Your lad slips and suddenly hes about to capriole unattended some stairs.

What can you do?

Grab him fast!

Right?

Of course. Its nearly reflexive, and its intuitively obvious.

But why would you ever want to grab onto a bad guy, unless youre falling off a cliff and you need his footing and stability to save your life?

I realize there are some martial arts that use grabs, extensively.

Aikido, which I respect very much philosophically, is one of them. But my art, Kenpo Karate, as a general rule, sees grabbing as foolish, for these reasons:

(1) It ties up what is otherwise a perfectly good weapon. Why voluntarily disable your hand, arm, elbow, and striking ability by clenching someones shirt? Keeping your weapons free seems the superior choice.

(2) A bad guy grabs your shirt, so you grab his. Now, there are two stupid people in this altercation. What is this, Sumo, with clothes on?

(3) You lose blocking capability.

(4) You definitely lose overall mobility. Grabbing him is like he grabbed you. It gives him a third arm and hand, and he can more effectively pummel you with the two he has left over.

(5) It keeps you in dangerous hand range when the best place to be is out of range.

(6) A grab, unless its a claw to the eyes or throat does no damage.

Consider these minuses very seriously before you reach out and grab someone, especially in a fight!

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service, and the audio program, The Law of Large Numbers: How To Make Success Inevitable, published by Nightingale-Conant. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A Ph.D. from USC's Annenberg School, a Loyola lawyer, and an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School at Claremont Graduate University, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations from Santa Monica to South Africa. He holds the rank of Shodan, 1st Degree Black Belt in Kenpo Karate. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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