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Old 11-06-2006, 01:07 AM   #26
Kevin Wilbanks
Location: Seattle/Southern Wisconsin
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 788
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Re: Does your martial awareness have limits?

Someone getting a full nelson on you usually involves a fair amount wrestling to get you to elevate your shoulders and abduct your arms and to snake their arms up into position. If you are both standing, during at least the first half of that process, you should be able to prevent anyone up to about twice your size from doing it to you by simply dropping your weight, shoulders and arms. If you make yourself heavy and don't allow them to take your center of gravity by leaning you up onto them, it is nearly impossible to put the full nelson on - a variation on the 'you can't lift me' parlor trick. Once you have them futilely struggling to raise your arms, you should be able to grab one and do something with it.

I think that it is quite possible to get to a point where this particular sneak attack would not be possible to pull on you, no matter how unexpected, unless the assailant used some sort of atemi to distract and loosen you up. I have a teacher who says bumping into Saotome Sensei at a social gathering is like bumping into a tree with something spongy wrapped around it - even when he's just standing around at a potluck he's heavy and grounded. I doubt you could sneak up and put a full nelson on him.

Stomping on the foot is not a very good suggestion in this case, given the info that you did not want to hurt the guy. It sounds to me like he was being enough of an ass that I would not have felt bad if he suffered a minor injury, especially if it was the result of him falling or smashing into something. But, a stomp could crush the instep, breaking bones and/or tearing connective tissue in the foot, landing him in the hospital... a little harder to dismiss with an "oops".
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