subject: Do You Want To Be Able To Defend Yourself? Here's A Self Defense Lesson To Really Think About! [print this page] In the world of martial arts and self defense training, there are an overwhelming number of techniques for being able to physically defend yourself. But, what if you could employ tactics that could prevent the fists from ever flying? Would you be interested? Well, this article explores a concept and poses a question that will make you look at your self defense training and abilities in a very different light.
Remember, in a real encounter with a brutal assailant who is looking to beat, break, or kill you - there are many more options than simply "getting physical." While most instructors focus exclusively on teaching the techniques for "winning," I'd like you to think about winning in a very different way.
I'd like for you to think about winning - not from the perspective of beating the other guy before he beats you - but rather from the standpoint of...
...getting out in one piece.
That means that, if there is anything that you can do to NOT have to fight to begin with - then DO those things.
If you follow this simple rule, then you'll only have to worry about physically trying to defend yourself against the attacker who is totally committed to going all the way.
This brings us to the idea of "de-escalation tactics." The idea here is in doing things, and presenting yourself, in such a way as to make the attacker choose to leave you alone.
And, while the list of things that can be done are virtually limitless, I tend to divide de-escalation tactics into passive and aggressive tactics. This is not a fight or no-fight thing. It is about being "sneaky" or "obvious" with what you are doing.
In the "obvious" realm, it's about communicating the down-side of attacking you to your attacker. What I mean is that, while in the passive de-escalation realm - the "sneaky tactics realm" - you might ignore him, use humor or other tactics which say that you don't realize that you're in danger, here we are talking about directly confronting your assailant with both verbal and body language that says, very clearly that...
...you won't be easy.
And that brings me to what I really wanted to talk about in this lesson. It has to do with your presence - your body language, facial expressions, and ability to communicate confidence.
I'm talking about being intimidating.
Can you, if your life and/or safety depended on it - be intimidating?
The question is, can you say to you attacker, with more than just words - "You may win. But if you touch me, you will remember me for the rest of your life!"
The idea here is not to make him want to attack you because you come off cocky, arrogant, or you push the attacker to want to damage you more than he did a minute ago. It's also not about "thinking" that you can fake it either.
This is about the ability to get the attacker to think twice before committing to following through on his threat.
So, the question is, "when you speak, do people listen or do they laugh?"
Because, when you are trying to defend yourself against a real-world attack - not the ones in your self defense class, but the ones against the attacker who already thinks they have the advantage - you are going to need to be more convincing, more believable, and taken more seriously than you have ever needed to be in your entire life!
