Self Defense, Fighting & Pre-emptive Striking

I often have people coming to my school who say that they don’t want to learn how to fight, only how to defend themselves. I understand the sentiment they’re expressing but also recognize the danger in their thinking. Self Defense is a useful term to describe an approach to fighting where the person “defending” themselves isn’t the person initiating the conflict however this doesn’t mean that they’re not the person who makes the first strike – striking pre-emptively is an integral part of self-defense and KravMaga (as the Hebrew bible states Imbal'hargekha, hashkeml'hargo, If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.).

Whilst I’m on biblical turf, I’ll digress a little and give a historical context to the idea of turning the other cheek. At the time when the Sermon on the Mount was given, of which the line, “If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” is part of, Palestine (as it was known then) was under Roman occupation. The Romans were an extremely disciplined military and their soldiers were under very strict orders and instructions about how they could and could not treat the civilian population they were governing. One of the punishments they were allowed to give out involved using their right hand to backhand somebody across the face (it was also ; in fact such an action as the time was seen as a way of displaying and demonstrating authority. If however a person turns the other cheek, the action can’t be repeated unless the left hand is used (at the time the left-hand was viewed as being unclean and was therefore inappropriate if a person wanted to display dominance). Within the same sermon, is the idea, that if a person wished you to walk a mile with them you should walk one more. A Roman Legionary called ask a member of a civilian population to help them carry their equipment for a mile, but would be disciplined by their officers if they made a person walk with them any further. There are indeed ways of fighting back without resorting to open conflict but none of these should ever involve a person adopting a “victim’s” mindset.

This is very much the problem I have with the term “Self Defense”. It suggests a defensive mindset where a person waits for an attack/assault to be made and then and only then acts, doing just enough to fend off their assailant(s). This way of thinking puts a person at a distinct disadvantage – person(s) assaulting you are not working this way; they will not be waiting for you to act, they’ll be doing everything they can to be the first person(s) to act. Also they’ll not be looking to do “just enough”, rather they’ll be throwing everything they have at you from the very first moment. 99.9% of assailants will initiate the assault with an attack that they believe will finish the fight at that moment.

From my experience (and I recognize that although experience can validate things, it can also be a limiting factor) the person who throws the first strike or makes the first move is the one who “wins” the fight. The person responding/reacting is playing a catch-up game which is much harder to pull off. We are not looking merely to respond to a person’s violent behavior, we are looking to throw back at them our own assault which is more determined, more aggressive and more committed – and is also sustainable (this isthe idea of using “Retzef”, continuous movement).

If you look at the way we train it is always interactive. We never stand punching the air or moving in lines etc (don’t get me wrong there are benefits to this method of training), we are always training with somebody or working the pads with them. There is always contact. Why? Because at the end of the day, our self-defense involves us doing something to somebody else. What is that something? Pain. It doesn’t matter if it’s a control, a strike, or using a person’s knife against them, our job is to inflict pain and damage to a person in order to prevent them from doing what they want to us. Our goal is pretty simple but it requires a mindset and one that may seem at odds with how society likes to believe we should act; unfortunately society knows very little about violence. Society would have us believe that if we disarm a knife of a person they will cease to fight, and/or if we can escape from a hold or control we can/should run away. The situation determines the solution, not society’s misinformed idea of violence.

In a civilized and rational state I have no desire to inflict pain or discomfort on another person however if I believe that, that is your desire towards me, then you have given me the moral authority to act. I will not do just enough, I will do what is necessary. I care little if people who have never faced violence want to preach about use of force, and I understand the need to have it expressed legally, yet the law and people’s opinion will do little to aid me at the moment a 300 LB drunk decides to take a swing at me. An attacker never stops attacking – they only do so when you stop them.

Throw away any ideas that you will be able to adopt a state of Zen calmness, you will need to turn your fear into a determined aggression and take the fight to them.