05-07-2013, 10:14 AM
The main thing is to be aware of your surroundings. Who are you with? What are you carrying? Is someone following you? Cross the street. If you are confronted, VERBALIZE.
- "I don't want any trouble."
- "Please don't touch me."
- "Please leave me alone." etc.
- "I feel threatened. Please don't come closer."
If you have VERBALIZED those things and they come closer, that counts as a THREATENING ACTION and they have taken the first step, leaving you to defend yourself at that point. If you are carrying groceries or anything like clothes, just drop the bags. We have done drills with this in class once where we were carrying objects and just practiced encounterings someone and just getting used to the idea that it was okay to DROP what we were carrying if it would help save our life.
Fighting stance... you want your feet shoulder width apart, your weight on the balls of your feet so you can push off and move around quickly aqnd always ideally landing in the same way, with your 'weakest' leg forward, which if you are right handed/footed would be your left leg... your hands are up protecting your face with your elbows tucked in guarding your rib cage. Your elbows are NOT flaring out, as you are not imitating a 'chicken'. If you keep your hands flat like "Cool down, bro, chill", this can be taken as a non-aggrssive stance still... what makes it a fighting stance is making your hands into fists and then tucking down your chin into your neck not allowing them to strike at that soft area, giving them only hard areas to hit (like the top of your head), you keep your hands just a few inches in front of your face, not very far out, but not so close that if someone hit them they could hit them back into your own eyes.
You also need to be aware because what if this person has a 'buddy' sneaking up behind you? You always want to keep the two people in 'front' of you, and NEVER get caught 'in the middle'. We do exercises of this as well where we are punching one person in the center but there is one person coming around to whack us with a giant kick shield (like an unfun pillow fight) so we have to constantly adjust to keep punching but keep the brick-pillow on the other side of our intended target.
Be aware of your reach. I am short. My reach isn't very far. When we warm up with 'touching shoulders' which is really basically about assessing reach... EVERYBODY and their grandmother has greater reach than I do... so I stay away and I'm like "You think I'm coming over there? You're kidding. You have to come here." and then I dive in and attack like an annoying mosquito and then back off. But this leads into my next point. If you can, and it makes the most sense...
JUST F***ING RUN. Do NOT go LOOKING for fights.
Also, most 'fights' are less than a minute long. They are NOT what you see in movies/on TV. Really, you get one good swing and that's about it... it's about muscle memory and adrenaline. There's likely to be alcohol involved.
But yes, the best way to stay safe is to not get involved in a fight, but it is good to be aware of your surroundings, and keep these things in mind. Chances are if you are isolated they think you will not fight back, so it is best to surprise the hell out of them and act like your life depends on it -- it might -- and be like a cat going nuts that WILL NOT be put in the bath, but not in a completely random way, you still need to have that awareness about you, your situation, your reach, who is near, friend or foe, if it is better to run or if you have to defend, if there is something you can use to crack over their head or if they are about to do the same to you?
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