Unarmed Combat IS Combat. It's just really Uncomfortable Combat.

Good Unarmed Combat: be the guy standing up!

I taught a great bunch of people in Canon City last weekend, and as always at the end of my classes, I opened it up for questions.  One of the students asked, “What do you do if somebody grabs you from behind?”  We had just covered a basic gun-grappling technique and covered shooting from retention, so it was a fair question.  But it was really a question about unarmed combat rather than Armed Self-Protection, which was my initial answer.  This led to several students looking for recommendations for “self-defense” classes.  I don’t think I did a very good job answering their questions, even though I did recommend a couple of good unarmed combat schools in Colorado Springs.  So, today I am going to write about why I couldn’t give a very good answer and what a better answer is.

First of all, the students were looking for me to recommend a martial arts dojo.  But, as I have written about many, many times, I do not believe that most traditional martial arts like Tae Kwon Do, Karate, Kung-Fu, Aikido or Jujitsu (even Brazilian Jujitsu) are useful in teaching the unarmed combat skills necessary to defend yourself in a deadly force, lethal encounter.  I believe they are good at teaching fighting, whether in a ring or on a playground or in a bar, but such fights are not situations that will be deemed “self-defense” by a criminal justice authority after the incident, which is how self-defense has to be legally understood.  There are a few good hand-to-hand combat systems that have very little to do with traditional martial arts or competition that are good for self-protection in a lethal force encounter.  Some of these that I am familiar with are Vee Arnis Jujitsu, Combat Krav Maga, Target Focus Training, some modern styles of Ninjutsu and some schools of Jeet Kune Do.  I believe these systems can be very useful in self-protection training with the right instructor.  The problem I found with studying a few of these more practical, useful “self-defense systems,” is that they teach good skills, but they are still teaching people to use them in “fights.”  I call those kinds of situations “bar-fights,” whether they happen in a bar, a playground or a Wal-Mart on Black Friday.  Those bar-fights are situations that will not be adjudicated as “self-defense” by criminal justice authorities, especially if you apply lethal—effective—techniques in such situations.  Now, if you can find good instructors who truly understand when it is justified to apply lethal unarmed self-protection techniques, the skills you can learn in these modern systems are very useful.  If you have children under the age of 18, I think traditional martial arts are a great thing for them to learn about kinesthetic awareness, flexibility, body mechanics and gracefulness.  I don’t think anybody under the age of 18 should be involved in modern, lethal systems of self-protection because kids on playgrounds shouldn’t be breaking each other’s neck.  Conversely, anybody over the age of 18 should not be studying traditional martial arts, because they will not save your life in an actual unarmed combat situation; kickboxing and wrestling are not effective at killing people trying to kill you.

The answer I gave the student was that after twenty years of studying various martial arts in various parts of the country and world, I had lost faith in the ability of 2000 year old monastic workout programs to protect me.  So I got a concealed carry permit and a handgun, and now shooting is the only martial art I study.  When I can’t carry a gun, I carry a knife, and I know how to use it as effectively as a gun at close range.  When I can’t carry a knife, I carry a solid metal pen that I know how to use as effectively as a knife if I had to defend myself in a weapon-free environment.  But, that is not a good answer.  The truth is, you have to have some unarmed skills in situations where you don’t have a self-protection tool.  The answer I would like to have said is this: most traditional martial arts are great for kids to learn how not to hurt each other, but useless for adults.  However, there are some excellent self-protection systems like Tim Larkin’s Target Focus Training and SOME Krav Maga schools, if they are not corrupted into being McDojo workout studios.  The key is to find a system that does not believe, as many traditional martial arts believe, that they are better than knives, swords, guns, spears or aircraft carriers.  A good unarmed combat system should be dedicated to getting you armed.  The only fights that a good unarmed combat system should encourage are the fight TO the gun/knife/shovel and the fight FOR the gun/knife/screwdriver, so that you can utilize the gun/knife/automobile as a tool for your self-protection. 

The martial arts industry complicates the concept of self-defense so much that we lose sight of this simple truth: an actual self-defense situation is one where you would be justified in using a gun or knife if you had one.  Almost nothing the martial arts community teaches provides for that level of lethality.  The martial arts industry calls everything they teach “self-defense,” even though almost none of it rises to the level of justified homicide.  If a situation does not rise to the level where you could justifiably shoot or stab a violent criminal, then it probably is not legally self-defense; it is probably a “bar-fight.”  You would not shoot a person for spilling their drink on you in a bar, nor should you break his or her neck with your bare hands for doing the same.  Kickboxing or wrestling around on the ground with somebody for some minor violation of polite etiquette IS NOT JUSTIFIED SELF-DEFENSE!  Nor is it even self-protection when you could have just walked away from the bar or the conflict.  Conversely, kickboxing or wrestling around on the ground with somebody who is TRYING TO KILL YOU, will not work!  What works is getting out of the condition of being unarmed as quickly as possible when confronted with a violent criminal predator.  That is what effective unarmed combat systems teach you; you may need to hold a guy off with empty hand for a second or two by jabbing a thumb in his eye, or kicking him in the groin, but that is just to get to your self-protection tools.  Ultimately the goal of GOOD unarmed combat systems, is to get you armed as quickly as possible to end the threat, and if you can’t get to a tool, then you have to use your body like a bullet and apply only lethal techniques that kill, blind, maim or paralyze the threat just as effectively as a bullet or stab wound.  Any sort of classical martial art that teaches “weapons are for the impure of heart” or “guns are for cowards,” is nothing but a religious school teaching eastern philosophy.  There is nothing wrong with that; I loved studying eastern philosophy and religions in conjunction with my martial arts for twenty years, but it has NOTHING to do with real self-defense in real combat situations where it is kill or be killed.

The question is not: “what do I do when somebody grabs me from behind?”  Nor is the answer complicated by the technical aspects of defending against a rear choke, a rear bear hug (arms pinned) or a rear bear hug (arms free); the answer is complicated by the intent of the attacker.  The real question is: “what is this person trying to do to me?”  If the person is trying to kill/rape/maim/abduct you, then get to your gun and shoot her; to get to your gun remember this: GROIN, EYES, GUN or EYES, GROIN, GUN!  If the person is trying to tackle you because you gave him the middle finger, then buy him a drink.  Ask questions, like, “What do you want?”  Or, “What are you doing?”

Carry a knife up your sleeve and if the answer to those two questions is wrong or silence, then jab the blade into his abdomen/thigh/femoral artery/genitals/diaphragm as many times as it takes to persuade him to let you go.  Recognize, however, that just because he drops you after you stabbed him four times, that does not necessarily mean he is done with you.  Now would be the time to draw your gun and if he continues to attack, put about five to fifteen pistol slugs into his ribcage/skull.  The question is not: “What do I do if this particular situation develops this particular way using this particular hold or this particular attack?”  Those are martial arts questions, not self-protection questions.  The self-protection question is this: “can I LIVE WITH inflicting mortal damage to this asshole?”  If the answer to that question is “Yes,” then it is probably an actual “self-defense” situation, and you should inflict mortal damage to the asshole.  The obverse question is this: “can I LIVE, withOUT inflicting mortal damage to that asshole?”  If the answer to that question is “No,” then it is definitely an actual “self-defense” situation, and you should absolutely inflict mortal damage to that asshole.  How you do it simply depends on what you have available.  I like knives; they don’t run out of bullets, and at arm’s length they are every bit as dangerous as a firearm.  If nothing else, I use my bare hands to get to the bad-guy’s knife, and his knife to get to his buddy’s gun, and his buddy’s gun to get to the Republican Guard’s tank.  Self-defense is killing; killing is self-defense.  Kickboxing, jujitsu, aikido, karate, tae kwon do, et cetera, are NOT about killing.  They are NOT self-defense.  Unarmed self-defense just means that you didn’t have a gun to do your killing with AT FIRST.

Myths of Self-Protection

Myth Number 1: You have to be THIS GUY to defend yourself.  I have tremendous respect and admiration for the elite members of our military, and if you want to spend thousands of dollars learning how to snipe people at a thousand meters, or enter-and-clear a room with an MP-5, more power to you.  But, that's not self-defense shooting.  Most justified self-defense shootings happen under twenty feet with compact handguns.  You do NOT need to train for eighteen months to get good enough to protect yourself with a handgun.  You can LEARN everything you NEED to know in about four to six hours on a pistol range.  It won't make you the guy above, but it will put you on the path to becoming THIS GUY:

Myth Number 2: A basic firearms safety class teaches you everything you need to know to protect yourself with a firearm.  But, wait, Soule, didn't you just contradict yourself?  A basic firearms safety class is not four to six hours on the range learning out to fight with a pistol.  It is teaching you how to be safe with a firearm, which is an important first step, but IT IS NOT GUNFIGHTING!

Myth Number 3: So all I need to do is take your four to six hour Armed Self-Protection Class one time and then I can put a gun on my hip and be Doc Holliday.  This is the most dangerous myth I try to debunk, and I write about it all the time.  People who take a CCW class (usually just a firearms safety class), and then strap on a holster and carry a gun for the next five years without shooting it ever again, are suicidal.  PRACTICE is what makes you good with any tool.  If you want to be a musician, you can't just take one class on guitar and expect to be a rock star.  The same is true with a handgun.  Now, do you need to practice as much as a Navy SEAL?  Well, are you going to be inserting behind the lines of an enemy country to kill terrorist leaders?  Probably not.  But, you have to shoot on a regular basis.  So, you can LEARN all you need to know to effectively use a pistol to protect yourself in one day; but then it has to become a life-long commitment to maintain those skills.  Shooting is a sport, and you have to practice it to be good at it.  The guy that takes one class and never practices with his concealed carry pistol ever again is, in my opinion, the most dangerous person on the planet.  A bad-guy will take that gun away from him and use it on the people he loves.

Myth Number 4: I have to spend thousands of dollars to get a tricked-out race gun so I can shoot all fifteen guys attacking me.  Violent criminals tend to work in small groups to maximize profits.  The most common type of concealed carry handguns in America are the various .38 snub-nosed revolvers.  The "pros" mostly recommend Glocks.  Old school guys love their Model 1911 .45 ACP's with seven round magazines and one in the chamber.  A lot of cops like the Springfield XD series.  None of them need to be "tricked-out" to be effective self-protection pistols, and versions of all of them can be bought for around $500.  Competition is not self-protection.  You don't drive the Ferrari everyday, and you shouldn't carry a race gun for self-protection.

Myth Number 5:  You are safe.  Even if you are a Navy SEAL or a Ninja, there are no GUARANTEES of safety in a violent world.  Carrying a pistol ALL THE TIME that you have LEARNED to shoot fast and well, and PRACTICED with every month, is still no GUARANTEE that you will win in a violent encounter.  This is the hardest thing for civilians to accept; they believe that if they prepare enough, they will always come out on top.  That's the most frustrating myth I try to debunk; that you are GUARANTEED to win.  The enemy always gets a vote on the outcome.  The only guarantee in any sort of combat is this: if you do NOTHING, you are guaranteed to LOSE!  Anybody in the self-protection industry that guarantees you that their magic tricks will allow you to "win every fight," is a liar.  What we do is try to increase your odds by giving you skills and equipment to make you a harder target, because I believe a 1% chance of victory if you take action and fight back, is still better than the 100% guarantee of losing if you do nothing.

Truth: The world is a violent place not because of race, religion, nationality, socioeconomic statuses or ideologies.  The world is a dangerous place because human beings are mortal creatures, and as long as that is true, bad people will exploit that mortality by force, or the threat of force, for their own benefit.  All violence is based on that simple truth; we are mortal.  No revolution in art, religion or politics has ever been successful at changing our violent human nature because only EVOLUTION beyond our mortality can change it.  The second most frustrating myth I try to debunk is that somehow human beings are capable of overcoming this violent nature without overcoming our mortality; pacifism always fails in the face of evil men willing to do evil things to innocent people for their own benefit.  If you don't accept this truth first, no amount of training, education, practice or advice from those of us who have faced violence, will ever make you more ready to protect yourself.

That's The Real Philosophy of Violence,

Soule

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Knife Attacks

So, here is a startling statistic that nobody will believe because it detracts from the gun control agenda: according to the Centers for Disease Control, which tracks emergency room visits, over 134,000 patients were admitted to US emergency departments for edged weapon wounds received in violent crimes in the year 2016.  Most of these are domestic violence or known party altercations rather than random stabbings, but it is still a huge number.  The FBI does not track these statistics, because over 90% of knife wounds are non-fatal, and the FBI only publishes knife attacks that contribute to the homicide rates.  The 134,000 number does not include fatal edged weapon attacks, as the CDC statistic is for emergency room admissions, not morgues.  The 134,000 plus number sorts out all self-inflicted and accidental wounds; it only includes non-fatal violent crimes committed with edged weapons.

Why is a firearms instructor telling you this?  Because I don’t want to get stabbed, even if I have a ninety percent chance of survival, which is the liberal argument in the UK against guns that somehow being stabbed is so much better than being shot.  No thanks!  The mass stabbings in the UK and Paris make the news, as do the spectacular fatalities like the poor lady in DC last week, but the vast majority of non-fatal stabbings never make the headlines.  If it is happening over 134,000 times in America in a single year, it probably is not very news worthy, to be fair to the news industry.  But it is epidemic from the perspective of the self-protection industry.  To answer my question more thoroughly, a firearms instructor is telling you about knife attacks because I don’t want you getting stabbed either, and the best way to not get stabbed is to shoot the guy with the knife.

Many honest martial artists will tell you that in a knife attack there is no way to prevent getting cut or stabbed.  What they are training you to do is minimize the damage caused by those knife wounds.  Deflecting a blade away from the torso and getting a cut across the outside forearm muscle is success according to honest martial artists.  I won’t even belittle the (honest) martial arts community in this edition, because I agree a cut forearm is better than a punctured lung, liver or diaphragm muscle.  But isn’t it better to have neither?  Which is not a guarantee that I can make with a gun, but then there are no guarantees at all in an interpersonal combat situation (self-protection incident).  But there are ways of improving your odds; to prove this point I will relate a true story.  One dark and stormy night in the Diyala Province of Iraq in 2006, a guy jumped out and emptied his AK-47 magazine right in front of my buddy Chris.  The only problem the guy had was that Chris was in an M1 Abrams Tank, and he simply swiveled the coaxial machine gun at the guy and let off a half-second burst before running him over.  One can’t discredit the bravery of the insurgent, just his judgment and gambling ability.

Here’s my point: Always take a gun to a knife fight.  Do not trust any martial arts instructor that says they can prevent you from getting cut or stabbed in a knife encounter.  Don’t trust a firearms instructor that says that either.  I can’t guarantee you win with a gun against a knife; but I can increase your chances.  It’s better to have the tank than the AK-47 in Chris’ story.  It’s better to have the gun in a knife fight.

An annoying irony is that cops are allowed to shoot guys with knives, but citizens are only allowed to in certain jurisdictions.  Some crazy jurisdictions like my former state would prosecute a person who shot somebody trying to stab them.  They have a proportionality self-defense law that says you can’t use a more powerful weapon on an assailant for self-defense.  If you live in those kinds of jurisdictions, you really, really need to move.  The state is jeopardizing your safety and life because of an absurd concept of fairness towards psychopathic predators.  The reason cops are justified in shooting guys with knives is because it is a lethal force situation.  The infamous “21 foot rule” comes from a case where an officer shot a guy with a knife twenty-one feet away, because he proved in court that the guy could close that distance at a sprint in less time than it takes to draw a handgun and engage.  That is therefore a lethal threat.  No knife attacks start as far back as twenty-one feet against civilians, by the way.  Which means, up close and personal, you have to train to draw and fire at hand-to-hand combat range.  You have to train it over and over and over again, because it is very possible you’ll have a knife wound before you fire, and if you train your reptilian brain to just draw and squeeze that trigger, even wounded, you will complete that ingrained task.  But you still got stabbed, which is why you continue to squeeze the trigger until the knife wielder is no longer a threat.  Don’t try to disarm him, don’t try to wrestle for the knife, just pull out your gun and squeeze the trigger until he is no longer a threat.

If, for some reason that escapes my understanding, you still live in a jurisdiction that punishes you for defending yourself with a firearm, then you should get real good with whatever tools you are allowed to carry.  The principle is the same.  Do not attack the knife.  Do not go for the weapon.  Use your tool, improvised or otherwise, to eliminate the threat behind the knife.  Shut down the predator’s central nervous system and you won’t have to worry about the knife.  There are experts out there that teach this, I always recommend Tim Larkin’s Target Focus Training system, but even they would say the best solution to a guy with a knife is to shoot him.  The worst case scenario in a knife attack is to be just a helpless victim who gets stabbed, but only slightly better than that is to be a not-so-helpless victim who gets stabbed but manages to crush the guy’s trachea or snap his neck.  The best case scenario is to not get stabbed, either because you escaped, or because you shot the prick before he had a chance to stab you.

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