A direct lesson from Tom Lewis

I still remember this lesson like it was yesterday. One day Lewis Sensei showed us how to get free from a double wrist grab, where someone grabs both your wrists.

 

First, you tense your hands and open your fingers, then press them outward, away from each other.

 

That causes the opponent to try and force them together.

 

Next you slap your held hands (which are open) together. As you do so your left hand grasps their left wrist, so both their hands are linked to your left (their right grasping hand and their left hand which you have grabbed.

 

Then you step to the right with your right foot. As you do so, you pull your right hand free from their grasp, in effect chambering your right hand.  As the touch of your grasp confuses their mind, you use that confusion to pull your hand free.

 

As you are now standing to the outside of their grasping hands, both of their hands focused on your left arm, now you strike to their face.

 

This is a simple learned skill. Using the fact they cannot stop you slapping your hands together as the opening to your response. This worked in 1974, it still works today.

 

 

Devin VanCurren and Mike Cassidy

 

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