SELF-DEFENSE IN THE REAL WORLD

 by Phillip Starr

Back in 1984, I was talking to several of my students about self-defense in the real world. Two of them were sheriff's deputies and although I'd been a peace officer myself, I knew they were a lot more up to date on current trends in violent crime. Someone asked about the odds of an assailant being armed. I estimated that there was probably a good 90% chance of that but the deputies quickly corrected me. “If someone is out looking for a fight”, they said, “the odds are about 98% that they're armed with something.” This “something” could be anything from a length of cable to a knife or even a handgun, they said. But the fact was that most street thugs were armed. Period. And remember this occurred in 1984! The odds of a scumbag being armed nowadays is pretty much 100%. He may or may not choose to use the weapon that he's carrying, but you can bet that he's got one.

I've spent many years studying and developing highly effective defensive techniques against weapons. I'm living proof that they work; as a peace officer there were several occasions when I had to bet my life on their efficiency. However, in the years that I studied various types of defensive techniques against an armed opponent, I saw that many, perhaps most, of them simply won't work. This surprised me greatly. I'd thought that our martial arts forefathers would have developed very practical, effective techniques to deal with armed aggressors.

To further complicate matters was the fact that our martial arts ancestors never had to deal with one particular type of weapon. Firearms simply didn't exist in their day. As the need for defensive maneuvers against the handgun increased, numerous contemporary martial arts teachers came to the fore and worked to develop them. Most of them simply will not work. I believe that this is because the majority of teachers who designed them had never been on the wrong end of a firearm that was being held by someone who meant to do them serious harm. They also neglected to study how the types of handguns (the revolver and the semi-automatic) work. It can make a considerable difference, believe me.

And the one subject that almost no one bothered to study is the psychology of the armed foe. I believe this is a crucial part of self-defense training. It's important to study every small aspect of this subject because, as Master Masatoshi Nakayama (former President of the Japan Karate Association and student of Gichin Funakoshi) told us, “Defending yourself against a firearm is like skydiving. You can only fail once.” He also said that if your opponent is armed, he has the advantage. You may have trained in a martial art for thirty years but if a 12 yr. old child draws a knife or a firearm and points it at you, the child has the advantage.

Some of the best information about dealing with armed aggressors came from Col. Jeff Cooper (dec.), founder of one of the world's finest combat shooting schools known as Gunsite. I won't go into details here but I'll give credit where credit is due and admit freely that I borrowed several principles that he taught. The only difference is that he taught them to people who would defend themselves with a handgun; I teach them to people who are unarmed.

Too often instructors concern themselves with the weapon. That is, they teach students to fight the weapon rather than the person wielding it. I feel this is a serious error. Many teachers emphasize disarming the enemy, which is, in my opinion, another serious error. If you focus on disarming the opponent, you can quickly become engaged in a sort of wrestling contest. The problem is that your enemy is armed. You aren't. He means to take your life. You aim to disarm him. Who do you suppose is most likely to walk away from such an encounter? The first rule to remember about self-defense is, “There are no rules.”

When facing an armed opponent, I present my students with a list of guidelines that they always bear in mind and apply to their training:

1. The best defense is to RUN! If this is not possible or practical (as in the case of defending oneself or one's family and loved ones), determine that you are going to have to kill the aggressor.

2. If any suitable object is at hand, grab it and use it as a weapon against your enemy. Obviously, this doesn't apply when facing an opponent who is armed with a handgun.

3. Get out of the line of attack.

4. Gain and maintain control of the weapon at all times. There is no need to disarm the enemy but you must keep control over his ability to use his weapon.

5. Kill him as quickly as possible. Don't rely on joint twisting or throwing techniques; there's too great a chance that something could go wrong. Do what must be done as quickly as you can.

Of course, there are many details that I simply can't include here. Let me simply say that these defensive techniques require vigorous, regular practice until they can be applied without conscious effort. If and when you need to apply them for real, you won't have time to stop and think about what to do.

When we teach self-defense to our students we should make a clear distinction between what I call “basic self-defense”, which involves defensive techniques against common forms of assault such as grabbing, choking, and so forth, and “advanced self-defense”, which involves defensive techniques to be used against the armed aggressor. This brings to mind another interesting point; what is the most common form of unarmed attack? Some years ago, FBI statistics showed that it was the common push! It was, and likely still is, the “entering” tactic used by most street thugs. That is, it frequently precedes his main attack. Oftentimes, it IS his main attack! Defending oneself against a sudden, violent push isn't as easy as it sounds, however.

Many martial arts teachers prefer not to teach defensive techniques to their students until they reach higher levels of skill. I believe that they should be taught in the earlier stages of a student's training. After all, she may need it long before she reaches the level of brown or black belt. Her life may depend on it.