By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2015, All Rights Reserved
One of the
fundamental things that I was taught when I was a young student, and which I
make sure to pass along to my students, is that the martial arts have two
fundamental purposes: 1.) to teach you how to injure people, and 2.) to teach
you how not to have to injure people.
Always stressing the latter, de-escalation techniques are something I
spend quite a bit of time on with my students.
For the most
part, de-escalation, as a concept, is pretty simple. If you’re in a situation where there is no
immediate threat you focus on taking the emotional energy out of the situation
so you can once again communicate (keeping in mind that 80% of violent assaults
and murders happen during or just after an argument). In instances where an immediate threat is present,
such as being approached by an individual you feel might become violent, then a
more aggressive technique is normally used where you establish a boundary,
become assertive, and use body language, voice, and verbiage to let that
individual know that if they don’t leave you will defend yourself. Typically that is the go-to technique but in
certain instances where you have the ability to leave it is best to take a
submissive approach and get out of the area as soon as you can.
A student
recently asked me what technique would I use if I found myself in a situation where
I couldn’t leave, I was outnumbered and perhaps there were multiple weapons so fighting
back doesn’t seem plausible, and the situation was escalating and about to
become violent. It was stressed that in
this scenario I could not escape and both fighting back as well as doing
nothing would probably result in me being seriously injured or killed. He said he saw a guy in a bar get into this
exact situation where 5 large drunks backed this guy into a corner, yelled at
him, threw glass bottles at him, and ended up nearly beating him to death (he
assumes, he and everyone else left the bar before that point).
In this situation
there are a few things I would recommend.
The first is to never get into this situation. If you pay attention you can see most
situations start to build up and you can leave the area before things get to
this point. However, if the situation
escalated so quickly you found yourself caught off-guard and in this situation the
first thing I’d do is ask myself “are these guys about to attack me or are they
trying to scare me?” If I believe they
are just trying to scare me I’d go with the assertive body language and voice
to let them know that I’ll fight back if they come closer and in most cases
that does work.
However,
with there being 5 of them the pack mentality can set in so even if they don’t
plan on doing anything more than scaring me if one of them was to make a move
the others would probably join in. If I
felt they were about to attack the first thing I’d do is I’d plan my
attack. I’d quickly try to assess which
one is the leader (because if I take him out first the others may stop), where
are their hands (are they in fists, clutching weapons, in pockets about to pull
out weapons?), where are my exits, do I have any weapons on me, are there any environmental
weapons I can use (chairs or other objects I can grab to use as a weapon or
force them into to trip them, objects I can place between me and them, or nice hard
surface like a doorframe where I can grab one of their heads and slam it into).
Now that I believe
they are about to attack me and that I have to act the first thing I will
probably do is to drop their guard and make a stupid mistake; the easiest way
to do that is to act submissive to draw them in. I will do the opposite of sticking my check
out and puffing up, I’ll curl my back look down and to the left and act as if I’m
scared. If a second before the guy was
going to pull his gun and shoot me there is now a good chance he’ll walk right
over to me giving me an opportunity to disarm him and take him out.
Acting
submissive will normally make them think they’ve won so typically they will let
their guard down and give you an opportunity to set them up for a surprise
attack. If I have a weapon like pepper
spray I’ll use my cowering movements not only to lure them in but also to conceal
grabbing it and as soon as they’re close enough I’ll hit them all with a stream
of pepper spray and run like hell.
If one of
them has a weapon either in their hands or sticking out of their pants and they
get close enough to me I might disarm them and use it against them.
Perhaps I
see that just to my left there is a table and chairs so as I act submissive I
move to my right to place the group in front of those chairs so that if I
suddenly grab the closest guy and shove them into the rest of the group they’ll
have something to trip over and hopefully injure themselves.
A decent
technique that works very well when dealing with a group that is standing close
together is to let them get close enough and the use the heel of your hand to
strike the closest man under the nose and then and then drive forwards. As soon as you strike him his body will
loosen and when you drive him back into the group he’ll hit the guys behind
them and off balance them and as you continue to drive forwards with all your
body weight you can actually drive him backwards through the entire group and
then as soon as you’re clear you can run like hell for the exit. This technique is all about physics so it
doesn’t matter if the group is 3 people, 30 people, or 300 people once the
dominos start falling, so to speak, you can escape.
However, we’re
supposed to be talking about de-escalation and there is a last-ditch
de-escalation technique that works very well but I would only use it as a last
resort.
If the other
de-escalation techniques don’t work and you feel you’re about to be attacked
and for whatever reason you can’t or won’t fight back there is one technique
that does work very well and could save your life. The technique is to do their job for them but
only better.
If someone
is going to attack you or bully you they’re trying to demean you to a certain
level. So, for example, let’s say that
on a scale of 1 to 10 that measures you’re self-worth and social standing you’re
at 10 which is the normal everyday rating of a typical person. If that person just wanted to kill you they
would just walk up and kill you and you probably wouldn’t see it coming, so if
a group is ganging up on you and cornering you they’re trying to assert their
dominance and take you from a 10 down to a 4 (to pick a number at random). By intimidating you and beating you they are
trying to teach you a lesson, make you realize you’re not as good as them, and
lower your social standing in the larger group.
Here is the
trick, and again only use this as a last ditch effort. If that group wants to bring you down from a
10 to a 4 you then turn on yourself and bring yourself down to a 2. If someone decides that they want to make you
look scared in front of a group in order to bolster their social status but as
they begin to intimidate you drop to the ground and beg him not to hurt you you’ve
just done his job for him. He wanted to
make you look scared and now you’re cowering on the ground...at this point he
has got more than what he wanted from you and he never had to touch you.
If you do
this, and bring yourself down to a 2 when their goal was to get you to a 4 they
will quickly realize three things: 1.) you’re probably crazy, 2.) you’re
pathetic, 3.) their job is already done.
They’ll see that you’re so pathetic they will just walk away and at the
most they might hit you once or twice for principle but it won’t be full force.
To make sure
you truly understand the concept lets flip this around; let’s say you’re
walking down the street and this guy who is half your size suddenly turns and
hits his girlfriend. You become outraged
and since this guy is half your size you have no problem getting in his face
and bullying him to show him what it feels like. You approach him, shove him into the wall, and
you get into his face yelling at him about what a piece of shit he is. You’re just about to give him the back of
your hand when suddenly he throws his hands up in front of his face, drops down
to the ground, and starts crying and begging you not to hurt him. Now what do you do?
Maybe he
starts calling himself stupid and worthless and starts to slap himself across the
face; perhaps he hits himself hard enough to give himself a bloody nose; maybe
he starts crying and urinates in his pants.
Maybe he pulls out a pocket knife and starts to cut his arm while
yelling how stupid he is.
The point
here is that if someone is trying to bring you down to a 4 and you turn on
yourself and bring yourself to a 2 or even a 0 there is nothing left for them
to do. They’ll see you as sad and
pathetic and even if they were amped up to start hitting you and bringing you
down to a 4, now that you’re a 2 you’ve taken all the fun out of it and are
suddenly not worth their time.
Due to the
extremes and the fact that you are debasing yourself I would only use this
technique as a last ditch effort but if it is something that needs to be done
it does work very well.
