There's two main types of self defense situations. Criminal assaults and brawls. Each has a different focus and requires different things. IMO, when most people walk into an MA school and say "I want to be able to defend myself" they mean in a brawl. They mean when a bully at the bar or carnival or in school or wherever gets in their face and shoves them they want to be able to kick that guys butt.
That's simple. You learn to fight. Best place to learn to fight? Sport combat schools. MMA or a solid grappling or striking art. You learn how to take getting pounded, fighting fundementals like movement, timing, distance, how to hit hard, takedown and avoid takedowns, clinch, etc. Everything you need to kick that bully's butt.
Criminal assaults are another matter, however. They are more serious, and surviving one actually has very little to do with individual fighting prowess. For this kind of self defense the first and most important thing needed is knowledge. How do criminal assaults happen? What do attackers look for? Where and when do assaults most often take place? You find the answers to those questions (most local LE offer free classes on that stuff) and then YOU DO THE OPPOSITE. You don't act like a likely victim. You avoid putting yourself in situations where assaults are likely to happen. Next you follow some simple steps at trying to become more aware of your surroundings. Don't insulate yourself from the world by jamming to your ipod and shoving your nose in a newspaper.
After that I'd say a basic level of physical fitness is most helpfull. So you can run or resist if you have to. And only then, after all that, should you consider the fighting aspect of self defense (for an assault). And the first aspect to fighting off an assualt in a SHTF situation is being approprately armed.
Despite what people claim, you can't learn to disable any attacker with your barehands in a 4 hour seminar. But you can learn how to pepper spray the crap out of someone or deploy a stun gun. And it is a lot easier for a 95 pound woman to learn to shoot a gun that will stop a 250 lb man than it is for her to train MA to a level where she can defeat that same guy.
Only then do you train unarmed fighting. And that's simple. You learn to fight. Best place to learn to fight? Sport combat schools. MMA...
I agree with alot of what your saying. Right now I'm lookin for a self-defense class so that I can be able to defend myself better(because some situations like that come up at the clubs I hang out at, for some reason, I'm always a jerk magnet, go figure). Anyways, what your saying about knowledge first makes total sense, and that defense with weapons and hand-to-hand defense are two completely different things.
Well put, I think. Not really sure where anyone could disagree with it, unless they're thinking of completely different sorts of experience. e.g. IDF fending off angry Palestinians? Admittedly, something WAYYY outside my scope of experience.
I'm thinking though, even in terms of self-defense vs criminal assault, there are important differences. Different types of assault. For example, mugging vs rape vs hate-bashing. Whether the attacker is armed with a gun or not, whether there's more than one, whether there's anywhere nearby to run to, etc, etc. Each calling for different sorts of responses, and depending on what we have personal experience with, maybe explaining different ideas about what "self defense" entails?
Getting robbed at gunpoint, I'd say, martial arts is pretty useless. It's important to be able to just stay calm, hand over your wallet, and hope for the best. OTOH, a women who wants to be able to fend off a rapist probably would do very well to learn BJJ, Judo, etc.
I'm not actually sure what sorts of attacks would make a weapon ideal, though. Simply getting attacked, for the sake of violence, I'd want to be armed, but how often does that happen?
You know when it comes right down to it, we can punch/kick/choke, til we're black/blue and purple and all the muscle memory and thousands of reps of WHATEVER we do mean almost nothing, it comes down to reaction time and how fast does it take us to do SOMETHING about the situation you are in, is $50 bucks and your SSI card worth the chance of not surviving? But beter to train for it than not, thats for sure! MMA/S training will give you the combat skills to MAYBE survive, but heck might as well grapple with a training folder cause that can happen (seen it in my bouncing days) Hard to find but good to train with somebody that works MMA/S and CQC principles, anyway gives us a better CHANCE for survival, thats all we can hope for.. great topic guys....
Kaju, FYI for the purposes of this discussion, I would group Kajukenbo in the "sport art" camp because you guys have an emphasis on hard contact, low rules sparring and basically seem to train like sport guys, only with street specific applications (weapons, multiple opponents) added in. All of which seems to me to be very very good.
Nikki, it probably won't include physical techniques, but you may want to see if your local PD or SO offers a safety class of some kind. Many offer classes that cover crime avoidance, how to not be a victim, burglar proofing your home, etc.
I took a 6 week Community Law Enforcement class, offered free of charge at the SO, years ago (it's what got me started in Corrections/LE). It was fantastic. It included all the safety stuff I mentioned, plus we learned all about how cops do their job, got to visit the jail and even took a trip to the range where we got to shoot their 9mm, Ar15 and shotgun. And then some people got tazed! lol Very fun and worthwhile.
Originally posted by MattW_III: Nikki, it probably won't include physical techniques, but you may want to see if your local PD or SO offers a safety class of some kind. Many offer classes that cover crime avoidance, how to not be a victim, burglar proofing your home, etc.
I took a 6 week Community Law Enforcement class, offered free of charge at the SO, years ago (it's what got me started in Corrections/LE). It was fantastic. It included all the safety stuff I mentioned, plus we learned all about how cops do their job, got to visit the jail and even took a trip to the range where we got to shoot their 9mm, Ar15 and shotgun. And then some people got tazed! lol Very fun and worthwhile.
Yeah, i'm OK at defending myself, but if I was attacked with like a weapon or something, i'd probably be dead, lol. I'll definitly check into it, thanks.
p.s. that would be pretty awesome if I got to taser someone, i'd laugh pretty hard
if I was attacked with like a weapon or something, i'd probably be dead
Hi Nikki, The simple truth is if someone wants to shoot you, if that is their intent, you’re dead, me too. Same with stabbing you, it’s all about intent, unfortunate but true. With that said, it that is NOT the intent and the weapon is only shown to intimidate, there is a choice you have to make, do I wait this out to see how far it goes and hope for the best? Or… Do I defend myself? Both are viable options, and both COULD have negative results for you. However, IF you are PROPERLY trained and decide option 1 or 2 then the chance of mental trauma is lessened. Any violent situation like that is going to have an impact on you, it’s how you handle yourself that will determine how deeply it hits. I do not discourage anybody from using a weapon to defend their self, I do however encourage everybody concerned/interested to learn how to defend without a weapon, before or along with the weapon, just not the other way around. A weapon should be like icing on a cake, (not the only thing you have, it compliments what you have), and you don’t put the icing on before the cake is baked, right? I can’t imagine anything scarier than relying on a weapon and have it taken or it being misplaced, whatever, then what?.
Hey Dark, I actually agree with almost everything you said, there.
Except as far as both options being viable, I'd say that's not really true, if you mean your chances of getting killed are about the same. As I understand it, your chances of getting shot/stabbed/etc go WAY up if you attempt to fend off someone who just wants your wallet. You can get killed either way, and that's a depressing reality to face, but it's much less likely if you don't fight back, no matter how good your Kung Fu is.
I've learned some knife defense, some gun disarms, sparred multiple attackers - but I hope to hell I never have to make any of that work. It just seems like the odds can be so stacked against the victim that I get defeatist about it. Predators looks for victims who will be at as much of a disadvantage as possible.
Preemptive strike? More likely, I'd never fight back until it were too late, my last thoughts being, "aw crap, I should have at least tried..."
When I've been mugged, I even worried that running away would get me shot. I don't know how likely that is, but it's why I didn't.
Dark... man that really brings it home...... Even though I am a advanced knife instrucor for Hock Hochheim, I no longer carry a tac folder on my person. Here is why...A non training brother of a student of mine was attacked by 3 over a love triangle thing, he was untrained but carried a folder as so many people do today. He deployed the folder, and it was taken and used against him... he died...an good ole fashion A** whoopin turned into a funeral....just a thought for you guys...
Of all the weapons you can carry for self defense, I like knives least of all. In addition to what has already been mentioned, they also up the ante to lethal force without a lot of the advantages of other lethal force options like firearms.
My heart goes out to you Kaj, I imagine that could have happened with any weapon he pulled. That's the truly frightening thing about weapon use/carry. I am not an advocate of any WEAPONS ONLY training for "defense" nor am I an advocate of anybody carrying who has not had EXTENSIVE training with the weapon they choose to carry and even more extensive empty hand defensive training. I do carry a tac folder, I have deployed it with the full intent of using it on 3 occasions in like the last 12 yrs. (most recent was like 5yrs ago). I have thankfully not had to use it beyond that point (no pun intended).
I have mixed feelings on the whole firearm idea. It is definitely a deterrent when visible. Concealed on the other hand, you’re really rolling the dice on that one. I mean if I’m in a heated, possibly violent situation with a guy and he reaches for anything, he’s going down before he ever draws, what ever it was he was going for. There again is the issue of training, nothing is more dangerous than false confidence.
Please know that in all the discussions we have, I assume it a forgone conclusion that flight is the BEST option. I try to look at it from the “No Other Choice” point of view.
Hwar, I agree with the idea of give them what they want and call it a day. That choice changes a drastically if the “thug” wants you to go anywhere else than right where you stand. Things are escalating, and there you have to make a choice (IMO). Give them money and they go away, great you live to give another day. But there is a time when one chooses the other path. Best to be sure you have options(plural).
Hwar, I agree with the idea of give them what they want and call it a day. That choice changes a drastically if the “thug” wants you to go anywhere else than right where you stand.
Well, that's never happened to me, hard to even imagine why it would. Guess it's possible though, and certainly a huge neon warning sign of one sort or another. I'm wondering what sort of situations you get into where you've felt the need to pull a knife on someone?
