Earlier on the news today I saw a story about a guy who was knocked down and repeatedly kicked by an attacker until someone else intervened and scared the attacker off -- police found a switchblade at the scene of the crime which was covered in the victim's blood. One guy made a comment on camera that he personally deplores anyone who's willing to kick another guy while he's lying on the ground.

Newsflash: tactically speaking, the _best_ time to kick someone is when they're on the ground! Is it scum? Sure... but it's bloody effective because it's really hard for your opponent to defend or counter... even with training, fighting a standing opponent while you're lying down is jolly difficult!

"It is a military axiom not to advance uphill against the enemy, nor to oppose him when he comes downhill." - Sun Tzu (The Art of War)

This story just serves as a reminder as to why training for self defence should never assume that an opponent shares any sense of "honour" or "decency" that you may hold. All too often I've come across practitioners who let their form down because of this (and in my personal observation, particularly amongst those who train for competition fights because comps enforce rules that disallow cheap moves - thus quite a lot of guys don't train to cover themselves against dirty tactics).

Sticking just with being kicked while on the ground, here's an example of what I mean. First, here's a breakfall technique that I've seen often taught to competition fighters (goes from right to left): Link
If you look at where the person ends up in the final positions (far left side), he's very exposed. With the right hand slapping down on the ground to his side, he's left that side wide open - the face (incl. nose, teeth), throat, chest, ribs, stomach etc. are unprotected and it doesn't take much for even an untrained attacker to just repeatedly stomp and kick into those open areas in a mad frenzy. While that diagram shows both feet together, in reality I find most people who do this technique tend to end up with their legs like this or this <---these guys are actually using their spare hand to cover the face, but the side of the head (i.e. ear/neck) is exposed (although he could try to cover that with the shoulder) - and lower flank and stomach and GROIN are all wide open!


Here's what I mean...

^Kicker has done a reverse breakfall using the technique as described above and Gamede is easily following up by kicking his face (just as well he has a helmet I suppose).

A technique that is favoured more amongst some traditionalists is to curl your body into a ball (almost like a foetal position). The hands are behind the ears with the elbows pinching toward each other, and of course the chin is tucked toward the chest so this forms a protective 'cage' around the head and neck area. The knees are tucked right in which then forms a second protective 'cage' around the torso and with knees together, the groin is protected. See the pic on the left below:

This position also allows the defender to use one or both of his legs to intercept potential kicks from the attacker, or possible even try to attack the attacker's supporting leg(s) to elicit him to fall over (thus neutralising the "high ground" advantage) - e.g. scissor leg takedown.