Two Little Gun Disarming Tricks

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2008, All Rights Reserved

There was a huge response to my article entitled "Can You Really Disarm Someone Who Has A Gun" so I thought that I would write another article on the same subject to expand on some information that I went over. People have emailed me a lot of questions and they seem to be about both clearing the weapon and actual disarming techniques. In this article I will deal with clearing the weapon and in another I'll talk about a few actual techniques.

Just in case someone is reading this and doesn't know what we're talking about, "clearing the weapon" means getting the gun that is pointing at you to no longer point at you, and it is the first step in any disarming technique. You have to first get the gun pointing at something other than you and then take control of both the gun and the attacker. There are three general ways of clearing the weapon: 1) Grab or touch the gun, or the hand that holds the gun, and push it to the side so that if it goes off it will not shoot you, 2.) Stepping out of the way, off the line of fire, so that if the gun goes off it will not shoot you, or 3.) Grab or touch the gun, or the hand that holds the gun, and push it one way and then step the other. Most people prefer both touching the weapon and moving it while moving your body at the same time because it allows you more lateral distance from the muzzle of the weapon and therefore the line of fire.

For most people clearing the weapon is the hardest part because they are scared that they won't be fast enough to clear the weapon without getting shot. However, as we talked about in the last article, when someone is actually assaulting you with a gun they are not going to think about you disarming them, they are going to be thinking about accomplishing their goal (getting your money or moving you to someplace else) and in almost every case they will leave themselves wide open to being disarmed. A criminal will use the gun to intimidate you and will take no action to protect his weapon, which makes it an easy target.

When talking about clearing a firearm I like to give this illustration: let's say that you had both a pencil in your hand and you had a partner standing 4-5 feet away. You want to keep your pencil but your partner wants to take it away from you. What makes more sense, holding the pencil with both your hands, tucking it into your body, and using your body to block your partner from getting it, or putting the pencil in only one hand (which is how most criminals hold their guns) and sticking it in their face? If you're holding the pencil out towards your partner then you're actually making it very easy for him to just reach out and take it. With a gun it is the same thing, if the criminal makes no effort to protect his weapon and holds it out towards you he is actually making it very easy for you to just reach out and grab it.

Clearing the weapon during an actual assault is generally not that hard because 1.) The attacker doesn't want to shoot you, at least not right now (if he did then he already would have), 2.) He is usually close to you, 3.) He is not paying attention to the weapon, 4.) He is not protecting it, 5.) He is not expecting you to do anything but submit to him and be afraid, 6.) When you don't act the way he wants it will confuse him and generally cause him to hesitate, 7.) When you suddenly become violent it generally causes the victim of such violence to freeze for a moment, and 8.) He doesn't know what you are going to do or when you are going to do it.

Also studies have shown that it takes the average person at least a quarter of a second to recognize that a threat exists before they can even come up with a course of action to counter the threat. So taking that into account, if someone points a gun at you and you move to clear the weapon you have a quarter of a second to use before he even processes the fact that something has happened, then his brain has to tell his body to pull the trigger, and then it has to do it. In my experience during my own training sessions, during a pretend assault where the attacker knows what the "defender" will do, it usually takes at least 1.5 seconds from the time the "defender" begins clearing the weapon until the attacker actually fires. One and a half seconds is not long at all but it usually takes less then a second to get off the line of fire.

What's more is that since your attacker isn't expecting you to do anything but submit he will be caught off guard when you instead do the opposite. This generally causes him to hesitate and buys you time to continue your attack. In addition is the fact that action is always faster than reaction so when you act to take control of the gun your attacker has to recognize that you are attacking, devise a counter, then counter. The attacker will be playing catch-up.

Hopefully you can see that it is possible to at very least clear the weapon that is pointed at you, so now I'll tell you about a little "trick".

The FBI has some very intelligent people working in it and those people take the studying of criminal behavior very seriously. They are constantly studying and analyzing crimes as well as interviewing criminals to try to understand what makes criminals commit their crimes, exactly how they commit them, and what is going through their minds while they commit them. In the early 90's they were studying shootings and they made an interesting discovery: in case after case, after case, after case, when a criminal pointed a gun at someone they didn't talk and shoot at the same time. In fact, they discovered that there is a weird "left brain-right brain" thing going on which results in that in nearly every single case, when a criminal is talking they aren't pulling the trigger.

What does this mean to you? It means that if an attacker pulls a gun on you and he says something to you (like "Give me your money", "don't move", "don't scream", or "don't be a hero") you should disarm him right then while he is talking.

Try this, get a gun with a moveable trigger, but please don't use a real gun-use a toy gun, and point it at a partner from a distance just beyond arm's length. Then when you're both ready I want you to say, "Give me your money" and then try to shoot your partner as they try to clear the weapon. Do it a few times and as soon as you see your partner move I want you to pull the trigger and notice what it is pointing at when it goes off.

If you're like most people you will realize something...it is very hard to pull the trigger and shoot them while you are talking. You even know what they are going to do but there is some kind of weird delay. Now, do the drill again but this time stand about 15 feet away from your partner and when you are both ready walk up to your partner, point the gun at him from about arms length away, and then say, "give me your money" as they try to clear the weapon and you try to shoot him. You'll see that it is even harder.

While doing this it is not uncommon to have your partner actually take your gun away from you before you get around to pulling the trigger.

With some practice you can get better at it and overcome the delay you experience in pulling the trigger while talking but it does take practice and the criminals out there don't do that practice. So, when is the best time to disarm your attacker? The answer is right away, but the second best time is as soon as they say something. If your attacker opens his mouth and says something you should be attacking him because at that point there will be a delay in his response time.

This is also very useful when your attacker is standing behind you. Most people say that if the gunman is behind you, you shouldn't do anything until and unless the muzzle of the gun touches you so that you know where the gun is. This is pretty good advice because you don't want to turn around to disarm him only to find out that he is actually a distance away. However, here we have a little wiggle room.

Let's say that someone comes up behind you and points a gun at you. The gun isn't touching you so you can't tell where it is or how far he is away from you by feel, so you look around to find any shadows or reflections that can give away your attacker's position. You find none. You turn your head slightly to the side to use your peripheral vision to locate him but he tells you to look straight ahead. You don't know where the gun is or how far he is away from you, however, he is talking and we know that very seldom can people talk and pull the trigger at the same time. So you turn your feet inward to "pigeon toe" yourself to make it easier to rotate backwards and then as soon as he begins to say something you quickly rotate and penetrate towards him in one step and with your second you quickly locate the attacker and the weapon and get off the line of fire, and then with a very large third step you close distance and complete your technique.

That might not always be wise, after all if I don't know where the attacker is I also probably don't know if he is alone or has friends, but it does give you another possibility.

Here is another little trick I can share with you, one which we call "allowed movement". Very simply what this means is that since your attacker wants something from you, your money or to move you to another location (which might be only a foot away), when he tells you what he wants he immediately after creates an instance where he is allowing you to move and will not shoot you when you do so. So if I have a criminal holding me at gunpoint and I'm standing there with my hands up and he tells me to give him my wallet I now have two great opportunities to disarm him. The first opportunity comes while he is talking and we've already gone over it; the second opportunity if right after he gets done talking. He has just told me to do something and therefore when I move he is allowing me to do so in the expectation that I am complying. So right after he says, "give me your wallet" I just use that opportunity of "allowed movement" to take the weapon instead of reaching for my wallet.

This is actually very simple but there is a little trick to it. Evolution has wired us to notice fast jerky motions because we needed to notice them in order to hunt prey. We might have been standing in a forest with the leaves all blowing gently in the wind and birds flying around, but amid all that movement we had to notice when that rabbit that we had been hunting quickly darts out of it hiding place and runs away. Evolution made our brain pick up on fast jerky movements. People are amazed to discover that when fighting if they make fast jerky motions their opponent will pick them up right away, but if they make graceful and smooth motions, that aren't jerky, their opponent will have a much harder time picking them up.

The same applies here. If our attacker lets us move and we immediately make a fast, jerky play for the gun then that lessens our chances of pulling it off because he will notice it faster and perceive it as a threat. But, if instead of going hurried and fast we go calmly and smoothly then our mannerisms will hide our intent. This is one reason why dealing with intoxicated people is so dangerous, they are so relaxed that almost all their movements are smooth and fluid and it is very hard to see their attacks. There have been thousands of police officers who have been easily disarmed by intoxicated individuals and never saw it coming because their fluidity hid their movement.

No matter what you are doing, moving calmly and smoothly will not only have the benefit of being easier on your body, but it will also make your attacks much harder to notice. In shooting they have a saying, "smooth is fast" and the same applies here.

Less Than Lethal Techniques

By Matthew Schafer

Copyright 2008, All Rights Reserved

After a long day of work you stop by the store to pick up some groceries before heading home. You're tired and are looking forewords to relaxing with you feet up for a little while and going to the store is just about the last thing that you want to do. However, you do need some groceries so you stop and pick up the necessary items. As you leave the store and walk to your car with your hands full of bags you're rather taken back when you hear someone shout at you. You pause almost in disbelief and turn around and you see a young man rushing over towards you, and he doesn't look happy.

As this young man covers the distance between the two of you he starts pointing at you and shouting obscenities...something about you disrespecting him. You're totally clueless and you open your mouth to ask him what the problem is but instead you are violently grabbed by the collar and pushed up against a parked car. The young man continues to shout obscenities as he shakes you by the collar and chokes you by pressing his forearm into your throat. You're scared beyond belief and you can't breathe. You start to get tunnel vision and withdraw into yourself as you instinctively begin to fight for your life by pushing and clawing at his face. Then luck intervenes, one of your fingers finds its way into his eye and it scratches him severely enough to draw blood.

He shouts as he let's go and grabs his injured eye with both hands. Reacting on pure instinct you push him away from you and run to your car. You fumble with the keys a little but you manage to get in and drive away. Your hearts pounding as you clumsily dial 911 on your cell phone and tell the dispatcher what happened.

An hour has passed, and you're now sitting in the police station being questioned about the incident. Your hands are still shaking as you slowly drink the can of soda the detective gave you; you don't really want the soda but you’re happy to have an activity, even such a small one, to take your mind off of what happened. Then, just as you thought things couldn't get worse for you, you find out why a detective is talking to you instead of regular officer...the man that assaulted you is dead...and you killed him.

How did this happen? How did you manage to kill this man who effortlessly dominated you? It seems that when you pushed him away from you in the parking lot, he fell and hit his head on the pavement. This small action resulted in such trauma to this head that it took his life. But still you wonder...how did this happen?

Every style of martial arts, self defense, or defensive tactics that I'm aware of teaches "less than lethal" techniques. "Less than lethal" techniques are simply a classification of physical techniques that are designed to either not cause injury, such as restraining techniques, or not cause death. These techniques include wrist locks, arm locks, pinning techniques, and strikes to areas of the body that do not generally result in death to a healthy individual.

The truth is that "less than lethal" techniques are nothing but a fallacy. You never know what a technique will actually do to someone or how they will respond to trauma. Some techniques can lessen the chances of serious injury or death but no technique can guarantee it.

A common "less than lethal" technique that is taught to most police officers, members of the military, as well as security personal is a strike to the solar plexus. The solar plexus is an area in the center of the body just below the sternum. Resting in this area is a large bundle of nerves that affect the diaphragm and if you strike this area it can cause the diaphragm to spasm resulting in the person having trouble breathing (getting the "wind knocked out of him") and leaving him with little fight left in him. This effect can last for seconds or minutes which makes a blow to the solar plexus a very useful technique.

The problem with this being "less than lethal" is that behind those nerves is the abdominal aorta (the largest artery in the body) as well as various other nerves such as the right vegas nerve. If the blow is powerful enough the force can affect the aorta enough to cause a sudden drop in blood pressure. This sudden drop in blood pressure can result in the person passing out or even killing him.

Even if the blow isn't hard enough to affect the aorta the person could have a genetic heart condition and the blow could be just hard enough to cause a heart attack.

Even a simple wrist lock or arm bar could end up being fatal. How? Maybe you apply the wrist lock to control the person but you apply it a little too hard, too fast, you use a wrong angle, or maybe he has horrible balance (most people do, especially if they've been drinking) and when you torque the wrist his feet come out from under him and he goes head first into the ground. Hitting your head of the ground could very easily result in unconsciousness, coma, brain damage, or death.

Perhaps you apply the wrist lock or arm bar perfectly but as you take the person to the ground it just so happens that there is a rock there you didn't see and you end up doing everything right, but still he dies from bouncing his head off of the rock. You did nothing wrong, but some things just happen.

Striking your head on the ground is extremely easy to do and transfers all or the majority of your body weight right into your head. Even if your head doesn’t hit the ground you could land in a manner that causes you to break your neck. Even a simple push, as described above, can result in serious injury or even death.

So it would be great if there really were techniques that were guaranteed to be "less than lethal" but the truth is that you just never know what happens when you put your hands on someone. Therefore, any time to put your hands on someone you need to be aware that even if you do everything perfectly someone could end up seriously injured or dead.

Can You Really Disarm Someone Who Has A Gun?

By Matthew Schafer

Copyright 2008, All Rights Reserved

When people find out that you study the martial arts or self defense usually what follows is some friendly, and sometimes not so friendly, heckling. Sometimes people are actually curious about your new endeavor but they are too self conscious to talk or question you about it openly so they resort to mocking you, and other times people just don't have any patience or it...or you.

With the discovery of your new hobby comes lots of questions. Can you kick someone in the head? Did ninjas really exist? Could you beat up Steven Seagal? Is it true that a black belt has to register their hands as deadly weapons? Is it true that Chuck Norris never ate meat? Do you wear underwear under those pajamas? What would you do if I punched you in the face? Could you beat up Bruce Lee?(sure, dig him up) What would you do if ten guys, three of whom have knives, came after you and.... These are just a few of the questions that I've been asked personally. However, hands down the two most common questions I get asked over and over are: 1.) have you ever had to use it in real life? and 2.) what would you do if someone pulled a gun/can you really take a gun away from somebody? The answer to the first question of course depends on your life experience but the second one has a far more clear cut answer.

So, can you really take a gun away from somebody? Absolutely, and there are many police officers, security guards, and other professionals who have done it and lived to tell about it. While it is true that certain situations may arise where you are have few options and the chance of your success if very slim, the simple truth is that if you can get close enough to your attacker you can disarm him.

Having a gun pointed at you is indeed scary but the gun doesn't give your attacker any magical power. In fact, the big problem that people have with gun disarms isn't the realities of the situation, it is the fear that people have when they see the gun and that fear makes them immobile. Even in training, when you point a toy gun at someone so they can practice their technique you can usually see the fear in their eyes. 9 times out of 10 the person is too scared to even twitch a muscle so they just stand there, then when they do do the technique they're so flustered that they're all over the place, and they're not even using a real gun.

The simple answer is that yes, it is very possible, and in some situations down right easy, to take a gun away from someone. So here I will address the four main elements that play into your hands and make gun disarming possible.

Reason 1. The guy with the gun doesn't want to shoot you! If someone wanted to shoot you they would just walk up to you and pull the trigger and unless you are practicing proper awareness techniques you'd never even see it coming. Since your attacker is standing near you with a gun it must mean that he or she wants something else from you and they are going to use the gun to intimidate you into giving it to them.

Firearms only have two uses: to kill something or to practice killing something. If you are using a firearm to do anything else, like using it as a tool for intimidation, then you are using it improperly.

During any type of assault if the attacker doesn't immediately use violence against you it means that they generally want you to give them something or they want to move you to someplace else. If a gun toting criminal decides that he wants your wallet and he doesn't walk up to you, shoot you, and then rob you while you're on the ground, then he's going to try to distract and intimidate you with the gun while tries to get your wallet. The important thing is that if shooting you was his goal then he'd do it, but since he didn't that must mean he doesn't want to shoot you, at least not right now.

In a situation you'll have some guy in front of you waiving a gun around making demands who actually doesn't want to shoot you! If he doesn't want to shoot you then that right there will give you the upper hand because he won't shoot you right away and then when you do perform your technique he will most likely hesitate since he wasn't planning on firing the gun right then, and you can at the very least be out of the way and be working at having control of the weapon before his brain catches up and he decides to fire.

Reason 2. Most shootings happen within 5 feet. When it comes time to disarm an attacker it is very unlikely that they will be standing on the other side of a room. Nearly all shootings happen within 5 feet and this means you'll be close enough to begin with. Often it is a matter of just reaching out and taking the weapon. Remember, if you can get close enough to him you can disarm him.

Reason 3. Very few criminals know how to properly use a gun. Most people believe that a guy with a gun is an unbeatable force of nature that you cannot hope to overcome. The truth is that there is an extremely large chance that the guy pointing the gun at you has absolutely NO training in using firearms whatsoever. In fact, it is very possible that that guy has NEVER fired a gun before.

The average criminal doesn't train for his crimes. He or she either steals or buys a gun from another criminal and when they are not using that gun to intimidate people into giving up their money, their gun is tucked carefully in their pocket or in a sock drawer. They don't go to the local gun range and practice their technique and their marksmanship; if their gun jammed on them few would know how to clear it. In the same way, most hunters never touch their rifles in between hunting seasons (then they wonder why they can't hit a buck).

It is extraordinarily seldom that a criminal learns even the most basic elements of marksmanship such as how to align the sites. They just pick up a weapon and use it to intimidate people, and when they do fire it they use a method that consists of pointing the gun in the general direction of the target and pulling the trigger, and often pumping their arm, until they hit their target or their gun runs out of bullets (these methods are known as "the innocent woman and children method" or "spray and pray"). It is not unusual for a for a criminal to fire 10 or more shots at a target from a fairly close range and never hit their target. This inability to accurately shoot is one of the reasons that about 97% of gunshot wounds are nonfatal.

Another important thing that makes untrained shooters so inaccurate with handguns is that they don't know how to hold them. The thing is that if you grab a handgun and hold it so it feels comfortable and natural in your hand it will actually be off center when you point it at your target. So when they go to shoot someone and they extend their arm, their arm will be pointed directly at their target but the gun will be pointed slightly to the left, if in their right hand, or to the right, if the gun is in their left hand. Also, criminals tend to hold their guns in various unstable positions when they shoot that often don't allow them to even see their sites.

The reason that criminals are generally so bad with firearms is because they don't really have to be good. The primary thing that they use the weapon for is to intimidate people and for that they don't even have to have it loaded. Then since nearly all shootings happen within 5 feet it is pretty hard for them to miss, especially when they shoot multiple times.

What this all boils down to is the fact that most gun toting criminals don't know how to use their weapons and would have a hard time hitting the broad side of a barn unless they emptied their entire gun. You're not trying to take the gun away from a Navy SEAL here, you're trying to take the gun away from someone who probably doesn't know how to hold it, aim it, or properly squeeze the trigger. If you try to take the gun away from a Navy SEAL they probably will be able to stop, reacquire you, and shoot you when you move to take their gun; but the criminal will probably see you move then try to repeatedly pull the trigger once you've already taken control of his weapon.

It should also be mentioned that if you get shot and the bullet doesn't hit a nerve, tear a joint, or break a bone it will not make you stop your advance. Even if you do get shot you probably won't know it until afterwards when you're adrenaline levels decline.

Reason 4. Violence deplores a static environment. What does this mean? There is two types of training: static and dynamic. Static (no movement) training means that you and your partner stand in one place and practice the technique together. Dynamic (having movement) training means that you and your partner are moving around and simulating a real attack.

When it comes to practicing gun disarming almost everyone seems content with practicing static disarms. That is, you and a partner stand about 4-5 feet away from each other and your partner holds out the training gun so you can practice your disarming technique. This is great training to learn how to do a technique but it is very poor training to learn how to apply a technique.

Some people do add a small dynamic element into their training and they do this by having the partner with the gun say "bang" or pull the trigger when he sees you move. This does add a small element of realism to the training but its one that does far more harm than good.

If you want to practice to deal with a situation then you have to model that situation under controlled circumstances and learn how to deal with it there. This static training of two people standing there, one ready to blow the other away at the slightest sign of movement, is hardly realistic. Sure you need to start with static training to learn your techniques but once you have them down then its time to start with dynamic training.

Dynamic training involves actually reenacting a violent assault. Once you have the technique down then you need to practice by first deciding on a goal for your partner to try to achieve (either taking your money or moving you to someplace else) and then have them try to accomplish that goal by having them walk up to you and then violently and suddenly pull the gun, shove it into your face, maybe grab you with the other hand and yell, "GIVE MY YOUR F%^&ING MONEY!!". Maybe you have them push you, pull you, or even choke you with their free hand. This kind of training actually models a real assault and it will quickly make you aware of two important elements of firearm disarming. (for tips on how to do dynamic training simply search for and watch videos of real assaults on the internet then reenact them during your training)

The first element is that during the course of the entire assault there are actually numerous great opportunities to disarm them. If you have your partner just stand in front of you and get ready to shoot you if you make a move then you won't be able to accomplish much, but if you pay attention during a session of dynamic training you'll see that your attacker actually gives you opportunities to relieve him of his weapon.

The difference is his focus. During static training there isn't much you can learn or do because your partner's focus is on shooting you as soon as you move, but during dynamic training your partner's focus is on getting your money or making you move someplace and while they are using the gun to intimidate you they aren't focused on the gun or on shooting you and they actually leave themselves and their weapon vulnerable throughout the encounter.

If you practice this you'll notice that the more intense you get in your training the more it seems that the "bad guy" almost wants to give you his gun.

The second element is what we call the "oh shit factor", or more precisely the "startle reflex". Namely, when you're startled, like when someone comes out of the blue and violently shoves a gun in your face, your natural reaction is to stop and tighten your muscles making your body very ridged. In other words you freeze. Criminals actually count on this and they rely on people freezing when they attack them to make their jobs easier.

As I stated above, one of the biggest things that make disarming difficult is not the techniques but the fear of having a gun pointed at you. Gun disarming is nearly impossible for a lot of people, including the "experts", because they only practice static disarms and therefore they never learned to overcome their "oh shit factor"/"startle reflex" and so when they actually get a gun pulled on them they just freeze like a deer in the headlights.

Not to badmouth anyone and I won't give any names, but I do know that there are a small of handful people who advertise themselves as the "foremost experts of firearm disarmament" in the country. These people claim to go all over the country an teach the CIA, FBI, military, SWAT, and every other unit and organization you can think of how to disarm people who have guns. They claim to be the "experts" and the "go to guys" that government agencies go to when they need to learn disarming techniques, and they also sell their how-to DVDs for $39.95.

I've attended some of their training and seen some of their videos and not one of them do any dynamic training at all. One guy, in his how-to video, gives a lecture while wearing a bullet proof vest and a motorcycle helmet as his partner stands in front of him with a revolver loaded with paint bullets. He then stands in front of his partner with his hands up and quickly slaps the gun to the side while trying not to get shot. Even this guy, the so called "foremost authority", couldn't do it 10 times in a row without getting shot somewhere. This kind of "who's faster" static training does nothing more then get people shot.

By doing dynamic training and reenacting violent assaults you learn to deal with your startle reflex and you actually teach your brain a new behavior to perform for that stimulus. You need to have someone suddenly shove a gun into your face and violently shout demands and profanities at you, and even rough you up a little, during training because that probably is how it will happen to you in real life. You need to make your training as real, violent, and scary as possible so you can train your brain to act instead of freeze.

You should even include other people, loved ones or bystanders, in your training because they can get shot while you are doing your disarm. You don't need to have your husband or wife come to class and stand there during your technique, but you should put something in their place as a marker to indicate where they are, like a chair. Then when you do your technique you need to be mindful of where they are so they don't get shot. After all if you successfully disarm and neutralize your attacker but a loved one gets shot in the process you might not have come out ahead.

If you don't overcome your startle reflex if will be nearly impossible to disarm a gun but if you do overcome the reflex you'll find that performing a disarm can even become a reflex.

With my students, I have them stand in the middle of the room and then I walk up to them at odd angles then suddenly and violently assault them with the firearm. After doing this for a few weeks they have no problem with clearing the weapon. I can walk up to them after class while they’re putting on their shoes and suddenly surprise them with the gun and on pure instinct they will clear and control the weapon before I even realize whats going on-and I'm the guy that taught them the technique. It’s just a matter of training.

(Scary? Yes, but watch it closely and you’ll see that the gun is just for intimidation and he makes no attempt to protect it. Taking his gun away would be child’s play.)

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.

Can You Talk Your Way Out Of Violent Crime?

You're sleeping peacefully in your bed when suddenly something disturbs you. You don't quite know what it is, but whatever it is, it is enough to rouse you from your slumber and so you slowly open your eyes...only to wish you hadn't. That little disturbance you felt wasn't in your mind; it was a knife being pushed against your throat. You go from being in a deep sleep to being fully awake in about a second as you see a large naked man kneeling next to you on your bed. In a blur of motion he leaps on top of you as he covers your mouth with his hand and pushes the blade of the knife a little harder against your throat as he says in a low growl, "Don't scream or I'll cut your f$%ing throat."

This scenario is extremely scary, and what's even scarier is that untold thousands of people have woken up to find that this, or a very similar situation, is happening to them. In the middle of the night an intruder has crawled through a window and now plans to victimize them, and this is probably going to be the most horrible experience they ever have. The big question here is: can they talk their way out?

This issue comes up over and over in the self defense world: can you actually talk a violent criminal out of attacking you? Despite the fact that certain martial art and self defense instructors teach various verbal techniques to do just this, the simple answer is that out of a thousand situations you might be able to talk your way out of one, maybe.

There are those people who really believe that if you talk to a criminal and you are able to humanize yourself you can then get that criminal to see the errors of his, or her, ways and they'll go away. They believe that all you need to do is get that criminal to see you as a person and not just a target, and as soon as you do their humanity will take over. If you think about it, it really does make sense...but that is the problem.

To you and me it may seem perfectly reasonable that you would be able to rationalize your way out of a violent situation, but that would be assuming that your attacker is making an out-of-character "mistake" by attacking you when it's far more likely that attacking you is perfectly "in character" for them. The real problem in this kind of thinking is that we are applying our morality and reason onto another person, but if you've never robbed someone at knife point then chances are that your particular moral code doesn't apply to them.

The truth is that most criminals commit crimes for a living so victimizing you is part of their daily life. Add on to that the fact that about 63% of attacks in the United States happen with the attacker being either drunk or on drugs. If somebody does something all the time, may possibly be doing it for a living, and there is a good chance that they are either drunk or on drugs, do you really think that you will be able to get them to stop with a few words? Unfortunately, the only thing that will consistently deter criminals is the chance of being hurt or caught.

There are only three things that will deter a criminal from attacking you. The first is the likelihood of getting caught, the second is the likelihood of getting injured, and the third is actually getting injured. Very few criminals actually care about hurting you and reasoning with them just won't work. You have to convince them that they'll be caught or injured if they commit the crime or you have to actually injure them, and the only way you can do any of this is with actions, not words. Anything less just won't work and can make the situation worse.

The only way you can convince a criminal that it's likely that they will be caught is to attract other people to you, who could possibly help or call the police, and typically this means yelling. If you are approached by a criminal and you start yelling for help you may be able to scare the criminal away but it's a gamble. Most criminals either attack you by surprise, which means that you won't have time to yell, or they come up and talk to you first and do an "interview" to size you up. If you recognize that someone is approaching you to attack you and you start yelling for help while they are 15 or 20 feet away if could work, but if the attacker gets closer and you start yelling they might lunge at you to shut you up. The success of this manner of deterrence is a matter of whether there are people in the area to attract and whether the attacker is close enough to get to you and shut you up before your yelling draws attention. In any matter I wouldn't want to trust my safety to the possibility of scaring off an attacker by yelling for help.

So if scaring them away by attracting other people isn't reliable, what about convincing them that they might get injured by attacking you? This actually works a large percentage of the time. There have been many studies done with both serial killers and repeat violent offenders in prison that try to determine what makes a violent criminal attack. Across the board the criminals said that they wanted to commit their crimes as cleanly as possible and if they suspected that their victim would fight back or that they wouldn't be able to take them by surprise then they would pick someone else rather than risk being hurt. Therefore, they carefully picked their targets and focused on people who showed certain vulnerabilities, namely not paying attention to their surroundings and certain mannerisms that showed a lack of confidence (which indicates that they won't put up a fight). Of these two, not paying attention to their surroundings was seen as a much more important vulnerability than a lack of confidence because with a skilled surprise attack they can avoid a fight.

There are certain techniques that have been identified as communicating the message to an attacker that you, as the potential victim, will either fight back or will not easily be taken by surprise, and these techniques are surprisingly simple. For example, both serial killers and repeat violent offenders admitted that if they were looking for victims and one of those candidates looked them in the eye then they most often would pick someone else. This goes back to the desire to take their victims by surprise; if the potential victim does something that shows the criminal that they know and recognize that they, the criminal, are "there" then the criminal feels that there is a lesser chance that a surprise attack can be successful. Acknowledging the presence of a criminal has proven to be a great deterrent.

The way you use this to deter a criminal is to constantly be on the lookout for them. You want to not only be aware of who and what is around you at all times, but you also want to show off the fact that you are doing so. While it is important that you walk in a confident manner, it is far more important that you walk with your head up and be constantly looking around and behind you. If a criminal sees you doing this it will make you unattractive as a target. Next, you want to acknowledge anyone that makes you feel uncomfortable or looks out of place. Look them in the eye for a second, give them a quick smile, a wave, a nod, or say hello. By showing a criminal that you know that they are there you become undesirable to all but the most determined.

The other way that you communicate to a criminal that they may get hurt by attacking you is to show them you will fight back. If a criminal approaches you to "interview" you, to test your vulnerabilities, and you appear fearful or you let them get as close as they want, then that communicates to them that you won't fight back and that you're an easy target. What you want to do is the opposite, if they try to get close you need to look them in the eye, confidently tell them to stop, and assert your boundaries. If they test your resolve by taking another step you need become aggressive with them. Again, studies with criminals have shown that if you become aggressive then they will most likely leave as opposed to risking injury or attracting attention.

Beyond that the only thing that you can do to deter them is to actually injure them and this is where a lot of people get uncomfortable. A lot of the so called "experts" tell you to not resist being victimized, to give a criminal everything they want and hope that they take what they want and leave. While it is usually better to give up a purse or wallet then risk serious injury fighting with a criminal, if they want something more than a material possession I advise you to ALWAYS fight back, even if you don't know how. If all you do is to aggressively start hitting them and screaming it could be enough to create a chance for you to escape or convince him to leave.

Don't listen to people who tell you not to fight back, and that if you do then you're just inviting more violence from the attacker. Federal victimization studies show that people who resist an attacker and fight back are not injured any more than those who don't. The fact is that it is just the opposite. Studies have shown that over half of all attackers will actually leave if the person indicates that they will resist. So if they want your purse or wallet it may be better just to give it to them, but if they want more there isn't any benefit to not fighting back.

Now, I want to make one point very clear, when I said "injure them" I didn't mean "hurt" them or cause them pain. Techniques that rely on causing pain or discomfort to a violent individual are simply unreliable because of differences in pain tolerances, the fact that some people actually enjoy pain, and also that 63% of attackers are either under the influence of drugs or alcohol which can effect the functioning of there pain receptors. When I say "injure" I mean that you have to take a part of their body and render it nonfunctional and in need of medical treatment.

If a violent criminal grabs you and you punch them in the face the result would be pain and that pain may only serve to make them mad because the punch didn't actually "do" anything. If, however, you lowered the punch and hit them in the throat you could cause an injury by crushing their windpipe. A crushed windpipe is not subjective nor is it something you can "shake off". If your windpipe is crushed you will not be able to breathe, which will quickly induce panic, and unless a tracheotomy is preformed you will die of asphyxiation. While punching them in the face will probably just make them angry, punching them in the throat and crushing it will cause them to stop their attack, involuntarily grab their throat, make a high pitched noise while trying to inhale, drop to the ground in a panic, and continue to make the noise until they...well...stop.

The point is that the punch to the face is an example of pain and the punch to the throat is an example of a medically verified injury. A criminal will only stop their attack for two reasons: if they decide to stop, or if you make them stop, and the only way to make them stop is to stop the functioning of a part, or all, of their body.

As far as talking a violent criminal out of their plans of attacking you goes, as you can tell from what I've presented here the chances are incredibly slim. The only way that someone would be talked out of the crime would be if they were a rational person to begin with, sober, did not have a criminal nature, and they were new to this whole "hurting people for kicks, money, or sex thing".

Studies have shown that trying to talk or plead with your attacker can actually make things much worse. For instance, since rape is about power and not sex, if you plead, cry, beg, or try to verbally dissuade a rapist it may increase his sense of control and make it more enjoyable for him or her.

I encourage everyone here to take what I've written to heart and not only pay more attention to your surrounds but take a reputable self defense class as well. I hope that all of you not only learn some dependable self defense techniques but also learn to get in touch with your aggressive nature because it is primarily your ability to be aware or who and what is around you and your ability to be aggressive and fight when cornered that with keep you safe.