Musings on The Possibility of Violence
Violence exists in many forms. Terrorism, violent partners and family members, armed gangsters fighting over territory, muggers, violent burglars, rapists, belligerent drunks, gangs of teenagers who don’t like being disturbed as they smash up the bus shelter… the list is pretty much endless. Each threat is different but there are similarities between many of them, and the same measures work against most threats, whatever their origin. And let's not forget that most people never encounter serious violence in all of their lives. It's not necessary to live in fear, just to be aware of the threat and take elementary precautions.
Fantasy Solutions
Many people have simple solutions to offer when the fear of violence arises. Most of them are simply fantasy:
Live somewhere nicer: Err, fair enough, if you can afford it. Of course, the nicest area can change and unpleasant people can wander in. Nowhere is 100% safe.
Just pretend it isn’t happening: People who are aware of the risks and take sensible precautions often upset others. Sometimes we even get blamed for the violence in society! It is possible to wander around tutting indignantly but otherwise ignoring the problem unless someone brings it to your notice (hopefully this will be one of those awful self-defence people and not a gang of muggers). Many people get away with this approach, but if something does happen to them they won’t see it coming and the chances of dealing with it are minimal.
Be ‘hard’/have a black belt/take a self-defence course: Of course getting some training is a big help, but only if it’s relevant and realistic. I’ve heard a lot of people tell me ‘it’ can’t happen to them because they’re so tough, or because they’re always with their mates who’d help them out. Thing is, at best these solutions mean you’ve got a good chance of ‘winning’ if something kicks off (and that can be a whole can of worms all of its own), but as often as not the mates aren’t there or are unreliable, the black belt turns out not to be so useful in a fight as you thought, or maybe the other guy is tougher/more aggressive/armed or whatever. Few people are truly tough enough to handle anything that might happen, and misplaced confidence can get you into real trouble.
Carry a weapon: Not only is it illegal in this country (the UK) to carry a weapon, it’s also useless unless you know how to access, deploy and use it, and you’re willing to do so. That in turn can mean being prosecuted. People have gone to jail for killing someone in a fight that would not have happened but for the fact that they felt able to defeat the other guy because of their weapon. Unarmed, they might have well have avoided the conflict. Yes, a weapon can save you if it kicks off anyway, but to reiterate: it’s illegal to carry one. Besides, the mere fact that you have a weapon on you may not be enough.
Personal Alarms: These can be some use, but if it’s at home in a drawer or at the bottom of your bag then it’s useless. Nor is it a magic shield. You need to know what to do to make use of the alarm’s capabilities before it’s going to be any use to you. Otherwise it’s just going to distract you while the attacker gets on with whatever he wants to do to you.
Just stay out of dangerous areas: Actually this is a pretty decent option, but you can’t be 100% sure it will work. Even though you don’t go drinking in the town centre on a Friday night doesn’t mean you won’t encounter a band of afternoon drunks as you return to your car with the shopping. You can’t avoid every possibility of trouble, but you can certainly cut the risks this way. Just don’t be complacent.
Rely on the Police/Law to protect you: The British police are really good. I’ve dealt with them in several capacities and my experiences are very positive. BUT: they can’t be there all the time. There are plenty of ‘tough new laws’ banning this and that but people still get shot or stabbed with weapons that are now illegal. Doing violence to people has been illegal for centuries but it still happens. The Police can help you out if they get to the scene in time, and they do provide a very real deterrent by simply being there… but that’s not the same as having a 24-hour bodyguard service. You need to take responsibility for your own safety.
Real Solutions
Real solutions are a bit less satisfying than just declaring the matter solved and dealt with. The uncomfortable truth is that there is no 100% perfect solution. It is necessary to understand the threat and acknowledge that it exists (and that is more than a bit scary), then find effective ways to reduce it. You must also understand that there is no perfect defence against any threat. It is thus better to create a series of layered ‘filters’ to reduce the chances of a successful attack at each level until it is negligible.
Stage 1: Awareness, Acceptance and Willingness
‘Awareness’ is a word thrown around by many different people, often with quite different meanings. What we mean here is more than simply being aware of your surroundings (look around you…!) but also understanding what you see. A door is not always just a door. Sometimes it is an escape route. Sometimes it is a possible threat avenue (gratuitous advice: if the assailant comes in through the wall or ceiling you’re probably in trouble!). Sometimes it is a potential obstacle. Don’t just look; see.
You cannot defeat or avoid what you don’t see coming. On the other hand, the very fact that you are looking around and seem to know what you’re doing can deter many opportunist attackers or robbers. These people are not looking for a fight; they want a victim. Many of them would be quite willing to blindside you or grab you from behind but unwilling to approach from the front or attack a ready target.
There is also the psychological effect of obviously being aware. Predators (of any kind, including lager-fuelled urban ones) instinctively seek out weak victims, and someone who is watching for danger is sending the subliminal signal that they are willing to deal with it if they spot some. Predators don’t like prey that fights back.
Awareness actually does reduce your chances of being attacked, but in truth if it’s to be much use you need to act upon it. That means being able to accept that this is really happening. Too many people get hurt while they’re in denial – ‘What the hell? This can’t be happening! Nobody would hit a …’. Or else while they’re still in a complacent mindset, thinking that the confrontation they’re having is merely a war of words with some kind of rules in place. Sad fact is that some people are quite willing to ‘go physical’ as an argument gambit even if you’d never dream of it.
If someone suddenly produced a handgun and threatened you, you wouldn’t ignore him on the grounds that guns are illegal in Britain and therefore he can’t have one and won’t use it… you’d react pretty strongly one way or another. Yet people often just don’t accept that the other guy might be about to launch into you with his fists.
Acceptance is also about being able to decide what’s the best you can hope for in this situation. Say you get into a confrontation over a parking space. You’re right and he’s wrong, but he’s obviously becoming aggressive. The best possible outcome now is that you get of this with your safety intact. You have to accept that. If you continue to argue you’re going to be assaulted and even if you win, you may get hurt or have legal involvements and other problems as a result.
Thus it’s obvious that the best outcome for you is where you give up your entirely correct position and walk away, letting the bad guy win. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth, doesn’t it? Well, blood tastes worse, and teeth stick in your throat. Fact is, sometimes you have to just take what you can get from a situation. Being willing to accept that and get out of a confrontation before it becomes violent is a valuable survival tool.
Willingness means being ready to do what it takes to avoid or survive a situation. That may mean backing down or walking away, or drinking somewhere else if you don’t like the clientele here, no matter what your mates may say. It can mean being willing to take a stand here and now, for example saying ‘no’ to a pushy date in a way that cannot be mistaken (and being willing to back up the ‘no’ by leaving or taking whatever other measures are necessary).
Willingness also refers to being ready to fight tooth and nail for your survival, whatever the odds. Boxers call this ‘heart’, some martial artists call it ‘fighting spirit’. Whatever name you put on it, sometimes your willingness to keep on kicking, biting and struggling may be the last thing between you and the rape suite, a hospital bed or the morgue.
Initially, though, we are talking about recognising a situation and accepting what’s going on, and being willing to do something about it rather than wander complacently on in the hope that everything will be all right.
Stage 2: Confrontation Management
If you haven’t managed to avoid a situation and conflict becomes inevitable, there is still a chance to avoid actual violence. This can mean ‘backing down’, withdrawing or temporising (as the law books call it), or it can mean being quite assertive (but not aggressive) in the hope of defusing the situation.
There are times when a display of aggression might deter a possible assailant, but this will usually escalate a situation so it is best used with discretion.
Confrontation Management is a complex subject, and too big to deal with in any detail here. For now suffice to say that you need to preserve your personal space (using a ‘fence’ is one good way, as is positioning yourself with an obstacle between you and the aggressor).
If you adopt a martial arts type ‘fighting stance’ this is likely to escalate a situation rather than defuse it, so normally you’d do this if you wanted to show you were willing and able to fight – i.e. as a psychological gambit. If you think you’re actually going to have to fight, a fighting stance is a bad idea. Better to strike by surprise and not give away what you’re up to. There is nothing dishonourable about this – if someone really wants to do you harm, you need to stop them anyhow you can.
But we’re talking here about NOT using violence if possible. By keeping a little distance between you and the other guy and remaining calm but assertive, you have a good chance of de-escalating the situation and getting out (sometimes even getting what you want) without violence. Remember that attackers usually don’t want a fight, they want a victim. If you don’t act like a victim then you’re less likely to become one.
There is too much to Conflict Management to deal with here. I’d suggest getting a good book on the subject (one of mine would be best, because that way I get your money. I like money), or getting some training at a good self-defence class. By ‘good’ I mean the ones that deal with the whole package including conflict management, threat avoidance and such like. Classes that start with ‘punch comes in, you do this, job done’ aren’t really dealing with the reality of the situation. They may teach some useful stuff but the physical is NOT the best place to start.
Stage 3: Pre-Empt
If you’re sure that a situation is going out of control, waiting for the other guy to attack is NOT a good idea. He will launch his assault when he thinks he has the best opportunity to succeed, which usually means he is right. This reduces your chances of dealing with the attack successfully.
You are NOT required by law or any moral imperative to wait to be attacked or to ‘block an attack before countering’. If you want to be bound by a ‘no first strike’ code of honour, so be it, but it’s not a good idea on the streets. Bad guys have no honour, so why hamstring yourself and give them even further advantages?
I do admire the ‘no first strike’ ethic. If everyone followed it we would have NO violence in our society, though there might be some heavy-duty staring matches from time to time. A more realistic version of no-first-strike is ‘do not seek out conflict, do not fight unless you have to, but if someone else initiates a situation, do what you must without hesitation’.
British law allows you to use ‘reasonable and necessary force’ to deal with an assault, and sensibly recognises that this may include striking first if need be. If you genuinely feel that you are about to be attacked, you may launch a pre-emptive strike. What you can’t do (because it makes you a violent criminal or a special kind of nutcase) is wander around lamping people because they might possibly be thinking about attacking you, they look like they might be a criminal, or whatever. You need to have a clear indication that they mean you immediate harm.
It is not acceptable to clobber someone who is annoying you and call it self-defence. There has to be an actual threat, not merely ‘he was asking for it’. You are also not permitted to stomp on someone or beat on them after they cease to be a threat. If you pre-emptive strike ends the matter, then it’s ended. The law allows you to defend yourself (or another person) so far as it is reasonable to do so. It is not reasonable to hurt someone who is not a threat, even if they WERE one just a moment ago before your strike connected and they fell down…
Pre-emption does not just mean striking (though it usually does). It can also mean pre-emptively applying a ‘restraint’. For example, you might be unwilling to thump someone but the option to get control of him with a choke hold or armlock may be more palatable. I’m not a big fan of Control & Restraint, and people who say ‘apply a restraint’ rather than ‘defend yourself’ scare the crap out of me, but sometimes it can be useful.
As a rule I’d suggest that you would only try to pre-emptively control someone if they were not a major threat to you or if backup was immediately available if the attempt failed. Police officers, doormen and security workers of various sorts might use this approach routinely if they have adequate training, but I wouldn’t bet my safety (or yours) on ‘applying a restraint’ to a serious aggressor. Apart from anything else, now that you’ve entangled yourself with an assailant, what are you going to do? If he doesn’t calm down and you can’t cuff him or something, you’re now in a grappling match with an enraged thug. Not the place to be if you can avoid it.
The final form of pre-emption is to use a slap, push, trip or whatever to gain an opportunity to make a run for it, jump in your car or grab a weapon. If you’re close to someone and you turn to run, he’ll usually catch you. Gaining a second or two while he recovers his wits or balance might be enough to succeed. There is also the chance that you can deter him from attacking you if you can grab a stick or other improvised weapon. You might need to create the opportunity by doing something distracting but not harmful.
Stage 4: Response
You can end up here without passing through any other stages if you get attacked by surprise, or if you aren’t willing or able to avoid/manage/pre-empt the situation. In any case, this is not the best place to be, but you still have a chance.
Martial arts and self-defence classes often start here, which in my view is a mistake. As I’ve already said, waiting for the other guy to attack is not the best way to defeat him. If you do find yourself here, you have a single good chance for a ‘response technique’ as the aggressor commits himself. The problem is you’re dealing with the assault amid an adrenaline flood that makes simple things quite difficult and difficult things impossible. Timing a response correctly and making it work is problematical under the circumstances. It can be done though, with the right training.
Some martial arts and self-defence systems deal extensively with this situation, and it is true that the other guy is actually quite vulnerable as he commits to an attack. This is where you can use a fight-winning throw or evade-and-kick technique, or sucker-punch the aggressor as he piles in. If you find yourself here it’s worth a try, but I don’t advocate skipping the first three stages in the hope of using an elegant response technique.
Stage 5: Furball
You really don’t want to be here. Once things have reached the ‘Furball’ stage (i.e. staggering about grappling and exchanging blows), it’s difficult to get a clean grappling technique or strike in. Fights of this sort tend to degenerate into chaos and usually go to the ground. Victory tends to go to the biggest, strongest and most aggressive fighter, or the one with the most friends willing to join in.
Contrary to what you see in the movies, most fights are pretty much decided once someone lands a clean blow, especially to the head. The sort of person willing to start a fight with you is likely to come in with an all-out flurry of blows or grab you and rag you about, thus gaining dominance in the fight. Recovering from this is hard.
At the Furball stage, mindset is your main hope. Forward drive and aggression, coupled with an intent to fight to the last and survive, is your best hope. You can’t win by covering up or retreating. This does not preclude manoeuvring to avoid a blow or covering one to avoid being knocked out, but passively defending or scrambling backwards just allows the other guy to continue his onslaught until he succeeds.
Once things have reached the ‘Furball’ stage (i.e. staggering about grappling and exchanging blows), it’s difficult to get a clean grappling technique or strike in. Fights of this sort tend to degenerate into chaos and usually go to the ground. Victory tends to go to the biggest, strongest and most aggressive fighter, or the one with the most friends willing to join in.
Unless you do something to turn things around, you’re either going to take that decisive blow or end up on the ground. In the former case, you only need to be stunned for a second while the next one comes in to start down the slippery slope to oblivion.
Winning a Furball means getting the other guy on the defensive or taking him out completely. Usually that means striking him anyhow you can, causing pain and shock, and looking for a good shot that’ll do enough damage to either allow you to escape or let you turn the tables. If you can make the opportunity for a takedown or similar grappling technique, that can give you the advantage but it’s hard to manage when you’re on the defensive.
In short, once the Furball situation has been reached you need to be an opportunist, delivering what damage you can and looking for an opportunity to end the matter or gain a moment to escape.
Stage 6: On the Ground
If a Furball is bad, this is worse. If you’re on the ground fighting one guy, and you have some training, then your chances may actually be quite good. Generally, though, it’s the worst place in the world to be. It only takes a random stranger or mate of the attacker to run over and kick you (yes, people do that, just for fun) for matters to become even worse. There are obstructions on the ground – kerbs, broken bottles and all sorts – that you might damage yourself on even if you are a skilled ground fighter.
Occasionally you might choose to go to the ground (say because what you were doing when you were upright wasn’t working) or to stay there to finish someone off, but normally the goal has to be to get up as fast as possible. It’s just too dangerous to stay down there. Ground fighting can be very effective when nobody else joins in, which is why it is so impressive in Mixed Martial Arts competitions. But in the high street on a wet Friday night with the attacker’s mates putting the boot in, rolling around looking for an arm bar is not necessarily the best option.
In good self-defence classes, ground fighting training is not geared towards defeating a fellow athlete in the ring or cage; it’s about getting control of the other guy (or hurting him badly enough) so that you can get back to your feet. There is a lot of crossover between the two, however, and most of the techniques used are very similar; it’s just that we’re training for a different arena.
So, if you end up on the ground, you need to get back up. That usually means hurting or gaining control of the aggressor while you do it. But get back up you must.
Stage 7: Finishing
In a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) or ‘cage fight’ situation, the aim is to win the bout, and you don’t get any points for legging it out the arena door as soon as you can (though this is probably what I’d do if you got me in the ring…). In the self-defence arena, your aim is not specifically to win the fight.
That might seem odd, but actually it’s very simple. Your aim is to end the situation with your safety intact. That may well mean defeating the other guy, but equally it can mean making an opportunity to escape, or simply hurting him enough that he decides to back off.
Remember that the law allows you to use force that is both reasonable and necessary. There is no requirement to use a specific amount of force to deal with a situation – the law recognises that you cannot ‘weigh to a nicety’ what you need to do to end an assault. So long as what you do is not unreasonable, then you have not committed a crime.
The question is, what is reasonable in finishing a fight? It really does depend on circumstances. If you knock the other guy down and have a good opportunity to escape but instead choose to go on fighting, or continue beating on the guy when he’s had enough, then that’s excessive and illegal. The law is deliberately vague in this area to allow for circumstances.
For example, if you make an opportunity to escape but instead stomp on your assailant in a busy high street, this is unlikely to be seen as reasonable. But if you did the same in the middle of nowhere with no escape route or assistance to hand, it might well be seen as reasonable since the attacker could simply get up and come after you unless you finished the matter decisively. It all comes down to whether what you do is reasonable under the circumstances.
As far as ‘finishing’ goes, grappling or control & restraint type finishes (eg armlocks) are all very well if help is to hand or you think there is a real chance to calm the attacker down. If not then all you’ve achieved is to tie yourself to him. If his friends join in you’re in trouble. Similarly: so you have a good armlock on him… now what? You can’t stay there all day and you can’t trust someone who just attacked you to ‘tap out’ honourably and depart, chastened at his defeat. You’re either going to have to let go, wait for help (and hope he doesn’t wriggle out or get help of his own), or else break or dislocate the joint you’ve got controlled. Those might not be the options you wanted.
A better ‘finish’ might be to simply create enough of an opportunity to leave the area. This would normally mean striking the aggressor hard enough to give him pause, or to make him fall in some way. By the time he’s upright and ready to attack you again, you’re gone. It’s not a martial arts movie type solution but it does get you out of danger, which is the whole point.
Another ‘finish’ is to deliver sufficient pain, shock and, if necessary, harm, to the aggressor that he changes his mind about attacking you. As I’ve already said, the typical attacker wants a victim, not a fight. If it’s obvious that he’s going to get hurt, he might decide to withdraw. There are various psychological gambits you can use to promote this idea in his mind; a good self-defence class will deal with them as well as the physical components of defeating the assault.
If all else fails, sometimes you have to render an assailant physically incapable of carrying on. This is not illegal if it’s your only chance. There is no maximum amount of force you can use, after which you have to give up and let the attacker do to you as he wishes in case you hurt him too much. If the attacker makes it necessary, you can use quite extreme measures to preserve your safety.
This kind of finish includes rendering someone unconscious by a strike or choke, winding them very badly or dislocating/breaking limbs, or even more extreme methods involving weapons or attacking eyes, throat and so forth. It may seem pretty horrific to consider doing this to someone, but if the alternative is rape, death or a life-destroying beating then you may have no choice. If things get this bad then you do have the right to finish the matter – it’s not your fault if someone attacks you and won’t stop.
If things get to the point where you do need to ‘finish’ someone, you do still have to remain within the bounds of reasonable force. What sort of finish is reasonable depends on the circumstances, as always. The force you use must be reasonable and necessary – but it also must be sufficient. If you have to end something with violence, do enough to end it. If not you’ll be dealing with an enraged attacker wanting revenge on top of whatever he wanted from you in the first place.
Summary
There are no perfect answers. By remaining aware of your surroundings and actively avoiding trouble, and by being willing to place safety ahead of convenience and ego, you can greatly reduce the chances that anything bad will happen to you.
If things do go south anyhow, then you need a gameplan to get you out of trouble (and you need to work at making the plan play out). ‘Winning a fight’ isn’t the goal – the goal is to preserve your safety. That means choosing the option that gives you the best chance of avoiding harm, or at least minimises the harm you suffer.
Preserving your safety can mean backing down, running away, handing over possessions or other acts that your ego and self-respect don’t like. So be it; sometimes things are bad enough that a bad outcome is the best you can hope for. Preserving your safety can also mean pre-emptively striking someone and other solutions that seem unpalatable to the sort of people that say violence solves nothing. Maybe it doesn’t, but there is nothing particularly honourable about being beaten, raped or killed because you were ‘better’ than your assailant and therefore unwilling to hurt them to protect yourself.
Good Self-Defence Training
Good Self-Defence training is all about selecting the best solution to the problem at hand; a solution that enables you to survive the immediate physical threat as well as any legal and emotion issues that may arise afterwards. Where the pure martial artist or ‘fighter’ can concentrate wholly on the most efficient way to deal with the opponent, self-defence must deal with the situation and all its possible outcomes. This doesn’t mean martial arts are irrelevant, just that many don’t consider these angles and concentrate on the physical aspects only. So do many self-defence courses for that matter, but in my opinion that’s not good training.
As an aside: many of the physical techniques used in self-defence are also found in martial arts. If you train in martial arts and consider how to apply your techniques to real-world violence then you’re covering the same ground. It’s pretty obvious that the two approaches meet somewhere in the middle and while the mechanics may vary, there’s really no difference in the end. So long as it works and it remains within the bounds of the law and civilised behaviour, it doesn’t matter all that much what name you put on it.
Fantasy Solutions
Many people have simple solutions to offer when the fear of violence arises. Most of them are simply fantasy:
Live somewhere nicer: Err, fair enough, if you can afford it. Of course, the nicest area can change and unpleasant people can wander in. Nowhere is 100% safe.
Just pretend it isn’t happening: People who are aware of the risks and take sensible precautions often upset others. Sometimes we even get blamed for the violence in society! It is possible to wander around tutting indignantly but otherwise ignoring the problem unless someone brings it to your notice (hopefully this will be one of those awful self-defence people and not a gang of muggers). Many people get away with this approach, but if something does happen to them they won’t see it coming and the chances of dealing with it are minimal.
Be ‘hard’/have a black belt/take a self-defence course: Of course getting some training is a big help, but only if it’s relevant and realistic. I’ve heard a lot of people tell me ‘it’ can’t happen to them because they’re so tough, or because they’re always with their mates who’d help them out. Thing is, at best these solutions mean you’ve got a good chance of ‘winning’ if something kicks off (and that can be a whole can of worms all of its own), but as often as not the mates aren’t there or are unreliable, the black belt turns out not to be so useful in a fight as you thought, or maybe the other guy is tougher/more aggressive/armed or whatever. Few people are truly tough enough to handle anything that might happen, and misplaced confidence can get you into real trouble.
Carry a weapon: Not only is it illegal in this country (the UK) to carry a weapon, it’s also useless unless you know how to access, deploy and use it, and you’re willing to do so. That in turn can mean being prosecuted. People have gone to jail for killing someone in a fight that would not have happened but for the fact that they felt able to defeat the other guy because of their weapon. Unarmed, they might have well have avoided the conflict. Yes, a weapon can save you if it kicks off anyway, but to reiterate: it’s illegal to carry one. Besides, the mere fact that you have a weapon on you may not be enough.
Personal Alarms: These can be some use, but if it’s at home in a drawer or at the bottom of your bag then it’s useless. Nor is it a magic shield. You need to know what to do to make use of the alarm’s capabilities before it’s going to be any use to you. Otherwise it’s just going to distract you while the attacker gets on with whatever he wants to do to you.
Just stay out of dangerous areas: Actually this is a pretty decent option, but you can’t be 100% sure it will work. Even though you don’t go drinking in the town centre on a Friday night doesn’t mean you won’t encounter a band of afternoon drunks as you return to your car with the shopping. You can’t avoid every possibility of trouble, but you can certainly cut the risks this way. Just don’t be complacent.
Rely on the Police/Law to protect you: The British police are really good. I’ve dealt with them in several capacities and my experiences are very positive. BUT: they can’t be there all the time. There are plenty of ‘tough new laws’ banning this and that but people still get shot or stabbed with weapons that are now illegal. Doing violence to people has been illegal for centuries but it still happens. The Police can help you out if they get to the scene in time, and they do provide a very real deterrent by simply being there… but that’s not the same as having a 24-hour bodyguard service. You need to take responsibility for your own safety.
Real Solutions
Real solutions are a bit less satisfying than just declaring the matter solved and dealt with. The uncomfortable truth is that there is no 100% perfect solution. It is necessary to understand the threat and acknowledge that it exists (and that is more than a bit scary), then find effective ways to reduce it. You must also understand that there is no perfect defence against any threat. It is thus better to create a series of layered ‘filters’ to reduce the chances of a successful attack at each level until it is negligible.
Stage 1: Awareness, Acceptance and Willingness
‘Awareness’ is a word thrown around by many different people, often with quite different meanings. What we mean here is more than simply being aware of your surroundings (look around you…!) but also understanding what you see. A door is not always just a door. Sometimes it is an escape route. Sometimes it is a possible threat avenue (gratuitous advice: if the assailant comes in through the wall or ceiling you’re probably in trouble!). Sometimes it is a potential obstacle. Don’t just look; see.
You cannot defeat or avoid what you don’t see coming. On the other hand, the very fact that you are looking around and seem to know what you’re doing can deter many opportunist attackers or robbers. These people are not looking for a fight; they want a victim. Many of them would be quite willing to blindside you or grab you from behind but unwilling to approach from the front or attack a ready target.
There is also the psychological effect of obviously being aware. Predators (of any kind, including lager-fuelled urban ones) instinctively seek out weak victims, and someone who is watching for danger is sending the subliminal signal that they are willing to deal with it if they spot some. Predators don’t like prey that fights back.
Awareness actually does reduce your chances of being attacked, but in truth if it’s to be much use you need to act upon it. That means being able to accept that this is really happening. Too many people get hurt while they’re in denial – ‘What the hell? This can’t be happening! Nobody would hit a …’. Or else while they’re still in a complacent mindset, thinking that the confrontation they’re having is merely a war of words with some kind of rules in place. Sad fact is that some people are quite willing to ‘go physical’ as an argument gambit even if you’d never dream of it.
If someone suddenly produced a handgun and threatened you, you wouldn’t ignore him on the grounds that guns are illegal in Britain and therefore he can’t have one and won’t use it… you’d react pretty strongly one way or another. Yet people often just don’t accept that the other guy might be about to launch into you with his fists.
Acceptance is also about being able to decide what’s the best you can hope for in this situation. Say you get into a confrontation over a parking space. You’re right and he’s wrong, but he’s obviously becoming aggressive. The best possible outcome now is that you get of this with your safety intact. You have to accept that. If you continue to argue you’re going to be assaulted and even if you win, you may get hurt or have legal involvements and other problems as a result.
Thus it’s obvious that the best outcome for you is where you give up your entirely correct position and walk away, letting the bad guy win. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth, doesn’t it? Well, blood tastes worse, and teeth stick in your throat. Fact is, sometimes you have to just take what you can get from a situation. Being willing to accept that and get out of a confrontation before it becomes violent is a valuable survival tool.
Willingness means being ready to do what it takes to avoid or survive a situation. That may mean backing down or walking away, or drinking somewhere else if you don’t like the clientele here, no matter what your mates may say. It can mean being willing to take a stand here and now, for example saying ‘no’ to a pushy date in a way that cannot be mistaken (and being willing to back up the ‘no’ by leaving or taking whatever other measures are necessary).
Willingness also refers to being ready to fight tooth and nail for your survival, whatever the odds. Boxers call this ‘heart’, some martial artists call it ‘fighting spirit’. Whatever name you put on it, sometimes your willingness to keep on kicking, biting and struggling may be the last thing between you and the rape suite, a hospital bed or the morgue.
Initially, though, we are talking about recognising a situation and accepting what’s going on, and being willing to do something about it rather than wander complacently on in the hope that everything will be all right.
Stage 2: Confrontation Management
If you haven’t managed to avoid a situation and conflict becomes inevitable, there is still a chance to avoid actual violence. This can mean ‘backing down’, withdrawing or temporising (as the law books call it), or it can mean being quite assertive (but not aggressive) in the hope of defusing the situation.
There are times when a display of aggression might deter a possible assailant, but this will usually escalate a situation so it is best used with discretion.
Confrontation Management is a complex subject, and too big to deal with in any detail here. For now suffice to say that you need to preserve your personal space (using a ‘fence’ is one good way, as is positioning yourself with an obstacle between you and the aggressor).
If you adopt a martial arts type ‘fighting stance’ this is likely to escalate a situation rather than defuse it, so normally you’d do this if you wanted to show you were willing and able to fight – i.e. as a psychological gambit. If you think you’re actually going to have to fight, a fighting stance is a bad idea. Better to strike by surprise and not give away what you’re up to. There is nothing dishonourable about this – if someone really wants to do you harm, you need to stop them anyhow you can.
But we’re talking here about NOT using violence if possible. By keeping a little distance between you and the other guy and remaining calm but assertive, you have a good chance of de-escalating the situation and getting out (sometimes even getting what you want) without violence. Remember that attackers usually don’t want a fight, they want a victim. If you don’t act like a victim then you’re less likely to become one.
There is too much to Conflict Management to deal with here. I’d suggest getting a good book on the subject (one of mine would be best, because that way I get your money. I like money), or getting some training at a good self-defence class. By ‘good’ I mean the ones that deal with the whole package including conflict management, threat avoidance and such like. Classes that start with ‘punch comes in, you do this, job done’ aren’t really dealing with the reality of the situation. They may teach some useful stuff but the physical is NOT the best place to start.
Stage 3: Pre-Empt
If you’re sure that a situation is going out of control, waiting for the other guy to attack is NOT a good idea. He will launch his assault when he thinks he has the best opportunity to succeed, which usually means he is right. This reduces your chances of dealing with the attack successfully.
You are NOT required by law or any moral imperative to wait to be attacked or to ‘block an attack before countering’. If you want to be bound by a ‘no first strike’ code of honour, so be it, but it’s not a good idea on the streets. Bad guys have no honour, so why hamstring yourself and give them even further advantages?
I do admire the ‘no first strike’ ethic. If everyone followed it we would have NO violence in our society, though there might be some heavy-duty staring matches from time to time. A more realistic version of no-first-strike is ‘do not seek out conflict, do not fight unless you have to, but if someone else initiates a situation, do what you must without hesitation’.
British law allows you to use ‘reasonable and necessary force’ to deal with an assault, and sensibly recognises that this may include striking first if need be. If you genuinely feel that you are about to be attacked, you may launch a pre-emptive strike. What you can’t do (because it makes you a violent criminal or a special kind of nutcase) is wander around lamping people because they might possibly be thinking about attacking you, they look like they might be a criminal, or whatever. You need to have a clear indication that they mean you immediate harm.
It is not acceptable to clobber someone who is annoying you and call it self-defence. There has to be an actual threat, not merely ‘he was asking for it’. You are also not permitted to stomp on someone or beat on them after they cease to be a threat. If you pre-emptive strike ends the matter, then it’s ended. The law allows you to defend yourself (or another person) so far as it is reasonable to do so. It is not reasonable to hurt someone who is not a threat, even if they WERE one just a moment ago before your strike connected and they fell down…
Pre-emption does not just mean striking (though it usually does). It can also mean pre-emptively applying a ‘restraint’. For example, you might be unwilling to thump someone but the option to get control of him with a choke hold or armlock may be more palatable. I’m not a big fan of Control & Restraint, and people who say ‘apply a restraint’ rather than ‘defend yourself’ scare the crap out of me, but sometimes it can be useful.
As a rule I’d suggest that you would only try to pre-emptively control someone if they were not a major threat to you or if backup was immediately available if the attempt failed. Police officers, doormen and security workers of various sorts might use this approach routinely if they have adequate training, but I wouldn’t bet my safety (or yours) on ‘applying a restraint’ to a serious aggressor. Apart from anything else, now that you’ve entangled yourself with an assailant, what are you going to do? If he doesn’t calm down and you can’t cuff him or something, you’re now in a grappling match with an enraged thug. Not the place to be if you can avoid it.
The final form of pre-emption is to use a slap, push, trip or whatever to gain an opportunity to make a run for it, jump in your car or grab a weapon. If you’re close to someone and you turn to run, he’ll usually catch you. Gaining a second or two while he recovers his wits or balance might be enough to succeed. There is also the chance that you can deter him from attacking you if you can grab a stick or other improvised weapon. You might need to create the opportunity by doing something distracting but not harmful.
Stage 4: Response
You can end up here without passing through any other stages if you get attacked by surprise, or if you aren’t willing or able to avoid/manage/pre-empt the situation. In any case, this is not the best place to be, but you still have a chance.
Martial arts and self-defence classes often start here, which in my view is a mistake. As I’ve already said, waiting for the other guy to attack is not the best way to defeat him. If you do find yourself here, you have a single good chance for a ‘response technique’ as the aggressor commits himself. The problem is you’re dealing with the assault amid an adrenaline flood that makes simple things quite difficult and difficult things impossible. Timing a response correctly and making it work is problematical under the circumstances. It can be done though, with the right training.
Some martial arts and self-defence systems deal extensively with this situation, and it is true that the other guy is actually quite vulnerable as he commits to an attack. This is where you can use a fight-winning throw or evade-and-kick technique, or sucker-punch the aggressor as he piles in. If you find yourself here it’s worth a try, but I don’t advocate skipping the first three stages in the hope of using an elegant response technique.
Stage 5: Furball
You really don’t want to be here. Once things have reached the ‘Furball’ stage (i.e. staggering about grappling and exchanging blows), it’s difficult to get a clean grappling technique or strike in. Fights of this sort tend to degenerate into chaos and usually go to the ground. Victory tends to go to the biggest, strongest and most aggressive fighter, or the one with the most friends willing to join in.
Contrary to what you see in the movies, most fights are pretty much decided once someone lands a clean blow, especially to the head. The sort of person willing to start a fight with you is likely to come in with an all-out flurry of blows or grab you and rag you about, thus gaining dominance in the fight. Recovering from this is hard.
At the Furball stage, mindset is your main hope. Forward drive and aggression, coupled with an intent to fight to the last and survive, is your best hope. You can’t win by covering up or retreating. This does not preclude manoeuvring to avoid a blow or covering one to avoid being knocked out, but passively defending or scrambling backwards just allows the other guy to continue his onslaught until he succeeds.
Once things have reached the ‘Furball’ stage (i.e. staggering about grappling and exchanging blows), it’s difficult to get a clean grappling technique or strike in. Fights of this sort tend to degenerate into chaos and usually go to the ground. Victory tends to go to the biggest, strongest and most aggressive fighter, or the one with the most friends willing to join in.
Unless you do something to turn things around, you’re either going to take that decisive blow or end up on the ground. In the former case, you only need to be stunned for a second while the next one comes in to start down the slippery slope to oblivion.
Winning a Furball means getting the other guy on the defensive or taking him out completely. Usually that means striking him anyhow you can, causing pain and shock, and looking for a good shot that’ll do enough damage to either allow you to escape or let you turn the tables. If you can make the opportunity for a takedown or similar grappling technique, that can give you the advantage but it’s hard to manage when you’re on the defensive.
In short, once the Furball situation has been reached you need to be an opportunist, delivering what damage you can and looking for an opportunity to end the matter or gain a moment to escape.
Stage 6: On the Ground
If a Furball is bad, this is worse. If you’re on the ground fighting one guy, and you have some training, then your chances may actually be quite good. Generally, though, it’s the worst place in the world to be. It only takes a random stranger or mate of the attacker to run over and kick you (yes, people do that, just for fun) for matters to become even worse. There are obstructions on the ground – kerbs, broken bottles and all sorts – that you might damage yourself on even if you are a skilled ground fighter.
Occasionally you might choose to go to the ground (say because what you were doing when you were upright wasn’t working) or to stay there to finish someone off, but normally the goal has to be to get up as fast as possible. It’s just too dangerous to stay down there. Ground fighting can be very effective when nobody else joins in, which is why it is so impressive in Mixed Martial Arts competitions. But in the high street on a wet Friday night with the attacker’s mates putting the boot in, rolling around looking for an arm bar is not necessarily the best option.
In good self-defence classes, ground fighting training is not geared towards defeating a fellow athlete in the ring or cage; it’s about getting control of the other guy (or hurting him badly enough) so that you can get back to your feet. There is a lot of crossover between the two, however, and most of the techniques used are very similar; it’s just that we’re training for a different arena.
So, if you end up on the ground, you need to get back up. That usually means hurting or gaining control of the aggressor while you do it. But get back up you must.
Stage 7: Finishing
In a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) or ‘cage fight’ situation, the aim is to win the bout, and you don’t get any points for legging it out the arena door as soon as you can (though this is probably what I’d do if you got me in the ring…). In the self-defence arena, your aim is not specifically to win the fight.
That might seem odd, but actually it’s very simple. Your aim is to end the situation with your safety intact. That may well mean defeating the other guy, but equally it can mean making an opportunity to escape, or simply hurting him enough that he decides to back off.
Remember that the law allows you to use force that is both reasonable and necessary. There is no requirement to use a specific amount of force to deal with a situation – the law recognises that you cannot ‘weigh to a nicety’ what you need to do to end an assault. So long as what you do is not unreasonable, then you have not committed a crime.
The question is, what is reasonable in finishing a fight? It really does depend on circumstances. If you knock the other guy down and have a good opportunity to escape but instead choose to go on fighting, or continue beating on the guy when he’s had enough, then that’s excessive and illegal. The law is deliberately vague in this area to allow for circumstances.
For example, if you make an opportunity to escape but instead stomp on your assailant in a busy high street, this is unlikely to be seen as reasonable. But if you did the same in the middle of nowhere with no escape route or assistance to hand, it might well be seen as reasonable since the attacker could simply get up and come after you unless you finished the matter decisively. It all comes down to whether what you do is reasonable under the circumstances.
As far as ‘finishing’ goes, grappling or control & restraint type finishes (eg armlocks) are all very well if help is to hand or you think there is a real chance to calm the attacker down. If not then all you’ve achieved is to tie yourself to him. If his friends join in you’re in trouble. Similarly: so you have a good armlock on him… now what? You can’t stay there all day and you can’t trust someone who just attacked you to ‘tap out’ honourably and depart, chastened at his defeat. You’re either going to have to let go, wait for help (and hope he doesn’t wriggle out or get help of his own), or else break or dislocate the joint you’ve got controlled. Those might not be the options you wanted.
A better ‘finish’ might be to simply create enough of an opportunity to leave the area. This would normally mean striking the aggressor hard enough to give him pause, or to make him fall in some way. By the time he’s upright and ready to attack you again, you’re gone. It’s not a martial arts movie type solution but it does get you out of danger, which is the whole point.
Another ‘finish’ is to deliver sufficient pain, shock and, if necessary, harm, to the aggressor that he changes his mind about attacking you. As I’ve already said, the typical attacker wants a victim, not a fight. If it’s obvious that he’s going to get hurt, he might decide to withdraw. There are various psychological gambits you can use to promote this idea in his mind; a good self-defence class will deal with them as well as the physical components of defeating the assault.
If all else fails, sometimes you have to render an assailant physically incapable of carrying on. This is not illegal if it’s your only chance. There is no maximum amount of force you can use, after which you have to give up and let the attacker do to you as he wishes in case you hurt him too much. If the attacker makes it necessary, you can use quite extreme measures to preserve your safety.
This kind of finish includes rendering someone unconscious by a strike or choke, winding them very badly or dislocating/breaking limbs, or even more extreme methods involving weapons or attacking eyes, throat and so forth. It may seem pretty horrific to consider doing this to someone, but if the alternative is rape, death or a life-destroying beating then you may have no choice. If things get this bad then you do have the right to finish the matter – it’s not your fault if someone attacks you and won’t stop.
If things get to the point where you do need to ‘finish’ someone, you do still have to remain within the bounds of reasonable force. What sort of finish is reasonable depends on the circumstances, as always. The force you use must be reasonable and necessary – but it also must be sufficient. If you have to end something with violence, do enough to end it. If not you’ll be dealing with an enraged attacker wanting revenge on top of whatever he wanted from you in the first place.
Summary
There are no perfect answers. By remaining aware of your surroundings and actively avoiding trouble, and by being willing to place safety ahead of convenience and ego, you can greatly reduce the chances that anything bad will happen to you.
If things do go south anyhow, then you need a gameplan to get you out of trouble (and you need to work at making the plan play out). ‘Winning a fight’ isn’t the goal – the goal is to preserve your safety. That means choosing the option that gives you the best chance of avoiding harm, or at least minimises the harm you suffer.
Preserving your safety can mean backing down, running away, handing over possessions or other acts that your ego and self-respect don’t like. So be it; sometimes things are bad enough that a bad outcome is the best you can hope for. Preserving your safety can also mean pre-emptively striking someone and other solutions that seem unpalatable to the sort of people that say violence solves nothing. Maybe it doesn’t, but there is nothing particularly honourable about being beaten, raped or killed because you were ‘better’ than your assailant and therefore unwilling to hurt them to protect yourself.
Good Self-Defence Training
Good Self-Defence training is all about selecting the best solution to the problem at hand; a solution that enables you to survive the immediate physical threat as well as any legal and emotion issues that may arise afterwards. Where the pure martial artist or ‘fighter’ can concentrate wholly on the most efficient way to deal with the opponent, self-defence must deal with the situation and all its possible outcomes. This doesn’t mean martial arts are irrelevant, just that many don’t consider these angles and concentrate on the physical aspects only. So do many self-defence courses for that matter, but in my opinion that’s not good training.
As an aside: many of the physical techniques used in self-defence are also found in martial arts. If you train in martial arts and consider how to apply your techniques to real-world violence then you’re covering the same ground. It’s pretty obvious that the two approaches meet somewhere in the middle and while the mechanics may vary, there’s really no difference in the end. So long as it works and it remains within the bounds of the law and civilised behaviour, it doesn’t matter all that much what name you put on it.
