Do you train for unarmed self defense?

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Byron has the sense of it. In the times I've been attacked there was almost no warning and once none at all. There was no time to get a gun out. The last time was a mugging where the first sign of trouble was the flash of light on metal and movement out of my periferal vision as the guy tried to stab me. I consider that to be a lethal threat and there was NO time to grab a gun or run. This is the nature of what you can expect in today's world. You may get the "Hey buddy" or you may see someone moving up on you quickly, but odds are you won't see it coming until the last moment and your training is all that's going to allow your preprogramed reactions to help make that lost time up. If you don't have it converted to muscle memory then you won't make it.
 
to people who say "I dont train or work out, but I will fight dirty":

Fighting dirty still takes practice, and you still have to know how to take a punch.
 
Jeez, guys, where and when do you hang out? Muggings, clubbings, stabbings...

I must have had it real easy. In the several fights I have been, the opponents were unarmed, so much weaker than me, and so inept that even when I'd lose to far superior numbers, I didn't even bleed or sport a blue-eye. I must have been real lucky :D
 
I train, not as hard as Daniel or El T
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El T and I don't do anything glamourous except slapping each other around inside a garage, but thanks for the compliment ;)

I train, but I don't make any distinction between armed and unarmed conflict resolution, regardless of whether it's me or the other(s) that are armed. I will be doing the same movements regardless of the situation (armed v. unarmed) and it's vital to have this consistency to insure success. The fewer decisions I have to make the more the deck is stacked in my favor and this is why one should standardize training methodology.

IMO the proper way to view things is as the person being the weapon/threat and guns, knives, clubs as accessories.
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Dead on bro.
 
Well there are obviously a lot of different attitudes about unarmed self defense. Some I agree with others I believe are off base. In many states you are opening yourself up to a legal can of worms if you continue to engage someone when you can leave the scene.

I teach self defense classes in the small town where I live. I have trained mostly women who are almost always facing a larger, stronger and more aggressive adversary. In that instance, it is far more reasonable to look at successful self defense as getting away unharmed rather than beating up the other guy. In truth, beating up the other guy is a rather macho thing in terms of a self defense scenario. The only real point in doing so it ego.

Some will surely disagree and that’s fine. I’m not trying to step on toes here. But back to the basic question. It would seem for some of us, physical limitations regulate you to depending solely on a firearm and if that is truly your only recourse they you are certainly justified.

But for the rest of us when some guy bumps into you while in the mall and jumps up in your face all full of himself, pulling your pistol out and pointing it him is probably not the best idea. However you may still need to deal with it. In most states, if you are armed in such a situation you have a legal responsibility to make every effort to de-escalate the situation because you have the knowledge that a lethal weapon is present. If the situation escalates and your only recourse is to pull your gun, you are probably going to have the police called on you. Situations like that, and situations where you are unarmed would dictate that if you are really serious about your personal safety, you have some training in unarmed self defense.

Martial arts are fine things. I train myself. I enjoy them immensely and like the physical fitness benefits. But I do not believe that they are necessarily the most effective way to learn unarmed self defense. Don’t get me wrong, a person who is in good shape and trains hard for two or more years in a martial art can usually take care of themselves in a one on one situation on the street. For some it may take longer, for other less, but I’d say that two years is a good average. Why so long? Because most martial art types move demand a certain level of physical performance and/or specific fine motor skills. Those motor skills usually go out the window when the adrenaline dump hits so a lot of intense training is needed to you can really perform.

There are modern self defense systems that use modern knowledge of anatomy and do away with forms, sparring techniques and thing that are not directly geared ending a fight. These modern systems are ugly, brutal and efficient. The bad thing is that the ones I’m aware of are taught mostly at week long seminars or weekend classes. While they are good, the skills learned are perishable and only perfect practice makes perfect.

Okay enough from on the subject from me for the moment.
 
I'm not a pro at unarmed stuff.

I think you get a long ways by having the right mindset, a plan, and not being afraid to RUN.

Trained on knife stuff for a bit in the past and I thought it was very useful. Helped to get my mind right.

Other's have said it well. Survive and break contact. With today's legal BS even if you "win" you'll lose in the long run. Getting out of the situation is best.
 
I do not train anywhere near as much as I probably should.

That said, if I have the opportunity I do not use empty hands, unless I am forced to grapple.

If you are paying attention and see potential opponents first your chances go way up...
 
Sheesh. I guess I am lucky. I haven't been in a fight since grade school. Never had cause for one after that. To me it is always about how you pick your friends and what attitude you bring to the situation. If you have already made up your mind that you are not running, you are just asking for trouble.

TwoGun had it right. Recognition and avoidance are the two most important things. If you end up letting yourself be forced into a fight, you have already lost.
 
I'm a firm believer in having the correct mindset when it comes to self defense weather you are armed our unarmed. Having proper mindset, proper training and the right attitude are essential. As I stated earlier, awareness and avoidance are the first steps. If you take these two items seriously (attitude) I believe that you will avoid up to 85% of possible confrontations. Some people don't like to hear it, but if stay away from the wrong types of places at the wrong time of day or night, most people can probably completely avoid violent conflict. This is just common sense but there are those guys who think that no one will stop them from going where they want to go. Okay, go ahead. But don't be surprised when things go south when you make that kind of decision.

Next, awareness is also crucial. I'm always amazed at how many people are so oblivious of what is going on around them. They look lost, preoccupied or have a cell phone glued to the side of their face and have no idea of what is going on right under their nose.

Bad guys don't play fair. They will not attack you on their terms. They will stack the cards in their favor. They don't care about a fair fight, they simply believe that violence will get them something they want. They don't want to look you in the eye and face off to see who is best. They want to hit you from behind with overwhelming force so that you have no chance to resist.

That being said not everyone you might have a conflict with will be career criminal. So some training will come in handy. Unless you are committed to training three days a week or more for the next few years, traditional martial arts may not be the best course. I also know that many martial arts schools train for sport and if that's what you want I've got not qualms. But remember you will react how you train. If you just train to score a point, guess what is likely to happen when things go south?

That being said I believe women should join a good martial arts school. Most women don't grow up roughhousing, wrestling, and playing contact sports. They don't learn the body mechanics to strike with enough power to do enough damage. Months of developing strength and muscle memory do wonders for them. When they discover that they can hit with some power its time to move to learning techniques.

Technique should follow the KISS principle, but things should not be too simple. And you should become well rounded. By that I mean you should learn both striking and grappling techniques. In truth about six to eight strikes with both hands and feet are all you need to know. But you must understand the concept of applying them. The thing about ground techniques is that you are usually either on the top, or on the bottom, and again, a limited number of moves is in order.

Learning techniques is great. But understanding concepts is far better.
 
The big thing is not to turn into a deer in the headlights. People who do get to fill out victim statements. It doesn’t matter if you side step, yell, redirect, kick or punch, just do something. Also it is important to note some people can’t help it. These people lack a killer instinct that helps a person caught in a fight see weakness and exploit it. Some people push back when they need to, other just can’t. Training can help but those who are likely to be deer on the street are also deer in the dojo

WSFLN
 
I think there's a seperation between "getting in a fight" and "fighting to survive".

I've never fought where folks were not perceived as a lethal threat. I have avoided getting into fights, talked my way out of fights, run from fights, and done whatever I could to keep myself out of situations where I could end up in a fight or done whatever it took to get out of a fight. If it wasn't serious enough to be a threat to life or limb it wasn't serious enough to fight.

The situations I have had to fight to get out of were serious enough where I actually feared that I might get maimed, crippled or killed. They were sudden and frightening. There was nothing glorious or "macho" about them. I only did just enough to get away, but I did enough damage to get away. Afterward I was shaking so badly I could barely open a door or turn a key and nearly threw up when I was safely away. In each case I consider luck to have played a significant role, but I know that the training I had made the difference between me being sent to the hospital or the morgue instead of making it home.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that unless it's a sudden unavoidable threat to your life it ain't worth fighting over and if it is such a situation you had better be prepared by having trained enough to be able to react to the threat without thinking about what you need to do.
 
"most martial art types move demand a certain level of physical performance and/or specific fine motor skills. Those motor skills usually go out the window when the adrenaline dump hits so a lot of intense training is needed to you can really perform."

Very true. This is why krav maga was deliberately designed to use gross motor skills when at all possible, and train under duress/exhaustion conditions.
 
You guys said it.

Wow, you guys explained all the angles.

You guys are certainly different than my neanderthal classmates who didn't think this stuff out as thoroughly. They sure could fight though.

I still practice after having been in the stuff for over 40 + years. More to keep the muscle memory, exercising, and mostly working on transitioning smoothly from unarmed technique to drawing a weapon of some sort.

Been working 18 years teaching my daughter unarmed and armed self-defense. She is petite and has had to use unarmed self-defense to seriously protect herself several times. Last time was 6 months ago.

Reminds me of that spaghetti western..."if you 're going to talk, talk. If you're going to shoot, shoot."

That's what I've taught my daughter (and about 700 other people in the past). :eek:
 
Your logic only applies to military or exec-protect type situations.
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So absent a girlfriend or wife, the little toddler in the front yard next door just has to look out for herself. Mom and Dad have to look out for themselves if the alternative is that you might have to get involved in mortal combat. Siblings, ditto. Your friends can hang it up. That unknown woman being dragged screaming into the bushes is on her own. Sad.

Sorry, friend, but I go by different standards. I can't weasel out by saying to myself,"You must survive to provide for your wife and kids." I don't have a wife and kids. I was raised to believe in the old fashioned standard of women and children first. The protection of your wife and your kids is more important than my personal survival. By your logic, either I view most situations as military or I view many people as executives in need of protection
 
No not really, other than picking my friends brains who practice martial arts. If push came to shove I guess I'm going to try to heal palm someone in the nose as hard as I can and hope that works.

If I'm in a bad situation I'm going to try to flee, then shoot not punch.
 
I did a lot of boxing and a whole lot of wrestling in my life. I still keep a heavy bag in the garage, but formal training? No. Wrestling has been the most fun of any sport in my life. My brother and I and many of my friends started as kids, and continued into adulthood. I still love to grapple, but most of my friends and my older brother don't want any anymore. My brother and I were the most evenly matched, (both ~245 lbs) but once I took him, it seemed, he lost interest. :scrutiny: He doesn't have my strength and when we started working out together, this was quite evident. It was also evident he didn't think it important enough to do, lifetime. I still work out; he hasn't in many years. Unfortunately, I'm getting too old for grappling now. Wrestling had been the dominant way to get myself out of the many scrapes I've been in, usually just getting myself out the door to avoid the all-out fight that would eventually take place. True, as was said, when you're as big as I am, you're usually hit from behind, so you have to have your wits about you and your eyes constantly moving. But it definitely helps to be big enough to duck a punch, pick somebody up, and toss them across several tables on your way out the door. I don't ever want that to happen anymore, but I think I could still hold my own.
 
I do karate aplenty. No CCW around these parts. The training is heavy on improvised blunt and edged weapons though, as it's a kobujutsu style.
 
My experiences?

Just a little reminder (based on my experiences?)...here in the L.A. area the BGs that figure you're a victim type?

They tended to attack with more than one BG and most of the time they were armed with sharp edged weapons or guns and many of them attacked on your blind side...from the rear.

When I pulled a weapon (key chain) they yelled that I was fighting "dirty."

My experiences have usually been me against a minimum of three BGs. In L.A., we don't get a lot of options open to us. (No CCW)

Look up threads under LASur5r if you're interested. That's my previous user name.
 
I can't weasel out by saying to myself,"You must survive to provide for your wife and kids." I don't have a wife and kids. I was raised to believe in the old fashioned standard of women and children first.
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Ok when I said girlfriend and family i guess you didn't understand the underlying thoughts. I would certainly help someone like a small child or woman or break up a fight if I have to. I'm not saying that I would just be looking out for myself or the people I know, but i'm also not going to run into the middle of someone getting the hell beat out of them so that I can get stabbed up. I agree women and children first. Your other post made it sound like something else, I think we misunderstood eachother.
 
i do train in unarmed self defense, but im *ALWAYS* armed. i cant carry (yet) but i do keep a yawara stick in my left pocket and a kershaw blackout (or sometimes a cheapo butterfly knife made of pure chinesium.) on the right side. i practice with them and unarmed about twice a week. I love this combination of weapons as i can be fighting with them without altering my unarmed fighting practically at all, but if i want to bring them into play they're either already in my hands or available pretty darn quick.
 
One more observation here. A few folks have brought up age as an obstical. I have to disagree. I'm 48 and I train three to five days a week. That's nothing, the guy I train under teaches eleven classes a week and he's 65! And we do a combined martial arts style that uses Tae Kwon Do, Judo, Hapkido and a bit of Jusitsu thrown in. While the TKD and Judo are certianly sport stuff, they do help to keep you in shape. The Hapkido and the Jujitsu are nasty combat arts. In the small town where I live we have like three choices to train. One place is a Japenese Karate school that doesn't even do any sparring. The other is a club that does striclty *** Tae Kwon Do, and the third is the place I train. I don't do any tournaments however but spend most of my energy working on the combat stuff.

The more time I'm spending doing Hapkido the more I appreciate it for the street. But there are too many moves that require those fine motor skills. Training can help overcome that to a degree, but I'd like it better if there were more emphisis on gross moter skill type of techniques. While I don't have a real fasination with Jujitsu, I do realize that ground and grapelling skills are needed to round out my tool kit.

I simply feel strongly that if pulling your pistol is your answer to every altercation in live, you are heading for a disaster at some point. While not everyone has the time or even the physcial capabilites, those who do, should get in some training and regular practice. This includes understanding and practicing avoidance and awareness.

You would be surprised at how many folks who are serious about training in unarmed combat also train in armed combat. Why? Simply because they too are serious about thier personal safety and the safety of thier loved ones.
 
Twogun, that is awesome. I am 43 years old. I train in Gracie Jiu Jitsu with guys half my age. My conditioning and strength is just as good and sometimes better.

Age is just a number in your head.
 
Well Dave, younger guys do seem to recover faster than I do, but then they also seem to waste a lot of effort when doing this stuff. Due to my experince I tend to be a lot more relaxed when doing this stuff than the younger guys. Certianly conditioning makes a differnce as well. But even when sparring with them they tend to give out before I do. I simply train harder and know how not to waste energy. On Friday's I often go eight to ten, two minute matches with guys fifteen to twenty-five years yonger than I am. Granted they are newer at this than I am but my point is, it is not too late for almost anyone to take up some type of unarmed self defense. Not only is this good for you physcially and mentally but you never know, some day it might come in handy.
 
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