Q:  How do I defend against a body tackle over or under my arms and remain standing?

A:

I have a video tape of a Texas State Trooper who is tackled by a suspect and he does everything in his power to remain standing, yet he cannot effectively resist the tackle and is, unfortunately, murdered with his own duty weapon because he didn't have a plan for a tackle.

You say in your question that you are defending against a body tackle. I'll take that to mean someone NOT just trying to bear hug you. (There are various defenses against bear hugs either over your arms or under your arms).

But in your case, your opponent is driving into you with the express purpose of taking you down to the ground.

You say you want to remain standing while defending against a tackle. Before we begin, I have to tell you that you will have a very difficult time in achieving your goal against an aggressive opponent. If he is determined to take you to the ground, you will be fighting his weight (and the Law of Gravity) along with finding your balance, mobility and stability increasingly compromised.

There are ways to defeat a tackle and remain standing:

• First, control his head. As he dives in to tackle you, push his head down with either one or both of your hands. Control his head down and away from you, as you evade his tackle.  People with wrestling and football backgrounds are usually good at this technique.  The Pedro Martinez takedown on Don Zimmer is a good example of this technique.
• One of my favorite techniques against the tackle is the standing guillotine.  As he drives into tackle you, you guide his head into the crook of your arm.  Grab your own wrist under his neck and cinch it up tight.  You can turn your forearm so the radius bone is pointed up and the blade of your forearm digs into his throat.  Straighten your back and shrug your shoulders upwards to complete this very, very painful choke.  Make sure that both of your arms are next to your body and not wrapped around his arms.  In other words, if he has one of his arms against your body and you have your arm under his armpit, it will not work.  True you can crank him pretty good with one arm in front and the other under his arm, but the technique is not clean and you won't get a good result.  This technique works well for me because I am taller than many people.  If you watch many NHB or cage matches, it is a technique that has a very high degree of successful finishes.  (However, do not perform this technique if you are a law enforcement officer.  You will have both of your arms tied up and his arms will be right next to your duty weapon).
• You can also try a technique that was taught to me as the “Olympic Tilt”. You hook under one of his arms with your arm and over the top of his other arm. As you step to one side to evade his tackle, you push down with the arm that was on top of his arm and pull up with the underside arm. This usually spins the guy off his feet as you play like a Matador.
• Relson Gracie teaches us to stop his forward momentum by extending your arms and catching his shoulders with your palms then using his momentum to shuck him forward onto his face.  You can now follow up with a kick if needed.
• Tom Proctor teaches a technique with his “shield” that uses a similar strategy of stopping the guy’s tackle with your extended arm before he can wrap his arms around you.

Most realistically, however, you will probably be going to the ground to defeat the tackle. The key is to control your descent and counter the tackle on your terms, not his.

• Even if you control his head (like in the first bullet point above) you’ll probably need to sprawl out to keep him from grabbing your legs. As you sprawl your legs back out and wide, use your body weight to drive his face into the ground.
• A simple technique which almost every kid and football player has done is to drop to the ground in a ball, essentially cutting the feet out of the onrushing tackler. It seems like a very sophomoric move, but hey, it has worked for me in a real fight before I "knew" anything else! Make sure you protect your head as you do this so you don’t get an inadvertent kick to the head.
• If he gets a hold of your legs, there is a judo technique call “rice bag toss”. As he tackles you, you sit down (controlling your own descent) while grabbing his belt or clothes with one hand. As you sit down, you pull him over by his belt. Doing a back roll while doing this usually ends up with you sitting on top of the guy.
• There is another judo throw called a tomoe nage or round throw which uses the guy’s forward momentum against him. As he rushes in (with more of a high tackle than a low, spearing tackle) you grab his shoulders, put one foot up on his hip and sit down, launching him over you. One variation of this is to bring your shin up into his groin as you send him over.
• If all else fails, you can control your own descent while sitting down and pull the guy into your guard (both of your legs wrapped around the outside of his body). This is a specialty of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu stylists who find that if you control the position when you both land, you are in a much better position to counter attack.
• For law enforcement officers and other public safety personnel, the simple answer is to control your descent while sitting down, simultaneously drawing and firing your duty weapon at the attacker to stop the assault.

Two other items that I see tried ALL THE TIME with very little effect. One is to punch the guy in the face as he comes in and the other is to attempt to kick him as he comes in. Don’t get me wrong, they will work if everything goes right, but usually the result is that you are out of position after attempting to strike and he drives you into the ground. Kicks are usually jammed and punches usually glance off the guy’s hard head as he comes in.

So think about if it is realistic to think that you can remain standing against a tackle. Then make sure you work on techniques to allow you a defense should you go to the ground.