.)

Sometimes he spins around as he hits the wall. In that case he ends up sitting on the ground with his back against the wall. That's your cue for a hiza-geri to the face. This knee-kick slams his head back into the wall again.

Use the wall as a weapon.

And be sure to work on it in the dojo, because these techniques are not something you can figure out for the first time when under attack.