Often attackers/muggers don’t need to create a distraction to add the element of surprise to their assault. Many people are switched off to the potential for violence when they go about their daily business: minds drift and Ipod headsets dull the senses, creating perfect victims for would be predators.

There are times and occasions, that when we think about them, we can identify how vulnerable we are e.g. putting shopping in the boot of the car, walking up the garden path to our house whilst reaching for our house keys etcetera, etcetera.

Attackers watch for individuals who are pre-occupied with other thoughts and activities as these are the targets, who will be fail to identify a violent situation as it develops.

Distraction and Pre-occupation are the two methods that violent people use when attempting to set up an ambush.

N.B. Sometimes an attacker might unconsciously ambush a victim e.g. there are individuals such as some mentally ill people and some types of rapists who will legitimately engage another person in normal conversation only to unexplainably explode into a violent rage. The characteristics of the assault are similar to that of an ambush except in these instances no violence was actually pre-planned.

The key to preventing any kind of ‘ambush’ is to try and be aware of your surroundings at all times, or at least recognise activities you regularly do which naturally lower your awareness levels and attempt to take actions, both in behaviour and attitude to counter this e.g. get your house keys out before you get to your door and make sure you scan/take a look round your surroundings as you approach it; when approached by a stranger asking for directions etc, assume that they could attempt an ‘ambush’ and be conscious about your distance and body angle to them etcetera.

Remember with an ambusher, there is no chance to de-escalate the situation and that your only response is to defend yourself. Your best defence is to convince them early on that you are not victim material.

The Evening Performance

Certain types of individuals aren’t able to engage in violence without a degree of self-posturing and intimidation: they need to put on a bit of a pre-fight performance, for everybody’s benefit, including themselves, you and any friends or passers by.

The attempt is to give them the confidence to attack and reduce your ability to fight back by intimidating you: making you think the fight is lost before it’s begun. These ‘performances’ are always characterised by a lot of verbal: the aggressor telling you what they think of you, what they’re going to do to you and why they’re going to do it.

If things have got to this stage, running is rarely an option: it will convince your aggressor that you are victim material and invoke a natural ‘chase’ response in them. You can attempt to posture back to convince them that you’re not a victim and they should look elsewhere for a target for their aggression or you can attempt to de-escalate the situation. My preference is always for de-escalation above posturing: posturing can often just add fuel to the fire, forcing the aggressor to up their ante, which in turn will force you to do the same and thus the ever spiralling road to extreme violence is stepped out on.

The key with any de-escalation is to concentrate on the ‘why’ of the intended assault. If someone is genuinely angry/insulted they will be deaf to all but the opportunity to explain their grievance. Also some people need to justify the assault i.e. they need to give them self a legitimate reason for attacking someone and so they create an ‘injustice’ and then publicise it to the world. If this injustice can be countered then it can act as a check to their aggression; this is usually not a solution to the situation but it does allow a lot of their momentum to be stopped, which opens up other opportunities.

De-escalation, as I have stated before is not a passive act but an active one: alertness doesn’t drop and the readiness to physically defend yourself or make a pre-emptive attack should always be present.

The Marked Card

This type of attack is where an aggressor has decided you are a target and that they don’t have any need to make a verbal announcement about assaulting you: your card has been marked. How and when you identify this type of attack depends on your level of awareness. At best, you may identify someone watching you intently and exit the situation, at worst you don’t even see that attack, you just feel it.

The good news is that attacks of this nature are quite rare and occur infrequently. However they adhere to most people’s view of how violence happens and fall into the area of most people’s fear of violence i.e. the unprovoked and unexpected attack.

These types of attack are best dealt with by awareness: identifying potential aggressors and removing yourself from their vicinity. If you realise that such a situation is unfurling it is best to exit and if this is not an option take the attack to them pre-emptively rather than reacting to their assault.

Regards

Gershon

P.S. as always feel free to comment on anything using the contact page

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Technique gets you so far but only so far. Don’t get me wrong, good/great techniques are essential for being able to properly defend yourself but they aren’t the be-all and end-all. I have seem many great technical martial artists crash in training when the physical intensity is upped to a level they haven’t trained at: the perfect blocks fail, they find they haven’t the energy to make the techniques work etc, etc.

When a student looks at an instructor, what they often see as the difference between themselves and the instructor is technical competency: they see someone who can perform a technique flawlessly and without having to consciously think about what they’re doing. They often believe that it is this ability that makes the instructor able to defend him/herself on the street; their imagined view of such a violent encounter involving the instructor effortlessly performing technique after technique against one or more attackers. It may be that this is the way the instructor sees such a fight going down.

Anyone who has been involved in a street fight will know that their heart rate goes through the roof, they rapidly get out of breath and exhausted and are lucky if they manage to pull off the most basic of techniques. For trained individuals a real fight can be a frustrating affair as much of the technical ability they possess goes out of the window due to the high pressure/stress nature of the conflict.

It’s generally accepted that when a person’s heart rate is around 145 bpm/70% of maximum heart rate (this is an approximation as there is the possibility of different individuals having different maximum heart rates etc), they are working in an optimal zone. When the heart rate goes above 175 bpm/90% of maximum heart rate things rapidly start falling apart. Heart rate raised by ‘stress’ is very different to heart rate raised by exercise however when trying to control/lower heart rate caused by stress, the fitter a person is i.e. the lower their resting heart rate the greater the margin of control is.

A fitter person is able to do the same work/effort as an unfit person at a lower heart rate. Neither person will be able to initially stop their heart rate soaring to 175 BPM if the stress is great enough however as they attempt to lower it as part of managing that stress, the fitter person doesn’t have to worry about his body raising it up again due to exertion; physically he/she knows that their body can do the work required i.e. fight at a relatively low heart rate. The demands on their heart are due mainly to stress rather than physical exertion. With an unfit person this isn’t the case: their heart rate will be high simply down to the exertion of the fight, add in the stress factor and their heart will continue racing at the 175 BPM mark regardless of how well they manage to control their stress.

Working under stress is extremely exhausting; you just have to look at combat soldiers who after achieving an objective want to and often fall asleep (one of the officers jobs after an objective has been achieved is to keep his men awake). This is because stress uses up so much of the body’s resources that as soon as it can it will shut down so it can start a payback process. If the physical work/effort of defending yourself in a fight is high because of poor fitness, exhaustion will set in sooner, often during the fight itself.

I have seen countless fights where individuals launch themselves at each other for 30-40 seconds and then have to separate themselves because of exhaustion, catch their breath and start all over again. I have seen many fights, which have effectively stalled because neither party has the energy left to finish the other person.

No instructor or technical martial artist is exempt from the stress and raised heart rate of a violent encounter. If their fitness levels aren’t up to the workload of a street fight, then their heart rates will stay at a rate where they find it impossible to operate effectively: their techniques becoming worthless. It never fails to amaze me that many individuals think that their technical ability will somehow offset the stress effects and that they will expend so little energy executing their techniques.

If you want a good workout have a fight. If you want to experience extreme stress, have a fight. If you want to see your heart rate go through the roof, have a fight. There is nothing more exhausting on both the mind and body, than a violent encounter. Technical proficiency is not a solution to this problem. The only solutions are ‘tactical breathing’ etc (to lower the heart rate caused by stress) and fitness training to help cope with the workload of the fight itself.

A street fight is not a dojo or training hall encounter. In a regular class you don’t face someone whose intention could be to kill you (on the street, you need to make this assumption as you have no assurance that your assailant will ‘know’ when to stop). However graceful and relaxed you are in training, assume that your technical ability will fall by 75%. At 145 BMP, you will not be capable of many/any fine motor skill movements, so your fancy techniques need to go out of the window and at 175 BPM you’ll have trouble co-ordinating the ability to walk. If a combination of poor fitness and extreme stress take you into this zone, the fight is not about controlling your opponent it becomes about controlling yourself. If you can’t get your heart rate down you won’t be able to think/move or do anything of any relevance.

When I want to stress test my students, the first thing I do is give them a high cardio workout, to get their heart rates up and pumping. Then I hit them with the stress factor: people shouting at them, getting them to work blindfolded etcetera, etcetera. The deterioration in technical performance is extreme. On average they operate at about 25% efficiency. This is 25% efficiency in a training environment, where they face rubber knives, attacker who will try and pull the punch if it looks like it’s going to connect and guns they know are imitation. This is controlled stress and yet many see their heart rates hit into the 175 BPM zone. The work rate and the stress can be just too much. On the street you can double, triple or even quadruple this effect.

Reality self defence is made up of three factors: (1) simple, proven techniques; (2) aggressive and determined behaviour and (3) appropriate fitness training. Raise ability/competence in one area and he ability to survive on the street goes up. Reduce ability/competency in an area and survival chances go down.

Many instructors don’t like to stress the importance of fitness, as they believe that stating it as a training priority somehow diminishes the value of their techniques i.e. the techniques alone aren’t good enough. For many students this isn’t what they want to hear: most want to practice a no effort/no sweat type of system where the techniques alone are enough to do the job. There are many systems/arts that will state that this is the case however I have yet to see one that can truly deliver on its promise to offer reality self defence.

Promoting fitness for self-defence does not devalue technical ability it just stresses the importance of the foundations that support good techniques. Self-defence should not be about ego, it should be about presenting reality and offering a real solution to it. In the real world fitness is important: if there isn’t any gas in the tank then nothing is moving.

Regards

Gershon

P.S. as always feel free to comment on anything using the contact page

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One of the assumptions I always make when facing a violent individual is that they are not alone. Sometimes it is obvious that they have friends near by, other times it is not. However I must always deal with the situation assuming that they are not alone and that the people with them are willing to join a fight should one start. If I find that they are alone then that’s a bonus.

This means I must always fight/defend myself as if I’m facing multiple attackers, even if I don’t see anyone else coming to join in. Sometimes people who have no association with the individuals who are fighting will decide to join in and they don’t always join in as soon as the fight kicks off. Also it might take time for an attackers friends to realise he/she is involved in a fight. Just because no one else has joined the fight doesn’t mean they won’t later on. This means I must always fight as if I’m dealing with multiple opponents.

The first strategy employed in any fight should be that of ‘stun and run’. This is an engagement/disengagement tactic, which ensures the minimal amount of time is actually spent confronting an attacker. The idea is to deal with the opponent either pre-emptively or by responding to their attack and then exit the situation. The reason being that the longer you stay engaged with them the more likely things are to go wrong e.g. they pull a knife, they take you to ground etcetera, etcetera. With multiple attackers it is not possible to stay ‘engaged’ with one individual, going toe-to-toe with them, trading blows and/or attempting control/restraint techniques. Whilst you’re dealing with this person however successfully another is smashing a bottle on the back of your head. The quicker you disengage from any attacker the less likely this is to happen.

Never underestimate third parties who have no personal interest in a conflict getting involved. The world is full of individuals who on seeing the opportunity for a cheap, clean shot will attempt to get one in. Some people take great delight in inflicting pain with no cost to them self. This is extremely common when a fight goes to ground. It’s also one of those things that happens the longer a fight goes on. This is one of the reasons that disengaging quickly is so important.

One of the things I always teach my students to do is to ‘scan’. At every opportunity they have they should be looking around trying to take an account of their surroundings: they need to be aware of other individuals who are near them, be able to identify doors and exits and look for objects such as chairs that can be used as improvised weapons/barriers should a knife or weapon be pulled.

Scanning is also a good way of reducing the effects of extreme stress. One of the effects of extreme stress is that people start getting tunnel vision i.e. their focus is so much on the threat/danger that their peripheral vision closes down. By scanning, this focus gets broken and as a by-product some of the stress effects are reduced. So not only does scanning help identify other attackers it helps to relieve the stress of a fight.

Scanning should be done as a full head movement rather than just with the eyes.

The fact that I always assume I’ll be dealing with multiple attackers means that I have more interest in de-escalating the situation than I do in dealing with it physically. The odds that face you when dealing with just one person are high; against more than one they become quite extreme.

If you have to deal with multiple attackers, your thought should always be to get yourself to an exit. It is impossible to get the opportunity to get enough clean shots to take each one out however attractive Hollywood makes this seem. Escape is the only option. Your strategy should be to clear a space to the exit. This may mean pre-emptively attacking the person blocking your escape or working yourself round. You should avoid going between attackers even if the quickest route to the exit appears that way. The danger of being caught by one of the attackers in some sort of hold is to great a risk. Once grappling enters a multiple attacker situation the chances of survival drop significantly.

Lining opponents up so as you only ever have to face one person is the most sensible strategy to follow. They should be kept at distance, whilst looking for opportunities to escape.

If no exit is available and it’s time to fight then the target should be the leader of the group. Deal viciously with him/her so that: a) they realise there are consequences to their actions i.e. they can’t just punish at will and b) if the others see their leader taking a beating they may well become discouraged and hesitant.

I have only had to face multiple attackers once and fortunately they’d all had a few drinks. I came out of the situation in one piece more by ‘posturing’ than through any great techniques. I basically let the group know I was not adverse to biting, tearing and ripping myself through their flesh. If it had ever really come down to it, it would have been their fight however I managed to convince them by a display of extreme aggression that it really wasn’t worth their while getting involved with me: whatever they were going to do to me, I was prepared to do 10-fold back to them. However violent they could get, I could get more so.

If you try to fight the group you lose. The longer you spend dealing with them the more likely you are to use. Use speed and pre-emptive strikes to disengage and make for the exit.

Regards

Gershon

P.S. as always feel free to comment on anything using the contact page

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