Grab & Stab Defense in the Pekiti-Tirsia System.

Training the empty hand defense of the Grab and Stab attack; starting with the grab. We begin with defending against the boxing jab, because if you can slip the fast jab, you can also slip the grab. From that point a progression of followup techniques are shown. I prefer to train against the grab first, before the stab. If the first technique you teach is with the attacker already grabbing the student, and only then countering the stab, you are training them to let the opponent put their hands on them before they can react and begin their defense. Once the opponent has grabbed you, your job has just gotten much more difficult. The order of when you teach a technique can be just as important as the techniques themselves. For more on this subject, read my essay on Empty Hand vs Knife training: