Why Women Shouldn’t Show Their Self-Defense Moves to Men in Their Lives
Every time I teach a women’s self-defense class, inevitably one of the women will leave the class and want to show their boyfriend, husband, brother, father, male friend, etc. what they’ve learned. It is something I discourage women from doing for 3 reasons, which I’ll cover here.
1) You don’t have the element of surprise.The techniques that are taught in a women’s self-defense class, like the one I teach, are designed to make use of the element of surprise. If you tell a guy, “Grab me and I’ll show you how I can defend myself,” they’ll do exactly as you ask, but they’ll be ready to try and counter you because that’s what you asked for. A real attacker is usually looking for an easy victim. If you’re attacked, your goal in self-defense is to make it so you aren’t an easy victim. Mounting any sort of defense in combination with yelling things to make it clear you’re in need of help, is known to disrupt most attacks. Your would-be male attacker friend is just trying to stop you from defending yourself. There are no real negative consequences to his actions here, particularly, because of the next reason I’ll cover.
2) You don’t want to hurt him.In the self-defense class that I teach, I bring in male “attackers” who will grab the women and react appropriately to their strikes when they strike on target, without the women having to hit them with full power. When you try the moves on some male acquaintance though, they won’t react the same way… unless you hit him for real. But of course, you don’t want to actually hurt him, so ultimately, you’ll hold back on your strikes and he’ll keep holding on, then maybe take you down, and conclude at the end, “Well, I guess your self-defense doesn’t work.” And even worse, you might question its effectiveness too, which doesn’t help you at all as it might make you hesitate to fight back if you’re attacked.
3) You never know if you’ll have to use it on that same person.The majority of assaults on women are by a man that you already know. While it’s unlikely that your father, brother or close friend will attack you for real at some later time, there is a little less certainty beyond that. Someone you’ve recently started dating might seem okay, but until you’ve really gotten to know him, you don’t really know. That holds true for male friends that you’re only loosely acquainted with. For this reason, it’s better to keep your knowledge to yourself, so if you ever have to use it, they won’t know what to expect.
For all the above reasons, it’s really better off that you don’t try out the self-defense moves you learn from a course or martial art on men outside the training itself. Unless of course, they do something that warrants it.
The Importance of Using Distractions
The other day, one of my students who is a member of the RCMP (Canada’s national police) came to me and told me of how he recently had an on the job experience in which the importance of using a distraction was emphasized.
This student is not large, but still has to apprehend people all the same. In this recent incident, a very drunk man was walking in the middle of a busy city street during rush hour. He first tried to talk the man off the road, but he was resistant. My student had to arrest the man for his own safety so he asked the man to put his hands behind his back, while he took hold of his wrist. The drunk man, however, was resistant and pulled his arms into his body, saying no and refusing to cooperate.
At this point, my student kicked him in the shin. The man, distracted by the sudden pain, relaxed his arms, making it easy for my student to get control of his arm, take him to the ground, then cuff him.
This is a perfect example of how a distraction can be used in a law enforcement scenario. It also works well in a self-defense context. The reason why it works is because the conscious mind can’t focus on two things at the same time. The sharp pain caused by the shin kick caused the man to distract his focus from his resistance to the more immediate shock of the pain. It need not be a shin kick specifically though. It can be a strike to a nerve motor point, pressure to a nerve pressure point, a pinch to a sensitive area, a strike to the groin, etc.
The shin kick is one of my favourite choices as a distraction (if you’re wearing strong shoes). Because it is low, people often don’t see it coming. When you use a shin kick, your hands are free for defensive purposes. Also, in my student’s case, he was very visible in the public eye, dealing with his suspect in a busy city street. The shin kick in this case is pretty innocuous and doesn’t look overly violent, even though it performs the task effectively. It is much more subtle than using fists, knees or elbows.
Anyway, I was very pleased to hear how this student applied our martial art effectively to accomplish what he needed to do on the job, only using as much force as was necessary to nullify the situation. Does anyone else out there have any similar experiences using distraction strikes that they would like to share?