Jim parked in the department’s parking garage and entered the building. He loved the fantastic gym at the police department. There was a weight room for those who wanted an anaerobic workout and another room the officer’s used for hand to hand combat or self defense training. That was exactly what he and Jenna would work on today.

Jenna entered the gym sooner than he. “I hope you are ready for a workout,” Jim said with a smile. He put his large black “sparring bag” down on the floor near her bag. The sparring bag contained shin guards, rib guard, head protection, MMA gloves, two training knives, a training stick, a training handgun, a first aid kit, a bottle of water, mouth guard, his current belt (black/red), and two pair of boxing gloves. He pulled out a black and white pair of gloves that appeared to be broken in and a pair of yellow colored “Venom” gloves. The yellow gloves were still in a plastic wrapping.

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Jim handed the brand new Venom gloves to Jenna, “here. Take these. They are yours now.” Jim was dressed in a black T-shirt that had the logo for America’s Best Defense imprinted on it and pair of black boxing shorts with a Krav Maga Alliance or KMA logo imprinted on them. It had a two-inch-wide camouflage pattern up the seam of both legs.

Jim reached for a kick shield; there were several hanging on a wall. “We are going to warm up with some punches. When you punch, you want to make a fist like this.” He demonstrated in the traditional manner, dropping the kick shield to free up his hands. “Make sure your thumb is against the middle sections of your fingers. You don’t want it on top or tucked in between your fingers and your hand. Both good ways to break a few bones. When you make contact, only the facing two digits of your first two fingers should make contact. Avoid contact with your two smaller fingers as they could break easily. Next, your stance is important. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart and take a half step back with your right foot or the distance of the foot itself so that your right toe is lined up with the heel of your left foot, but shoulder width apart. When you punch, lean slightly forward. If you are in a fight, you don’t want to be standing upright as your attacker could quickly put you on your heels. Always lean into a fight. You can always lean back if you have to in order to dodge or slip a punch.”

“I am going to teach you the four basic punch combinations. They are each numbered one through four. The first punch you need to know, is the [i]jab[/i]. Since you are right handed, your jab is thrown with your left hand, or lead hand. Rotate your left shoulder slightly forward as you punch. Rotate your upper torso forward as you punch.” Jim demonstrated a few jabs in the air. “The jab is combination number one. Combo two is a jab – cross. The cross is thrown by your rear hand or right hand. When you throw the jab, you rotate your body forward on the left side. This naturally sets up the right cross by rotating that hand and arm rearward away from your attacker. Pull your left glove back to your face as you throw your right glove while rotating your body with the right side of your torso moving forward. Again, rotate the right shoulder slightly forward as you make impact.” Jim demonstrated the right cross by rotating his body forward into the air. When he was complete, he returned both fists to his face. “It is important to keep your hands up by your face when you are in a fight. You need to be able to protect your face. Most fighters will punch the head rather than other parts of the body.” Then he demonstrated combo two by throwing a jab and a cross successively. “Combo two is what is often referred to as the one – two punch.” Jim exhaled a while making a [i]shh[/i] or hissing sound when he threw a punch. It helps to control your breathing during training as well as during a fight. Many people have a tendency to hold their breath during both and that just makes the work unnecessarily tiring. Most people are challenged to keep their hands up by their face when they spar, fight or train. It requires strong deltoids and conditioning which is acquired over months or years of training.

“Ok, we have two more punch combinations to get through. Combo three is the same as combo two, with the addition of the left hook. When you throw the left hook, you rotate your shoulder back as your arm hooks outward. Then, when you rotate your body forward, keep your fist sideways with your forearm perpendicular to the floor. Throw the punch and quickly bring the left hand back to your face. The movement of your left arm should give the appearance of a witch stirring a cauldron.” Jim made a circular motion with his left hand as he rotated his torso and left shoulder repeatedly making the proper motion for a hook. “Combo three should look like this,” he demonstrated the three-punch combination in the air throwing the left jab, the right cross and the left hook. “The final combination we will cover is combo four. It is the same as combo three with the addition of another right cross. Combo three was jab – cross – hook while combo four is jab – cross – hook – cross.”

Jim turned to pick up the kick shield, “put on the gloves and we’ll try it out.” Jenna slipped on her brand-new pair of Venom boxing gloves. They had that new leather smell to them. The pair went through several punch combinations. Jim watched the clock and stopped her after a minute. It is exhausting, punching a pad correctly, keeping your hands up by your face for one minute straight. “You’re doing fantastic! I remember my first time doing this, I threw six punches and was bent over breathing heavy. Don’t feel bad if you can’t keep punching throughout the entire minute. Hopefully we will extend the time you are punching a bit longer. In my Krav class, we normally do three-minute rounds. There is a drill we perform occasionally called the [i]cauldron[/i]. The cauldron is three three-minute rounds. In the first round, you throw one of each combination. Then you take a 30-second break. In the second round, you throw two of every combination and in the third round, you throw three of each combination. It is an excellent work out.”

After one round on the kick shield, Jim put the shield away and picked up a pair of Muay Thai pads, These are smaller pads that fit over each hand. They are rectangular in shape; smaller than the kick shield, but still large enough to hit individually with a glove. Jim had Jenna punch the pads calling out numbered combinations from one to four repeatedly for three one-minute rounds.

“One!” Jim called out and Jenna’s arm uncoiled like a snake ready to strike.

“Three!” Jim called out and Jenna’s hands reacted appropriately. Jim held his left hand up to meet Jenna’s left jab. Then he held up the right pad to meet Jenna’s cross. He turned the left hand so his arm was perpendicular to his body and parallel to the floor. It was in position to meet Jenna’s left hook. 

After three one-minute rounds, he put to the pads away. “Take the gloves off.” As Jenna took her gloves off, Jim retrieved a hard-molded black rubber hand gun with red paint where the muzzle would be. Upon close inspection, the pistol resembled the .40 caliber semi-automatic handgun the Boston Police Department issued to all its officers.

“Your arms should feel warmed up now. I hope that wasn’t too bad for you.” He stepped onto the mat with her holding onto the rubber handgun. “Let’s try some gun defense now. The one thing I want you to always be aware of during any of this training is where your own sidearm is located. You need to protect it; keeping it away from your attacker. You never want to give your attacker an opportunity to take it from you; even if you have it locked into the holster.”

Jim handed the pistol to Jenna. “Hold it up to my chest with your arm out as though you wanted to steal something from me. TV tells us that when you are held up at gun point, you should raise your hands. Instead of raising them up over your head, bring them up to chest height instead. This will put your hands at a shorter distance to the firearm than leaving them by your side or above your head. You can even tell your attacker, they can have anything they want or please don’t shoot or I have children. It doesn’t matter if you do or not. If they have any sense of humanity, they may not shoot a mother.”

“Your first move is to blade your body by pulling your right shoulder back and rotating your left shoulder forward. While you are blading your body, your left hand will come straight up. It is best if you slowly raise your hands about mid chest; as though you were going to raise them over your head. Form a V with the thumb and forefinger of your left hand. This V will go under the receiver or barrel of the pistol in front of the trigger guard. Wrap your hand around the pistol and twist it into the attacker as you straighten your arm out. You should in a sense punch your attacker in the stomach with the pistol in your left hand. As you do this, simultaneously burst forward, with our left or lead foot landing just outside your attacker’s right foot and punch the attacker in the face with your right hand. After the punch pull your right hand back and then make a similar motion as though throwing an uppercut and grab behind the slide or hammer of the pistol with your right hand. The gun is now yours, just pull it up and away towards yourself, backing away. You may want to pull the slide to the rear, in order to cock the weapon and hold it on your attacker. Or since you carry a sidearm you know works fine, you could ditch the attacker’s gun; place it in your pocket and retrieve your own. You never know what some of these brain children do to their firearms. I remember one time, this guy had a forty-caliber hand gun, but he had 9mm bullets. So, he put duct tape around each bullet so they would fit in the magazine and the chamber. He was a dumbass. All that did was cause the weapon to jam when he tried to shoot it. You have no idea of the intelligence of the lame ass holding the pistol. Use your own over one you took from some Joe on the streets.”

Jenna and Jim went over gun from the front defense several times before they both felt comfortable with it. “Is there something specific you would like me to cover?” Jim asked Jenna. “We could do more punching combinations or get into kicking as well, if you would like?”