Police Officers and Self Defense

By Matthew Schafer

Copyright 2007, All Rights Reserved

As a martial arts and self defense instructor I end up getting asked many interesting questions that range from subjects dealing with everything from "what would I do if...", to some small element of an obscure 800 year old technique that I've never heard of, to very complicated legal issues. Recently, I've spoken with several people about various issues that deal with the police; namely, whether the police are the "friend" or "foe" of the common man and whether someone should enroll in a self defense class just because the instructor is a police officer. Since I have a little insight on the topic I thought I should write a quick article to address some of those issues and help people better understand their relationship with the law enforcement community.

First, let me say that I am in no way anti-police and I have nothing but respect and admiration for the law enforcement community. I believe that it is every citizen's duty to support the police and their law enforcement efforts in any way possible. However, I don't subscribe to the notion held by some citizens that the police are somehow superhuman or that every police officer is a highly trained expert at all areas related to law enforcement, self defense, or dealing with violence. I've worked with the police enough to know that they are quite human, capable of mistakes, and just like any other large organization they have problems with their own training programs.

That being said, the first topic I wanted to discuss is whether or not the police are our "friends". Whether the police are "friends or foes" to the common citizen is a topic of much dispute depending on where you are, and often depending on socioeconomics. I find that most upper and middle class individuals see the police as a "friend" and most lower middle to lower class see the police as a "foe".

My opinion regarding the police is that they are definitely are friends, however, they are friends that we have to be very careful with. The police provide two major services to the public: law and order. The police provide the populace of this country with order when the order is threatened and this is their most important duty. If someone breaks into your home, you can call them and they'll send someone over to arrest the intruder. If a fight breaks out they'll come out and break it up. They "police" us as it were and provide us with protection and this is the obvious "friend" element.

One of the major sources of animosity that people have for the police is that they feel that the police aren't there when they need them. People misunderstand this "order" element of their function and they believe that the police are our personal bodyguards and then they get upset when they don't act as such. The truth is that the police are in no way the bodyguards of the public and you won't find a police officer anywhere who will tell you that they are. The police spend all their time dealing with crimes that have already happened and there is just no way that they can be our bodyguards. Thus it is up to each person to be their own bodyguard. Each and every person is ultimately responsible for providing for their own safety and if they don't then they really have no one to blame but themselves.

As for the "law" element, the other job of the police is to enforce the law and this again is a source of animosity. People seem to love when the law is enforced upon someone else but they sure do hate it when the law is enforced upon them. This is where you really need to be careful when dealing with the police because they will arrest or cite you just as quickly as they will anyone else. You need to understand that the police don't work for you, they work for the city or state and must apply the law equally.

Where most people get in trouble with the police is when they remember the "order" function but forget the "law" function of their jobs. As I said above, I think that everyone should support the police and assist them in any way possible, but there is one exception. That exception is when the possibility arises that you could be charged with a crime. If you're in a situation where the police are present and there is a possibility, or you think that there is a possibility, that you've done something illegal then you shouldn't speak to the police. I'm not saying that you should be rude or not cooperate with them, I'm saying that in that situation they're going to try to get you to talk to them but the only thing that you should say is, "I'm not making a statement until I speak with a lawyer".

People think that the police are only there to help us and the police use this notion against us, as part of their job. Watch any police show whether it be Cops, Law and Order, etc. and you'll notice something...the police try to get people to talk as much as possible before they have a chance to see a lawyer. When the police are called, whether its a civil complaint, a traffic offense, or after a serious crime, the police are trained to speak to everyone and either intimidate them with their position or to try to befriend them and make them feel comfortable so they can get them talking. The police want to make you feel that either you have no choice whether or not you speak to them, you do have a choice of course, or that it is in your best interest to speak to them, which it isn’t', in order to get you to make as many statements as possible BEFORE you get the chance to see a lawyer. That way, when you finally do talk to a lawyer you've already made so many statements that the only thing the lawyer can do for you is to try to arrange a plea bargain.

If you are in a situation where it is possible that you could be charged with a crime, and this includes self defense situations, the best thing that you can do is speak with a lawyer as quickly as possible and NEVER talk to the police or answer any of their questions beforehand. If you’re in a situation where the possibility exists that you could be charged with a crime and a police officer asks you what happened or to hear your side of the story, you should say one thing and one thing only, "I'm not making any statements until I speak to a lawyer". Once you have a lawyer the lawyer can protect you, but if you've already spoken to the police then chances are that there is little the lawyer can do.

Don't be dissuaded if the police tell you that not talking makes you look guilty or that if you talk the police can do something to help you, these are just tricks to get you to talk. Remember, the police can only arrest you, what really makes the difference is later when the lawyers, on both sides, get involved. The police can look scary and put the handcuffs on you, but a good lawyer can find a technicality to get you off, as long as you keep your mouth shut.

It really is sad, I know several people that ended up going to prison just because the police got them to talk before they had a chance to speak with a lawyer. In each situation the lawyer probably could have gotten them off if they would have refrained from speaking to the police first. A lot of self defense instructors will tell you to say "this" or "that" to the police after a self defense situation has occurred, or even that the police will help you to make a statement and word it just right. Don't believe any of this, the first and only person you should speak to is a lawyer.

Now, the second topic I want to cover is self defense classes that are taught by police officers. As someone who has been in the self defense game for awhile I can tell you that just because a class is taught by a police officer doesn't make it any better than a class that isn't.

There are some pros to taking a class taught by a police officer and one is that because people think that the police are better trained then everyone else they usually have very good turnouts. If a class has a good reputation and is advertised correctly, it is not uncommon for the class to have to schedule multiple dates to accommodate everyone who signs up. Self defense classes are usually more fun when you have a lot of people and having a police officer as an instructor can often do that.

Another pro is that you get the ear of a police officer for an hour or two so you can ask all the questions you want and have a great opportunity to learn all about the legal aspects of self defense and the role of the police in your community. You might also make a friend that can come in handy later when you have a problem with a neighbor or something.

There are also some cons associated with taking a self defense course taught by a police officer and the most common one is that, unfortunately, they are usually rather lame. Most people think that because the instructor is a cop that they are getting the best training possible but the truth is that in most cases you're not; as one person told me after taking one, "it was like being taught self defense by my mom". This is because since the instructor is a cop they have a greater responsibility then the average instructor.

For example, let's say you take one of these classes and later you get attacked. You use your training, successfully defend yourself, and wind up in court charged with assault. You get up on the stand and say, "I just did what the police officer told me to do". Now not only does the officer look bad but the entire Police Department as well. What's more is that the criminal who got injured might be able to sue the officer or the entire Police Department for his injuries. You see, because the instructor is a police officer they have a greater liability and responsibility then other people do and tend to err on the side of caution.

While I'm sure that there are some great classes taught by police officers, every person that I've ever spoken to that has attended one has had less then stellar things to say about it afterwards. The feeling that these classes were like being taught self defense by the guy's mom is quite common, from the comments I’ve heard, because police officers, because of their position, tend to give the politically correct answers instead of the best answers.

I'm sure that there are some officers out there who teach great classes but I don't advise taking a particular class just because a cop teaches it. All the police officers that I've spoken to who do teach self defense classes admit, to me at least, that the only reason that they're teaching it is for the money. If "Joe Blow Black Belt" teaches a class at a local gym he might get 5 people, but if a police officer teaches a class at the same gym he might get 30 people and be able charge twice as much.

It is an often held misconception that the police are privy to special training that civilians aren’t, but this really isn't true. Think for a moment about where the police get their training. They get it either first, second, third, forth, etc. hand from martial art instructors. The police practice pretty much the same techniques as any martial arts school does.

Most people find it interesting to find out that there is no standard defensive tactics, unarmed combat, martial arts, program for police departments. While the training offered by police academies is pretty much standard across the board, each police department is responsible for providing its own training to its officers. So what police departments do is find someone within their department who has martial arts training and they get them to teach, or they hire someone with martial arts training, or who has developed a special martial arts course for police officers, and they teach everyone.

Sometimes there is a sergeant who does Tae Kwon Do so all the officers learn Tae Kwon Do, or Jujitsu or whatever. Or sometimes the department just opens up the yellow pages and finds someone who is fairly cheap. At every police department's or military unit's door there is a whole line of martial arts and self defense instructors with their special "just for police officers" courses just waiting for the prestige of saying that they teach cops.

The only real difference between what police officers learn and what any other martial arts school teaches is that police officers don't fight with people, they arrest people. So while most martial arts or self defense instructors can teach techniques that allow you to seriously injure someone that is trying to seriously injure you, police learn to restrain them instead. Everything that police officers learn is meant to allow them to subdue and restrain a person with minimal injury to them, the bad guy, and for the common citizen that training is fairly useless.

The rub is that when police officers teach anything other than restraining techniques, they learned the techniques from a martial arts instructor, and that very same instructor may be teaching their own self defense class right down the street.

The last thing I will say about this subject is that not only are the police not privy to some special training that is withheld from civilians, and not only are self defense classes taught by police generally very politically correct, but police officers are not better at self defense than anyone else. If you watch “Cops”, “Shocking Police Videos”, or pretty much anything on “Court TV/Tru TV” you’ll see something interesting, when police officers get attacked they usually aren't any better at defending themselves then anyone else. You see all kinds of videos where police officers go to question or arrest someone and the individual turns and attacks the officer. When they start fighting the majority of the time you'd never know that the officer had any kind of self defense training at all.

Bottom line, the police primarily receive training in restraining techniques and if they know anything else they learned it from martial arts or self defense instructors, so you're not getting any special benefit by attending their classes that you wouldn’t from any other class. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t take them or you won’t learn anything from them, I’m just saying don’t expect magic just because the class is being taught by a cop

What Are We Training For Anyway?

By Matthew Schafer

Copyright 2007, All Rights Reserved

So, what are we training for anyway? This is a question that everyone who studies the martial arts should ask themselves every so often, after all there are many reasons to study.

Some people study the martial arts for the pure enjoyment of it; some people study the martial arts for the exercise; some people study the martial arts for the social interaction; some people study the martial arts for the prestige of rank; some people study the marital arts because they enjoy competition, and then there are those people who study to learn to defend themselves.

Of all the reasons given, the only reason that I’m concerned with is the last; I train in order to defend myself and my loved ones from anyone that may try to harm them. I couldn’t care less about the prestige of being a “master instructor”, and I couldn’t care less about competing or going to tournaments. The social interaction is nice and I enjoy being around people who share my interests, but first and foremost I enjoy studying the art of self defense.

Now that I’ve defined the reason that I study I have to decide HOW I’m going to practice and thus we come to the point of this article. The point I want to touch on here is how we train to learn self defense.

If you go to most marital arts schools, watch TV, read martial arts magazines (or pretty much any magazine nowadays), or go pretty much anywhere on the internet you’ll see that pretty much everyone trains for self defense by sparring or doing MMA (mixed martial arts-the whole Ultimate Fighting Championship thing). Now, that’s fine if that’s what you want to do but that won’t be a whole lot of help during an actual violent altercation (someone trying to seriously injure or kill you).

Today it seems that EVERYBODY is brainwashed into thinking that MMA is the “end-all-be-all” test for martial arts and if you don’t believe that then you don’t know what you’re talking about, and if you don’t put on the pads and spar then you’re totally clueless. During my classes I’ll have people walk in and want to talk about taking lessons and everyone has the same line of bullshit. Now and then I get people who are interested in learning to defend themselves but it seems that all anyone under 30 wants to do is MMA training, and I’m sick of having to de-brainwash people.

Let’s look at self defense logically for a minute. Since I have decided that the reason I want to train is to learn to defend myself, the next questions I have to ask is WHAT I am learning to defend myself from and WHO I am learning to defend myself from? So the basic question here is what threat do I really face? I am not in the military anymore, I don’t do security work, and I am not a policeman, I am just “Average Joe Citizen”. And what threat does “Average Joe Citizen” face? The answer is crime! Since I don’t do dangerous work and I don’t go to bars looking for fights, the only person that I have to worry about attacking me is a violent criminal, and therefore the threat that I face is violent crime.

According to the FBI, “violent crime is composed of four offenses: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. According to the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program’s definition, violent crimes involve force or [the] threat of force.” [Underlining added for emphasis] (To learn more about violent crime in the U.S. go to http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/violent_crime/index.html)

So that’s it; for me, “Average Joe Citizen” the threat I face is some violent criminal coming into my world and trying to rob, rape, violently injure, or kill me or my loved ones, so that is what I need to be training for. (It should be noted that most violent crime is actually committed by individuals you know as opposed to strangers. I believe that around 80% of all violent crime is committed by relatives or acquaintances.)

Now that I know why I’m training and what threat I’m facing, I now have to decide how I’m going to train. In other words I have to decide how I’m going to model violent crime and here is where the plot thickens.

To find a way to model violent crime you have to study violent crime and the ways criminals commit violent crime. If you actually spend some time studying violent crime you’ll see very quickly that traditional sparring and MMA are not an accurate model.

I have an article around here that I’ve written called “Romantic Martial Arts” that talks about how real violent crime in no way models the sparring scenario used by martial artists. If a violent criminal wants to rob, rape, assault, or murder you they will just walk up to you and do it; they won’t walk up to you, put their hands up, get in a fighting stance, announce their intentions, and then allow you to get in a fighting stance so the two of you can go at it like to see in traditional sparring or MMA matches. Their attack will come out of nowhere, it will be fast, it will be violent, and it will be scary as hell.

Spend some time on the internet or watching TV shows like “COPS”, “Shocking Police Videos”, or pretty much anything on “Court TV/Tru TV” and you’ll quickly see that fighting stances and the “give and take” of MMA and sparring don’t occur during an actual violent confrontation. Watch security camera footage of criminals attacking average people and you’ll see that each and every time the criminal just nonchalantly walks up to their victim and attacks them once they are in arms reach. Quite often the criminal will try to engage their victim in idle conversation to distract them and allow them to get closer for their surprise attack. Almost every single act of criminal violence starts with a surprise attack, often from the side or the rear, or a sucker punch.

Quite often this tactic is learned in prison. In prison inmates actually learn how to victimize people from other inmates or from actually doing it. If a criminal wants to stab you, for example, they won’t walk up to you, stop just beyond arms length, show you the knife, swing it around, and then attack in a large slashing motion like you see on TV or in a lot of marital arts schools. While this type of attack does happen it is only used by inexperienced and untrained individuals who often are attacking out of blind rage; an inmate quickly learns that it you want to stab someone you conceal the knife, walk up to the victim either from behind or from the front, pretend that you are going to walk by them, and then once you get about a foot away from them you stab them a few times as hard as you can in the torso, in a upward direction, and then you walk away. This kind of training is the standard kind of training that criminals give each other and that is why when people report that they have been stabbed, very seldom to they say that they even saw a knife. The truth is that when people get stabbed they very rarely ever see the knife that stabbed them and most of the time they don’t know they have been stabbed until later when they see the blood, before that they think that someone just punched them really hard.

There have been numerous studies done with violent criminals and there have been many that have stated that in prisons the marital arts are considered a big joke. Some criminals actually said that they loved when people studied marital arts because it made them easier targets. They’ve stated that people who study martial arts think that violence starts with two people in fighting stances and so it’s very easy to take them off guard by just walking up and sucker punching them. Many repeat violent offenders have actually said that they actually count on people studying boxing or martial arts because it is so easy to use their training against them. For example, they said that when they throw a punch at an average person they may instinctively put their arms up to block it, but if you suddenly throw a punch at a boxer or martial artist they will instinctively step into a fighting stance instead of trying to block it right away, and they end up getting while they are getting into their stances.

If you actually spend some time studying violent crime and watching videos of attacks it should be easy for you to see that MMA and sparring actually trains you to do all the wrong things during a real violent attack. I can’t stress this enough: sparring and MMA are NOT an accurate model of violent crime, what they are is a method of competition.

Now I know that some people will get upset by reading this and they will say that I don’t know what I’m talking about because they have been in fights, and have seen people fighting, where the altercation started with both parities in fighting stances. To them I say that they are absolutely right, but, we’re not talking about the exact same thing.

If you’re talking about going to someplace like a bar and having words with someone, and having that situation wind up in a physical altercation then it may start with both of you putting your hands up and assuming fighting stances and it may even follow the sparring/MMA model. However, while people may classify this as a “fight” or a “street fight”, what it is not is an instance of criminal violence, it is a competition.

If you want to go pick fights with people then that is your business, and if you want to call yourself a “street fighter” then more power to you; but what you are doing is competing with another person to see who will come out on top. The goal is not to maim, cripple, or kill, rather it is an ego based altercation where you try to best your opponent.

A “fight” is a kind of altercation that is voluntary because most of the time people who get into it are actually looking for it, and because it is not an instance of criminal violence you can actually walk away from it before it escalates to the point where people start swinging. The main difference is that a “fight” is all about stroking someone’s ego by besting someone else, and an instance of criminal violence is not always avoidable, you can’t just walk away from it, it often evolves multiple assailants, knives, guns, or some other weapon, and if you don’t come out on top you or someone you love could wind up dead.

Even with “fights” where the goal is not to seriously injure or kill someone, as a guess I would probably say that only around 20% of them start with people assuming some kind of fighting stance before they attack, and around 80% of them start with two or more people arguing at close range and then start swinging from no noticeable stance at all. It is just a guess but I do know that studies have shown that about 80% of all physical altercations happen during or just after an argument so I’m probably fairly close.

Another issue that those brainwashed into thinking that MMA models reality may have with this article is the notion that that MMA is important because 90% of fights end up on the ground and you need to know how to defend yourself there. While I believe that everyone should know how fight when on the ground, this statistic is dead wrong.

People sure know to quote this statistic but they don’t know where it came from. It actually is a misquoted finding from a study done by the Los Angeles Police Department. The study reported that when a suspect resists arrest, about 90% of the time the arresting officer(s) has to take them to the ground to cuff them. Not quite the same is it?

While it is true that fights do go to the ground, very few actual violent assaults end up as wrestling matches. The fact is that over 90% of violent assaults start with a right hook to the head and end right there when the victim falls and bounces their head on the ground. Actual fights involve people getting hit, falling down, and then getting hit and kicked while on the ground. Sometimes people do end up on the ground but that is because they have been knocked down, tripped, slipped, or they don’t actually know how to fight and have grabbed each other and tussled until they both fell.

If you do end up on the ground all that MMA shit is the last thing you want to do. Those MMA guys are in terrific shape because they need to be…wresting around is a lot of work. Here is the truth they don’t tell you about in the MMA world: if you’re on the ground you will be able to reach at least one of the following, their eyes, their fingers, or their groin. If you’re on the ground wrestling and you can reach their eyes all you have to do is dig your fingers in his eyes until he starts screaming and grabs his face. Then you push him off and run away. If you can reach his fingers all you have to do is grab one or two fingers in each hand and forcefully “punch” them in opposite directions breaking them like a wishbone (of course other finger breaking techniques can be used). If you can reach their groin all you have to do is hit up into their groin and grab their testicles and then violently shake them back and forth like you’re trying to rip them off and they will stop fighting.

They don’t teach this in MMA because MMA is a sport and going after the eyes, groin, and fingers (small joint manipulation) is illegal. They also don’t teach this during sparring because sparring is a sport also and you don’t want to hurt each other.

The only way to accurately model a violent attack is to simulate a violent attack. Give a partner a rubber knife and have them walk up to you and try to either stab you (murder) or take your wallet (robbery). Have them do the same thing with different weapons, sucker punches, and have them come from different directions and angles. Start slowly and when they come up and reveal their purpose, usually by starting their attack, do your self defense technique. Go slowly to make sure that no-one gets hurt and when you get more comfortable you can go a little faster. This is the only way to get accurate training. You have to practice the exact same way that violent criminals attack.

If you want to do MMA or spar then that’s fine, more power to you, just don’t confuse it with real self defense training because it is not.

Romantic Martial Arts

By Matthew Schafer

Copyright 2007

Over the past 21 years in the martial arts I've seen many people and fads come and go. However, one thing that seems to stay the same is the romantic notion of what a "real fight" will be like. Women seem to have their heads on fairly straight when it comes to self defense but I'm sorry to say that generally I can't say the same for they guys, especially the young guys. I've asked many women why they're studying self defense and their answers seem quite realistic. Generally women talk about a guy getting too "touchy feely" and having to stop them, a guy following them home and trying to rape them, or being car jacked. Where it starts getting interesting is when you start talking to the guys.

I place a certain amount of the blame on TV and the UFC personally, but when it comes to guys nine times out of ten they almost always envision a bar fight. Women picture some drug addict kicking in their front door and coming in to rape them, but guys picture some macho scene in a bar and going outside, putting up their hands, and squaring off with some other guy and having some big fight like in the UFC. It takes a lot of work to break these guy's romantic notion of squaring off in a bar and trading blows with another guy while their girl cheers in the background.

The truth is that people actually squaring off and assuming fighting stances rarely, if ever, happens during a real violent encounter and if you look at statistics you'll see that they show this. After spending 5 years as a bouncer I've seen all kinds of things and hundreds of fights but never once have I seen two guys model the "sparring scenario" which is to put their hands up, get into fighting stances, and then fight. Even in a bar or nightclub there is no "stepping outside" or putting your hands up; if a guy gets pissed off and wants to get you they'll walk right up to you with a smile on their face and when they're standing right next to you they'll sucker punch you with an ashtray and then start kicking you when you're down and helpless.

The point I'm trying to make is that the notion of putting your hands up and getting in a fighting stance is really just romantic B.S. Sure if you're just messing around or in a competition you have the luxury of "getting ready" but when someone really wants to hurt you it’s not a luxury you will have. If someone wants to punch you they won't put their hands up first so you can see it coming, they will walk up to you and sucker punch you. A common tactic that I've seen used time and time again, and is also commonly used to mug people on the street, is for the "bad guy" to pretend to ignore someone and walk up to them like they're going to walk right past them, and then when they get right next to them they suddenly turn and punch, grab, shoot or stab them. Another popular tactic is to maneuver behind them and punch them or jab an object in their kidney which can completely incapacitate them.

The threat that people face isn't some big guy in a bar, its violent crime which is aggravated assault, forcible rape, robbery, and murder. It would be great if someone that wanted to rob or rape you would walk up to you and announce their intentions so you both could get into fighting stances and use your best sparring techniques, but statistically the encounter will actually start with you being blindsided and punched, stabbed, bludgeoned, or shot. Statistically, when you actually become aware that its time to start defending yourself its far more likely that you'll be laying on the ground and bleeding with one or more people standing over you, then dancing around in your sparring stance.

Luckily there is a silver lining and that lining is that since the person that actually wants to hurt you isn't going to bother with putting their hands up, getting in a sparring stance, dancing around with fancy footwork, worrying about kicking and punching ranges, setting up combinations, and pretty much everything else that is a part of sparring, you don't have to worry about that either. When a real criminal attacks you they won't be in a fancy stance or using fancy footwork, if they attack you they will just walk right up to you and attack leaving themselves wide open and completely vulnerable the entire time. If they throw a right hook, which is how most assaults and fights start, they’ll just walk right up to you and throw it which means that every single target on their body will be exposed and unprotected.

If you’re walking down the street and someone surprises you by coming out of nowhere and punching you in the face, as long as they haven’t knocked you out or incapacitated you then you can defend yourself. You don’t have to worry about all that fancy sparring b.s. because your attacker will be standing right next to you completely exposed. At this point he will probably be grabbing you with one hand and punching you with the other, but as long as you’re still conscious you can turn the tables. All you have to do is locate one vulnerable area on his body and hit it as hard as you can.

Let’s say he’s repeatedly punching you in the back. While he’s doing this you see his eye so you simply step into him and jam your finger into his eye as hard as you can and push. You’ve just collapsed the dome of his eyeball and now his optic fluid is running down your arm as he drops to the ground, grabs his eye, and begins screaming, giving you a chance to run away.

He may have broken your nose and nearly ruptured your kidney from the repeated punches but he didn’t knock you out or incapacitate you; while all you did was look at someone who was completely open, pick a vulnerable area, step in and hit that area, and then follow through. As long as he didn’t knock you out you can defend yourself and you have a completely open and vulnerable person right there.

Since criminals like to surprise you and sucker punch you its very unlikely that most people will ever see the attack coming unless they’ve received the proper training and are using it. Even then you can be surprised which is why a lot of situations start with someone bent over covering their head, or on the ground, with someone standing right there hitting or kicking them repeatedly.

Here’s a quick technique that has saved several people. You’re walking down the street minding your own business when you notice that just up ahead there is a man leaning against a building looking at you. As you get closer he comes off the wall and walks towards you. He’s now just about 6 feet away and he says, “Hey, do you have the time?” You instinctively look down at your watch and just as you’re focusing in on the dial you feel like a bomb exploded in your head. The stranger managed to distract you for just a second and as soon as you looked down at your watch he came forwards and punched you in the face with this right hand. Now your head is ringing, you’re seeing double, and your knees are starting to buckle. You’ve just been knocked nearly unconscious and you never saw it coming.

You’re a little dizzy and off balance as you instinctively bend forward and cover your head with your arms. Your attacker grabs your left shoulder with his left hand and begins to repeatedly punch you in the back of your head with his right hand. You begin to curl into the fetal position as you open your eyes and see the ground…and his knees. You stare right at his nearest knee as you take a small step into him with your nearest leg, drop shoulder first right into his knee, and roll towards him. Your entire body weight has just crashed through his knee tearing his joint as he falls to the ground. As soon as you hit the ground you roll into him and grab his head with both your hands and you push it to the ground and use it to help you come up to a knee. Once you’re on your knee you strike his head into the ground once, twice, or as many times as you wish and then run away.

Most people like this technique, especially after they practice it, but often ask, “what if you miss the knee?” Since your entire body weight is falling down onto his leg you can pretty much guarantee that you’ll knock him down with your weight. If you don’t think so then just practice this a few times and you’ll see how easy it is. Since your entire body weight is crashing into his leg, even if you don’t fall directly on his knee there is a good chance that you will still tear his ACL (the ligament that connects the front of the knee joint) on the way down.

But what if you don’t tear it? Well, you will still knock him down which means that he can sustain other injuries from the fall (broken wrists, broken arms, head trauma, etc.) but even if he doesn’t you’ll catch him by surprise and when you roll into him and hold his head down as you get up you ensure he stays on the ground because it is impossible to get up if someone holds your head on the ground. After that you strike his head into the ground which will most likely knock him out right away and could very well kill him.

I’ve taught this technique for years and many people have said that it has saved their lives. Many people have adapted it to use it before they get hit. The way this works is when someone confronts you, you go submissive, put you hands up, tuck your chin, and curl your back. Then once they get right next to you, you just drop onto the knee and do the technique. Either way it is very effective.

Unfortunately few martial artists or martial arts schools realize that real violence doesn’t start with two guys squaring off in fighting stances and everyone seems to be only preparing for the one-on-one sparing style fight, and that would be fine in criminal wanted to "fight", but statistically they don't and they seem quite content with leaving fighting stances out of it.