No Spins, Kicks, Rituals, or Shouts: Just Deadly Street Fighting Techniques to Save Your Life

The principals of krav maga - or literally "hand combat" in the Hebrew translation - are not to provoke violence, but rather to negate it. Krav maga focuses on these core elements:

To not get hurt

To neutralize your attacker as fast as possible

To use all available tools or weapons around you

To be constantly aware of your surroundings

To get yourself out of danger as fast as possible

One of the most deadly street fighting techniques (or at least debilitating) is the self defense groin kick. A lot of people figure slamming a foot into an attackers groin is enough to pull off this move, but there are actually mistakes many martial artists make when executing self defense groin kicks.

Here are the fundamentals of a self defense groin kick:

Get in close
Trying to pull off a groin kick from far away only clues your attacker in to the fact that you are aiming at his groin. This makes the attacker more likely to turn or block the kick as an instinctive reaction.

Watch for headbutts
Traditional self defense groin kicks use a linear approach that puts the martial artist right in front of their attacker - and this is bad. The body is naturally going to bend forward to respond to a groin kick. This places you at risk for the attacker's head coming straight down on you - which is also bad.

Attack high first
So how do you avoid the headbutt reaction? Strike high first to your attacker's body. This also prevents him from seeing the groin kick coming, so you can make it even more powerful when you deliver the strike.

You can stop the natural "headbutt" reaction by first striking high to your attacker's body. This also makes sure that he doesn't see the groin kick coming and you can deliver more power in your technique.