How Simple Is Simple?

Dealing with violence is easy. I’ve been told that a lot in my life, especially recently. The first time I was told it was when I was about 8 and being bullied by a kid at my school; a friend informed me that all I had to do was punch the bully in the stomach, and when he bent over knee him in the face. Great advice from someone who had never had to face a kid twice his size before; the advice was well meant, sincere, and I’m sure he believed it was just a simple matter of punching the kid in the stomach, however there were a lot of things that he hadn’t considered, such as, what the bully would be doing (would he give me the opportunity to punch him?), the bullies friends, the crippling fear I always felt etc. It is easy to break solutions down to an, “all you have to do…” mentality, however there are a few issues that have to be dealt with first before this approach becomes effective. Unfortunately most of the people who so readily explain violence in these simplistic terms have never actually dealt with a real-life situation.

One simple solution to violence I hear a lot when people are talking about those who have been the subject of violent assaults is, “this wouldn’t have happened if they’d had a gun.” There are even individuals who believe that just because they carry, that in and of itself makes them safe; unfortunately it doesn’t. Firstly, you may still be targeted for a crime, or an assault, because your assailant is unaware that you are carrying, and secondly an experienced criminal will create a situation, where it is unlikely that you have the time and space to draw. If they already have their weapon pulled and pointed, you are only going to escalate the situation if you try and draw; if they have their finger on the trigger, and you go for your weapon, unless you are highly trained, you are probably going to get shot. To deal with such a situation successfully, you need the appropriate threat recognition skills, and the ability to understand the situation e.g. if your situational awareness fails to pick up your primary assailant’s accomplice, you may well successfully deal with the person you are facing, and end up harmed by the person you didn’t see. Unfortunately range time doesn’t prepare you for any of this, as your gun is already out, and you are always facing a visible target.

Many people have a belief in the simplicity and effectiveness of techniques e.g. all you have to do is grab the gun, deliver a few punches and disarm. I believe techniques should be simple, however it is not their simplicity which makes them work in real life scenarios, it is the skills and attributes of the person performing them, and real life is very different from the controlled environment of the studio or dojo, where the consequences of poor execution are zero. It is easy to get into a habit of thinking that because a technique is simple, the overall solution to the problem the technique is meant to be solving is simple. If a person points a gun at you, the technique is only one part of the solution to the situation you face e.g. what if when you grab the gun your attacker’s gun they try and retain in, what if they are highly adrenalized or drugged up and your strikes don’t bother them, what if due to your sweaty palms you don’t get a good grip on the gun, what if your attacker’s reaction time is faster than yours, what do you do once you disarm? Whilst we shouldn’t create so many what if’s that we become indecisive and are frozen to the spot (something I did for a long time when being bullied), we should understand that we are in a situation where there are many factors at play, and which need to be considered as part of the solution. Those whose experience is limited to the training room, and Youtube, tend to get tunnel focused on the technique and lose sight of the situation, and the problem (which may be better dealt with using a non-physical solution).

Many training methods have one goal, which is to get the student competent at performing techniques as perfectly as possible, and lose sight of what the technique is therefore i.e. to keep the student safe. To this end any other solution that meets this criteria, is a techniques equal, however rarely do these alternative solutions get trained, and because of this, the individual’s solutions to situations become technique-centric e.g. everything becomes about performing a gun disarm, rather than about walking away without getting shot. This approach is flawed, potentially dangerous/lethal, and is based on ego rather than on survival. It is also one that may be appropriate in one setting (military) but not so appropriate or effective in others (civilian/social settings). Many people see military and special forces training as that which represents the highest level, however the scenarios that these operatives are training for are very different than the ones a civilian is training for or likely to expect. In a SF scenario, not disarming probably means you will get shot, in a civilian scenario, involving a mugger demanding your wallet, acquiescing to their demand and not attempting to disarm, will probably mean you won’t get shot. Are methods and approach to dealing with situations should be appropriate for the scenarios we are likely to face and physical techniques should not be the only solutions we train.

Our training can also give us the idea that the types of attacks we are likely to face are simple, and the solutions simple. I am still amazed that in the Krav Maga community, the emphasis that is put on learning to deal with two handed chokes to the throat – yes these are easy attacks to deal with, but nobody makes these attacks, certainly not that I or many other instructors I train with, have seen. If instructors create the impression that you are most likely to be attacked by someone utilizing a two-handed throat choke, students will soon get the impression that, “all you need to do when being attacked…” Violence is fast-paced, dynamic and scary, that message needs to be conveyed, and teaching attacks that are easy to deal with, and implying that this is what violence looks like is a false message.

We need to understand all the factors at play in a violent situation, the realistic “what ifs”, and address them so that we can get down to making the solutions we need to put in place, both physical and non-physical, as simple as, “punch him in the stomach then knee him in the face.”