Ron Saturno - Hitting with Elbows and Knees

Continuing Master Ron Saturno's series of articles on the Use of Short Weapons. Please read Setting the groundwork for the use of short weapons prior to today's post if you haven't already.



We had a small read put up on Facebook a few days ago promising more on my personal application of elbows and knees in a fight. My personal development of elbows and knees came about out of necessity. Simply put, "I am not a large man". My chances of toeing up with aggressive men who are larger and stronger than me are very good. My diminutive size can also encourage mens' aggression: Some men size other men up on the basis of size. If another man is much smaller than themselves, than they feel their odds of winning are good and quite honestly, it's a fairly safe bet. Now I am a firm believer that it's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the fight in the dog that counts, but 250 or more pounds of muscle is more than enough to cause me some concern. Don't let little d!cked men fool you, size does count, because women "do" count, just when you are not around. So we have established that size does count. I brought up the big men because they are who give me my most concern. My thinking many years ago, when I started formulating my personal method of self-defense was simple. Screw the little guys, "If I can drop a big guy, the smaller guys will be easier to drop." Besides weapons, knees and elbows are people droppers. They are short blows and can therefore be used quickly, powerfully and efficiently. If we train for specific targeting with the elbows and knees, they are easily capable of, "One hit quitters". "One hit quitter" is street parlance for one shot, one drop. So lets get into the business of hitting with the elbows and knees.


If we can pull someone into an elbow or a knee and then strike them, the force expended "into" the target goes significantly up. Pulling while striking into a target is superior to most other applications of the knees and elbows, although there are exceptions. Whatever your system is, there are any number of knee and elbow application techniques. I don't want to delve into various martial systems intricacies, or make comparisons between them. Use your strong back muscles to pull them into your knees and elbows and your powerful chest muscles, or glutes to drop them, it's as simple as that. Yes, the art part is also important. If I grab a man behind the neck and pull him toward me, we can easily get his neck bent forward and downwards. If we can get his neck into a 30 degree angle or so, the neck becomes a segmented column. The cervical vertebrae are now more separated and much more susceptible to damage. If we were to slam an elbow into the neck with their neck in the described position, we can induce severe damage to the cervical vertebrae, especially the third cervical vertebra. That area of the cervical spine is weak We can choose the jaw as another valid target We can get good value for the bang. Important nerves follow along the jaw line. Sometimes men will open their mouths during combat. If we can sink the elbow into their jaws when their mouths are open we can easily break the condyle of their jaw, we can create multiple fracture points on the jaw and most likely cause an immediate knockout, or knock the fight out of them.These are fight ending uses of the elbow. If we lose control of their necks after the elbow strike, we can back (b!tch) slap the opposite sides of their faces, targeting the GB points and immediately come back with an opposite elbow.. A percussive strike instead of the backhand b!tch slap can also be used. After the initial application of the first elbow, we take the hand of the arm of the elbow we used, cup the hand and use the edge of palm to strike their lower jawline, while simultaneously cup striking their eardrum. The ridge of the palm would be hitting ST5 and the cupped palm would be attacking the important nerves of the ear, besides possibly causing the hammer, anvil and stirrup bones of the ear to possibly cause internal bleeding. Directly in front of the ear are points SI21, SJ19 and GB2, besides points going around the earlobe in a circular pattern. As you can see the elbow sets the tone of the fight and the follow up shots are icing on the cake. As you can see: I am always striking high value targets and am prepared to give immediate follow up shots. A lot of men are too stupid to fall right away. Our job is to educate them. Lets leave off now because people are complaining about the lengths of my posts. I'll keep going tomorrow. I hope that I have given a little something for thought. God Bless




Other articles by Master Saturno:

• Basic Movement Theory
• Basics in Defense
• Basics of Serrada
• Freight Training! (Body Alignment & Power Transfer)
• The Secret to Surviving Fights 
• "Your fight is with time"
• Vidclips of Serrada Basics and Angles of Attack
• Audio Interview (97 mins!)
• The Very Heart and Soul of the Filipino Martial Arts
• "A reason to live is the greatest gift that a teacher of FMA can ever give."
• "You have to teach everything you know, because this forces you to learn more."
• Espada y Daga
• More about Espada y daga
• Espada y daga, part 3
• "Espada y daga properly performed violates common sense." 
• Comparison of Short stick vs Long stick
• "Every hit 'must' have the potential of ending the fight, period."
• The firstest with the mostest is the bestest.

Notes


My deepest gratitude to Master Ron Saturno for his kind permission in allowing me to repost his articles to my site. 

You can contact Master Ron Saturno via:

Email:  5masterserrada@gmailNOSPAM.com (take out the "NOSPAM")
Phone:  209-513-8027
Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/ron.saturno