A lot of self-defense books teach you about punching, kicking, and other methods of striking. Kill-As-Catch-Can takes a different approach--Ned Beaumont shows you how to use wrestling moves in a streetfight. Not the theatrics of professional wrestling, of course, but the grapples, holds, and take-downs of Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling. The reason is that in the real world, fisticuffs often end up with the participants in a clinch, sometimes on the ground.

Beaumont starts off with some general, preliminary tips involving aggressiveness, balance, stance, grips, and other starting points. From there, you're ready for take-downs, including body slams, leg take-downs, and throws. A chapter on holds and locks looks at the chicken wing arm lock, head locks, full and half nelsons, the figure-four leg lock, and others.

Should you end up on the floor, Beaumont tells you how to get your ass up, or if your opponent is also down and you're in an advantageous position, you can pin him or put him in a "pain hold".

If you're in a kill-or-be-killed fight, trying to pin or hold you adversary may not be enough. If you want to maim or even kill him, the chapter on finishing moves will show you how to employ drops, the pile driver, and chokes and strangles.

If you're fighting someone who's using these moves on you, you can defend yourself with countermoves that can break or block nelsons, take-downs, bear hugs, etc. Sometimes you'll need to fight dirty, and Beaumont teaches you the best tricks like biting, eye-gouging, hair-pulling, and using foreign objects. "Chairs are probably the best defense against knives . . . Against a knife, use a chair as a spear, not a club. Hold the chair on the back (not the seat) so that your hands won't get cut. Stab with the chair, in short controlled jabs: the seat of the chair is your shield and the legs are spear points. Be aggressive and make an attack your best defense. It's impossible for your knife-wielding adversary to defend against all four legs at once."

The lengthiest chapter, "The Sweat Room", will give you real-world advice on how to get in the best shape possible for kicking ass, although it's good advice if you want to get into prime shape for any reason. Concerning weight-lifting, he says: "Forget about the party line of eight to ten reps and three sets. To build muscle mass, you need to work the muscles more intensely and about twice that long: aim for 15-20 reps. Three sets is a waste of time except for the elite bodybuilders: most people only hold back their efforts on the first two sets, saving it up for the third. If you work intensely, one set is sufficient, and two is the maximum (the first is warm-up set). If you can pump out 20 reps in the first set and 20 more in the second, then you need to add more resistance, not more sets."

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