An article written for the Crown Prosecution Service Newsletter    

What is Self Defence?

Self defence is becoming increasingly more important in a society that hears of violent crimes on a regular basis.

The literal translation is the “defence or protection of yourself” which transpires to mean the protection of yourself not just physically and emotionally from external forces, such as violent attackers; but also the protection of yourself from yourself.

Keeping out of harms way is probably one of the most important parts of self-protection. How often do we take care not to cut ourselves when chopping vegetables for our evening meal? Yet, we’ll frequently take the short cut home across the park, or down the alley; or remain in a nightclub that we feel may have trouble brewing. We’ll continue walking along the road for example, even when we have sensed someone behind us, or refuse to be bullied by gangs of hoodies stood outside the chip shop by continuing to go in and buy our Friday night supper.

I’m not saying we should let these intuitive feelings of danger rule our lives, but we should have the courage and strength to be able to act on the ones which we inherently know to be telling us something logical and sensible.

Know Your Enemy

Sun Tzu said, “If you know your enemy and know yourself, you may never fear the outcome of a hundred battles”, and although this was written in the 6th Century BC, it is still very applicable today.

When we start to think about personal security and self-protection, one of the first things we need to understand is our enemy. We need to know who we are likely to be confronted by, what environment these attackers will opt for, what they get out of the attack emotionally as well as financially, in essence, what makes them tick.

In addition, we need to understand what these likely attackers are looking for in a potential victim, the characteristics and behaviours that make certain individuals stand out from the crowd and fall into their selection pool.

All of this information is available to us and should be learned, understood and, more importantly, acted upon if we are to seriously think about protecting our loved ones and ourselves.

However, I, as did Sun Tzu, would go one step further and suggest that we also need to know ourselves. It’s often said that we are our own worst enemies, and so, having a better understanding of our inner self means we can develop a stronger self-control. We can hear and interpret what our intuition is trying to tell us and we have the discipline to be able to act on it.

One of the biggest battles we all face, is the battle with our own ego, that little voice that constantly tells us,
“we should be able to walk across the park at night”, or
“it will be fine – don’t worry, it won’t happen to me”, or
“don’t they know who I am – no one would dare pick on me”, and
“I do boxercise, I can sort anyone out”, the list goes on.

It’s this voice that, whilst our intuition is screaming at us “Don’t Do It”, our ego takes charge and we end up doing it anyway. We’ve all seen the scary movies where the person at home on their own decides to head down into the basement to check out that strange noise. We all shout at the TV “don’t do it” – but they do anyway. Why? Well, because it’s a film of course, but in all seriousness, we do do similar things in real life.

For example, we may stay in a nightclub even when we have a feeling there may be trouble, or bury our head in the sand when people get rowdy in our train carriage. Intuition is what tells us this is not safe, he’s our own personal bodyguard, although, sadly it will still be you that has to take the bullet.

Your ego is what will bully those warning signs into silence and end up placing you in vulnerable and sometimes dangerous situations.

So, we must learn to understand these warning signs, and gain better self-control if we are to truly be able to not fear the result of 100 battles.  More importantly, if we understand this fully, we may avoid all of those battles before they start.

The most fundamental aspect of self protection is the 3 A’s:

Awareness, Assessment and Avoidance.

However, these only work if firstly, you know what to look for in an attacker and how to assess the levels of threat, and secondly, you are then strong enough to be able to act on those assessments and avoid the situation.

The beauty is that whilst learning the physical aspects of self-protection such as pre-emptive striking, Fence concepts to control personal space, grappling, ground fighting, kicking and punching; you are at the same time gaining a better understanding of yourself. This understanding is ultimately what will help you to heed the advice of your internal Kevin Costner and take yourself to safety.
In a nutshell, the more you train the less you need to fight.

So in brief, if you want to control the world, first learn to control yourself. If you can do that, everything else is easy!

My new Fence Concepts DVD and Book have been widely acknowledged as a leading guide to one of the most important aspects of personal security and conflict management. It gives you the strategies and tools to manage any confrontation and take control of the outcome. From the effects of adrenalin and fear on you and your attacker to devastating punching and striking techniques that will remove the immediate threat, it’s all in the Fence Concepts.

I hope that you found this article of interest. If you want to know more about this or any other self protection/defence aspect, please feel free to visit my website.

Stay Safe and Have Fun

Al Peasland, Self Protection Trainer


    
 
 

Return to Articles