Archive for the 'Self-defense' Category

Reading blogs and comments I think the question of when to fight or run can be a bit confusing to those who have never faced this decision. I mean if someone confronts you behind a bar on the way to your car – what do you do? Your best choices are to diffuse, acquiesce, frighten, flight or fight normally but most do not see all of these choices.

• Diffuse = talk your way out of a confrontation – maybe offer other outcomes the attacker likes
• Acquiesce = I mean take the lesser of two evils… give up your wallet if you can do it safely… I would not suggest giving up your life
• Frighten = if he pulls a little knife on you  – You pull out a bigger knife, gun, or pepper spray
• Flight = this is if you have a reasonable chance at success – you can get away
• Fight = if there are are no other reasonable choices – you are left with fighting for your life – note this makes sense even if you think you have no chance at success – you might just get a momentary advantage and run away

Disclaimer – I am not really talking about how reasonable it is to just give up. There are some discussions about taking acquiescence to the next level - let the attacker have their way and hope they will let you go. While it is my opinion that this not a safe choice as you leave the power of your life in your attackers hands – a person you already know has no regard for your safety. So that being said if giving up your purse or wallet does not sasify the attacker – you have to make the best decision for you – and (hopefully) live with the consequences.

Most have heard of the fight or flight response where the body prepares for action when stressed but what of the actual decision? How does one decide the proper course of action? While I’ll touch on the different choices above, the main point of this post is how and when you make the decision to fight!

In this post I will try to help the reader see the decision making process that one goes through if confronted with a fight or flight response in a trained fighter. The reason I am speaking of the “trained fighter” is I am not going to deal with how unprepared people deal with attacks – I think that is understood… they use the more simplistic fight or flight response and depends on the body for formulate a split-second plan. While that might just work – there is not guarantee that not any forethought will allow someone to mount a successful escape or defense! Take a quick look at the fight or flight response in this video.

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A man on vacation at a bar finds himself in middle of a fight and as so often happens – it is hard to discern the good guys from the bad. Well he puts some distance between the fight and his wife and scans for exits. One of the fighters notice and comes right at him! The vacationer side-steps the rusher and give him a little push into the table – grabs his wife and makes for the exit.

I don’t know about you but I’ve been in this type of situation before and it is a little scary if you have the family with you. This website has often evaluated different types of fighting styles and self defense but why does self defense work? I mean most bad guys can fight – right? If they can fight then why can some minimal self-defense training carry the day?

In this post I will delve into the question of why self defense works and what I think are some good ways to go about learning how to fight. Let me be clear that self defense is learning how to fight. More on that in a bit but first I’d like to show you the average caliber of fighters you have to prepare for in case you ever have to defend yourself. Take a peek at this video of a street fight – there are some weapons but no one seems to get hurt too badly.

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My wife (Sly) recently had an experience witnessing road rage that has mademe revisit this issue. Sly was driving in a 35 mph zone behind on car when another come up on the side and tried to cut in front of her suddenly! Sly stomped on her brakes and the guy waived to her and swerved back out. The guy then sped up past the car in front and cut him off and stopped suddenly! Sly again stomped on her brakes and came to a stop. Both cars doors ahead flew open and the guys ran towards each other screaming. Sly drove around when she could to escape the madness!

While I don’t know what ended up happening in this case, it did upset me because my wife almost hit a car twice inside of a minute due to aggressive drivers. I previously posted about, “Road Rage!” and “Road Rage! What About Sticks and Stones?” but I think aggressive driving legitimately has a place in the context of self defense because one never knows if it will lead to an attack.

In this post I am going to focus on how to stay safe if you find yourself in the middle of a road rage incident. While I do not want to make lite of this issue – I thought I would demonstrate the mentality (or lack thereof) of the participants in an aggressive driving or road rage situation in this video to set the stage.

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Is it ok for a boy or man to cat call to a hot babe walking down the street? In this day and age it seems weird to be asking this question but many if not most women have heard cat calls or rude comments by men and boys. Young men and women learning about social interactions are a bit awkward about it in their teens and often think behaviour like this is ok. While there is no excuse for poor manners hopefully they soon learn that women feel harassed by the unwanted advances.

In this post I will attempt to talk a bit about sexual harassment on the streets and what I think of behaviour like this. I will also attempt to put this into the proper context from the greater self defense perspective. To get this conversation started – take a look at this video I found at the Strategic Living Blog about Miss Washington D.C.’s experiences.

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When I was a kid I was bullied a bit in grade school. My dad had to show me the old one – two (jab – cross) combo and told me that if someone attacks me – I had to fight back. He proceeded to teach me the basics of fighting in the living room.

I soon caught on to this and became a bit aggressive if anyone messed with me to the point of challenging the duke of the school to fisticuffs after school. Well let me must say that losing that fight brought me back down to reality.

Last night in our neighborhood there was a party raging on with seemingly a life of its own? During the daytime there were the usually girls parading about in summer attire – giggling hysterically at seemingly nothing. Along with the girls there were plenty of guys. During the night, as the hour grew later, the party spewed out into the streets. I’ll get to the punch line (pun intended) later but suffice it to say there was a lot of beer muscle and drama into the wee hours in the morning.

In this post I’d like to discuss the notion that anytime someone messes with you – irrespective of the circumstances, one has to respond to a provocation. Specifically at a party and what makes sense. Take a look at this video I found on youtube of young people partying and the obligatory fight before I start the discussion.

WARNING – there is a liberal use of profanity in this video – seem to go hand in hand with partying, youth and beer.

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Here are a couple of stories about girls fighting back and getting away! To set the stage, girls and women are mostly attacked by big boys or men (at lease bigger then they are) who want to rob or rape them. The reason I bring up this point is it must be very unnerving to a girl to have a big man attack her.

A girl has some choices but if she finds herself in an attack her only choices are to run if possible, fight back or give in. I like the first two choices because it give the girl the best chance at survival but if a girl give in – she is putting her life in the hands of a bad guy.

Who knows the outcome. I’d argue in most cases it makes more sense to fight overwhelming odds than get into a vehicle with a bad man. But I understand this is a tough call to make as many women survive bad situations.

Before we get started with these stories, I’d like to show you video of the John Gardner victim who got away (struck him in the nose). Candice Moncayo got a reaction of anger from Gardner when she mentioned the strike in open court. Candice Moncayo fared better then Chelsea King or Amber Dubois by fighting back. I don’t know if Chelsea or Amber were able to put up a fight against this big bad monster of a man.

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Here is an upcoming women’s self defense class in San Diego for anyone interested. I know both Dr. Mick Leone and Professor Todd McElhinney from the San Diego American Kenpo Karate school. If you are looking for good self-defense instructors – both Mick and Todd have taught martial arts for over 30 years.

Ok imagine you are on the way to the airport in a major US city but you have to fill up the gas tank. It is 4:30 a.m. in the morning and you’ve found a station near the airport! Unfortunately this airport is near the barrio and some of the people are plain scary looking.

You get out but wonder if there is a way to keep people from messing with you. I don’t know about you but I’ve lived so many stories like this in my life and learned early on that you have to project an image of “Don’t mess with me!” if you expect bad guys to steer clear!

In this post I’ll try and explore what how you look has to do with your likelihood of getting into a fight. I mean should how you look have any bearing on your fighting ability? Do people prejudge you (wimp – duke)? Should you buy into other peoples realities and try and look the part? To start this off, take a look at this video.

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