As a civilian, what is your objective in an armed self-defense encounter?
It is not restraint, it is not arrest, it is not control.
Your only goal should be to end it as soon as possible and retreat to safety.
There are several videos on YouTube of people who know how to use a crook end of a cane hooking people’s legs out from under them and putting them in all sorts of exotic arm locks and choke holds. There is a time and place for this sort of thing but NOT in self-defense. Sure it looks cool and probably sells lots of videos but let's think about it logically.
In order to do the cool leg pull technique featured in one of the videos you would have to purposefully turn your cane around, reach PAST the target, hook the leg and yank it out from under the opponent. If you had time to reach past his leg you would have had more than enough time to HIT it and if done forcefully with a heavy stick the opponent will collapse.
The end results would be the same, bad guy on the ground, only the strike is much faster and does not tie up your weapon.
A good smash to the hand or lower forearm will put a hand out of commission just as well as any arm lock without also putting your stick out of commission and leaving you totally vulnerable until someone else calls the cops and they arrive. Why someone else? Because you will have both hands full restraining the bad guy and hoping that he does not have any friends near by.
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Yeah, gotta pretty much free with those sentiments. Why tie up your best weapon, not to mention yourself, when fractions of seconds count? I feel that the first 5 or 6 seconds will determine the outcome of the fight. As I see it, the whole object is to put the assailant down right now. They may have yet another weapon not seen yet, or co defendants to be close by. I want to inflict crippling damage in the very first seconds, and then take advantage of the space to retreat at best speed. I'm not interested in arresting anyone, or holding them for detainment. I'm outa there.
I have a feeling that a great many of these u-tube heroes have never had a real life fight on the street. Their stuff just looks too impractical for real world use. Sure, it looks great in the well lit studio in their white suit, but in a dark parking lot or crowded bar it seems to be a different story. We had an officer on the Trinidad P.D. where I was, and he prided himself on being a black belt in Tae Kwan do and even taught it at the local college. But I lost track of how many times we had to pull somebody off of him in a bar disturbance. His stuff just didn't seem to work that well in real life in spite of the trophies he had from competition.
A good stick is for striking back against your attacker and then getting out of Dodge. If I happen to break some bones, tough luck.
Carl.