Krav Maga Tactical Survival. Gershon Ben Keren

      In real-life situations there is no time to get into a “fighting stance.” If you try to do so, you will have both wasted time and informed your aggressor of your intentions. However, to practice hammer-fists, and understand how they work, a fighting stance is a good position to start from. In reality, your “fighting stance” is one that adheres to certain principles: weight distributed 50/50 between the feet, head over shoulders, shoulders over hips, feet on opposite corners of a rectangle, etc.

      Turn the heel of your front foot outward (away from the centerline of your body), so that your body turns. At the same time, pull the elbow of your rear hand directly upward. The reason for the turning motion is that when you go to make your strike, you can “unwind” your body, to deliver more power into the strike.

      Once your elbow has reached its maximum height, start to extend your arm. As you reach upward with your hand, raise your weight off your front foot, transferring it to the rear—your front leg should hold about 30 percent of your weight; your rear, 70 percent. This will allow you to move weight forward as you deploy your hammer-fist, adding power to the strike.

      Once your arm is fully extended, your weight transferred, and your body fully bladed, you will be ready to make the strike. Although it may seem that this process takes a long time, when all the movements are done simultaneously, it will be extremely fast.

      Start to unwind your body, and shift your weight forward (your right hip should be pushing forward into the strike), as you bring your fist down. You should have the feeling of the body pushing your hand forward and down.

      As you deliver the strike, start to bend the knees and sink your weight in order to add more power to your strike.

      Rather than “bouncing” the strike off the target, drive through it, and prepare to raise the elbow again, in a cyclical fashion, to deliver another strike. Another advantage hammer-fist strikes have over straight punches is that it is much easier to move forward throwing multiple hammer-fist strikes than it is to move forward throwing full-force straight punches.

      This is an extremely powerful strike, which sees your extended arm, held overhead, crash downward (and sometimes forward) into the intended target (nose, back of head/neck, clavicle, etc.). The same strike can be made while holding a pen, flashlight, etc., so that all the force of the strike is concentrated through a harder and much more focused striking surface.

      If you can find a solid object, such as a pen, a flashlight, a mobile phone, etc., you can use this to focus the power of your hammer-fist strike. Simply hold the object in your hand—with your thumb over the top to prevent it slipping when it makes impact—and deliver a hammer-fist strike against your assailant. If you aim for the chest, make sure you rip/scrape the object down the body after it has landed, in order to cause maximum trauma.

      It may seem that the extension of the arm overhead is a little contrived, even theatrical, and more befitting of a martial-arts technique than one that should be used in a real-life situation. After all, do you really have time to extend the arm that high when dealing with an aggressor who is coming at you with full force and full speed? The real answer is no; however, in training we should enlarge and exaggerate our movements, making them as big as possible, for one simple reason: under stress and adrenaline, our movements shrink and become contracted. If we try to train our techniques as we think we would execute them in reality, it is likely that when we are called upon to use them in a real-life confrontation where we are adrenalized/stressed, they will be too small, and will not contain enough power to be effective.

      When you train, you should look to make movements—however exaggerated—that will deliver the maximum amount of power and energy possible, with the awareness that adrenaline may well cause them to shrink and become less powerful.

      Cycling Hammer-Fist Strikes

      Striking combinations, from a self-defense perspective, do not have to be complex; in fact, there is no reason to throw a myriad of different strikes at your assailant if repeating the same strike over and over again is effective. Because the strike and recoil of the downward or vertical hammer-fist are circular in nature, the hand/fist can easily be pulled back up, ready to make another strike, without there having to be a break in the movement of the arm. This means you can land multiple hammer-fist strikes in quick succession, without giving your assailant an opportunity to attack/counterattack.

      By moving forward, and, if necessary, using your left hand to push/strike your attacker’s face (in order for it to be in place for your next strike) you should be able to land a large number of powerful strikes using just a hammer-fist.

      Combining Eye/Throat Strikes and Range-Finders with Hammer-Fists

      While a good eye or throat strike is effective at disrupting an attacker, at some point you will need to deliver forceful concussive strikes that will start to cause extreme pain and trauma to your assailant. A good follow-up strike to these strikes is to use the hammer-fist in a cyclical fashion to repeatedly beat down on your attacker. This may not seem like a particularly sophisticated solution; however, it is a simple and effective one that sees you laying down a lot of firepower in an aggressive and determined manner. If you can strike in such a way that there are few spaces and gaps between your strikes, it will be almost impossible for your assailant to launch any assault of their own. Your goal is not to fight your attacker, but to assault them with an all-out blitz that they are unable to cope with. Simplicity and aggression are often better friends than sophistication, where violence is concerned.

      Eye strikes are good first strikes, as they don’t need to be well placed or delivered with force to have an effect. Unfortunately, they don’t deliver concussive force, which is necessary to cause your assailant the type of pain and trauma that will make them want to disengage from the fight. As you throw the eye strike, start to bring up the elbow of your rear hand in preparation for delivering a hammer-fist strike.

      The eye strike will provide cover for the time it takes to raise the arm up to make a strong hammer-fist strike.

      This time, instead of simply turning and dropping your weight, turn and step forward to bring your bodyweight into the strike.

      Drive through with your hammer-fist. As you start cycling it through to throw another, start to move your left hand forward.

      Your left hand can do one of several things: it can make an eye strike or a cradle-strike to the throat, or it can act as a range finder for your next strike. Bring your rear leg forward so that you are ready to step forward when you make your next hammer-fist strike.

      Your goal is to keep your assailant moving backward as you overwhelm them with strikes. While they are moving backward and defending