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sordideuphemism · 1 year

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A few messages about self-defense

PART 1: Avoiding A Fight

In a recent Twitter thread, I explained in wide, general terms how to safely navigate your way through a fight. After an influx of DMs and comments, I decided to expand upon it here.

I am not attempting to glorify fighting. It is a brutal, ugly way of resolving (and creating more) problems. Sometimes, though, the fight comes to you, or you have to fight to prevent greater harm. It is for those instances that I'm writing this post.

Keep in mind I'm discussing empty-hand fighting here. Given the thousands of laws, restrictions, and so forth on weapons, any advice I might give could land you in serious hot water. This is about self-preservation, not risk-seeking.

A fistfight, once begun, is about focus and reflex. This isn't sabers, there are no rules. There is your goal, your obstacle, and your ability. Your first goal should be to avoid the fight entirely.

In fact, most fights end before they begin. This is the vastly preferred outcome. Sizing each other up, looking for support or opportunity, weighing whether coming to blows is worth it - these are important, necessary things. Furthermore, this is something you can train.

Training to avoid fights might sound weird, but it's vitally important. Everything we do on this planet is about resources, and your time and health are the most valuable of those. Why would you risk both getting into fights where a fight wasn't necessary?

Of course, there are those times where a fight comes to you - someone is looking for prey, and you'll do fine. They want your cash, or your fear, or your blood - regardless of the reason - and this is not something you can negotiate once the fight begins. There are steps you can take, habits you can adopt, to help avoid being that prey.

Before we dive in to this topic, I want to take a moment to make this perfectly clear:

While it is possible to make yourself a less-attractive target, if you have been attacked it is not your fault or responsibility. Do not feel guilty if someone has harmed you in the past. You're not the one to blame, the person who initiated the conflict is.

Ok? Ok.

How do you train to avoid a fight?

People get into fights when presented with a situation from which negotiation is not possible. If someone knows they can (or should) discuss something with you instead of going through you, a fight is less likely to occur.

People also get into fights when bullies (or worse) decide they're a suitable target. By appearing as a less-suitable choice for their prey, you can reduce the chance of being assaulted.

Training here is largely about awareness, poise, and thinking things through. This is the only part of fighting where thinking is valuable. Once the fight begins, you need to turn your brain off, so make sure you make good use of it before you do.

NEGOTIATION

You're walking from your job to your car. It's early evening, and while the shadows are long there's still plenty of light. It's a little chilly, so you have your collar up and are briskly moving, making a beeline for your car. You stop by your door, and fish in your pockets or bag for your keys. Suddenly, someone's looming over you and threatening you for your wallet.

Sounds like the fight's on? No, not yet.

Stop. Do not move anything, and don't try to get a good view of them now. Tell them where your wallet is. Ask if you can get it or if they want to. If it's in a bag, offer the bag after telling them the wallet's in there, and you can offer them the bag.

You're in the negotiation phase, here. Your job is to assess what they want, give it to them if feasible (it's almost always feasible), and get out safely. Keep talking, politely, unless you're told to stop.

You can use this time to remind your assailant that you are a person and want out of this tense situation just as badly as they do. Ask if you can keep your keys so you can get home. If you have important medicine, ask if you can keep that. Questions like these show you're complying and remind them you have an existence outside of your current interaction.

As someone who's been mugged a few times? Simply listening, responding, and complying has gotten me out of some scary situations. Did I lose my wallet? Yes. Did I walk away? Also, yes. That's the important part.

But unless you like giving wallets away, negotiating out of every fight isn't going to do you much good. So, let's take a step back and see what else we could have done?

RISK AWARENESS

You're about to walk from your job to your car. It's early evening, and while the shadows are long there's still plenty of light. You mention to Laura in the back office - she works nights - that you're heading out, and ask if she'll keep an eye from inside for a moment. Before you leave, you take your keys and put them in your hand, holding the key for your car door at the ready.

You step out, and while it's a little chilly, you keep your collar down and your hands otherwise free. You pause for a second as Laura waits at the door, and scan the parking lot. There's a large van next to your car, and Laura's car is two spots over. A few other cars in farther spots might belong to the other workers elsewhere in the strip mall.

You make note of the van, and if a plate is visible give it a glance. Keys in hand you walk to the opposite side of the car, open the door, and toss your bag in, still watching the area around your car and the nearby van. If someone suddenly moves towards you from anywhere, you've decided, you'll follow your bag in on the passenger side and lock the door behind you.

Nothing happens, so you walk around the front of the car, staying in view of Laura, unlock that door and get in, locking it immediately behind you. You start your engine, give Laura a wave of thanks, and head out.

In this instance, you made an effort to reduce risk. You identified potential sources of harm, reduced things that would limit your visibility, asked for a buddy, avoided entering potentially dangerous areas, made a plan, removed temptations, and so forth. Whoever was in the van took note of that, and decided that they'd have easier pickings elsewhere*.

So, what's a risk? It's a grim bit of study but the answer is 'potentially everything'. This isn't meant to engender paranoia, but acknowledging where harm might come from is situational, and might not apply to you in a given situation. In this situation, the unknown van beside your car would be a clear risk for anyone.

PRESENCE OF MIND

While risk assessment helped in the prior scenario, it's not always possible to scope out a situation before you enter it. In these cases, risk assessment is more of a background noise, a ping when you observe something that can increase danger - but in an unfamiliar location or situation, those pings are few and far between.

This is where we begin to familiarize ourselves with instinct and reflex. If I'm nervous about being somewhere, I might show it by rushing, or trying to avoid notice. Folks looking for targets will notice that.

So long as you aren't literally skulking in shadows, the best way to avoid being noticed is to act like you belong where you are. Walking for a pub? You've been here before, one hand reaching for the latch and the other loosely hanging from a thumb hooked into your pocket, a smile on your face.

An easy smile (and fabulous hair) isn't a ticket out, though. Presence of mind is more than masking to seem like one of the crowd. You still need to identify potential sources of risk, and rate them against your abilities. Let's walk back up to that pub.

You step out of your car in the parking lot, near enough to a streetlight that you won't be coming back to darkness. From here, it's navigation. Scan your eyes across your path a few paces ahead as you begin walking for the door. Notice traffic patterns. Are folks lining up to get in? Steer yourself to the line, don't bumble about.

The sidewalk is broken up ahead, and there's gravel next to the missing corner. That's a hazard, and one you can step around easily if you adjust your path early. The line's backing up along an alley. No worry, you can hang back and let someone fill the line ahead of you, then use them as a screen. Maybe even strike up a conversation if they seem friendly enough.

Glancing at your reflection in a window, you take note of who's standing behind and ahead of you as you adjust your collar. Does it all look ok? The guy in front of you might be a cop. There's the silhouette of cuffs in his jeans pocket. If trouble starts, you might want to keep him between yourself and the trouble. Of course, he might also be the trouble.

This constant observation, evaluation, and filing away is a mental exercise, and one you'll get better with over time. For my fellow ADHD / spectrum friends, it's something you probably do already.

When in unfamiliar places, you'll learn to do it quickly, quietly, without gawking, and while keeping your 'mask' up. Eventually it will become second nature, and as you physically train you'll begin to notice things that matter in hand-to-hand combat - others' stances, how they hold their hands or shoulders, etc.

Hope this helps for now. I'll be following up with another post in a day or two about the physical side of preparation. Take care of yourself out there.

Love, Dad.

*Unless you're planning on living the life of a vigilante, or enacting laws about pre-crime, the most upsetting thing about defending yourself and preventing assault is the knowledge that you might just be passing it down the line to someone who looks weaker. This is a societal ill, and does not fall within the scope of what I'm discussing here. We clearly do need more support at the street level to help people live lives where attacking others, for whatever reason, is not a valid option.

#fighting #hand-to-hand #confidence #presence of mind #awareness #risk assessment #negotiation #avoiding a fight #twitter cross-post

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