When invited into the monkey dance, the social violence ‘dance’ where someone is seeking you out as a victim to enhance their own ego, status or territory, remember you’re not an ape.
Be a creative, resourceful human. Use a tool. The tools are all around you, unless you’re in a completely open space with nothing there. Your limit is your imagination (and the law too, but more about that later).
No human has voluntarily gone into battle without tools to protect or attack the enemy. This is not the time to reinvent the nature of human conflict.
The office or home may provide books or decorative or utility items to strike with. A pen or pencil is a fearsome striking object. Even an iPad, a laptop or a phone becomes a hard tool to hit with, at least harder than your hand. An unbroken bottle is a firm object to work with. So is a belt, if you’re trained in using it. The right type of chair, struck with legs out at the right diamond-shaped angle is a tough weapon and barrier. A hot coffee cup or a rock in your hand are useful tools. So is a small sharp broken tree branch from the ground in a forest, a park or under that tree-lined street. These are all tactical solutions to enhance your striking. Use them.
You can also use the environment strategically, introducing it as striking objects. A wall or a door becomes a strike when you aggressively push someone into it, especially if caught at a sharp corner or if made with a solid structure. The hard, stony-littered surface outdoors is also your friend - but a disloyal one, it can turn against you, too. Furniture, park benches, lamp posts and cars can be used as slamming-into objects. Curbs and stairs are excellent to get people tripped up on.
These are all ready and available to you. Does your training incorporate these ‘tools’ and do you train in and with them? If not, you’re missing the best weapons you can have and your brain is not tuned into them.
Firstly, you can carry some of these tools on you. A tactical pen, torch, belt or umbrella are explainable and reasonable every-day items to carry, although you should apply them in your daily life to substantiate their use and you must explain them as everyday utilities and not a self defence tool. Carrying a self defence tool solely for that purpose turns it into an offensive weapon in many legal jurisdictions and carrying them for this stated purpose alone will be a criminal offence. Using a tool found and applied in the everyday environment is a better legal explanation when justifying its use.
Secondly, using items or the environment as tools must be justified as a force application in response to the threat, especially if it can be shown that you are trained in their application. They can often be lethal options as tools are weapons. The threat level must mitigate or justify their use. This doesn’t necessarily mean a weapon has to be used against you first. It simply means the force level used on you is disproportionate to your self defence ability. A stronger man attacking a woman. A bigger man attacking a smaller man. Multiple attackers on one person. The attack has altered your ability to defend yourself and the attack is persisting. Any scenario where you reasonably believe this is appropriate force to protect your life can justify a self defence tool.
How do you prepare to use your environment as a tool?
Train in it and with it. Place strategical (but justifiable) items in your home and your car. Carry them with you as you use them in your daily life for their practical purposes. Consider what items in your everyday life, wherever you are, can be quickly obtained and used as improvised weapons.
There’s a big, bad world out there. Knowing this, you should find it, use it and make it work for you. That’s Krav Maga in action.
Comentários