The world is an unpredictable place, and it seems like there are ever more reports on the news of assaults, knife attacks, and worse. So, can you do something about it, so that you feel more confident in your day to day life, walking home from work, out with your friends at night…? Yes! Before we jump into the physical aspects of self-defence, there is an equally important change that comes about in people from doing regular self-defence classes that helps keep them safer. They become more confident. This subtly changes how other people perceive you, and that includes attackers. Whilst most people think street based self-defence situations are random, there is much evidence to indicate that the majority are not, ie an attacker intentionally selects a victim that they think they can successfully assault (why would they try to assault someone who they thought would beat them up?). At first people assume this means you have to be 150kg of ripped muscle. The good news is, it doesn’t. Think of someone you know who is small but who has a really strong character, the person who no one wants to mess with. They aren’t necessarily physically big, but their persona is. They come across as being very confident. Confidence in a potential self-defence situation goes a long way to keeping you safe, ie to avoid the problem by not being picked as a victim in the first place.
This leads us to the next question, where does confidence come from? The answer is actually very simple. Confidence comes from competence. Competence comes from knowing in your heart, you can really do it, and do it well. That knowing, comes from practice and lots of it, ie regularly attending self-defence classes over a period of time, to develop the skills you need, to be able to perform the techniques well enough, against an attacker of any size, so that you know in your heart you can do it, if you ever really have to. Having this skill helps to keep you safe if you ever have to physically defend yourself, but even better, makes you much less likely to have to defend yourself in the first instance, because the attacker will go after someone they perceive as being an easier target.
What about the physical skills, physically defending myself? Like anything, the more you do the better you get. There can be no doubting, that martial arts and self-defence are skills, and skills that take time to develop, just like it takes time to learn guitar or French, but if you put in the time and effort, you’ll get better and better, and give yourself the best chance of defending yourself successfully.
Self-defence isn’t about being the strongest person. No matter how big and strong you are, there will always be someone stronger. Self-defence is about using technique and strategy to your advantage, so that you can defend yourself successfully. If a truck was coming down the road towards me, I wouldn’t try to stop it with my bare hands, I’d move to the side out of the way. If a giant guy is trying to kick, grab, punch.. you, moving out of the way or moving and blocking, ie redirecting his force instead of clashing your strength against his, is effective. Equally important is where you strike. A good principle is to hit something soft (or vulnerable) with something hard. Right now most people are probably thinking about kneeing the attacker in the groin. That’s definitely a good technique but frequently doesn’t work as people think (guys don’t like getting hit in the nuts so have spent their whole lives practicing how to avoid it!… sorry there is no, one easy strike that works against all in self-defence). Still, the principle is right, and another reason why self-defence works, and smaller, weaker people, can defend themselves against bigger stronger people. You can be the biggest, strongest, toughest guy in the world, but it will still hurt if you get poked in the eye! Again, this all comes with lots of practice. Learning how to strike accurately, strike hard, strike fast, move quickly and efficiently, block, kick… and be able to do it all under pressure… takes time, but with quality training with a good instructor and developing the right skills and strategies, self-defence does work against a bigger person.
The best way to find out more about self defence and what it’s really like, is to come and try a class. We offer self-defence and martial arts classes for all ages and experience levels in Taekwondo, Krav Maga and BJJ – come and check out a class with our friendly and knowledgeable instructors.
So come try out one of our classes today!
