Welcome to Lesson #6 in your Self-Defense Basics Course! Having a strategy during a physical attack is crucial! Especially if you’re smaller, weaker, or outnumbered.
In this lesson, we’ll discuss a few basic principles to keep in mind when you’re under attack.
Let’s use our head!
SELF-DEFENSE BASICS COURSE
Lesson #6 – Transcript
Hey. Ando again from Happy Life Martial Arts. Welcome to Lesson #6 in your Self-Defense Basics Course.
Up until now, we’ve been talking about how to prevent a physical attack. But what do you when you didn’t see trouble coming? When your words aren’t being heard? When you can’t run?
We’ll move around some more in the next lesson, but today, I want to share a few strategies to help you survive a physical attack. Let’s start with a common question.
When should you fight back?
The truth is I can’t tell you when to fight back and when not to fight back. Nobody can. The choice is yours and yours alone.
Think about it—no two self-defense situations are exactly the same… and even if they were, nobody is you.
So, if you decide to fight back, then fight. If you decide to not fight back, then don’t. Either way, it’s your choice. No matter what anybody else says, live with it.
Okay. Having said that, there are three situations when I would highly recommend that you do choose to fight back, no matter who you are or whether you feel capable of fighting or not.
3 TIMES TO FIGHT
First... if anybody tries to tie you up—handcuffs, duct tape, zip ties, sausage links, whatever—fight back!
If you allow yourself to get tied up now, you’re taking away the option to fight back later. So, if anybody tries to tie you up, fight.
Second… you’ve probably already heard about the dangers of being moved to a “secondary location”.
That’s when a bad guy wants to move you from where you are now to a place where he’ll have more time and more privacy to do whatever he wants—maybe into a car, or behind a building, or on a plane to Buffalo, New York.
Remember this—if you’re going to fight back, make a stand where you’re standing.
Waiting to fight someplace else only makes it easier for the bad guy and harder on you.
Third… how do I say this? In case you haven’t noticed, human beings can get a little weird. When they get into groups, they can be really weird!
Once pack mentality or mob mentality kicks in, negotiating and reasoning become almost impossible. So, as a rule—
The more attackers you face, the less effective your words are going to be.
So, if you find yourself backing up, if you hear yourself saying, “Hey, guys—what do you want?” or “Whoa, whoa! Everybody just calm down. Put down the can of gas and let’s talk,” my friend, you’re in much bigger trouble than you think.
Find an exit, pick up a weapon, choose an angle of attack, just do something to prepare, because if you wait, it’s too late. The odds are all hell is about to break loose.
Okay. You can’t run, you can’t talk, and you decide to fight back…let’s talk strategy.
3 STRATEGIES
Since we all love a list of three, I’ll give you another one. Here are three strategies to keep in mind in our self-defense project for facing a physical attack.
Strategy number one—play your game, not the bad guy’s.
There’s an old saying in the martial arts—don’t box a boxer. In other words, if somebody is good at something, don’t try to beat them at it.
In practical terms, that means if somebody grabs you, you don’t have to grab back—you can strike.
If somebody is striking you, you don’t have to strike back—you can grab.
And if someone is screaming at you to sit down and play them in a game of chess, you don’t have to sit down—you can throw the board up in their face and say, “I win.”
The point is the bad guy has a plan. He has a vision of what’s going to happen. For whatever reason, he picked you because he believes that you are going to play along with his plan. And if you do, you’re going to get hurt, because that’s how his plan ends.
But if you change the plan, if you do something unexpected, if you don’t play along, well, then you switch from the follower in his vision to the leader in a new vision. Your vision.
Yeah, but how do you change the plan? Well, imagine an attack from the bad guy’s point of view. How does he want you to look? What does he want to hear you say? What does he want you to do?
Got it?
Now, don’t do any of that!
Look at him in a way he doesn’t want you to look. Say things he doesn’t want to hear. And do things he doesn’t want you to do.
The big idea—anything you can do that doesn’t fit into his vision is going to disrupt his rhythm, shake his confidence, and make it more difficult to carry out his plan.
So, flip the script. Turn the tables. Play your game, not the bad guy’s.
Strategy number two—attack, don’t defend.
Look—I don’t care how tough you are. I don’t care how long you’ve been training in the martial arts, nobody can block and dodge an attack forever.
The longer you spend trying to block and dodge an attack, the more chances the bad guy gets to hurt you.
So, let’s shift our mindset here. Your goal should not be to defend yourself from the bad guy’s attack, it should be to force the bad guy to defend himself from your counter-attack.
You want to change his plan from trying to hurt you to trying to stop you from hurting him.
Now, I know that might sound a little crazy at first, but you’ll have to trust me here.
Your best chance of taking control in a physical altercation, your best chance of protecting yourself in a self-defense situation, is to stop thinking, “Oh, no! What is he doing?” to “Okay. Here’s what I’m going to do.”
So, choose your moment, choose your move, and then do it. And as a rule, the sooner the better.
If we can agree that counter-attacking is the most effective method of self-defense, then we should make one important distinction.
Strategy number three— attack the problem, not the person.
This is not easy, but ideally, you will not take a physical attack personally. Is it an attack on your body? Yes, of course. But that doesn’t mean it has to be an attack on your spirit.
If you allow yourself to get upset, angry, or scared, you will not be functioning at your most efficient or effective level.
If you lose your cool, you might even end up making the situation worse and doing something that puts you either in the ground or in jail.
Don’t get me wrong, if your safety is being threatened, I’d rather see you get angry and do something than be chill and do nothing. Just keep in mind that the ultimate goal is objectivity.
We want to be able to approach a physical attack as a problem that needs to be solved, not a battle of personalities.
For example, if someone attacks you, the solution might be a quick hand to the face and then running for the door.
In another situation, you might need to pick up something to use as a weapon and scare off the bad guy.
In a worst case scenario, you might have to keep attacking until the bad guy is on the floor and not capable of hurting you anymore.
It’s crucial to recognize what kind of situation you’re in.
Do you just need to get to the door or do you need to put the bad guy on the floor?
Again, no two self-defense situations are exactly the same, but the key to your survival is—focus on what you need to do to regain your safety and nothing more.
Don’t get sucked into the drama of the moment. Don’t curl up and cry, “Why me? Why me?” but also don’t roll up your sleeves with a growl and say, “Ooh—you’re gonna pay for that. Honey, get the ax.”
Train to keep your cool. Attack the problem, not the person.
STEP INTO STRESS
Okay. Now, let me give you some homework. This exercise is going to sound a little weird, but remember—you’re a human being. Weird is actually normal!
Hear some music that you hate? Turn it up.
You don’t want to watch that video of a guy getting gored by a bull? Watch it.
Your stomach upset because your co-workers are in the break room fighting over an old bag of turkey jerky? Get a little closer.
Can’t stand the politics of that idiot on TV? Listen to him.
Get the idea?
If you allow yourself to turn away from all of the things you don’t like or that make you upset, then you are weakening your spirit. That means you’re also weakening your ability to face a physical attack.
We can not allow ourselves to be frightened, shocked, or disgusted.
Instead, we should be strengthening our spirit by stepping into stress—stepping into violence, and cruelty, and injustice. That’s the only way we have a chance of controlling it.
So, I’m challenging you today to go beyond Lesson #1 and simply making yourself comfortable everywhere you go. Once you’re comfortable, I now want you to step forward and take control of any part of your world that you feel needs to be controlled.
Train yourself every day to stare into the cold, dark eyes of demons. Let them see that you’re not afraid of them.
You’re not afraid of their power to hurt you because you have the same power to hurt them.
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Until next time, go stare at something ugly until it’s not ugly anymore, and keep fighting for a happy life.
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