The Slap

Don't discount the slapping technique. There are a variety of reasons why a slap is used. First is the hard-to-soft/soft-to-hard rule I first heard about from the Animal list by Marc MacYoung. This is not the Slavo Slap he speaks of but rather the rule that you use a soft, slap, to the hard parts of the body and a hard, punch or strike with fist, to the softer parts of the body. 

Second, using a slap in self-defense can be perceived as a means by which you are trying to stop an attack with a method that is not considered a fighting technique but more in line with defensive techniques. If you have you hands up with palms out facing toward an adversary it is often considered a sign of "don't want to fight but want to not fight" type thing. It is considered a defensive posture and a clear sign to someone on the attack you don't want to fight. 

Third, when applied quickly to certain points on the body it can have the effect that stops a fight from beginning if you feel the adversaries attack is imminent. It does when applied correctly stop an attack. 

I use the slap a lot in practice for just these types of reasons. You can hit someone a solid hit with the slap so they are getting use to being hit and having it hurt. You can use the slap and done correctly hit pretty hard without doing real or significant damage. When you slap someone in certain places it sends a message that the person has been hit and that they failed to avoid that hit, etc. Look at it as the first stage of introduction to violence both social and asocial.

If you don't get hit and if you don't get yourself conditioned, mentally and physically, toward getting hit then when you do in reality it will result in a freeze and possibly a lot of damage before you can act. Feeling a good hit and then acting is a hard thing to learn and incorporate. When you are attacked in a predatory manner you have to act, you have to be able to take violent, fast and flurry type hits and still act. 

I know that at one black belt test they asked me, a visiting karate-ka, to spar with the guy testing. So, after his first sparring session I stepped up to spar with him. I said spar, sparring is not fighting, so told him it would be easy and to take his time. I said this because he had never faced me before and I wanted to see how he would react to an unknown since his other dojo practitioners were sparring with him and he was use to their tactics and strategies.

I spent the time going slow and easy but I used a good, solid slap method most of the time and a few hard flat fist punches to certain points of the body that I knew would not result in hurting him or injuries. When we gathered later a few of his dojo mates commented they thought that I was a bit to rough on him. Regardless, this young person had never truly been hit. Even with this light sparring session he had reacted badly when hit and often simply backed off to recuperate vs. acting to counter and stop my attack. I did often push him relentlessly then would back off after about three or four combinations and he did the sport thing by not pressing the opportunity of my backing off. 

This session I use as an example speaks to the need to hit and get hit but also to the sportive aspects that teach one to do things that are not good in a real fight. The slap can be a useful tool as well as teach a person to use both the slap and the fist, not forgetting other body tools like the elbow, etc., to achieve good self-defense. 

Now, there is a type of slap I learned of on a Yahoo group, the Animal List, called the Slavo Slap. Until I read an article by Wim Demeere, the Wim Demeere's Blog titled "Martial Arts Myths: Death Touch" I had not actually seen the Slavo slap in action. I assumed it was a slap to specific hard targets that worked similar to striking pressure points or vulnerable points of the body. The video's he has shows how they can work and it is not just a simple slap. 

Then Mr. Demeere goes into his fundamentals on making such techniques work for self-defense. Very good and instructive post by Mr. Demeere. I found the Slavo Slap youtube presentations such that it would be really cool to see more on how it works and how to learn and practice that technique. I thought it might be a really good tool to add to the self-defense tool box. 

In addition, Wim Demeere provides a really cool method of teaching striking be it fist of slap, i.e. volume, part, area and point, etc. This article is comprehensive so go read it. Or, you can watch a bunch of the old Star Trek programs and learn the Vulcan Neck Pinch instead :-)