The basic principles is that when you attack and your opponent either gets hit or has to dodge out of the way, that is the time when you have the greatest advantage because you have control of what is happening, your opponent is just reacting to you rather than acting in the way that they would like, they are more likely to be off balance or in an awkard position because of your attack and therefore will less able to unleash an effective attack against you straight away. So the idea is to capitalise on this advantage with a relentless stream of continuous attacks. I once trained in a Ninjutsu school that based their training entirely on this method so when we trained punches and kicks you would always be told to step forwards after rather than going back to your starting position. We were told that you should attack with 100% commitment and not stop until the fight is over. You do have to train this strategy before using it to learn how to string together long combinations, and you should be prepared to strike with any and every part of your body.

The most important thing you need to get right using the continuous attack strategy is knowing when to start an attack, and when you have to stop. In the fight I mentioned before the ninjutsu fighter, having decided to use this strategy, just charged at his (much larger) opponent right from the beginning and basically just ran onto his opponents fist and got knocked out in the first few seconds. The point is that you should not attack at all until you see a decent opening in your opponents defences. Don’t just attack fromm the beginning, don’t punch or kick just for the sake of it or out of anger or to hurt your opponent but not beat them. Use the beginning of a fight solely to find that 1 chance for a decent strike - and then once you have begun your attack just keep going relentlessly. If you land a good punch with your first attack then this strategy will win you the fight 90% of the time, and even if you miss with your first attack it can be very effective.  As long as you are either striking or causing your opponent to break their usual stance to avoid your attacks then you are maintaining your advantage, but if they are backing away or to the side to avoid you without having to lean or duck then your advantage is lost, you are wearing yourself out for nothing, and you should stop. Get these 2 things right - when to start an attack and when to end it - the continuous attack strategy is more effective than any single technique.

If you haven’t already done so you might also like to take a look at his earlier post on special forces knife training

I once spent some time training at a club where one of the basic fighting techniques which all students learned was how to roll with the punches and be responsive. The main training technique which they used was this: One student would take a bo staff (a long fighting staff weapon) and with one end then would put it against their training partner’s body in different positions and push them. The second person would then try to go with the motion of the push and incorporate it into a counter strike technique. So for example if someone pushes (or in an actual fight punches) your left hip or stomach, then your natural reaction is to double up and as your left lower torso goes back your right upper torso goes forward; so you would try to incorporate the movement imposed on you into a strike forwards with your right fist, avoiding getting hurt from the attack whilst also using it to direct more power into a counter attack. It does take a lot of training in this kind of thing to be able to use it in real street fighting situations, but the general principle of rolling with the punches is one that anyone can use without any training at all.

I do also write articles on other topics, so just in case you are interested here is what I think are a couple of my best ones:  How To Make Your Own iPhone Apps and Best Gift Baskets for Men. Hope you like them.

Looking at the heart strike is a good way to learn about this kind of attack, although as with all of these deadly techniques it is not something which I would advise you to go out and use. The basic principle is the same one which is used in CPR to restart a persons heart when it has stopped, only in this case it would have the opposite effect - stopping the heart. In order to achieve this you need to cause a compression of the chest which is best achieved by pushing rather than striking. All of these kind of internal force strikes, which can be used to knock the wind out of a person or attack the kidney’s (very painful and debilitating) as well as the heart, aim to cause this kind of compression. The trick is to do it quickly with a strike.

With an ordinary strike you would want to keep your arm relaxed up until the point of impact, when you would tense your whole arm and dissipate the force of the strike into the surface of their body, and you would want to be using all of your power when you hit. For this kind of attack you want to be using very little power when you make contact, but then increase to full power as you strike, and try to keep your arm relaxed as it makes contact.

This is difficult to describe adequately, as you really need to get a feel for it yourself to understand. The best way to do this is to find something to practice on which is capable of being compressed. An old car tyre standing up is good, but anything that allows for a decent amount of compression will do the job. To start off with just hit it in the normal way (wear gloves or use your palm, or you’ll hurt your hand) and you will see that there is very little give. Then use the first part of your strike just to make contact with your target as quickly as possible, without trying to put power into it until immediately after you have made contact. You should definitely use your palm for this, as it is much more effective than a fist. See how much more give there is, and you will begin to see how to do this strike. Keep practicing then to make sure that there is no pause at the point of contact and to learn how to transmit as much internal force as you can.

Deadly Art of Eskrima Knife Fighting by Frans Stroeven Part1 - video powered by Metacafe

So here is the situation: you are lying on your back, your attacker is between your legs, most likely with your knees raised up, you are struggling and your attacker is trying to subdue you by hitting you. It is worth noting that this position, the most common position immediately prior to a full sexual assault, is a common defensive posture used in mixed martial arts called the guard, so there are a large number of proven techniques that can be used to defend yourself in this situation (although not all MMA techniques would be appropriate).

And here is what you do: As your attacker hits you grab hold of their wrist. This shouldn’t be hard to do, as long as you can overcome the natural instinct to just try to block the strike - you may have to just let them hit you in order to concentrate on making the grab, but it is worth making this kind of sacrifice. At the same time you should twist your body to the side lifting whichever of your legs is on the same side as the arm they used to hit you and throwing it across in font of their face so that the back of your leg is against their head or neck. From here it is actually fairly easy to apply a very painful joint lock that is perfectly capable of breaking the arm at the elbow simply by straightening your body and flattening yourself against the ground by pulling their arm and pushing their head with your leg so that you end up lying on top of their arm - then just pull up on their wrist whilst using the weight of your body to keep their elbow down. You woulod be suprised how little strength you need to use when doing this to cause exreme pain and even to break the arm at he elbow joint (which is a much worse injury than a regular fracture).

For a bit of further information on using arm bars as a defense fromthis position here is a video showing how it is used in mixed martial arts fighting:

The technique that I am talking about is the knee smash to the spine. It is great for taking someone out of action instantly, but can break the spine and end up leaving the person it is used on paralyzed or dead. Basically begins with grabbing your opponent in a head lock so that their body is in front of you, their neck held under your armpit, and their head behind you. There are various ways you might move into this, but a common one would be to side step a punch and turn so that you are standing next to them facing the same way as they are as you grab them and pull their head backwards. At the same time as pulling their head back and down so that they have to bend their body backwards you then drive your knee up into the spine. The shock of this will always cause temporary paralysis / severe difficult getting back up and moving around, but as already stated it can also quite easily maim or kill, so should not be used lightly.