Surviving Lethal Attack
Worst case scenario, someone is trying to take your life. Can you defend yourself? Is your home safe? Here are tips to bring down your attacker and help you escape.
Picture yourself walking home from work. It’s a clear evening, almost dusk. It’s around supper time so the amount of pedestrians out and about is less than normal. You go through a walkway underpass and in less than a second someone has his arm around your throat and is hissing in your ear not to scream or he’ll kill you. What do you do?
This scenario may be a little unbelievable, but we’re living in denial if we think it doesn’t happen. There is a definite difference between getting held up or mugged, and a threat to your life.
As an Auxiliary Constable with the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) I learned how to control an escalating situation and how to restrain an aggressive suspect. We are given tools (weapons) to use if the need arises, and we are often lucky enough to have our partner within close range. But what do you do when all the structured stand by procedures don’t work and lethal force comes into play? What if a situation like the above arose when I wasn’t at work, or I was with someone else? I realized that if it came down to my life or an attacker’s, I didn’t know how to protect myself despite my training.
This is when I was introduced to Rapid Assault Tactics (RAT). This is personal self- defense training that specifically focuses on saving your life. The instructor himself is a survivor of a multiple attack that was meant to end his life, a random act of violence resulting from a simple mugging. It was after this experience that he decided to make it his life’s mission and his new career to teach people how to survive an attack.
I learned many small things that could make the difference between life and death.
Escaping A Choke Hold
When grabbed around the neck from behind, your first reaction is to grab your attacker’s arm to stop the tightening. This will not work! There is too much leverage in your attacker’s forearm to make any difference to the force being applied to your neck. Instead, grab the hand, focusing on twisting the thumb backwards or away from your neck. This loosens the grip tremendously, and even if it doesn’t release it, it will buy you some time and stop the pressure from making you pass out.
Use the choke hold to your advantage. Once you have a secure grip on your attacker’s thumb, go a little weak in the knees. Let your attacker think he’s gaining on you. Then drive the top of your head into the bottom of his jaw. (The top of your skull is very strong and can take a heavy hit like this). Not only will you break teeth, make him bit his tongue (maybe off), perhaps shatter his jaw; you will also stun him, knock him back (or out), and give yourself time to escape.
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Published in: Emergency Preparation
Comments: 7 | Post a CommentPost a Comment
thustler | Aug 19, 2007 | Reply
Isn’t giving the robber what they want the best idea when they’ve got a weapon?
Don Powell | Aug 19, 2007 | Reply
Attackers should fear for their lives. very well put on the possibilities of defending your self in time of danger.
Rob Cline | Aug 21, 2007 | Reply
Nicely put, concise and yet well covered.
As to #1, not if what they want is your life, which was the premise here…
Sean Powell | Aug 26, 2007 | Reply
After reading this I feel confident in the authors ability to thwart an attack on her life. Well put! Maybe #1 needs a short lesson on the value of understanding what’s being written before posting a comment
some random guy | Apr 23, 2008 | Reply
For #1
In my experience giving the robber what they want is the worst option. Next week they will be back for your lunch money again, and again… A line up will form down the street of thugs knowing they just need to rattle you and change falls out of your pocket. I can’t recommend becoming the easy mark.
alternatively becoming the difficult mark is no good either, some people will start taking a run at you just to say they have tried. Oceans 11 style.
Best choice in my view, if you got something other people want, hide it or make it so it can’t be taken from you. If you can’t do that and it has to become public knowledge, make public as well that you will can and will irrationally fight to the death over it and hunt them down like rabid dogs for even thinking about stealing from you.
Rick | May 2, 2009 | Reply
I did several courses in self defense, as well as martial arts over 15 years. (Judo and Thaiboxing)
First, cooperate. They might very well just want money. That is a cheap exchange for your life!
Streetfights are always in a very close distance.. Closer then boxing, kickboxing or any other martial art.
Therefor, do not kick or punch. The length and time needed to build speed (momentum) is simply not there!
Use short-range weapons: Headbutt, Elbows, Knees.
Very effective are: knee to the groin (everybody underestimates that one!!) headbutt to the nose (NEVER hit the mouth! the teeth will cut you open, and the bacterias in the mouth can give you nasty infections!) or elbow to the neck, temple or chin.
furthermore, dont be afraid to use force! Most people are scared that they will inflict permanent damage. This will not happen.
As long as you hit the aggressor full force until he is down, and then stop and run.
Maybe even more important: the Law! If you are being attacked, you may defend yourself. However, if you respond with dissappropriate force, YOU will be charged!
Therefor, attack hard and fast. As soon as he is down or out, STOP. then it will still count as self-defense and you dont have to worry about charges. If you continue after he is down or on the ground, you WILL be charged with assault!
Erik | Dec 13, 2011 | Reply
I found Target Focus Training to be an excellent resource for this topic. Among many other things, they teach you two crucial factors to maximize the results in the event you need to utilize violence to save your life.
The first is body mechanics. If you can get your weight into any strike it becomes more potent. A 130 pound weakling is going to strike with at least 130 pounds of force if he/she manages to get all of their weight channeled into the contact point delivering the strike.
The second is to elicit a spinal reflex in your aggressor. A spinal reflex is an involuntary reaction to a stimulus. An example would be jerking your hand away from a hot stove burner. It happens without you thinking about it, before your brain is aware of the pain stimulus. If you understand how to elicit a spinal reflex, you will also understand what the reaction of the body will be to the stimulus that caused it.
Example: if you strike a male in the testicles with enough force to cause rupture (which is not difficult if you strike with proper body mechanics), the involuntary reaction will be to flex forward at the waste, withdrawing the testicles from the stimulus, and bring the hands down to guard them. They will also extend their neck to keep their eyes level with the horizon, which is a different phenomenon known as the righting reflex, a reflex that is not overridden by this spinal reflex because it is not vital to self preservation in this particular injury. The hands in front of the junk, doubled over at the waste, but with head in full extension leaves you with easy access to the carotid sinus in the neck (a blow to the carotid sinus will stimulate body wide vasodilation, causing a rapid drop in blood pressure and rendering the person unconscious).
I’d highly recommend the TFT videos/program for those who are seriously interested. It’s brutal stuff, granted (where here you have an example of an eye strike that isn’t intended to do permanent damage, there you are instructed any attempt on the eyes should be made with the goal of ‘getting your fingers wet at least to the second knuckle’), but in the unlikely event that I or my loved ones in my presence are confronted with the threat of serious injury by a violent aggressor, I feel much better knowing that, even if I was buck naked, I stand chance of turning the situation into my advantage.
Also, on a side note, your sympathetic nervous system is responsible for the ‘flight or fight’ adrenalin rush. The parasympathetic system is responsible for the opposite (’rest and digest’ or ‘feed and breed’)