The Self-Defense Post I Should Have Written Years Ago

 

In my post about Martial Arts and Self-Defense, I said that self-defense is a far broader subject than simply knowing how to fight.  I used the example of a trainer of my acquaintance, whose c.v. was getting into a lot of bar fights; he can do well once the fight has started, but what about avoiding the fight in the first place?

I also said that while I’m a martial-arts teacher – and a good one – I don’t consider myself qualified to teach self-defense.  I still stand behind this statement, since I know people who are so qualified, and their qualifications, skill-sets and aptitudes are different from mine. 

The trouble is that such statements leave the inquisitive student somewhat empty-handed.  This would be fine if I were utterly ignorant of the topics I discussed in the previous post.  But I’m not, and the fact that I’ve left my students empty-handed has irritated me ever since I first wrote it.  I shared a few resources, but I never considered it sufficient.

This post is an attempt to remedy the deficiency.  The things I’m sharing are not an all-encompassing list.  They’re more of an “Including But Not Limited To” list.  In the rest of this post, I’ll go down the list of self-defense topics I posted in the earlier article, and share one link to either a book or website which in my opinion offers a good introduction to the topic for students who want to learn more.  I’ll also include my own thoughts on them.

The subjects I listed as being contained within the broad topic of “self-defense” are:
·         Situational awareness
·         “Managing unknown contacts”
·         Establishing boundaries and enforcing them
·         Conflict resolution/ De-escalation/“verbal judo”
·         Farnam’s Law (“Don’t do stupid things in stupid places with stupid people at stupid times of day/night”)
·         Movement-and-positioning
·         Attitude and comportment (“Not looking like an easy target”)
·         Physical fitness
·         Legal issues
·         Emotional, moral, spiritual issues connected with self-defense (“Am I mentally/emotionally/spiritually ready to put someone in the hospital or morgue on purpose, and under what circumstances; and if so, can I quickly find the setting on the ‘response knob’ that’s appropriate to the situation?”)

Let’s go down the list.

 

Situational Awareness
Wikipedia defines “Situational Awareness” as, “the understanding of an environment, its elements, and how it changes with respect to time or other factors. It is also defined as the perception of the elements in the environment considering time and space, the understanding of their meaning, and the prediction of their status in the near future.”  It’s a fair definition as far as it goes, but it’s unsatisfying.  A better definition in the context of self-defense might be “Actively sensing your surroundings and the people in them, and determining the likelihood of risk in those surroundings and people.”

Another way of defining “situational awareness” is by defining what it is not.  It’s obviously not absentminded daydreaming.  But it’s not paranoid hypervigilance either.  It’s also not credulous acceptance of the sorts of moral-panic stories my good friend Tamara calls “Slender Man for Suburban Housewives.” 

It’s mostly skills and habits you already have, like the ones that keep you from regularly bumping into strangers in public (those skills don’t work if you’re starring in a rom-com or boy-meets-girl music video – if you’re there, you’re an oblivious klutz until the dancing starts).  But we refine these skills and habits further, with an added context of detecting and avoiding threats to our safety and dignity.

The hazard is finding the right balance between cloudy disregard on the one hand, and pepper-spraying the guy next to us at the deli counter because he got within knife-fighting range on the other hand.  The good news is that we don’t have to start from scratch.  Thanks to a bunch of guys who started out training Marines during deployment training, these skills are presented in an easy-to-learn form.  I know this because I taught them to my daughter when she was 10 or 11.

Left of Bang is a book written as a result of the training course given to deploying Marines, distilled and adapted to both law-enforcement and civilian contexts.  It teaches how to tell threatening environments and people from those who are not, and how to articulate this threat (or its absence) so it makes real, logical sense and isn’t just based on bugaboos and hobgoblins.  It does this largely through what the authors called “creating baselines;” that is to say, “what should we expect to be happening here?”

A simple example would be walking into a fast-food restaurant.  You would expect a certain semi-standardized layout, customers in one area and employees mostly in another.  There are barriers in the form of counters and doors; some areas are “restricted” and some (entry, dining area, drink station, restrooms etc.) are free from restriction.  The people in these areas can be expected to behave a certain way and, depending on culture and time-of-year, to dress in a certain way or range of ways.  They can also be expected to behave in a range of ways, appropriate to a fast-food restaurant.  Knowing this beforehand, it becomes easier to spot things and people who “depart from the baseline.”  We can use this habit and the others discussed in the book in just about any environment, even those we’re largely unfamiliar with – the difference in the case of the latter being the fact that it sometimes takes longer to “establish the baseline” of what “normal” ought to look like.  Someone like me who works in surveying and drafting would not be familiar with the chaos of the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange, but it wouldn’t take me long to figure out what’s supposed to be happening there.

 

Managing Unknown Contacts
This phrase, and the coursework that follows from it, was developed by Craig Douglas of Shivworks, as he put it, a “strategy for maintaining slightly more distance than the social norm without being ‘weird.’”  It’s a semi-scripted drill for dealing with an unplanned (by you) interaction with someone whose intentions you can’t immediately determine.  By the use of this semi-scripted drill, we can maintain distance, establish and defend boundaries, defuse situations that can be defused, and get a potential attacker to either decide you’re not the victim he wants today or, if that’s not possible, to “self-declare” early enough to give us time to choose the appropriate action.  It builds upon the situational awareness we learned in “Left of Bang,” for if we notice a potential threat before he makes his selection of us as a target, we have many more options than if we’re suddenly waylaid from an unexpected quarter.

 

Establishing Boundaries and Enforcing Them
Social expectations can be either oppressive or liberating.  They can sometimes force us into accepting situations or conditions we would prefer to avoid.  They can also act as a simple template for how to interact with strangers.  Sometimes it can be advantageous to subvert them.  For example, a customer service representative “expects” the people she interacts with to be displeased, sometimes brusque, sometimes outright hostile, and very often breathtakingly ignorant.  It’s been my experience that those times I can call a customer service representative and talk with a pleasant voice, a demeanor of “let’s solve this problem together,” and actually knowing what I’m talking about, they’re almost grateful to solve my problem for me. 

But that’s not what we’re talking about when we talk about “social expectations” in the context of self-defense.  In this context we’re usually talking about people who take unfair advantage of social expectations (“Be nice,” “Don’t make a scene” etc.) in order to take unfair advantage of us.  The best primer, BAR NONE, that I’ve read so far on the topic is This One, written by the same friend who wrote the “Slender Man” blog post above.  Tamara knows how many beans make five – I’ve never gone wrong following her advice, and I’ve asked for it on a number of occasions.

That’s for “Stranger Danger” – Creepy Uncle Ted or My-No-Good-Man is another matter altogether.  Annette Evans of OnHerOwn has discussed this at length and is a far better authority to speak to the issues of self-defense or self-preservation with intimate partners or family/coworkers than I am.  In like manner, the book Creepology is an excellent print resource – good for taking notes in.  I’ve given a couple copies away already.

 

Conflict Resolution/De-escalation/”verbal judo”
When I wrote the list above, I put “Conflict Resolution,” “De-escalation” and “verbal judo” down as separate categories, but in reality, they’re all related in a self-defense context, which is the ability to change the “vector” of an encounter, such that it does not lead to violence.  Here are a couple examples:
o I once saw a video where an older instructor was talking with a class full of big bruisers about this skill and he gave a hypothetical guy-in-a-bar scene.  The guy says “Hey, what the %$&# is your problem?!” and instantly he responded with “I just got word my mom died…”  It had the effect of “flipping the script” – yeah, he has a problem, but it’s very much NOT what guy-at-the-bar was expecting.  It also subverts the “social expectation” where now the guy geeking himself up for a fight has to reset and display decency.  He had several such responses ready for typical “pick-a-fight” statements.
o Several experts on inter-personal violence have stressed the importance of letting someone “save face” during a confrontation.  Doesn’t matter who’s right/wrong – once someone feels disrespected/disgraced/shamed/humiliated, especially in public among his peers, he’ll very often resort to violence to restore his honor – even if it costs him his life.  This is especially so in what sociologists call “honor cultures” where loss-of-face is something worth killing or dying over.  Giving someone an opportunity to exit with his honor intact is very much like the maxim of Sun Tzu to never impede a retreating army.

This of course only applies when the nature of the violence is such that it can be talked out of.  Career criminals can’t be reasoned with, though they can sometimes be convinced you’re more trouble than you’re worth.

 

Farnam’s Law
The wisdom of this Law ought to be self-evident; and yet, I can turn to page 2 of the birdcage liner any day of the week and find the entire page filled with violators.  Besides this, innocent ignorance and Dumb Luck can play a role….

When I was still in the Reserves, I went to a retirement party for one of my comrades.  People in Chicago have parties in “banquet-halls” a lot more than we do in Indiana, and this one was on Garfield Boulevard near Cottage Grove.  Had I looked at a map I’d have known the neighborhood, but I knew how to get there; and as I was to discover, knowing how to get somewhere is not the same thing as knowing what the place will be like once I got there.  It suffices to say it wasn’t the sort of neighborhood realtors love doing business in.  Withal, I left early and went straight home afterward, and no bad end came of it.  But it shows that we can find ourselves in places we’re unfamiliar with; and when we do, we do well to be on our best behavior and keep our plans simple.

 

Movement and Positioning
This topic relates to advantage/disadvantage should a fight be possible/likely/imminent/underway.  Examples include things like
·         backing against a wall so you’re not blindsided by a comrade of your attacker
·         moving at an angle to a potential attacker who is closing on you – if he changes direction, he’s “self-identified” and your plans must adjust accordingly
·         moving so as to place obstacles between you and an attacker/recognizing these obstacles in time
·         moving so as to make it easier to escape/put a door or other barrier between you and an attacker

The ultimate goal of movement and positioning is to give you options, reduce those of your attacker, solve problems or present problems for your attacker.  These skills are “martial-arts adjacent” – skills that are complementary to applying the martial art, but aren’t normally taught as a part of the art itself.

 

Attitude and Comportment
Tamara talked about this in the article I shared under the heading “Establishing Boundaries.”  Like many things, there’s a happy middle-ground – on the one hand, there’s “looking like an easy target.” 

On the other hand…

*harpswirl.wav

Army Reserve Centers are seldom in high-rent communities.  The one in Homewood, Illinois isn’t bad, but you have to go through some pretty down-at-the-heel neighborhoods to get there.  I never had a problem until this one time I had agreed to take one of my squaddies with me to and from the month’s drill.  He was not the brightest candle on the birthday cake, and had ZERO people skills.  Imagine a beagle who was never allowed to socialize with other dogs – now imagine letting that beagle loose in a dog park.  But it wasn’t out of my way – he drove to My Fair City, I drove to Homewood and back (I outranked him by several pay grades so the arrangement made financial sense) and he drove back to his home in Wheatfield.

On our way back after drill, we stopped by a Chicago Heights convenience store.  Hanging out in the corner were a handful of youths all wearing red t-shirts.  Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what was going on, and my young Soldier was certainly no rocket scientist.  Now what do you suppose this dumb-as-booger Wheatfield redneck did?  The absolute last thing anyone with any sense would do, of course!  He locks eyes with the “red-shirts,” gets “all swole-up,” and puts a “You Wouldn’t Dare” look on his face I’m convinced he learned by watching too much pro wrestling programming.

I saw this and did the only thing an NCO of my age could do.  I put our drinks and snacks on the counter, said “Pardon me, lads” to the red-shirts, dragged Our Hero out of the store by his ear and ordered him to sit in the car while I completed the purchase.  The red-shirts, for their part, could barely contain their mirth.  I nodded politely at them, paid for our stuff and got back in the car to find Our Hero doing his best impression of a popped birthday balloon.  The fact that I saved his hide that day took longer to dawn on him than I’d have liked, but at least I didn’t have an incident to write up.

I tell this story to demonstrate the extremes of attitude-and-comportment:  “easy target” on the one hand, rash and ill-considered bravado on the other.  We want to be in between these two.

 

Physical Fitness
Setting aside the self-evident benefits of being as fit as we can, the benefits of fitness in a fight are likewise self-evident.  Tai chi leads to good physical and mental health, which is why I teach it.  But tai chi isn’t the only exercise I get.  Besides the occasional exertion of work in the field, I also walk, ride my bicycle and do cross-country skiing when the weather permits.  I do body-weight strength training, weapon training to include archery, and balance exercises.  I don’t do any of these with a view to getting “ripped and shredded” – you will never see me on a stage in a Speedo all oiled up with a spray-on tan in a bodybuilding competition.  But I’m in as good a shape as Nature will let me get.  I’m improving, and tai chi is a big part of it.  I’ll never be able to pass an Army fitness test again; but I can walk 5 miles with a 30-pound pack, run a quarter mile and sprint a city block.  These abilities will serve me if I ever get in a fight – not only to avoid it or run away from it if I can, but I’ll have the wind to finish it.

There are many options for fitness at any level.  Most tai chi students are "of a certain age," and this age happens to be the same as most veterans.  The VA's MOVE! Program is just one example of many.

 

Legal Issues
Okay – this one’s easy. 
I’m no expert on self-defense law.
Massad Ayoob is.
Whatever he says to do – do it.
Whatever he says not to do – don’t do it.
The End.

 

Emotional, moral, spiritual issues
This, right here, is the Big Kahuna for most people, whether they know it or not.  It stands to reason that our inborn inclination to violence (the “nature” side of ourselves – we’ll deal with “nurture” in a bit) exists on a scale, much like “the Kinsey Scale,” with “Under No Circumstances” at one end and “Human-Equivalent-of-a-Canada-Goose” at the other.  Like the Kinsey Scale, this inclination is distributed along a bell curve.  Experience of violence – either its successful use or the trauma of victimization – likely flattens this curve out somewhat, but not completely.  We’re all somewhere on this curve.

This is where I find people.  It’s very much NOT my job to push people to one end of the scale or the other – to get them to embrace or abhor violence.  It’s not my job to decide where a student ought to be on that scale.  We see it played out dramatically in the movie “The Karate Kid,” in the stark difference between John Kreese (the “Kobra Kai” sensei) and Mr. Miyagi.  I think everyone reading this knows I’d rather be compared favorably to Miyagi than Kreese.

My job is simply to teach the martial art.  If a student decides he or she is dissatisfied with where they are on the “scale,” my role in regard to this is mostly passive.  I must not hinder the student’s development.  This comes with limits; morality and ethics dictates that I must not teach or encourage a student who wishes to learn the art in order to use it unethically.  But I’ve never met such a student, and I don’t think people like that are drawn to tai chi anyway.

Back in the “skill list,” I had this to say about the topic: “Am I mentally/emotionally/spiritually ready to put someone in the hospital or morgue on purpose, and under what circumstances; and if so, can I quickly find the setting on the ‘response knob’ that’s appropriate to the situation?”  There’s a lot to unpack here; it probably deserves its own stand-alone post, but it’s not going to get one. 

Putting someone in the hospital or morgue on purpose is rightly a scary and daunting prospect to most people.  We don’t want to live in a world where this is the normal way people conduct themselves.  We’re not brutish savages.  So the thought of doing so is pretty far beyond the pale for most of us.  And yet, most of us can agree that there are times when doing so is the “least-worst” of a bunch of bad options whose arrival we had no control over.  As one of my former First Sergeants would say, “Sometimes you gotta eat the $#!+ Sandwich, and the only choice you have is ‘Do you want mustard or mayo’?”  We can intellectually acknowledge the sense of this idea. 

Wrapping our consciences around its ramifications is a harder problem.  Most neurotypical people can grasp the idea that some situations call for violence and others do not; and of the former, some call for more violence and others less.  These are all very personal conclusions to arrive at.  I’m smaller, older and weaker than Travis Kelce – his decisions aren’t likely to be identical to mine.

You’ll notice I referred to purposeful violence as “a setting on the ‘response knob’.”  This is a relatively new concept.  I didn’t make it up.  When many people think of violence, they think of it in terms similar to an “ON/OFF” switch.  Another way of referring to it is “Pressing the Berserk Button.”  Picture Pumbaa in “The Lion King” after the hyenas called him a pig.  The hyenas pressed Pumbaa’s “Berserk Button” and as we all know, it ended poorly for them. 

In the real world, it doesn’t work like that.  We’re responsible for our actions, and expected to respond to threats and violence proportionately.  The law rightly takes a dim view of someone who dashes another person's brains out because the guy poked him in the chest with a finger.

Believe it or not, one of the less-widely-publicized goals of martial arts training is to make such over-reaction less likely.  It does this by giving the player confidence in his or her capabilities.  This confidence translates into a greater “presence of mind” in a fight, such that we’re less prone to over-react.

When we were first learning to drive a car, we often panicked at unexpected hazards.  We slammed on the brake, we over-corrected our steering and so on.  That was our lizard-brain working; increased familiarity and skill at driving meant we didn’t over-react so strongly to unfamiliar hazards, and we calmly respond (rather than react) to the things we first panicked at.  It’s much the same thing in martial arts.

All of this takes some contemplation.  Specifically, it takes an individual decision to treat the martial art as exactly what it is – learned, purposeful violence – and accept the consequences that derive from this decision.  It’s much easier to say it than to do it.  Some of those consequences may make us go green-at-the-gills (“Uh, what exactly happens to the other guy when we do ‘Twin Fists Strike the Ears’ really hard.....Wait, WHAT?! ARE YOU SERIOUS?!”), and some will oblige us to take a good hard look at ourselves.

The same process applies when we think about self-defense more broadly.  Annette Evans talks about this a lot on her website I mentioned above, and we would all benefit by reading and thinking about what she has to say.  We may run up against some very hard limits – things we’re unwilling to compromise on or lines we’re unwilling or unable to cross.  And that’s okay.  

For example, I carry a knife of some description every-single-day-without-exception, but I don’t carry knives optimized for fighting, because I’m not okay personally with using a knife for self-defense.  I have no opinion on what others decide, but knives as weapons just aren’t for me.  I have plenty of other options.  Whatever you decide – on weapons, fighting, “when-and-why” or anything else – my job as a teacher is to facilitate you becoming the best possible version of yourself within the context of those decisions.

___________________________________________________________________

As long as this post is, I’ve only scratched the surface.  Each sub-topic could fill whole libraries.  But it’s a place to start the discussion, and in doing so, I feel as though I’ve gone a measurable distance in fulfilling my obligations to my students.