10 Common-sense Self Defense Tips For Men

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Jul 272009
Gary Simpson asked:

For more than 30 years I have been running specialized self defence courses and seminars. Over that time I have shown thousands of people how to protect and look after themselves.

Increasing personal safety ALWAYS commences with awareness.

Since most men may be attacked in almost any situation and for a wide-ranging variety of reasons I offer the following advice.

Here is a list of ten simple things that you can do immediately that will increase your safety:

1 – Most men get involved in physical trouble as a result of saying something rude, offensive, tactless, stupid or hurtful. Controlling what comes out of your mouth can keep it in good shape. Think before you speak.

2 – If a fight breaks out in a bar – leave immediately. Go before all the drunks and brawlers start swinging chairs, bottles, glasses and punches. A “free for all” usually starts with just two protagonists. Innocent bystanders often get hit. Those who leave all the fools to bash each other do not.

3 – NEVER attempt to mediate an argument between a man and a woman. Both will cease arguing or fighting with each other and turn on you – the common enemy. If you fear for the woman’s safety, call the police.

4 – Understand that many people these days have a cocktail of drugs and booze in their veins. It makes them argumentative, aggressive and “Mike Tyson-esque.” Avoid people who are “off the planet.” Even a casual glance at them can set them off. Leave them with their own demons.

5 – Don’t make the fatal mistake of thinking that ANYBODY fights “fair” any more. Those days are over – they have been since the John Wayne era! Expect multiple attackers, weapons, possibly both.

6 – The cemeteries are full of dead heroes. Don’t add to their number. Run if you can. There is no shame in avoiding a fight. In fact, running away is smart.

7 – Recognize objects in every room of your home that could be used as makeshift weapons. Home invasion is a growing curse these days due to the unwillingness of our governments to protect their citizens.

8 – THIS IS MORE OF A LEGAL WARNING: Understand that if you allow yourself to be placed in a “compromising” position with a woman, particularly one who is “under-age,” then the woman’s version of events will usually be believed over the man’s version. Do not allow yourself to get into such situations.

9 – Negotiation is a far higher art form than physical confrontation. Do anything reasonable to avoid a fight. NOTHING good ever comes out of conflict. War is proof of that.

10 – When all else fails, your back is to the wall and there is absolutely no other alternative left remember… “it is better to be tried by twelve than carried by six.”

Remember my opening words – “increasing personal safety ALWAYS commences with awareness.” Increase your awareness, mind your manners, know your surroundings and you will certainly improve your safety.

Please feel free to distribute this article. The only condition is that the resource box remains intact and that the article is not altered in any way.

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4 Reasons Why Boxing Fitness is #1 For Self Defense

Self Defense Street Fight No Responses »
Jul 192009
Rahim Jiwani asked:

You have no doubt on your journey to self defense thought of kickboxing, muay thai, boxing, or even classes for defense. Many class teachers suggest the best defense is a strong fitness routine like P90-X… Maybe if your plan is to run away, lol. While there is no doubt that strong fitness will help you defend yourself against a street attack, why not combine fitness, strength and fighting together for ultimate self defense and fitness?

So today, I’m going to share the top 4 reasons why you should be using boxing fitness to get yourself in crazy shape and for maximum defense results. Forget about kickboxing, muay thai and just straight out fitness training… Boxing fitness will sky rocket your self defense skills and endurance you’ll need to defend yourself against a street attack. So let me tell you exactly why…

1. Interval training

Because most boxing fitness exercises are done in “rounds” you’re getting that invaluable interval training. Training in intervals has been proven in research to get lightening fast fitness results. So if you want to defend yourself, boxing fitness will take your fitness level to the stratosphere super quick. Interval training prepares you for self defense because an attacker may chase you, may fend off a defense, and come back again. So training in rounds will help to keep your endurance levels up when you have to start, stop, start, stop.

2. Upper body strength

For self defense, it’s vital to build shoulder strength… And boxing fitness focuses on upper body strength…

3. Fighting training

Boxing fitness routines and exercises teach you how to defend yourself. A combination of the jab, cross, uppercut and hook are great for fitness and defense. A heavy bag workout routine will provide the confidence necessary for defending yourself.

4. Quick on-your-feet training

The exercises and training in rounds require you to move your feet. For example, a great heavy bag workout for self defense is to punch around the bag. Walk around the bag hitting the top, hitting the sides, and hitting the bag with hooks. In self defense, hooks provide a strong defense because of the power of this punch. You can also use hooks to hit someone in multiple areas including face and kidneys. By moving around the heavy bag you’ll build endurance and gain confidence in your feet movements… Absolutely necessary for self defense.

I can’t stress how great boxing fitness is for defending yourself. In my opinion, it is the #1 tool for defending yourself against a street attack, at a night club and for gaining uber confidence.

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Women's Self Defense - Assertiveness

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Jul 152009
Shasta Daisy McCarty asked:

When we were children our parents warned us about “Stranger Danger”. They instructed us not to go anywhere with people we didn’t know, not to talk to them, and not to let them touch us. We weren’t expected to be polite about it either, just to run screaming.

So what changed? Now we are all grown up and it is considered “inappropriate” for us to kick up a fuss about anything. If a stranger asks us where we live, we are expected to hem and haw and try not to be rude. At family reunions we wouldn’t dream of refusing that too long hug from a creepy relative. We use phrases like “I’m sorry.” or “I’m afraid not.” or “No, thanks.” when asked out on dates by a pushy coworker. I am not sorry about saying no, I am not afraid of rejecting unwanted advances, and I am definitely not thankful for being harassed!

It is time to revisit our notions about what constitutes rude or impolite behavior. I believe it is inappropriate for people to accost me on the street, pry into my personal life, or touch me without permission. I use assertiveness to preserve my boundaries. Read the following anecdote about a friend of mine to see how she did the same.

Mandy* is at the mall. She has finally found the bathrooms and sees that they are situated along a narrow hallway with only one way in and out. The men’s room is halfway down the hall and the women’s is at the very end. A man slips into the hallway behind her. He doesn’t stop at the men’s door but continues down the hallway behind Mandy toward the women’s room. She turns and looks him dead in the eye. “What do you want?” She yells. The man turns and runs back into the mall.

Mandy told me later that the following thoughts flashed through her mind in the moment before she decided to turn and confront the man. “He’s just walking along minding his own business, right? Maybe he is part of the maintenance staff. Maybe he just misread the bathroom signs.”

Fortunately, she listened to her instincts instead of her doubts. An unknown man was following her into a secluded place where he had no business being. He thought she was an easy mark; he thought wrong.

Assertiveness is not just a personality trait that some people are “born with”. It is a skill and you can begin learning to stand up for yourself at any time. Here are some tips:

Believe that you are worthy of being treated in a respectful manner Recall times in the past when people have crossed your boundaries and role play how you wish you had reacted in those situations Write down useful phrases you invented during the exercise above and memorize them for later use Find a private place and practice talking loudly, yelling, and even screaming Start making brief, neutral eye contact with every person you see Say no the next time you are asked to volunteer to do something you really dislike (trust me, they will find someone else to fill in)

Honor your instincts and remember that if you make a mistake by being too assertive the worst that can happen is that you will hurt someone’s feelings.

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Deadly Pressure Points Demystified

Self Defense Street Fight No Responses »
Jul 122009
Ryan Wolfenbarger asked:

Here’s the key to learning pressure points and almost any other technique or strategy. Realize it’s weaknesses. I would be lying if I told you this article will teach you how to kill someone by hitting a targeted spot on their body. It will get you started on your training.

Downside to pressure points is that they generally

1. Take years to learn well
2. Generally depend on pain compliance
3. Can be hard to apply during combat stress situations

Let’s be real here. Targeting pressure points and sensitive nerve areas, many of which are smaller than a quarter in size, during a combat stress situation is not easy.

Add this to the fact that some pressure points are meant to be used in conjunction with other pressure points. For instance using your toe to hit one point down low and hitting a high point combines sending stress signals to the brain and overloads the targets nervous system.

Would it be easier (and faster) to learn how to walk through someone’s knee cap and stomp their head?

So why learn pressure points?

One great thing about pressure points is that they can cause a lot of pain without a lot of injury. They are great when restraining someone in situations that don’t require extreme amounts of violence.

Pressure Point Technique 1

Extend your middle knuckle and dig it in right below your earlobe, right where the lobe meets the neck. Now push hard in and toward the back of the neck. Do you feel that?

When you apply this on a partner, use both knuckles or your thumb tips and attack below both earlobes. Make sure that you drive both thumbs/knuckles inward and forward toward the back of his neck. Then drive forward with your legs. If you are using this move in self defense, it would be better to use your thumbs to dig them into his eyes.

Pressure Point Technique 2

Create a spear with your index middle and ring finger. Locate your partner’s jugular notch, below the adam’s apple right above the collar bone. Drive forward and down with your whole body.

Use these moves to create distance and space during combat.

Want a good way to train pressure points? Get a partner and have a pressure point grappling match. This is the fastest way to learn to apply pressure points on a resisting opponent. You might even put the MMA gloves on and train with punches and kicks thrown in. You might find that you are only able to apply some of these pressure points while in an extremely dominant position such as sitting on your opponent’s chest.

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Martial Arts and Self-Defense Training Without Self-Control

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Jul 082009
Jeffrey Miller asked:

What happens when you train in the martial arts or study self-defense, learn techniques designed for damaging human beings, but never develop the master’s trait of self-control. This story is true and highlights how, through our own lack of self-discipline, we can cause more damage to ourselves than we ever feared from an attacker in a self-defense encounter.

Today, I have a high number of parents bringing their children to me, along with many adult students, looking for lessons in self-discipline and self-control. The reason is because, even for the uninitiated members of the general public, the image formed when you think of a martial artist or someone learning self-defense includes that of a highly disciplined person.

But, it wasn’t always this way. In fact, we still have practitioner’s today who have missed the lessons of humility, discipline, respect, and self-control as a part of their training. And, those who do talk about learning and practicing self-control, are usually talking about the discipline that makes them practice or attend martial arts classes on a regular basis. Watch one of the popular mixed martial arts (MMA) or other fight-challenge programs, and what you’ll see are people who brag about their abilities, bad-mouth other people, and routinely get themselves into fights outside of the ring.

The story that I’m about to tell you is one-hundred percent true. It actually happened to me. And the most amazing things were that:

1) The attacker was a black belt martial artist who professed to be learning self-defense, and…

2) I was an on-duty police officer at the time!

I kid you not!

You see, I was stationed in, what was then, West Germany with the United States Army. I was a military policeman working the night shift, when my partner and I got a radio call, dispatching us to a particular unit. The call was in reference to a combative soldier who was drunk and disorderly. Apparently the soldier was in the process of attacking officers and screaming racial slurs.

When we arrived at the scene, what we found was a soldier who was VERY drunk. The man was not only taller than me by almost four to six inches (I’m 5′ 6″), but he was also very muscular. The officer on-duty for that unit was trying to calm him down, and my partner and I were attempting to find out why he was ranting and raving when we arrived.

At the sight of two armed police officers entering the area, it was almost if a switch had been thrown in this man’s head – a switch that triggered the “bad-ass” personality. Because, as soon as he saw me, he locked on and headed straight for me. My partner was busy trying to get details from other witnesses so we could use the information in a way that would de-escalate the situation and get the man calmed down.

Before the soldier got within reach of me, he suddenly stopped and realized that I had shifted my position to prepare for whatever was to come. I never broke eye contact (never a good idea, especially against someone who is trying to dominate with their spirit and intensity), and when he saw this, he stopped and his demeanor changed.

Who knows, maybe it had more to do with the fact that I was wearing a .45 caliber pistol on my right hip and a two foot long nightstick hung from my left. Either way, and just for a minute, he seemed to reassess his situation and tone down his energy level.

I proceeded to ask him what happened to which he started to convey the story that he was out with some friends from his unit. They were out drinking to celebrate the fact that he tested for, and earned his black belt that day. His story, and his anger flared again when he told me that they were all screwing around after they departed the club when it got rough and his friends ganged up on him and threw him down on a gravel walkway.

I outwardly congratulated him on earning his black belt while inwardly thinking that it never a good idea for a black belt to get intoxicated. There’s way too many things that can go wrong and, with the alcohol coursing through your system, regardless of how “well” you feel, the fact remains that you simply will not have the same coordination, control, or focus should you be attacked. And besides, wouldn’t that be the perfect time for someone who really wants to take you out to attack – when you aren’t functioning at a hundred percent?

But, something happened. As he was describing the situation, his attitude changed again. As he was trying to describe the incident, he seemed to be dancing around exactly how things got started or why they got “rough.” As his agitation grew, he started to tell me that he was a black belt and didn’t have to prove how tough he was. He told me that, that was the point of training – to be disciplined, respectful, and in control of yourself so that you didn’t get yourself into messes like this.

As I was agreeing with him, he went into a sudden tirade about how tough “I” thought I was because I wore a badge and a gun – that I wouldn’t be so tough without the nightstick and the firearm. I attempted to calm him down but he seemed to lock onto the fact that I was armed and that I was trying to appear more “tough” than him in an attempt to intimidate him.

To this, I took a step back and assured him that I wasn’t trying to intimidate him. As he continued to point out the weapons, I told him that I’d hand my nightstick and helmet to my partner. When he continued on about the gun, I reminded him that, “the gun stays.”

No sooner did I hand over my nightstick and turn back toward the drunken soldier, he moved in on me, telling me how he didn’t need to prove how tough he was, but he was going to show me how tough I wasn’t!

Well, long-story short, I didn’t prove that I was tougher, but he DID end up, face-down on the floor in handcuffs. But, the worst was yet to come – for him. And, you know what… I really felt bad for him, for a minute.

What happened next should never happen to anyone – tough-guy or not. While we were trying to restrain the still belligerent soldier on the floor, who should walk through the door but… His wife and young son!

They had to witness their drunken, obnoxious, and out-of-control husband and father being taken away in handcuffs. And all I could do was look at the woman and move my lips to the words, “I’m sorry.”

This would be bad enough, if the story ended right here. If the worse that happened was that this new black belt and military soldier – this man who should have developed discipline from two different directions – lost his self-control after drinking too much and then lost his temper after his friends took advantage of his condition. If that was the worst, it would still have been pretty bad.

But you know what. As a cop, I saw this kind of thing all the time. It really wouldn’t have been much of a story if it weren’t so commonplace. But, this story wasn’t commonplace. It turned out to be nothing short of disgraceful.

We later learned that the soldier and his friends did, indeed, go out to celebrate his new promotion to black belt. However, the story that he told us from there, was anything BUT the truth.

It seemed that, once the soldier got some drinks into him, he began to strike and kick at his friends. They asked him to stop to which his actions became more aggressive until finally the friends took action and had to knock him down to get him to stop using his “karate-moves” on them.

After that, all hell broke loose as he felt like he was disrespected. In fact, what had happened was that this man never exercised good judgment in the first place when he decided to go out into public, bragging about his martial art rank and skills in the art of self-defense. He exercised even less discipline when he allowed himself to get drunk to the point where his childish actions cause his friends to attack him out of self-defense.

And finally, his lack of self-discipline and self-control caused him further humiliation as he had to be drug out of a building by police, right past his wife and son. They had to watch as he was arrested and jailed, not just for drunk and disorderly conduct, but for assault on a police officer, assault on commissioned officers, and for acts unbecoming a member of the armed forces.

All because he never learned the first lesson – the first level of self-defense – respect and self-discipline.

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