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From birth women are taught that if a man grabs them to kick them “where it hurts” to get away. This has always meant to give a good solid knee strike to the testicles and according to our mothers and Hollywood, the man will grab himself, roll up his eyes and drop like a stone.
Unfortunately in real life, every man has had a mother, sister, girlfriend or cousin who has also been taught this simple means of escape so they all expect it. Some may be wondering, “Is she saying not to attempt it?” By no means am I suggesting this. The only wrong move in self-defense is no move at all. What I am saying is to be prepared in case you can’t get the strike in or, as I know from experience, it doesn’t have the effect your mother promised.
Another real life fact is that men are not the only ones to commit robbery, murder or sexuall assault. In this case many are confused as to what to do since women obviously don’t have testicles. Well for one thing, you may still want to attempt the knee to the groin strike. A woman won’t be expecting it nearly as much as a man and it is still a painful blow when enough force is put behind it.
After attempting this technique you will be faced with two decisions.
1. It actually worked the way you hoped and you now can run away.
2. It didn’t work and you must instantly come up with alternate techniques for your survival.
If you were lucky enough to become free, take advantage of it and run. Don’t stand there cursing the “piece of scum,” telling him or her about their dubious ancestry or attempt to get another good kick in while they are down.
Simply turn and run to the nearest safe location, call the police and take the time to file a report. If you are lucky, they will catch the person and hopefully prevent someone else from becoming a victim.
On the other hand, if you suddenly are thinking your mother lied because your attacker still has a solid grip upon your body, it is time to change your defense strategy. A fairly simple, easy to remember set of moves that are often as effective if not more so than the knee strike is to go on the offensive and attack the assailant’s face.
Now up to this point, I have basically been addressing women but don’t despair men; this will be equally effective for you, too. In fact, your chances may actually be higher because men are seldom seen in a “cat fight” like women where hair pulling and fingernails are the choices used.
Hopefully, you will be facing your assailant to enable you to have a wider variety of possible moves. The great thing about the following moves is that they can be used against a person who has you in a forward choke hold, a one or two fisted lapel grab, holding and shaking you by the shoulders and can even be done with one hand if the other is being held in a strong grip.
The first move to attempt is to turn your fingers into claws and reach for the attacker's forehead and dig in as deep as possible while raking downward toward the chin. Don’t be squeamish about it by letting up on the pressure as you reach the eyes. This person obviously isn’t worried about your safety so there is no reason to worry about theirs.
You will want to do this rake as fast and strong as you possibly can and build up a momentum behind your attack. In most cases a person’s first involuntary response will be to shut their eyes and the attempt to grab the area for protection as well as to see if there is blood. Assailants can be a funny bunch, they don’t mind seeing your blood but their own often upsets them.
Remember the momentum you built up? Now is the time to use it. As you are raking downward allow your arms and hands to follow the given course and pop back up towards the assailant’s neck and facial region. At this point you again have choices.
1. Go back for the face.
2. Go for the throat.
3. Go for the nose.
4. Go for the genital region and/or knees and feet.
If you go back towards the face, attempt to focus on the eyes. Moe of the three stooges had a good idea with the eye pokes but let's attempt it in another manner.
Open your hands and have the four fingers slightly cupped with the thumb opened by itself. As your upward momentum is increasing, attempt to ram the thumbs into each of your assailant’s eyes. As they make contact, grab each side of his head in a firm grip and proceed to dig your thumbs into the eye sockets with as much force as possible. Remember while you are doing this that this lowlife had no regard for your person or your property, so don’t feel pity. What you want to feel is that fight or flight instinct in full swing that will add strength to you with its sudden rush of adrenalin. With luck these moves will make the assailant back away and allow you an escape route.
If, after the first face rake the assailant only used one hand to cover or check his face, then it is time to literally go for the throat. When you do this, again you will want as much of the upward momentum as you can get, but this time close your fist and attempt to hit the throat more towards the chest than the chin. This is the area where the trachea and esophagus are at so use these vulnerable areas to your advantage. Can you do permanent damage to the assailant by hitting these areas with force? Yes, but that is his or her problem, not yours.
If you wish to see just how little effort it takes to cause discomfort in the throat area, take your own thumb, place it in the hollow area at the base of your throat and gently apply an increasing amount of pressure. You will find it takes very little to make you stop your curiosity in regards to the experiment.
With luck, you will hit the throat causing the assailant extreme discomfort or even rupture the trachea. If this occurs, he or she will not be pursuing you anytime in the near future. Their main concern is to get enough oxygen in to survive until medical assistance can be found. Do you stick around to see if he is going to make it? NO! Run for a safe place, call 911 and tell them what happened. They will send the police after him and help if needed.
Another step that involves the face often has new martial arts students making gagging “gross” noises in class. This time you will want to make claws of your hand but have the claw turned so your fingers are pointing towards the sky with your palm flat as if you were holding a soft ball. Once again using that upward momentum (isn’t it a wonderful thing), ram your index and middle fingers as far into your assailant’s nose as possible, hook your fingers and then rake them down and out as forcefully as you can. Your intent here is to take as much of the meat inside the nose as possible. Sounds gross but it is affective.
Although the possibilities are limitless, I will leave you with one last technique to use as a follow up to the facial rake. If your assailant has indeed attempted to protect his face, allow your upward moving hands to grab HIM by the shoulders, shirt collar or top of T-shirt and yank downward as you take a small step forward with your weaker leg, (this would be left if you are right handed). As you are doing this proceed to slam your knee into your assailant’s groin or abdominal area and then slam your heel downward onto the arch of his foot or onto his toes.
All of the preceding techniques can be used in any combination and can be extremely effective but no self-defense move is fool proof. Your best chances of using these and regaining your freedom are to carefully practice them repeatedly with a friend until you can do them without hesitation. No single self-defense move will work 100% of the time in any and all situations so your best means of escape is to have an arsenal of back up techniques to be able to move on to without having to stop and think while allowing your assailant time to regroup and attack again.
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