One of the first tools of real use for self defense after the initial avoidance and verbal de-escalation phase of a self defense scenario is the low front kick. Front kicks have several advantages for use in self defense. A front kick can keep an aggressor at range, they are simple to learn and use and can impede an attackers ability to chase you as you withdraw from a situation.

If you are not very fast and flexible I would suggest sticking to a simple front kick to the shin or knee. Don’t turn your body as you would for a side kick since unless you have set this up with punches or other strikes and know what you are doing the turning motion will be a signal to your attacker that you are up to something and will give them time to react. Simply lash out forwards with your foot trying to hit the attacked shin or knee with the ball of your foot, its not really that important that the ball is the bit that makes contact but its important to remember not to kick with your toes as this can cause you to damage your own foot. Remember dont leave your foot out there, as soon as you make full contact with your attackers leg pull your foot back and back off, the longer your foot is off the ground the longer you are unbalanced. You want your full balance back as soon as possible. Holding your leg in the air like Jean-Claude Van Damme may look cool but for self defense purposes its a really bad idea.

The front kick is a very effective tool and can easily cause serious damage (especially if applied to an attackers knee). Please remember to be sensible and only practice this move if you know what you are doing or have qualified supervision. If you are going to practice this move with a partner and do it with contact be sure to pad up their legs and not to kick too hard as this can be quite painful and even permanently damaging to the leg. Another thing to remember is to keep your “boxers guard” (hands by cheeks elbows in) when you do this front kick in order to try to keep your face protected and keep an attacker form grabbing an arm.

The simple low front kick may not be flashy but if you do it right and without warning its likely to hurt your attacker sufficiently to make them think twice about giving chase, it also ensures that they wont be chasing you as quickly as they might have without the kick.

Practice hard stay safe!

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Ok so the first thing that happens in many self defense situations is that a would be assailant will “Get all up in your grill!!!” In other words they will get very close to you breaking into your personal space, testing out your resolve and trying to put fear into you. Obviously in an ideal world you’ll see this person well in advance due to having a decent self defense mindset and seeing a situation develop.

Assuming this first line of defense hasn’t worked and the point has been reached where a would be attacker has entered your personal space the next thing you should do is what we call “Erecting the barrier”. Quite simply you back off to a reasonable distance from the individual that is concerning you making sure you are moving into open space rather than towards a wall or any barrier of that kind (Open space allows you more chances for escape if you need to run). If the attacker follows you and tries to enter your personal space again put your hand out and stop them at arms length. If they push into your hand, make it quite clear you are not intimated but nor do you want any trouble, say something along the lines of “Listen, I’m off now” or “Look man Im going home ok!” and continue to keep a barrier between you an the attacker. As you attempt to move away from the aggressor you can also try to move towards a more populated area, if you are on a side street move onto the main street, etc.

One thing to remember is to not push the attacker or throw insults at them, doing this may well make them more aggressive and determined to pick you as their target. One of the most common attacks on the street is a punch thrown by an aggressive person after they have been pushed in the chest. Try to make “the barrier” just that, a barrier, not a push. At the same time you should be alert to any attempt to grab you or strike out at you. Regardless you should continue to withdraw from the aggressor keeping your barrier up where necessary.

Once you have managed to make some decent space between you and the aggressor increase it and move off down the street making sure they are not following. Do not run or turn you back until you no longer feel threatened and are in a safer environment.

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I was reading some crime stats recently and found the listed “top 10″ for street attacks both interesting and informative. I guess this list gives me a nice starting point form which I can write a series of articles on the easiest self defense techniques for the non expert vs each attack.

Top 10 Street Attacks:

1. Push to the chest, often followed by the pushed party throwing a punch at the pushers head.
2. Roundhouse or “haymaker” punch to the head.
3. Lapel or shoulder grab, one handed, in conjunction with a straight punch to the head.
4. Two handed clothing grab, followed by a head butt (“The Glasgow Kiss”).
5. Two handed clothing grab, followed by a knee to the groin.
6. Bottle, glass, or ashtray to the head.
7. Frontward kick to groin/lower legs.
8. Broken bottle or other sharp object jabbed to face.
9. Slash with a short (3-4″) knife.
10. Side head lock.

As you can see there is very much an obvious escalation from the most popular attacks pushes grabs and haymakers punches to the latter half of the top 10 which are mostly weapons attacks, the last one the head lock being a rather odd one that reminds me a little of school yard scuffles. Anyway regardless I will endeavour to create a series of posts covering basic defences against each attack and link to them from this page.

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Another very important aspect of self defence is learning to recognise the waning signs that an attack may be just about to occur. Work on improving your sensitivity to these basic waning signs and it may give you the vital few seconds you need to extract yourself from an attack or perhaps even avoid the attack occurring completely.

You need to try to be aware of a potential attackers body language and facial expressions. These will tend to change just before an attack and your awareness of these changes can allow you detect an agressors hostility before the situation becomes physical.

Here are some basic things you should look out for in a possible attacker:

• His speech may become very snappy and abrupt
• Beads of sweat may appear on his face
• His breathing patterns may change (becoming faster or deeper)
• His movements may become frenetic or exaggerated
• He may stare at areas where he will try to grab or hit
• His face may change color
• Be aware of changes to his stance or their shifting of weight back and forth (this can be a setup for an attack)
• Also be aware of any aggressive behaviour towards inanimate objects
• Removal of an item of clothing (coat, hat, gloves, etc.)

If a possible aggressor is showing one or more of the above signs he may well be readying to attack you. At this point find a quick and safe escape route as soon as you can and move confidently and calmly towards it. Don’t get engaged in any kind of threatening or insulting behaviour, just make it clear that you are “going home now”. If they move strongly to stop your exit you may find you have to strike first but at least you have made him clearly exhibit his intentions before having to resort to physical force.

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Sadly one of the most often overlooked realities of a violent altercation is the not necessarily obvious but extremely impactful “Fear based adrenal dump”. In a real life self defence situation your body will tend to naturally go into our primitive “Fight or flight” mode, part of this is what stress response experts call strong adrenaline rush, or ‘dump’.

An adrenaline dump increases your heart rate, raises your blood pressure, and is will divert blood away from areas of your brain and organs and into your muscles. This can result in an increase in strength and speed and also a short term decrease in how much pain a person feels. Extra strength and speed all sounds good from a self defense perspective doesn’t it? Unfortunately this also comes with some negative effects, for example:

1. Trembling in the hands, arms, and legs
2. A tendency to either freeze up or over react
3. Tunnel vision
4. Some difficulty thinking straight
5. Knots in the stomach/Mild shock

Trying to eliminate the adrenaline/fear impact of a real attack is not realistic. Reduction of such effects is however possible with a program that uses pressure testing in your training. Many martial arts tend to train only for perfection of technique and only rarely (if ever) pressure test their defences. Occasionally everyone in training needs to get pushed past their comfort zone if they are to effectively utilize their self defence skills in a real world situation.

One thing to realise is that in a truly pressurised situation you are highly unlikely to pull of any technique that requires and decent level of dexterity or calmness for example Aikido/Jiu Jitsu style wrist locks or knife taking techniques (EG: Kote Gaeshi). The reason for this is that subtle movement is one of the first victims of the adrenaline dump, precise positioning of hands or grips goes out the window for most people and only your gross body movement is left intact.

This being the case it is also a good idea to spend a decent amount of time on very basic punches, pushes and front kicks. These self defense techniques may be extremely simple and perhaps even seen as “boring”, but a solid grounding in the basics to the point where they “just happen” could save your life. In a real life situation you really want to keep things as simple and quick as possible.

Another reason to do pressure testing is to help enable you to judge what is appropriate response to an attack and what is going overboard. If you have decent pressure testing experience you will more readily be able to assess how dangerous and assailant is and how much force is appropriate. fear can make people overreact and perhaps worsen a situation.

It is a good idea do do some scenario training and visualisation as part of your self defence training for stressed situations in order to help reduce lag time between a situation occurring with your natural fight or flight reactions asserting themselves and the moment you consciously become in control of your reactions.

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A little tip that criminologists have found is that a lot of criminals will use a technique known as “interviewing” before a physical attack to find out how easy a target you will be. There are a few basic interview types that a criminal will use:

• Remote Interview: The criminal observes your general situational awareness and presence from a distance. They are just checking you out form a distance to see if you are an easy target.

• Distraction Interview: The criminal approaches and makes a simple seemingly mundane request to distract you and get into position. For example they will ask for a light or the time. This is often used in advance of a quick snatch and grab attack.

• Escalating Interview: In this type of “Interview” the criminal will approach in a calm fashion but with quickly become hostile and will throw insults and invade personal space. This is used to further test boundaries and check if you are ready to defend yourself or not. It is used as an attempt to intimidate and confuse before a physical attack.

To stop this kind of technique succeeding you should try to develop solid self defense situational awareness skills. Be aware of any observers watching you, make it obvious that you are aware of them and are not intimidated, if they come too close to you withdraw to a comfortable distance and remain calm. Don’t take your eyes off of them and withdraw form the situation at the first opportunity that presents itself. Do not get drawn in to a verbal altercation, this is only serving to distract you form any other possible nearby threats.

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One often overlooked aspect of self defence in both traditional and sports martial arts is the environmental awareness aspect of self defense. Go to a boxing gym and they will teach you how to throw and dodge punches till the cows come home, go to a karate dojo and they will do the same. But neither will tend to give advice on how to spot bad situations before they occur. This to me is a major oversight.

The first and most important aspect of a solid self defense mindset is a solid awareness of your environment. Good environmental awareness skills will keep you out of trouble most of the time and are the first step towards a true understanding of personal self defence. So how do you develop this awareness?

You need to look at the world with new eyes and become an “engaged observer”.

Here are some tips and tricks you may find useful in developing your situational awareness.

• Pretend to be the bad guy – Start to think like a criminal or thug. Where would you attack someone? What would be the best place to take somebody unaware? In that side street, or car park?

• Try as often as you can to direct your consciousness externally. That is to say dont walk downs the street thinking about what your brother or boss said to you earlier, or what you are going to eat for dinner. Instead observe your environment, engage with it, be aware of the street, the doorways, the newly painted shop fronts, the people. Much like when you are driving be an active observer not a reactive one.

• Become a student of people. When you look at someone try to see what you notice about them, does everything seem in place. Are they dressed appropriately for the area? Do they seem at ease? What type of attention are you receiving from these people?

• Be prepared. Always think actively about the environment you are going to be finding yourself in. Make sure you park your car in a well lit and easy to observe place. If you are going to be in an area you are unfamiliar with try not to be alone if possible. Plan a safe way home from wherever you are. This may seem like a chore but most of us only have a few routes we take all the time. Make sure the routes you take are the safest available.

• Trust your gut feelings! If you have a gut feeling or something that you cant quite put your finger on is putting you ill at ease. Trust it and get the hell away from there. Try to see what it is that is giving you this feeling and move away from it. Do not be afraid to cross the street to get away from someone or something that is making you uneasy. You have 1000s of years of instincts built in to you, ignore them at your peril.

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Martial arts are a fun and healthy activity, I’ve been doing martial arts of one type or another for 15 years but one thing I have found about most training is that it is lacking in realism or “real world” applicability.

Traditional martial arts like karate, jiu jitsu and aikido tend to focus heavily on perfection of technique, spiritual aspects and perhaps a bit of sparring or competition but the reality of these systems is that they are seldom pressure tested against fully committed and aggressive training partners, or in awkward or unexpected environments.

In this blog we will try to put forward some practical and applied self defense techniques. Show you something about the mindset you need to have for real world self defense and finally show you how to avoid conflict wherever possible by de-escalation and  environmental awareness.

Hopefully this will leave you better prepared for any future altercation you might find yourself involved in and more confident that you can get yourself out of tough real world self defence situations.

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