Foiling Surprise Attacks With Footwork

By Matthew Schafer

Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

Regardless of where you live or what circles you travel in, most attacks occur by surprise. If someone is going to attack you they're not going to slap you across the face with a glove, state that they demand satisfaction, and then put their hands up and start dancing. What is far more likely to happen is that an attacker jumps you from behind. What I'm going to go over in this article is two simple maneuvers that will allow you to thwart common surprise attacks.

The first common surprise attack is widely used by criminals and is known as "bait and switch" as well as several other names. The way this is done is an attacker will walk up to you from the front and try to distract you by either asking for something or by becoming aggressive. While the first attacker is distracting you another attacker(s) comes up behind you and either attacks you from behind or holds you so the first attacker and repeatedly strike you. This method works very well because few people see it coming.

The best way to counter this is to not stop when the first attacker trys to distract you. When you see him you can simply change directions and walk across the street or start running and push past him. If you cannot do that, when you see someone come up to you from the front you should immediately assume a second individual is present and turn and look for him. It is how you turn and look at them that is important.

When you see the first attacker come up to you, you should first look and see where his hands are to see if he is making fists, cupping his hands (concealing a weapon), has his hand in a pocket, has one of his hands behind his back, or has one arm held stiff while the other one swings naturally. All of these things are signs that he has a weapon and dark intentions. Next you want to make sure that you have some distance between the two of you. Try to keep at least 6 feet between you and him. Don't be afraid to become aggressive if he attempts to encroach upon your space.

After that, scan the area in front of you, at least 180 degrees, for an accomplice. Then take a big step to the left or right (preferably towards a wall) and turn to the side while keeping your eyes on him. For the purposes of this article lets say that you have a building on your right side so you took a big step to your right and then turned 90 degrees counter-clockwise so you're standing with him in front of you and on your rights side. Now just turn your head to the left and scan the area behind you for an accomplice. Done this way you can look around you 360 degrees without ever turning your back on a potential attacker.

If possible try to keep moving. Look around and clear the 180 degrees in front of you, then take your big step to the side, turn counter-clockwise and then keep walking backwards as you scan around you. Or...you can just run like hell.

I'm a big fan of pretending to have a weapon. While I always carry pepper spray and I'm prepared to use it, on many occasions I've looked someone right in the eye while putting my right hand on my hip as if I'm placing my hand on a concealed firearm. There have been a few occasions where someone appeared threatening so I've locked eye contact with them, put my hand on my fake gun, then circled to the other side of him, without breaking eye contact, and slowly backed away. I don't really consider this bluffing because I had pepper spray in my left hand (the one they're not paying attention to) and if they would have so much as took a step towards me or put their hand in their pocket they would have gotten a face full of OC.

The second method of surprise attacks that people commonly use is to tap you on the shoulder then punch you when you turn. This happens quite a bit in bars but it is also prevalent in other areas. To thwart this you never turn around when someone taps you on the shoulder. If you feel someone tap you on your shoulder you should take two steps forewords first and then turn. That way if someone does try to sucker punch you they'll miss. I prefer to raise my arm as I turn just in case they came forwards with me. So if I turned to the right I would rise my right arm and scratch my cheek or cover my mouth or do some other natural movement. To someone watching it would look like I just burped and was covering my mouth to be polite when if actuality I'm getting my arm up so I can put my elbow into an oncoming attack.

If you cannot step forwards when someone taps you then you should always turn with your arm raised as describe above. Or if someone grabs your shoulder and spins you I'd bring my arm up and then step right in to them, preferably with my foot going between their feet and behind them. Anytime someone taps you be prepared for the sucker punch.

A Popular Self-Defense Misconception

By Matthew Schafer

Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

In teaching self-defense professionally, a lot of people talk to me about various self-defense teachings and try to get my take on them. One that is commonly brought up is whether it is a good idea to use your keys as weapons. This little self-defense technique has penetrated our culture so thoroughly that nearly everyone I talk to has heard of it. Often women tell me that when they walk to their cars they'll put their keys through their fingers just in case someone tried to mug them, and usually when they tell me this I get the feeling that they're looking for some type of "at-a-boy" from me. This issue of using keys as weapons is brought up so much that it is not uncommon for me to talk about it every week.

While punching someone with a fist full of keys is a popular teaching it is not one I advise. Show me someone who thinks that it is a good idea and I'll show you someone who's never punched something hard with keys in their fist. There are 5 reasons why this is not a good idea and they are as follows.

1.) Its just wasted effort. If you are close enough to an attacker to punch them with keys then you're close enough to do something more effective. If you jam keys into someone it will hurt but if it doesn't damage something necessary to the functioning of the body it probably won't stop them. On the other hand, if you tear open their eyes, rupture their eardrum, crush their throat, pinch the nerves in their spinal cord, tear their knee, etc., then you've disrupted the functioning of the body and your attacker is momentarily disabled.

2.) You’re punching someone. Everyone focuses on the part about the keys but they always seem to forget the part where they have to punch their attacker. Unless you're properly trained and have conditioned your body to not only throw a punch but drive your fist through a target then you're probably going to break your hand or wrist. Most of the people who want to use their keys as weapons are "regular people", not trained martial artists and don’t have the ability to punch someone without injuring themselves. They may punch someone with keys and the attacker might yell "Oww" and even bleed a little but they may be on the ground screaming in pain because they've just torn the ligaments in their wrist. Unless you've conditioned your body to punch something hard you should forget about all punching attacks.

3.) The keys are not going to sink into your attacker's body like razor sharp knives. People seem to think that their keys will stab into their attacker but in reality they are going to jam back into your hand, slide around, and might even twist. If the keys jam back into your hand they could cause your wrist to weaken and bend resulting in a sprained wrist. If on impact the keys slide up by your knuckles then now you're punching your keys. Those thin pieces of metal pressing in between your knuckles could hit nerves that cause your hand to weaken and now you'll most likely break your hand or wrist. Finally, if on impact the keys twist then they could rip the skin of your fingers, damage your nerves, or dislocate/break your fingers.

Try this: wrap an old coat around a punching bag and then lightly punch into it with keys in between your fingers. Do that a couple of times and I don’t' think that you'll want to use that technique against an attacker.

4.) You could damage or drop your keys and be unable to escape into your car or house.

5.) If you do use your keys to defend yourself then guess what, all those keys (car key, house key, work key, etc.) are now evidence and are going to sit in an evidence locker for months or even years. If you do decide to use your keys as weapons then you'd better make copies!

Instead of using your keys why not use pepper spray? I carry pepper spray almost everywhere I go, it is reliable (providing you know how to use it), cheap, can be used at a safe distance, can be used on multiple attackers, and is non-lethal. If you punch someone in the face with your keys you could maim, disfigure, or blind them and if you hit them in the throat you could possibly kill them, and either could cause you to wind up in court. Using keys is messy, unreliable, dangerous to you, and legally I wouldn't ever advise it. If you hit someone with a fist full of keys then a case could be made that you intended to kill the other person but with pepper spray that argument can't be made.

Improvised weapons are great but not everything should be used as a weapon. So please, don’t use your keys. Instead spend a few bucks and buy some pepper spray.

Grabbing A Gun

By Matthew Schafer

Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

Hands down my favorite area of self-defense is handgun disarmament. I enjoy practicing it, I enjoy teaching it, and I've even done it in real life. I'm not exactly sure why that is but for as long as I can remember I wanted to not only know how to take guns away from people but to also understand exactly what goes on during that altercation from both a physical and psychological standpoint. Over the last 22 years I've made a point to go to every firearm disarmament seminar, read every book, and watch every video I could get my hands on...and looking back I have to say that there is some real crap being taught out there.

Over the years I've seen a lot of gun disarming techniques and most of them look pretty good at first glance. However, most of them share a few flaws and the interesting thing is that most of these flaws actually come from the fact that people are just trying to be safe. No one wants to practice with a real loaded gun so we practice with a wooden or rubber one, and if we feel like spending a little money we practice with an airsoft pistol.

The problem with practicing with a non-firing weapon is that after awhile we start to forget about the things that actually occur when the gun goes off. Sure, we all know that when a gun fires a bullet flies out of the muzzle but because we practice with toy guns we forget about things like the movement of the slide, recoil, and muzzle flash. What this all results in is techniques that work when done with either a rubber gun or a real gun that doesn't go off, but if done with a real gun that does go off they fail miserably.

What I'm going to do in this article is talk about what actually occurs when a gun goes off, how that applies to gun disarming techniques, and the four big problems that most techniques have in this context.

Problem #1: Most gun disarming techniques don't have you immediately get behind the muzzle.

Something I've noticed about people, even people who teach gun disarming, is that they know that when a gun fires a bullet flies out but they don't seem to understand that the gun has parts that move and that a controlled explosion is taking place. When the trigger gets pulled it sends the firing pin forewords and that hits the "primer" (the butt of the bullet cartridge) and that primer causes the gunpowder in the cartridge to explode. The explosion on its own isn't all that powerful but in a gun it gets channeled through a small pipe with only one way out and that causes the force of the explosion to become focused. The force of the explosion causes the bullet to shoot out the barrel but then the bullet is followed by the other repercussions of the explosion: muzzle flash, sound, shockwave, hot gas, and unburned gunpowder.

It is very important to remember that the bullet isn't the only thing that comes out of the muzzle. I see a lot of people just slap the gun to the side or even just move it an inch or two one way while they lean their body to the other and this just makes me roll my eyes. If you just move the muzzle to the side then the bullet won't hit you but everything else spraying out of the muzzle will. Chances are that when you clear the gun it will go off and if you're not behind the muzzle then you will most likely get a face full of hot gas and an eyeful of unburned gunpowder. The hot gas being blown into your face isn't going to feel very good but the small grains of gunpowder being blown into your eyes can very well be immediately debilitating. There is a good chance that if your initial move doesn't get you behind the muzzle then when the gun goes off you'll go blind and then you'll be shot.

It should also be mentioned then when startled the natural reaction is to inhale. So if you clear the gun and it goes off you could very well inhale the hot gas and gunpowder into your lungs and find yourself in pain and unable to breathe properly.

Problem #2: The magazine

Just in case anyone reading this doesn't know, the magazine (often incorrectly called the "clip") is the small metal thing that you put the bullets into. Once the magazine is full you stick it in the handle of the gun, then when you pull back on the slide and let it come forewords it picks the top bullet out of the magazine and puts it in the firing chamber. When the gun is fired the explosion forces the slide back and opens the top of the "ejection port" which allows the recently fired bullet cartridge to fly out, then a spring forces the slide back to the front and it then picks up the next bullet in the magazine.

The thing about the magazine that people who train with training guns don't seem to remember is that the magazine falls out very easily and when it does it takes your bullets with it. There is a small button by the trigger called the "magazine release" and when you press it, it allows the magazine to fall out; the problem is that it is very easy to hit that button.

When I teach a class on handgun disarmament and I'm walking around while people practice techniques every few minutes I usually hear a "plop". That "plop" is a magazine hitting the mat. When two people are touching a gun it is very easy for one of them to hit the magazine release and then suddenly you’re either handling a gun with only one bullet in it (in the firing chamber ready to go off) or with zero bullets in it. You could very easily clear the gun, grab it and cause the magazine to fall on the floor, cause the gun to fire, and then take it away and turn an empty gun on your attacker.

It’s kind of funny that during class I've seen some people do just that and then freak out. The cleaver ones quickly push their attacker out of the way, grab the magazine off the ground, and then reload the gun. In any case I'm usually standing there chuckling.

Problem #3: Trying to step back and shoot them with the gun.

Nearly every single gun disarming technique that I've seen has you grab the gun, take it away, and then step back and turn the gun on your attacker thus ending the situation. Personally I fail to see how holding a violent criminal at gunpoint is the end of the situation. Come on people...REALLY?? Do I have to say anything about this? Do you think that you can just take some strange gun away from some criminal and then immediately use it on them? The gun could very easily be unloaded, non-functional, or even be a toy and then you're standing there trying to shoot a violent criminal as he laughs and then attacks you again.

If I was going to rob someone I'd use a toy gun. Chances are that my victim wouldn't know the difference and if I was caught I couldn't be charged with "assault with a deadly weapon". In the legal system there is a big difference between threatening someone with a real gun and threatening them with a toy.

Even if the gun is functional and loaded, if I pick up some strange gun I don't know where all the safeties are or if it has been given additional safety features. I've been in the military and had quite a bit of firearms training but I don't think for a second that I could just pick up some strange gun and use it, especially in just a few seconds while under extreme duress.

Problem #4: Grabbing the gun

For years I thought that I had firearm disarmament figured out. I had some great instructors, paid lots of money to attend seminars, and had police officers write me thank you letters because what I taught them had worked. If you wanted to learn firearm disarmament from me there was a waiting list and it would cost you at least $375. Then awhile back I worked with a combat shooting instructor and came to the realization that everything I had been teaching over the years on the subject was garbage.

The problem is, and what he showed me was, that you can't reliably grab a gun and hold onto it while it goes off. Most every disarming technique consists of redirecting the gun so that you're off the line of fire, then grabbing the gun and using it as a lever to twist it out of your attacker's grip. This works great with toy guns, rubber guns, airsoft guns, other types of training guns, and unloaded guns but if that gun that you're holding onto goes off the chance of you being able to hold onto it is slim to none.

If the gun is a semi-automatic then when it fires the slide will move back and forth and cut your hand. Some people say that you can pin the slide down so the gun won't fire but that is basically b.s. The movement of the slide is powered by a focused explosion and your hand isn't strong enough to resist that. Even if it were, what happens if you're tired, sweaty, the gun was just cleaned and it's oily, it's raining, really cold, or you're wearing gloves? If you're grabbing a gun and it goes off the slide will move in your hand and the sides might cut your hand but the front site definitely will. If you're grabbing their hand around the thumb then the slide will give you a particularly nasty cut when it flies back.

In addition to the movement of the slide, when the ejection port opens hot gas and unburned gunpowder will come shooting out into your brand new cuts. Consider also that when the gun fires the recoil will jerk the gun up and to the right and the result is an extremely small chance that you'll be able to hold onto it. Add to all of this the possibility that the gun might go off multiple times and the likely hood is that when it goes off you'll end up jerking your hand off of it.

It your attacker pulls a revolver on you then you're really screwed if you plan on grabbing the gun. In a semi-automatic the explosion is contained in the barrel but in a revolver the cylinder is open and the explosion is shot out the sides as well. If you grab a revolver that hot gas and unburned gunpowder will be shot directly into your hand, the shockwave has been described as "rattling the bone", and the recoil will nearly give your wrist whiplash. Because a revolver directly exposes your hand to the explosion there is about a 0% chance that you can hold onto a revolver when it goes off. That particular instructor said that in the past he had given a demonstration of this to some police department and when he grabbed a .38 as it went off he said it was "ungodly painful" and when he grabbed a .357 he said it nearly tore his hand off.

Not only can you not hold onto a revolver when it goes off but most criminal attacks in the US that involve guns happen with revolvers. Revolvers are cheaper, easier to maintain, and easier to use than semi-automatics so they are preferred by the criminal element. Chances are that if you are attacked by a gun-wielding criminal in the US they will have a revolver and if you are planning on grabbing a hold of that revolver and using it as a lever to twist it out of their grip you'd better hope it doesn't go off because if it does you'll end up jerking your hand off of it

Now at this point some people say, "Well, if I can't grab it then how am I supposed to take it away?" The answer it simple...you just don't grab it. While the elimination of actually grabbing the gun eliminates a large number of techniques a lot of others can be modified to work fine. All you can't do is wrap your hand around the gun, so just take that part out of your technique.

Wagner Proves That Even A Blind Squirrel Can Find A Nut Now And Then

By Matthew Schafer

Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

For me reading “Black Belt Magazine” is a guilty pleasure, kind of like how most people feel about reading the “Enquirer” or “Star Magazine”. However, I generally find myself buying it if I see it on the shelves and then once I get home I flip through it once to read any article that interests me, again to look at the ads, and twenty minutes after I open it it either goes in my recycling pile or in a duffle bag to be used during improvised weapons training.

Most things in there are either about “mixed martial arts” or other sporting applications but there is one section that is supposed to be about “reality-based self-defense” and that is the “High Risk” article written by Jim Wagner. Jim Wagner is a former police officer, corrections officer, SWAT team member, soldier, air marshal, mouseketeer, unarmed combat instructor, wrote most of the scripts for “Seinfeld”, was the inspiration for Chuck Norris’s character on “Walker: Texas Ranger”, and I’m pretty sure that he would have had the lead in “Pretty Woman” except he had to go save the world so Julia Roberts stepped in.

My view on Jim Wagner is that he’s basically a little kid who wants everyone to like him. In nearly every article he tells a story that describes what a bad ass he is, what a great instructor he is, or how he is saving America.

He told a story awhile ago about how after September 11^th, 2001 everyone freaked out and some big meeting was held in the Pentagon, or someplace, and the Secretary of Defense, or someone, asked if anyone had any counter terrorism training. Everyone looked around in a panicked manner until good old Jim Wagner standing in the back of the room raised his hand…and thus single handedly saved America.

99% of his articles are ridiculous but every once and awhile he gets something right and that is what happened in his last article “Somebody’s Watching Me” (April 2009). In this article he talks about a widely used situational awareness technique called “deflection”, “the look away”, “hiding eyes”, “the look down”, or a dozen other names. I learned this technique about 6 years ago and I’ve been using and teaching it since then but I thought that I’d cover it here also.

The basic principle of this technique is that it is not appropriate to stare at people and when we’re caught doing so we get embarrassed, quickly look away, and try to pretend that we were never looking at them in the first place. So if we are at a restaurant and there is a lull in the conversation, we’d probably start looking around at other people in the restaurant. We’d see someone at another table, look at them for awhile, perhaps for no particular reason, and suddenly they “feel” our eyes and look back at us. We quickly divert our eyes and try to look innocent because we were caught.

We use this principle in situational awareness. If I’m walking down the street I want to do three things. First, I want to be constantly looking around me and using any windows that I pass to check reflections. I want to look in front of me, to the side, behind me, and across the street. Second, I want to walk in the middle of the sidewalk and go through the middle of any doorway or opening. Contrary to what they show on TV, you don’t want to hug a wall when you walk down a hallway or road; you want to way stay away from walls, cars, and doorways. The reason is that someone could be hiding in a doorway, alley, or behind a parked car and if you are walking next to these then it is very easy for them to just reach out, grab you, and take you by surprise. However, if you walk in the middle of any path or doorway or just keep 5 or 6 feet between you and the wall, door, corner, car, alley etc. then it is harder for someone to just reach out and take you by surprise. If you keep 5 or 6 feet between you and the object of concealment then at least you’ll have time to react if they jump out.

Also, in the movies it shows people going through buildings with guns and they’re hugging the walls and doorways. This is ridiculous. First, it doesn’t really give you any more concealment then walking in the middle of the hallway. Second, if you’re by the wall then you’re in prime position to be hit by a ricocheting bullet that bounces off the wall if someone was to shoot at you. Third, most walls are made of plaster and sheet rock and any bullet will go right through it and when it does it will spray plaster and sheet rock through the air. So if you’re standing by the wall and someone shoots at you, you stand a good chance of getting plaster and sheet rock in your eyes and lungs. Fourth, being so close to an object of concealment makes it very easy for someone to hide around a corner and then jump out and take you by surprise.

The third situational technique that you should use is to casually try to make eye contact with everyone around you. Criminals want to take you by surprise and if you make eye contact with them they usually feel that the element of surprise is lost so they pick someone else. Also, if you look someone in the eye and they quickly look away like they’re acting as if they were never looking at you in the first place then that is a pretty big sign that they’re up to something that involves you.

I don’t do security work very often anymore but when I do this is one of the main things I use, and its something a lot of other professional security personnel do. Look around, try to make eye contact with as many people as possible, and if someone does the “look away” you go talk to them because they’re probably up to something.

If you’re out and about having a good time and you do see someone do the “look away” when you look at them then you should take notice. They might be a criminal who has targeted you.

Modern Karate

By Matthew Schafer

Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

In some of my writings I have made reference to “modern karate” and some people have inquired as to what I meant. Basically, modern karate is what passes for karate today. Most people don’t realize how karate, which I’m using as a generic term for martial arts, has changed over the years.

Originally all martial arts were simply methods of combat and the number one reason that people studied them was to learn how to seriously injure or kill someone who was trying to do the same thing to you. Karate started out as incredibly brutal and “dirty”. If you go back 150 years and prior you’d see karate being taught and practiced very differently. The focus of everything was to cause injuries to people. You didn’t throw a punch for exercise or recreation, you threw it because you wanted to use your first to drive your bodyweight through someone’s head because they were trying to injure or kill you and you wanted to stop them by injuring or killing them first.

Then, if you go to the late 1800’s to around 1950 or so you’d see karate change quite a bit because of three things: 1.) More efficient social order was imposed in most areas of the orient as well as the US which meant that your skills in karate where a little less important to day-to-day survival, 2.) Firearms became a lot more available so other self-defense methods took a backseat in a large parts of the world, and 3.) Because of the first two reasons those that made a living teaching karate had to start marketing it a little differently. Social order meant that violence was down so people were less concerned with hand-to-hand skills and since guns could be purchased, although at this time only by those with money, people who were really concerned about violence could now carry a pistol. Karate schools had to go from a marketing campaign built on survival to one built on recreation, spiritual development, and in quite a few cases gaining magic powers.

Karate in a survival environment need to be incredibly brutal and lethal but in an environment where most people practice it for recreation suddenly strikes to the eyes and throat become not as acceptable. Because of this, techniques that were more flashy became the focus and the study of anatomy became less important.

Going forwards from 1950 to present you’ll see that karate has become more and more soft, non-lethal, less contact is being made, and to many people it is just an activity to entertain children. You go into a karate school today is like a children’s game of tag. Today the basic techniques of karate are still there but the teachings of how to use them are all but gone.

I recall reading an article years ago about an old karate instructor from Okinawa who came to the US for some karate related reason. In the interview that he did with the magazine (I think it was either “Karate Illustrated” or “Budo”) he said that he yet see any real karate in this country. He said that in Okinawa karate was much more about the principles involved with how you do things but here in the US as long as someone’s arm shoots out in the air we call that a punch. In Okinawa one of the foundational principles of karate is called the “double whip” (as well as a bunch of other names) that when properly used adds a great deal of speed and power to your blows as well as makes them harder to see by your opponent, but he never saw that while in the US and I have still to see it in the over 20 years that I’ve been practicing. In the US we have the “throw your arms and legs in the air” part but because things have become so soft, commercialized, and politically correct we’ve lost the real combative principles that make karate “work”.

Tournaments became such a big deal that most styles of karate pretty much stopped teaching things that didn’t apply to competition. Punches and backfists are taught but how to correctly use a spearhand isn’t. A spearhand is another one of my pet peeves. You cannot take a traditional spearhand strike and make it work unless you spend years devolving your finger tips, hand, and writs to make them impact resistant. If you throw a spearhand to someone’s lower throat you can cause them to choke and you just might take them out of the fight but you can easily jam a finger or bend a finger back and break it.

If you actually want to use a spearhand strike you’d better grab your bucket of rice and start driving your fingers to the bottom 100 times a day, yet, karate schools still teach it…sort of.

In most schools any technique that is not applicable and legal in competition is not covered, at least not in depth, and often those techniques have been abandoned long ago. The study of anatomy in karate is all but gone. In older times karate and medicine when virtuously hand in hand because you needed to know medicine in case you hurt someone with you techniques, and in a large way to learn one it to learn the other. Personally I don’t think any martial art can be learned without a functional knowledge of anatomy.

When I started learning karate I was very fortunate because I was taught what I consider to be traditional karate. All those weird fists and finger strikes that you see in karate textbooks were the largest part of my training. Today they’re not taught because you cannot use them in competition but 150 years ago, or so, they were the primary weapons of the martial arts. My instructor had a human shaped punching bag that he made out of couch cushions, sand bags, and duct tape and I’d have to spend hours standing there hitting it in various targets with finger strikes, tiger claws, eagle claws, leopard fists, one knuckle strikes, four knuckle strikes, and others.

After studying karate for a year or two I was surprised as hell the first time I saw a Taekwondo class. I can remember standing there at about 8 years old and thinking, “What the hell?” I learned karate, not necessarily in the way but in the manner which karate was learned for the vast majority of its existence. For me karate was very “dirty”, brutal, and vicious and it worked like a charm but everyone else seemed to be doing it in a way that looked more like ballet. I considered, and I still do, that karate is digging my thumb into someone eye, not standing 6 feet away from someone and throwing a punch or a kick

So when I talk about “modern karate” that is what I mean. There is nothing necessarily wrong with modern karate but it is not what I choose to study.

Women's Self-Defense

By Matthew Schafer

Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

Every now and then the subject of teaching a women's self-defense class comes up. People ask me about them, voice their opinions about them, and I do teach them occasionally, although solely for promotional reasons. If I teach a "self-defense class" then I may get mixed results, as far as turnout goes, but if I go after a niche audience like "women's self-defense" then I'll often have a room full of people.

I don't really understand the concept of "women's self-defense". How is defending yourself different for women then it is for men? It takes about 12 lbs of pressure to break a properly set up elbow joint so does it really matter what sex delivers that 12 lbs? The truth is that "women’s' self-defense" is a marketing ploy. Women want special things and for things to be made especially for them so why shouldn't they have their very own self-defense techniques and classes?

A big part of the marketing ploy is that most women can be easily intimidated and they don't want to hurt or embarrass themselves by working out with men or trying to do self-defense techniques with men. If you tell women that the class is for women only and it will be just them in a room full of other women then they feel "safe". This creates a problem in that they only do their techniques against other women and that leads to a false sense of security. A woman can go up to another woman who has little to no training and do all the joint locks they want on them and it will be relatively easy, but if they tried the same technique on a guy who didn't feel like being cooperative then it might not work. It takes very little strength to do most techniques on women but it will take quite a bit more strength to do the same techniques on men. Plus a man being bigger makes it harder to do a lot of techniques. I've seen women that have no problem doing a wrist lock on another woman during a self-defense class but taking the size of hands into account, they'd have a hard time even grabbing a hold of my wrist if they tried to do that technique on me.

The whole premise of a woman's self-defense class is that you're teaching smaller weaker people to protect themselves from larger stronger people...but isn't that just plain old self-defense?? In any self-defense technique you want to assume that your attacker is always bigger than you are, stronger than you are, faster than you are, more skilled than you are, armed, and has friends waiting to jump in at a moments notice.

If a technique "works", not just once or twice but repeatedly, then it doesn't matter who does it. I don't care if you have a penis or a vagina, or if you weigh 200 lbs or 90 lbs, if you punch someone in the throat or jam your fingers into their eyes (not touch or poke but drive your fingers through in an attempt to destroy the eye) then you're going to get a hell of a result out of your attacker. The real issue isn't "men's self-defense" or that men do self-defense "this" way, or "women's self-defense" and that women do self-defense "that" way, it's that women want to feel special, don't feel comfortable doing self-defense techniques on guys, and the techniques taught in 99% of women's self-defense classes suck. Also, in my experience and the experience of other instructors I know, it seems that 99% of self-defense instructors are not qualified and don't know what they’re doing.

I used to live in the Colorado area and there was a woman who taught self-defense there. This woman's heart was in the right place but she had no business teaching people to defend themselves. She had a 2nd degree black belt in some karate style and for some reason she thought that that qualified her to teach self-defense. The problem is that self-defense and martial arts are not the same things. In martial arts you punch, kick, do joint locks, throws, kata, etc., but in a self-defense situation someone tries to seriously injure you, rape you, forcibly rob you, or kill you and you have to stop them. I don't know of any karate school that teaches you situational awareness methods, how to identify criminal behavior, how to counter the criminal method, and all the other dozen things you have to know before you even think about throwing a punch.

This woman was making a pretty good living teaching people “modern karate solutions" (modern karate is a seriously pussified version to what was taught even 50 years ago) to serious violent problems. Some punk walks up to you with a knife behind his back and asks you what time it is, then gets ready to run up and stab you the second you look at your watch...and you're training in point sparring is supposed to protect you? Give me a break. Karate contains some self-defense and self-defense contains some karate but they are not one and the same.

The idea that punching and kicking IS self-defense baffles me. Sure, in my self-defense classes I teach people how to punch and kick but we don’t focus on that because self-defense isn’t about punching and kicking; self-defense is about deciding not to become a victim, educating and preparing yourself to defend yourself and your loved ones, learning how criminals commit their crimes and how to counter it, being aware of who an what is around you and being on the lookout for criminal behavior, knowing de-escalation skills and “verbal boundary” skills, and then only after these do we deal with self-defense techniques and the use of improvised and commercially available weapons. However, when we talk about techniques I tell them to not get caught up in them because there is only one way to hit someone: as hard as you can!

The physical side of self-defense is not about doing this technique or that technique, it is about causing injuries. In my class if I teach a technique and someone has a hard time with it then I tell them to forget about it. This has brought actual gasps from martial artists who think that you should never abandon a technique but rather you should spend years and years practicing it over and over until you perfect it. The problem is that that is focusing on techniques and self-defense is not about techniques. If someone is trying to hurt you then a technique will not save you, causing an injury will. A technique is simply a means to an end but it is not the end.

A few weeks ago I was teaching a simple arm breaking technique but there was a girl in the back of the class who for the life of her just couldn’t get it. I explained the technique again but still she couldn’t do it. I explained exactly how it worked because often an in depth explanation of the physics of a technique can give people an understanding enough for them to be able to do it, but she still couldn’t do it. About 5 minutes or so into it she couldn’t do it so I said, “I’ll tell you what, this technique isn’t important. It’s all about causing injures, it doesn’t matter if it’s this one or anther one, all that matters is that you injure him. See his ankle? The ankle breaks very easily from the inside or the outside so I want you to stomp on it as hard as you can.” After that she was breaking people’s ankles and became a very happy camper.

If someone in my class can’t seem to get certain technique within about 5 minutes or so I tell them to forget about it and I show them another way to cause an injury in the same situation.

Striking The Groin, Does It Work Every Time?

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved


Years ago, I was sitting in the lounge of Delta-01 Missile Alert Facility in the middle of Nebraska and I was talking about martial arts with some other airmen. Some Security Forces members got up and demonstrated some techniques that they were taught during their training and they were more than a little bit ridiculous. I was asked to demonstrate a technique and I did, although rather begrudgingly. About the time that I stood up a couple missileers (the officers who sit down in a subterranean capsule and turn the keys to launch our ICBMs) came into the room and stopped to watch.

I don't remember the exact technique I demonstrated, I believe I made one up on the spot, but I do remember that I had someone throw a punch and I lightly struck him in the biceps then preceded to lightly strike him in about 10 other areas as they became exposed. After the technique I briefly described what I did, why I did it, and how it worked when a voice from the back of the peanut gallery said, "Huh..." In the back of the room stood a female captain (I worked with her regularly but today I don't remember her name) who said, "Why don't you just kick him in the groin? It works every time". This comment I let go because I didn't feel it deserved a response but because I'm not doing anything productive at the moment I'll address it now.

First off, there are three major misconceptions about the groin as a target. The first is that a strike to the groin is ineffective against a female. The truth is that striking the groin will injure both a male and female equally. Though the genitals themselves are different between the sexes, all the nerves are the same. So it doesn’t matter whether you’re striking or man or a woman, if attacked correctly this target will cause an injury and put someone on the ground.

Secondly, although you are striking the groin, the groin itself is not the main target! The REAL target is the pelvic diaphragm. The pelvic diaphragm is a group of muscles in the pelvic floor that contract to give you the stability to stand up straight. If this area is struck with bodyweight it will shock those muscles and cause them to stop contracting; when this happens those muscles which support you and give you the stability to stand up begin to relax, you lose the inner abdominal pressure you need to keep yourself upright, and in 2 seconds or less the person falls and is unable to stand up. It can take several minutes for people to recover and gain the ability to stand and often the will require medical attention.

The testicles themselves can be damaged or even ruptured, and although it will be extremely painful, it does not inhibit a person’s ability to move their body and fight. Testicles are a nice little secondary prize you get along the way to injuring the pelvic diaphragm but it is the pelvic diaphragm itself that, when injured, take away a person’s ability to stand up and makes them vulnerable to further attack.

In addition to not being able to stand attacking the pelvic diaphragm often leads to massive muscle spasms in the “core muscles” (muscles of the abdomen, lower back, hips, and upper legs). This large involuntary muscle spasm can last seconds to minutes and while it is taking place that person is quite helpless.

Thirdly, almost everyone out there is striking the groin by going straight in. Almost every martial arts or self-defense class I've seen has taught that "the" way to strike the groin is with a front snap kick but if you take anatomy and physics into consideration you'll see that that isn't very effective. Now that you know that the real target is the pelvic diaphragm, the best way to get at it is to go upwards in between the legs. To get the greatest effect you should attack the groin from underneath and drive your strike upwards. This will put the maximum amount for force into the genitals and surrounding structure.

Now, as to whether the groin will “work” every time as a target, the idea that any target will "work" every time is ridiculous. Now I'm not saying that the laws of physics will bend and warp at certain times rendering someone super-human, I'm saying in a given situation not every target will be available to us. One of the best places to strike is to the neck; you have the trachea, the carotid plexus, the vagus nerve and the rest of the brachial plexus, as well as cervical vertebrae and all the different nerve centers contained within it. When it comes to putting someone down the neck is one of the best places you can attack, however, that’s not always possible. Maybe someone is standing in a position which precludes an attack to the neck without showing your hand or maybe your attacker is lowering his chin as he raises his shoulders, whatever the case, you can hit the neck but you're going to have to hit something else first to open it up. There are too many variables that can exist in any situation to assume that a certain area of the body will always be open and vulnerable.

As for the groin itself, it's an ok target but it is not the "end-all-be-all" that some think it is. Firstly, you can't always reach the groin. If someone is standing at a slightly sideways angle then you don't really have a clear shot. If your attacker is a large individual then there is a chance their thighs will get in the way of your strike. There are a lot of situations where effectively striking the groin is not an option, but, the bladder is only a few inches above and it is almost always open. The bladder is a very effective target and can produce a very big reaction when properly stuck.

The problem with striking the groin in a straight in manner is that, first off, the target is comparatively too small. You have the pelvis, the legs, and the thighs blocking it...and that’s not taking clothes into consideration. It is far more likely that you'll end up striking the leg or pelvis with a snap kick then the groin. Even if you do get the groin you still have to deal with the spongy little penis. If I punch someone straight into the groin the spongy penis will actually protect the testicles by absorbing a large portion of the impact and actually push the scrotum out of the way. The testicles will actually swing away from the impact and dissipate a large portion of the force. The pelvic diaphragm will be largely unaffected.

Another important consideration is in order to injure the pelvic diaphragm you need to strike with bodyweight, not just the muscles of your arm or leg. If you aim a few inches below the belly button and you punch or kick that area and follow all the way through with all of your bodyweight you will have sufficient force to injure the pelvic diaphragm even though you did not strike the groin. But to get this force you cannot be dancing around on your toes and then pulling your fist or foot away as soon as you make impact.

If you strike the pelvic diaphragm by going straight in to the front of the pelvis you will require a lot of force and full commitment of your bodyweight, but by attacking upwards and in between the legs you will hit the pelvic diaphragm full on and require less force to get the injury (although you should always strike will full body weight commitment).

The reaction you will get with a hard kick delivered with your shin and full bodyweight commitment will be that they'll jump in the air, go into the fetal position, and then fall to the ground while still in the fetal position. Often when they hit the ground they’ll hit their face on the ground breaking their nose and/or knocking themselves unconscious.

A strike delivered in that manner but without the bodyweight will result in the person grabbing their groin and sticking their hips out, then often they’ll stumble a few steps before their legs give out on them and they fall to the ground in the fetal position.

As a kid I did my share of fighting and I was punched and kicked in the groin on many occasions and other then feeling like someone poked me in the spine with a pin for a second I was fine. Back then I thought that I was special, I thought that I had "balls of steal", only years later did I find out that the reason why I was able to endure all those shots is because I was always attacked at a straight in angle with no bodyweight behind the strike.

Kneeing someone in the groin is often moderately effective. The knee is large and there is more of a chance of hitting the pelvis, legs, and thighs instead of the groin. If you knee straight in then again you probably won't get a big reaction from the groin. If you do get a big reaction then it is most likely from the pelvis. The front of your pelvis is jointed by a small ring of cartilage and it is easily cracked. With a hard knee shot to the groin you can miss the groin completely but instead crack that small piece of cartilage and instantly take away their ability to walk, which is still good from your standpoint.

The effectiveness of a knee strike is dependant upon whether you strike upwards or straight in.

Another interesting fact about striking the groin is that it affects the respiratory system, which is why often people have problems breathing afterwards and also why when struck in the groin people exhibit an involuntary reflex of opening the mouth and sticking their chins out. The reason this is, is to encourage breathing by aligning the windpipe the same that you would if you were giving CPR. Another interesting fact is that if you forcefully strike somebody in the groin twice it will cause them to vomit.

The last little fun fact I’ll say about the groin is that you never ever want to hit someone in the groin while you’re standing directly in front of them. Years ago I attended a self-defense class where we were all repeatedly reminded beforehand to wear a cup, but one person always doesn’t listen or forgets. Anyway, the instructor taught us to stand toe to toe and knee each other in the groin. We practiced for a little while going nice and slow until our instructor told us to go faster. In terms of safety, it’s a great idea to teach people to throw at strike at the most vulnerable places on the human body, and then encourage them to “speed it up” (dumbass). No sooner did he give that command and then tell us to begin again when I saw something out of the corner of my eye accompanied by the sound “Ahhh…Crack…Ahhh…FUCK!” What happened was the partner, who was wearing a cup, kneed his partner, who wasn’t wearing a cup, in the groin causing him to let out an “Ahhh” sound, and then by reflex he quickly bent forwards…slamming his head into his partners face making a “Crack” sound, and then the guys nose broke, blood gushed out, and two of his teeth fell out causing him so say “Ahhh” then yell “FUCK!”.

When struck in the groin two things happen: first, the pelvis is pushed backwards by the blow causing them to bend forwards. Second, the body jerks the testicles away from the blow by further sticking the hips back and causing you to bend forwards more. So…if you hit someone in the groin with any real force their head is coming down and you better be standing off to the side or you’ll eat a nasty head-butt.