Self-defense against a friend, or any other person you ordinarily wouldn't want hurt

[Carol]

How many folks train in scenarios that of self defense against someone you don't want to destroy?

Say you're with a friend or relative, they have too much to drink and they start doing stupid stuff. Or maybe their nerves are shot because they are going through a nasty divorce and a snide comment ends up setting off their temper.

You want to protect yourself, or distance your friend from another person....but you might not want to resort to the rock-em-sock-em-break-their-face stuff because you know they are not being themselves.

Does your training prepare you for this sort of thing? Just curious

 

[Koshiki]

Calling all grapplers, Standing and Ground, calling all grapplers!

This is where mainly striking focused arts tend to fall down, I feel. Strikes either have to hurt, or to do structural damage to be at all effective, basically, unless you feel skillful enough to just keep herding someone around without making real contact until they calm down a bit. I only see that working if you're a long range striker, too. I bet a good WTF guy could keep an angry me at bay for a while. If you rely on elbows and shoulders and forearms and knees, I think you'll have trouble. I did have success calming down a normally serene (but at the time very drunk) friend once with a solid but not penetrating celiac plexus thump. Could just as easily have pissed him off, but he's not the kind of guy who's used to getting hit. At all.

Grappling, of any sort, on the other hand, is MUCH more about positioning and control. You can grapple people into positions where they can't hurt you, can't escape, but are also in no sort of physical danger or pain.

I would say, the more grappling/controlling in your system, the better you can deal. The more you rely on striking, the more likely you are to either hurt or get hurt.

Also, if you practice Iaido, I bet you could get them to stay away pretty well...

 

[Dirty Dog]

Frankly, I'd use the same techniques on them that I use on out of control people in the ER (OK, probably not including the sedation...). They may be unhappy, but they'll stop fighting.
Mainly a combination of joint locks and pressure points.

 

[Takai]

Mainly a combination of joint locks and pressure points.

That was along my line of thinking as well. Cause pain and gain compliance.

 

[punisher73]

I have only trained in karate (striking) and it's traditional methods and I have ALWAYS been taught how to use appropriate force in a situation like that. My first instructor used to always teach techniques "for your drunk uncle charlie" that would control but not injure the person.

In fact, one of the first fights I had when I started training was against my drunk roommate who wanted to "see how tough I was" since I trained in karate. I checked one of his kicks and when he went to punch I parried it and moved off angle and pushed him into the wall. He lost his balance and slid to the floor and then cowered up about "not hurting him". Even though I had only trained in a "striking art", I was still taught the tools within that to not have to hurt him.

I think that is one of the misnomers about striking TMA's. They do teach stand-up control tactics within their striking methods. The same can't be said of a pure sport oriented striking art (boxing/kickboxing).

 

[jks9199]

Calling all grapplers, Standing and Ground, calling all grapplers!

This is where mainly striking focused arts tend to fall down, I feel. Strikes either have to hurt, or to do structural damage to be at all effective, basically, unless you feel skillful enough to just keep herding someone around without making real contact until they calm down a bit. I only see that working if you're a long range striker, too. I bet a good WTF guy could keep an angry me at bay for a while. If you rely on elbows and shoulders and forearms and knees, I think you'll have trouble. I did have success calming down a normally serene (but at the time very drunk) friend once with a solid but not penetrating celiac plexus thump. Could just as easily have pissed him off, but he's not the kind of guy who's used to getting hit. At all.

Grappling, of any sort, on the other hand, is MUCH more about positioning and control. You can grapple people into positions where they can't hurt you, can't escape, but are also in no sort of physical danger or pain.

I would say, the more grappling/controlling in your system, the better you can deal. The more you rely on striking, the more likely you are to either hurt or get hurt.

Also, if you practice Iaido, I bet you could get them to stay away pretty well...

Have you actually tried restraining someone who's actually fighting, and drunk or merely in a blind rage? It's a lot harder than you think, no matter how much you think you know.

Restraining with minimal harm is a regular issue for me, not surprisingly. There's no easy way, there's no magic trick (though Taser's can be fantastic!) to do it. Strikes, grappling (standing and ground), throws... they all have a place in the puzzle.

 

[Dirty Dog]

Have you actually tried restraining someone who's actually fighting, and drunk or merely in a blind rage? It's a lot harder than you think, no matter how much you think you know.

Restraining with minimal harm is a regular issue for me, not surprisingly. There's no easy way, there's no magic trick (though Taser's can be fantastic!) to do it. Strikes, grappling (standing and ground), throws... they all have a place in the puzzle.

I'll add one more component. Overwhelming numbers. It is almost always helpful in these situations to have 6-8 people on your side.

I don't get a Taser. But I do have a defibrillator...

 

[donald1]

In my opinion i prefer to avoid hurting anyone if possible, if you are put in a situation where your friend or someone like that. To put it short a "friend" wouldn't put you in that situation so for me it wouldn't be hard

 

[chinto]

Okinawan karate teaches locks and throws and grapples for such situations when taught properly. It always has. the trick is to tell when a situation such as that is so out of control that you may have to damage them to stop them from something. ( yes this means grappler types to!) but locks and pressure points and things that Okinawan Karate and other arts have always taught usually will do the job. ( often if they will not its a situation where the person is using a drug/substance that has rendered a lot of responses noneffective do to the effects of it!) in that case well depending it may literally be a matter of survival to stop them with damage..

 

[K-man]

How many folks train in scenarios that of self defense against someone you don't want to destroy?

Does your training prepare you for this sort of thing? Just curious

Every session.
:asian:

 

[punisher73]

I forgot to add, I always teach my students that every situation should have an "AMP response".

A=Aggressive
M=Moderate
P=Passive

For example, person grabs your right wrist (yeah, I know but it's a good starting point to illustrate) with their right hand.

Passive response is just doing your basic wrist escape by twisting and removing your hand by going against their thumb/grip. It is passive because I have broken the grip, but I haven't DONE anything as far as doing something to them or improving my position.

Moderate response is after the grab occurs, I counter grab and move in. This bends their elbow and I put my left hand on their elbow and rotate the hand/elbow which bends them over (think Aikido's Ikkyu). I still havent' hurt them, but I have put them in a position to protect myself and control them.

Aggressive response. Let's say that they do the grab and are getting ready to punch with the other hand. I don't worry about the grab so much as resort to striking them first and then do one of the two responses (or something else) to improve or escape the position. The big difference is that I AM trying to inflict pain/injury to them.

 

[DennisBreene]

Everything I've ever trained in has had a scalable response.

 

[Hanzou]

How many folks train in scenarios that of self defense against someone you don't want to destroy?

Say you're with a friend or relative, they have too much to drink and they start doing stupid stuff. Or maybe their nerves are shot because they are going through a nasty divorce and a snide comment ends up setting off their temper.

You want to protect yourself, or distance your friend from another person....but you might not want to resort to the rock-em-sock-em-break-their-face stuff because you know they are not being themselves.

Does your training prepare you for this sort of thing? Just curious

I agree with Zack that grappling (Bjj, Judo, Wrestling) can be extremely useful if you're trying to not hurt someone. For example, if your drunk uncle is being a jerk, you can put him in a Scarf Hold/Kesa Gatame. If he keeps being a jerk, you can do slight modifications to make the pin more uncomfortable leading up to a possible shoulder break, or a choke. Even more simply, you could use grappling to maintain a superior position during the entire altercation.

Part of the reason I chose Bjj over other arts was for its ability to lock and hold people in place without hurting them. I wasn't disappointed.

 

[Sukerkin]

Also, if you practice Iaido, I bet you could get them to stay away pretty well...

:angel: :ninja:

 

[SENC-33]

You take somebody (a drunk obnoxious friend) to the ground and put him in a lock of some sort and then what? You make him yell uncle or else you will snap his elbow?

Pop him in the solar plexus "just enough" to send the message. This is a strike you can easily control the punishing effects

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I don't like to rely on any sort of pain compliance techniques since the pain threshold of different individuals can vary widely (especially under the influence of alcohol or adrenaline). Joint locks are for causing structural damage - if you apply a lock for the purpose of pain compliance and the subject doesn't comply you are left with the options of letting them go or breaking something. If you're dealing with your drunk uncle at a party this is probably less than ideal.

Wrestling, judo, and BJJ all contain methods for pinning someone without damaging them. You can make the pin as uncomfortable as you like and drain their energy until they have no steam to fight without inflicting any actual damage.

 

[Instructor]

I call this the gray area in use of force treaty. It's an area that Hapkido excels at we have tons of moves that get the job done without destroying the person.

 

[K-man]

Wrestling, judo, and BJJ all contain methods for pinning someone without damaging them. You can make the pin as uncomfortable as you like and drain their energy until they have no steam to fight without inflicting any actual damage.

As do most other MAs if taught properly.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

As do most other MAs if taught properly.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "if taught properly." Based on my exposure to a number of arts over the years, many of them do not seem to have much in that department. If you discount pinning techniques which depend on joint locks and/or pain compliance (for the reasons I mentioned) then the arts which have much in the way of non-damaging pinning methods seem like they are in a definite minority.

I'm open to correction. If practitioners of TKD, Wing Chun, Iado, etc want to join the thread and explain how they train to pin/restrain someone without relying on joint-locks or pain compliance, then I'm all ears.

 

[Instructor]

I guess it depends on what you mean by "if taught properly." Based on my exposure to a number of arts over the years, many of them do not seem to have much in that department. If you discount pinning techniques which depend on joint locks and/or pain compliance (for the reasons I mentioned) then the arts which have much in the way of non-damaging pinning methods seem like they are in a definite minority.

I'm open to correction. If practitioners of TKD, Wing Chun, Iado, etc want to join the thread and explain how they train to pin/restrain someone without relying on joint-locks or pain compliance, then I'm all ears.

Well I can't do it. Joint manipulation and balance disruption is the name of our game. Once down though I've successfully restrained a crazed person by simply wrapping my belt around there wrists (behind their back) and waiting for the police to arrive.