Inner Knee Stike: Choke Hold Escape

The inner knee is a great target for self defense. To find out why please read the previous post. In this post I’m going to teach you how to strike the inner knee for devastating results.

There are many ways to strike the inner knee. Today I’m going to focus on striking the inner knee to escape from an arm bar choke or sleeper hold.

This is where someone is choking your from behind (like in this picture). This is one of the most common types of surprise attacks so look closely this could be you.

This is a really simple self defense move, but it requires that you act quickly and not lock up with fear or hesitation.

Everyone’s first reaction when put into a choke hold is to try to remove the attackers arm from around their throat.

Don’t do this!

Unless you are much stronger than you opponent (unlikely because if you were your attacker would not have chosen you as his target) you will not be able to.

I also hear a lot of people saying that you can just put your chin down before the choke is secured to keep him from choking you. Don’t worry about this too much. It is unlikely that you will have time to do this.

If you are able to block the choke with your chin you have still done nothing to end the attack! That why it is not an effective self defense technique.

You attacker still has you from behind with control over your head.

So what should you do?

Simple, strike the inner knee.

Since your attacker is pressed up against you to execute the choke you know where his body is. This is an advantage.

You don’t even have to look down to locate the inner knee.

Simply pick up your leg to knee height as seen in the picture.

Now drive it into the inside of his knee pushing sideways and backwards. It is crucial that you put sideways pressure. Just pushing backwards will not result in serious damage and will just be wasted time.

You should follow the strike to the inner knee with a foot stomp.

This follow up has two key advantages:

1. If you missed the inner knee or didn’t put enough side pressure to cause enough pain for him to let go you simply follow up with a foot crushing stomp to add to help finish the job.

2. One attack should always be followed by another. You should never rely on one self defense move to finish off an attacker. It is always better to have a few more tricks up your sleeve, even if he releases or gives up before you use them all.

Go practice this with a partner to get the feeling down and figure out how to apply that sideways pressure. Just be sure you practice with protective gear and do not practice full speed on the knee. The knee is very sensitive and you buddy won’t want to practice with you anymore after you blow out his knee.

Until next time…