Los estudiantes/sujetos de la investigación

At the range you have in the street when someone is threatening you ‘blocking and countering’ is just simply bollocks. Over 33 yrs of Karate practice I must have thrown a million blocks or more in practise, in the street I can’t remember throwing one. That’s the reality of how it happens.

Attack was only ever the best means of defence - and remains so. Later we

will look at techniques, but for the moment we need to stay with some broad concepts of combat. It isn’t actually the techniques which win the day it’s what’s behind them that count. The techniques are just the tip of the iceberg and to use an analogy - it wasn’t what they could see of the iceberg that sank the Titanic, rather it was the large mass which went unseen below the waves. My approach to this has been through my own development of FRAME:

F actors R ange A ssessment M ethod E xecution

The above are headings which we will look at and which contain the massive amount of data which we should have before we act in combat. These are not awareness factors, they are all the other things that regrettably we ignore or take for granted, but which have substantial influence of whether we have the whole picture and will suc- ceed in our endeavour.

1. Factors

Numbers of opponents, how dressed (you), terrain (even or uneven, wet and slippy) footing, footwear, restrictive clothing, lighting, natural weapons,

B A S I C P R I N C I P L E S O F S E L F D E F E N C E

escape routes, enemy territory, friendly forces (help), PURPOSE!

(what you are doing there), witnesses, your physical condition or level of exhaustion, opponents physical build and how clothed, proximity of other assailants, your physical skills, safe havens.

These are the ‘situational’ factors that are often ignored when combat techniques are shown in manuals. The typical military or police training video has 2 men squared off in a guard position, where one man has a weapon and the other looks suitably ready. To this day, I haven’t a f---ing clue as to where the assailant was supposed to have appeared from, other than to assume he just materialised out of thin air.

Whilst all of the factors mentioned above require consideration,

‘Purpose’ demands a more detailed

examination. If for example, you are a police officer, chasing on foot, a known, violent felon, who was surprised during a hold-up and who took off, you would have no doubt in your mind as to your purpose - essentially, in this case, your purpose is your occupation. You might not ver- bally express it at the time but it could be summarised as ‘a desire to arrest the suspect’, but probably a ‘stronger desire to survive the experience’. You

are in little doubt as to your purpose and you would be in little doubt as to the other’s purpose if, during the chase, he had hidden and then without warning, sprang out in front of you, armed with a knife and attacked.

The ‘Wow’ Factor

Contrast this with a civilian walking the same route when the same thing happens ie. a person explodes from behind a street corner or doorway and attacks you with a knife. In this instance, his purpose is blindingly clear and yours less so - you have still to come to terms with your purpose, which, if you have the time to recover your surprise, should be to flee. The difference is that ones ‘purpose’ at the time of the attack, means in one case you are expecting trouble and in the other it is the furthest thing from your mind. In both scenarios as described above the policeman and the civilian will be shocked, but it will be the policeman who ‘recovers’ first. We call the recovery delay the ‘WOW’ factor. An even less clear distinction is in this scenario where, as you are walking along the same street, a person who you would describe as suspicious emerges from a doorway, fixes his eyes on you and comes towards you with one hand seemingly holding something in his pocket. Now both his

B A S I C P R I N C I P L E S O F S E L F D E F E N C E

bones of my principles of Self Protection which is the Awareness Pyramid:

AVOIDANCE

EVALUATION

AWARENESS

I don’t want to re-visit this concept in depth in this chapter as I have done that early on in the book, nor the ‘action trigger’ to substitute for decision making, save to say the ‘FRAME’ commonly happens against a background of ‘AWARENESS’ - without it there is just shock, surprise and, as they say in the movies, ‘a world of pain’.

Under the heading of ‘RANGE’, we obviously take in the actual distance, but also closing speed, angle of approach and weapons range. In street attacks it is the closing speed

and angle that gives the game away -

watch out for the ‘walk past and reverse’ and the approach angle

which is at odds with the pedestrian flow, - is he heading towards you or a shop closeby? Remember, an Olympic-standard sprinter is covering 100m in under 10 seconds - to cover 10m? - well work it out for yourself. For those readers who are familiar with ‘Surviving Edged Weapons’ you will know that the safe! ‘control distance’ for an armed officer to deal with a purpose and yours are completely

unclear. You want to suspect the best not the worst, you will refrain from an attack to pre-empt the threatening situation and you will be caught still

trying to make your assessment of the situation when he eventually closes and makes an attack. He may, of course, run past, take the change out of his pocket and jump on the bus he was looking at over your shoulder -

paranoia or preparedness??

It doesn’t really matter so long as you avoid the classic ‘FREEZE’ - This

happens because of being surprised and being unable to determine your

PURPOSE ie. your role in what is

happening around you. Only

Awareness and Expectation prepare

you for that. ‘Purpose’ is our answer to ‘denial’. The quicker we come to terms with the event, the quicker we can stop saying “this can’t be happening to me”.

2. Range

Not only distance, but closing angle and speed of approach

This section is very much ‘AWARE- NESS’ based. Awareness of risk or threat ‘buys’ time! - The further out we perceive a possible threat, the more time we have for our assessment and fight or flight. In ‘The Modern Bodyguard’, I’ve put some flesh on the

B A S I C P R I N C I P L E S O F S E L F D E F E N C E

‘knife wielding’ assailant is out to 21 feet - At 2.1ft you’re as good as cut - Act before. This is what we now refer to as the Reactionary Gap. I have made some reference to the video elsewhere and a more realistic reactionary gap I believe exists.

3. Assessment

Opponent - size, build, aggressive, demeanour, body language, numbers, plus, the 3D’s - drunk, drugged and dressed. Someone drunk or drugged has their fear response dulled. It is usually impossible to ‘psyche’ them out by aggression in voice and demeanour and the same with drugs, both of which can suppress the ‘pain threshold’ of your opponent. They are often nigh on impossible to subdue and I’ve seen five or six policemen struggle to subdue one well motivated drunk. Only ‘sleeper’ techniques are guaranteed to put him out. Clothing can be like body armour - the more layers someone is wearing, the harder they are to hurt. A 20 stone, well built attacker, wearing a vest, a shirt, a woolly ‘pully’, a jacket and overcoat, who’s had 12 pints of Guinness, is going to be hard to hurt with bodyshots!! So, immediately you should be computing other options, this is what Frame is for.