Self Defense Part 1

With this short foreword, I would like to start a series of articles concerning widely conceived self defense. These texts will not only touch upon hand to hand techniques involved, but will also describe a whole variety of procedures that may come in handy under threat. What`s worth lugging around as EDC? Which combat course will be worth the money and time spent? How to avoid and prevent dangerous situations? When giving away Your wallet is the best course of action? I will try to answer these and other questions in the coming series of articles.

As I`m based in Poland, the self defense limitations derive mostly from regulations typical for my Country. It is important, before planning any self defense activities, to study the law carefully and tailor our defense strategy accordingly. Quite often, line between self defense and lawless attack is very thin. This will vary, depending on the location You live in but please bear this in mind all the time.

One never knows what might happen in the urban jungle. Reacting is a matter of training.

When the law is known, one can start analysis of how to defend themselves and how to be ready. Well prepared person will be aware of the threats, can behave in high risk situations and most likely will not panic. This person should also posses a rudimentary knowledge and skills of hand to hand combat. This skills however, are not the most important. It is necessary to familiarize with said techniques and their utilization in certain situations. The hand to hand training and my experience in it will be presented in a different article.

Below, I would like to present real possibilities of dealing with a simplest threating situation – a robbery. When the assailant(s) want our phone/wallet/watch the amount of possible responses is very limited. We can act in the following way:

1. Start a fight
2. Try to run
3. Negotiate and try to convince that we don`t have anything
4. Just give in and hand stuff over

This is the worst outcome of the robbery. Not only we loose our belonging but our health as well

The safest way is to give into the demands and hand the wallet to the attacked

Why do we start with the most unpleasant solution? Because I believe it is the safest. We just give away our belongings. It sounds painful, doesn`t it? With the smartphone, we loose all the contacts, notes and schedules. Giving away the wallet will result in loss of money, important documents (ID`s, driving license), credit cards and various other bits (membership cards, valuable photos, loyalty cards etc.)

Loosing this wallet would be very painful

Indeed, this solution can be mentally painful. How to minimize this? Simple – prepare a dummy wallet. It does not matter much how it looks, it`s suppose to be a sort of a bait. Carry it in an accessible place and fill it with unimportant cards, old (cancelled) documents. Top it up with some notes as well to make it look tempting.

Additionally, think about smaller coin purse. It can com in handy. Attacker asks for a wallet and expects one item. When we give him two, he might believe that we are giving away all we have. Similar premise can be use with phones. In certain situations, having two phones will be better. Just hand over the dummy one (but make sure it`s works ok). Unfortunately, there is no similar solution for the watch.

Two dummy wallets ready for handing out. First is a small coin purse, the other looks more tempting with worthless cards place inside

Another important aspect is the rising popularity of various bags and fanny packs. Many people fill this up to the brim as carrying stuff in the pockets is uncomfortable. This makes the bags very easy to loose in a robbery situation. Attacker will most likely target something visible, full and accessible. This must be taken into considerations when we are deciding our EDC. In everyday situation, during daylight hours, these bags are quite safe. One thing to note – any type of a bag is and easy pray for a pick pocketer. Getting stuff out of a fanny pack is simpler that out of the pockets.

If You are planning an eventful night out try to minimize the carried things and prepare some dummy sets. If someone want`s to rob us don`t negotiate, act surprised and just hand over the false items. It is important to keep saying that we don`t want trouble, that our well being is more important than the belongings etc. This will help with getting away in one piece.

No point hanging about after giving the dummy wallet away. Walk briskly and report the incident to the Police

Another solution for a robbery can be the negotiations – trying to explain that we do not have what the attacker wants. Bear in mind that this will most likely irate the assailant and he can carry out his threats more likely. Negotiations can`t be carried out as a sole solution to the situation. These always have to serve as a preparation stage other self defense steps.

When we explain that we don`t have anything we can search our pockets and locate items that can be helpful (e.g. pepper spray). At the same time, we gain time to asses the attackers, their numbers, equipment and possible escape routes.

In this case, negotiations are an opening for two other solutions. One of those is an escape. We need to put is at a distance to the attacker (e.g. Push him away). This can give us a chance to run away in a predetermined direction. It`s very important to judge if we will be able to escape successfully as quite often this will entail a few hundred meters run.

Second solution is to fight. In this case the negotiations will allow us to surprise the attacked with our skills or equipment.

It doesn`t matter which course of action we choose. Everything must be well trained. We need to have a whole situation imagined and planned well before and playing in our head when the attack comes. It` good to develop a keyword – primer – of sorts, that when spoken will push us into acting without any hesitation. This will be one of the topics covered in the next part.

This article was originally published on MILMAG 01/2018