When autumn winds blow not one leaf remains the way it was.
Rule number one of self-defense is, “Don’t get hit.” Sounds simple at first blush but it’s really more complicated than that. At best, it’s about avoiding situations or locations where violence is most likely to occur. Sadly, we often don’t think about such things or we blow them off as irrelevant, stuff that happens to other guys. Juanita Watkins, a friend of Marc MacYoung’s, summed it up best when she sagely wrote, “Just because something is dangerous doesn’t automatically mean that you are going to get hurt if you do it. I have noticed that the young, inexperienced—or simply imagination impaired—take this to mean there is no danger at all.”
Let’s face it; we all do dumb stuff from time to time. Oftentimes nothing bad happens. When there are no adverse consequences for our behavior, it’s easy to keep on taking risks. Heck, risks can be fun. That doesn’t mean, however, that it’s a good idea to keep pushing the envelope. Traveling through the wrong neighborhoods, hanging out with the wrong people, or frequenting the wrong night spots will have consequences sooner or later, especially if you act out inappropriately while you are there.
Most people who find themselves involved in violence think that they were just minding their own business and when they look up, suddenly this problem comes out of nowhere. It just seems like this at the time, though. There is virtually always some type of build up, something they didn’t see or didn’t recognize the significance of until it became a problem. That’s why it appears to have come out of nowhere. Oftentimes what you think is an innocent comment, gesture, or look is what gets you clobbered.
Self-defense is about keeping your cool, not being the instigator, even inadvertently. It’s about paying attention, being aware of and evading threats before it’s too late. Less ideally, if the violence is right in front of you, it’s about doing all you can to avoid a fight. After all, the only fight you know you’ll win, the one you are guaranteed to walk away from with all your parts and pieces fully intact, is the fight you never get into. This is what Sun Tzu meant when he wrote, “To subdue an enemy without fighting is the highest skill,” more than 2,500 years ago.
This section covers everything you need to know and do to avoid getting into an actual fight. In addition to helping you identify potential threats and how to evade them, it also helps you develop the emotional fortitude you need in order to walk away from a confrontation when the other guy gets in your face and you really, really want to thump him.
To see the sun and moon is no sign of sharp sight; to hear the noise of thunder is no sign of a quick ear.
If you know the Way broadly you will see it in everything. Men must polish their particular Way.
Again, the best self-defense is being aware of and avoiding dangerous people and hazardous situations. When that is not possible, when you’ve failed to identify and act upon signs of impending threat, self-defense can still be about verbally de-escalating a tense encounter before it turns violent. Fighting is your last resort to keep yourself safe after you’ve blown your self-defense, when awareness, avoidance, and de-escalation have all failed.
Since it is fundamental to personal safety, we’ll begin by discussing awareness. Situational awareness means a solid understanding of time and place and how they relate to you, your family, friends, and others around you at any given moment. In some ways, it’s more of an attitude than a skill. Any time you are near others, especially strangers, it pays to be vigilant, striking a good balance between obliviousness and paranoia. If you can sense danger before stumbling across it, you have a much better chance of escaping unscathed.
Whenever someone throws a punch, launches a kick, pulls out a knife, or draws a gun something bad is going to happen. The question is not one of ‘if’ but rather of “how much.”
Whenever someone throws a punch, launches a kick, pulls out a knife, or draws a gun—something bad is going to happen. That’s “bad” in a Ghostbusters “don’t cross the streams Egon” kind of way.[5] If you are on the receiving end, you are the one who is going to get hurt, maimed, crippled, or killed. Fortunately, with a little training the majority of all that bad stuff is easily recognizable and avoidable before it gets to the physical part.
Most self-defense experts agree that nine out of ten dangers can be identified and avoided simply by learning how to look out for them. Since it is still possible to talk your way out of more than half of the potentially violent situations that you do get yourself into, this means that you should only need to fight your way out of three, four, or at worst, five of every hundred hazardous encounters. With good situational awareness, you may never have anywhere near a hundred such confrontations in your lifetime so those odds really aren’t all that bad, huh?
Knowing when it is time to leave a party is a common example of good situational awareness. Fights at parties tend to happen after a certain time of night. It’s not the hour on the clock that’s important, but rather the mood of the crowd. Most people have a good time and leave long before the sh*t starts. Just about everyone who’s going to hook up has already done so; they’ve found a date, left together, and are off having fun. As the crowd starts to thin, those who have nothing better to do than cause trouble are the ones who are left. Buzzing with frustration and raging hormones, those who insist on hanging on well into the night are the ones who get caught up in it when the fecal matter is most likely to fly. If you pay attention to the behaviors of those around you, however, it’s fairly easy to know when it’s time to leave. If you’re not there when things start to get rough, bad things can’t happen to you.
Good situational awareness helps make you a hard target by eliminating easy opportunities for those who wish to do you harm. Constant vigilance is emotionally and physically draining, however, so you need a process for knowing when to ratchet your level of alertness up or down.
The same thing happens on the street. Criminals may be strong, fast, crafty, and mean, but in general, they are neither exceptionally bright nor hardworking. We are stereotyping here, but seriously, how many rocket scientists or Mensa members are there on death row? Further, many crimes are quick fix substitutes for earning a living the old fashioned way via hard work. Why then would a street thug go out of his way to tangle with a tough, prepared target when easier prey is readily available?
By constantly surveying and evaluating your environment, you achieve more control over what ultimately happens to you. Good situational awareness helps you make yourself a hard target by eliminating easy opportunities for those who wish to do you harm. It’s not a guarantee of perfect safety since there truly are no absolutes when it comes to self-defense, yet good situational awareness can let you predict and avoid most difficult situations.
Remember a time when you were driving along minding your own business when you suddenly “knew” the car beside you was going to swerve into your lane and took evasive action to avoid an accident? This ability to predict what other drivers are going to do is an excellent example of good situational awareness.
Situational awareness is something that everyone instinctively has, yet few individuals truly pay attention to. In most cases, you should be able to spot a developing situation, turn around, and walk (or drive) away before anything bad happens. Once you understand the basic concepts and begin to pay attention to your built-in survival mechanisms, situational awareness can also be refined and improved through practice. Sometimes, however, try as you might to avoid it, trouble finds you and you will have to react accordingly. Good awareness helps you be prepared for that as well.
Can you remember a time when you were driving along the highway, suddenly “knew” the car beside you was going to swerve into your lane, and took evasive action to avoid an accident? Almost everyone who drives has done that on numerous occasions. It is so common that most people forget about such incidents shortly after they happen. This ability to predict what other drivers are going to do is an excellent example of good situational awareness.
However, vigilance in this area is emotionally and physically draining. No one can maintain an elevated level of awareness at all times in all places. There is a difference between being aware and becoming paranoid. Consequently, many self-defense experts use a color code system to help define and communicate appropriate levels of situational awareness for whatever situation people could find themselves in.
The most commonly used approach, codified by Colonel Jeff Cooper, was based in large part on the color alert system developed by the United States Marine Corps during World War II and later modified for civilian use. These color code conditions include White (oblivious), Yellow (aware), Orange (alert), Red (concerned), and Black (under attack). This code should not be confused with the similar U.S. Department of Homeland Security threat level alerts that use similar colors.
The mindset and attitude of each condition are described below. While it is possible to move up and down the entire scale, clearly hitting each condition in turn, it is also possible to skip from one level to another very quickly. Consequently, while it is valuable to think of each condition as a distinct state along a continuum like rungs of a ladder, don’t get too hung up on each level. The important concept is that the diverse tactical situations you face will warrant various levels of vigilance. It is prudent to consciously choose the appropriate level of situational awareness.
Condition White (Oblivious). In Condition White, you are pretty much oblivious to your surroundings, completely unprepared for trouble if it arrives. You are a lemming, distracted or unaware, thus unable to perceive any existing danger in your immediate area or be alert for any that may be presented to you. Drivers carrying on conversations with passengers, people talking on cell phones, joggers wearing headphones and jamming to their music, and other generally preoccupied individuals fall into this category.
You may remember a time when you were driving along with the stereo cranked up and grooving to the music when suddenly the police officer you didn’t know was behind you lit off his siren and lights. Nearly jumping out of your skin, you checked your speedometer only to find you’d been speeding and knowing you’d been busted. That’s an example of being in Condition White. While almost everyone has done it, it’s not too cool, huh?
An interesting exercise is to do a little people watching, trying to identify those around you in this mode. Their heads will commonly be tilted downward toward the ground in front of them or fixed on a spot in the distance such as one might do when looking at a tourist map, reading a book, or searching for a distant address or landmark. These folks are easy marks for just about any pickpocket, mugger, rapist, or other deviant they stumble across.
Any time you are near others, especially strangers, it pays to be vigilant. Bad guys don’t want to fight. They want to win. Consequently, tough, prepared targets are usually left alone in favor of easier prey. You cannot, however, walk around in a constant state of hyper-vigilance or paranoia. Self-defense experts often use a color code system to define appropriate levels of situational awareness that help you strike the right balance, paying attention to what’s important, and keeping yourself safe. The colors themselves are far less important than the overall concept—different levels of awareness are appropriate for different situations.
Try watching a crowd at a mall, nightclub, or other public area with a predator mindset sometime; it can be an illuminating experience. Try to read people’s body language as they pass by you. Who looks like a victim and who does not? Oblivious people in Condition White stand out from the crowd once you know how to look for them.
If you are attacked in Condition White, you are likely going to be hurt. If armed, you can easily become a danger to yourself or others. Even police officers, who have access to much better training than the average civilian, have been killed by their own weapons when they relaxed their vigilance at the wrong times or places.
Condition Yellow (Aware). Although you are not looking for or expecting trouble in Condition Yellow, if it comes up you will have a good chance to identify it in time to react. People in this condition are at ease, not immediately perceiving any danger, but pretty much aware of their surroundings. You can identify, without looking twice, generally who and what is around you—vehicles, people, building entrances, street corners, and areas that might provide concealment and/or cover should something untoward happen. To clarify the difference between these two concepts, concealment (for example, a bush) keeps bad guys from seeing you but does not provide much physical protection, while cover (for example, a stone wall) can keep the bad guy and/or his weapon from getting to you should he wish to attack.
In Condition White, you are pretty much oblivious to your surroundings, completely unprepared for trouble if it arrives.
Body language is important. People in Condition Yellow should be self-assured and appear confident in everything they do, yet not present an overt challenge or threat to others. Predators typically stalk those they consider weaker prey, rarely victimizing the strong. We’re not just talking about hardcore criminals here, but also bullies and petty thugs as well. People in this state look confident, walking with their heads up and casually scanning their immediate area as well as what is just beyond. They see who and what is ahead of them, are aware of their environment to each side, and occasionally turn to scan behind them.
Cover, such as this sturdy, equipment-filled shed, creates a physical barrier between you and the adversary. He can neither see nor reach you without moving.
Concealment such as this bush can keep the other guy from spotting you but offers little, if any, physical protection.
Although you are not looking for or expecting trouble in Condition Yellow, if it comes up you will have a good chance to identify it in time to react.
In Condition Orange, you have become aware of some non-specific danger and need to ascertain whether there is a legitimate threat to your safety.
Condition Yellow is appropriate any time a person is in public. If you are armed in any way, it is essential. You should notice anything out of place, anyone looking or acting in an unusual manner, or anything that is simply out of context and further evaluate for potential threat. Examples might include a crowd gathered for no apparent reason, someone wearing heavy clothing on a summer day, a person studiously avoiding eye contact, anyone whose hands are hidden from view, a person moving awkwardly or with an unusual gait, or someone who simply stares at you for no apparent reason. Anything that stimulates your intuitive survival sense, suspicion, or curiosity should be studied more closely.
Condition Orange (Alert). People in Condition Orange have become aware of some non-specific danger (typically via Condition Yellow) and need to ascertain whether there is a legitimate threat to their safety. The difference between conditions Yellow and Orange is the identification of a specific target for further attention. You may have heard a nearby shout, the sound of glass breaking, or an unidentified sudden noise where you would not have expected one. You might also have seen another person or a group of people acting abnormally, someone whose demeanor makes you feel uncomfortable, or somebody whose appearance or behavior stands out as unusual.
Be aware of potential escape routes before you need to use them. It does no good to attempt to flee danger only to find yourself trapped because you didn’t know that your path was blocked.
In this state, you should focus on the nebulous danger, but not to the exclusion of a broader awareness of your surroundings. Trouble may be starting in other places in addition to the one that has drawn your attention (for example, an ambush situation). It is wise to look for escape routes and nearby areas of cover or concealment. If unarmed, you should also try to spot objects that can be used as makeshift weapons or distractions. It may be prudent to reposition yourself to take advantage of cover, escape routes, or impromptu weapons should it become necessary to use them. It is usually premature to make any aggressive moves at this point.
If armed, it is a good idea to be sure that your weapon is accessible, though it is probably not prudent to call attention to it at this point. If in a lonely area like a parking garage, bathroom, or alley, it is usually wise to move into a better-lit or populated area like a restaurant or store. Denying privacy for criminal acts to occur or escalate once started is one of the most fundamental principles of self-defense.
This is also a good time to prepare a plan of action, contemplating what you might have to do should the danger become an imminent threat. If the trouble is immediate, but not directed at you it may be prudent to move to safety and then call for help to alert authorities to the incident. If the combatants overhear your call you may inadvertently make yourself a target of their wrath.
If, on the other hand, it turns out that trouble is not brewing, you simply return to Condition Yellow, abandoning the plan. Consider your effort good practice, be thankful that nothing untoward happened, and go on with your day. There is a pretty good chance that if the other guy was thinking of jumping you that he sensed your preparation and changed his mind. If, on the other hand, you become convinced that trouble truly is likely forthcoming, you will need to escalate to Condition Red.
Condition Red (Concerned). People in this condition have been confronted by a potential adversary or are in close proximity to someone who is becoming aggressive and is near enough to confront them quickly. Condition Red means that you have every reason to believe that the other guy(s) poses a clear and present danger to you or someone with you.
You must be prepared to fight, hopefully taking advantage of the plan you visualized in Condition Orange (assuming you had sufficient warning). At this point it is prudent to begin moving away toward escape routes, locations with strategic cover, or areas of concealment if you can do so. If the confrontation is immediate, it is often a good idea to try to move away from any weapons being brandished or distractions being made, while at the same time keeping well aware of them.
If you are armed and the situation warrants a lethal response, this may be the point where you draw and ready your weapon or at least make its presence known (see “Use Only as Much Force as the Situation Warrants” in Section Two to understand when lethal force may be appropriate). If you are carrying a gun, for example, this might include reaching under your jacket to grab a hold of your pistol and thumbing your holster’s safety release. A verbal challenge at this point may prove useful if time permits. De-escalation may still be an option but it can also backfire so you must be prepared in case it does not work. Every reasonable attempt should still be made to avoid a fight yet you must resign yourself to the very real possibility that it will be unsuccessful.
While a show of ability and readiness to resist with countervailing force may stop the confrontation in its tracks, it could also elevate it to the next level, open conflict. Either way, your intent should be to stop the potential assault that is forthcoming, escape to safety, or stay safe until help arrives, and doing so without harming anyone including those threatening you. You must not want to kill or hurt anyone nor teach him a lesson. Such attitudes can make you the aggressor in the eyes of the law. In addition, even if you are never charged with a crime, you will still have to live with yourself afterward.
Condition Black (Under Attack). People in Condition Black are actively being attacked. Although it is possible to skip nearly instantly from Condition Yellow all the way up to Condition Black, encounters generally escalate at a pace where you can adjust your level of awareness incrementally so long as you did not start off in Condition White. This gives observant individuals a leg up in dealing with dangerous adversaries.
In Condition Red you have been confronted by a potential adversary or are in close proximity to someone who acting aggressively.
Once you have been assaulted, verbal challenges and de-escalation attempts are no longer useful. You must flee or fight back, using any appropriate distractions and/or weapons at your disposal. If armed and confronted by an armed attacker or multiple unarmed assailants, you may decide to use your weapon in self-defense. Shooting to “wound” and firing “warning” shots are Hollywood falderal; anytime you pull the trigger, it’s very serious business. The same thing goes for knives, blunt instruments, and other impromptu weapons as well. Be sure that you are legally, ethically, and morally entitled to do so before employing potentially lethal countervailing force. Your intent must be to stop the assault that is in progress so that you can escape to safety or otherwise remain safe until help arrives. Your goal is to be safe, not to kill your attacker or teach him a lesson.
Each encounter is different; its unique characteristics will determine an appropriate response. It is important to use sufficient force to effectively control the situation and keep yourself safe without overreacting. You will, no doubt, want to treat a drunken relative at a family reunion quite differently than a homicidal street punk coming at you in a drug-induced rage. We’ll talk more about this in Section Two.
Any time you are near others, especially strangers, it pays to be vigilant so as not to be caught unawares by sudden violence. If you appear to be a tough, prepared target, most predators, bullies, and thugs will look for their victims elsewhere. You cannot walk around in a constant state of hyper-vigilance, however. It’s emotionally and physically untenable. A color code system, therefore, gives you a mental model that defines appropriate levels of situational awareness to help you strike the appropriate balance between obliviousness and paranoia. Using it can help keep you safe.
In Condition Black, you are actively being attacked. Verbal challenges and de-escalation attempts are no longer useful; you must flee or fight back.
To begin by bluster, but afterwards to take fright at the enemy’s numbers, shows a supreme lack of intelligence.
Speed is not part of the true Way of strategy. Speed implies that things seem fast or slow, according to whether or not they are in rhythm. Whatever the Way, the master of strategy does not appear fast.
The “escalato follies” refer to the one-upmanship cycle that almost inevitably leads to physical violence unless one party backs down and breaks off the game. The term escalato was originally coined by musician, comedian, and political satirist Tom Lehrer to describe the process of irrational commitment where people continue to increase their investment in a decision despite evidence suggesting that it was the wrong thing to do. The current term in business and political circles is “escalation of commitment.” It is also very closely tied in with threat displays. Actions that you do hoping the other guy will back off, so you don’t need to use violence—sometimes they work, sometimes they make it worse.
You know the drill—you think I just ogled your girlfriend’s ass so you glare at me. I was actually minding my own business, nursing a beer and spacing out, so I don’t know what the heck you’re pissed off about and flip you the bird in response to your getting in my face for no apparent reason. Now you’re really mad ‘cuz I’m a serious dickhead so you get in my face and start spewing insults. I’m not about to let you get away with that so I toss my beer in your face. You haul back to hit me but I beat you to the draw and kick you in the ‘nads. You stumble backward, grab a pool cue, and bust it over my head.
Things go downhill from there. By the time the dust settles, one of us is carried out on a gurney while the other gets to wear a stainless steel bracelet, earns a trip to the local police department, takes out a second mortgage to cover legal expenses, and quickly discovers that he’s seriously screwed up his life.
While this example makes light of a truly significant incident, this kind of scenario plays itself out all the time in real life. Seriously, these escalato follies are a supremely dangerous game—one you really, really do not want to play. Win or lose, there’s always a cost to it, usually a big one.
One way to avoid getting caught up in the escalato game is by knowing how to respond rather than react. Responding is a planned course of action, one that leaves you in control of your emotions and actions. Reacting, on the other hand, cedes control to the opponent. If you become angry, defensive, or otherwise emotionally involved, it is easy to get caught up in the cycle.
It is supremely important that you respond to an aggressor’s actions rather than react to them. Even if the other guy is a complete ass, it is far better to lose face while remaining alive and free than fighting to prove you’re right. While violence often results only in bruises to the body and/or ego, it can easily end with someone’s disfigurement, death, or imprisonment. It is never worth such extreme consequences just to prove your point.
Escalato is a cycle of one-up-I manship that inevitably leads to physical violence unless one party backs down and breaks off the game. The tougher you truly are, the less you should feel a need to prove it. Even if the other guy is a complete ass, it is far better to lose a little face than it is to fight to show that you are right, particularly when violence often leads to jail time, lawsuits, hospitalization, or in extreme cases, death. Do you want to be responsible for an accidental death because you lost your temper? Even if you are not charged with a crime could you live with yourself afterward knowing that you’ve taken a life and destroyed a family? While it may be pretty easy to rationalize what you did, justifying your actions in your own mind for the first few years, it’s really tough to wake up every day for the rest of your life to the knowledge that you are a killer.
Responding is a planned course of action, one that leaves you in control of your emotions and actions. Reacting, on the other hand, cedes control to the opponent.
So, you may be asking yourself, “Does that sort of thing really happen in real life? Come on, man, dying from a fistfight? That’s outrageous.” Unfortunately, it is not only possible, but also even probable. It happens all the time.
For example, Mark Leidheisl, 39, a regional senior vice president for Wells Fargo Bank, died on April 20, 2005, from a blunt force trauma injury to the head. Sacramento police reported that the incident that led to Leidheisl’s death might have been fueled by road rage and that he appeared to have been the aggressor. An unmarked medicine bottle in Leidheisl’s car contained Paxil (an antidepressant), morphine (a powerful painkiller), and an unidentified third pill type. Tests later found that he had a blood alcohol level of at least 0.13 (more than the legal driving limit of 0.08) and opiates in his system. Drugs, alcohol, and violence frequently go together, with very bad results.
Here’s what happened: Reports state that Leidheisl allegedly cut off another vehicle while driving out of Arco Arena’s parking lot after the Wednesday night game. Leidheisl, a friend and the two men in the other vehicle reportedly exchanged heated words, stopped and got out of their vehicles on a nearby street. During the subsequent fight, Leidheisl fell and hit his head on the pavement, causing the fatal injury. The suspects from the other vehicle, ages 43 and 44, reportedly left but contacted police after seeing news reports about how seriously Leidheisl was hurt.
District Attorney Jan Scully told reporters, “After a thorough review of the police investigation, it is clear that Mark Leidheisl died as a result of mutual combat between him and Jeffrey Berndt. One punch thrown in self-defense by Jeffrey Berndt struck Mark Leidheisl in the face, causing him to fall backwards striking his head on the asphalt pavement. This fall fractured Leidheisl’s skull, causing his death.”
A few moments of road rage, or perhaps more accurately parking lot rage, and a guy was dead. Not just any guy, mind you, but someone with a great career, a ton of friends, a wonderful family, and a whole lot to live for. Now, Leidheisl’s wife Holly and his 12-year-old son Taylor will never see him again. It was not intentional, of course, but accidents can and do happen. Do you want to be responsible for an accidental death because you lost your temper? Even if you are not charged with a crime, could you live with yourself afterward knowing that you’ve taken a life and destroyed a family? While it may be pretty easy to rationalize what you did, justifying your actions in your own mind for the first few years, it’s really tough to wake up every day for the rest of your life to the knowledge that you are a killer.
Anger should be used strategically as a tool, never as an unchecked emotion. If you really are upset about something, you generally cannot afford to show it. On the job, you can be perceived as a “loose cannon” by your manager and/or co-workers, facing disciplinary action or possible termination. At home or among friends, you can irreparably harm your interpersonal relationships. Walking away until you can control your anger is best.
While it may be pretty easy to rationalize what you did at the time, particularly if it was truly was self-defense, it’s really tough to wake up every day for the rest of your life to the knowledge that you are a killer.
If you need to prove a point and you are not actually furious, on the other hand, feigned anger can sometimes be an effective tool. Consider disciplining children—if you yell at them too often they become desensitized. If you do it judiciously, they may learn important life lessons and grow up to become better people. The same thing applies to venting feigned rage. You can get away with it only rarely, however, since the vast majority of people remember negative emotions longer than positive ones, hence a long memory of your actions. That means that you really need to save this tactic for the time at which you need it the most.
In his best-selling book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, business guru Steven Covey described a concept called idiosyncratic credit. You can think of it as an emotional bank account. Whenever you do good things for the people you are close to and treat them with dignity and respect, you build up credit in your account. Whenever you become abrasive or insensitive, you make withdrawals. So long as the balance remains positive, you remain on their “good” side. Blowing up at someone uses up a huge amount of idiosyncratic credit so make your withdrawals wisely.
Avoid the escalato follies at all costs. Keep your ego in check. In addition, do your best to verbally de-escalate a confrontation before it becomes violent. Apologizing for some perceived slight, even when you did nothing wrong, often beats the alternative.
Thus, what enables the wise sovereign and the good general to strike and conquer, and achieve things beyond the reach of ordinary men, is foreknowledge.
It is important in strategy to know the enemy’s sword and not to be distracted by insignificant movements of his sword. You must study this. The gaze is the same for single combat and for large-scale strategy.
Muggers, thugs, robbers, bullies, gang bangers, and rapists all have one thing in common: They are happy to dish out pain, but are quite reluctant to be on the receiving end of it. Consequently, before a bad guy tees off on you, he will evaluate his odds of success. This evaluation is often called an “interview.” Unlike a job search, however, this is one interview that you really do not want to pass. Passing means that you appear to be an easy target. To the other guy, you’ve got a giant “V” for victim stamped on your forehead. This interview may be conducted by a single individual or a group of thugs. Either way, knowing the common tactics people who mean you harm might employ can help you respond appropriately.
During these interviews, your goal is to be both calm and resolute. This is Condition Red stuff, a specific threat aimed squarely toward you, so be prepared to act accordingly. If you are approached by a single individual, be wary of bystanders who may join him. Don’t forget to glance behind you when prudent because his partner(s) may be approaching from that direction. Use reflections and shadows to sense what’s going on. Furthermore, pay attention to escape routes should you need to fight your way free. Be wary of the bad guy’s hands, particularly if you cannot see both of them, as he may very well be armed and preparing to use his weapon against you.
Before a bad guy attacks he will evaluate his odds of success. In general, the less you look and act like a victim during this “interview” process, the safer you will be.
The less you look and act like a victim during the interview process, the safer you will be. It helps to know what you might face and visualize how best to respond ahead of time. There are five different types of interviews, which you may encounter: (1) hot (spur of the moment), (2) escalating, (3) regular, (4) silent, and (5) prolonged.
If you are in a martial arts program or sign up for a weekend self-defense course, you may have the opportunity to practice responding to “woofers” who play the bad guy’s role in the interview process. Instructors can help you learn the right ways to deal with tense situations by play-acting, leading you through various scenarios and then debriefing your performance afterward. If you do not have access or are not interested in this sort of training, it is still prudent to at least visualize such encounters and think about what your response options might be.
The following types of interviews were first codified by Marc “Animal” MacYoung in his book Safe in the City: A Streetwise Guide to Avoid Being Robbed, Raped, Ripped Off, Or Run Over (co-written with Chris Pfouts).
1. Hot Interviews. Hot interviews are sudden, unexpected, and frequently powerfully emotional. Maybe you are minding your own business nursing a beer when suddenly a guy gets in your face and begins shouting obscenities. Or, perhaps, you get the classic, “What are you looking at?” line. This is not a physical attack yet, but rather an emotional one. If you are not accustomed to dealing with this type of extreme outburst and react in a dazed or confused manner, you will almost certainly be perceived as an easy victim. Physical violence will surely follow while you are too disoriented to respond coherently.
You must immediately shift to Condition Red, demonstrating resolute commitment to defend yourself with countervailing force in order to fail this type of interview. This means you look and act as if you’re ready to tee off on the guy without actually taking any action (yet). If you are a trained martial artist, straighten your spine, control your breathing, and set yourself for attack while verbally fending off the adversary. Keep your hands in front of you and make a fence that allows you sufficient space in which to work. A calm, prepared demeanor can be quite intimidating to folks who know how to read it. Most thugs are very astute at reading body language; after all, they don’t survive too long on the street without that skill.
If you are not a trained fighter, you can do a good job of faking it by centering yourself, keeping your hands up with your arms bent and elbows down to keep some space between you and the bad guy, and balancing your weight evenly on both feet. Rather than getting ready to fight, be prepared to bolt to safety. Ask a police officer sometime, it’s very hard to contain someone who really wants to get away from you. Use this to your advantage.
Regardless of your level of training or preparedness, remember that he has not attacked yet. You legally cannot thump him first in most cases. Demonstrating that you are ready to do so, however, may very well end the encounter without the need for violence.
Criminals, bullies, and thugs choose their victims carefully, preying on oblivious, feeble, or otherwise ill-prepared individuals who make easy targets. Before they strike, they look you over to evaluate their odds of success, using hot, escalating, regular, silent, or prolonged interviews. After all, it’s best when pain only goes one way—from them to you. Consequently, the less you look and act like a victim during this examination process, the safer you will be. It helps to know what you might face and visualize how best to respond ahead of time. The set up typically involves four elements, dialogue, deception, distraction, and destruction. If you can see through his ruse, you can force the other guy to abort short of the fourth step, the actual attack.
2. Escalating Interviews. Unlike a hot interview, which begins with immediate hostility, an escalating interview starts out fairly benign yet rapidly turns hostile. The bad guy will test your boundaries by making increasingly outrageous demands or exhibiting more and more contemptible behavior. This type of thing is much easier to shut off early than late. Each concession in each encounter establishes a pattern or habit of conceding. For example, he might begin with a statement like, “You’re in my chair!” and then proceed to demand payment for rent. Every time he succeeds in pushing your boundaries, his confidence will grow. He will go from abrasive, to abusive, to outright physically violent.
The key to stopping an escalating interview is the same as it is for a hot one, demonstrating that you are prepared to respond violently if necessary. The good news, however, is that you get a bit more time to wrap your mind around what is happening and formulate a proper response. Pay attention to escape routes, impromptu weapons, bystanders, and other factors that might come into play if things get rough.
3. Regular Interviews. Regular interviews generally begin with some type of distraction such as asking for directions, the time, or a cigarette. While he is talking to you, the adversary will be evaluating your awareness, calculating his odds of success, and stealthily positioning himself to attack. This is a common tactic of muggers and criminals who want to steal your stuff but can also be used by bullies looking for a fight as well.
Be wary of the dialogue; it is a set-up. The appropriate response to whatever the other guy asks for is “no.” Furthermore, insist that he keeps his distance. A five-foot rule is useful. Shout something along the lines of “back off… give me five feet.” There are few legitimate reasons for a person you don’t know to be closer than five feet from you in a public place. Five feet gives you enough space to spot threat indicators, weapons, and offensive movements and get a moment of time in which to take defensive action.
Sneak attackers may use just about any dirty trick to disguise their intent, get close enough to launch their assault, and keep you from responding until it is too late to defend yourself. This process, sometimes called the “four Ds” by self-defense experts, includes dialogue, deception, distraction, and destruction.
Dialogue creates a distraction while letting your adversary control the distance between you. It is the set up to get him close enough to his intended victim where he can use the element of surprise to strike with impunity. That means that he must be within three to five feet away in order to hit you with anything other than a projectile weapon. The closer he is the less warning you get and the harder it is to defend yourself.
Deception disguises the predatory nature of the adversary, letting him blend into the crowd and making him appear as harmless as possible until it is too late. Much of deception is based on body language and behavior, though it can include things like wearing clothing designed to blend in and disguise the presence of weapons too.
Distraction sets up the attack, typically by asking a question or otherwise using verbal techniques. It can also include gestures or body movements such as when he suddenly widens his eyes and looks over your shoulder to get you to look behind you and expose your back.
Destruction is the physical assault, robbery, rape, or murder. It could be something more innocuous such as a pick pocketing too. When violence is in the cards, if he can successfully distract you he can get in at least one or two good blows before you realize what is going on and attempt to respond. It’s very tough to fight back once you are surprised, behind the count, injured, and reeling from the pain.
Despite these four Ds, it is exceedingly rare for the victim to be caught totally unaware. For example, even if he was sucker punched, most assault victims report that they saw the blow coming but did not have time to react. Even when long-range weapons are involved (such as firearms), fights typically begin close up. Unarmed confrontations always take place at close range. If you can see your attacker, you should not be surprised by an attack. Your level of awareness and preparedness should ratchet up a bit whenever a stranger is close enough to strike, at least until you have given him a thorough once-over and dismissed any threat.
4. Silent Interviews. A silent interview is when a bad guy puts himself in a position to observe and evaluate you. If you look wary and confident, he will very likely select someone else to pick on; whereas, if you are oblivious and unprepared, he will mark you as a target. Unlike a hot, escalating, or regular interview, he may never utter a word. The whole thing takes place in his head.
For example, he might position himself near an ATM, waiting for potential victims who withdraw large amounts of cash. Or, perhaps, he might be sitting in a box van in a parking lot waiting for victims to wander by so that he can pull them into the vehicle and drive off. Once he makes his presence known, you may have only seconds to react. If you can shift from Condition Yellow to Condition Red fast enough, he may sense your preparedness and break off his attack, turning into a “just messing with you, ha, ha, ha” kind of scenario. Because you were not aware that you were being interviewed, you may very well have to fight your way out of such encounters.
The key to fending off silent interviews is good situational awareness. If you look like a tough, prepared target, or can spot the other guy fast enough, he may balk, break off his attack, and go off in search for an easier victim. Put yourself in the bad guy’s place. Any time you are near a potential ambush position, kick your awareness up another notch. Pay attention not only to the place, but also to the time as well. Using an ATM kiosk during broad daylight in a crowded mall during the holiday shopping season is safer than using an identical one in the parking lot of that same mall late on a summer night. You get the idea.
5. Prolonged Interviews. Prolonged interviews take place over long periods and may be combined with other types of interviews. Stalkers, con artists, and serial rapists often watch their victims for days if not weeks before they act. Consequently, maintaining an adequate level of awareness whenever you are in a public place is a good idea. Even within your own home, it is smart to retain a level of vigilance. Take precautions such as keeping your doors and windows locked, trimming back concealing foliage, installing motion sensor lights that turn on when intruders enter your yard, using a monitored alarm system, and paying attention to passers-by.
Regardless of how you are interviewed by a potential aggressor to evaluate their odds of success, the less you look and act like a victim during the interview process the safer you will be. Knowing what you might expect and practicing (and/or visualizing) how you might respond ahead of time places you in a position of strength when you encounter these behaviors on the street.
Therefore, the good fighter will be terrible in his onset, and prompt in his decision.
In single combat, also, you must use the advantage of taking the enemy unawares by frightening him with your body, long sword, or voice, to defeat him. You should research this well.
Violence rarely happens in a vacuum. There is always some escalation process—even a really short one—that precedes it. Hot, escalating, regular, silent, or prolonged interviews take place while the other guy sizes you up and determines whether or not you will be an easy mark. Glaring, staring, shoving, arguing, threatening, yelling, or other clear signs of escalation precede the majority of violent encounters.
Insults and other forms of verbal abuse are common precursors to a fight. Oftentimes, the other guy is trying to intimidate you. He might also be trying to goad you into throwing the first blow so that he has a legitimate excuse to stomp a mud hole in you. Swallow your pride and walk away if you can. The more dangerous you are, the less you should feel a need to prove it.
There are typically two types of aggressors who might confront you on the street, dominance attackers and predators. Dominance attackers want to feel superior to their victim. If you walk away from one of these individuals, he will generally be happy to let you go in peace. He feels that he has won by making you back down. Predatory attackers, on the other hand, want a victim who will not put up a fight. If you walk away from one of these individuals, you may trigger the very attack you were trying to avoid.
Nevertheless, trying to leave puts you on better legal ground if you ultimately have to fight back, particularly if witnesses observe what happened or the incident ends up being captured on film or video. With the prevalence of closed-circuit security monitors, cell phone cameras, traffic cams, and other forms of electronic surveillance out there, that’s not an unrealistic situation.
While the escalation process varies from encounter to encounter, there are certain common behaviors that may lead to violence. Possible trouble indicators include
• Glaring, staring, or otherwise “sizing you up.”
• Attempts by an individual or group to follow, herd (control your direction), flank, or mirror your movements.
• Making unprovoked accusations, threats, aggressive requests, demands, or using foul language for no apparent reason.
• Baiting or attempting to provoke an aggressive response from you (for example, “What’s your problem?” or “What are you looking at?”).
• Closing, moving into a range that enables the other guy to attack, particularly when the movements are covert or sudden.
• Unusual or out-of-place body movements, aggressive gestures, agitated pacing, clenched fists, forward weight shift, straightening the spine, or adopting a fighting stance.
• Clearing space to move or draw a weapon.
• Hands and/or teeth clenched, neck taut, or other stiff or shaking body movements.
• Shouting to startle or paralyze you as an attack begins.
While it is common to experience this type of obvious escalation, ambushes also occur. In such situations, the escalation has already occurred, yet the victim is unaware of it because it took place solely within the mind of the attacker. He has already looked you over, conducted a mental interview to ascertain that you are an easy target, and decided upon a course of action against you. This summing up can cause a situation where you have no choice but to fight.
Regrettably, most people are simply not mentally prepared to react to sudden violence, needlessly being hurt or killed despite the fact that they saw it coming. It does not matter why you were attacked, simply that you were attacked. Do not deny what is happening at the time, but rather respond appropriately to defend yourself. Worry about making sense of the encounter afterward.
With ubiquitous closed-circuit security monitors, cell phone cameras, traffic cams, and other forms of electronic surveillance out there it is reasonable to assume that everything you do during a violent encounter will be captured on film. Act accordingly.
The good news, however, is that there are physiological, behavioral, and verbal indicators that you can spot to warn you of imminent conflict. Some are subtle and may indicate nothing of an alarming nature. Other indicators are overtly hostile and should cause immediate action. Most fall in between and require judgment to be applied before taking action.
As a general rule, you should err on the side of caution, trying to avoid or evade problem situations before they spin out of control. It is important to trust your instincts in such situations. Whether you see it or not, there will often be some indicator that can warn you of a person’s intent just before he attacks.
This indicator is often called the “tell.” Poker players coined this term, which refers to some movement or gesture that lets them figure out when an opponent is bluffing. In the self-defense and martial arts communities, the tell has been called many things, such as the adrenal dump or the twitch. If you do not see the tell you are bound to lose. Even if you are really, really fast, action is always faster than reaction. In other words, missing the tell is what gets you sucker punched. Recovery after the first strike is challenging, though not impossible.
Violence doesn’t happen in a vacuum. There is always some type of escalation process beforehand, even if it is really short or takes place solely in the mind of the aggressor. By understanding the indicators of a forthcoming attack you will have a better opportunity to avoid confrontations altogether, or where necessary, defend yourself effectively. If you miss these vital clues, you will have a tough time responding to sudden violence. It is even worse if you are thinking “fist,” failing to notice the knife in his grip. Armed or unarmed, if you don’t see an attack until the last moment you will be at a severe disadvantage. It takes a certain amount of time to realize what is happening, shift your mental gears, form a plan of action, adopt a defensive posture, and ward off the attack. Unless you’re highly skilled and very well trained, you won’t have enough time to respond to a surprise attack without getting hurt.
Looking for the tell involves noticing the really small physical movements a person might make to signal intent to attack as well as subtle changes in the person’s energy. Physical signs are essentially manifestations of an adrenal response that implies a person is about to attack. These indicators could include a slight drop of the shoulder, a tensing of the neck, or a puckering of the lips. You will also want to trust your intuition here to discern a change in the person’s energy, virtually undetectable from a physical standpoint but easy to spot once you know what you are looking for.
Some examples of where changes of energy may constitute a tell include:
• A person who was standing still moves slightly. A weight shift is far subtler than a step, but the change is possibly preparation for attack.
• A sudden pallor or sudden flushing of the person’s face (that is, an adrenaline-induced vasoconstriction).
• A person who was looking at you suddenly looks away or, conversely, a person who was looking away suddenly makes eye contact.
• A change in the rate, tone, pitch, or volume of a person’s voice. An overt example is when someone who is shouting becomes suddenly quiet or, conversely, one who has been quiet begins raising his or her voice.
• A sudden change in the person’s breathing (i.e., shallow and fast for untrained adversaries; slow and deep for trained opponents)
Whether you see it or not, there is almost always some indicator that warns you of a person’s intent just before he attacks. Missing this “tell” is what gets you sucker punched.
By understanding the indicators of a potential attack, you will have a better opportunity to avoid confrontations altogether, or where necessary, defend yourself effectively. Action being faster than reaction, the earlier you identify these indicators, the better prepared and safer you will be. Know when he is eager to hit you; it gives you a leg up when it becomes necessary to counterattack.
You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you only attack places that are undefended.
What is big is easy to perceive; what is small is difficult to perceive.
It’s common knowledge that bad guys cheat to win. These people aren’t going to pick a fair fight with someone when they stand a good chance of getting hurt in the process. Your adversary, therefore, will want to surprise and overwhelm you whenever possible. He may very well deploy a weapon as well. Furthermore, thugs often work together in small groups to stack the odds even higher in their direction.
The good news is that the bad guys cannot hurt you if they cannot reach you. In order to pull off a successful attack, the other guy needs to close distance and move into a position from which he can strike. Fists, feet, knives, blunt instruments, and other handheld weapons require close range to be effective. Even gunfights typically take place at close range. According to Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics, about half of all gun murder victims are killed from a range of five feet or less. Consequently, the aforementioned five-foot rule is good to remember.
Unless a lot of alcohol or drugs are involved, however, you will rarely be attacked in the middle of a crowd. Here the adversary has less control over the encounter and is more likely to get caught. Further, while a bad guy may attempt to take you to an isolated place to commit the violence he intends, he is not likely to find too many victims in remote, secluded locations. Consequently, fringe areas adjacent to heavily traveled public places are where the majority of violent crimes occur. This includes areas such as parking lots, bathrooms, stairwells, laundry rooms, phone booths, ATM kiosks, and the like.
Fringe areas adjacent to heavily traveled public places are where the majority of violent crimes occur.
Your level of awareness should be kicked up a notch whenever you travel through these fringe areas. Pay attention to other individuals and behaviors that may constitute a threat. There are a variety of tactics that bad guys might use to get themselves into position to attack you. These include closing, cornering, surprising, pincering, herding, or surrounding.
Fights, even most gunfights in civilian settings, begin up close. Consequently, the most common method of getting close enough to attack is simply by walking up to the victim. This is often combined with some type of distraction, typically verbal, to help the bad guy seem less threatening while he maneuvers himself into position to strike. Remember the four Ds (dialogue, deception, distraction, and destruction)? The goal is to move in close so that he can surprise and overwhelm you with the attack.
There is no legitimate reason for a person you do not know to get closer than five feet from you on the street unless you are in the middle of a large crowd or sitting on public transportation (for example, busses, subways, trains). Trust your intuition. If he makes you uncomfortable and tries to close distance, warn him away. Don’t worry about being rude or breaking some social norm. It is better to be a little embarrassed and safe than beaten to a pulp and sorry. After all, this is someone you’ve never met before and will likely never meet again. Anyone who insists on closing after you have warned him away has clearly announced that his intentions are less than honorable. Demand space and be prepared to fight if it is not given.
Fringe areas adjacent to heavily traveled public places are where the majority of violent crimes occur. This includes areas such as parking lots, bathrooms, stairwells, laundry rooms, phone booths, ATM kiosks, and the like. In order to initiate an attack, the bad guy(s) must close distance and/or control your movement in order to get into range. They can do this by closing, cornering, surprising, pincering, herding, or surrounding you. Spotting these behaviors ahead of time gives you a fighting chance.
Cornering or trapping is another common approach, one that is a bit more strategic than simple closing. The bad guy angles his approach in a manner that traps you between him and a solid object such as the wall of a building or a parked vehicle if you are outside on the street. A variation you might find indoors is to block the only doorway into a room so that you need to go through him in order to escape.
A common cornering method is to approach a person when he’s getting into his car, particularly in store parking lots where you are also carrying encumbering purchases and valuables such as cash and credit cards. Think about how long it takes to pull your keys out of your pocket, insert them into the lock, turn the lock, open the door, slip inside, close and lock the door, start up the vehicle, and drive away. You are vulnerable during most of those steps, trapped between the bad guy and your vehicle or stuck in the vehicle with the door open before you can get it closed and drive away. It takes even longer if you need to drop a bunch of packages into the trunk or back seat first.
Cornering behavior should always be a concern, particularly in fringe areas where attacks are more likely to occur. When traveling in these areas pay close attention to alternate routes you might take in order to effect an escape. If your awareness is sufficient, you should be able to spot this behavior and move in an alternate direction before you can become effectively trapped.
Surprising requires a source of concealment from which the bad guy might spring when he chooses to attack. This can include trees, bushes, doorways, parked vehicles, garbage bins, or any other barriers behind which he can hide yet track your movements and step out to attack. Even pools of darkness between streetlights can be used for surprise if you are inattentive.
Pay careful attention to your environment, particularly in areas you frequent such as the sidewalk near your home, office, school, and so on. Look at these areas through the lens of a mugger. What are the sources of cover or concealment? If you were the bad guy, where would you hide? Once you know these locations, you can give them a quick once-over before you pass by, thwarting most surprise attacks.
Don’t forget that he needs free access to be able to move out and attack you quickly, so he won’t be in something like a garbage bin but rather hiding alongside it. Doors, on the other hand, facilitate rapid egress so he could be sitting in a vehicle or standing behind the entrance to a building.
Bad guys often work together. If you wind up running across two adversaries working in tandem, they have additional tricks to get you into position for attack. The most common of these is a pincer movement where one guy distracts you so that the other can sneak up on you from behind. The bad guys might split up as they approach you or spread out so that you pass one before being accosted by the other. That way one is already behind you since you have walked past him on your own accord.
Be wary of individuals who ping your radar as you approach. Don’t worry about embarrassing yourself by overreacting; just turn around and walk away. Similarly, if one or more individuals who were together split up as they approach you, angle off in another direction. If they start to follow, their intent will be clear. More often than not, your awareness marks you as a difficult target and they will find someone else to pick on.
Groups of bad guys working together have a bigger bag of tricks with which to maneuver you into position for attack. Another method that can be performed by two or more thugs working together is called herding. This is similar to what carnivores do in the wild. An individual makes his presence known in a manner that causes you enough concern to want to move to a safer location. As you attempt to flee, the bad guys control available routes along which you can travel in order to herd you toward a choke point where one or more members are waiting and planning to act. If you fail to take the hint and move, the assault takes place where you first made contact with the individual or group.
It is important to pay attention to your environment at all times. Your best defense, particularly in areas that you are familiar with, is to know a variety of available escape routes for wherever you plan to travel. Of course, travel during daylight when you can and avoid choke points to the extent practicable, particularly in fringe areas at night. If you begin to feel uncomfortable with a developing situation, move toward highly populated, well-lit areas. This denies the bad guys the privacy necessary to attack you without being observed and increases their chances of getting caught, hence encourages them to target someone else.
If you think you have thwarted this type of trap, it’s a good idea to dial 9-1-1 or your local emergency number to report the suspicious activities. Just because you were able to avoid the ambush doesn’t mean that the next guy who happens along will too. As a good citizen, you can help others avoid becoming victims by drawing police attention to the area.
It gets even tougher when three or more bad guys work in concert. Again, one will often try to distract you while the others move to surround you and cut off all avenues for escape. Typically, they will casually drift apart as you approach. Like the pincer movement, the group might also spread out so that you pass alongside them before being accosted. When you reach the midpoint of the group, the wings fold in to trap you.
Once again, be wary of individuals who ping your radar as you approach. If it is a large group, turn around and walk away. Listen for signs of pursuit and calmly check back over your shoulder after fifteen feet or so to see if they are starting to follow you. Do your best to show no fear but rather resolute preparedness. Similarly, if one or more individuals who were together split up as they approach you, angle off in another direction. If they start to follow, their intent will be clear. Fighting a large group is a losing proposition. Your best defense is good situational awareness. Never get close enough to the bad guys to be in danger.
Don’t forget that fringe areas adjacent to heavily traveled public places are where the majority of violent crimes occur. Do your best to avoid such areas late at night. Maintain a higher level of awareness whenever you must travel through or visit areas like parking lots, bathrooms, bus terminals, subways, train stations, stairwells, laundry rooms, or phone booths. Assaults can occur at any time of the day or night.
Be extra vigilant if you ran afoul of someone in a sporting venue, party, or drinking establishment, even if it never came to blows. He may be lurking, hoping to cut you off as you travel through a fringe area to get to your vehicle, catch a cab or a bus, or walk home. Similarly, be cautious around banks, pawnshops, check cashing establishments, casinos, and ATM kiosks where predators may be looking to separate you from your money.
In all of these situations, the bad guy must close distance or control your movement in order to get into range to attack you. Don’t let him do it.
By discovering the enemy’s dispositions and remaining invisible ourselves, we can keep our forces concentrated, while the enemy’s must be divided.
In large-scale strategy, we deploy our troops for battle bearing in mind our strength, observing the enemy’s numbers, and noting the details of the battlefield. This is at the start of the battle.
If you ever get the chance to ask a rancher or somebody who has raised farm animals about the phrase, “cut from the herd,” you will hear them talk about picking one animal as a target and then using a dog and horse to separate it from the group. There aren’t all that many ranchers around to interview so you are more likely to have experienced this type of behavior on television. Predators hunting in the wild do not want to tangle with tough targets that might cause them injury, so they try to cut a weak, infirm, or young animal from the herd, isolating it from the protection of the group prior to moving in for the kill. This is done to gain advantage, to make the kill as easy and efficient as possible.
This same type of behavior occurs within the human realm as well. Predators stack the deck in order to increase their odds of winning. Cutting from the herd means that the bad guy gains the advantage in numbers, determines the time, chooses the place, has the element of surprise, and is not observed by others. These points are elaborated as follows:
• Gains the advantage in numbers. No intelligent animal will pick a fight unless it believes it will win (or has far more to lose by not fighting). Changing the numbers to create an advantage is, therefore, fundamental. This means either separating the victim from a larger group to battle one-on-one without interference or working with other predators to outnumber the chosen victim before the fight. Similarly, choosing a weak opponent or making him weaker is just as fundamental. A numbers advantage makes even a strong adversary weaker.
• Determines the time. Odds are that you will not be attacked when you’re ready and raring to go. If the time of attack is determined by the aggressor, then it is by definition not chosen by the victim. In choosing the time of the attack, the aggressor is prepared while the victim is not. The predator can wait until his prey is distracted, encumbered, preoccupied, or otherwise ill prepared to fight.
• Chooses the place. When the attacker determines the place, he can take the high ground, spring from ambush, attack when the glare of the sun reduces the victim’s ability to see, or otherwise take tactical advantage of the terrain. Scouting the best site for attack means that the predator knows the environment, anticipates escape routes, identifies sources of impromptu weapons, precludes intervention from bystanders, and otherwise takes best advantage of the optimal place to fight.
• Has the element of surprise. When time and place are chosen by the aggressor, the element of surprise completes the preparation triad for the perfect attack. There is no guarantee, of course, but action being faster than reaction, surprise is a powerful advantage indeed. By the time the victim realizes what has occurred, it is already too late to escape without a fight.
Be extra cautious around banks, pawnshops, check cashing establishments, casinos, and ATM kiosks where predators may be looking to separate you from your money.
• Is not observed by others. As a general rule, the more public the situation the safer you will be insomuch as violent crime is concerned. Certainly, riots run counter to this principle and certain crimes such as pick pocketing are facilitated by the anonymity that crowds provide. Terrorist bombers also target populated areas at peak traffic times. People who are showboating to gain social status also crave attention, as exemplified by all the fight videos you can find posted on
YouTube.com. Nevertheless, the majority of violent acts are perpetrated by one attacker against one victim or among small groups. Relatively few violent acts occur in front of large numbers of witnesses unless the perpetrator is mentally deficient and/or under the influence of drugs that limit his or her inhibitions. If the predator is unobserved by witnesses or surveillance cameras, no one can testify about his actions. Similarly, there is no one hanging around who might choose to intervene. Consequently, he has a better chance of getting away with his crime.
Animals in the wild cut from the herd to single out weaker prey. Violent individuals use the same tactic in the human jungle to waylay their victims. Cutting from the herd means that the predator gains the advantage in numbers, determines the time, chooses the place, has the element of surprise, and is not observed by others. That’s a seriously unfair fight, one you are bound to lose. Don’t let yourself be cut from the herd.
Let’s review an everyday example of how “cutting from the herd” actually works. You have been drinking at the local tavern, and eventually visit the restroom. You are standing at the urinal minding your own business when suddenly a guy comes up behind you, and growls, “That’s my girl, you SOB. You need to stay away from her!”
Let’s evaluate your predicament against the predator checklist:
✓Gains advantage in numbers: Check. By waiting for you to go to the men’s room, he is able to isolate you from your friends or anyone who may come to your aid, physically or verbally. This includes the referee of the tavern, the bouncer. If you’re really unlucky, he might have brought his friends in with him.
✓Determines the time: Check. He waited for you to go to the men’s room, but it also took him three or four beers and twenty minutes of internal dialogue to screw up the courage to wait for you there. By the time he confronts you, he has worked himself into a frenzy, injected plenty of liquid courage, and is raring to go. You, on the other hand, are literally caught with your pants down, well unzipped anyway. Not exactly your best time to fight.
✓Chooses the place: Check. He could have jumped you at your table, waited for you in the parking lot by your car, hung out in the hallway for you to use the phone, or selected any other location, yet the men’s room is the optimal choice. You are less likely to be prepared to fight. Furthermore, it is more confined, has better privacy, and is easier to control. He’s picked the ideal place to do you in.
✓Has the element of surprise: Check. You are busy. In order to use the urinal, you must have your back to anybody who decides to approach you. Furthermore, you are unlikely to pay much attention to other people around you. It’s socially unacceptable to look at other guys in the men’s room, right? Similarly, you are equally unlikely to turn around quickly when you hear him come in. He intuitively knows that you expect to be left alone when going to the bathroom so this will catch you off guard.
While it is socially unacceptable to look too closely at those around you in a public restroom, it is an isolated area that can give a bad guy the privacy he needs to attack. If ambushed you may be caught with your pants down, ill prepared to fight.
✓ Is not observed by others: Check. The restroom has only one way to enter or leave. It is small, constrained by stall walls, and provides little room to maneuver. It is relatively easy to lock the door, block or jam it with something, and assure a moment of complete privacy for the attack.
In this scenario, if a fight ensues you are almost certain to lose. You may still have some tricks up your sleeve like peeing on his foot to distract him, but it’s still awful tough to fight when you’ve been taken by surprise and need to make sense of what’s happening before you can respond effectively. And it’s psychologically tough to fight with your dick hanging out…
Cutting from the herd is an age-old technique. It is instinctual, and it works. Be aware of where and when it might be used on you. Do your best to avoid isolated areas like parks, trails, alleys, elevators, and empty buildings, especially at night, unless you have someone else you trust with you. Even if you are in a group, don’t take any unnecessary chances.
If you are attacked in this type of situation, it makes sense to call attention to your predicament. Even in an isolated location, there may still be people around who can hear what’s going on and might choose to investigate. In order to attract attention, however, you need to yell something that stands apart from a generic cry of “help.”
Many self-defense experts recommend screaming “fire” under the assumption that it will make people pay attention since a fire can affect everyone around you. We’re not sure that’s the best choice, particularly if your assailant has a gun. “Oh my god, don’t kill me with that knife,” on the other hand, is a pretty cogent statement. Not only may this tactic have a better chance of attracting attention of a prospective rescuer than a generic shout for help, but it also demonstrates to potential witnesses that you are in legitimate fear for your life should you have to kill your attacker in self-defense. Further, the mere presence of other attentive individuals may make a bad guy stop trying to hurt you and become more concerned about how to escape successfully before authorities arrive to arrest him.
Don’t let yourself be cut from the herd. In such situations, your adversary gains the advantage in numbers, determines the time, chooses the place, has the element of surprise, and is not observed by others. You may be able to attract attention by shouting for help if you do so creatively, but there is no guarantee that it will arrive in time to do you much good. It is far better, therefore, to be aware of this tactic and avoid locations where it might be used against you.
In war, the general receives his commands from the sovereign, collects his army and concentrates his forces.
It is said the warrior’s is the twofold Way of pen and sword, and he should have a taste for both Ways.
Bullies often look for victims who are eager to preserve their social status or are afraid to lose face, the kinds of guys who are willing to play the escalato game. They are reluctant, however, to take on a challenge that they cannot win. A large group of people changes the equation in your potential opponent’s eyes very quickly. If you are willing to call in support rather than going it alone, you are no longer a helpless victim, but rather a well-protected target.
If you have friends that are willing to help you, call them in immediately before a bad situation comes to blows. This can often end a fight before it begins. If you are dealing with an antagonistic group of guys or, God forbid, a criminal gang, they are already assembled so you are on the short end numbers-wise, or in other words outnumbered, if you cannot gather additional support.
Before he founded his own dojo, Wilder taught karate at a local YMCA. Walking through the hallway in his karate uniform before class one night he discovered a crowd of about half a dozen people looking intently through the gymnasium window. He discovered that the basketball game in the gym had deteriorated into a shouting match and believed that it was rapidly going to escalate to violence. A number of young men, strong and angry, were not only ready to throw down, but very likely to seriously injure each other.
“Somebody should do something.” A woman said, and all heads turned expectantly toward Wilder, the karate black belt. “Like what?” he thought, then, deciding he should take responsibility to act, he turned down the hall, rounded the corner and opened the door to the gym. He then let out the best karate kiai (spirit shout or loud yell) he could muster. Startled by the shout, the youths in the gym paused their argument for a moment and looked over at him in all his “karate glory.”
“Hey,” he said, signaling with his thumb over his shoulder. “The front desk just called the cops; thought you should know.”
With that, he backed the two steps out the door, turned, and left without saying another word. He had advantage of a martial arts outfit that conveyed some level of authority. Using that influence, he yelled at them, made his statement, and left. The threat of repercussions was enough to end the fight before it began, as the players quickly dispersed and exited the building.
Despite what he had told the youths, however, the front desk was located at the other end of the building. Since they were so far away from the action, the desk staff had no idea that anything untoward had occurred, and in fact, had not called the police. Regardless, the police were very real in the minds of the basketball players. Wilder solved the problem by appearing to call in support, and that was all that counted at that moment.
You cannot always bluff though. Simply saying that your friends who are all karate experts are outside, or, “You’re gonna get it when…” is not effective, so don’t bother taking that route. It doesn’t play well in court either. A plausible and instantly believable threat, on the other hand, can be very effective.
Wilder’s intervention not only solved the problem, but kept him safe as well. Standing in the doorway and shouting, he was never close enough to the youths to be at risk. Furthermore, they were only wearing shorts and shoes, so the chances of a hidden long-distance weapon such as a gun were practically non-existent. Upon launching the “cop bomb” he left immediately, knowing that interfering in somebody else’s fight could mean trouble.
Calling in support is often a useful way of cutting short a fight before it begins. A large group of people changes the equation in your adversary’s eyes very quickly. You are no longer a helpless victim, but rather a well-protected target. A plausible threat of authority, such as contacting 9-1-1 might work too. Don’t be afraid to call in support when you need help.
Calling in support is often a useful way of precluding the imperative to fight. Use it when you can to make yourself a harder target.
Humble words and increased preparations are signs that the enemy is about to advance. Violent language and driving forward as if to the attack are signs that he will retreat.
There is a time and place for use of weapons.
What you say during a tense encounter can make a crucial difference between your ability to walk away from a potential adversary versus a requirement to fight your way clear. On the one hand, you might be able to verbally de-escalate a tense situation, while on the other you can just as easily set the other guy off if you are not careful. Consequently, while sticks and stones may break your bones, your words can actually kill you. Doesn’t quite match the nursery rhyme, yet this insight is nothing new. The following parable from biblical times (Midrash Psalms 39 from Rapaport’s book) describes the power of the tongue, the life or death impact your words can make:
How flexible is the tongue, and how great is its power! A Persian king’s physicians ordered him to drink the milk of a lioness to maintain his health. Seeking favor from the king, one of his servants offered to procure this rare medicine.
Taking with him some sheep with which to lure the beast, the servant actually succeeded in obtaining milk from a lioness. Fatigued from his trials, he took a break on his journey homeward and fell into a deep sleep. During his slumber, the various members of his body began to argue about which of them had contributed most towards the success of their owner in obtaining so rare a thing as lioness milk.
The feet began the argument saying, “There can be no doubt that we are the only factors in this successful undertaking. Without us there could have been no setting out on this dangerous venture.”
“Not so,” retorted the hands. “The facility you offered would have been of no avail had our power not been called into requisition. It is the service we rendered that enabled our owner to procure milk from the lioness.”
“Neither of you could have rendered any service,” exclaimed the eyes, “without the sight which we supplied.”
“And yet,” interrupted the heart, “had not I inspired the idea, no steps would have been taken to bring any of your powers into exercise.”
At last the tongue put in his claim, and was utterly ridiculed by the unanimous opinions of all the other contending members of the body. “You,” they scornfully replied, “You who have not the free power of action which is possessed by all and each of us. You who are imprisoned in the narrow space of the human mouth, you dare to put in a claim to have contributed to this success!” In the midst of this contention the man awoke and proceeded on his journey home.
When he was brought before the king with the much desired milk, the man, by a slip of the tongue said, “Here I have brought your Majesty the dog’s milk you asked for.” The king was incensed by this insulting remark. In a rage he ordered that the man to be put to death for his insolence.
On the man’s way to execution, all the members of his body, heart, eyes, feet, and hands trembled and were terribly afraid. “Did I not tell you,” said the tongue, “that my power is above all the united strengths you possess? And you ridiculed me for my trouble. What think you of my power now? Are you now prepared to acknowledge my supremacy?”
When all the members of the body consented to the tongue’s proposition, the tongue requested and obtained a short reprieve, so that it could make a last appeal for the king’s clemency.
When the man was brought to the king his tongue began speaking with great eloquence. “Is this the reward great and just king, to be meted out to the only one of your majesty’s servants who was glad of the opportunity to offer his life to fulfill his king’s desire, who gladly carried his life in his hand to obtain for his august master what scarcely ever was obtained by mortal man?”
“That may be true,” replied the king, “yet your own statement was that you brought me dog’s milk instead of the lioness’ milk which you undertook to procure.”
“Not so, O gracious king,” replied the tongue, “I brought the identical milk that your majesty required. It was merely by an unfortunate mistake in my speech that I changed the name. In fact there is a similarity, as the word in Hebrew may mean either lioness or dog. My words will be verified if your majesty will condescend to make use of the milk I procured, for it will effect the cure your majesty desires.”
The milk was submitted to the test, and was found to be that of a lioness; and so the body of the man was saved and the tongue triumphantly demonstrated its great power for good or for evil.
While that fanciful tale serves to make a point, it actually has quite a lot to do with real life. Consider this incident reported in the news.
On January 27, 2005, actress Nicole duFresne was robbed at gunpoint by 19-year-old Rudy Fleming who stole her friend’s purse and pistol-whipped her fiancé. What was supposed to be a simple property crime turned deadly, however, when the 28-year-old actress confronted the teenaged robber. She became furious, shoved Fleming, and snapped, “What are you going to do, shoot us?” A fatal mistake—she died shortly thereafter in her fiancé’s arms.
This tragedy is an excellent case study in what not to do when confronted by an armed aggressor. Experts often state that robbery is more often about power than anything else. Discussing the duFresne shooting, Alfonso Lenhardt of the National Crime Prevention Council said, “It’s a tragedy, but in this case it sounds like the suspect felt he wasn’t getting the respect he was due. When a gun is in the hands of a desperate person with low self-esteem, they’re going to react that way.”
Respect is paramount for gang members too, even wannabes. Mouthing off to any street punk is downright dangerous. If you are similarly confronted by an adversary, save your righteous indignation for a safer environment after the immediate danger has passed. It does you no good to be right yet dead like duFresne. Having to be right despite the cost, reacting indignantly in the face of a threat, or insulting an adversary frequently guarantees that a conflict will escalate out of control.
If you are in error about something, admit it. Honesty is a much better way to de-escalate a bad situation than lying or stubbornly refusing to acknowledge a wrong. It is tough on the ego, but it sure beats an unnecessary hospital stay, jail time, or a premature trip to the morgue.
Try not to insult or embarrass the other person in any way, particularly in public. We do not like being treated that way, we are pretty sure you do not either, and we strongly suspect that neither will an aggressive person. Giving someone a face-saving way out affords him the opportunity to back down gracefully. Put his back up against the metaphorical wall, on the other hand, and he will ultimately feel forced to lash out at you, striking back (from his perspective) to save his dignity and honor.
While sticks and stones may break your bones, your words can actually kill you. They can also save your life. Having to be right despite the cost, reacting indignantly in the face of a threat, or insulting an adversary often guarantees that a conflict will escalate to violence. Clever words, on the other hand, can de-escalate a tense situation, stave off bloodshed until help arrives, or momentarily distract an opponent to facilitate your counterattack and escape.
Even if you are in the right, it is sometimes prudent to pretend otherwise. Do not let your ego overrule your common sense. Giving your vehicle to a carjacker, your wallet to a robber, or your apology to someone who tries to start a fight hurts a lot less than eating a blade or a bullet because you refused to back down.
Even if you cannot de-escalate a situation simply by talking, clever words may enable you to stall until help arrives or the attacker changes his/her mind and leaves. You can also use conversation as a psychological weapon to increase your chances of surviving as well as to create openings for your physical defenses. Deception, for example, is but one of the tactics you might choose to employ. Any convincing distraction you can create will be to your advantage, such as shouting for nonexistent friends. There is strength in numbers and in making an aggressor believe you are not alone.
If you realize that de-escalation is not working and that you will have no other choice but to fight, it may also be possible to cause your opponent to make a mental twitch, providing a moment of opportunity to counterattack while they mentally shift gears. This twitch is brought about by dissonance between what the person expects and what you actually say or do.
A common example is asking a question, as we saw with the four Ds. While the bad guy is focusing on your words or thinking about an answer, you have a moment in which to run or strike. This may be particularly useful when confronted with multiple assailants. Ask something completely unexpected like, “What time is it?” or something really odd like, “What was Gandhi’s batting average?” Cognitive dissonance is powerful. During the opponent’s momentary confusion, you will have an opportunity to act. Similarly, if you can hit an aggressor while he is talking it takes about half a second for him to switch gears mentally from communicating to fighting.
Kane saw a great example of this when he watched a police officer confront an assault suspect. The guy was shirtless in unseasonably cold weather and appeared to be drunk and/or on drugs. The suspect wasn’t particularly argumentative, but he was not cooperative either. Despite the officer’s questions about what he was doing and repeated orders to show his hands, he refused to respond and continued to keep his right hand in his pocket. Assuming a weapon, the officer suddenly shot one hand up to grab the guy’s throat, lifted him upward a few inches to break his balance, and then stepped forward to use his entire bodyweight to slam the suspect onto the ground. Continuing in one smooth motion, he rolled the guy over, and calmly said, “Don’t resist, don’t resist,” while simultaneously placing him in handcuffs.
Mouthing off to any street punk is dangerous. Having to be right despite the cost can cause a conflict to escalate out of control. Giving the other guy a face-saving way out, on the other hand, affords him the opportunity to back down gracefully.
This trick worked flawlessly because the officer made his move without any obvious pause or preparation, striking in mid-sentence while the suspect was focused on his words rather than his actions. It was a great example of disguising the “tell.” Once the guy was on the ground, the officer’s orders not to resist not only kept the guy from struggling but also helped witnesses understand that he was not using excessive force, which could prove crucial should witnesses be called to testify in court.
For better or worse, your words truly are a weapon. The challenge is that they can hurt you just as easily as they can harm your adversary. Use them wisely.
The Book of Army Management says: On the field of battle, the spoken word does not carry far enough.
Or, as the enemy attacks, attack more strongly, taking advantage of the resulting disorder in his timing to win.
Name-calling means absolutely nothing unless you give it value. It should be meaningless when it comes to fighting, save perhaps, as a distraction to use against the other guy. We have all heard the same old expletives and insults so many times that they no longer have significance.
Unfortunately, it is not always easy to keep this perspective. Calling one’s masculinity into question, for example, is designed to attack the deepest part of your psyche. It is meant to go to the root of who you think you are, to kick your metaphorical feet right out from underneath you. And it can work if you let it.
While standing in the living room of his home, Bill’s wife (now ex-wife) decided that he needed to find a windshield repair business for her to get her car windshield fixed that Monday morning. Bill, however, had a business meeting he had to get to and told her that he did not have time that morning, but would take care of it in the afternoon. Impatient, she went to the heart as quickly as she could. “Be a man,” she spat out.
Bill was instantly mad. He didn’t do anything about it but he was seriously upset. That is how quick three little words can take you from walking out the door thinking about a meeting to becoming instantly ticked off. Name-calling is designed to knock you off your mental equilibrium. When you are mad, you are not in total control. When you are not in control of yourself, you become vulnerable.
Think of the classic movie scene where the hero hits the villain in the face. The villain just smiles, and maybe spits out some blood, and continues the fight. Name-calling is like the first punch in a fight; it is meant to put you off balance. If you respond to the name-calling, you have reeled from the first punch. Worse yet, if the other guy can goad you into throwing the first blow, you become the bad guy in the eyes of the law (or of any witnesses). Now he has free reign to tee off on you with impunity. After all, he’s defending himself from your aggression. That’s another important reason to be cautious when insults start to fly.
Do your best not to respond to insults. By understanding that they’re not truth but merely a way to get at you, they can become a punch you will choose not to receive.
It is important to note that often the intense emotional response that words cause may be harder to ignore than those caused by weapons. For example, you can be wounded in combat with an adversary and never know it until after the dust settles, suddenly discovering that you’ve been stabbed, shot, or badly mangled once the adrenaline wears off and the pain kicks in. There are hundreds of cases where soldiers on the battlefield suddenly discovered that their legs had been blown off when they tried to stand back up after a firefight.
Calm, reasoned responses will help you win in a fight, yet if you lose your cool because of what someone has said, your technique gets thrown out of whack. Fighting when enraged makes you a bit stronger and faster but far less skilled. Against a competent opponent, your rage will get you busted up pretty quickly.
Words are meaningless unless you give them power. Then they can hurt you.
Words are meaningless unless you give them power. Name-calling is designed to knock you off your mental equilibrium. If you let them make you mad, you are no longer in control, hence vulnerable. That’s when words really can hurt you.
Success in warfare is gained by carefully accommodating ourselves to the enemy’s purpose.
An individual can easily change his mind, so his movements are difficult to predict. You must appreciate this.
Imagine this scenario: You walk out of the restroom at your neighborhood bar and accidentally smack into another guy, spilling his beer. He is clearly upset, calls you a derogatory name, and takes a swing at you. If your goal is not to get hurt, you can walk away, he can walk away, he can be dragged away on a stretcher, or he can be carried away in a box. All these options accomplish your goal of not being hurt, but some are clearly better than others are.
What might happen if you can evade his punch and say something along the lines of, “Whoa! I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there. Let me buy you a new one.” Conversely, what will certainly happen if you immediately begin to fight back?
You can often tell when someone is in the wrong by how he or she reacts. Anyone who is unwilling to admit that he made a mistake is almost always going to take the argument to a personal level. Rather than continuing to debate the merits of the disagreement, he suddenly changes tactics and insults start to fly. At that point, the conflict is no longer about the mistake; it is about dominance, control, and saving face. Sadly, violence will often follow.
If you are in error about something, it is usually best to admit it. Honesty is a much better way to de-escalate a bad situation than lying or stubbornly refusing to acknowledge a wrong. It is tough on the ego, but it sure beats an unnecessary hospital stay, jail time, or trip to the morgue.
Your life and physical well-being are worth fighting for while your possessions and self-esteem are not. Unfortunately, however, when you apologize to an aggressive person, it will often be seen as weakness. You may very well be verbally attacked for saying that you are sorry, hence feel compelled to fight. Don’t fall into that trap.
The apology rarely goes like this: You say, “I’m sorry! That was my mistake. I was wrong. It won’t happen again.” The other guy replies, “Thank you! It is rare that someone is willing to admit when they are wrong. You’re a real stand-up guy. I hope you have a good evening.”
It is more likely to work this way: You say, “Sorry man, my fault.” He replies, “Damn right it is!” You respond, “Yes it was, sorry.” And then you walk away. Before you get too far you hear him retort, “F%&ing pussy!”
Your goal is not to fight. If you walk away, your goal will be achieved. There can be no fight unless he follows you. Expect to get a couple more verbal jabs as you leave though, maybe something challenging your manhood or your sexuality. Either way, leave it alone. Move on. Go somewhere else and enjoy your evening.
Name-calling is never worth fighting over. If the other person challenges you in this way, it is because he wants to fight. He thinks he can win. If he follows you and subsequently attacks, you will be on the side of the angels when things go to court. More often than not, however, he’s just trying to provoke you into making the first move, or establishing dominance and will let you walk away.
The reason for this type of aggression should not be important to you. You don’t care if the guy who challenged you had a bad childhood, was molested, or is just out with his posse for the evening and looking to make a good impression. You don’t need a fight. You don’t want a fight. Chances are, if he’s spoiling for a fight, you are already outnumbered, overpowered, or something else is stacked in the other guy’s favor, not yours. Maybe he’s even got a weapon palmed, and is ready and able to use it.
Don’t find out how he has stacked the deck unless he forces you to. Be the bigger man and walk away. After all, the tougher you truly are, the less you should feel a need to prove it. If you have made a mistake, apologize and be done with it.
Anyone who is unwilling to admit that he made a mistake is almost always going to take the argument to a personal level. At that point, the conflict is no longer about the mistake. If you are in error about something, admit it. Honesty is a much better way to de-escalate a bad situation than lying or stubbornly refusing to acknowledge a wrong. It is tough on the ego, but it sure beats the alternative. Giving someone a face-saving way out affords him the opportunity to back down gracefully. Put his back up against the metaphorical wall, on the other hand, and he will feel forced to lash out at you physically.
When the general is weak and without authority; when his orders are not clear and distinct; when there are no fixed duties assigned to officers and men and the ranks are formed in a slovenly haphazard manner, the result is utter disorganization.
Really skilful people never get out of time, and are always deliberate, and never appear busy.
If you are in a face off with someone, you have already passed the interview stage and your adversary has made the decision you are an easy mark. Before he hits you, however, you might still be able to make him rethink that decision. It is still a negotiation until someone gets hit. Consequently, words are critical before fists start to fly. They can still de-escalate the confrontation or even stop it dead in its tracks.
“Don’t f%&k with me!” is an old, tired expression that means nothing. The bad guy has certainly heard that before and most likely beat down the last guy who said it. Snarling something along the lines of, “I am going to rape you when I am done with you,” on the other hand, changes the picture.[6]
While it may not play too well in court if someone hears you saying this sort of thing, and you need to have the physicality and demeanor to make it a convincing threat, your adversary will certainly get the message. Your intention, making him realize that he’s picking on the wrong guy, is clear and understandable. You are scary. By breaking the conventions of what is expected, you seize the high ground militarily speaking.
Wilder remembers an incident from his college days that illuminates this point. Several friends of his were returning from a party on campus when they needed to cross the street. The combination of inebriation and young male cockiness led them to decide to cross where they wanted rather than at the designated crosswalk, which at night would have been the sensible choice. As they jaywalked across the middle of the block, a fellow student in a sports car came down the road. Seeing Wilder’s pack of drunken friends, he slammed on his brakes and laid on the horn.
Of course, Wilder’s friends should have been at the crosswalk waiting for the light, but the guy in the sports car should not have been going over the speed limit. And really, was the horn necessary? Add to it the driver had his girlfriend in the car, so he undoubtedly felt that he needed to yell an obscenity or two at the drunken horde to look good in her eyes. Everybody was in the wrong and alcohol was involved, a dangerous combination.
Here’s the real mistake. Because the guy was in his car he felt he was safe. We all have directed some kind of remark to another driver while in our cars that we would never say in line at the bank. However, this was a sports car with the top down so the driver and his girlfriend could enjoy the early summer night. Even if the top had not been open, windows are easy to break. At this point, the driver had made his intention clear—a verbal and public admonishment of the drunken goofballs who stepped into his path. Wilder’s friend Chris, on the other hand, had another intention. He turned, placed his foot on the front bumper of the sports car, hopped up onto the hood and with two quick, and very heavy, hood-denting steps prepared to kick in the windshield. He stated, loudly and clearly, “What the f%&k is wrong with you, a*&hole!”
Now this vignette is not about right and wrong, or even about justification; it is about making your intentions clear. The driver’s intent had been to shame these guys in front of his girlfriend for crossing incorrectly. He thought he was doing it from the “safety” of his car. The bottom line in his mind most likely was, “These guys are stupid and I am going to call them on it. They can’t touch me because I’m in my car.”
A clear intent to defend yourself, along with a demonstration of ability to physically do so, can often stop a fight before it begins. Your words and demeanor must convince your adversary that he’s picked on the wrong guy.
Wilder’s friend Chris’s intention was clear as well—to do violence to the driver. He demonstrated his capacity for violence for all to see, metaphorically going from 0 to 60 in the blink of an eye. Not exactly a response that the driver expected. If he were willing to do what he just did, what else would he be capable of? He literally demonstrated his intention to do so by damaging the car and asked the driver if he would like to be next.
Sure, everybody was in the wrong at several levels. What if the driver had pulled a gun? Would Wilder’s friend have been able to stop it? Would you? Would you be willing to risk it? Hopefully not. Regardless, the point here is that Chris was willing to take that risk. He was willing to show just how far he was able to go. The message he conveyed by crushing a car hood was clear—“You’re next!”
If you wish to preclude violence verbally or through some act, make sure that you are communicating what you intend and that you understand the risks in acting on that intention as well.
The Book of Army Management says: On the field of battle, the spoken word does not carry far enough: hence the institution of gongs and drums. Nor can ordinary objects be seen clearly enough: hence the institution of banners and flags.
In large-scale strategy, at the start of battle we shout as loudly as possible.
When a group of nurses and/or orderlies in a mental hospital have to physically restrain a patient who has gotten out of control, they often use physical cues as well as words to communicate with each other. Not only do they get commands like, “Move over, I can help,” but also they often get a tap or even a push as well.
The reason for this multi-layered communication is an attempt to circumvent the adverse impacts of adrenaline. Stress-induced accelerated heart rates can cause a loss of fine motor skills such as finger dexterity, complex motor skills such as hand-eye coordination, and depth perception. Under extreme conditions, people experience hyper-vigilance, loss of rational thought, memory loss, and inability to consciously move or react.
The same thing happens when you are facing down an adversary on the street; he can’t hear you very well. He may know that you’re talking, but his brain is not always processing what you say. Consequently, saying the same thing over and over is not very likely to get results. Saying the same thing in different ways is a far better option.
For example, saying, “I don’t want to fight” over and over might not work because it’s simply received as noise. On the other hand, saying, “I don’t want to fight,” followed by, “That guy just called the cops,” and, “I am out of here” just might. Similarly, “This will violate my parole,” combined with “We don’t want to do this” has a better chance of reaching the other guy’s brain and making some impact.
For example, Kane once had a frantic call at the Pac-10 football stadium where he works as a security supervisor. One of his captains had confronted a group of drunken fans who had slipped into the student section during halftime. They may have been students, but they were clearly wearing hats and jerseys for the other team, a fierce cross-state rival. Since the home team was losing badly at the time, emotions were running rather hot, making the group a target of taunts, catcalls, and an occasional thrown object from the other students.
Jim, the captain, had tried to check their tickets in order to prove that they were in the wrong section, but they claimed to have lost them. He subsequently ordered them to leave, but they weren’t willing to go peacefully. By the time Kane arrived, a full-fledged shouting match was underway. It was a pretty tense situation, where a couple of the students looked ready to start swinging at the security guards and anyone else standing nearby. To make matters worse, a large group of local students was focused on the confrontation rather than on the game, heckling and shouting insults in an effort to provoke the other school’s fans into a fight.
Quickly grasping what had happened, Kane managed to separate the “leader” from his little pack of rowdies, taking him aside to have a talk with him. Kane started off by pointing toward the hometown fans and saying, “Look man, you’re going to get yourself hurt by sitting here. There are a lot more of them than there are of you. We can’t keep all those guys off you if you’re going to act like that. Why don’t you go back to your own section across the way and enjoy the rest of the game.”
He thought that appealing to the guy’s sense of self-preservation would prove successful but he wasn’t buying it so Kane changed tactics. “Look, your team’s winning right? Don’t you want to watch the end of the game? If you get thrown out now you’ll miss it.”
It is critical that you take steps to ensure that your message is heard, particularly when emotions are running hot. Just because you have said something once does not necessarily mean that it was understood. Repeating the same thing over and over again is far less effective than restating your message in a variety of different ways. Once again, fear of repercussions wasn’t getting the hoped-for response. The guy was drunk, full of himself, and hoping for something to prove, so Kane changed tactics once again.
“How old are you?” Kane asked. “Nineteen,” the student replied with a smirk. He started to say something more, but Kane cut him off. “You know that’s underage, right? When the cops get here, they’re not only going to throw you out for causing a disturbance, but they’re also going to arrest you for drinking. That’s going to look real great on your resume.”
This time the message got through. The kid wasn’t afraid of a fight with the hometown fans or even the security personnel, but he finally began to comprehend the downside of the situation he’d gotten himself into. While he thought he was tough enough to win any fight, he wasn’t too keen on going to jail or paying a hefty fine. Once he made up his mind to leave before the police arrived, it was pretty easy to convince his buddies to go along with him. By co-opting the leader, Kane got the rest of the group to follow.
It is critical that you take steps to ensure that your message is heard, particularly when emotions are running hot. Just because you have said something once does not necessarily mean that it was heard or understood. If it does not work, change tactics and try again.
Those who were called skillful leaders of old knew how to drive a wedge between the enemy’s front and rear; to prevent co-operation between his large and small divisions; to hinder the good troops from rescuing the bad the officers from rallying their men.
Always chase the enemy into bad footholds, obstacles at the side, and so on, using the virtues of the place to establish predominant positions from which to fight. You must research and train diligently in this.
An angry or aggressive person may simply want to vent his outrage. In many instances, you can do much good by calmly listening to him as he rants, all the while preparing yourself to act if attacked, of course. Interjecting a few choice words as necessary to help him see the situation in a new light can be very beneficial. Changing the context in this fashion can often de-escalate a bad situation by giving the other guy an out, some face-saving way of handling things that he was unable to see before.
Here’s an example: Kane stopped at an Arco station to get gas on his way home from work. Their price was roughly ten cents per gallon cheaper than anyone else in the area was so they were very crowded. Because the automated kiosks by the pumps were not working, he had to go into the store, wait in line to pre-pay, and then go back out to fill his tank. After doing so, he had to go back into the store to retrieve a couple of dollars in change.
As he approached the door, he could hear shouting coming from inside. Two women were arguing with the clerk. As he stood in line, he could not help but hear their dispute over the next several minutes. They claimed to have given the clerk twenty-two dollars to pre-pay and asserted that he put the money on the wrong pump. They said that they had received no gas and wanted him to either restart the pump or give them their money back. He first countered that they had not paid him. The argument continued with the women restating their claim and the clerk changing his response several times with such statements as they had told him the wrong pump number and that it was not his fault if someone else pumped gas on their dime. As the argument escalated, one of the women in line behind Kane went outside to call the police. Several others simply left without buying anything. Everyone was very uncomfortable.
The distraught women were dressed in quality but dirty coveralls, had some sort of ID badges that Kane could not read clipped to their waists, and were very buff. He imagined that they worked as mechanics, maintenance workers, or something similar and had just gotten off work. Neither was a small person. Kane is 5’ 10” tall and they were both around his height. The clerk was shorter and skinnier than either woman was. He had a heavy accent and was a little hard to understand, especially when he raised his voice. Eventually as one of the women called the clerk a liar for the umpteenth time, he retorted that she was a “fat, uppity bitch.” This, as you would probably expect, did not go over too well.
The insulted woman went stiff, then spun on her heel and headed toward the door while her friend continued to argue with the clerk. As she turned past Kane, he got a good look at her face that had jumped several notches up the threat index scale. The last time he had seen that “thousand-yard stare” was when a guy left a building, then returned a short time later with a gun.[7] Fearing something similar, he decided that he had better do something about it.
As she left, Kane noticed that she used her right hand to open the door and that she wore a watch on her left wrist so he assumed that she was right-handed. He followed her out as she stalked toward her car. She was not moving very fast so he easily caught up a dozen feet past the door. He figured that she was not armed (yet), so he took a position behind her left shoulder a couple feet back assuming that he would have the most reaction time that way if she did anything untoward.
Having positioned himself where he wanted to be, he calmly said, “You know they have half a dozen video cameras in there. Your transaction must be on tape.”
She froze in place but clearly was not really processing what he said so he repeated it again adding, “All you need to do is have the manager review the tape to prove your story. There are cameras out here too so they’ll know that you didn’t pump any gas.” What he did not add was, “…and they’ll record anything stupid you’re about to do too,” but he suspected that she figured that out on her own. That was his intention anyway.
She slowly said, “You’re right, they do have cameras in there.” She paused to think for a moment and then repeated more confidently, “Yeah, they do have cameras in there.” As she did so, he could virtually see the rage draining from her. She turned to face him and said eagerly, “They have cameras in there” once again, adding, “Thank you.”
He replied, “No problem. You probably ought to explain that to your friend.” She corrected, “She’s my cousin,” then said, “Yeah, I’ll talk to her.”
While she pulled her cousin aside and began to calm her down, he got his change from the clerk. As the clerk handed Kane the money, Kane pointed out the cameras to him too. The clerk got a goofy look on his face as the realization that everything was being recorded dawned on him too.
Kane honestly does not know who was telling the truth in this dispute, but the look the clerk gave him seemed to validate the women’s claim. The guy looked very uncomfortable and real “guilty,” something that Kane strongly suspected from his changing story, frustration, and personalization[8] during the interchange. Anyone who is unwilling to admit that he or she made a mistake is almost always going to take the argument to a personal level, sooner or later. At that point, the conflict is no longer about the mistake.
It is possible to de-escalate a tense situation by changing the context. When an argument becomes personal, everyone gets so focused on their anger that they forgot all about their environment, the facts, and right/wrong. When the angry party is able to see the situation in a different light, however, it can give him a face-saving way out, eliminating the emotional need to fight.
The interesting thing is that while the presence of a half dozen highly visible cameras was obvious, no one in the dispute seemed to notice them. Pointing them out changed everyone’s context, kicking things down several notches. Kane will never know for sure if the angry woman was going for a weapon, but he strongly suspects that he prevented something bad, probably something really bad, from happening when he intervened. He did not stick around to find out how it was all resolved because he had to pick his up son from daycare, though he did see a police car coming toward the place as he was driving away.
It is possible to de-escalate a tense situation by changing the context. Kane did not choose sides or make himself a target, but rather pointed out an essential fact that everyone had overlooked. This calmed things down long enough for rational thought to overrule emotion.
When there is much running about and the soldiers fall into rank, it means that the critical moment has come.
In large-scale strategy you can frighten the enemy not by what you present to their eyes, but by shouting, making a small force seem large, or by threatening them from the flank without warning. These things all frighten. You can win by making best use of the enemy’s frightened rhythm. In single combat, also, you must use the advantage of taking the enemy unawares by frightening him with your body, long sword, or voice, to defeat him. You should research this well.
Getting smacked in the head so hard that it stuns your brain like a blast of lightning is a sobering experience. It is virtually indescribable, though, to anyone who hasn’t had the experience. There is a vast difference between living through violence and reading about it or watching it on TV. Perhaps this description can help put things into perspective: The monkey dance, metaphorically beating one’s chest and throwing grass in the air, is a ritual between human opponents too. It is done to get your way or avoid a fight by intimidating the other guy. You can see it when someone puffs his chest up, gets in your face, and yells promises of the ass kicking that’s going to follow. You can see it in animalistic threat displays from the schoolyard bully to the soccer hooligan to the loudmouthed drunk to other patrons in the local bar. You can hear it when the other guy spouts off about the years of ninjutsu training he got while working for the CIA. Until a blow is thrown, however, it simply isn’t real.
When the quiet person in the corner suddenly stands up and, with focused eyes, deliberately walks your way, that’s real. His thousand-yard stare means serious trouble is coming your way. There is only a thin veneer of civilization, laws written on paper and enforced by people who are much too far away to intervene right here, right now, standing between you and a guy who wants to tear your throat out and piss down your neck.
You can usually walk away from the monkey dance. At worst, you’re likely to resolve things with a bit of fisticuffs and a bloody nose, yet when it turns real, you are not likely to get off that lucky. If you’re smart, you won’t just walk away. You’ll run.
When it comes to self-defense, most people only know what they’ve read in books, watched on TV, or seen in the movies. That’s all well and good, as long as you never need to defend yourself on the street. Sadly, much of the information out there is misleading or inaccurate, sometimes dangerously so.
In most instances, your “deadly” ninja skills simply aren’t real. Sparring in the dojo pales in comparison with the brutal realities of a street fight. Don’t confuse sports with combat or misconstrue entertainment with reality.
For example, at a 2007 shooting incident in Los Angeles, the police found a local drug dealer lying on the ground with a gun in his hand. On the sidewalk near his dead body was one live round. Imitating what he had seen in the movies, the dealer had racked the slide of his pistol, even though there was a bullet in the chamber and he could have begun firing at will. This extra movement took extra time and cost him his life.
While we may not grieve for a dead drug dealer, it is important to understand that much of what looks good in the movies has no bearing in real life. Holding a gun sideways as gangsters are frequently shown to do in movies, for example, increases the chances of a stovepipe, jam, or feeding failure. A stovepipe failure occurs when the shell casing gets pinched in the slide instead of fully ejecting from the gun. When it happens, you cannot fire a second shot without clearing the jam. Even when the gun feeds properly and ejects shells correctly, holding it sideways increases the chances of getting hot brass in your eye. Not exactly what you want to have happen during a life-or-death fight.
Another gun misconceptions from Hollywood is that people who have been shot are almost never knocked off their feet. In fact, it is rare that a shooting victim falls down instantly or is otherwise stopped dead in his tracks by a single shot, even one to the head, though it certainly does happen on occasion. They had a saying in the Old West, “dead man’s ten (seconds).” It was a common experience for a gun- or knife-fighter to continue the battle for another ten seconds after suffering a fatal wound.
A defensive handgun instructor whose class Kane took reinforced this point, stating that it takes a fatally wounded person between 10 and 120 seconds to drop, so you must expect a determined attacker to continue his assault even after he has been shot. Kane was taught to fire and move rather than standing in place as you might do on a gun range. Don’t relax your vigilance until the other person is clearly disabled and unable to continue the fight so that you can escape successfully to safety.
Another common misnomer is the half-hour-long fistfight. Fictional heroes are bashed, mangled, and beaten yet battle on against multiple assailants for an unbelievable amount of time. Most real fights are over rather quickly, taking minutes if not seconds before someone is knocked out, gives up, or runs off.
The intensity of a real fight is many, many times beyond what is experienced in the boxing ring or martial arts tournament. If you can imagine the other guy jumping on you, bearing down with his weight to slam you onto the pavement, and then pummeling you about the head and face until you lose consciousness, you’ve got some idea of what a real fight is all about. There is no jockeying for position, no sizing him up, and no trading punches then falling back to your corner at the end of the round; it’s full on knock him on his ass and stomp a mud hole through him kind of stuff.
Even if you are in great shape and an expert martial artist, you cannot expect to duke it out with another guy for half an hour and walk away unscathed. When it comes to multiple assailants, the odds are stacked against you even further. Frankly, any fight that lasts more than a few seconds is bound to result in injury. If you cannot escape a battle through awareness, avoidance, or de-escalation, then ending violence quickly should be your goal.
Adrenaline is a huge factor too. If you have ever fired a 12-gauge shotgun at a gun range, such as when shooting at targets or clay pigeons, you have no doubt noticed that those things kick like a mule, jarring your shoulder and rattling your teeth with each shot. It’s even worse if you fire heavyweight 00 buckshot or slug loads as opposed to lightweight birdshot. If you are out in the wild, hunting geese, ducks, or deer with that same shotgun, however, you don’t notice any adverse impact when you take a shot. There is no perceived kick at all. What’s the difference between these two scenarios? Why, adrenaline of course. When you are hyped up, you simply don’t feel pain, or at least don’t feel it to the same degree.
It’s all well and good to dream about how tough you are, how big, strong, or skilled in martial arts you might be, yet the realities of street violence are very different from what most people think. The boxing match or mixed martial arts tournament pales in comparison to the brutality of a street fight. Slickly choreographed Hollywood films only exacerbate the fantasy of what true violence entails. Beware of these misconceptions. Don’t confuse sports with combat or misconstrue entertainment with reality.
Beware of Hollywood misconceptions. For example, it is rare for a shooting victim to fall down instantly or otherwise be stopped dead in his tracks by a single shot, even one to the head.
Holding a gun sideways as gangsters are frequently shown to do in movies increases the chances of a stovepipe, jam, or feeding failure that will render the weapon temporarily inoperable. If you carry a weapon, learn to use it properly.
The same kind of thing happens in a street fight. Kane vividly remembers an incident at the stadium where one guy accidentally broke his own hand punching a metal stair rail when he missed a shot at his opponent during a fight. He then proceeded to pummel the other guy without regard to his injury. In fact, he didn’t even notice that he was bleeding until after the police had tackled him, dragged him off his victim, and handcuffs were snapped into place. His hand was mangled so badly that two of his knuckles were displaced and there was bone showing through at the injury site yet it had not even slowed his attack. Imagine what a dedicated attacker could do to you if you are unable to stop him.
The realities of street violence are very different from what most people think. The boxing match or mixed martial arts tournament pales in comparison to the brutality of a street fight. Sure, competitors do get seriously hurt from time to time when people beat the tar out of each other in the ring, but these competitions are first and foremost sporting events nevertheless. If they weren’t, many competitors would not survive the “fighting” and the promoters would either wind up in jail or get sued out of business in short order. To help assure the safety of everyone involved, competitors use various types of gear such as padded gloves, mouth-guards, and groin protection.
Unlike actual street-fighting, sporting competitions have weight classes. Take the UFC, for instance. Under their rules competitors are grouped into lightweight (over 145 pounds to 155 pounds), welterweight (over 155 to 170 pounds), middleweight (over 170 to 185 pounds), light heavyweight (over 185 to 205 pounds), and heavyweight (over 205 to 265 pounds) divisions. On the street, you may find yourself tangling with someone much larger or smaller than yourself or potentially more than one adversary at the same time.
Sporting competitions have set time periods. Sticking with the UFC example, non-championship bouts run three rounds, while championship matches last five, with each round lasting five minutes in duration. There is a one-minute rest period between rounds. On the street, fights rarely last more than a few seconds, but when they do, there is no stopping until it’s done, someone intercedes, or the authorities arrive to break things up. In the ring, you can win by submission (tap or verbal), knockout, technical knockout, decision, disqualification, or forfeiture. On the street, you win by surviving. The goal of self-defense is not to defeat an opponent but rather to escape to safety.
Unlike brawling on the street, so-called “no holds barred” events have a whole lot of rules. Of course, if you take that literally they truly do bar no holds, yet they do ban lots of other stuff that can be very effective on the street, particularly if you are a smaller and/ or weaker combatant. The UFC, for example, outlaws the following:
• Head butts
• Eye gouges
• Throat strikes
• Grabbing the trachea
• Biting
• Hair pulling
• Groin striking
• Fish hooking
• Putting your finger into any orifice or into any cut or laceration on an opponent
• Small joint manipulation
• Striking to the spine
• Striking the back of the head
• Striking downward with the point of your elbow
• Clawing, pinching, or twisting the opponent’s flesh
• Grabbing the clavicle
• Kicking the head of a grounded opponent
• Kneeing the head of a grounded opponent
While so-called “no-holds-barred” competitions have dozens of rules designed to protect the safety of everyone involved, real-life violence has none. For example, MMA fighters don’t generally get murdered in their sleep by their competitors.
• Stomping a grounded opponent
• Kicking the other guy’s kidney with your heel
• Spiking an opponent to the canvas so that he lands on his head or neck
• Throwing an opponent out of the ring
• Holding the shorts or gloves of an opponent
• Spitting at an opponent
• Engaging in an “unsportsmanlike” conduct that causes an injury to an opponent
• Holding the ropes or the fence
• Using abusive language in the ring or fenced area
• Attacking an opponent during a break period
• Attacking an opponent who is under the care of the referee
• Attacking an opponent after the bell has sounded the end of a period
• Disregarding the referee’s instructions
• Interference by someone in the competitor’s corner.
This plethora of rules is designed to prevent serious injuries and give competitors a sporting chance to succeed. In order to keep things moving (and more interesting for the audience), they also take points away from a competitor for “timidity,” including avoiding contact with an opponent, intentionally or consistently dropping the mouthpiece, or faking an injury.
There is a huge difference between sparring, fighting, and combat. Think of it this way. If you are going to face former Heavyweight Boxing Champion Mike Tyson in a match next Tuesday, you can approach it three ways—sporting competition, street fight, or combat.
• If you are thinking sports competition, you show up on time, weigh in, strap on the gloves, and go as many as twelve rounds until one of you is knocked out, the judges make a decision, or your manager throws in the towel.
• If you are thinking street fight, on the other hand, you show up at his house that morning with a dozen friends, jump him as he walks out the door, and beat him to a bloody pulp. Then you kick him a few more times while he’s down, trample his flowerbeds for good measure, and drive away.
• If you are thinking combat, you wait outside his house Monday night and put a .50 BMG caliber bullet through his head with a Barrett sniper rifle from half a mile away.
A bit of disparity between those scenarios, huh? Street fights are much more like combat than sports competition. Slickly choreographed Hollywood films only exacerbate the fantasy of what true violence entails. Beware these misconceptions. Don’t confuse sports with combat or misconstrue entertainment with reality.
He must be able to mystify his officers and men by false reports and appearances, and thus keep them in total ignorance.
When you cannot be deceived by men you will have realized the wisdom of strategy.
Never underestimate the fighting intelligence, skill, or determination of your opponent. Make this error and you are almost certainly going to be down and out fast. He looks small, sure, but he may have been on the judo mat since he was four years old. He looks slow, sure, and so does a ginormous NFL lineman who can run a 40-yard dash in under five seconds. Your adversary may look stupid, but odds are good that he is not. Never forget that he’s not going to attack you unless he thinks he can win. You really cannot know how tough someone is simply by looking at him.
Ken, a childhood friend of Wilder’s, moved to Los Angeles to become a police officer. After a few years on the LA force, he transferred to Las Vegas where he spent the rest of his law enforcement career. They had occasion to see each other a couple of times over the years. During one visit, Wilder asked his friend, “What was the toughest encounter you ever had as a police officer?”
The six-foot-two-inch tall law enforcement officer said, “A big hooker I cornered in an alley. She bounced my ass up and down that alley before my partner got there. I got in trouble fast.”
Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle. This puppy can hit targets as far as 1,800 meters (approximately 2,000 yards) away with pinpoint accuracy.
Stunned by that revelation, Wilder asked the logical question. Was she really a “he,” a transvestite? Ken shifted his eyes over to him without turning his head and replied in a monotone, “No, no she wasn’t.”
Never, under any condition, underestimate the fighting intelligence, or physical skill of your adversary. The fight that Ken nearly lost with the prostitute is a great example. He had a simple goal, to get her off the street. He was trying to get her into the car and down to the station. She, on the other hand, had flipped into combat mode. Her mindset was something along the lines of, “This psycho ‘John’ is trying to slit my throat.”
The prostitute did not have a restrictor that said, “Oh, it is a police officer. I’d better be quiet, pay attention, and follow his orders.” Her experience was working against her logic and common sense. It said, “Fight! Get it over with now. Hurt him fast before he kills you!”
The officer and prostitute had two totally opposing perspectives—one planet, two different worlds.
“Fighting intelligence” is a special kind of intelligence that comes from experience, intensity, and the root desire of the body to survive. It is not intellect or brainpower as we commonly think of when we hear the word “intelligence.” Fighting intelligence does not ponder, test, or audit. It instinctually acts and instantly responds to stimuli. There is no committee, no sleeping on it. It happens here and now.
The adage goes, “Don’t judge the book by its cover.” This is true. There is a reason this guy is attacking you. He has conducted an interview and you passed. To him you’re a victim. Unless he is delusional, drunk, or drugged out of his mind, he not only thinks he can win, but has done so before. Never underestimate the fighting intelligence or physical skill level of your opponent.
Never underestimate the fighting intelligence, or physical skill of your opponent. There is a reason this guy is attacking you. Unless he is delusional, drunk, or drugged out of his mind, he not only thinks he can win, but has done so before.
Other conditions being equal, if one force is hurled against another ten times its size, the result will be the flight of the former.
Small people must be completely familiar with the spirit of large people, and large people must be familiar with the spirit of small people. Whatever your size, do not be misled by the reactions of your own body.
There is a famous saying, originally attributed to author Mark Twain, that goes, “It is not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.” Often quoted, this maxim is absolutely true.
For example, in 1942 Audie Murphy (1924-1971) tried to enlist in the military at the outset of World War II. He was turned down by both the United States Marines and the Paratroopers for being too small, underweight, and slightly built. When the Army finally accepted him, they tried to make him serve as a cook… until he reached the battlefield.
In two years of service at the European front during WWII, Murphy killed 240 German soldiers in documented firefights. He won the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Legion of Merit, the Silver Star (twice), and the Bronze Medal (twice). He was also awarded the Purple Heart three times for combat injuries plus a variety of other honors totaling some thirty-two medals. This made him America’s most decorated WWII combat veteran.
How did a scrawny eighteen-year-old boy, named “Audie” from Texas do it? Despite his small stature, he was one tough SOB. His father deserted the family when he was a small child. Only nine of his twelve brothers and sisters lived past the age of eighteen. His mother died when he was sixteen, leaving him in charge, and he gave the three remaining kids up to an orphanage.
He had a rough life that might have broken a lesser man, yet it forged a mental toughness that far outweighed his physical build. He was resilient too, tough enough to jump up on a burning tank and use a .50 caliber machine gun to hold off advancing German troops, killing fifty, all while bleeding from a leg wound.
Next time you equate size to intensity, remember the guy you are about to square up with might have had a rougher life than Audie Murphy. If so, you are about ready to find out what intensity really means up close and personal…
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Lieutenant Colonel Matt Urban (1919-1995) surpassed Murphy’s feat to become the most combat-decorated soldier in American history. He was born Matty Louis Urbanowitz. We doubt either man would care who had more medals. They both served their country with honor, distinguishing themselves with a mental and physical toughness that superseded everything else. The honors simply followed their deeds.
Before he enlisted in the Army, Audie Murphy was turned down by two other branches of the military because he was too small and underweight, yet he went on to become the most decorated United States combat soldier of World War II. Mental toughness often trumps physical size and strength in a fight. As the adage goes, it is not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.
Audie and Matty, while not exactly endowed with manly monikers such as Killer or Spike, were definitely guys you wouldn’t want to cross. When it came to a fight, they both proved that size and intensity are not the same thing.
He wins his battles by making no mistakes. Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated… Hence, the skillful fighter puts himself into a position that makes defeat impossible, and does not miss the moment for defeating the enemy.
In large-scale strategy, the area to watch is the enemy’s strength. “Perception” and “sight” are the two methods of seeing. Perception consists of concentrating strongly on the enemy’s spirit, overseeing the condition of the battlefield, fixing the gaze strongly, seeing the progress of the fight and the changes of advantage.
Kane was driving home from work on an arterial road through a mixed residential/ industrial district one afternoon when he noticed flashing lights in his rear-view mirror. He took a quick glance at the speedometer, gave a sigh of relief that he was not exceeding the 35 MPH speed limit, and pulled over to the right to let the officer pass. Since the officer was not coming for him, Kane gave the incident little additional thought until he came upon a stoplight at a four-way intersection a few blocks later.
Although there were half a dozen cars between him and the light, Kane’s truck cab was high enough up that he could see across the intersection to where the officer who had recently passed by had pulled over to the side of the road in front of a small apartment building halfway down the next block. As the policeman exited his vehicle, Kane noticed that he was wearing a helmet and ballistic vest, not the normal concealed vest that all officers wear on daily basis, but rather a bulky, riot-style over-garment that is rarely seen on the street. Furthermore, he was carrying an assault rifle, not exactly standard gear for a traffic control officer.
While Kane was waiting at the signal, seven more police cars arrived—one more from behind his vehicle, three from the opposite direction on the same roadway, and three from one of the cross streets. They came in quickly with lights flashing but no sirens and parked on both sides of the street in front of the apartment. Although not all the officers had exited their vehicles by the time the light changed, Kane noticed that they were all wearing ballistic helmets and bulletproof vests.
This developing situation was definitely concerning him. It’s not an everyday occurrence, at least not in Seattle, for that many police cars to converge on any given location, particularly not with officers dressed for battle. While Kane had previously participated in a stadium drill that included the Seattle Police Department SWAT team, National Guard, and various other emergency services personnel, he had never seen officers dressed in this manner on the street. And, frankly, even though they were more than half a block away, he wasn’t all that excited about seeing them quite so up close and personal.
Despite whatever danger had drawn law enforcement’s attention, however, fully six cars that were on the road in front of Kane’s vehicle failed to react to anything out of the ordinary. Perhaps they never even noticed a developing problem. Regardless, all of those drivers continued forward along the main arterial through the light, passing the gathered officers who were pulling an assortment of impressive-looking ordinance from their vehicles, clearly oblivious to the danger that this scene presented. Kane, on the other hand, turned right at the light choosing a safer path. As he went around the corner, he noticed in his rearview mirror at least three or four other vehicles behind him also continuing along the main arterial through the light instead of detouring along a safer but longer path as he had chosen to do.
Perusing the newspaper the next day, it was evident that nothing dramatic had happened during this event. There was only a routine drug arrest—no shootout, no body count. Regardless, there easily could have been. Driving between heavily armed officers and their intended target is foolhardy behavior. While a car door has some chance of stopping a stray bullet, windows most definitely do not. Despite this fact, everyone else was either unaware or unconcerned about the danger. If you watch the portrayal of police officers on television enough, it is easy to become disassociated from such events, never realizing that you may be placing yourself in imminent danger merely by proximity.
Since the best way to avoid injury in a fight is not getting into one in the first place, your prime strategy must be to become aware of and steer clear of the danger before it is too late. If you miss the cues or the situation spins out of control too fast to avoid, you have blown your self-defense. Good situational awareness means paying attention to the details, particularly those things that stand apart from the norm as the officers’ presence certainly did on this occasion. Sometimes, though, it is not quite so obvious, perhaps only a feeling that something is wrong. Listen to your internal radar. If it pings off of something unusual, pay extra attention, look for avenues of escape, and be prepared to take action.
Whenever you are in public, it is important to pay attention to the subtle and not-so-subtle cues around you. Watch for people who look out of place or act in an unusual manner. Things like making too much or too little eye contact, hiding one’s hands from plain view, moving stiffly or awkwardly, or dressing in an unusual manner might be of particular concern. Similarly, a group of toughs trying to look casual or a crowd that has gathered for no apparent reason might also be causes for concern. Look not only for what you can see, but also for what others are reacting to as well. Body language is important. They may very well have spotted something important that you missed. Pay attention to sounds and smells as well visual cues.
Being prepared and alert for trouble can stave off most attacks before they begin. Put yourself in a potential attacker’s shoes, taking note of locations where you might lurk if you wanted to get the jump on someone. A few extra precautions near these potential ambush sites can add an extra layer of safety. The sooner you spot a potential attacker, the more time you will have to react. Keep your hands free to the extent possible so that you are ready to use them at a moment’s notice.
Do your best to avoid potentially dangerous locations, times, and people. Be particularly cautious when traveling in fringe areas between populated and isolated areas such as when you go from a shopping mall to a parking lot, particularly at night. Plan ahead and take precautions. For example, if you need money from a cash machine during a night out, choose one inside a well-lit, busy store rather than using an isolated, freestanding parking lot kiosk or bank side ATM. Better still, use a credit card and avoid carrying large amounts of cash altogether.
When it comes to awareness and avoidance, the cornerstones of self-defense, it’s the little things that matter. Take nothing for granted.
The sight of men whispering together in small knots or speaking in subdued tones points to disaffection amongst the rank and file.
Know the smallest things and the biggest things, the shallowest things and the deepest things. As if it were a straight road mapped out on the ground.
See the knife clip in the right front pocket of his blue jeans? Right there—you know he has a knife. Turning his right hip slightly away from you is a tiny little motion, yet it is going to get real significant in a moment. Once he turns a bit, you can no longer see that knife. Now you need to watch his right hand, yet he has dropped that back too. Suddenly you see his arm begin a slight upward movement. Is he innocently scratching an itch, or pulling out that knife in order to gut you with it?
It all takes place in a fraction of a second—little time, little movements. Unfortunately, these little things can snowball into a serious crisis in a very short period of time too. What about the quiet guy in the corner? You’re discussing politics, religion, or some other emotional topic with your buddies when you notice movement in your peripheral vision. That guy in the corner suddenly sits up straighter. As he gets up out of his chair, you notice that he has lowered his shoulders and slowed his breathing. He then moves purposefully toward you with a serious look on his face. Does he need to take a pee real bad or is he about to attack?
Little things that become important aren’t limited to threat indicators that help you know when someone’s gunning for you. They also include environmental considerations such as terrain, weather conditions, escape routes, sources of cover or concealment, bystanders, impromptu weapons, and so on; another reason, yet again, why situational awareness is so important. If you want to take best advantage of these factors, it is important to pay attention to the details you’re given before trouble starts. You’ll be far too busy defending yourself afterward.
Terrain, for example, can help or hinder you. If you can take the high ground in an uneven environment such as a hill, stairwell, or pile of debris, it becomes much more difficult for your opponent to reach you or prevent your escape. Spilled blood, oil or foodstuffs, loose gravel, wet grass or leaves, mud, and other hazardous conditions may affect your footing. If you are aware of these surroundings, you can adjust your stance, find a stable place, or maneuver your opponent onto slippery ground to gain an advantage.
When it comes to awareness and avoidance, it’s the little things that matter. Pay attention to the subtle and not-so-subtle clues around you. Watch for people who look out of place or act in an unusual manner. Look for other people’s reactions to things you may have missed that might become important. Pay attention to unusual sounds and smells too, taking nothing for granted.
Similarly, weather conditions may help or hurt. It is hard to fight with the sun in your eyes. Heat, humidity, and dehydration can sap your stamina, increasing the urgency of ending a fight quickly. Conversely, it is tough to grapple in powdery snow, icy conditions, or pouring rain, making it easier to get away if you can control your balance, posture, and speed.
Little things are particularly important when it comes to weapons. Obviously if you do not realize that the other guy is armed until after he attacks you, you are in serious trouble. It’s more than just that, though: Bullets that miss or pass through their target continue to travel down range, potentially striking innocent bystanders. Self-defense sprays such as Mace or pepper spray don’t work very well in windy, rainy, or enclosed areas where they might dissipate or blow back in your face. Grappling with a Mace-covered adversary can be extraordinarily problematic; that stuff is both extremely slick and highly irritating to your eyes, nose, and throat. Impromptu weapons like bottles, bricks, boards, rocks, pool cues, fire extinguishers, flashlights, hammers, and wrenches might be lying around in close proximity for you or your adversary to pick up and use. You need to pay attention to these details.
Be wary of bystanders too. People who oversee a confrontation can be good, bad, or neutral. Unless they are people whose job it is to get involved such as bouncers, security personnel, or law enforcement officers, you really don’t know what they might do. They may be inclined to help you, of course, but they could just as easily ignore your plight in favor of their own safety or for fear of legal repercussions.
Almost anything can be a weapon if you know how to use it properly. Pay attention to little things such as objects lying around that may be utilized as impromptu weapons by you or your attacker during a fight.
The “bystander effect,” a sociological phenomenon where the more witnesses present the less likely it is that any individual person will intervene has been studied extensively since the infamous murder of Catherine “Kitty” Genovese in 1964. In a more recent example, when a 22-year-old college student was attacked and severely beaten near the University of Washington campus on January 8, 2008, the assault was witnessed by at least half a dozen individuals who responded to the police investigation afterward, yet none of them intervened or called for help at the time of the attack. Afterward, the heavily bleeding victim managed to make it to her car and drive several blocks to the north campus entrance where she found a parking lot attendant who dialed 9-1-1. Authorities later reported that she had suffered severe head injuries and a broken jaw, but was expected to make a full recovery.
Little things are often important—little time, little movements. Through good situational awareness and keen observation, you might spot a weapon or discover hostile intent before it is too late to react. During a fight, you might be able to take advantage of terrain, weather conditions, escape routes, sources of cover or concealment, bystanders, or impromptu weapons if you pay attention to those important details ahead of time.
Bystanders may even be inclined to hurt you, especially if they are friends or associates of the other guy. Knowing whether or not people hanging around the scene are part of the same group can be important. Even if bystanders do not get directly involved, witnesses may be called upon to testify to your actions in court, so in addition to fighting off your adversary you need to be cognizant of how witnesses might perceive whatever you choose to do. Once again, details count.
Little things are often important. Good situational awareness and keen observation can help you spot dangerous situations before it is too late to react. During a fight, you might be able to take advantage of terrain, weather conditions, escape routes, sources of cover or concealment, bystanders, or impromptu weapons if you paid attention to those important details ahead of time.
The art of war recognizes nine varieties of ground: (1) dispersive ground; (2) facile ground; (3) contentious ground; (4) open ground; (5) ground of intersecting highways; (6) serious ground; (7) difficult ground; (8) hemmed-in ground; (9) desperate ground.
First see the distance timing and the background timing. This is the main thing in strategy. It is especially important to know the background timing; otherwise your strategy will become uncertain.
How many ways are there in and out of the office you are working in, the bar you’re drinking at, the restaurant where you eat, or the house you are visiting? Can you see the front door? Do you know who is coming and going? Where are the exits, both front, back, and emergency? Which exits can you see and monitor and which ones are hidden from your view? Are there windows you can fit through that may be opened or broken out? How far away are you from these exits? If you want to get out quickly, who and what stand in your way? If you leave the building by a side or back door, where does exiting that way place you once you get outside? What can you expect to find there?
It is very important to understand your territory regardless of where you are, maintaining awareness of all entrances and exits as well as what you might expect to find should you take one of them. Know all the various routes by which you might escape should something bad start to happen. Violence can happen anywhere. It does not matter whether you are sitting in a building, walking down the street, or driving in traffic; you must always be aware of avenues for escape.
Be aware and leave any area where trouble seems to be brewing. The way you came in is usually a safe way to retreat. Nevertheless, it’s more important to move to safety than to move away from danger. Slinking off quietly is generally best. Rash or aggressive movements might make you the target of violence that was meant for someone else. Here are some general guidelines to follow.
• Walk away normally if you only have a feeling that things are not right. Listen to your intuition. It is better to be embarrassed and safe than seriously injured if you don’t take heed of your internal warnings.
• Evade potential or developing threats by crossing the street, turning, and walking back the way you came from, turning down another street, or otherwise moving toward a safer location. Whenever possible, moving toward heavily populated areas is best.
• If actual trouble becomes apparent, move away from it quickly but calmly. If the bad guy(s) starts after you, run away swiftly.
• Call attention to your predicament by yelling for help as appropriate. Pointing out an attacker’s weapon or shouting “fire” or some other attention-getting phrases tends to work better than a generic cry for help.[9]
Wilder once had an instructor who, when going to a restaurant, would always ask the wait staff to reseat him. Without exception, he would choose a different table from the one where he was originally placed by the host. When Wilder noticed this behavior, he found it rather odd, asking his teacher why he always did that.
Hopping fences can be a good way to escape, but be sure you have a good lead on your pursuers before you try it. Getting dragged off a fence and slammed onto the ground is absolutely no fun.
The explanation was interesting. His teacher wanted to see as much of the restaurant as he could. He did not like having his back to a window and always wanted to be able to see the front door. That way nobody could come up behind him and nobody could come in the restaurant unobserved.
Paranoid behavior? In today’s world, maybe not. After all, restaurants have been shot up, crashed into, and even blown up on numerous occasions. Case in point: On July 18, 1984, James Oliver Huberty walked into the San Ysidro, California McDonald’s restaurant and murdered 21 people, including five children and six teenagers, and wounded 19 more victims before being killed by a police officer. That incident was one of the worst mass murders in the United States at that time.
Choose your friends wisely. Knowing your territory also means understanding the proclivities of the people with whom you spend time. Hang out with people who like to cause trouble, and it will eventually catch up with not only them but also with you.
If you are part of a group and find yourselves in a hazardous situation, the best policy is that you either all run at once or everyone stays to fight. There should be some prearranged signal to ensure that you are all on the same page. Running away together, even if you flee in opposite directions, leaves no one in a tight spot. If the person you were counting on to cover your back flees, on the other hand, you could be in serious trouble. Similarly, you should not leave your friends to the wolves either.
With or without a group, if something bad happens you will need a way out. The way in which you escape is dependant upon how many attackers there are, how bad they want to catch you, and the tactical situation you encounter. Most people you will encounter on the street will not be motivated to chase you beyond a certain distance. If, for example, you encounter a couple of thugs looking to make a quick buck, they should be relatively easy to distract and escape from, especially if you throw a few dollars their way before you run.
Bad guys do try to go after you on occasion though. The longer you keep out of an adversary’s hands, the more likely they will be to give up. Dragging stuff into a pursuer’s way, dodging around obstacles, over fences, or through hedges, or otherwise slowing them down is a good way to string them out, facilitating your ability to escape successfully. Your goal is to get enough of a lead to lose your pursuers completely, find somewhere safe to hide, convince your opponents to give up, or otherwise gain safety. In the meantime, however, you need to ensure that as few opponents as possible are in striking distance to engage you. After all, if one opponent can tie you up by engaging in combat, the others may have time to join in before you can end the battle.
You may find shops you can duck through, fences you can climb over, gaps in hedges you can worm through, and other bottlenecks where only a single person can slip through at a time. Be careful about climbing anything though. Unless your pursuers are a good distance behind you, slowing your forward progress long enough to overcome an obstacle may let them close too much of the gap you have created. Getting dragged off a fence and slammed into the ground is too easily the outcome.
If something bad happens, you will need a way out. Knowing your territory gives you a significant advantage whenever you need to escape from trouble. This not only means having an awareness of entrances, exits, and avenues for escape, but also understanding the proclivities of the people you hang out with as well. Hang out with people who like to cause trouble, and it will eventually catch up with not only them but with you as well.
Hopping fences can provide an extra level of safety if you are friendly with a neighbor’s dog and have enough of a lead to do so successfully. This assumes that the dogs will leave you alone and harass your pursuers, of course. If you have a choice, going over a fence at the corner where four yards meet is an excellent location. That way, if you choose unwisely and the dog or neighbor is not as friendly as you expected, it is just a short hop into a safer yard.
In areas that are less familiar to you, you must be especially cautious about what is on the other side of a fence, however. If you cannot see through the fence, you may wish to choose an alternate route. After all, it would not do to hop over a fence only to discover an angry Rottweiler, land in an empty pool, become entangled in thorny rosebushes, or break your ankle from an unexpectedly long drop.
Crossing a busy street is another good, albeit dangerous, way to escape pursuers. To be most successful, run parallel to traffic, choosing your best moment to act before crossing. If there are multiple lanes, you can implement this “run parallel then cross” method for each lane.
If someone is chasing you in a car, he can travel a whole lot faster than you can. He can also use it as a weapon to squash you. Vehicles can cause a whole lot more damage than firearms. Be sure to cut 90 degrees at your first opportunity, bolting between parked cars, through any convenient business, housing complex, narrow alley, or other area that the pursuing vehicle cannot easily pass through. Travel a couple of blocks then change directions again so that your pursuers cannot simply go around the block and catch sight of you all over again. Be cautious if you see or hear some of your pursuers leaving the vehicle because they may be able to split into more than one search party. Knowing that they have done so will influence which directions remain available for escape.
Knowing your territory gives you a significant advantage whenever you need to escape from trouble.
There are five dangerous faults which may affect a general: (1) recklessness, which leads to destruction; (2) cowardice, which leads to capture; (3) a hasty temper, which can be provoked by insults; (4) a delicacy of honor which is sensitive to shame; (5) over-solicitude for his men, which exposes him to worry and trouble.
When you opponent is hurrying recklessly, you must act contrarily, and keep calm. You must not be influenced by the opponent. Train diligently to attain this spirit.
You know him affectionately as “no-shirt guy.” You know, the one who’s always bouncing up and down, screaming, shouting, cheerleading, and generally making an ass of himself in the stands while you watch the game. A few beers and some harsh words later and, predictably, your buddy Mr. No-shirt is fighting with some other fan. Now, instead of enjoying yourself you’re trying to drag him off the other guy, calm things down, and make sure no one is seriously hurt when suddenly the police arrive. A few hours later, you are bailing him out of jail. Again.
Or perhaps you know him by some other name such as “chip on his shoulder guy.” Regardless, it’s always the mouthy friend who gets things going, isn’t it? These guys come in many different flavors—small and mouthy, big and arrogant, crazy, or just plain dumb. Whatever your friend’s demeanor or intelligence level, you needn’t let him and his big fat mouth write a check that you need to cash.
This is even more important if the situation is already ongoing. If the monkey dance is underway, it is very difficult to get things back under control before things get violent. This is where your impassioned friend will invariably want to throw the proverbial match into the gas-filled room. Stop him from doing so.
Here’s a good example. It was late in the third quarter of an exciting college football game. Fans from both teams had packed the stands in the east end zone. Throughout the game, there had been all the typical taunts and insults you might expect in that sort of environment, but nothing horribly serious had occurred despite the fact that one group of home team fans from the northeast side kept running in front of the predominantly visitor fans on the southeast side and bopping around in a little victory dance with each big play or touchdown that was scored.
As illicit alcohol flowed and tempers ran hot, Kane and his crew took increasingly stricter measures to keep the rowdy fans apart. They drew an imaginary line between the two sections, telling rowdies on both sides that so long as they stuck to their own section, they could rabble-rouse to their hearts’ content. Cross the line to taunt the other team’s fans, however, and they’d be thrown out of the stadium. Guess who the first person was to cross the line? Why, no-shirt guy, of course.
Actually, there were several guys without shirts, but it was one of that bare-chested crew who took it upon himself to test the limit. He got in an argument with the security guard who tried to prevent him from reaching the opposing fans. No-shirt’s friends, slightly smarter or more sober, were trying to hold him back without success. Kane, realizing what was about to happen from a few yards away, grabbed a few additional guards, radioed the police, and moved to intervene.
Unfortunately, by the time he got there, the security guy already had a bloody nose and Mr. No-shirt was beating his chest in glee, doing his best Tarzan imitation with the injured guard lying at his feet. He even elbowed one of his friends who was still trying unsuccessfully to hold him back, cracking him hard enough in the cheek to make his teeth snap together.
Restrain impassioned friends. It’s always your big-mouthed buddy who gets things going. These guys come in many different flavors—small and mouthy, big and arrogant, crazy, or just plain stupid. Whatever your friend’s demeanor or intelligence level, don’t let his big fat mouth write a check that you need to cash. If he insists on behaving immaturely, find someone else with whom to hang out.
Fortunately, the police showed up at the same time. Since they had seen everything that occurred before they arrived, they were able to take direct action. Seconds later, Mr. No-shirt was in handcuffs. While the police led him off to jail, Kane escorted No-shirt’s friends out of the stadium, took their tickets, and ordered the gate guards not to let them back in. Despite the fact that they had not directly participated in the altercation, they got thrown out too. They’d already been warned twice and the third time was the charm.
“No-shirt guy.” Don’t let his big fat mouth write a check that you need to cash right along with him. Restrain impassioned friends… or find new ones.
Collectively, they missed one of the most exciting games of the year, an affair that was decided by a clutch field goal in the waning seconds of the first overtime period. No-shirt guy wrote a check that his friends had to cash along with him. While they were not injured and, fortunately, did not have to cool their heels along with him in jail, they still paid a price. It could have been far worse and, if they keep hanging out with him, undoubtedly will be in the future. Restrain impassioned friends. If they insist on behaving immaturely, find new ones.
The skillful tactician may be likened to the shuai-jan. Now the shuai-jan is a snake that is found in the Chung mountains. Strike at its head, and you will be attacked by its tail; strike at its tail, and you will be attacked by its head; strike at its middle, and you will be attacked by head and tail both.
Fright often occurs, caused by the unexpected.
Some girlfriends think it’s pretty sexy for you to fight over them. They will go out of their way to set up situations where you can prove your manhood by doing so. The fact is that this is ancient, tribal thinking. There was a time in the world where that type of behavior was essential to choosing a mate. The biggest and strongest male ensured her survival in a hunter-gatherer society, and for that matter, in an early agrarian one as well.
This type of behavior has no place in modern society. If your girlfriend thinks that getting you to bash some guy upside the head in fighting for her honor is cool, you are with the wrong woman. You need to take a deep look at where that behavior is coming from, why you are attracted to it, and consider how it is going to get you in trouble. And then you need to leave.
If you are in public and your girlfriend is setting you up to fight in front of her or her friends, you need to disassociate yourself right away from her and the situation she is creating. She is walking trouble. She will not just get you into one fight, but many. This is because she thinks that violence is cool at some deep-rooted level. If you are hanging out with this type of person, you truly are playing with fire.
“Baby, that guy over there just called me a bitch,” she might say. “Go over there and demand an apology from him!” Are you going to walk over to that big, bald, tattooed guy with the pool cue in his hand, the one who is glaring at you with an unblinking eye? Most likely not. At least not if you are smart. Does the scenario change if he is a short guy with a pocket protector and thick glasses held together with athletic tape? It probably will but it shouldn’t.
In 1984, four young men accosted Bernard Getz on a New York subway. A self-employed electrical repairman running a small business out of his city apartment, Getz could be described as a classic nerd. Whatever version of the story you may have heard, despite guilt or innocence of all involved, four people wound up being shot in about one and a half seconds during the encounter.
If your girlfriend (or boyfriend for that matter) thinks that violence in defense of the woman’s honor is cool, you are playing with fire. She will not just get you into one fight, but many. Sooner or later, she will get you seriously hurt, maimed, or killed… or sued or thrown in jail. Dump her (or him) now!
Getz, who carried a concealed weapon, had practiced speed shooting and was very good with the gun. Because of all his practice, his gun was more than an equalizer; it gave him the advantage. How many other nerds might you run across who carry a weapon? Knife, gun, pool cue, baseball bat, or beer bottle, it makes no difference—dead is dead, maimed is maimed—whatever the cause.
If you are thinking “fight” and the other guy is thinking “combat,” you are in for a world of hurt. A fight implies a rules-based event, something like a boxing match or mixed martial arts competition. In a fight, you might punch, kick, and/or throw each other down, but you are not likely to kick the other guy’s head in or stomp on his throat once he is down. Combat, on the other hand, is a no-holds-barred struggle for survival. That’s where weapons come into play, eyes are gouged out, ears are bitten off, testicles are torn loose, and serious repercussions can be expected.
If your girlfriend thinks that violence in defense of her honor is cool, you are playing with fire. She will not just get you into one fight, but many.
So, the bottom line is that if your girlfriend wants you to fight for her honor, if she just thinks it is cool for you to fight, don’t. Get another girlfriend. For women who are reading this book, our recommendation for you is the same as when the genders are reversed. This guy is trouble; you need to look real hard at what is happening to you. Dump him now and find someone else to hang out with.
If the enemy has occupied them before you, do not follow him, but retreat and try to entice him away.
In single combat, you can win by relaxing your body and spirit and then, catching on to the moment the enemy relaxes attack strongly and quickly, forestalling him.
“That’s f%&king b%$#sh*t,” growled the tattooed, goateed guy at the bar, berating the waitress with a string of invectives that could make a drunken sailor blush. The waitress walked away, but Wilder, who overheard the argument, could not. From his table across the room he felt compelled to say, “You’re a tough guy.”
The tattooed guy leaned back in his chair, turned his head toward Wilder, and snarled, “You wanna see how tough?” He crossed his muscular arms across his broad chest and glared dead-eyed across the room, waiting for a response.
Okaaaay, now Wilder had a decision to make. Would he escalate the issue to a fight? He suddenly realized that he had fallen into an interview. He had foolishly thought he was going to point out the other guy’s rudeness and get an apology while the other guy was ready to fight and looking for an excuse to do it.
Realizing instantly that he needed to send a different message, Wilder looked into the other guy’s eyes, gave a nod toward the football game playing on the bar’s TV, and asked, “Who do you like, Vikings or Lions?” The tattooed guy smirked and shifted his gaze back up at the television without a saying another word. Wilder had answered his question… His query about the football game stated, in essence, “No. I really don’t want to find out how tough you are.”
Does such a response make Wilder a wimp? Was he a loser for not wanting to fight for the waitress’ honor? After all, he’s a black belt in three different martial arts. Shouldn’t he have taught this rude guy a lesson in manners? Of course not. He understood the consequences of such actions and chose the better part of valor. Win or lose, if it came to physical blows Wilder would have been in serious trouble.
If he beat the other guy down, the fact that Wilder was a black belt would undoubtedly have come out in court, dramatically increasing the odds that he would lose a criminal and/ or civil trial. Not only does he have a dojo Web site, but he’s also a published author with several martial arts books under his name. Lawyers and prosecutors can Google too. If, on the other hand, he got beat down himself, the consequences could have been just as dire if not worse. Would it have been worth being sued for everything he owned, accumulating thousands of dollars in legal fees while having his reputation dragged through the mud, or becoming crippled, maimed, or even killed over a few rude words? Definitely not!
Know what is worth fighting for and what is not. That’s the purpose of the questionnaire in Appendix A. It will help you dispassionately identify what is worth the risks of a physical confrontation before you need to make such choices under fire. Unless your life or the life of another is on the line, it’s almost always best to swallow your pride and walk away. Live to fight another day.
From his table across the room he felt compelled to say, “You’re a tough guy.” The tattooed guy leaned back in his chair and snarled, “You wanna see how tough?”
There are five dangerous faults which may affect a general: (1) recklessness, which leads to destruction…
If you study a Way daily, and your spirit diverges, you may think you are obeying a good way, but objectively it is not the true Way. If you are following the true Way and diverge a little, this will later become a large divergence.
Self-assurance is not demonstrated with slumped shoulders, hanging head, a shuffling walk, or weak voice. Quite the opposite, these clues tell predators, bullies, and thugs that you are an easy mark. Being the doormat or the mouse in the corner often makes you a target for the bully. Holding your head high, walking deliberately, and making eye contact, on the other hand, are good signs of confidence.
Puffing your chest out and sneering is no way to make friends though. Being overconfident can also make you a mark, somebody who has something to prove. That means that you are easy to provoke. Arrogance is not a good look on anybody. Giving everybody a hard stare is not too beneficial either.
Being at either end of this spectrum is a bad idea, yet being overconfident is a great way to find the fast path to a good beating. You are more likely to go “hands on” than an under-confident person is. Knock that chip off your shoulder. Truly tough guys don’t need to prove it. Smart guys don’t try to find out.
Violence always has consequences. Know what is worth fighting for and what is not, dispassionately evaluating your priorities and values before you need to make such judgments in the heat of the moment. It is far better to live to fight another day than to make rash choices you may live to regret.
Do you think you are pretty tough, a good fighter? Maybe you did a little boxing in the neighborhood and took some martial arts for a couple of years a while back. Or maybe you were a Golden Gloves champion or a big league tournament competitor with a display case full of trophies. Perhaps you’re even a black belt. Big deal! You’re nothing compared to the guy standing across from you, the one with the dead-eyed stare who wants to rip your arm off and beat you to death with it.
This guy, to paint one possible scenario, used to get pummeled by his mother’s boyfriend at least once a week… for twelve years. He learned fast and early how to bully, intimidate, and get his way by physical force. He knows what pain is—inside and out. And he revels in it. He is well known to the police too, compiling an impressive rap sheet and a fair amount of prison time. As a younger man, he got passed around among the prisoners yet nowadays he’s the one putting the hurt on. In and out of the joint, he has had to fight. He is familiar with both ends of the knife, gun, brass knuckles, and bludgeon, and has some pretty impressive scars as well to prove it. Violence is an everyday occurrence to him; it means little other than a tool that is used to satisfy his wanton desires. You, my friend, are nothing but a blip on the chart of his evening’s events. He can throw you to the ground, stomp on your neck, and walk away without a second thought. You live, you die; it makes no difference to him.
Perhaps he’s a contractor for Blackwater Global Security. After three tours, half a dozen Purple Hearts, and a Bronze Star or two, he mustered out of the service but found that he couldn’t adapt to civilian life. An adrenaline junkie, he loves to fight and got more than his share of action in Iraq, Afghanistan, and a host of Third World countries with unruly populations and acute violence problems. He used to keep a mental log of how many people he has killed but lost track somewhere around 80. He not only has the best training that money can buy, but he’s got more than fifteen years of hard-earned, hands-on experience that has helped him refine how to use it. He’s killed with a knife, gun, and his bare hands, not counting various and sundry pieces of heavy artillery. He loves the smell of napalm in the morning; blood and mud, sh*t and sweat are nothing new to him. He may not look much like Rambo, but he’s a real life, snake-eating SOB who can take you and all your friends apart without breaking a sweat. You are not even a road bump along his path but rather a slug to be salted, a bug to be squashed, or a fish to be gutted.
Violence always has consequences. Know what is worth fighting for and what is not, dispassionately evaluating your priorities and values before you need to make such judgments in the heat of the moment.
Or, maybe he looks like a little old man, but he’s spent a lifetime studying traditional karate. He learned old school in Japan, starting at the age of four where his father trained him five hours a day year-round, beating him with a rattan stick whenever he made a mistake. He spent years just perfecting a single stance and has since mastered every aspect of his art. His form is so good that you can punch him in the solar plexus as hard as you like and he’ll just laugh and tell you to hit harder. By the time he reached his late teens, he was dojo busting, dueling with local sensei[10] who paid him protection money for the privilege of continuing to run their martial arts schools after he had beat them down. In his early twenties, he beat down a yakuza[11] member in the blink of an eye, crushing him so severely that the rest of the gang was too terrified to seek revenge. His body mechanics are so flawless that at the age of sixty he can still perform ikken hissatsu,[12] killing with a single blow. Throw a punch at this guy and if you’re lucky he’ll laugh in your face and walk away. If he’s in a bad mood, however, he’ll crush you like a grape.
All three of these aforementioned characters are based on real people, guys who know violence inside and out. Will you always run across a “heavy hitter,” such as we have described, every time you get in a fight? Odds say that you won’t, yet just like a nuclear bomb it takes only one to screw up your whole day. No matter how tough you are, there is always someone out there who’s tougher. No matter how good a fighter you are, there is always someone out there who’s better. Walk away; you are not that good.
Here’s a chilling, real life example of what tangling with a “heavy hitter” is actually like. On March 7, 2003, Sgt. Marcus Young, an 18-year veteran of the Ukiah, California Police Department received a seemingly routine shoplifting call at a Wal-Mart store. He had a 17-year-old police cadet named Julian Covella riding along with him at the time. They met briefly with store security to understand the situation, collected the suspect, and then proceeded to bring her out to the patrol car. No big deal, right?
Wrong. As Sgt. Young and Wal-Mart security guard Brett Schott put the shoplifting suspect Monica Winnie, 18, into the back seat of the patrol car, her 35-year-old companion Neal Beckman tried to intervene. A dangerous looking individual with small devil horns tattooed on his forehead, he approached the group with his hands hidden from view in his pockets. As Beckman approached, Sgt. Young commanded, “Take your hands out of your pockets,” but received no response. He repeated his command to which Beckman responded, “I have a knife,” drew his blade, and began to attack.
Do you really have what it takes to tangle with a heavy hitter, a career criminal, mental case, or a seasoned street fighter in a live-fire situation? You’re not that good. And even if you are, it doesn’t pay to find out.
It only takes a highly trained police officer a second or two to draw his weapon and fire an aimed shot. Regrettably, Young didn’t have that long. Since he was caught flat-footed, we’ve suddenly got an open-hand battle against a committed, competent, and downright psychopathic knife-wielding attacker. But it gets even worse yet; what Young did not see was Beckman’s gun, a .38 caliber revolver, held in his other hand.
Utilizing both his police training and the skills he developed as a 2nd dan black belt in karate, Young quickly wrenched the attacker’s arm into a lock but was unable to force him to let go of the knife. As the two of them slammed into the side of the car, Beckman began firing, hitting Young in the face, body, and arm.
Schott, the unarmed security guard, leapt into the fight, wrenching the revolver away from Beckman. He aimed it at the suspect and pulled the trigger. Before Schott realized that the gun had already been emptied into Sgt. Young and would no longer fire, the suspect stabbed him in the chest with his knife, collapsing a lung. Weakened by this massive chest wound, Schott disengaged, trying to find cover.
While this occurred, Sgt. Young had a brief moment and a little space to even the odds, bringing his own weapon on line. He regained his feet and tried to reach for his gun. Unfortunately, he quickly discovered that his humerus (upper arm bone) had been shattered by the Beckman’s bullets, paralyzing his gun arm from nerve damage. He tried to draw with his left hand instead, only to find that it had been ripped apart during the struggle with the knife, its separated tendons visible through the opened skin.
Deprived of his weapons as well, Beckman dove into the front seat of the police car, closed the door, and frantically began searching for the hidden switch that would release the loaded Remington shotgun and HK sub-machine gun locked therein. As the suspect tried to free the heavy weapons in the vehicle, Young turned to his cadet Covella and said, “Take my gun out and put it in my hand.” The boy quickly released the safety strap and placed the firearm into Young’s mangled left hand.
Kneeling to steady himself, Young tried to shoot the suspect through the closed door to no avail. His bullets did not penetrate all the way through. Re-aiming through the closed window instead, he managed to place two rounds into the suspect, dropping him. Young then asked Covella to call for assistance and began deliberate, controlled breathing exercises to keep himself calm, conscious, and alive until medical personnel could respond.
Schott, the security guard, recovered from his horrific injuries. Both he and police cadet Covella received numerous awards for valor from their roles in the incident. These included heroism citations from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion, and dual Citizen of the Year awards from the California Narcotics Officers’ Association. Covella has since been accepted as a cadet at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis.
No matter how tough you are, there is always someone out there who’s tougher. No matter how good a fighter you are, there is always someone out there who’s better. Do you really want to find out if you have what it takes to tangle with a heavy hitter, a career criminal, mental case, or a seasoned street fighter in a live-fire situation? You’re not that good. And even if you are, it doesn’t pay to find out. Will you always run across a “heavy hitter” every time you get in a fight? Odds say that you won’t, yet just like a nuclear bomb it only takes only one to screw up your whole day.
Real-life violence isn’t horribly romantic.
As of late 2004, Sergeant Young was on light duty, still recovering from his severe physical injuries and facing more surgery. He was awarded the National Rifle Association’s honor as Police Officer of the Year for 2003, as well as the Mayor’s Medal of Valor. He was also nominated for the Presidential Medal of Valor and the California Attorney General’s Office Medal of Valor. He retired from the Ukiah PD after 20 years in law enforcement in August 2006 and was subsequently hired by the Mendocino Community College as a Coordinator for the Administration of Justice Program
The Young/Beckman incident has been included in fear and anger management classes at the California Police Standards and Training council. Young reported that he felt he owes his survival not only to Schott and Covella, but also to the many instructors who trained him over the years. “They taught me to shoot from awkward positions if I was wounded,” he related, “and they taught me to be resourceful and keep thinking and keep fighting no matter how I might be injured. They taught me to never give up.”
Real violence isn’t so romantic, huh? How would you fare in Young’s place? If you were shot, stabbed, and mangled with the kinds of horrific injuries that he suffered, would you truly have the fortitude to fight on, or would you lie down and die? Most people wouldn’t make it, even most soldiers and police officers. It’s not just mental and physical toughness that let him survive but also a bit of luck as well. Had Schott and Covella not intervened, Young almost certainly would not have survived. Beckman would have been able to free one of the heavy weapons and then finish him off.
Do you really want to find out if you have what it takes in a live-fire situation? As combat veterans have come to realize, you never hear the one that hits you, only the near misses. You’re not that good. And even if you are, it doesn’t pay to find out.
When a chieftain is fighting in his own territory, it is dispersive ground.
Musashi does not address claiming and holding ground in The Book of Five Rings.
Claiming your turf is about as tribal an act as you can commit. When you claim turf, you are no brighter than a caveman. Wilder once sat on the couch listening while his friend described a co-worker’s son who was shot dead at the age of twenty-two, outside of a rural bar. He had heard about the tragic incident on the news, but now he was getting the full story. And it was about claiming turf.
The twenty-two-year-old, David, had gotten into a bar fight with another guy. When the fight was broken up, the other guy was 86ed from the establishment. As he was leaving, shouting and challenges ensued, and threats were made, yet David chose to stay in the bar for the rest of the evening. He was having fun with his friends. It was his turf, he’d claimed it, and he wasn’t about to give it up. He did not want to go home until closing time.
As he left to go to his car, he found himself suddenly confronted by the other guy who had returned with a gun. Seconds later, David was dead in the dirt from a bullet to his brain. For extra measure, the other guy put a bullet in his eye too. The other guy then fled the country back to Taiwan or possibly mainland China. The end result of that evening was a promising life cut short with no possibility of justice.
It’s only common sense; if you get in a fight and win you need to leave soon afterward so that you cannot be found again that night. Revenge happens… a lot. It is not your turf; you don’t live there. No matter how much you like the place it’s still just a bar. If you really want to keep drinking, go find another establishment a long way away. Or, better yet, call it a night.
Turf mentality means that someone has to win and someone else must lose. It almost guarantees violence because the other guy has no face-saving way to back down. He leaves or you make him leave, there’s no in-between. That’s unnecessary, juvenile, and dangerous.
If you are mature, you don’t fight unless you have to. When your life or that of a loved one is on the line, when you face grave bodily injury or death without fighting, then you pour it on with all you’ve got. When you don’t have to fight, however, you walk away. It’s the smart, mature thing to do.
Maturity means being confident in who you are. Taunts, threats, and name-calling will not injure your ego bad enough to make you feel a need to strike out. Swallow your pride and walk away. There is no good reason to stake your turf. Turf is for gangs to fight over because it is their livelihood. That’s where they deal drugs, sell guns, manage prostitutes, and commit other crimes to earn their living. Turf means nothing to you, at least not if you are smart.
When an invading force crosses a river in its onward march, do not advance to meet it in mid-stream. It will be best to let half the army get across, and then deliver your attack.
You must push down his thrust, and throw off his hold when he tries to grapple. This is the meaning of “to hold down a pillow.” When you have grasped this principle, whatever the enemy tries to bring about in the fight you will see in advance and suppress it.
Humans are by nature territorial. We all have a concept of personal space, an invisible barrier surrounding us through which only intimate relations are welcome. Anyone who else who gets too close makes us uncomfortable. The exact distance varies by culture, of course, yet that boundary exists just about everywhere. Beyond our personal space, we often claim other territory as well, things like parking spots, concert seats, or chairs at our favorite bar. Whenever someone encroaches on what we believe is ours, it generates an emotional response and, oftentimes, a physical reaction as well.
Invading an opponent’s territory means one of two things: Either you are fighting or the other guy is retreating. If you have studied martial arts, you know that when fighting correctly there is no backing up. You may dodge, evade, or shift off the line of your opponent’s attack, but you never move straight backwards. As Wilder’s old football coach used to say, you should “be rolled on the balls of your feet.” This means that whoever is attacking is forcefully invading the other person’s territory, moving very aggressively.
Whenever you claim turf, you put yourself in a win-lose mentality. It’s yours now, so it cannot be his. That type of thinking frequently leads to violence. No matter how much you like the place, a bar is just a bar. You don’t own it; you don’t need to defend it. Do the smart thing and walk away.
Wilder had a karate instructor in the 1980s named Kevin who, when sparring, would push students around the dojo instead of hitting them. Each time the student tried to close distance to strike, he would find himself pushed backward or to the side. Sensei would say firmly, “You’re in my space.” It made no difference to this instructor where the student was, only that the student was in his space. Insofar as sparring was concerned, the entire dojo was his space. He had the skills and ability to take over his opponent’s territory with impunity.
If you assume the other person is automatically going to retreat when you move in on him, you have made a mental mistake. Expect a fight; be thankful if you find retreat instead, but be prepared for the alternative. Whenever you invade the other guy’s territory, expect a fight like the karate students discovered when sparring with their sensei.
If invading the other guy’s space often leads to a fight, the important question becomes whether or not that space is really worth fighting for. Is a pool table worth it? What about a parking space, a place in line, or good spot at a concert near the stage?
Let’s use the pool table example. It’s pretty simple; if you are willing to fight over a table in a bar that you don’t even own, you are operating at a tribal level. You are behaving like a monkey who is willing to fight over one fruit tree when the jungle is full of perfectly good fruit trees that are just a swing and a hop away. A monkey doesn’t own the fruit tree and you don’t own that section of the bar. Fighting for such things is dangerous and stupid.
Invading someone’s space causes confrontation, forcing him to either retreat or fight.
Here are a few behaviors to watch for when looking at people who may be trying to establish their territory, especially in a bar. Understanding these behaviors can help you avoid inadvertently crossing someone you did not intend to insult.
• Moving a coaster or ashtray that is not in their way after a person sits down is, in essence, a way of saying that it is now their space and the object serves as a border. This is done not only in bars but also in restaurants and business environments too.
• Placing an object of status on the table such as a wallet, cell phone, file folder, or expensive fountain pen can serve the same purpose. It says, “This is my space and I am brandishing power or prestige to prove it.” By displaying an object of status this person is trying to show the world that he is in some way better than everyone else.
• Sitting with your back to the wall tells others that you are careful, prepared, and ready to defend yourself. Perhaps you’re a bit paranoid too, yet keeping one’s back protected is a sign of a hardened target.
• Sitting at the head of table tells others, “I am the top dog.” Want to cause a problem without saying a word? Go to somebody else’s house and sit at the head of the table without first being invited to do so. See how far that gets you. It is a fast way to becoming very unwelcome.
• Sitting with legs wide apart and/or leaning back tells others, “I am surveying my domain.” Add a chair tipped back against the wall, particularly when on the higher level of a split-level floor, and you have a message that is loudly broadcast. It’s an attempt to convey authority. This is your space, and no one else’s.
The same thing happens in other venues too. Take jail, for example. Although he has never committed nor been convicted of any crime, Wilder has, unfortunately, spent a few days in jail when he was falsely accused of wrongdoing. Sitting at the wood and metal table in a jail cell that weekend, Wilder calmly watched the television mounted up on the ceiling. Another inmate walked up to him and waved a plastic bag in front of him, shaking it down low by his waist. The bag contained scraps of paper, green and white. Wilder looked at the bag and then glanced down at the counter, suddenly realizing that it was a game table. A checkerboard had been carved into the surface.
Without an exchange of words, Wilder got up and went back to his rack. What happened? The man with the paper scraps wanted to play checkers, but asking Wilder to move would have meant invading Wilder’s territory. A potential refusal to move would have opened the possibility of a fight, or at least an escalation. A shake of a bag, on the other hand, was not a threat. It was not a real question either, yet the implication was clear. In this way, they both got what they wanted without an overt invasion of the other’s territory.
Wilder got up and went to his bunk and the other guy sat down at the game table. No invasion, no issue. If you invade another guy’s territory, you force him to either retreat or fight. Odds of violence vary by circumstance, of course. While jailhouse confrontations are pretty common, aggressive behaviors can occur just about anywhere. Keep this in mind next time you think of invading someone’s territory.
Humans are by nature territorial. We have a concept of personal space, something found in most every culture throughout the world. We often claim other territory as well, staking claim on something we believe is ours by right or by might. Whenever someone encroaches on our territory, it generates an emotional response and, oftentimes, a physical one as well. Invading someone’s space almost always guarantees a confrontation, forcing him to either retreat or fight.
Rapidity is the essence of war: take advantage of the enemy’s unreadiness, make your way by unexpected routes, and attack unguarded spots.
When you take up a sword, you must feel intent on cutting the enemy.
Do a little drill for the next few days. Carefully look at people’s pants pockets, especially guy’s pockets. You will see metal clips for securing folding knives within the pocket and bulges or outlines of pocketknives that are bouncing around freely therein. On their belts, you will see holsters for multi-tools, fixed blades, and other types of knives too. Knives, knives everywhere… so many knives, in fact, that about 70 percent of the adult male population in the United States carries one on a regular basis.
After the tragedy of 9/11, stadium security has dramatically increased across the country. Nevertheless, walking through security at Qwest Field (Seahawks Stadium in Seattle) Kane and Wilder spotted 22 people illegally carrying knives before they got to their seats. It’s not that these people were a bunch of hardened criminals, mind you, but rather that knives are so common and carried so habitually that people bring them darn near everywhere. Even the heightened security had not stopped them because there were no metal detectors and no pat-down searches, only bag checks and visual inspections.
Knives are supposed to be tools, but more often than not, they are seen as weapons. If you are looking at young men when you do the drill, you will see more knives: older men less, women fewer still. Young men often carry a knife as a security blanket, a subtle way of saying, “I am dangerous.” Here’s the kicker. They are… even if they don’t know it.
There are two kinds of people who carry knives—those who know what they are doing and the vast majority of others, those who don’t. It doesn’t really matter though. Skilled or unskilled, nearly any person can cripple or kill you with any knife he chooses to wield.
We have a mutual friend named Jeff who works as an emergency room physician. In addition to being a doctor, he is an accomplished martial artist as well. Wilder once asked him, “Have you ever looked at a person bleeding on your operating table and thought to yourself, ‘the guy who did this really knew what he was doing’?” Dr. Jeff answered, “No. Violence is violence.”
You need to remember that statement. Violence is violence! The end result of contact with a knife, whether in the hands of a pro or the hands of a punk, is the same. It’s all bad.
From time to time Kane teaches a seminar on the realities of knife fighting. It is primarily designed to scare the crap out of people who don’t fully appreciate what a blade can actually do to a human being and subsequently enhance students’ awareness of how to avoid running afoul of one and not get cut if they do. Among other things, he shares stories like the Young/Beckman incident and autopsy photos of unfortunates who did not learn those important lessons.
While the graphic pictures have made more than one student lose his lunch, the demonstration that really hits home goes like this: To show just how dangerous a knife truly is, Kane hangs a large hunk of meat, something that comes on the bone such as a leg of lamb, from a rope. He then takes a legal-length,[13] two-and-a-half-inch-blade folding knife and makes three cuts—a horizontal slash, a vertical slash, and a stab. After slicing up the meat, he whips out a measuring tape to show the damage. He can consistently make five- to six-inch-long by two-inch-deep gashes in the meat. It’s actually quite easy to do with a sharp knife; most students can duplicate that feat when given the opportunity to try. Kane can also reliably strike the bone with the stab, even when it takes two to four inches of compression to do so, providing that he hits hard and fast enough. The noise of the blade hitting the bone is particularly chilling. After showing what a legal-length blade can do, he duplicates the experiment with a larger weapon. That can get really scary indeed.
If you are thinking feet and fists only to discover a knife or other weapon in the middle of a fight, you are more than likely doomed. The stark reality is that most victims of weapon attacks do not recognize the severity of the threat in time to react properly. Imi Sde-Or, the founder of the martial art Krav Maga, wrote, “Victims who survived a violent confrontation against a knife-wielding assailant consistently reported that they were completely unaware of the existence of the weapon until after they had suffered stab or slash wounds. In essence, these survivors of edged-weapon attacks state that they believed they were engaged in some sort of fist fight; only later, after sustaining injuries, did they realize that the assailant was armed.”
While we are on the subject of knives in the hands of an aggressor, you really needn’t think knife at all; any old weapon will do. To illustrate the point, Wilder knows a guy named Ben who was hit so hard in the face with a beer bottle that it shattered. Unlike Hollywood movies, real bottles are pretty tough to break. That strike not only knocked him out, but he still bears the scars on his nose today. That fight ended right then and there—one blow, one weapon. Done.
Near everybody has a knife and it changes everything in a fight. Consider this carefully before you throw the first blow.
Warriors who lived in the times of Sun Tzu and Miyamoto Musashi fought life and death battles using various weapons from swords to spears, halberds, arrows, and more. These fighters were rarely, if ever, unarmed; even the fans that samurai carried in their belts could be used as impromptu weapons. Every comment these authors made was against the backdrop of armed opponents. You would do well to assume the same environment. Bad guys cheat to win, frequently employing weapons on the street. The major difference is that nowadays you rarely see them coming.
Nearly anyone can cripple or kill you quite easily with a blade. It takes no special skill or training.
Despite what you may have learned in martial arts class, unarmed civilians who tangle with weapon-wielding attackers invariably get hurt. Often quite badly. Armed assaults are far more dangerous to the victim than unarmed ones. While crimes of non-lethal violence committed with or without weapons were about equally likely to result in victim injury, armed assaults are three-and-a-half times as likely as unarmed encounters to result in serious injuries. In fact, some 96 percent of all homicides involve a weapon.
The best way to defend yourself against an armed aggressor, of course, is to avoid the altercation completely, using good situational awareness to spot the bad guy before he attacks you and find somewhere else to be. Otherwise, your only options are either to run like hell, respond with a better weapon, or both—clearly not the best choice but an effective one nevertheless. It is important, therefore, to learn how to spot a weapon before it is used against you.
An estimated 70 percent of adult males carry a knife on a regular basis in the United States. While most are law-abiding citizens who use these knives as the tools they are intended to be, the presence of any knife changes everything in a fight. The end result of contact with a knife, whether in the hands of a pro or the hands of a punk, is the same. Anyone can cripple or kill you quite easily with a blade. It takes no special skill or training.
With few exceptions, civilians who carry a weapon need to do so in a manner where it cannot be seen by those around them yet can be drawn in very big hurry should the need arise. If you are legally carrying a weapon for self-defense, you will not want to be stopped every twenty feet by a police officer summoned by some frightened bystander who spotted and reported your weapon. Further, you will not want to forewarn possible aggressors of the fact that you are armed. Bad guys also conceal their weapons not only for the reasons listed above but also to increase the chances of a successful ambush when they attack you or whomever they have chosen as their victim.
A sharp knife can do tremendous damage. A big, sharp knife can get downright scary. Even a cheap blade can easily mutilate or kill you.
Since you will not generally see a weapon carried openly, it is really important to know how to spot when someone is armed with a concealed device. This is especially important when you consider the aforementioned fact that an estimated 70 percent of adult males carry a knife. While that statistic includes multi-tools that may have dubious value as weapons, even a cheap blade can easily mutilate or kill you.
The vast majority of weapon concealment strategies have one thing in common—accessibility. After all, a weapon does you no good if you cannot get to it rapidly when you need it. Blades, handguns, batons, and just about anything else concealable can be hidden in similar ways, most of which are centered on or around the waist.
Most law-abiding civilians who own a gun use a holster to carry their weapon. Holsters make the most reliable carry systems because they rigidly affix the weapon to a specific spot on the body. That way it can always be found when it is needed, even under extreme stress. There are varieties of holsters that can be attached to one’s belt either inside or outside of the pants. Shoulder and ankle holsters also exist, of course, but are far less common than other types. Many folding knives come with belt clips designed to hold them firmly against the side of your pocket where they are easily located by touch. Knives can be carried in holsters too, of course.
Criminals, on the other hand, rarely use a holster. The most common ad hoc carry position for firearms is inside the pants, either in the front alongside the hipbone or in the small of the back. Because the weapon has a tendency to move around when carried in this fashion, you can often spot a bad guy touching himself to assure that it is in the proper place or adjusting the weapon to get it back into the proper carry position.
Pants or jacket pockets are always a handy choice as well. Like the inside-the-pants carry, they are not as reliable or easy to get to as a holster when you need rapid access since the weapon may become repositioned as you move about during the day. For example, a pistol slid into your pocket may flip around such that the handle cannot be grasped without moving the gun first. If you pull it out by the barrel, it will not do you much good until you change your grip. Similarly, knives carried in a pocket take longer to orient and open then when a holster or belt clip is used. In a fast and furious encounter, you may not have enough time to free, orient, and deploy the weapon before it is too late.
Weapons can also be palmed, hidden behind an arm or leg, or held out of sight beneath a covering object such as a folded jacket or newspaper. These systems facilitate rapid access but can be easier to spot than other methods and preclude the use of the hand that carries the weapon for anything other than deploying the device in combat. If the weapon is already drawn and held in a concealed position, you will be in extremely serious trouble if you do not spot your adversary’s intent. He has already decided to attack and is maneuvering into position to do so.
Weapons, can also be “hidden” in plain sight too. A hot cup of coffee tossed into a bad guy’s face can make an effective deterrent. A solidly built pen can operate much like a martial arts kubaton[14] or even like a knife. A cane, walking stick, heavy purse, or laptop computer can be used as a bludgeon. Heavy keys on a lanyard can work much like a medieval flail, albeit far less effectively. A beer bottle, pool cue, baseball bat, or mug can be just as effective in a pinch as a weapon designed for combat. Almost anything can be a weapon if you know how to use it properly.
Pay particular attention to a person’s hands and midsection, looking for unusual bumps, bulges, out-of-place items of clothing, or odd movements. Look for clips that indicate a knife, heavy belts that may indicate a holster, and other visible signs of something hidden from plain view. Watch for subtle touches or patting movements as someone validates that his weapon is still in place or adjusts its position. Even when a holster is used, without a sufficiently sturdy belt to go along with it the weapon may still slide around and need to be repositioned.
Most people wear their watch on their weak-hand side. That means that if the watch is on the left hand, odds are good that he’s right-handed. It does not always work out that way, but can be a good indicator. Regardless, people tend to carry their primary weapon on their strong side, so if you think that someone is right-handed look there first.
Also, look for concealing clothing that may be covering a weapon. Examples include a jacket worn in hot weather, a vest that covers the waistline (especially the hips/lower back), or a loose shirt that is only buttoned high. Anyone who wears his or her outdoor wear indoors may well be concealing a weapon under it. If the weapon is carried in a pocket or secured using a specially designed piece of concealment clothing, it might cause the garment to appear off-balanced, hanging lower on the side where the weapon is carried.
Pay special attention to the person’s hands. After all, that’s what deploys the weapon. Hands buried in pockets, hidden under a jacket or shirt, or simply held out of sight may be holding a weapon. Or the person could simply have cold fingers. It never hurts to be prudent yet can hurt an awful lot if you are not cautious. Be wary of stiff fingers, clenched fists, and other odd hand movements as they could be used to conceal a lethal device or indicate a general precursor of violence.
Armed assaults are 3.5 times as likely as unarmed encounters to result in serious injuries. Worse yet, some 96 percent of all homicides involve a weapon.
An estimated 70 percent of adult males in the U.S. carry some type of knife or multi-tool on a regular basis.
Just because a weapon is not in use at the beginning of a fight doesn’t necessarily mean that it won’t be by the end, particularly if the other guy thinks he’s in danger of losing. Before, during, and even after a fight, watch for the upward or sideways motion of withdrawing a weapon from its sheath, holster, or hiding place; a weapon cannot be used until it is deployed. While you will frequently rely on your eyes to spot a concealed weapon, you can use your ears too. Listen for the sound of a weapon being drawn or readied for action, especially when you cannot clearly see a potential adversary such as when you are in a crowd, where someone is behind you, or when it is very dark. Audible indicators can include
• Click (such as releasing mechanical safety on a handgun, racking the slide to chamber a round, or locking open a folding knife blade).
• Snap (such as unlocking a retention device such as a holster safety strap).
• Rustle (such as moving clothing aside to facilitate drawing the weapon).
• Velcro[15] (such as opening a pouch or removing a retention device such as a holster safety strap).
Armed assaults are about three-and-a-half times more likely to result in serious injuries for the victim than unarmed ones. In fact, some 96 percent of all homicides involve a weapon. Consequently, it is really important to be able to spot hidden weapons before they can be used against you. The vast majority of weapon concealment strategies have one thing in common—accessibility. After all, a weapon does you no good if you cannot get to it rapidly when you need it. Blades, handguns, batons, and other concealable weapons tend to be hidden in similar ways, most of which are centered on or around the waist. Weapons can also be palmed, hidden behind an arm or leg, held out of sight beneath a covering object, or even “hidden” in plain sight. Know how to detect when he’s armed and practice your skills regularly; you’ll live longer that way.
Most law-abiding civilians who own a gun use a holster to carry their weapon. Criminals, on the other hand, rarely use one. Either way, the most common carry positions are centered on or around the waistline.
Don’t worry about being confused by cell phones, pagers, PDAs, MP3 players, or other harmless devices. It is far better to be overly cautious than injured or dead through ignoring warning signs. Just because you believe that someone is armed does not necessarily imply that you will take immediate action, but you should be prepared to do so as necessary. Trust your instincts.
Feeling is important too, both psychologically and physiologically. Pay attention to your intuition. Though we are often conditioned to ignore it, everyone has a biologically built-in danger sense. Use it.
Weapon awareness is relatively easy to practice. Take an outdoor seat at a restaurant in a high foot-traffic area, hang out in a mall, or take a walk through a public place and carefully watch passersby. Count how many knives, guns, and other weapons you can spot. Who is carrying them? How are they concealed? What subtle clues did you notice that helped you spot the weapon? Once you get good at consciously finding these devices, you can begin to pick them up subconsciously as well. Honing your intuition in this manner builds solid survival skills.
The skillful tactician may be likened to the shuai-jan. Now the shuai-jan is a snake…He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.
In large-scale strategy, if you have a strong army and are relying on strength to win, but the enemy also has a strong army, the battle will be fierce. This is the same for both sides.
Pay particular attention to a person’s hands and midsection to spot a weapon, looking for unusual bumps, bulges, out-of-place items of clothing, or odd movements. Note the tip of the holster peaking out from under this guy’s jacket.
Gangs are groups of people who share a group name and identity, interact among themselves to the exclusion of others, claim a territory, create a climate of fear and intimidation within their domain, communicate in a unique style, wear distinctive clothing, and engage in criminal or antisocial activities on a regular basis. We’re not talking about a Little League team here. Gang members frequently utilize tattoos, scars, or cigarette burns to announce their affiliation. These markings are usually obvious, seen on the arms and/or chest, but can also be discreet such as wearing a tattoo on the inside of the lower lip. Even their vehicles may be distinctive, with lowered frames, neon, excessive chrome, or tinted windows.
Gang members hold three things preeminent—respect, reputation, and revenge. Consequently, if you cross a gang member in any manner, things will get ugly fast. For example, even looking at one with the wrong facial expression (commonly called “mugging” or “mean-mugging”) can get you seriously hurt or killed. Imagine a gang banger’s reaction to a more obvious sign of disrespect such as a derogatory comment, push, kick, or punch.
Unlike what you may have been led to believe, gang membership crosses all racial, ethnic, social, and economic lines. It is not just a ghetto thing. There are Asian gangs, black gangs, white gangs, Hispanic gangs, skinhead gangs, outlaw motorcycle gangs, and so on. These gangs include both umbrella groups and associated sets with names like 18th Street Gang; .45 Crew; Almighty P Stone Nation; Black Gangster Disciples; Bloods, Border Brothers; Crips, Dykes Taking Over (DTO); Friends Stand United (a.k.a. FSU or F*ck Sh*t Up); Hells Angels; Hispanic Norteños; Hispanic Sureños (Sur-13); L.A. Death Squad; Latin Kings; Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13); Outlaws, Pagans; Banditos; Texas Syndicate; and Vice Lords.
Both male and female gang members instigate violence, carry weapons, deal drugs, participate in crimes, and take leadership roles within the organizations. They carry the marks of violence with pride, comparing knife scars, bullet wounds, burns, and various disfigurements to prove how tough they are and augment their reputations. Gangs get involved in everything from drug trafficking and manufacture to robbery, auto theft, carjacking, burglary, felonious assault, rape, murder, kidnapping, weapons trafficking, arson, prostitution, fraud, identity theft, vandalism, money laundering, extortion, and human trafficking.
According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, a branch of the U.S. Department of Justice, as of 2007 there are an estimated 21,500 active youth gangs in the United States with some 731,500 members. These gang members account for roughly ten percent of all violent crimes as well as ten percent of homicides in the country. This does not include prison gangs, motorcycle gangs, or adult gangs, which would drive these percentages up even higher. Furthermore, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics less than half of all gang-related crimes are reported to the police, so you can see that violence and gangs not only go hand-in-hand, but also that the levels of violence they create are significant.
While some youths seek gang affiliation to make up for parental abuse or neglect at home, others simply crave the lifestyle which is popularized in music, videos, movies, and television shows. Sex, drugs, money, and weapons can be quite glamorous to young people, especially young males. Some people live in the wrong neighborhood or spend a bit of prison time and are forced to join a gang in order to survive. Regardless of how they get involved, the gang becomes the member’s surrogate family so if you mess with one gang member, you have messed with all of them. This can result in anything from a severe beat down to a homicide.
However much “respect” you might feel you want or deserve, the average gang member craves it tenfold. Gang bangers will do everything they can to disrespect others while propping up themselves. Graffiti, hand signs, verbal challenges, stare-downs, and physical assaults are common in gang culture. While it is typically targeted at rival gang members, innocent civilians can easily become targets and/or get caught in the middle.
Be wary of stiff fingers, clenched fists, and other odd hand movements as they could be used to conceal a lethal device or indicate a general precursor of violence.
New gang members must pass through some form of violent initiation, such as being beaten to a pulp by other members, in order to join. This process is called “getting jumped in.” It instills a sense of toughness and pride by those who survive. New members are frequently required to commit a violent crime such as an assault, rape, or murder. As you can see, this is not your average club. Gang reputations are made through crimes, violent antisocial actions that strike fear into the hearts of others.
Reputation is so important that gang bangers will even brag to the police, admitting crimes or even making them up on occasion in order to boost their status. For example, when a 25-year-old gang member was arrested after a 2005 club fight where a 36-year-old victim was beaten to death, he told the responding officers, “I got good elbows. People don’t know about my elbows.” He later pled guilty to negligent homicide when it was determined that an elbow to the head had caused the victim’s fatal trauma.
Because gang bangers often do not expect to have a long-term future, they live in the moment, doing whatever they feel like without regard to consequences. Many do not expect to live past the age of twenty-five. That can seem like a pretty long time if you get initiated into the gang at the age of thirteen or fourteen.
This ain’t no geekwad fanny pack. The cord sticking out between the two zippers gives away the fact that it’s a concealed holster.
Revenge is a huge deal with gangs. If a gang member feels disrespected or thinks that his reputation has been harmed, retribution will certainly follow. If it doesn’t, he’ll get knocked down a peg or two, beaten, disgraced, or potentially even killed by his associates. Consequently, no assault or insult can be left unanswered, no matter how small.
Wearing the wrong colors, traveling in the wrong area, or gazing with an unsuitable expression can bring about the same type of murderous retribution such as a rape, murder, or physical assault. While this vengeance is often swift, that is not always the case. Asian gangs, for example, sometimes talk about the “100-year revenge,” patiently waiting for the right opportunity to strike. If you think you are “bad” enough to take on a gang member, you are downright stupid.
Without subtle ingenuity of mind, one cannot make certain of the truth of their reports.
An individual can easily change his mind, so his movements are difficult to predict. You must appreciate this.
We’ve spent much time writing about awareness on the street. It’s important in relationships too. Don’t turn your brain off when you walk into your home. After all, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, more than half of all homicides are committed by someone known to the victim. That means that your wife or husband, girlfriend or boyfriend, sister or brother, friend, relative, or acquaintance might just do you in someday.
The song You Don’t Love Me Anymore by “Weird Al” Yankovic leads into the first chorus with the lyrics:
After several verses describing increasingly horrific behaviors from his no-longer-in-love girlfriend, including things like telling all her friends that he’s the antichrist, pushing him down an elevator shaft, and slamming his face onto a hot BBQ grill, Yankovic drops the line:
Yankovic is a world-class comedian, a truly funny guy. As with most of his material, this song is hysterical, at least for people who haven’t lived through domestic violence. Sadly, what he jokes about in the song is all too true in some relationships. Little hints become bigger hints; small behaviors turn into larger ones. And if you don’t pay attention to the clues, something bad inevitably happens.
Case in point: “She took a fishing knife out of his tackle box and stabbed him seven times in the chest. Killed him,” Wilder’s business partner, Rick, told him over the phone. “What, you mean your painter, Jeff?” Wilder asked. “Yep,” Rick replied, “Stabbed him last night while he slept.”
Jeff was a good employee. He was on time, had a talent for painting cars, and he loved the outdoors. Jeff’s girlfriend, on the other hand, was wild. She was a real knockout but had little control over her emotions. In fact, the police had been to their home several times, especially on the weekends. She had even been sentenced to jail for assaulting him before.
Sadly, Jeff never stood a chance that night. While he peacefully slept, she went into his tackle box and pulled out a boning knife, symbolically taking her weapon from his favorite pastime: fishing. The blade was sharp and light with a long, tapered point, and a keen edge. She crept into their bedroom, held the boning knife high over his chest, and thrust it downward into his heart with both hands. Then she pulled it out and slammed it in again… and again, and again, and again, and again, and then once more for good measure. And then she left the house.
Gang tattoo. Respect, reputation, and revenge are the hallmarks of gang culture. If you think you are tough enough to take on a gang banger, you are just plain stupid.
Everybody who had ever met Jeff liked him. He was pleasant, easy to know, and honest. Anybody that met the two of them, however, had difficulty understanding their relationship. While everyone was saddened by what had happened, it didn’t really take anyone all that much by surprise. In fact, not too long before the incident someone had joked, “I hope she’s really good in bed man, because you know she’s gonna do you in one day.” All the hints were there, the warnings loud and clear, yet Jeff did not heed any of them. Now he’s dead.
Respect, reputation, and revenge are the hallmarks of gang culture. If you think you are tough enough to take on a gang banger, you are just plain stupid. Mess with one and you’ve messed with them all. No disrespect, challenge, or assault will go unanswered. Since most gang members care little for societal norms, there is little they will not do to avenge a perceived slight. Most do not expect to live past the age of twenty-five; consequently their “living in the now” mentality makes them capable of just about anything. You have a lot more to lose than they do. That’s an equation that’s heavily weighted against you.
Domestic violence can go both ways, yet more often than not it’s the guy who is the abuser. In fact, between 1976 and 2004, more than thirty percent of female murder victims were killed by their husband or boyfriend, a rather substantial number when you realize that less than ten percent of male victims were killed by an intimate over that same period. That’s why we have so many battered women’s shelters, victim advocates, and community resources that focus on helping women and children move away from hazardous relationships.
It might not happen as often, or at least not be reported as much, but men are definitely abuse victims too. More than 100,000 men are violently assaulted or killed by their wives or girlfriends each year in the United States.
Graffiti, hand signs, verbal challenges, stare-downs, and physical assaults are common in gang culture. While it is typically targeted at rival gang members, innocent civilians can easily become targets and/or get caught in the middle.
Here are some warning signs of abusive relationships that apply to both sexes, reliable predictors of eventual violence or murder.
• Your partner frequently yells at you, reprimands you, or demeans you in public. You have cause to fear his/her temper or are concerned about what kind of mood he or she is in on a regular basis.
• Your partner isolates you, prevents you from getting or keeping a job, keeps you from seeing friends or family, or otherwise alienates your friends or family so that they feel uncomfortable being around that person. This is another method of cutting you from the herd, eliminating your support group.
• Your partner keeps you from leaving your house or apartment from time to time, or conversely, occasionally locks you out of your home.
• Your partner threatens to hurt or kill you, your children, your family, your friends, or your pets. All such threats, even ones given in jest, should be taken seriously.
• Your partner hits, slaps, pushes, or shoves you, pulls your hair, or inflicts unwanted physical injury on you in any way, even during sex. The first time your significant other strikes you should be the last. Screaming and yelling might be tolerated on occasion but physical abuse never should be.
• Your partner exhibits extreme jealously, checking in on you frequently, following you around or hiring someone else to do so, going through your mail, or installing monitoring programs on your computer. He or she becomes angry when you talk to or look at people of the opposite gender even when you have a legitimate reason for doing so.
Since female-on-male violence can be harder to predict than vice-versa, subtle warning signs must be heeded.
One of the most important things a domestic abuse victim can do is get away from the perpetrator before things get worse. Danger to the victim and any children or pets they might have, however, is likely to increase at the time of separation so you have to be careful about how you do it. Nevertheless, if you feel threatened in a relationship it is essential to take action right away. It is easy to rationalize or procrastinate, hoping that things will get better. Most of the time, however, they won’t.
It can be tough to leave but you must do it. You can work around economic issues such as loss of housing, income, health insurance, or transportation. It’s a bit tougher, but you can work through emotional, cultural, religious, or family issues too. You might even have heard horror stories of health care providers, law enforcement officers, social workers, or even the courts blaming the victim, particularly when he’s a guy, but those things are rare and a good lawyer can help you work through them.
Don’t be embarrassed to death. Leave. There are plenty of resources to help you do the right thing and keep yourself safe. In most communities, there are both government and private agencies that can help you work through these issues, providing relocation, temporary housing, medical assistance, and attending to other needs as appropriate.
There are some very interesting differences between men and women when it comes to fighting that can also become important in dysfunctional relationships. For the most part, men have “hot” rage. If they’re going to lash out violently, it will be in the heat of anger. Women, on the other hand, tend to have “cold” rage. They’re the ones who will take revenge long after the incident that inflamed them has passed, quite possibly after you’ve forgotten all about the argument, indiscretion, or whatever it was that occurred.
Since female-on-male violence can be harder to predict, subtle warning signs must be heeded. Women are more likely than men to get you while you sleep, stabbing you in the chest, setting you on fire, or putting a bullet in your head. They are the ones who might cut off your penis and throw it out the window of a moving car (Lorena Bobbitt, 1993) or flush it down the toilet (Kim Tran, 2005). If you are truly unlucky, she might become enraged, tear off your testicle with her bare hands, and try to eat it (Amanda Monti, 2007).
Listen to all the little warnings you get, not only around strangers on the street, but also in relationships as well. Little hints become bigger hints; small behaviors turn into larger ones. And if you don’t pay attention to the clues, something bad is bound to happen. While women are often on the receiving end of domestic abuse, men can be victims as well (for example, John Wayne Bobbitt). The most important thing you can do if you are in an abusive relationship is to get away from the perpetrator immediately before things get worse.
One of the factors that may influence these differences between men and women is in the way in which adrenaline affects the genders. When men are confronted with extreme emotional or violent situations, their adrenaline kicks off like a rocket, surging quickly and dissipating rapidly afterward as well. In a home invasion situation, for example, when the male homeowner shoots the suspect, the killing is likely to take place near the front door. When police officers arrive, they will typically find that the suspect has been shot perhaps two or three times, just enough to make sure he’s no longer a threat.
Women, on the other hand, get a much slower, longer lasting adrenaline surge. It takes longer to get going and dissipates a lot more slowly than you find in men. In that same home invasion scenario, police often find the dead robber in a back bedroom where he had chased and cornered the female homeowner. But here’s the kicker. Rather than shooting him a couple of times she’s emptied the gun into him, perhaps even reloading and doing it again. Interesting difference, huh?
Listen to all the little warnings you get. Intimates can be just as hazardous to your health and wellbeing as strangers. Little hints can become bigger hints; small behaviors can turn into larger ones. Pay attention and be safe.
She thrust the knife downward into his heart with both hands. Then she pulled it out and slammed it in again… and again, and again, and again, and again, and then once more for good measure. And then she left the house.
The following is a brief recap of the content you have read in this section.
• Self-defense begins with the concept of situational awareness, the ability to spot trouble before it can reach you. Any time you are near others it pays to be vigilant. Bad guys want easy prey, oblivious folks who never see them coming and can’t or won’t fight back. As a result, tough, prepared targets are usually left alone in favor of easier victims. You cannot, however, walk around in a constant state of hyper-vigilance or paranoia. It’s neither healthy nor prudent. Consequently, self-defense experts often use a color code system that defines appropriate levels of awareness to help you strike the right balance, pay attention to what’s important, and keep yourself safe. The colors themselves are far less important than the overall concept—different levels of awareness are appropriate for different situations.
• No matter how aware you might be, it still takes two to tango. Sometimes your worst enemy when it comes to self-defense is yourself. If you’ve got a chip on your shoulder or an ego that you simply can’t keep in check, you’re pointing a loaded gun at your own head. Escalato is the cycle of one-upmanship that inevitably leads to physical violence unless one party is willing to lose face and back down. While it’s a game that’s really easy to get caught up in, it’s also one that you really don’t want to play if you’re smart. Even if the other guy is a complete ass, it is far better to walk away than it is to fight to prove that you are right.
• Criminals, bullies, and thugs do not want to fight—they want to win. And they’re downright eager to cheat their way to victory because they don’t want to get hurt in the process. They prey on the naïve and unobservant, weaklings and fools who make easy, profitable targets. Before they strike, these guys look you over to be sure that they have a pretty darn good chance to succeed. The less you look and act like a victim during this interview process, the safer you will be.
• There is always some type of escalation that precedes physical violence, even a really short one. Sometimes it is obvious while other times it takes place solely in the mind of the aggressor. Nevertheless, some sort of clue precedes the attack. By understanding these threat indicators, you will have a better opportunity to avoid confrontations altogether, or where necessary, defend yourself effectively. If you miss these signs, you will have a tough time responding to sudden violence. While you are still trying to wrap your head around what is happening, you will find yourself getting hurt. Once you have been injured, it’s pretty tough to respond effectively.
• While predators need a good size pool of victims from which to choose, they cannot operate in highly public places for fear of getting caught. Consequently, fringe areas adjacent to public places are where the majority of violent crimes occur. This includes areas such as parking lots, alleyways, bus stations, subways, bathrooms, stairwells, ATM kiosks, and the like. In order to initiate an attack, the adversary must be close enough to strike. It is important to understand how the bad guys, bullies, and thugs might close distance, recognizing their tactics before their trap is sprung.
• Calling in support might preclude the need to fight. The imminent arrival of law enforcement officers or a large group of your friends changes the equation in your adversary’s eyes. Suddenly you are no longer a hopeless victim, but rather a well-protected target.
• Self-defense requires more than just physical skills. What you say can be even more important than what you do when confronted by a potential adversary. Clever words can de-escalate a tense situation, stave off bloodshed until help arrives, or momentarily distract an opponent to facilitate your counterattack and escape. On the other hand, having to be right at any cost, reacting indignantly in the face of a threat, or insulting an adversary often guarantees that a conflict will escalate into violence. It goes both ways. Words cannot be used against you unless you give them power. If you let insults or name-calling make you angry, they knock you off your mental equilibrium, leaving you vulnerable.
• If you are in error about something, admit it. Honesty is a much better way to de-escalate a bad situation than lying or stubbornly refusing to acknowledge a wrong. You can usually tell when someone knows they are wrong because they begin to make the argument personal. It is tough on the ego to admit fault, but it sure beats eating through a straw because you got your jaw busted when your face was pounded in. Similarly, giving the other guy a face-saving way out affords him the opportunity to back down gracefully too. Put his back up against the wall and he may feel forced to lash out.
• A clear intent to defend yourself can oftentimes cut short a fight before it begins. Your words and demeanor must convince your adversary that he’s picked on the wrong guy. It is critical that you take steps to ensure that your message is heard, particularly when emotions are running hot.
• Don’t be anxious for a fight. It’s all well and good to dream about how tough you are, yet the ferocious brutality of a street fight is light years beyond any boxing match or martial arts tournament you may have won. Slickly choreographed Hollywood films only exacerbate the fantasy of what true violence entails. Beware these misconceptions. Don’t confuse sports with combat or misconstrue entertainment with reality.
• Never underestimate the fighting intelligence of your opponent. There is a reason this guy is picking on you. He not only thinks he can win, but has done so before. Either that or he’s a delusional head case, drug addict, or drunk, a trait that in certain circumstances may be even worse. Nevertheless, mental toughness often trumps physical size or strength in a fight. For example, Audie Murphy was turned down by two other branches of the military because he was too small and underweight. After finally enlisting in the Army, Murphy went on to become the most decorated United States combat soldier of World War II. Don’t underestimate the fighting intelligence of your opponent.
• When it comes to self-defense, it is critical to pay attention to the subtle clues around you. Watch for people who look out of place or act in an unusual manner. Look for other people’s reactions to things you may have missed as well. Pay attention to sounds and smells as well as visual cues. Take nothing for granted.
• Little things are often important—little time, little movements. Through keen observation, you might spot a weapon or discover hostile intent before it is too late to react. During a fight, you might be able to take advantage of terrain, weather conditions, escape routes, or impromptu weapons if you pay attention to those important details ahead of time.
• If something bad happens, you will need a way out. Knowing your territory gives you an important advantage whenever you need to escape from trouble. This not only means having an awareness of entrances, exits, and avenues for escape, but also a good understanding of your friend’s proclivities as well. Hang out with people who like to cause trouble and it will eventually catch up with not only them but also with you too.
• Restrain impassioned friends. Don’t let your buddy’s big fat mouth write a check that you need to cash. If he insists on behaving immaturely, find someone else to hang out with. The same goes for intimate relations. If your girlfriend thinks that violence in defense of her honor is cool, you are with the wrong type of person. She will not just get you into one fight, but many. Sooner or later, she will get you seriously hurt, maimed, or killed… or thrown in jail and sued for everything you own.
• Violence always has consequences. Know what is worth fighting for and what is not. Dispassionately evaluate your priorities and values before you need to make such judgments in the heat of the moment. It is far better to live to fight another day than to make rash choices you may live to regret.
• No matter how tough you are, there is always someone out there who’s tougher, faster, or just plain better. Do you really want to find out if you have what it takes to tangle with a heavy hitter, a career criminal, mental case, or a seasoned street fighter in a live fire situation? You’re not that good. And even if you are, it doesn’t pay to find out. Claiming turf puts you in a win-lose mentality. It’s yours now, so it cannot be theirs. That type of thinking frequently leads to violence. Do the smart thing and walk away.
• Whenever someone encroaches on our territory or violates our personal space, it generates an emotional response. Oftentimes this leads to a physical response as well. Invading someone’s space almost always guarantees a confrontation, forcing him to either retreat or fight. Know this before you invade someone else’s territory.
• The presence of a knife, something carried by roughly 70 percent of adult males in the United States on a regular basis, changes everything in a fight. Anyone can cripple or kill you quite easily with a blade; it takes no special skill or training. In fact, all forms of armed assaults are far more dangerous to the victim than unarmed ones, about three-and-a-half times as likely to result in serious injuries. Worse yet, some 96 percent of all homicides involve a weapon. Consequently, it is really important to be able to spot hidden weapons before they can be used against you.
• Respect, reputation, and revenge are the hallmarks of gang culture. If you think you are tough enough to take on a gang banger, you are just plain stupid. Mess with one banger and you’ve messed with them all. No disrespect, challenge, or assault will go unanswered. Since most gang members tend to live for the moment and care little for societal norms, nothing is off the table when it comes to avenging any perceived slight.
• Listen to all the little warnings you get, not only around strangers on the street, but also in relationships as well. Little hints become bigger hints; small behaviors turn into larger ones. If you don’t pay attention to the clues, something bad is bound to happen to you. While women are often on the receiving end of domestic abuse, men can be victims as well.
Togyu (1705-1749) was a haiku poet. He died on August 15, 1749 at the age of forty-four. Translation from the original Japanese reads:
The 1984 movie Ghostbusters featured Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, and Harold Ramis at their comedic best. The “don’t cross the streams” reference, in case you haven’t seen or don’t remember it, goes like this:Dr. Egon Spengler (Ramis): “There’s something very important I forgot to tell you.”Dr. Peter Venkman (Murray): “What?”Spengler: “Don’t cross the streams.”Venkman: “Why?”Spengler: “It would be bad.”Venkman: “I’m fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, bad?”Spengler: “Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.”Venkman: “Right. That’s bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon…”
If you are going to make a threat this extreme, you’d damn well better not lose the fight though. A threat of male rape after a fight could very easily sway a jury that killing you afterwards was an act of blind and justified fear. Sometimes a solution for one part of the conflict complicates all the others. Choose your words wisely.
Kane wisely bailed before that guy returned, reading about the aftermath the next day in the local paper.
Personalization is taking an argument to a personal level such as the “fat, uppity bitch” comment from the sales clerk. He was no longer focused on what happened with the $22.00 but rather on the character of his accuser.
Don’t shout “fire” if he’s got a gun though. That’d be somewhat counterproductive…
Sensei means teacher, literally “one who has come before.” In this case, it refers specifically to martial arts instructors.
Yakuza means “violence group.” Criminal gangs, they are more-or-less the Japanese equivalent of the Italian mafia. While semi-legitimate in many cases, they tend to be heavily involved in extortion, blackmail, racketeering, drug trafficking, arms smuggling, prostitution, and similar illicit activities.
Roughly translated, ikken hissatsu means “one blow one kill.” It is the rare albeit very real ability to deliver fight-ending power, breaking bones, disrupting internal organs, or literally killing an opponent outright, with every single punch or kick.
In most jurisdictions.
Invented by Takayuki Kubota the kubaton is a hard plastic or metal cylinder about 5 to 6 inches long that can be used for striking, pressure point manipulations, and control techniques. It is frequently sold with an attacked key ring as a “self-defense key chain.”
Is Velcro a noise? We are referring to the ripping sound that Velcro makes when unfastened.