Tips for self-defence
Published: Tue, 07/17/18
I have been writing some answers for questions on Quora. Here is one I posted today, the question was;
What are some self-defence tips everyone should know.
My two pennyworth on the subject.
One. Life is full of paradoxes such as: If a situation gets to the stage where you are sorting it out by hitting someone, or they are hitting you, then something has gone seriously wrong. Violence is mostly avoidable if you are situationally aware and willing to take the appropriate action at the right time. For example, just leave the rowdy party before it gets out of control. Or just don’t take that midnight shortcut through the park where the drug addicts hang out. On the other hand, if you have never been in a violent confrontation you will never know what it really feels like, or how you will react. So, maybe you should not walk away from every confrontation. Yes, it could be risky, so do it when you are young and heal fast. I have had some real fights, worked in mental institutions, and taught in some very rough schools. For many martial artists, working as a doorman or, what we used to call bouncer, was the traditional
way of legitimately getting some experience of real life confrontation. Hence the paradox, violence is bad, but there is no substitute for experience.
Two. Fear causes a release of adrenaline. We hear that adrenaline causes a flight or fight response which makes you stronger, faster and less likely to feel pain. True, up to a point. Actually the first effect of adrenaline is to cause you to freeze. There is probably a simple, evolutionary, explanation for this. Caveman ancestor sees saber tooth tiger, caveman instinctively freezes which means big cat may not see him at all. Big cat does see caveman and is going to have him for lunch, running becomes a good idea. Big cat catches up, only response now is to fight. Each level of adrenaline release prompts progressive response. When we get confronted with an aggressive person adrenaline gets released into the body. We may be perfectly capable of escape or fighting back effectively. But the first level of adrenaline prompts us to freeze and we may just do nothing. I believe that this is often the reason that ‘martial arts do
not work in the real world’. It isn’t that a punch to the solar plexus which you have perfected in a Karate class has no effect in the real world. It is more likely that you just won’t do anything at all if the first dose of adrenaline has caused you to freeze.
Once you are familiar with the effect of adrenaline release into your body then it is perfectly possible to override the feelings that go with it and still act effectively. The problem is how to provoke the genuine experience of fear in a training situation. Instructors can try creating various forms of stress but the unconscious mind is not easily fooled for long. See point one again.
Three. A lot is made of situational awareness in advice on self-defence. I am all in favour of awareness and I won’t add anything about it here. What is not mentioned often enough, is safe distance, and how to manage distance in a conflict situation. You can judge safe distance by asking a training partner to face you and raise their arms with hands and fingers fully extended to the front. Do the same yourself and just touch their finger tips. Now, both lower your arms and learn how to judge that distance intuitively. For the average man that distance will be about five feet, and this is the amount of personal space a stranger should give you if they mean you no harm. Even if someone is angry with you and is shouting and cursing, so long as they keep the safe distance you probably do not have too much to worry about. However, if someone you are suspicious of is playing nice to get closer than the safe distance then be concerned
and maintain the distance, perhaps by backing off or asking the potential antagonist to respect your personal space. If they still insist on closing distance then you need to prepare for trouble by changing your posture progressively and appropriately.
Four. Practice self-defence techniques for real with your training partners. Be slow, gentle and controlled but learn how to reach and engage with actual targets on the human body. Apply effective body mechanics with a cooperative partner so that you can take a movement or position right through to its limit. Remember that speed and power are completely relative and you can always do a movement faster and harder if you have to.
Isn’t it more effective to train to hit hard at vulnerable areas of the body? Well, if you have expendable sparring partners then okay go ahead. Do you actually have anyone you train with who considers themselves expendable? Me neither. So, you are either going to have to train hard with techniques that do not actually work, or very gently with moves that do. You can only do effectively, what you have trained to do. If you train to do an action hard, but ineffectively, in training so that you do not damage your training partner, then what can you add to make it effective against a real aggressor? If you have trained a movement intensively then you are most unlikely to modify the action under the stress of combat. There is no reason to believe that a deeply ingrained reflex will work any better ‘on the street’ than in training. But if the movement has been practiced to break balance and effectively redirect an opponent in
training then this will also have a very good chance of working the same way in ‘reality’. By no means all self-defence situations require actually hurting someone, even if the situation does go physical, dealing with the drunk uncle at the family wedding being the classic example. So, you must be capable of combining genuine skill with gentleness and control. If the situation is serious enough to risk hurting someone then speed and power can always be added to an effective technique. However, speed and power won’t compensate for a technique that is ineffective in the first place.
fifth. What is the best mind set to adopt in a violent confrontation which you either can’t, or choose not to, avoid? It has been a long time since I got into a real fight (at my age now it would be rather undignified). But on the four or five occasions when it was appropriate to fight back hard I found myself just wanting to test out stuff my instructor had taught me. Some times techniques worked just as I had been told they would, sometimes they didn’t and I had to try something else or perhaps I had to analyse the situation and adapt fast. I still have a damaged little finger from trying out a particular strike which was recommended to me by my instructor, it isn’t a strike I teach today, but at least I know why.
So, back to the paradox I started with. I am personally a very gentle and peaceful person and I will always do my best to avoid upsetting people and I certainly don’t like to hurt anyone. But I am also a martial artist, and a teacher, so I welcome learning opportunities and I discover as much as I can from every experience. It is good to keep safe and avoid conflict, but you can’t call yourself a real warrior unless you have been tested and learned from the experience.
regards
Graham
PS Someone who was booked on the training on Saturday has dropped out so I still have a couple of places for self-defence in the morning and staff in the afternoon, full details at http://iceandfire.org.uk/train.html