Sweet sweet justice

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

I don’t gamble on my ability to “draw” my pepper spray. If I’m walking anywhere alone and after dark, I carry it in my hand, with my thumb on the tab.

Glitch, I’m not sure what you mean by that. Unavailable how? I think Cristi was talking about mundane things that everyone has around, like pens. I often wear hairclips that have teeth. If I’m caught off guard and don’t have my pepper spray, I could pull one out and poke the guy in the eye. Granted, I don’t know if I would be allowed the use of my arms in such a situation, and I wouldn’t know how fast the person’s reflexes are, but at least I have an idea and I can try it.
Also, I want to state something I’ve noticed is the unifying factor in many of these posts. The object of self-defense is not to beat an assailant to a pulp, but just to get free of him and get away. You don’t have to be strong, just quick.

Remember, I’m pulling for you; we’re all in this together.
—Red Green

22

While we’re on this topic. . . what is the best/most effective system of SELF-DEFENSE that you know about?

I spent a year trying to learn American Kenpo Karate and finally quit because I could not believe it was actually effective against attack on the streets. Everything about Kenpo seemed to assume way too much about what happened/was going to happen. Case in point: the instruction booklet that listed the techniques we were going to learn was sprinkled with phrases like “as your back knuckle strike breaks his nose”. Well, what if it doesn’t? What then?

I’m not looking for something that will turn me into a walking death machine. I just want to know how to handle being attacked. I don’t intend to get into situations where I’ll need to fight. Does anyone have any recommendations for me?

– Sylence

“The problem with reality is the lack of background music.” – Anon

23

Yes, that’s what I meant. Something close to your hand that you can grab really fast if someone breaks into your house.

For instance: I am sitting at my computer, which happens to be very near a window. Someone breaks into said window while I’m right here. Household items I can potentially use as weapons are: pen, desk lamp, glass of pop, computer speaker, lit cigarette, barrette, my two-year-old’s rocking chair, my purse, a book.

These are things I can use to throw at, injure, or at least distract an intruder long enough for me to get to my kid’s bedroom, lock the door, grab her & get out her bedroom window. My house is really small, so in my case, I could actually be successful.

My front door has a peephole in it, but unfortunately, it’s set very high, and I can’t see out of it. I have a small bookcase near the door, however. I’ve strategically placed a few nice, heavy knick-knacks on top of the bookcase that I can grab in a heartbeat, just in case.

My husband is a musician, and he works nights. I’m alone here with my daughter after dark. My neighborhood is pretty low-crime, but the city I live in is not. I’ve lived here for 8 years with no trouble. But you just never know.

24

If you want to see the effectiveness of typical martial arts training against a really mean street fighter, I suggest you rent a couple of the “Ultimate Fighting Championship” videos. I know a guy who fought in one of them, and he is a 4th degree black belt. I think he lasted about a minute, against a big brawler.

It’s one thing to use your refined techniques in a Dojo, it’s another to be able to keep your composure when some guy is headbutting you, biting your nose, spitting in your face, etc.

I say this as someone who trained 7 days a week in Karate (Goju Ryu) for years. If you are a nice, civilized person and your assailant is a maniacal street fighter, you’ve got a big problem, especially if he has a size advantage over you.

Now, in a typical confrontation against your average drunk, it’s a different matter. But those situations are usually easily avoided. I lived in a rough part of town, and went out to rough bars (I like the Blues, and you don’t find a lot of blues bars in upscale neighborhoods), and I only ever had to use my skills once, and that ended very quickly.

Martial arts are wonderful. They teach you discipline, boost self-confidence, and give you grace and flexibility. They help you understand other cultures, and give you a different perspective on life. And, you stay in good physical condition. Martial arts can also be useful in certain self-defense situations. But you aren’t going to be able to handle everything thrown at you.

Glitch: I’ve done the gun disarming thing with squirt guns, and most people could get the gun deflected without getting wet. Mind you, we set up the experiment so that the gun holder didn’t know what was coming. There’s a big, big difference there. When measuring reaction times, the slowest part is the brain’s reaction to stimulus and the calculation of appropriate response. If the person is standing there with his finger taut on the trigger, KNOWING that the opponent is going to make a move for the gun any second, his reaction time will be much, much faster.

But this is a moot point, because I agree with pretty much everything you said about dealing with guns.

25

Cristi said:

Install another peephole it’s easy and they are cheap. About four feet up is good (for your daughter when she get’s older).

26

IMO, there is no such thing as a most effective system. Clearly, systems that cross disciplines are going to be generally superior because they handle more situations and give you more tools than styles that stick with only one thing.

The key to self defense lies in the self defense triangle:

mindset - 75%
tactics - 15%
technique - 10%

If you train hard and make an honest effort to be objective in your training and make an honest effort to understand the realities of fighting on the street against a serious attacker than the specifics of the style because meaningless.

Note, as well that you find almost any technique in almost any particular style although typically some technique is taught a different level (case in point, Tae Kwon Do typially teaches jumping spin kicks at 10th to 8th Kyu, most karate styles tend not to leave the ground until 5th Kyu!).

All of that being said, I personally think that grappling styles have serious weaknesses. Perhaps most importantly is that you don’t want to be on the ground choking somebody out when his buddies jump you. Put it another way, can a karate guy beat multiple attackers? It is VERY difficult. Can a grappler beat multiple opponents? I dare say it is almost impossible.

You will find very quickly that a very large percentage of schools teach stuff that is likely to get you killed. Again, it isn’t the technique that is wrong, it is typically the mindset that the students lack to keep themselves alive. Most people when confronte with serious attack will do the following:

  1. Freeze!
  2. If they recover from freezing (not likely) then the revert to the animal instincts. All the finely tuned techniques fly out the window! Good technique is strong fast and simple so that it will be remembered by the animal brain that will takeover!

I could right pages and pages on mindset and I am more than willing to answer questions, so if you have any keep 'em coming!

This is a classic problem in easily 80-90% of schools. Martial technique is taught as the hand of God coming to smite your foes! Nothing could be further from the truth.

A good start is read “Real Fighting” by Peyton Quinn and everything else by Quinn. When done find a school that teaches in a manner consistent with what he is talking about. You probably won’t find somebody who does SBT because it is VERY rare.

If push comes to shove remember it is all about how you train! The knowledge is there for you to take and apply, it comes from within.

OSU!

What more could you expect from somebody who lets people kick him to the head?

27

Diane, you don’t know how happy I am to hear that your friend is out there! We need more!

OSU!

28

What I mean basically is this. If it is in your pockets or your purse it is not avaiable. Many women carry their mace in their purse! They may as well not carry it at all for all the good it will do them. As you note below the best place to carry a weapon is in your hand!

A hairpin/hairclip is an excellent weapon! Often you can get at it very easily. The pointier the better! I would probably never be able to find the reference to this, but I do recall a story of a woman who after being tackled to the ground and her hand pinned by her head grabbed a pin from her hair stabbed the hand of the rapist attacking her, when he let go he stabbed him in the throat several times until he rolled off!

The objective of self defense is best stated as follows (well, this is what I teach anyway):

The goal of self defense is to survive, optionally without any permanent injuries.

I say optionally because some people would not want to live life with serious permanent injuries so for them there is extra criteria to defending themselves.

You will note that this says nothing about the status of your attacker. Alive, dead, hurt, un-hurt … it makes no difference as you long as you live!

This a problem that a lot of people have. They become to obsessed with one solution. Some think, all I need to do is think about escape. Others thing, all I need to do is beat him to a pulp. The answer is do what it takes to live!

29

Thanks, Glitch. I’ll mosey on over to Amazon.com and look it up.
– Sylence

“The problem with reality is the lack of background music.” – Anon