The Case For Studying Self-Defense

By Matthew Schafer

Copyright 2008, All Rights Reserved

The other day I did some grocery shopping right after teaching a self-defense class, and while I was inspecting some apples I noticed the woman standing next to me make an odd face. I looked up to see a woman in perhaps her late fifties staring at my school logo which was printed at my shirt. With a still scrunched up face she said, "What...do you teach karate or something?" I then explained to her that I taught self-defense classes for a living, and her response was to roll her eyes, sigh, and comment that she didn't know why people wasted their money on "that" kind of thing because we live in a safe town and if there is a problem the police are only a phone call away.

"We live in a county with five different police agencies so it is beyond me why someone would give you one cent", she said. I replied, "You're right, but I'd suppose that you venture out of the county from time to time. Perhaps go on vacations..." "We have cell phones now", she snapped, "If someone needed help you could call from anyplace". I just smiled and replied, "Well, it seems that I'm a practitioner of a useless profession" and I then walked away (which reminds me that I still need to buy apples).

You can't really argue with people who are committed to a fantasy, and the idea that the police will be there whenever we need them is just that. Let's clear something up right now, the police are a great and valuable service provided to us by our government, but the average response time for the police from the time you call 911 is usually around 10 to 15 minutes, but it can even be up to 30 minutes or more. If a police officer happens to be in the area he or she might be able to be there in only 10 minutes but the thing is that most violent crimes are committed in less than a minute with most taking only a few seconds.

It may surprise you to know that today 70% of bank robbers get away. That's right 70%! How? Since police response times are generally around 10-15 minutes from the time the silent alarm is sounded, bank robbers just make sure that they're in and out of the bank in anywhere from 3-6 minutes. They go in, rob the bank, run out, and by the time the police show up the robbers are just another car driving down the road possibly miles away. Getting away with robbing a bank is all about beating the police's response time.

If some low-life who's walking down the street spots you, decides that the money in your wallet is just what he needs to finance his drug habit, and then starts walking over to you, do you honestly think that the police are going to show up in time to protect you from him. Chances are that he will confront you, accost you, and run away before you even realize exactly what's going on, let alone have the time or even the chance to dial 911.

If all you have to do is pick up the phone and dial 911 and the police will show up and save the day, then how do you explain the fact that in America a woman is sexually assaulted every two and a half minutes?

Consider this unfortunate story: On March 16th, 1975, three women were living in a townhouse in Washington DC. It was late at night and they were sound asleep when they were awakened by the sound of their back door being kicked in by three men. Two of the men quickly found one of the women in bed on the second floor and began to beat and violate her. The two other women hid on the third floor, called 911, and then went out the window onto the roof to hide. After a while they saw a police car slowly drive past their house but it never stopped, so the women bravely went back into the house where they again called the police and then went back out onto the roof.

After a half hour the women didn't hear anything from inside the house so they assumed that the police had arrived without them noticing or that the intruders had left so they went back inside to find their friend believing that they were safe. However, the intruders were waiting for them and all three women were viciously beaten and rapped...for 14 horrible hours.

Luckily all three women survived and they sued the Washington DC Police Department. The case lasted for years and the last appeal was ruled on in 1981 when the DC Court of Appeals said: "The duty to provide public services is owed to the public at large and, absent a special relationship between the police and an individual, no specific legal duty exists". In plain english what this means is the police can't be everywhere at once and they have no actual legal duty to help you.

Think about that for a minute, while we have some extremely fine men and women on the police forces in our country, they actually have no legal duty to help you. Even if the police do show up when you need them there is no guarantee that they can protect you. They may show up and tell you that legally there is nothing they can do, or they may end up being victims themselves. There have been numerous cases around the country where police have responded to an emergency and ended up being shot, killed, taken hostage, or had other horrible things happen to them.

Bottom line, you and you alone are responsible for your own safety. It is your job to keep yourself safe and protect yourself and your family from criminals, and it’s the job of the police to show up usually afterwards and arrest the bad guys. Once the criminals are arrested you then hope that they go to jail and stay there because after being arrested most criminals are booked, arraigned, make bail, and are back out on the street just a few hours later.

Crimes happen fast and if you don't know how to protect yourself then there really isn't a whole lot the police can do for you. It is imperative that people learn how to defend themselves because the truth is when a criminal attacks it really is just you and him. If you know how to defend yourself then there is a good chance that you can walk out of the incident safe and unharmed, but if you don't know how to defend yourself then you really have to rely on the hope that the criminal is satisfied with only taking your money.

Should I Run Out And Buy A Gun?

By Matthew Schafer

Copyright 2008, All Rights Reserved

I get a lot of questions from people about whether or not they should buy a gun for self-defense, and I also get asked every now and then why gun owners should take self-defense classes because, after all, they have guns. My answer to these people is that I believe that guns are great tools, I am a big believer in owning a gun, and I own guns myself, however, buying a gun doesn't mean that you no longer have to train in basic self-defense skills.

Often people want to use guns as an excuse to get out of training. Some people believe that guns are the most effective form of self-defense so if you own one you don't have to waist time with "lesser" methods such as hand-to-hand combat. The truth is that this form of reasoning is extremely flawed and incredibly dangerous.

A gun is an absolutely great self-defense tool but it is only a tool. What determines whether someone can use a gun to effectively defend themselves in a violent situation is first and foremost the individual's level of training and competency with the weapon. Even then the gun just serves as an extension of the individual's training and preparation. It is always the individual that succeeds or fails, or in this case lives or dies, and not the tool that they have in their hand.

Gun enthusiasts tend to not agree with my point of view, but I, a gun enthusiast myself, believe that they focus too much on their tool. Some people actively train with and carry their guns for the purpose of self-defense and believe that that alone will keep them safe and while I have nothing but respect for these people I firmly believe that they are not any safer than an unarmed self-defense practitioner. The reason for this is that focusing on any self-defense tool is missing the point of self-defense entirely.

The point of self-defense is to first notice and avoid potential danger, second to de-escalate and escape danger, and third to neutralize attackers through bodily injury. If someone attacks you, you want to take as much force as you can possibly get, drive that force through the weakest areas of their body, and then repeat as necessary. This will result in the temporary or permanent destruction of a bodily function or structure which will cause the attacker to be physically unable to continue their attack. When you are attacked it doesn't matter how all this is accomplished, it only matters that it is accomplished. It matters not whether the thing that generates the force and drives it into the vulnerable areas of their body is a fist, foot, baseball bat, rock, golf club, axe, a gun, a rifle, a grenade, etc. It doesn't matter what punctures a lung or blows out a knee, all that matters is that the lung gets punctured or that the knee gets blown out, after all the lung or knee won't know the difference between the various methods of delivery.

The reason that guns are a great self-defense tool is firstly because they create fear and hesitation in the other individual, and secondly, and far more importantly, they have the ability to punch holes through the person's body which can result in a wide variety of bodily dysfunctions, impairments, structural failures, and possibly death. Add to that that guns can do this from a far greater range then you can with other weapons and they can do it effectively and fairly dependably. However, as great and effective as guns are you can get the same, or comparable, results with other non-projectile weapons such as your body. When a bullet enters someone's body it can puncture organs, fracture bones, tear nerves and cartilage, or rip joints but you can get the same result yourself by throwing someone down and stomping on them. The only difference is that the bullet can do it faster, with less effort, and from a greater distance.

The main problem with focusing on any weapon or self-defense device, whether it be a gun, knife, pepper spray, alarm, whistle, or any other, can be found in what we refer to as the "rule of thumb". The rule of thumb states that when you are attacked you use whatever is in your hands at the time to defend yourself. If you have a cell phone in your hand you can use your cell phone, if you have your car keys in your hands you can use your keys, and if your hands are empty you use your bare hands. It also means that if a weapon isn't in your hands when a violent situation starts you should forget about using it, at least for the time being. How many people have been beaten, raped, or killed because an attacker confronted them and instead of just defending themselves from the attack they spent their time trying to get at a weapon that they had in their pocket or purse? If you have pepper spray in your hand and you're attacked then by all means use your pepper spray, but if you have pepper spray in your pocket and you're attacked you should forget about your pepper spray and just defend yourself. Violence happens extremely fast and you can't waist time by trying to get at the gun that is on your hip, if you do then you could be unconscious or fatally injured by the time you have it half way out of the holster.

People who are really into weapons usually brainwash themselves into believing that they need their weapon in order to be dangerous or effective in a self-defense situation. You need to remember that self-defense is all about causing injuries and although labor saving devices are nice, you don't need any weapon other than your body to cause them. Think about it, if you have a gun in a holster on your hip covered by two layers of clothing and someone comes up to you, cocks their right fist, and throws a punch at you, does it make more sense to try to pull up your clothing, grab your gun, pull it out of the holster, disengage the safety, point it at your target, pull the trigger, and then hope the gun goes off (it very well may jam or under duress you may not have disengaged the safety or chambered a round), hope the bullet hits the attacker, and hope that the attacker stops his attack when he gets shot, or to simply forget about the gun, step in and hit your attacker in the chin with your palm which will knock him back and could very well knock him out, and then when you have a moment or two to think, get your gun out?

If someone attacks you and you don't have a weapon already in your hand, you should forget about it. Criminals attack in such a manner that you can't waist time messing around with a weapon. When a criminal attacks they use the same method employed by police SWAT teams and special operations units. That method is called "Speed, Surprise, and Violence of Action". A soldier or SWAT team member can talk to you at length about this method and while a criminal most likely will not be able to give you the terms, they can definitely talk to you about the general process. Both the police officer, soldier, and criminal try to strike their target with such speed that their target won't have time to react, with surprise so their target will not have the ability to prepare of plan, and with such violence that the target will go into a defensive state of shock and not have the ability to react. This method has proven to be so effective and reliable that it is used by every tactical unit in the world. This being so, you can see why when you're attacked you don't have time to dick around trying to grab a tool.

Interestingly, when it comes to combat in close quarters many special operations units teach, and I agree totally with this, that it is much easier to take your opponent's weapon and use it on them than it is to use your own weapon. For example, if you were going through a building with your handgun and you turned a corner and suddenly you were standing next to an attacker who also had his gun out, would it make more sense for both of you to start shooting and let bullets fly everywhere, or to just move into your attacker and control his weapon, take it away, and shoot him with it? If both of you were to start shooting then both of you could end up dead. Plus, in such close quarters it is actually very hard, even for experienced soldiers, to place a shot on their opponent that can stop them. Unless the bullet fractures a bone, tears a joint, or hits a nerve it won't instantly stop someone, even if you shoot someone in the heart and their heart explodes they will still have about 15 seconds left of conscious and controlled movement. Personally even though I own a gun I don't carry it because if I want to shoot my attacker I'll take their gun away and shoot them with that.

So to gun owners I tell them that they need to train in basic self-defense skills because there is a very good chance that they won't be able to get to their guns under duress, after all police officers are heavily trained to use their guns, they wear them out in the open so they don't have any clothes encumbering themselves from getting at them, and they use quick release holsters to aid in their ability to get their guns quickly, and yet officers are killed all the time with their guns still in their holsters.

To people who are interested in buying a gun for self-defense I tell them to sit down and decide whether or not they can actually shoot someone. If they feel that they can't or if they're not sure I tell then I wouldn't recommend it. If you have a gun but don't have the mental ability to pull the trigger and take someone's life when you need to then the only thing that will happen is that the criminal will now have a brand new gun and you'll be far worse off. If they can honestly say that they can pull the trigger when they need to, I then tell them that as long as they realize the weapons limitations, receive training in combat shooting, and actively practice with it, it is a great tool. Then I warn them about focusing on it too much and feeling overconfident because they have it, after all just because you have a gun doesn't mean that your attacker can't take it away from you and use it on you.

If you're interested in learning to defend yourself don't rush out and buying a gun. To truly be able to defend yourself you have to be more than a one-trick-pony. If you are interested in defending yourself the first and foremost thing you have to do is make the conscious decision to take responsibility for your own safety. Until you make that decision and accept that commitment you won't be truly mentally prepared.

The next step is to educate yourself. You need to learn who is most likely to attack you and how they will do it. You need to learn what makes people attack, how criminals think, how they commit their crimes, how they choose their victims, how to spot them, what to do if you spot them, and how to stop them just to name a few. After you learn that you need to learn awareness techniques that will allow you to spot potential criminals. This can't be stressed enough: if you're not being aware of your surroundings and looking for criminals you most likely won't spot them and there will be very little anyone can do for you.

After that you need to learn techniques for de-escalating potentially violent situations like arguments and aggressive confrontations. About 80% of all assaults happen during or just after arguments so if you can de-escalate them you remove about 80% of your threats right there. If you don't know these things you most likely won't have the opportunity to use any self-defense technique let alone your shiny new gun (to this end I would highly recommend getting the book Surviving Violence which teaches you all these things. To get it go to www.myspace.com/selfprotection).

Next you need to take a reliable course in self-defense. To be really rounded out you need to be able to defend yourself from basic grabs, holds, punches, kicks, knives, clubs, firearms, and multiple attackers, but any amount of learning will help you survive. An attacker isn't going to stand back, put their arms up, and fight you like a boxer; instead they will most likely rush you and be on you like an angry pit-bull repeatedly overwhelming you with punches, pushes, and foul language. When this happens you need to have the ability to use your own body and bodyweight to cause severe and debilitating injuries to them.

After that you need to learn to use improvised weapons. Improvised weapons are ordinary items that can be used to cause injuries; these include books, bags, ink pens, magazines, hairspray, keys, combs, dirt and sand, and pretty much any other item. For the ordinary citizen knowing how to use improvised weapons is far more important than traditional weapons because, as stated in the "rule of thumb", you are far more likely to have these items in your hands when violence happens to you. Unless your well trained and prepared you probably won't have pepper spray in your hands, and there is a very small chance that someone will attack you while you're holding a gun, but you just may have an ink pen in your hand.

After you learn improvised weapons you should learn to use personal weapons. Personal weapons are ready made devices designed and sold for the purpose of self-defense. These items include pepper spray, tactical flashlights, stun guns, retractable batons, personal alarms, knives, and others. I suggest learning to use these before you learn to use guns because there are a lot of places that you can't take guns but you can take pepper spray. You can't take a gun on a plane or into various foreign countries but you can take an ink pen or a tactical flashlight (a tactical flashlight is a small flashlight that shoots a high intensity light that blinds an individual and gives you the opportunity to run away or close distance to them and cause injuries). Most states have laws against various personal weapons so you need to check with your individual state, but simple improvised weapons are legal everywhere.

When all this is done only then do I recommend learning to use firearms BUT I don't recommend buying one just yet. Guns are expensive and it is easy to buy the wrong one. You need to first go to a range and spend some time shooting various guns to see if a gun is right for you. Next you need to decide on exactly how you want to use the gun (do you want to carry the gun or leave it home just for home defense) and speak with a knowledgeable dealer and/or instructor. Most gun dealers are happy to answer your questions and help you select the right gun.

Now that you have a gun you need to get lots and lots of training. Go to your local range or gun store and ask about taking a course to get your CCP (concealed carry permit) and take a course in combat shooting or defensive shooting. Standing in place and shooting a target at the range is one thing but pulling a gun out and shooting an actual person who is trying to seriously injure or kill you is another. You need to learn how to use your gun when you're under attack and actively practice, practice, practice. If you expect to use your gun to defend yourself you need to access your gun underneath your clothing, pull it, disengage the safeties, chamber a round if not already done, point it at your attacker, align the sites with your target, and press the trigger until the gun goes off which will take a good 3 to 6 seconds even for an experienced shooter while all your attacker needs to do is hit, shoot, or stab you which could only take a second.

Guns are great tools and huge responsibilities and only a person truly committed to their own safety should own one otherwise it will probably end up hurting someone or falling into the wrong hands.

The last thing I'll say about guns are that guns are not for self-defense! If you're planning on buying a gun to defend yourself I suggest you don't get one. Used correctly there are only two purposes that guns serve, and those are for killing someone and to practicing killing someone. Having a gun on your hip doesn't keep you safe, all it allows you to do is to kill someone that is trying to hurt you. Guns are a tool for killing and if you carry one it should only be with the intent of killing a criminal otherwise there's a good chance are that when you need to use it you'll fail to pull it, or if you succeed in pulling it there is a good chance that you'll use it to intimidate your attacker instead of lining up the sights and pulling the trigger. This lack of preparedness and failure to properly use the weapon is the reason that over 90% of people who are shot in their own homes are shot with their own guns.

Is it true that most fights end up on the ground?

Yes and no. While it is true that pretty much every fight or violent assault ends up with one or more people lying on the ground, usually unconscious or a least badly beaten, it is not true that most fights turn into wrestling matches.

The statistic that 95% of all fights go to the ground is actually a misquoted finding made in a study preformed by the Los Angels Police Department. They did a study that stated that when they were arresting a suspect and the suspect resisted arrest, 95% of the time they had to put the suspect on the ground in order to cuff them. Not quite the same thing is it?

This false statistics has been spread by the sport fighting community as a sales tactic. By telling everyone that they need to learn to wrestle because "95% of all fights end up on the ground" they enroll more students and of course sell more merchandise such as instructional video tapes and special martial arts uniforms and clothing that won't rip when you wrestle.

What is true is that about 90% of fights and violent assaults last about 5 seconds, start with a right hook, and end when the other guy eats that punch and falls down and bounces his head off the ground. Quite often the trauma caused by the person hitting their head on the ground causes loss of memory , concussions, brain damage, coma, and even death.

The only times real fights or violent assaults end up on the ground is when both people slip and fall, and that's usually caused by them having poor balance.

Another thing that is true is that when people die in fights and violent assaults its quite often because they did go to the ground. Either they slipped and fell or they decided to go to the ground and wrestle and ended up with the other guy, or other guys, just stomping and kicking them until they stopped moving.

Going to the ground or wrestling in a real fight or violent encounter is the last thing that you want to do because when you're on the ground you can only deal with one person at a time. There is a saying that you never know how many people you're fighting until you're fighting them all. You might think you're fighting just one guy, but he may have a few friends hanging around and if he starts to lose they might all jump in to help.

A common tactic that gangs use, both to victimize people and as an initiation rite, is called "the sacrificial lamb". In this technique a group of hoodlums send one person out to confront someone, sometimes a police officer. The person's job it to try to grab a hold of the person and to get him to either grapple standing up or wrestle on the ground. If the sacrificial lamb succeeds in getting the guy to grapple or wrestle then everyone will jump out and they will all attack their victim at once. If the sacrificial lamb isn't successful then he or she is left to fiend for themselves. If you are the intended victim and you fall for the sacrificial lamb and end up trying to put them in a hold or wrestle them on the ground you could be eating shoe leather.

Wrestling is a great sport but it is only appropriate for sport fighting. If you know real self defense techniques then you wouldn't waist your time with wrestling anyway.

Is board breaking really all that great?

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2007


When people learn that you practice martial arts they generally ask the same questions and the same comments start. Now I don't really mind when someone who knows nothing about the martial arts starts going on about this or that; what really gets me is when someone who studies, or thinks they study, the martial arts starts rambling asinine comments and questions. This is one of the main reasons I stopped reading "Black Belt" and other martial art magazines.

What got me this time is the propaganda promoted by the martial arts that are into breaking boards, and the people who spout scientific formulas for determining how hard you punch and kick.

These two issues may seem unrelated to the untrained eye but the all make they same mistakes.

First you have the board breaking community which states that board breaking is essential to learning martial arts and that it's a great tool for teaching you how to strike. They also say that since it takes about 8lbs of pressure to break a typical pine board and most of the bones in the body can also be broken with only 8lbs of pressure that board breaking is a "must" if you want to cause "real damage" to the body. The infamous Ashida Kim stated that since it takes 8lbs of pressure to break most bones that you only need to be able to strike with 8lbs of pressure.

Then you have the various formulas people come up with for determining how much force you are punching and kicking with. They add in various numbers and say that someone with X amount of weight who can strike with Y amount of speed can cause M amount of damage to the body when they hit it. If you do a search on the internet you can find all kinds of pages with these formulas on it.

What both of these groups fail to consider is that there is NO real correlation between hitting a board and hitting the human body. You see, a board is brittle and when you hit it, it resists and by resisting it breaks. The human body of the other hand is more like hitting a water balloon. The soft tissues of the body yield to the force and bend and move rather than break.

Firstly, simple Newtonian Physics states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So let's say that someone is holding a board for me to break. What is the first thing that I do? I check the board holder's stance because if they're not holding it right the board won't break. Why? If his stance isn't strong enough, isn't physically and geometrically sound, when I hit the board he will yield and the board won't break. My force hits the board and the board holder gets knocked backwards and the force dissipates. If he holds the board correctly the force isn't dissipated by his backward movement and the board, which is brittle and resists, breaks.

There are quite a few lessons to be taken away from this scenario. Consider that the board holder has to stand in a certain way to withstand the force of the blow. Now when you hit a person for real how often will they be standing in a manner to resist your force? Probably never. Chances are they will be standing naturally or they will be up on their toes. In other words, if you walk up to someone and hit them you will knock them backwards simply because they won't be standing correctly to resist the force.

If I punch that board and break it, and then the board holder puts the pieces down and walks towards me and I punch him in the ribs in the exact same manner that I punched the board, he will move backwards and the force will largely dissipate without a break occurring. If I transfer X amount of force with my punch he will cause a large portion to dissipate by moving backwards which will take force away from the ribs. Then if my balance is off and I move backwards too even more force will dissipate instead of going into the ribs.

Next we have to consider the fact that the body responds to trauma by moving the effected area away from the negative stimulus. In the same way that my hand quickly jerks backwards when I touch a hot pan, my body will jerk my ribs backwards if they are hit. The way my body does this is by rotating the injured area away from the negative stimulus, a fist, and moving backwards. You can see this by going up to someone and forcefully poking them in the ribs with your thumb. What will they do? They will bend foreword at the ribs, the point of trauma, rotate that side of the body backwards, and they will cover that area with their hands while taking a small step back. The harder you poke them the more profound the reaction. It should also be noted that the step backwards is an involuntary reaction meant to move the ribs away from the poke and not caused by the force of the impact.

We also have to take into consideration the fact that the body is soft and pliable. Not only does the force of the punch knock the "bad guy" backwards and not only does his body execute a series on involuntary reactions meant to jerk the injured area away from my fist, all of which causes the force to dissipate, but his body actually compresses. That's right! The human body can actually compress about 3 inches before it has to break. So the ribs will actually bend away from my fist and sink into the organs. Much like the reed that weathers the storm by bending and being supple while the mighty oak is broken because it resisted the wind.

If you have ever actually hit someone in the body you have felt your hand sink into them without anything breaking. The body is very soft and will compress about 3 inches before having to break.

So if I hit someone in the ribs and the force of my blow knocks him backwards, he performs involuntary movements to jerk the ribs away from my fist by rotating, bending, and stepping, and then the rib actually compresses rather than breaks, then how is hitting a board anything like hitting the human body? Why do people put such faith in these scientific formulas that, while they are somewhat on track and scientifically sound, ignore the human element? Would you apply the same force equations to driving a truck into a brick wall as you would for driving it into a jello? No. The wall resists, like the board, and the jello yields, like the human body.

That's one of the main reasons why people don't get the "correct" reactions when they hit another person. Everyone is training to break boards and hit heavy bags and ignoring the fact that since the body will yield to dissipate the force you have to hit it harder and penetrate further.

Do You Really Have To Be In Shape In Order To Defend Yourself?

By Matthew Schafer

Copyright 2008, All Rights Reserved

My articles are published in several martial arts publications and they are generally seen as somewhat controversial. I believe that is just because I see things a little differently than most people do in that I tend to focus on the context of martial arts as opposed to the content. The context of the martial arts is simply that someone is trying to cause serious injury or death to you and you intend to prevent them by causing serious injury or death to them first; the content is simply how you get that done. The content of the martial arts include all your punches, kicks, blocks, throws, disarms, and every other technique and weapon in the martial art arsenal, and that is where most people tend to keep their focus.

Tae Kwon Do is a fine example of this; I studied Tae Kwon Do for about 3 years and, despite that I found it to be a lot of fun, I was disappointed in that it was nothing more than a library of kicking techniques and forms. To get my black belt I had to learn so many punches, so many kicks, so many hand techniques, so many stances, so many forms, spar so many people, and break so many boards (and also write so many checks) and voila...I am now a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. In the end I knew a lot of techniques but I still didn't know how to use them. My training had been 100% content (how you get things done) and 0% context (learning how to use violence to cause injuries). By ignoring the context of the martial arts that Tae Kwon Do school that I attended was cranking out black belts that had no idea what the realities of violence and injury are and therefore stand a very poor chance in actually defending themselves from a real attack.

I understand why people don't focus on the context of the martial arts and that is because 1.) people don't understand the context, 2.) people are happy with the content and don't care about the context, and 3.) the context can be damn scary and people don't want to acknowledge it. The content of martial arts is a lot of fun and the reality of the context is not so much, but still is has to be addressed if you ever want to be able to defend yourself. One of the great things about the context is that it is really easy! The content of the martial arts can be very complicated and hard (I never could do a jump spinning hook kick) but the context is causing injuries to people and that is incredibly simple.

Causing injuries to people is so simple that anyone with a fairly functional use of their body can do it. So, here comes the big question...do you have to be in shape in order to defend yourself? The answer is both yes and no and depends on the context of the defense. If I want to step into a ring and compete with someone to find out who is better then I'd better be in shape if I want to win, but if I'm walking down the street and some punk sticks a gun in my face it really doesn't matter what condition I'm in because I’m not going to get into a boxing match with my attacker; so the answer is no you don't have to be in shape.

I understand that that flies in the face of what every single other martial arts instructor will tell you, in fact in a recent issue of Black Belt Magazine noted security expert Kelly McCann, aka Jim Grover, stated, "It's laughable when people who are completely out of shape think they can defend themselves". While I respect his opinion because he is a very competent man, he and the majority of other instructors are focusing on the content and competition. They are in a paradigm where the confrontation starts with two people facing each other in fighting stances but that's called competition.

I've stated this many times before in my articles and in my classes, if you take an honest look at violence, if you look at the data compiled by the FBI, footage of attacks in prison, and security camera footage of real crimes being committed you'll see that no where are fighting stances used. If you are in a competition like a tournament, sparring in a dojo, boxing, mma, or "stepping outside" to see who is tougher then you will most likely start by sparring off in fighting stances; but in an actual instance of criminal violence the criminal is not going to square off with you and duke it out, they are going to walk up to you and just attack, then if things don't go their way they'll most likely run for safety.

If I'm squaring off with somebody and I'm going to attack and defend and he's going to do the same then it would benefit us to be in top condition as the fight may last a minute or even a few depending on our ability and what the rules will allow, but real violence, a real fight, generally lasts less than 10 seconds and the attacker seldom does anything defensive but run away if he gets hurt. An attacker who wants to punch you will just walk up to you and swing and his focus will be on taking you by surprise and injuring you and not on defending himself. A real criminal will stand there and attack you; he won't be in a fighting stance, he won't be bobbing and weaving, he won’t be dancing on his toes, he won't be trying to block your blows or counter you, he'll just be standing there attacking you and he'll run away if he gets scared or hurt.

Real violence is much, much, much simpler than the martial arts make it. If someone is actually attacking you he or she will be wide open the entire time and all you have to do is step in and cause an injury. For example, let's say that a criminal is stalking you and he intends to stab you repeatedly and then rob you. He walks up to you and says, "Excuse me, do you have the time?", so you stop and look down at your watch as gets closer and pulls his knife. Out of the corner of your eye you just happen to see the blade come out of his pocket as you begin to read your watch, so what do you do? Do you step into a fighting stance and try to counter? No, by the time your hands are up you'll have a knife inside you. Instead all you have to do is immediately take a big step into him and punch him in the throat. He's going to be just standing there getting ready to stab you so he'll be completely open, and as soon as you drive your bodyweight into his throat he won't be able to stab you because he'll be traveling backwards from the force of your blow.

Most people, even seasoned military trainers, get competition and actual violence mixed up. If you're going to compete with someone then you better be following a strict diet, doing your pushups, and dong some intensive cardio a few times a week. However, if you are going to injure a criminal who is standing right in front of you completely wide open in an altercation that is going to last 10 seconds or less, then all that exercise really is optional. Some of the best students I've had were overweight or even obese, as they had so much bodyweight they could easily end a confrontation with a single blow.

Now please don't think that I'm trying to say that you can ignore your physical health because being in shape will only benefit you. Also let’s not forget the value of being able to run away from danger when you need to. The only point I'm trying to make with this article is that being in shape is a great thing but if all you want to do is be able to defend yourself then you don't need to run three miles a day.

Karate's Dirty Little Secret

by Matthew Schafer

Copyright 2006, All Rights Reserved

Most people are unaware of this little fact, but Karate, and the other martial arts as well, do in fact have a dirty little secret that they try to hide from the public. I first became aware of this little secret when I was a teenager attending classes at my local Taekwondo school. I remember I had just finished a class and was tired and sweaty from all the punches, kicks, blocks, and forms when my instructor said something that shocked me. She said, "Next weekend we're having a self defense class and we'd like you all to attend. If anyone is interested the cost is $30."

To say that this confused me is an understatement. If I'm taking martial art lessons then why would I have to take a self defense class? Let alone pay extra for it? I figured that it was probably just a special class for beginners but I was wrong. When I went to the class I looked around and I did see beginners, but the majority or the participants were black belts, and not just from my school but from several other schools in the area. My surprise was increased when I saw that the instructor for this class was not our instructor, and what he taught was not Taekwondo. This "new" instructor that I had never seen before was teaching pressure points, leverages, and other things that I knew were not taught at our school.

This class was a big eye opener for me and it taught me two things. First, it showed me the difference between an "art" and "self defense". What we were learning at our school was the "art" of Taekwondo. We were learning to do big fancy kicks that were supposed to be head high, or higher for some reason, and all kinds of fancy punches, blocks, and forms. In contrast, during the self defense class we were taught totally different things like kicks to the knees, finger jabs to the eyes, and ways to get out of various holds. I learned that day that there are certain things that you do when training in a martial arts school, and quite different things that you do when someone is trying to take your life.

The other thing that I learned, the dirty little secret that martial art schools try to hide from the public, is that when it comes to learning to defend yourselves, black belts have to take self defense classes just like everyone else. Sure, they're not always called self defense classes but that is exactly what they are. Today I am a self defense instructor and the majority of my clients are martial arts schools. Martial art schools in areas all over the state contact me and pay me to come to their schools and teach classes on self defense, knife defenses, gun disarming, groundfighting, and defending against multiple opponents.

But here is the ten thousand dollar question...why do people with black belts have to take self defense classes? Isn't a black belt supposed to know how to defend themselves? After all, a black belt is someone proficient in martial arts and martial arts are self defense, aren't they? The simple answer is not typically. The truth is that most martial arts schools really don't teach anything other than punching and kicking techniques, and most black belts aren't taught anything other than how to throw punches and kicks. Some schools do teach knife defenses, some teach knife defenses but not gun defenses, and some teach gun defense but not knife defenses and so on.

The truth is that regardless of whether a particular school may teach an "art" or teach with more of a focus on self defense techniques, or whether they teach knife defense or not, if you're actually talking about self defense then all your fighting techniques are secondary. Why? Because if you try to "fight" with a real violent criminal you will lose. Real criminals set things up so you never have the opportunity to fight back. First, they set you up so that when they attack you, you will be trapped. Second, criminals don't stand there and trade punches with you like in a sparring session, instead they rely on sucker punches and surprise attacks so that you'll never see the attack coming, and as soon as they strike they try to completely overwhelm you. Therefore, it doesn't matter if you are a 7th degree black belt, or how good your spin hook kick is, because if an experienced criminal attacks you, very seldom you will never see it coming.

According to statistics, very few people who are attacked every actually see the attack. Sure, they might know that they are getting repeatedly punched in the head while it happens but very seldom do they ever see the attack coming, and while its happening they're too busy reacting to the attack to even look at their attacker. Also, around 97% of stabbing victims report that they never saw the knife that stabbed them. Most victims thought that they had just been punched really hard and they didn't know that they had been stabbed until after the attack. So if criminals like to attack by surprise and most victims never actually see the punch or the knife that injures them, how are you supposed to "fight" off a criminal?

The truth is that you can't. Since you probably won't be able to see the attack that is used on you the only thing you can actually do is try to see the criminals and recognize them before they strike. Very seldom does a criminal just jump out and attack a random person; what they do do is go to a place where people are, look around, size everyone up and look for specific vulnerabilities, then carefully pick their target, and then wait for the perfect opportunity to strike. Usually they will follow you until you come to a secluded area or an area that provides concealment, like a parked car or tree, and once you get there they surprise you from behind. Or they may learn your rountine and position themselves along your regular route. For example, if you take a walk around the block every morning, they might learn your rountine, show up early, and be waiting for you behind a tree.

If you want to be able to have any chance at defending yourself you have to be able to look around you and detect the criminals that are sizing you up. Once you detect them you have to know what signals to give them that show them that you don't have the vulnerabilities that they are looking for. Only after you learn how criminals think, how they pick their targets, what vulnerabilites they are looking for, and how they commit their crimes can you then start to think about using self defense techniques.

Even if you are doing everything correctly you can still be taken by surprise. In the same way that most victims never actually see the attack that got them, most real self defense situations will actually start with you being grabbed, hit, stabbed, or shot. The attack may actually start with you being struck in the back of the head and being knocked half unconscious, then falling face first onto the floor and breaking your nose. Even if you do do everything right the first sign you may get that it is time to defend yourself may come while you are on the ground, face covered in blood, with someone standing over you. Unfortunately that is quite realistic.

The reason that even people with black belts have to take self defense classes is that very few martial arts schools know or teach all these things. Like I stated above, the vast majority of martial arts educations consists of punching and kicking techniques and little more. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to make the martial arts look bad because I actually love the martial arts, I'm just stating the truth. When I go to teach a self defense class for a room full of black belts its quite obvious that they have never been taught about any of this.

One thing that I do in almost every class is demostrate the violence of a real knife attack with my assistant instructor as he does a common knife defense technique. Everyone is expecting me to dance around and try to cut him, with a rubber knife of course, but you should see the sheer terror in their eyes when instead I run over to him and start violently "punching" the knife into his torso before he can even do his technique. Then after I knock him on the ground I continue to violently stab him as he trys to control the knife. All in all the demonstration is about 15 seconds long and I stab my partner, who is actually trying to stop me with his technique, at least 10 to 15 times. After the demonstration I turn back to my class and watch their faces go from a look of sheer horror to uneasiness because they honestly don't know if the could do any better. This demonstration is a great tool for showing people the actual violence involved in a real attack.

I know several people who make a very good living by giving self defense classes to martial art schools. I even know a guy who makes a good living by teaching the exact same 3 night self defense course just once a month, and every single month his class is full and according to him almost every single student is a black belt. The only techniques he teaches are a poke to the eye and a kick to the knee, but the reason that black belts, capable of far more advanced techniques, show up for his classes is because he actually teaches HOW to use the techniques against a violent attacker.

The point I'm trying to make here is not that the martial arts are ineffective because they are actually very effective. The only problem that the martial arts have is that they spend all their time teaching you how to DO techniques rather then what it takes to actually USE the techniques.

The point I am trying to make is that if you are honestly looking to defend yourself don't immediately rush out to a martial arts school. Instead look around for a self defense class first. Check with your police department, your yellow pages, your local parks and recreation department, and local gyms and you probably can find a self defense class in your area.

Also, be very weary of self defense classes offered by martial arts schools because I can tell you as a martial arts instructor myself, most instructors look a giving self defense classes as just a way of trying to get you to enroll as a student in their school. Also add the fact that if the instructor has no other self defense education other than his karate training he or she is probably not going to be able to teach you all the things I listed above that you need to know about criminal behavior.

If all you want to do is learn to defend yourself I recommend finding a self defense class with an instructor that only teaches self defense classes and doesn't also teach martial arts, because if he or she does they might only be offering classes as a marketing tool. I also recommend that you take one or two self defense classes before you consider joining a martial arts school to learn self defense. That should help you be able to distinguish the difference between and "art" and dealing with "real violence".

So if you are considering learning to defend yourself please don't rush out to your local martial arts school. Often the instructor at the self defense class will be more educated about real self defense then a martial arts instructor, its probably cheaper than attending a martial arts school, and if you take a self defense class you just might end up sitting next to your local martial arts instructor anyway.

What’s Wrong with The Martial Arts?

By Matthew Schafer

Copyright 2007, All Rights Reserved

If you’ve studied martial arts for any length of time you’ve most likely had someone express the opinion that you are learning “crap”. The general opinion of the martial arts by the public is that the martial arts are quaint at best. What most people know about martial arts is learned from watching TV where it is portrayed in a manner that is comical at best. Even shows like “Walker: Texas Ranger”, which is supposed to show martial arts in a good light, make them look ridiculous

On top of that many people know someone who knows someone who knows a guy who was a black belt and got beaten up by some “Average Joe”. I’ve studied the martial arts for 20 years and I know several skilled martial artists who lost fights to non-trained individuals, even fair fights. I had a friend that got into a fight with a boxer one day in a parking lot. They put up their hands and my friend, who had lighting fast kicks, threw a right roundhouse kick at the guy’s head, only to have his leg grind to a halt when his jeans refused to stretch the last few inches and he ended up stumbling off balance. This gave his opponent the opportunity to land a roundhouse punch to this temple and knock him out cold. A seasoned black belt knocked out by a boxer with one punch.

With incidents like this and TV shows like “Walker: Texas Ranger” I can understand why to most people the martial arts are a big joke. Though the question show be asked, why are people trained in the martial arts often not able to defend themselves? Why do people, instructors included, say that the martial arts were effective 500 years ago but are not effective today? What is wrong with the martial arts?

My answer to this is that nothing is wrong with the arts themselves; the problem is the people who study them. To give a more well rounded answer let’s address the notion that while the martial arts were effective long ago they are not today. To begin, we have to dispense this notion that people that lived 100, 500, or even 1000 years ago were really different from us. The truth is they weren’t and we are really no better than them.

The one difference between the people living today and those living 1000 years ago is that today we have more knowledge and more technology. There seems to be this notion that people who lived 1000+ years ago couldn’t think as well as we could today. Those that lived long ago were just as smart as we are, just as driven as we are, and just as violent if not more. 1000 years ago people roamed the land murdering, raping, robbing, stealing, and enslaving just as they do today. The only difference is what tools they used and what distance they did it at.

Long ago you might kill someone from 0-5 feet away with a knife, sword, or axe; today you might kill someone from 0-5 feet away with a knife, sword, or axe but you might also kill someone from 0-5 feet away with a gun. It really is the same violence accomplished by the same types of people.

Now we have reliable records from the orient saying that 500-1000+ years ago martial artist not only could defend themselves but they were considered very deadly. In fact, people who knew martial arts were treated with respect because of their abilities. We have records of masters defeating 5 or more people at the same time and often the men were armed. Long ago the martial arts were not only considered effective but they were national treasures.

So if people and the violence they wage haven’t really changed in the last 1000 years, and back then the martial arts were quite effective, what changed? Logically it would have to be the martial arts themselves. But wait, we have the arts passed down from that time and records that can prove it. We can say with a fair amount of certainty that we are doing punches, kicks, blocks, and even forms the same as they were doing them 500-1000 years ago. The other day I was doing a form that was 300 years old.

What has changed? The way people practice the martial arts has changed. Back then skill in the arts could mean life or death and today it’s a hobby or sport people devote a couple of hours a week to. The intent really changed. As recent as 100 years ago people who threw a reverse punch did it with the intent of having that punch hit someone else and inflict injury. Today when people throw reverse punches most do it with the intent of scoring points, impressing their instructors, making a punching bag swing, etc. Back then people revered the arts as deadly and treated them as so; today people treat the arts as a hobby. If you want to see what difference something such as the intent that you train with makes, you can see it at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DEVYxsihlE

Let’s be more specific. In my 20 years I’ve trained with boxers and I’ve trained with martial artists and I’ve seen real fist fights between practitioners of each. I have to say that from my own experience if a boxer and a martial artist fought the boxer would win fairly easily, and I’ve seen that happen on more that one occasion. Now the boxer and the martial arts use fairly similar techniques, so what gives the boxer the edge? Simply that a martial artist trains to throw punches and kicks and the boxer trains to hit people. It’s really that simple.

Today martial artist go up and down the floor throwing punches and kicks but do they ever actually train to hit someone? No. Of course you can say they do sparring but if you really think that point sparring is realistic training then there might not be too much hope for you. However, you do hit people during sparring so even sparring practice does provide a little benefit when it comes to real violence; but sparring alone is not enough.

To really be effective martial artists need to get back to learning how to hit people. 1000 years ago hitting people was a main focus. If you asked someone why they just threw that punch they’d most likely say something like, “to hurt my opponent”. They had a whole arsenal of techniques and they practiced each and every technique with the intent of hitting someone and injuring them.

Now you can say that back then the martial arts were for peace and love and whatnot, but that is really a myth we tell ourselves. Martial arts being about peace and love are a product of the last couple hundred years. If you rounded up 100 martial artists from 1000 years ago probably only 1 or 2 would be training with the intent of self betterment. If you really look at the history of the arts you will see that the arts themselves were originally just a collection of fighting techniques and nothing more. However, the Chinese were mostly Buddhist, Taoist, or students of Confucianism and so they normally mixed those in with their arts, but most of what we today consider to be martial arts is in fact just Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, or even Yoga. It would be the same thing if today I taught my son to be a Christian and then taught him martial arts. He might grow up connecting a front kick with Jesus the same way we connect martial arts with non-violence and mediation.

If martial artists want their arts to be effective again they have to start training to hit people and with the goal of hitting people. I know several black belts with great techniques but if they ever actually hit anything with them they’d break their hands or be knocked off balance. People have to work on grounding themselves, using their hips and hitting things. You have to condition your body to drive force into an object. You have to train yourself to look at a human body and see a myriad of places to hit and know how to step in and hit them.

One of my favorite drills is to have one person stand naturally and have a large pad held tight against their chest. Then their partner hits it and knocks him back, then continues it until he has knocked his partner across the room then they switch and go back. This is a great drill because it trains your body to receive roughly the same shocks it would if you hit a person for real. For most people it is a big eye opener. Most people lack the fundamentals to even drive someone back more than a single step.

Another thing I like to do is when my advanced colored belts do one-step sparing drills I don’t have them stop their strikes at their targets. I have the place their punches, kicks, knife hand strikes, etc on their targets and then they have to follow through and push through their targets displacing their partner. This is a great way to learn both balance and why it is important to use your entire body and not just your arm or leg. Most people end up trying to muscle through someone with just their arm and not their hips.

Bottom line, the reason why boxing is effective and the martial arts are perhaps not is that boxers train to hit people and martial artists don’t. I’m not saying that you need to train like a boxer and actually I think that’s quite counterproductive. An upward slap to the groin, a knife hand to the side of the neck, or a ridge hand to the throat will always be more effective that a punch aimed at a general area of the head. So you don’t have to put on gloves and dance around a boxing ring but you still have to focus on hitting people if you want to do it effectively.