martial artists defeating muggers

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

Regarding today’s column:

When I lived in Miami, my karate instructor at that time told us about how his wife (another student of his, and a black belt herself) had used her training to defeat a mugger.

In fact, when he told us about it, it had happened earlier that day!

It makes me disagree with Cecil’s conclusion, that: “The main advantages of martial arts training are the same as for any sport — physical fitness and increased confidence.”

Not that the statement is wrong, but it’s missing one crucial factor that is imperative in martial arts: muscle memory.

This woman defended herself instinctively using muscle memory. In short, the attacker came up from behind (in broad daylight, middle of Miami Beach, outside a supermarket), punched her once in the back of the head, and grabbed her purse which was over her shoulder.

Her instincts and training kicked in – that’s the muscle memory part, having your body respond automatically to a set of stimuli, in this case an attack from behind – and as she spun around, her first arm moved up to block any other attacks (he punched a second time and this movement deflected his punch), and her other arm came across raised to shoulder level and horizontal to the ground, with her elbow bent and fist close to her body.

In other words, she blocked his punch with one arm and delivered an elbow strike with her second arm. The elbow strike was powered by the twisting motion of her body, and as the elbow is one of the hardest bones in the body, when it connected to the mugger’s jaw, his jaw essentially went sideways several inches. Yup, she broke it. He collapsed to the ground. She ran to safety.

Her response was instinctual, honed by years of practicing and drilling. In class, someone grabs you from behind, you turn and block and strike right away. Do it over and over enough times and you stop having to think about it.

Note that her fight required ZERO physical fitness. She just had to withstand the force of a single punch to the back of her skull. The fight was over in less than 5 seconds, so cardio training wasn’t part of it, either. Not that being in shape is bad, it’s just not necessary for many fights.

Two other anecdotes that happened directly to people I know.

1 – my friend “Matt” was walking near his school in Washington DC (one of the nicer parts). Three college students surrounded him and told him they were going to beat the shit out of him. He tried talking his way out of it, but they thought he was a soft target (Matt is a fairly obese guy, at least 50 pounds overweight). They just wanted a fight and moved in on him right away. He kicked the first attacker in the knee. The guy went down. He kicked the second attacker in HIS knee, and that guy went down. Third guy ran off. First two guys had broken knee caps.

That’s basic martial arts training. Knees are major attack points and even a steroid junkie body builder can’t grow muscle on their knee cap.

2 – another instructor of mine is black. He was walking in the DC area when he was accosted by someone throwing racial insults at him. The guy got in my instructor’s face and was using his extended arm to repeatedly poke my instructor in the chest.

At that close range, with an extended arm in front of him, all my instructor had to do was move his two hands in opposite directions and hit the guy’s arm. One hand hit the elbow in an upward attack, the other hand hit his forearm from above in a downward attack. The asshole’s arm was instantly broken at the elbow. Attack ended. My teacher simply walked away as the guy dropped the ground. It happened so quickly no one around him was able to figure out why this guy was attacking someone in one instant, than writhing on the ground in pain the next.

So yes, martial arts CAN help you defeat a mugger. There’s no guarantee, and you can be hurt in the process, but it’s always good to have the option.

2

On a different note:

Um, cite?

“Assault, sexual assault, robbery, larceny, and burglary” cover a range of situations. For example, I would think that handing over your wallet would be the best response to a mugging. Physical or even verbal resistance would lower the odds of the robbery succeeding, while enhancing risk of serious (and rather more expensive) injury. But if a guy wants to strongarm a woman into his car, that’s an entirely different situation: I understand that it’s best to fight when the bad guys want to move you to a place of their choosing.

I have to agree with Cecil about the importance of thinking through various dangerous scenarios though - it’s just that I would hope that evading danger would be considered a preferable option and physical violence one of the last ones.

3

I agree with filmyak about muscle memory.

Also, any self defense class worth its salt will teach you one of the most effective self defense techniques there is - running away.

4

When I was taking martial arts classes we called this “The Nike technique”. :smiley:

5

Muscle memory? Yep, I had a very small female student grabbed from behind in an under the arm bearhug. She instantly drove her middle knuckle into the back of his hand just like she had been drilled to do, then threw a back elbow into the bridge, OF HER HUSBANDS NOSE!!.
This was on a sidewalk in front of a grocery store in Herndon, VA and she hadn’t seen her husband walk up behind her. Hurt the hand, Broke the nose.

6

I have a dim memory of an article in the San Francisco Chronicle concerning the technical adviser to the old TV show Kung Fu. IIRC, a mugger wannabe grabbed the guy from behind and suffered severely for his trouble. I think the adviser’s name was David Chow but I’m not certain.

7

On the flip side of this though, I saw a guy in my Kenpo class in Albuquerque get absolutely pummeled at the burning of Zozobra in Santa Fe, because he had way too much confidence (and quite a few beers). He was about 140lbs, and some guy who must’ve been 240 easy introduced him to a game he liked to call “kiss the keg.”

Our Kenpo instructor used to say, “for every alcoholic drink you have, you lose two years of training.” :smiley:

8

Those seem to go hand in hand. :smiley:

9

Surprised Cecil didn’t mention this somewhat famous big guy vs. little guy match up…

The vid is a bit brutal… not for the queasy…

oh ya buddy did break his hand during the fight…

10

That large-scale study Cecil referred to in that sentence was:

Kleck, Gary; Tark, Jongyeon. “Resisting Crime: The Effects of Victim Action on the Outcomes of Crimes” Criminology, Vol. 42, No. 4, 2004.

Specifically, that study looked at the “National Crime Victimization Survey that occurred in the United States from 1992 through 2001 and that involved personal contact between victims and offenders (U.S. Department of Justice, 2003).”

The claim for the drop in success of 20 to 48 percent is:

Block, Richard. “Victim-Offender Dynamics in Violent Crime.” The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1973-), Vol. 72, No. 2, (Summer, 1981), pp. 743-761

11

I agree with just about everything said here, especially what filmyak said about muscle memory., and what MOIDALIZE said about running away.

I study Hawaiian Kempo, and we are constantly told that our best weapon is our voice, and that actual fighting is the choice of last resort. A confident attitude can go a long way to avoiding trouble. I’m not all that advanced(I’ll be testing for a green belt soon, about half the way up the learning ladder), but I enjoy the excercise and you never know, it could come in handy sometime.

To add another anecdote, a black belt acquaintance of our instructor, a smaller woman of about sixty, was once accosted in the parking lot of a local mall. She had the door open to her car and was leaning forward a little to get into the car. A hand grabbed her on the shoulder, pulling back and, without warning or even looking her left fist came up and slammed into the attacker’s face(a big guy). He promptly sat down, holding a broken nose that was leaking blood all over. She got in the car and drove away, and I don’t know if she reported it.

12

Mike Royko wrote a column many years ago about a fellow who tried to mug a guy in a wheelchair, thinking he’d be easy pickings. He didn’t think about how life in a chair builds upper body strength, especially if the guy plays a lot of wheelchair basketball. It was like mugging a gorilla, and was every bit as successful.

13

I think it depends on what kind of martial art you take. If you take Wushu, for instance, compared to Krav Maga, you will find a big difference in street performance. Wushu may look flashy when Jet Li does it on screen (or at multi-person wushu performances, it’s one of the most beautiful arts to see), but I don’t think it compares to a serious combat art.

A person trained in Wushu fighting back will be tons better than a layman with no training fighting back. But (all IMO of course) a person trained in Krav Maga will be more effective yet.

I’ve taken 3 martial arts in my time (a generic Karate at Red Dragon, a hybrid art called Tai Budokan, and Muay Thai) and have attended competitions and watched different arts used against each other. Some arts are very flashy and showy, and some aren’t - in general, the more flashy they are, the less effective they are in sparring competitions. Sparring competitions are NOT street fights, which brings me to another point…

If you watch UFC a lot, you’ll see JJ and BJJ as the kings of the ring. They might not be good in a street, though, where dropping yourself to the ground and pushing yourself around will scratch you up.

When I tell martial artist friends that I’d like to take Capoeira, I get a mixed response; those who take “combat” martial arts say that it’s not a serious art; they scoff and call it a dance. Those who take fitness martial arts say it’s too much of a combat art.

A person who’s been taking aerobics or pilates for years is certainly going to do better defending themself than a couch potato. I would assume that someone who takes a combat art will be more effective at defending themself than someone who just took aerobics?

Tony Jaa vs. Capoeria: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsbVyGtQo4g&fmt=18 mmm good stuff

14

Even some “martial arts” which one would normally think of as being silly and impractical for helping IRL have benefits. I’m a fencer and the improvement in balance, body awareness, ability to retreat and duck and move quickly, and even stamina have tremendously helped me out in a variety of physical areas. The only case where I think it has ever helped me avoid injury was at work, where a large, heavy three-ring binder fell off a high shelf toward my face, and without thinking I snapped my arm into Parry 6 and slapped it away from me onto the floor. I guarantee that prior to starting fencing, just a couple of years ago, I couldn’t have moved that quickly.

15

Well, I’ve used it a few times…but not when I was being mugged. Totally anecdotal, but I remember the guy who used to run ads for (IIRC) a Tae Kwon Do Karate school in DC (the ads used to have the founder and a small boy who would say something like ‘Nobody bothers me’ and ‘Nobody bothers me either!’) used to claim he got his start defending himself and his (Son? Grandson?) from a mugging. I’ve also known several Sensei who claimed to have been involved in robberies and muggings and to have used their martial arts to get themselves out of it. I know for a fact that one of the guys did, because he was arrested and had to go to court over a mugging in a bathroom where he nearly killed the guy (he ended up getting off as it was self defense).

My guess is that we don’t hear more about this because it simply doesn’t get on the radar as easily as, say, shooting someone in self defense would. Even if someone died during the attempted (or successful) robbery, my guess is that it would simply be chalked up as ‘assault’ or something like that…I doubt there is a special place on a police form for ‘defense by martial arts’. If you think about it, from the polices perspective, what would be different from someone who fought back by kneeing someone in the crotch with a martial arts move as opposed to someone kneeing the assailant in the crotch with, well, just a knee?

-XT

16

This isn’t the street-muggings mentioned here, but martial arts skills helped me tons in high school brawls.

In elementary school, I transferred from a private to a public school and was ridiculed and picked on a lot. OK, maybe it was because I was a serious nerd. Anyhow, that’s when my family took me to start martial arts, and my instructor told me not to start using them at school until I built up self confidence, to run away until then.

It was years before I felt confident to use the skills to defend myself (I was rather scrawny then) but when I did, wowie what a change. None of these people wanted my wallet, they just wanted to punish me, and often ganged up on me. After 4 or 5 years of training, I was able to competently defend myself against 4 of them. Not always be victorious, but dish out as well as I took. By the time I was a Sophomore in high school, they wouldn’t harass me if there were only 3 of them.

I have gotten into a few brawls since high school, but not a street mugging or an assault; mostly with people at concerts where moshing got out of control, or parties where someone got upset, at a bar where people were brawling, etc. The situations aren’t the same, but without training, I would not have been able to hold my own.
One more anecdote: A friend and I used to practice balance poses (tai chi and yoga poses) while drinking for fun. We got really, really good at it. One time, I was drunk off my ass and doing donuts in a parking lot at a beach party in Huntington Beach (and severely under age at 18). The cops pulled me over (amid a giant cloud of smoke from the tires I beat up very bad) and asked me to do a large number of sobriety tests. They did not have a breath device.

They couldn’t prove I was drunk using their standard tests. I walked a line perfectly. I touched fingers to my nose. I followed his finger as he moved it around. The most intricate test (and I think they were stretching here) was to have me balancing on one foot, head tilted back (so I had no horizon), alternately touching my left then right index fingers to my nose, while counting BACKWARDS from 30 to 20. After doing it flawlessly on both feet (and this was after at least 5 other tests) they let me go.
Not a good lesson to teach the young ones, but a true story nonetheless.

17

Not to pick on Sean, but some of us have no desire to “hold our own” under such circumstances: we simply exit the premises.

I’ve seen out of control moshes and people upset at parties. Admittedly, I can’t recall a barroom brawl. I found evasion to be rather easy under those circumstances. And when I was mugged, my signature technique --hand-over-my-wallet-jutsu-- worked pretty well.

(Una: thnx for the cites.)

18

It’s not always fun to leave my own house to avoid a fight. For example, twice it was with a roommate (the same one, 10 years apart, two separate times we’d lived together). Both times he started it.

19

Back in the day, late '50s to early '60s:
The first that I, or anyone I knew, was aware of any martial art was on a very popular tv western named Have Gun Will Travel. The hero was Paladin, a semi-mysterious gunslinger for hire who “knew karate”. In one episode he broke a bar table in half with his bare hand, giving us kids the “karate chop”. :stuck_out_tongue:
On to the op;
There was one boy who’s (rich) family sent him to karate classes when we were in jr. high, making him the self-proclaimed bad ass going into high school. there was also another boy who was a champion golden gloves boxer. A nice kid who never messed with anybody. Of course karate kid saw golden gloves kid as a challenge to his rep, and constantly bullied him all the way into high school.
Finally, in our sophmore year, KK got GG into a situation where he couldn’t escape and a fight began. KK got in the first blow, bloodying GG’s nose. From there on it was all one way, and KK was left on his knees, severly marked, and crying.
Nobody saw anything.
I guess boxing is also a martial art.

20

Abso-freakin-lutely it is. People who do pugilism sparring (boxing ring sparring) tend to do full contact, and are probably going to do better in a slugfest fight than a partial-contact points-scoring martial arts spar expert.

In my competition martial arts classs, we scored “points” for hits in certain areas, and were not allowed to score hits in other areas. In Red Dragon, we were only allowed to do a head strike if our opponent was wearing head protection. We were never allowed “knee” strikes (although strikes to the thigh were OK), and no groin shots ever.

In Boxing, of course, you aren’t allowed to hit below the belt, nor do you kick.

But in boxing sparring, you are giving and taking full-strength blows, and train yourself to keep going. In a brawl (no weapons, no objective than to knock the other person out, not going for a wallet or something) I would think that most pugilists could top most martial artists (of equal training and physical capabilities) just because they have a lot of practice TAKING a blow and continuing to fight.

There ARE martial arts studios that teach full-contact sparring, and IMO that would place them on the same level as a full-contact pugilist.