Here are some more karambit drills shared by Coach Freedman.  Watch and enjoy.

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The yawara is a small stick, sometimes with sharp points or rounded edges, usually used in pairs to initiate throws, bone breaks, and pressure point strikes. The yawara stick was popularized for police officers in the 1940s by Professor Frank A. Matsuyama. You can download the original “HOW TO USE THE YAWARA STICK” Published in 1947 by Mr. Frank Matsuyama manual for police self defense at the Yarawa.com site.

In recent weeks, Coach Freedman has been emphasizing yawara techniques in his classes. It is a great weapon for training as its small size and multiple uses make it a great weapon that anyone can use for self defense. Once one learns the basics it can be transferred to any small weapon that can be held in the hand including the kubaton, pen, hairbrush or even a small rolled up magazine (who thought you could be dangerous with a Readers Digest).

In this video Coach Freedman demonstrates the use of the yawara and shows with just a few simple techniques how you can have an effective self defense. He shows how the yawara can be used to maximize the torque on joint locks, increase the impact of strikes and add power to throws. Assisting him on the demo is Ryan Birmingham Sensei.

Video by Philip Duldulao

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Coach Freedman has been teaching his own style of Ketsugo Jujutsu for many years now. He has a number of students that are teaching out of their own schools and he is concerned that they may not be teaching the core practices of his style. His style is built on three core practices  which are Footwork, the Nine Angles and the Flow Drill. In order to make sure that all his students are on the same page, he has decided to have a gathering of the Ketsugo tribe 6 times a year. This will be an opportunity to refresh the knowledge of the core practices and to meet with the other practitioners on a regular basis.

This past Saturday April 30, 2011 was the first meeting of the tribe. It was a cool spring day and students from NH and neighboring states met to get some training. Coach Freedman started the class with a warm greeting to all who attended and then talked a bit about martial arts and Ketsugo in particular. He stressed that it is important to know the history and origins of the martial art you are studying so that you can gain a complete understanding of the art you are practicing. He then began to discuss the importance of footwork in Ketsugo Jujutsu. Coach Freedman has identified 50 foot movements that he uses in his system. He took the group through the movements and explained the proper execution of each foot movement. He led the group through the 50 movements which was repeated multiple times.

Coach Freedman next began to demonstrate the usage of the foot movements.  He demonstrated how the foot movements were used to evade an attack with the long knife. By using the movements in the precise angles it became apparent how the movement was effective in the evasion of the attacks. The students then practiced the movements with an opponent attacking with a long knife. people who had not used these movements before were amazed at how effective they were. Coach Freedman demonstrated how the foot movements  along with strikes and locks were a devastating defense for this type of attack.

Coach Freedman next demonstrated leg lock and leg lock techniques. These also come out of the footwork. He had the students practice on long sticks before trying the techniques on each other. These techniques are quite effective and have to be practiced slow in order not to cause injury.

A lot more information was delivered during the course of the seminar. You had to be there to have gotten it all.

The day ended with all the students getting together in Coach Freedman’s back yard and sharing food that was brought by the students.

The date for the next gathering will be on June 25 at the Weare NH dojo from 10:00am to 2:00pm. The cost will be $25. Call (603)529-3564 to find out more information. Anyone can attend.

Below is a gallery of pictures from the day.

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

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Students often ask, “Sensei why do you have your students develop sensitivity? “

This is a great question.. Sensitivity is the top secret ingredient in all martial arts. The understanding of this idea will raise you above all the rest in the martial arena.

There are many layers of understanding this idea (Concept) of what sensitivity really is concerning martial play. Lets begin with skin … the biggest organ on the human anatomy. Your skin is very sensitive and was designed by our creator to help us stay out of trouble.

If you get to close to a flame – fire … you will notice your skin becoming hot. The closer you get the faster your skin heats up until you become burned. Winter time if you go outside without gloves you will notice your hands become cold. If you have kids and get up in the middle of the night to relieve your self and while walking in the dark you step onto the kids toy may be some thing hard and pointy … ouch … yup that hurts. I think you are getting the picture here so lets move on.

We always hear that in the martial arts you learn how to defend your self against much bigger and stronger attackers. There is this idea by learning martial arts you can magically defend your self with just a few memorized techniques done in order from prearranged attacks. Well I hate to burst your bubble here but that is just not going to happen.

Now days people are lifting weights and doing combat conditioning drills to help make themselves bigger and stronger so they will become a better fighter. This is all good but with this type of thinking you will only be able to defend yourself as long as you are in good physical shape.

What happens now when you are hurt or injured? What happens when you are sick and drop muscle and have no stamina? What happens when you age and your speed – strength drops?

Here is where sensitivity enters into the picture. By learning to yield or give way like in Jujutsu or Aikido – Tai Chi and other martial art system as well you can now blend with energy instead of clashing with it. Learning to use your skin to notice and feel pressure is one of the best kept secrets in the martial art world. A lot of martial arts teach it, but they don’t make a big enough deal out of it because it is so simple to learn. So they take it for granted and pass it by or even blow it off.

The other day I had a conversation with a service man, who is the hand to hand instructor for his unit. He asked me the difference between Jujutsu / Aiki-Jutsu and Aiki-Jujutsu. The difference is how they utilize the energy coming in from different attacks. Ju-Jutsu is more of a yielding method.. that is what JU means in the Jujutsu.. it means to yield. Just like merging into traffic with your car. Coming out of an exit and merging with others cars going in the same direction you are traveling. You will first need to match the speed while not bumping into other cars.. Merging is yielding.. If I throw a raw egg at you how would you catch that egg without it breaking? You will need to match the incoming speed of that egg at the same time merging your hands with that egg and as this egg touches your hand you go back into your self with your hand or hands that is doing the catching. You tend to cradle this egg in a soft easy approach. If you just threw your hand out there in one place while the egg hit it the egg would then break the time you closed your hand around it. Apply this concept – idea, to human contact.

Aiki-Jutsu is a little different. Aiki means to blend with energy. Here is where your skin comes in. When you feel some thing like pressure or heat from another human being you learn to ease up and blend with the direction of where this energy wants to go. By learning to relax your muscles and allow the muscles to go soft you will be able to notice more feeling in these muscles. Your touch with skin to some thing else, will become more noticeable and heightened. When you feel resistance don’t resist, instead just let the pressure take you over and allow it to win. Just like the old saying in Tai Chi Chuan, (win by losing) so by allowing this energy to push or pull you in what ever direction it wants to go you learn to ride the wave of energy and in that we call blending. Think of this.. you are in a river with rough waters. You are trying to swim and becoming very exhausted. Now if you lie back on your back and just float allowing the current to carry you where ever it goes that is Aiki.

Aiki-Jujutsu is having the best of two worlds blended together. So now you have blending with energy and yielding. Some times you will need to just blend with energy and at other moments in time you will just need to yield with energy … Here is where it may get a little confusing because these two concepts are so similar but also very different. What makes them different is how you feel about them while in motion. Some times you will only need to yield to oncoming energy. Some times will will need to blend with oncoming energy … do what you must to survive is the idea.. but understanding energy and the different methods of sensing it and using it against your opponent is key.

When we practice Arnis – Kali – Escrima and Dumog we utilize the sensitivity drills. In Filipino martial arts we have a term called sticky stick. This is where you touch your opponents stick and try to feel where your opponents movement is going. By easing up on your own stick and following the path of your opponent’s stick through the sensitivity in your hand that is holding that stick, you can feel where his/her stick will go next and by doing this have already countered your opponent. This drill is done back and forth for long durations of time. When done properly you go into a meditative trance-like state and when this happens you are now training by spirit alone, which is truly a wonderful experience. Kind of like the runners high that you may hear about. Now Wing Chun Kung Fu has this same drill Chi Sau (Spelling) and they even do this drill blind folded. Amazing I know, but with the right instructor and lots of practice you to can accomplish a great deal.

Please understand sensitivity is not just limited to the arms. Oh no, you can do drills with your legs, your back all parts of your body. I know in Judo and Brazilian Jujitsu they have sensitivity drills they practice on the ground. They allow their bodies to listen (feel) for which way their opponents weight will shift next and they move right along with it by relaxing and allowing their opponents movement to take over. Also by relaxing you save a great deal of energy as well which you will need for later on in the fight.

I hope this helped you to understand just how important sensitivity is and also please do understand that I could write a book just on this subject but need to stop here, otherwise this article would still be in my computer and you would not be able to read it.

Always train slowly and be safe while working out with your training partners. Try to empty your cup before entering the dojo (school of thought) Be kind to the planet and all who share it.

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John Moore demonstrates a knife attack

This is a guest post from John Moore who is a student of Coach Peter Freedman. He is a technology consultant who teaches Ketsugo Jujutsu in Maine. Visit his website at mainemartialarts.com

I live a very peaceful life. I work from home, and I live in a relative low-crime area (unless you count incidents of cow-tipping). And though I’ve trained in martial arts for probably 30 years of my life, I very rarely have gotten into a full-on kung-fu brawl like you see in the movies. That pretty much only happens in the movies.

Yes, I’ve had the opportunity to “test” my jujutsu a couple times while living in Boston. Yes I know others who have as well. However, I like to follow the philosophy I learned from my teacher, Peter Freedman, sensei that, “The warrior is always the last one to pick up a sword.” I aim to be as good a teacher as he is someday.

Last night I had an interesting conversation with one of my students. He’s only been training with me for about two months. He happens to work in corrections, supervising “high risk” teenagers who may be emotionally disturbed and too violent to be locked up with other teen offenders. He gets to do jujutsu for real almost every day. When he talks about his experiences, I listen.

He tells me that what he’s learned in the past couple of months has been extremely valuable and he’s used it. It’s important to understand that there are use of force guidelines he’s required to follow. He just can’t go house and destroy some kid who’s acting up. He’s not allowed to use strikes or chokes (and a bunch of other stuff) unless it’s a situation that requires lethal force.

Some of the benefits he’s reported include:

• He’s now more aware of when someone is about to become violent, he can read the body cues better
• He’s generally more aware of his environment and understands how to position himself defensively
• He’s able to move off the line of attack when charged, attacked, or objects are thrown at him (frequent occurrences). He’s avoided getting hit with chairs on at least 3 occasions since he’s been training with me. He tells me that other people who work there plant themselves and tense up – bad idea.
• He’s able to control inmates better without hurting them
• He did much better at a followup required defensive tactics training than he did when he originally went through
• He feels more confident when he walks onto his job
• All of these things make me feel really good. Here’s a guy who’s using the training in a positive way. Sure, I can teach him how to tear someone’s head off, but if that’s his only skill he’s more likely to hurt someone and get in trouble himself.

Ketsugo Jujutsu, when taught correctly, teaches control and a range of options. Yes, there are lethal tactics. Yes, there are less lethal tactics. Believe it or not, the less lethal stuff tends to be harder to pull off. So, for somebody with two months of training with me twice a week can do it under duress – I like it.

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Today, listening to the radio, I heard about a man from Warner NH who shot an intruder that broke into his home. I can’t blame this home owner after what happened at Mont Vernon NH where four young and very stupid teenagers broke into a home and brutally killed a mother and hacked her daughter with a machete. How do you defend against that kind of situation without martial arts training or a firearm?

Criminals are getting bolder today. Violent crime and attacks on the innocent have gone up quite a great deal in just a very short time. I feel a lot of this is due to the sinking economy. People are frightened. Most don’t know what to do in a violent situation. Some believe that all they need to do is pick up the phone and dial 911 and they will be saved. WRONG! Even the Police will tell you they can’t get to you in time to help you or stop the crime. By the time you dial 911 and pray it is not busy or the phone lines are not down or cut by the criminal trying to gain entry into your home, it will be to late. When Police are minutes away you only have seconds to protect yourself. What you do with these seconds will decide whether you live or die. We as home owners and law abiding citizens must learn how to protect ourselves. The fastest way to learn how to protect yourself with deadly force is with a firearm. People can learn how to use one in a short amount of time.

Some people are afraid of handling firearms. To be comfortable, they first need to learn more about how firearms function and operate to get rid of that fear. They must handle a firearm by placing it in their hand and just holding it. They need to learn how to break it down and put it back together again. They need to learn how to load it and how to unload it. Shooting skills such as aiming, trigger pulling and handling jams are important skills. Drawing the weapon from the holster and being able to get off a few rounds that will actually hit what they are aiming for is just vital. Anyone can do it with the proper training.

The National Rifle Association http://www.nra.org has really good courses to take on safe gun handling. These courses include basic to advance shooting skills, Hunter safety courses and much more. They also help to protect the Second amendment and your rights as a free American. By joining the NRA you sometimes get discounts on firearms or ammo. They have a great deal to offer you. They also send you magazines of your choice on firearms, Laws… hunting and more. If you do plan on getting yourself a firearm for self defense or home defense purposes you should take a course. There are many great combat handgun schools that you can attend. I have taken five courses at a great school Sigarms in Exeter, NH. Check them out at http://www.sigsaueracademy.com/.

This brings to mind the attack in Connecticut just recently, where two paroled burglars broke into a doctor’s home,  raped his daughters then murdered them along with his wife. They beat the doctor with a baseball bat while he was tied and they torched their home. The doctor made it outside, crawled to his next door neighbor’s house and was able to alert the Police and fire Dept. If he, his wife and his daughters had firearms training, things might have been different. Compare his situation to this story.  A 15 year old boy, who is the son of a Harris County, TX Sheriff’s Deputy, was at home with his 12 year old sister when a pair of criminals attempted to break in through the home’s front door.  The 15 year old boy grabbed and fired his father’s rifle, causing the intruders to flee.  The robbers were captured when one tried to get aid at a local hospital for gunshot wounds.  The 15 year old boy and the 12 year old girl were unharmed. This boy had been trained by his father how to use a gun.

The lesson is that firearms training is the fastest and most effective method of self defense. You can learn it quickly and it is fun. Going to the shooting range is so relaxing. You meet others with like minds. Your level of confidence just grows and you start feeling good about yourself. Here in the state of NH the conceal carry license (CCL) is only $10.00 for four to five years. Well worth it. This CCL allows you to carry your firearm on your person concealed. But you should have some training with it. Just buying a firearm and carrying it about with you thinking that you will be able to respond to a deadly and violent attack with no training is just crazy.

Check the laws in your state about carrying firearms. Some people believe that more gun laws and taking guns out of the hands of the law abiding citizens will mean less gun violence. This is the biggest lie ever written or told. The laws were designed and put into place to keep honest people honest. But do criminals follow these laws? No! Of course not. So then why is it the honest law abiding citizen are the ones who get punished by these really crazy gun laws? These gun laws were invented by people who lack info in firearm use. They promote fear to the public by way of TV and news media. If more good Americans were well trained and carried firearms, crime would actually drop! Also a well trained citizen is most likely to be the first responder to a terrorist attack or a mass killing. A firearm is a tool. In the hands of a good person it will be used for good. In the hands of a bad person it will be used for bad.

I do recommend after securing this skill level in any firearm use to take up some empty hand self defense lessons like Jujutsu or Dumog. It is also nice to learn how to defend yourself using a knife and stick. These are tools you can carry when you might not have a firearm close by. Joining a gym to increase your strength and stamina will help when defending yourself. By building up your strength will also help you to control your firearm better under stress and to fight off any crazy attacker.

I offer low level firearm training at my school in Weare NH . I also offer some of the best training in empty hand self defense or edge/impact weapons around. Contact me to learn more. I will be happy to advise you on the best path to learn how to defend yourself.

To learn more about the training I have to offer go to my Training page.

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Real street fighting is very dangerous and can have consequences both physical and legal. If some one is trying to cause us grave injury we must take action to defend ourselves. Coach Freedman’s Student David Weinberg presents this video on real street fighting. It is a fast paced demonstration of Freedman’s Method Ketsugo Jujutsu for defense against empty hand, weapons, and multiple attackers. It shows the simplicity, creativity, and effectiveness of Coach Freedman’s techniques.
If you watch closely you’ll see that most of the techniques consist of hidden strikes and multiple joint breaks that are all performed in one or two fluid movements. That is critical for defending against multiple attackers where time is of the essence.
Please note that some of the techniques are killing techniques. We learn these techniques to have the knowledge that if they are executed in this manner they will cause great harm. Knowing this we avoid using these techniques unless we are in grave danger. We realize that in the aftermath of a deadly encounter we may be facing legal action. If we are charged with using deadly force we must justify that to a court of law. There have been many incidents of people using martial arts to defend themselves and then ending up in jail for using excessive force. Coach Freedman teaches how spot and avoid trouble in order to avoid these dangerous situations. But once we are in a dangerous situation we must take what ever action is necessary to defend ourselves. His training gives the student the confidence to act properly in a violent encounter, avoiding physical injury and legal action.

Watch the video and pay close attention.

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Another great training seminar with Coach Freedman. The people that attended were excited to learn these very simple and effective flexible weapon techniques. Who thought that you could be so dangerous with just a length of rope,  a belt or even a piece of cloth. Coach Freedman guided the class through several drills and then had everybody team up and practice the defenses he taught. Everybody was impressed how easy these were to perform. Pencak Silat Master Ismail Sujadi was on hand to show us some Indonesian flexible weapon techniques. I would not want to mess with him if he had a rope in his hands (or feet). Check out the video and stay tuned for information on Coach Freedman’s up coming Joint Stopper Seminar on July 25, 2010.

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I am constantly being asked the question,  “Why is it important to train slow?”  People want to know if  this really teaches us to defend ourselves? They also ask “Why not go fast and really simulate a real fight?” These are good questions and I want to address them here. So take a few minutes and follow me as I make an analogy to learning to drive a race car.

Lets say you want to be a NASCAR racer but you never drove a car before. You may want to drive fast and furious but first you have to take lessons. You now have to learn the to do the simple things like adjust your seat; put your seat-belt on; adjust your mirrors; start the car. To get on the road you step on the brake and put on your blinker. You shift into drive and you look over your shoulder and start to ease off the brake and out onto the empty road. You step off the brake and step slowly onto the gas peddle. NOW! when you are out on the road, do you step down on the gas peddle and go as fast as the car can move or do you get to know the car and feel the road underneath your tires?

As you slowly get use to the car and the road you can gradually speed up the car. But first your mind will be all over the place – watch out for other cars – watch out for people or kids – watch out for small animals. Your mind will be jumping around – break – gas – steering, a little to the right, now a little to the left to get the car to straighten out. You are looking for red lights, yellow lights etc… Stop signs pop out at you. Over time all these little things that you strain your brain to memorize to do become normal to the point where it is automatic and you can spend time on strategy of driving and less time worrying about every thing else how the car works or operates.

When you go to a school for car or motorcycle racing that they first sit you down and it will be mostly class room time and lecture before you ever get a chance to drive out onto the track or sit in one the cars. When you are ready to drive out onto the track, they will have you walk it on foot so they can talk and explain to you where it would be the best time to start downshifting and clutching into the turn and when and where to step on the gas coming out of the turn. They would show you where you would have the best chance of passing another car and where would be the worst places to pass another car. Once this is over they would have you go back  into the class room and discuss what you just saw and felt. By now because you went (SLOW) and first (WALKED) around the track, you got a chance to see every bump and dip on that track.

The next step is they put you into a car and they drive around the track in slow motion talking to you all the while you are driving. They give you commands and a set of instructions when to down shift and when you should break and when to step on the gas when to speed up and when not to speed up. You go around this track hundreds of times slowly until you can learn their safety methods and proper racing techniques so you wont become a danger to yourself and other drivers. (follow the rules of racing).

Now once this accomplished they bring other cars out onto track with you and your instructor communicates to these other cars by way of two way radio. They set up fake scenarios like you are actually racing but only done in very slow motion. They talk you through each maneuver you do until it becomes ingrained into your being and you can actually see and understand what they mean. Once they feel this has occurred you are allowed to have a mock (fake) race and they practice giving you instructions through a radio in your helmet while you are racing to see how you follow their directions under stress and how well you listen to them.

Jujutsu is a lot like racing a car. The rules in Jujutsu would are the concepts and principles of why things work and when they would work. We must understand that we are dealing with the human anatomy here and we don’t want to (Crash and Burn!) hurt our training partners or our selves. Always safety first should be in the forefront of your minds eye.

Most of the techniques are extremely dangerous and are designed for crippling and killing, you just cant do them fast with out learning how each technique really works first.  Each student must learn to go very slowly (to walk the race track) and learn all the proper methods and techniques , so that the brain and body can learn to move in the proper way. As you start to feel comfortable with the flow of the series of movements and with the  timing and angles then you can speed it up a little bit providing your workout partner knows how to go along with techniques you are applying to him/her.

Just by going slow it can really help you to be able to see more options. You will see  openings,  gaps and weakness in your opponents defense. If you should happen to get into a real bad situation with another person who has the same kind or set of special skills that you now posses, you will have a better chance to counter their attacks and go around their defense and win (stay alive).

When you first learn jujutsu you are learning things that go against the joints which if you go too fast can really over extend the joint or even worse break the joint and really hurt your workout partner.

There are three speeds I teach to all students:

• slow speed for learning,
• medium speed for practice,
• fast speed for fighting

If you train fast all the time you are actually slowing down your ability to learn and that is counterproductive. Also by going fast, you are promoting fear in yourself and in your training partners. By going fast you lose the ability of understanding what you are doing. By rushing through your techniques you can’t see the cool counter techniques that you can see when going slow. By going fast you concentrate to much on the end of the technique and miss the important things, like the beginning and the middle of what you are practicing.

Health wise by training fast is not to good for longevity. It raises your blood pressure and it hurts your joints. Also it taxes your nervous system. Yes you will be fast but over long periods of time with age creeping up on you, joints will start to wear out, your nerves will cause you to shake. Your Ki or Chi or Prana will go in different directions. From a healing point of view  I have learned to go very slow and take your time and this will produce better and safer results.

Going slow teaches us which way to go under pressure. By training fast we lose our sensitivity. I love what Bruce Lee, the founder of Jeet Kune Do, said in his movie “Enter the Dragon” talking to a young student he points his finger up and says,

“It’s like a finger pointing to the moon”

He then goes on to slap the student who was staring at his finger and says,

“Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory”

That pretty much says it all right there, but I feel it actually went right over every ones head. You see every one seems to concentrate on the finger (speed – lots of techniques) and they are missing the rest of the big picture, – All That Heavenly Glory. A real shame.

The Tai Chi people have it right. They know the importance of slow training.. So does the special operation groups in the military or law enforcement. They train really slow. When I first got an opportunity to watch and train the military, one of the instructors came over to me and said we train very slowly here so that we may learn more. I smiled and nodded in agreement with him and after I was finished training them they liked my methods of hand to hand. Not one person got injured and every one learned really effective techniques and had fun.

So remember, go slow, pay attention and do not miss all the heavenly glory. Train Slowly, train safely, train well.

Related posts:

1. The Meaning of the Black Belt

Coach Freedman continues his discussion of  Martial Arts Energies. He shows how blending with you opponents energy using the concepts of Aiki and Ju can be used for your defense.

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