The Science and Psychology of Self Defence - Fighting back

When all attempts at defusing or deflecting the situation fail and you find yourself cornered, you may have to resort to violence in self defence. Again, the goal is not to win the fight. You win by getting away. Therefore, your goal is to distract and disable your attacker enough to enable you to escape. A few points to remember:

Your attacker expects you to cower. Surprise is on your side, and if you can inflict an extreme amount of pain in one move, you will have a good chance of being able to incapacitate your assailant long enough to get away.

Fighting Fair can get you killed. If your attacker is bigger and stronger than you are (and if he picked you as a victim, he probably is) then fighting fair will get you pounded into the dirt.

You have to drop your inhibitions. The fact that you have compunction about hurting another person may be what makes you a better person than your opponent, but moral high ground will do you no favours here. This means you have to recognise that your assailant just gave up the right to be treated as a ‘person’. They have become a monster. Your goal now is to escape the monster by whatever means necessary.

This may sound harsh, but it is almost a guarantee that your attacker has zero compunction over hurting you, so feeling sorry for them is a mistake. The difference between you and them is that if you hurt them enough to get away, you will leave. If they have decided to hurt you, there may be no such stopping point.

As much as possible strike at the these vulnerable areas

•  Eyes
• Ears
• Shins
• Groin
• Fingers
• Feet

You should be using everything at your disposal to fight back and cause the maximum amount of pain in a minimum amount of time. Open hand strikes, knee or elbow jabs and thumbs in the eyes are all good ways to quickly incapacitate an assailant.

The nose is especially vulnerable and bleeds easily; if you can manage a hard strike to the nose with the palm of your hand, you can often break an attacker’s hold. Scram and shout , call for help constantly. Never belief promises of not hurting you. Remember they have the option of not fighting , you don’t.

The most important thing is to fight back and do everything possible to escape, remember they wanted a victim not a fight, when you take a stand in your own defence you are showing them it wont be easy.

Fighting deprives the attacker of time, once they attack, they are have committed a crime, the longer you delay them, chances are their own need not caught can kick in and they will run away.