Run!
Seriously, just run!
When faced with an attacker, at any time or in any place, the world’s most primitive response is the often quoted “fight or flight”. It’s a response that’s been encoded into our DNA since human’s first sprouted little green fish legs and staggered out of the sea.
There’s good reason for it, too.
When faced with a situation that puts our lives in danger, our body receives a surge of adrenaline. Unfortunately, our body’s response to that rush of body chemicals will vary from person to person and scenario to scenario. How our brain determines to interpret the situation and offer a response will also channel the adrenaline.
How many times have you read a book or watched a movie where the heroine was rooted to the spot in fear and couldn’t move, despite ample opportunity to get away (or even go on the offensive)? That’s adrenaline was flooding through her system and overwhelming her fine motor neurons. It’s horribly effective in preventing someone taking action.
One of the best and safest responses you can cultivate towards danger is to run from it. This is what every single good martial art or Self Defense instructor says before they teach you a single technique – and with very good reason.
If you didn’t think of running as a martial art, this is the time to do so. Our ancestors hunted for food by chasing down animals. They did this because in the animal world we are almost unique in that we sweat through our skins to keep cool. By sheer persistence we were able to chase animals for days – even ones that were much faster than us, but had to slow and stop to cool themselves. Having fur causes that kind of problem!
If chasing down an animal to kill it still doesn’t strike you as a martial art, maybe you should take a look at how free runners move. Free running is also called Parkour in its native French tongue.
Documentaries and movies like Jump London, District 13 and Casino Royale brought free running to the world’s attention and displayed jaw dropping athleticism as part of a fighting system.
The best thing about running is that anyone can do it. Maybe you can’t do it to the same level as a free runner, but you should be able to at least run half a mile without stopping.
The bad news is that you’re not always going to be able to run. You may be forced to protect a loved one, a stranger, or even yourself if the circumstances prevent you from being able to make a clear escape.
Attackers are cowards. But they are professional cowards. They know that their best option is to attack you en masse or when you are most unaware of their intention, such as from behind or when you are inebriated or somewhere outside of public scrutiny. They count on attacking you – for whatever reason – when there is the very least chance of being seen, and hence reported to the police or being attacked themselves by passing members of the public.
So, if you are forced into a situation where you can’t get away, there are other options to take advantage of – and others to avoid. Understanding how your body works and how to use it for defense will help you make the best decision you can.
On that note, never second guess whatever decision you make in such a circumstance. Your brain will have been forced to deal with a dangerous situation where life decisions had to be made while simultaneously dealing with a barrage of adrenaline. The only sure thing you can do is whatever is necessary to get away as fast as possible.
Physiology
We’ve touched on the fact that in a defensive situation your body will flood with adrenaline, but why is that so important?
Well firstly, adrenaline is a body chemical that will turn you into The Hulk. It greatly increases your strength and speed. It also masks pain. If you were able to run from an attacker, the adrenaline would probably help you move faster and further than you ever did before.
Similarly, if you were assaulted by the attacker, your injuries would hurt less – or even remain unnoticed – until the effects of the adrenaline wore off. Then you may be in for a world of pain, but for the duration of the adrenaline rush at least, you would be freed from pain so as to survive an attack.
Blows struck by an adrenaline-charged person would also inflict greater pain and/or damage.
In addition, adrenaline causes “tunnel vision” which does just as it says: focuses your vision. Your brain responds by shutting out peripheral vision so that you are able to focus on the task at hand and not be interrupted by irrelevant information.
So, if adrenaline can turn you into The Hulk, what’s so bad about that?
Adrenaline is very much a two-sided coin (have you ever seen any other type?). While it certainly gives, it also takes away.
If you’ve watched your fair share of TV and movies, you’ll have seen brilliantly choreographed fight scenes where all sorts of subtle manipulations of attackers’ fingers, wrists, arms etc. have resulted in them being thrown through the air, faces contorted in pain. Often, they end up unconscious or with a broken bone.
Remember what I said about adrenaline overwhelming your body? When your nervous system is full of this powerful neurochemical, there’s just no way you could use your fine motor skills to do such things.
Your brain is forcing you to move or hit – it’s not going to have time to figure out where the position of your attacker’s left wrist is so that you can grab it and perform that move you learned in Karate class when you were in high school.
You may even have another attacker holding you from behind. They don’t always come singularly – and they definitely won’t stand in line so you can dispatch one after the other until the last one drops his baseball bat and runs away in fear of your prowess as a warrior.
What’s much more likely to happen is that your initial burst of adrenaline will start to wear off after a minute or two of struggle, leaving you feeling very weak. If you haven’t gained the upper hand at this point, it’s almost a certainty that the struggle for survival will go to the ground.
This is why grappling became so popular in mixed martial arts – because almost every single fight ends up on the ground.
So, to summarize: massive adrenaline boosts will help you defend yourself, but will prevent you from using Self Defense techniques that rely on fine motor skills. Fingers are body parts that use such motor skills, so certainly anything that involves dexterity will not be happening. You’ll also only have a couple of minutes in which to escape or you will end up on the ground.
Which brings us to martial arts.
Martial Arts
It’s a very romantic notion that you might go off to some monastery and meditate on a pebble until the inner secret of the Universe reveals itself to you and hence you become indestructible.
But it’s a load of mumbo jumbo.
Martial arts are a system for recollecting particular defensive and offensive movements. They are also more often than not, a sport. I’m not dismissing martial arts as useless; in fact, I love them. There is no finer display of athleticism than someone who can spin in the air and accurately kick the 5th brick of 12 with enough force that it, and it alone, breaks into powder. So too, are Karateka (Karate practitioners) very impressive when they run through the sequence of attacks and defenses known as kata.
But that kind of ability won’t necessarily help in a fight.
There’s no denying that the fitness level achieved by most martial artists wouldn’t help them fend off an attacker, but for martial arts are just that: arts. Just like a ballerina or an actor.
Here’s where martial arts will help: by helping you get fitter, stronger, more flexible and faster to respond to physical situations.
If you like martial arts and you understand their limitations, there’s certainly nothing wrong with participating in them. And like every rule, there are exceptions that prove it.
The martial arts that do work!
Over time and after much debate, martial arts have grown and evolved. There are a couple that are notable in their true capability for Self Defense.
One such martial art is Wing Chun – which is the form of Kung Fu that Bruce Lee used as the basis for his own fighting system. It is one of the most practical systems out there and it is based very much on up close and personal techniques.
The other is MMA, which I’ve mentioned is called Mixed Martial Arts. This is a mixture of any techniques from different disciplines that the fighter deems to be effective in real life. If you watch any MMA fights on TV you’ll see a mixture of kicking styles, punches and grappling on the ground.
Those are martial arts – and then there are self defense systems. Probably the best-known self defense system (and rightfully so) is Krav Maga.
Krav Maga was developed by an Israeli soldier Ini and is known as a fierce style of Self Defense that leaves no holds barred. Instructors will teach you how to attack, who to attack, why and when to attack. They’ll teach you how to scream, slap, bite, gouge and kick – and how to deliver maximum pain and shock with minimum effort. If you can make it to a Krav Maga class, you’ll find it even more exhausting than a circuit training class in your gym, but it’s worth going.
Krav Maga classes don’t just concentrate on fitness or Self Defense techniques, but on both.
The benefits of a Self Defense class are numerous. Usually, they are given by instructors who will be positive and encouraging of your efforts. They also will have some background which brings additional experience to their teaching. You’ll also get to meet others with a similar interest in keeping safe. And you’ll learn and practice techniques until they become more familiar to you.
The last thing you want is to have to start thinking about how you should react to an attacker instead of just reacting.
Mental
It’s important to talk about the mental aspect of Self Defense, because it’s something that the majority of instructors pass over without the attention that it deserves.
Let me get back to the idea of running from trouble rather than staying to fight.
When you face an attacker with the knowledge of how to defend yourself, there is a possibility that you will cause serious harm to that person. I’m not going to go all Save the Whale and suggest that you shouldn’t hurt an attacker, but just give it some serious consideration for a minute or two.
You may end up blinding them. It’s even within the realms of possibility that you may kill them. How would you feel about that? It really depends on what kind of person you are, but there’s a possibility you will have someone else’s death hanging on your conscience for the rest of your life.
Even if you are okay with that (and hey – if they are attacking you, it’s a risk they took, right?) what about what’s going to happen to you afterwards?
You may end up doing some jail time if things go wrong. Or at the least you may end up having to waste a lot of time appearing in court to defend your name. You may be named in the newspaper. There are a lot of negative consequences that should be considered.
That’s why you should always run if possible. But should you be forced to defend yourself, having reasoned out this idea beforehand will help you. Believe it or not, many women who come under attack prove to be their own worst enemies. They don’t want to hurt anyone, so they find it difficult – even when they are being attacked themselves – to fight back if it means hurting someone.
You need to ditch that thought now by thinking it through ahead of time.
Which brings me to another mental barrier. Let me describe a situation for you. You are attacked by a man who drags you into a van or down a side street. Or, you are not directly attacked, but he has a knife or a gun and tells you to get in the car or walk down the alley.
Which is worse? What is your reaction?
Both are just as bad. And in both cases, you would run away or scream, shout and start attacking him – whether he has a knife, a gun or a rocket launcher.
The only reason an attacker wants to move you from where you are to another place is to get away from public view so that he can do to you what he intends to, free of interference from the public or police.
Does that sound to you like a situation where he will want a witness? No. So what are the chances he will leave a living witness to his crime – in other words, you! The likelihood of him leaving you alive after using a weapon on you and/or raping you, are very, very low.
Remember that all attackers are cowards. Even the professionals. They depend on people going along with them out of fear. They depend on sneak attacks, or safety in numbers, or weapons. They don’t actually want a challenge. So, give them one.
Never allow anyone take you elsewhere. Make so much goddamn trouble for them there and then that they figure you’re not worth the effort – and that if that’s how you are in a public place, what kind of demon might you be like when you are away from the public!
The final aspect of mental preparedness is to put across the idea of you as someone who is aware of her situation and prepared. Again, this goes back to your attacker being a coward. If you look around you while you walk and are noticeably aware of everything around you, a simple mugger or thief is going to leave you alone. A more serious attacker will think twice.
Just by being aware of the possibility of attack and letting others see that you are, is in itself a method of Self Defense.
Self Defense Tips
The human body has a number of weak points. The idea of learning them may seem overwhelming, but you can effectively defend yourself by understanding just the basics.
Weak Points
The weak points of the body are almost all in two straight lines – the line across the head that includes the ears, temples and eyes, and the line downwards through the body that includes the nose, mouth, heart, solar plexus, groin.
The solar plexus has the advantage of being completely free of any protective muscle. It’s one of the most effective points to strike and will often wind your attacker. It is the point just beneath the rib cage and is approx. 3-4 inches in size.
Learning Self Defense
Bruce Lee once said “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”
You’re not going to be safer because you have had a go at practicing a lot of different fancy maneuvers, but you can very successfully defend yourself in a real-world situation by fully understanding and practicing just a couple of techniques.
This short guide to Self Defense won’t replace a real life instructor, but they will help you start thinking in the right mindset and give you some ideas to hold onto “just in case”.
Weapons
There are a lot of arguments for and against carrying a weapon around with you. Let me just ask you to imagine a scenario where you have a knife in your purse or bag. You are attacked and pull the knife on your attacker. Within two minutes of struggle, your energy is spent. But your larger attacker still has some energy left and is now incredibly angry (possibly scared) and definitely amped up on adrenaline.
What are the chances that your attacker will now take advantage of the weapon you were hoping to defend yourself with? Do you think that getting some psycho angry that you tried to knife him is a good idea when he has taken that knife from you and is about to use it on you?
I’m guessing not. But that’s my opinion and I have heard opinions that differ. This is another area where you will have to make up your own mind about what consequences you are going to accept.
Here’s the alternative:
There are a number of “weapons” that can be legally carried almost anywhere in the world, and yet the vast majority of people just don’t see them as weapons. That’s why you could use them at the last minute without your attacker even being aware of them until it’s too late.
Your voice: scream at your attacker. Shout and scream into his face, yelling “Help me. Get away. Stop attacking me. Police. Get away from me!” Scream so loud that it is aurally painful for him and it scares him into thinking you are going to draw unwanted attention to him.
Your nails: if you keep reasonably long nails, great. If he is close enough, grab him anywhere on his face or ears. Claw your nails across his face, grab his ears and force your thumbnails into his eyes, dig them into his cheeks, grab his lips and claw. This is incredibly painful – and when combined with you screaming, is extremely frightening.
The palms of your hands: punches can and do go wrong. Often. Here’s two ways to strike effectively without risking breaking your thumb.
- If both your arms are free, strike each of your attacker’s ears simultaneously with the palms of your hands. The force of air pressure into each ear will stun him. It’s also quite painful and will make him think twice about continuing the attack.
- With one hand, strike him in the chin or nose with your palm. If possible, finish by raking your nails down his face.
It’s advisable never to try punching with a fist. If you inadvertently keep your thumb within the fist, you risk breaking it.
Your teeth: if it’s an extreme case and you really fear for your life, forget about HIV, etc. The chances of you living beyond the next few minutes are worth the risk you are about to take. If he’s up close (far too close) bite his ears or nose. Again, doing this while screaming, growling like an animal and telling him how you’ll tear his ears and face off will, in most cases be enough to scare him away.
Attackers rarely like the idea of physical evidence such as scarring or cuts being left on their faces and will get away asap.
Your house keys: bunched up in your fist, with keys extruding between your fingers. Go for his eyes and mouth or ears, or any soft tissue.
High heels: if you are in a position where you can get to your high heels without alerting your attacker, grab your own shoes by the toes and use the heels as a stiletto (which is the name of a kind of commando knife) and strike him in the eyes, ears, mouth or groin.
Kicking: never try to kick your assailant in the groin. All joking aside, it is too small a target, and too easy to defend with the twist of the hips. He could also grab your foot and unbalance you. Then you are only a quick push away from being held on the ground. Aim all kicks at his shins or stomp your heels on the top of his feet. This has the advantage that if you manage to strike those areas, your knee will be in a perfect position to lift up and into his groin from there.
Sprays: hairspray, deodorant or similar makes an effective mace spray when you spray it into your attacker’s eyes.
Pens: if you have one in your pocket and can get the upper hand during a struggle, your pen can be used to poke soft flesh like your attacker’s hands if he is holding onto you, or his eyes if very close.
The advantage of these “domestic” weapons is that you will never be brought up on charges of concealing a weapon – as they are all perfectly natural items to have about your person.
Learn from History
During World War II, army officers William Fairbairn and Eric Sykes were charged with taking raw recruits and teaching them to effectively defend themselves on the battlefield. The training had to work. Theory was no good and taking months to learn the martial arts available at the time just wasn’t going to cut it. In many cases they had a mere two weeks to prepare their men for survival.
It’s this kind of insight into what makes for real, street-smart self defense that helps you understand what really works.
I suggest reading their books; Defendu, Get Tough and as part of your self defense training. Don’t just leave it at that, contact a Krav Maga association near you for some real practice:
Or search online for a nearby MMA group.
By having read through this short report, you should now have made some decisions about how you feel regarding the damage you are willing to cause an attacker, how to cause that damage, what to look for in a Self Defense class, and probably why you should pick up a pair of running shoes instead of a Karate suit.
