Kenpo Self Defense vs New self defense

One of the cool things about Lavallees is that the karate curriculum keeps moving forward.

When I started as a white belt, we learned kenpo (kempo? KC said that I appear to need some help with my written karate vocabulary. This is a great example. I need to make some time....) self-defense.

This was apparently a little more intricate than what we're moving to which is more direct. And it's more related to MMA too which of course, means that it's trendy. Which I'm in favor of. We're all fascinated by MMA these days.

For instance, we initially learned that if you are grabbed by the lapels, you lock their hands to your chest with one hand. Then, you strike upwards on their arms with your arms (breaking elbows), put that arm above their hands (still pinned to your chest) and knock them down while hitting their face with that elbow in the same move. As you pull back, you backhand the face too.

In the new approach, you still lock their hands to your chest but then, step in and upper cut to the throat, jaw, or nose. Then, without while still pinning their hands to your chest (and controlling them), you elbow across the face, grip the back of their neck and pull them into some knee strikes (face, leg, groin, body, face). In this method, you never release control and you get more quickly to disabling strikes. Partially, it's that I'm now learning advanced moves but also, this is a change of system.

I particularly like it that KC took the time to contrast the systems and explain the change. It's so much more interesting to know the derivation of the different moves and how to categorize them.
....sure which I had a view but it's getting a little ridiculous how often I'm pulling out my camera after class and asking people to demo for me.....