High Probability Self-Defense Techniques
If you’re going to learn self-defense techniques, make sure your instructor is teaching high-probability self-defense techniques.
It always strikes me as odd that there are self-defense instructors who start by teaching people how to escape from being strangled by someone. For some reason, this seems to be particularly prevalent in Krav Maga classes. Further proof, I suppose that many instructors have never been in a real fight and are just regurgitating material they learned coming through the ranks.
In Warriors Krav Maga training, we adhere to the principle that, given we have limited time, we should focus on the highest probability techniques first. In other words, we want our training to give us the most bang for our buck.
Real World Experience
I started working on doors as a bouncer when I was sixteen. By age seventeen, I was working on the door of what was arguably the roughest club in town. It wasn’t any big secret why. It was our city’s only strip club. As such, it had an all-male clientele. When someone in town was having a stag party, they’d invariably end up at our place. Depending on the groom-to-be’s popularity, he might be down with a few friends from the office or his entire rugby club and all the guys from work.
When the guys got too hammered – usually around midnight – they’d start trying to climb on the stage or grope the waitresses. We’d go down to tell them to stop, and sometimes they would, and sometimes they wouldn’t. Invariably we’d get the “there’s only four of you and 30 of us” line, and it would be on.
I did that six nights a week for around six years. We’d average four fights a night. Earlier in the week would be quiet, and the weekends would be mayhem. You can do the math, but that’s a lot of fights that I was in the middle of or breaking up. In all of those brawls, I can not recall ever seeing anyone ever put in a front strangle.
Military Police
In the French Foreign Legion, I ended up finishing my five-year contract in the military police. That involved breaking up fights between drunk Legionnaires fighting other Legionnaires on the base or heading into town to break up fights there. Again, lots of fights, but nobody strangling anyone.
Lots of headlocks, chokes from behind, shirt grabbing, and mounts where the guys were concerned. Every now and then a bearhug from behind, usually over the arms, by someone trying to break the fight up.
21 Countries
In all, I lived and worked in 21 countries as a bouncer, bodyguard, security guard, and military police officer. In those subsequent altercations, I still never saw a strangle. Why, in God’s name, are these clowns teaching self-defense techniques against a hold that’s almost never going to happen? Beats me.
Highest Probability Attack On A Man
The number one attack, as far as holds or being grabbed are concerned, on a man is…drum roll…a headlock. For the uninitiated, this is when your opponent grabs your head under his armpit and clamps down on it with one arm while typically pummeling you in the face with the other one. Very often, they’ll put one leg in front of the guy they’re holding, twist him, and trip him over the extended leg, which throws them to the ground. In Judo, it’s called a scarf hold. The beating of the face usually continues while being held down in this position.
Highest Probability Attack On a Woman
As far as holds in women’s self-defense are concerned, the number one is a hair grab, especially if she’s fighting another woman. If you’ve got half an hour to kill one day, go down the rabbit hole on YouTube and pull up girl fights. Try and find one that doesn’t involve the girls grabbing each other’s hair with one hand while wailing with the other. (We’re not talking about trained women in the cage here. That’s got bugger all to do with self-defense).
You also have to factor in with girls, a guy grabbing them and dragging them into a vehicle, off a running trail, or into a bedroom. Then you add wrist grabs to the mix.
Krav Maga For Beginners
So, if you’re going to learn self-defense techniques from someone, ask them what’s the first physical hold they’re going to teach you to escape from. If they say a strangle, either run away or ask them why. Ask them how many people they’ve actually seen grabbed or choked this way. Ask them what the probability is of being grabbed like this. If they’re floundering at this point, you don’t have a self-defense instructor at all. You have someone making money teaching magic tricks. Magic tricks that don’t actually work.
Are They Completely Unheard Of?
Actually, they do occur. It’s almost always in ground fighting or domestic abuse cases. In the former, that’s happening during a sexual assault while the victim is pinned to the floor, the sofa, or a bed. Often it’s happening to stop them from screaming. In the latter, it’s domestic violence when the male aggressor is using his superior upper body strength to pin his victim to the wall of their house.
That’s obviously an attack that you’re going to want to learn to defend against, whether you’re doing Krav Maga techniques or any other self-defense training, but it shouldn’t be the very first move you learn. That goes double if you’re a guy. If you’re a man, you can rest assured the chances you’ll ever need to defend yourself against one is about a million to one.