G3 Training Program

Defense Against Handgun Threats G3 -Training Syllabus

Neutralizing a pistol threat to your ribs. Going to the live side, wrapping your arm. Included in the technique, is …

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Neutralizing a pistol threat to your ribs. Going to the live side, wrapping your arm. Included in the technique, is hand defense, body defense, control, counterattack, disarm, and the finishing mode.

With the hand defense, you’re deflecting the pistol, so it will not be aimed at you. Continue with the hand defense, sliding along the arm of the opponent, going with your palm as a hook to trap his elbow. The body defense is getting close to the opponent while turning towards him. Distractions aim to foil the attempt of the attacker either to shoot at you, or pull his hand and shoot at you.

The counter attack is an elbow strike forward, usually aimed at the opponent chin or throat. The body motion is sending your chest towards the opponent with your sternum directed towards his shoulder. The control technique is with the hook wrapped completely around the opponent’s elbow. Strong pressure of his forearm towards your chest, attacking and pressing your elbow to the rear area of your ribs, crunching your body, so you’re a bit bent over the opponent arm. This puts a lot of limitation and weight on the opponent’s hand, preventing him from moving it and reusing the gun.

The step towards the opponent is of course with the close leg, and you’re landing by the side of the opponent, more or less aligned parallel with his front leg. Always center of gravity. The motion of the hand defense is sort of a chopping action backwards, while turning the palm and the forearm, so the palm is directed upwards, while sending it forward alongside the opponents arm, trapping his elbow eventually.

It is important to burst towards the attacker as soon as you can. Strike with the elbow. Remember, it’s an elbow strike forward. After the elbow strike, pull the opponent before he falls backwards, and give him a knee kick. You deliver the knee kick while pulling his shoulder. This is the optimum action. Then turn, look if the pistol is there. If it is there, disarm. You should not be looking at the pistol for a long time. Disarming can be done without looking at the pistol.

The disarming process is with your palm, you are going to grab the slide of the pistol, the upper part of it. Your thumb should be in the area of the hammer. Grab the pistol strongly, turn it 90 degrees to its original position, and then push it away from the opponent’s grip. The turning of the 90 degrees open the grip, and reduces the pressure of the opponent’s grip of the pistol.

If it’s difficult for you to reach the pistol, because it is far behind you, slide with your chest along the opponent’s arm. Do it without freeing the opponent’s arm. Keep the pressure on it. After you’ve disarmed your opponent you can strike again, and move away from the danger zone.

Here there are several options. Usually we recommend in this way of holding the pistol, not to strike with the pistol. You may lose it. It is okay to strike with the elbow, with the knee, or with the other hand.

When you move away from the danger zone, hide the weapon. Naturally if it is needed you can make the pistol operable. Practically, what we do is we hit the bottom of the pistol, the area of the magazine, so we are sure that the magazine is not released, or not loose, and then we cock the weapon, to be sure that it is ready for action.

Also this action of tapping and wracking is efficient in creating mental pressure on the enemy. However, remember, if you aim a gun at somebody, the surrounding may see you as a dangerous criminal or terrorist, and people from the area may aim weapons towards you.

In a dry drill, you can see the hand defense sending backwards and then forward towards the opponent, while turning the body, stepping towards the opponent’s side, and bringing the chest towards his shoulder. Strong control over the opponent’s arm, with the hook over his elbow, and your elbow tucked towards your ribs. Chest is going forward, body is crunched, the elbow strike is going forward. After the elbow strike, grabbing and pulling the shoulder, giving a knee kick, and then disarming.

This is of course most important that you will do the dry drill including the main ingredients, meaning the hand defense, the body defense, the control, and the first counterattack. The rest is less important to do dry drill with.

Neutralizing a pistol threat from the side, with the wrap going to the dead side. Practically this is a variation on the basic technique that you’ve seen previously. The hand defense, the body defense, the turn, the step, but now we are moving behind the opponent. The wrapping technique is putting your hand formed as a hook in the elbow crook, which means you are not locking the elbow like in the previous technique. Due to this, and because of the option and the opportunity to enlarge your body defense, and get out of the line and channel of the attack, the direction is to aim your sternum towards the shoulder blade of the opponent, meaning we are advancing with two steps.

First, with the leg close to the opponents, and then the other one, coming more behind the opponent. First strike that is recommended is more of a hook towards the back of the head of the opponent, followed with additional counterattacks, and all go immediately to disarm the person from the weapon. After disarming, one should continue with counterattacks as needed, move away from the danger zone, use the gun, or just hide it and move away.

The hand defense, meaning with the forearm bony part, is sending the weapon backwards, and immediately pressure diverts, and your arm is sliding alongside the opponents arm, pressing it towards him. The hook is wrapped around the elbow crook, tightening and pressing the forearm and the elbow to your body. Your elbow of the defending hand is pressed strongly towards your ribs. Your body is crunched as if to wrap itself around the arm of the opponent.

This whole family of techniques are practically hand defense with wrapping, body defense with a turn, and moving towards the opponent and trying to move around the opponent, try to leave the channel, which is not possible in all the techniques. Counterattack as soon as possible without letting the opponent the chance to avoid the counterattack. The control should be very tight, and then as soon as possible, to continue with counterattacks and disarm the opponent. Here the disarming is as before. The thumb goes to the area of the hammer, turn the gun, and pull it out of the hand of the opponent.

Neutralizing a gun threat from the side, aim to the ribs, going to the dead side with double control. If you’ve got the sensation and the intuition that it will be difficult for you to control the opponents arm, meaning he may retract it rapidly, this is an excellent variation, where you are doing the hand defense, the body defense, and instead of counter attacking, while you get close to the opponent, you grab his elbow and pull it towards you.

Practically, your two hands are around the elbow of the opponent. Because of the stepping and the turning, your back hand is able to grab the opponent’s elbow with the C grip, pulling it towards you. So the C grip is coming behind the elbow. Pull the elbow towards your abdominal area, towards your ribs, advance and circle around the opponent, and kick with the leg that was closer to him.

The advance towards the opponent is with two steps. First, the one close to him, and then the other one. The moment the far leg has landed, partly behind or by the side of the opponent, the close leg is already on the way to the strike, to the knee kick. After the appropriate counterattacks, disarm the opponent. If, before disarming, there is a need to strike, do it of course. Just pay attention that you’re not jeopardizing the control, or the ability to disarm.

Neutralizing a pistol threat from the side to your ribs, in front of the arm. The pistol is pushed to your ribs. It is relatively difficult to grab the wrist or the weapon in a C grip. Thus you’re grabbing in a reversed one, meaning the thumb is up, the finger is down. So in this case, the hand defense is pushing the back of the hand of the opponent. Remember, the wrist must not be bent. Pushing the hand holding the gun away from you and forward.

In the dynamic defense, the body is moving backwards and towards the opponents. Practically, you move diagonally backwards, getting close to the opponent. The forehand is doing a similar motion, meaning coming to the side of the ribs, but then sliding with the palm close to the stomach area. It is crucial that the other hand is supporting the far hand, will not be facing the barrel, will not be in front of it. Because you’re pushing the gun forward, you bring both your elbows in front of your stomach, and the far hand grabs the pistol with the thumb from above and the fingers from below. The area of the hammer was brought in front of your center of body, more or less in front of your solar plexus. This is the first phase of the technique.

In a fluid manner, and with the fast motion, you turn your body, you pull with your left, the hand that grabs the back of the hand and the wrist area, and you push with the hand that is grabbing the gun. Rotating the gun in the hand of the opponent, you’re sending the slide below the forearm of the opponent. This action is disarming the opponent. In the same fluid action you’re kicking the opponent. The whole body turn is emphasized with the strong pelvis motion, the hip motion, hip rotation, and turning the back heel. In the end of the rotation, your knee is already aimed towards the groin of the opponent.

So here too we have the hand defense, the body defense, the control, the counterattack, and the disarm. Finishing mode has neither the more counterattacks, more rolling from the danger zone, hiding the weapon or using it. In the hand defense, pay attention to the following checkpoint. Your index finger and thumb should be on the wrist of the opponent. If your palm grabbed the opponent’s forearm, this is a devastating mistake. It can cause the pistol to be aimed at you while you are doing the deflection.

In case that it is difficult to rotate the pistol in the opponents hand, your body twist may be delayed or even stopped completely. Here the time is not to stop, meaning to continue with the knee kicks, and then to disarm the opponent.

Defending the pistol threat aimed to your ribs in front of your arm, moving to the live side. As in the previous technique, your hand defense is pushing the gun away from you and forward. Your body defense is moving the angle backwards. Getting close to the opponent. The other hand is almost doing the parallel, a mirror image to the defending hand, but coming very close to your body, palm towards the stomach, and grabbing the gun itself. Your both elbows should be forward, in front of your ribs. As you start pivoting the gun, rotating it in the opponents hand, you should be delivering counterattacks. If you manage to go deep, then leap backwards, your far knee will be able to kick to the groin of the opponent.

If you didn’t leave the channel so much, and you’re relatively in front of the opponent, your close leg can deliver a knee kick. This is more appropriate in this case. The disarming section is composed of two actions. One, the rotation bringing the pistol to about 90 degrees to initial position inside the opponents hand, and then pulling it away from him. So you open the grip by the rotation, and then you pull the gun away.

When you turn the gun in this technique, the index finger stays inside the trigger guard. In the previous technique it was taken away just by the rotation itself. In any case, always rotate and pull. In the previous technique, and in this one.

Neutralizing a pistol threat from behind, moving towards the live side of the opponent. When you look and you understand the level of danger and the problem, start with the hand defense deflecting the pistol sideways. Body defense is the turning, so you’re already out of the line of fire, then sending your arm forward, you are sliding on the arm of the opponent, with a hook trapping his elbow.

Advance rapidly, bursting towards the opponent. Your sternum is in the direction of his shoulder. Deliver a horizontal elbow strike forward … Remember, not inward, forward, to minimize the ability of the opponent, to avoid it just by merely retreating a bit backwards. Continue with trapping his shoulder and giving a knee kick. Turn, look at if the gun is there, then disarm it.

Take the gun from the opponent’s hand by first grabbing it. Your thumb should be in the area of the hammer. Turn the gun, and then push it away from the opponent’s hand. All this time, your arm, which is wrapped around your opponent’s arm, is pressing it very strongly towards your chest. Your elbow is strongly pressed against your own ribs. Your body is crunched, wrapped around the opponent’s arm. You apply much weight on the opponent’s arm, minimizing his ability to move it. Bring your advancing foot parallel to the center of the body of the opponent, or parallel to his front foot.

Because there is a chance that the opponent will pull the gun, will pull the hand, we would like to prevent it. Taking this into consideration, you are deflecting the gun hand, then you are trying to go forward with your hand, aiming with the hook to go to his elbow. At the same time, your whole body is moving toward the opponent may go, meaning forward for you, backwards for him.

So here too we see all the ingredients of the hand defense, the body defense, the control, the counterattack, the disarm, and actually the finishing mode, if you need the gun use it. In most cases, a civilian will be able to move away from the danger zone without exposing himself to a danger by aiming a gun to somebody.

Defending against a pistol threat from behind, going to dead side. You looked over your shoulder, naturally you turned a bit, and you saw the danger. Start with the hand defense, the body defense, get close to the opponent, wrap your hand around the opponent’s arm, follow with another step, and counterattack.

Practically, this is a variation on the technique from the side. You’re trying to reach behind the opponent. Your hand defense is aimed to wrap itself, especially with the hook, around the aggressor’s elbow, pulling and pressing his forearm towards your chest and ribs, with two steps reaching by the side or behind the opponent. Aiming your sternum towards his shoulder blade. The first counterattack should be with the hook, because we’re not able to lock the opponent’s elbow, like in the technique, going to the live side, it’s not recommended so much to strike with a straight strike.

If the opponent is approximately at your height or a bit taller, you will not be able to deliver an elbow. So the most appropriate attack would be with the hand. After the hand defense, body defense, the control, continue with more counterattacks as needed, and disarm the opponent, finishing mode, moving away from danger zone, or using the pistol.

Neutralizing a pistol threat from behind going to dead side, using double control. Like in the technique from the side, you felt that you do not have a good control, or you may have a problem with the counterattacks. The appropriate solution will be the double control. So the hand defense, the body defense, and then the far hand is able with a C grip, from behind the elbow, to trap it, pull it towards you, and then after the two steps, while the second leg, the far leg, just landed, the close leg, start delivering knee kicks.

Remember here too, your aim is to move behind the opponent’s body. If the first knee kick is not able to reach the groin, no problem at all. Kick the thigh, kick the lower ribs, kick the solar plexus. In any case, the first kick will change the body posture of the opponent, and then you’ll be able to deliver appropriate knee kicks to different vulnerable points.

Neutralizing a pistol threat to the head. Here because the pistol is aimed behind your ear, and not towards the temple, the most appropriate technique will be moving your head towards the opponent. Practically, we are using a similar technique, like the solution dealing with a threat against a pistol to the rear, or a pistol threat to the side behind your arm.

Hand defense and body defense. While you start raising your arm, your head can already turn, and this dynamic defense is bringing it very rapidly behind the pistol. With the hook more or less in the area the opponent’s elbow, you’re pulling the gun hand sideways, and then down towards your chest level. The body defense takes you to the dead side of the opponent to the blind side, and from there you are counterattacking. Here too, your sternum is aimed more or less towards the shoulder blade of the opponent, like in the corresponding technique, against a pistol threat from behind or from the side.

The main issue here of course in this variation, that you’re getting used to dealing with threats at different levels and heights, directions and angles. Because the pistol is relatively far from your hand, while you bring your hand upwards, your head, meaning the target, is doing the dynamic defense, and turning and moving very close to the opponent. So the opponent’s arm will not land on your shoulder, but will go down. You have to move it sideways while you turn your body, and then pull it down towards your chest level. The disarming process, the body motion, the finishing mode, is practically identical to what we’ve just been doing against a pistol threat from behind or side.

Against a pistol threat to the head behind the ear, moving towards the live side. Because the pistol is far behind you, although it’s from the side, the whole idea is that you cannot do a variation from the basic technique to the front, meaning with a C grip, an inward deflection. You are doing the pivoting, getting close to the opponent, and doing the technique of wrapping, which is similar to those against the pistol from behind. The body turn brings you in front of the opponent, and here you continue with taking the opponent’s arm down, delivering an elbow strike, grabbing the opponent’s shoulder, giving a knee kick, and continuing with looking, see if the gun is there, disarm the opponent, and then move away from the danger zone.

Remember, if it is difficult to reach the gun in order to disarm it, you have to slide your chest along the opponent’s forearm, without letting it be free. After disarming, continue with the finishing mode.

A. Takedowns - Cavalier Leverage on the Wrist Joint

  1. Backward - step diagonally backward while securing the attacker's hand.
  2. Forward - advance forward against resistance.
  3. With an elbow strike - done as in numbers 1 or 2.

B. Escaping Holds in a Sitting Position (using previous principles and techniques)

  1. Methods for getting up from a chair – in place, forward, sideways, backward.
  2. Falling backward from a chair
  3. Escaping from chokes; four directions
  4. Escaping a headlock from behind

C. Defending an Attempt to Throw (attacker coming from front or side)

  1. Attacker approaches to grab clothing or body, low or high – prevention
  2. Attacker grabbed and attempts to throw – appropriate push, lower central mass and attack.

D. Defending Stick Attacks

  1. Against a swing from below (cricket, golf) – stabbing defense
  2. Against an overhead swing coming from the side – turn and step.
  3. Against a horizontal swing from the side – 2 forearms (one high, the other high or low)

E. Defense Against Knife Attacks from Various Angles

  1. Defense against an attack from the rear – move, defend and counter so as not to get stabbed by the second attack.
  2. Defense against straight knife attack from the side – turn to the dead side.
    1. Against a high straight stab (neck)
    2. Against a low straight stab (ribs)
  3. Defense against an assailant attacking from various angles (including from behind) – with elements of surprise.

F. Defense Against Handgun Threats

  1. Gun at the side held against defender's side (ribs), behind arm
    1. Deflect, turn and wrap.
    2. Deflect turn and grab with back hand
  2. Handgun held against defender's side (ribs), in front of arm.
  3. Gun threat from behind, held against the back - train defense for various heights (from lower back up to head level).
    1. Turn to either side – wrap of arm.
    2. Turn to dead side – grab with back hand.

G. Dealing with a Continuous Attacker – Whilst Defending Against Previously Learnt Punches and/or Strikes

Attacker launches a second attack during counteractions that the defender is doing against the first.

H. Correct Decision Making

  1. Defend against (unknown) attacks, from a variety of angles, distances, directions, etc'
  2. Responding to opponents reactions –
    1. Following with kicks (and punches) an opponent that retreats or moves sideways.
    2. Following with kicks and punches, according to changes in distance and ranges against an opponent that moves to any direction.

I. Overcoming Disorientation Caused by an Attack (groggy)
Problem: Defender suffering pain and/or concussion resulting in inability to breath or function, the defender's tendency is to remain in standup fighting.
Solution: Fall sideways, softly to the ground, with legs toward the opponent, counterattack.
Advantage: Taking the initiative recuperates; improving position.
Disadvantage: against more than one attacker; problematic terrain

J. Simulations of Real-Life Situations/Scenarios

Dealing with an attacker outside or while seated in a car.

K. Fighting Drills

  1. Mental training – improving and deepening.
  2. Slow fighting and light fighting exercises.
  3. Elements of CQB – wall, corner (inside, outside), door, staircase.
  4. Simulated “real” fighting with protective gear.
    1. Students will be tested in two rounds of fighting.

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