Customer Reviews

Extreme Joint Locking And Breaking: Restraint and Submission Techniques for the Street

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm a long time fan of Loren Christensens books and DVDs. This one is exceptional and exactly waht I was looking for.

Christensen shows effective techniques that he and others he knows have used on the street in street fights and in his job as a cop. He shows you how to bring on the pain and then if the situation calls for it, he shows how to cause extreme damage to a person's joint or bone.

He calls his approach walking the body, which means he shows how to hurt fingers, wrists, elbows and so on through all the joints all the way to the ankles and toes.

If you're looking for street realistic techniques, this is a good one.

A very informative and fast read. None of the locks are overly complex but very workable. No fluff, only wished that he went into the various hammer locks (Turkey wings Chicken wings) as Judo Gene Lebel refers to them. I have read alot of Lorens books and found that this one along w/ his Mental Edge are best 2.A++++

I have read several of Loren's other books and found all of them very well done and very informative. I expected as much from this book, and I wasn't disappointed.

Each pictures took up an entire page and were very clear, although on a couple of the techniques I wished there had been a few more pictures in-between to show more smoothly the transition from one position to another, but that is merely a trivial complaint and not one that really affects any aspect of this book. The descriptions were well done, although I would have liked to seen a couple of them be a bit more descriptive, mainly for my own personal benefit more than anything.

Although not a lot of space was devoted to any one particular technique, the author did a fine job giving the reader a wide array of techniques that they can implement into their own personal arsenal of self-defense techniques. I would highly recommend this book for anyone interested in learning some simple and useful joint techniques for self-defense.

Here are a couple of other books by the author that I found to be extremely useful.

Fighter's Fact Book 2: Street Fighting Essentials

Timing in the Fighting Arts: Your Guide to Winning in the Ring and Surviving on the Street

Shawn Kovacich
Martial Artist/Creator of numerous books and DVD's.

I admit to being a fan of Loren Christensen's books and videos. Unlike one of the critical reviewers, I maintain that one of the plus factors in any so called street tactics books, is that the author has actual street experience as a police officer. I also enjoyed this book immensely because there were so many large clear photographs showing the techniques. As a life time student of the martial arts and more than forty years teaching police defensive tactics, I found most of the techniques in this great volume simple to learn and apply on resisting subjects. The fact is, I have used many of these techniques myself on actual combative subjects when I was a full time police officer. This detailed volume covers finger, wrist, elbow, shoulder, neck, and other control type techniques.

In conclusion, if you are seeking a practical and effective text on locks and control holds, this is a must have book for you.

Rating: 5 Stars. Joseph J. Truncale (Author: Monadnock Defensive Tactics (MDTS) System).

Not good for solo training as you need someone to practice the moves on.
If you have a partner then the book is very helpful.

I expected a lot more considering the coauthor is listed as being the police. I found too many techniques in this book in my opinion dangerous for LEO due to the fact that in numerous techniques he allows or intentional puts the offender in a position to access his weapon. Some of these techniques may work very well for someone who does not have a gun on their hip but for the LEO are they techniques for taking a chance on someone more skilled, faster then you, or simply Murphy's law applies on that day? I don't remember seeing one photo that has the practitioner in full police gear wearing a gun to simply show you how close he is putting the bad guy and his hands to his weapon. There are techniques where he instructs you to simply go to the floor. Again, I have to question that. When there is one bad guy expect there are two is too true in this line of work. Bad guy's are pragmatist and hunt in pairs. I've seen too many cops go to the floor only to get stomped in the head by another bad guy! I'm a Chicago cop with little training but raised with common sense of never trusting the bad guy or fate to watch my back have saved me more often then a solid back up of a good techniques.

Another title from a police officer convinced that he is a step above the Samurai of olden times because he slaps around a drunk every now and again.
The techniques in the book are solid. My issue with this text is that most of it is pictorial, and you get one pic per page with a single line of text, and most move sequences take four pages. Some of the pages and captions seem unrelated to the chain of events being described. I get the impression this would be a 45 paragraph text without all the photographic filler.
the text itself is so laden with Copisms that it's hard to read without rolling your eyes and groaning audibly. I hope I can find this in ebook format so I can easily count the number of times the word "street' is used in the tome. phrases like "tested on the street" or "on the street, seconds count" or "You can never trust anyone on the street" are all over this thing.
So I guess if you're a cop and immune to that sort of yammering, and you like a large format book with lots of pictures, go for it.
As I said before, the techniques are sound. This book just feels light though.