My Wife, the Self-Defense Expert

My wife has gone her entire life without ever getting in a physical fight. She doesn’t train in martial arts. She does not read books on military tactics. She has never had any training on how to de-escalate violent and mentally ill people. She doesn’t know how to do any joint locks, or even how to throw a punch. And yet, her self-defense tactics have yielded perfect results for her entire life. To be clear, she hasn’t lived an isolated existence, either. She's been to some pretty rough places.

Food for thought, no?

I think about my martial arts training. When you use the term “self-defense”, people’s minds automatically go to punching and kicking. When I think about my own life, however, I am struck by how little of my own effective self-defense has involved those things. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of times I have had to use my physical training to defend myself. I literally cannot count the number of times I avoided violence through smart tactical decisions and careful social interaction.

So why is it, then, as martial artists, that we focus so much on those rare instances when all other options have failed and we are forced to resort to physical intervention? Shouldn’t the systems we use to train, if they are really effective systems of self-defense, have methods for training these non-combative forms of self-defense?

(A good friend of mine always says, “You tend to solve problems in terms of the tools you like to use.” If the only tool in your toolbox is violence, you’re in for a rough life.)

Martial arts should teach these “non-violent” facets of self defense, and thankfully,  I have found that many do, if you look in the right places. When people look at a martial art’s curriculum, their eyes are naturally drawn to the “sexy” parts: the throws, the strikes, the locks, and the pins. All the stuff they put into movies. That said, I have noted one theme that is common among many people I have talked to who have seriously trained in a wide variety of systems: High level teachers in many systems spend a lot of time working on how you stand, how you walk around, and how you approach other people. I do not believe that to be a coincidence. I think that, hidden in a lot of these teachings, are the core concepts of non-violent self-defense.

Upright, alert, relaxed posture is a no-brainer. Sure, such a posture puts you in a good position to do the techniques of your system, but it also sends a message. Predators, by nature, are essentially opportunists. Watch as many nature programs as you want, and you will never see a lion crack its knuckles, look at its fellow lions, and say, “Well, boys, let’s assault that elephant over there. It will be a long fight, with casualties, but I think we can take him.” Lions don’t attack elephants because they would get trampled to death. Lions attack gazelles, because they can kill them. And even then, it isn’t just any gazelle. It is the smallest, easiest one to take down.

Human predators aren’t that much different. Even if you aren’t the largest or meanest looking person on the block, there is a high likelihood that predators will see you, an alert target, and simply decide to wait for an easier mark to head down the street. If he does so, and you do not have to fight him, congratulations. You have just engaged in successful self defense. Sure, you don’t have a swinging dick story, but does that matter? Nope. Not to me, at least. I embrace the “I want to keep on living” school of thought. I could give a damn about whether or not I am perceived as strong.

The focus on how one walks is important, too. I can’t think of a lot of refined martial arts systems that teach their devotees to move wildly or swagger. These sort of inefficient, attitude-infused methods of movement attract all kinds of bad attention, because they are an unspoken challenge to anyone who views them. Most of us don’t bother to answer that challenge, but a territorial predator who feels threatened certainly will. A relaxed, controlled, unobtrustive, non-eye-catching gait will render you effectively invisible. Paired with an unobtrustive appearance, your moving through a predator’s territory will not be viewed as any sort of challenge to his authority. If you aren’t challenging or threatening the potential Threat, there is no reason for a physical conflict. Again, self-defense without fighting.

If you think I am being a bit too obsessive about small details, I invite you to spend a lot of time at a jail and see who catches a hard time, be it an inmate, guard, or lawyer. The old ones, or at least the wise ones, will have learned how to keep their head down.

Another part of this non-violent self defense puzzle are what I call the okuden (Japanese for “inner transmission”). Nearly every high-level teacher that I’ve met puts in a significant amount of face time with their students, both in and out of the training environment. Enormous amounts of information are imparted orally, sometimes in lectures, more often in the form of instructional stories. These little gems often contain many of the important principles in non-violent self defense.

I know that I had picked up an enormous amount of information about this stuff before I ever studied it formally. My teacher, a paramedic for twenty-five years, is a veritable vault of information about personal interaction, violence on the street, and the realities of how people get hurt. He has been deluging me with these real-life stories for my entire training. It was only after many years of training, when I started formally studying things like de-escalation and tactical decision-making in urban environments, that I appreciated exactly what he was doing. More than once, I thought to myself, “Holy shit, I already know this stuff!”

It got snuck in to my training without my realizing it. Thanks, sensei.

I think another piece of it is the way that good martial arts training will systematically reduce your arrogance and your insecurities. (Note that “good” qualifier in that last sentence. There are a seemingly infinite amount of assholes out there that will teach you to swagger and act like an even bigger asshole. I’m not talking about those guys, and if you don’t know who they are, recognizing them needs to be one of your top priorities.) It takes a good deal of personal growth before you can habitually take your ego out of your decision-making. The serious martial artists that I know have no compunction about walking away from a fight if they have the option to do so. Even if it might make them look “weak” or “scared”. Drinking from the well of reality long enough will inform you that it is better to look weak than to run the risk that you are going to get seriously hurt or killed (which, by the way, is a risk in any physical conflict, no matter what). It is amazing how many options open themselves to you when your decisions no longer have to bolster some sort of skewed self-image about who you are, or how strong you think you are. 

This also addresses the issue of what I call "unconscious data transmissions". Again, ask a scholar why this works, but here is how it works. In a thousand ways that you often don't realize, what is running through your mind is manifested in your body. There are the really obvious ones like scowling when you are enraged, or flushing when you are embarrassed, but there are a lot of much smaller transmissions that people don't even realize. A really common one I see with young public defenders is the idea they maintain that they are somehow better or smarter than their client. While there are instances where this might be correct, this sort of thinking is a bad idea. (There's a lot of reasons that it is - I'm only going to touch on one here.) This thinking, in a thousand small ways, manifests itself in the person's physical demeanor, and the clients pick up on it. Drug-addled, drunk, or even the mentally ill will pick up on these unconscious data transmissions and be rightfully pissed. And they will make life a living hell for the transmitter until said person pulls their head out of their ass and stops doing it. 

I believe that martial arts, in its technical and psychological aspects, helps with this phenomenon. Earlier this year, I had to go to a really rough part of town to track down a witness. As a white guy in a suit, I definitely attracted a lot of stares. I kept the following dialogue running through my mind, "Good Lord, I am not supposed to be here. I have come here for a limited purpose. I am not a threat to you. I will do my job quickly and get the hell out." I totally immersed my mind in this as I moved through this particular neighborhood, and no one bothered me at all. Coincidence? Maybe. But I think not. I had enough young predators size me up that, had I moved differently, I am sure that one would have felt the need to protect his territory. 


Hopefully I’ve made you think a little bit with my post. Take a long, hard look at your training system. Does it address these things? How so? Does it do it enough? If not, ask yourself where you might go to get this type of training.

After all, it’s only the vast majority of your self-defense.