Boy's Bulletin

Meeting

This meeting was held at the Phoenix Karate Dojo in Rockville, and we were taught some self-defense techniques by Gary Reburn, who, besides being the Pack 460 Cubmaster, is a karate instructor at the dojo.

When the last class finished at about 7:30 PM, the Scouts, having doffed their shoes, proceeded out onto the mat to learn about self-defense. Gary Reburn chose Jimmy Ritzman to be his 'guinea-pig' for the evening, explaining that he always chose the largest man. He began by talking about self-defense situations, and he described a scenario. He was caught in a confined space (e.g. an alley) and he sees these three men coming at him (played by Alex Kovacic, Jimmy Ritzman, and William Acevedo). "They are big, they are ugly," (bursts of laughter at this point) "and you don't know what they want." He acted out the scene, stopping frequently to explain what he was doing, and told us some key points.

The first thing that Mr. Reburn did was to yell 'Stop', commandingly. Jimmy and Alex both halted immediately, and William continued. Gary pointed this out. He had 'put the little question-mark in their minds' and now he just had to deal with one. He then looked William straight in the eye, and commanded him to stop, which he did. Gary pointed out that William had separated himself from the group a little, and that he had less support from the group.

He asked a question of the group attending; "If you ask what they want, what will they do?" The correct answer was, nine times out of ten, they will tell you exactly what they want. He then demonstrated, using his belt to represent a wallet, what to do. He walked up to William, held the wallet out toward him, and when he began to reach for it, Gary tossed it to the side, and rushed forward. Mr. Reburn pointed out that when he threw the 'wallet', William was distracted for just a moment.

Mr. Reburn told us that our most valuable asset was our feet. Since you can only fight one person at a time, what you do is move around so that the entire group is in a line, and so you only have one person near you.

We were shown a number of maneuvers that you can do in various situations.

• When your opponent (we will call him 'A') grabs your arm, the weakest part of his grip is the thumb. Swing your arm to break out at that point. Do not pull, since he is expecting that, and will pull back.
• When A grabs your shirt, he is pushing, so move away to get him off balance. These actions are examples of the principle of moving with your opponents force, instead of against. I don't recall how we were to break this grip (anyone? anyone?)
• When A grabs both your arms, do a swimming motion (think breaststroke). This will twist your opponent's arms to the point that he will have to release you. Once again, don't pull against him. Another trick is to lift one arm up, and then stab it down so that A's wrists smack into each other. He 'hits himself'.
• If he grabs your shirt with both hands, walk backwards. He will be dragged along, and with luck, you can go after his eyes, and when he leans back, his groin. He will have to lean forward again, which means you can hit his eyes. Mr. Reburn said, "This is a fun game; I can play this all day, or until he lets go".
  If you want to break it, lift your arms, and drive your elbows into his arms. If you miss, don't try again ("you may as well write him out a note"), instead, bring down your arms below his on the outside, and go up through the middle in the swimming motion. Alternatively, bring one hand over his arm, dive through the gap and under the other arm, bring your hands together like a clap, and shove into the second arm. After you have his arms crossed, grab his trapped arm and pull it through the other arm to break that grip.
• One last situation: he's got you by the throat from behind. You can get air by turning toward his elbow (not to be confused with his hand), where there is an opening, and you can follow up by hitting him until you can break out. Pulling the pinky (little finger) is effective. Another goal is to be in a crouch below his, and get your leg behind his. You can then twirl him over your knee, and onto his back.

After we had studied the moves, Mr. Reburn asked us to name the four critical areas of the body. Many things were proposed, but the best answer, given by Mr. Reburn, was 'the groin, the sternum, the throat, and the eyes'. These areas are the most vulnerable in the body to attack.

The last thing was the 'four states of awareness', white, yellow, red, and green. White is the state of oblivion, in which you are nearly oblivious to your surroundings. Yellow is the state you want to be in, in which you see things around you, and can notice if something is wrong. Red is when you notice something is wrong. Even if you see nothing peculiar, there might be a little voice saying, "Don't!", and you should listen. The simplest thing is to turn around and go back to where you came from. Green is not the state of bliss, it is the fight, when you have to Go, Go, Go!

Announcements

• Pictures from hike at http://www.askgbc.com/scouts/! They are 'hik1.bmp','hik2.bmp',...,'hik10.bmp',...,'hik20.bmp'. The files are a little large (about 180K each), but you can see where we were.
• Next meeting: Leave No Trace program.
• 50th Anniversary Patch Contest! Winning entry is made into our 50th anniversary patch.
• The bulletin needs a new title! Please send suggestions to rad-rob@lycos.com

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