A STEP TOWARD REDUCING SCHOOL VIOLENCE, ESPECIALLY BULLYING!

Fact.  Eighty-six (plus) percent of all workplace violence, including school violence, could be prevented (OSHA, 2007) if warning signs of same would have been reported and/or acted upon.  This includes bullying, about which I recently posted, violence against teachers, suicides, and even some instances involving outside – seemingly unconnected violence spilling over into the school place. 

Bullying,, to me, ranks as a national disgrace.  Studies show that over 65% of children have been relentlessly and systematically bullied.  Physical and psychological violence.  It’s your guess which is worse.  To me, it’s both.  Think of this:  A child is triple victimized when he or she is bullied.

1. The child is victimized by the bullies (more often than not, the bully is joined by at least one other friend, plus one or two others cheering from the sidelines and coercing others to do likewise.
2. The child is victimized by his or her friends or fellow students who stand by and do nothing.
3. The child is victimized by the school system who through our educational history have either been incapable of stopping bullying within the school system, or. worse, have been unwilling to develop an effective system of reporting these ugly incidents (of bullying), investigating reports, and taking appropriate action in concert with parents.
4. There is a fourth dimension of betrayal.  This from parents who do not ask their child the right questions; who do not observe subtle and dynamic behavioral and emotional changes indicative of depression, hopelessness, anxiety, etc.  Parents, however, are not the issue in this particular post.

Why is this an issue today?  Two adolescents, victims of steady, unrelenting and cruel physical and emotional bullying, could only find the answer to their torture and inexorable anguish at the end of a rope, joining hundreds of other children who have taken similar routes in the past few years.

So, what can the schools do?  Your guess is probably as good as mine, but maybe here’s a start:

• Design, develop and engineer a reporting system that encourages and rewards students to report acts of bullying, or, for that matter, any other type of behavior that threatens the safety of students, teachers, etc.
• Honestly look into each reported incident without prejudice, presumptions and/or hidden agenda,
• Work in concert with all parents.  Make it easy and painless (anonymity?) to report problems with their children, to inquire about what their child is doing.
• Encourage counselors and teachers to contact parents regarding problematic behavior.
• Security Staff and teachers must be alert for any type of behavioral signs that violence, mischief, bullying, suicidal ideation is active.
• Schools need to develop and enforce a Counter-Bullying Protocol.

Next Post:  Bully-Be-Gone.  Realistic and doable steps that can stop the bully in his or her tracks!

Until Then.  Stay Safe.

Hammer.

BULLYING – IS THERE AN ANSWER OUT THERE?

This is my pulpit, so why not use it?  I have written dozens of posts, an E-book, and taught numerous classes on counter-bullying strategies and techniques.  Matter of fact, this post started out to be a monograph on how to physically discourage or just plain stop the bull in his or her tracks.

But I’m at a loss, friends.  At a loss because, you see, two children, both around 11 years old, waited until their parents were asleep or away for a few minutes, then tossed a rope across something sturdy and high up, then hung themselves until their oh-so-young lives were gone.  Why?

Because they were victims of bullies.  That’s why.

I hear tell that over 65% of children are victims of bullying.  I figure, then, that there are many other children considering suicide mainly because they foresee no end to what is to them endless and relentless torture, humiliation and shame for as far as their eyes can see.  What might be worse – although I really have a tough time conjuring up anything that could possibly be worse than relentless pain and shame – is there seems to be no answers out there.

And, ironically, it is shame that might keep them from confiding in other about what is happening to them.  As a matter of fact, many of their best friends already know about them being bullied because the same best friends are (inert) bystanders and witnesses to the bullying and none of them stepped forward then when it meant the most.  Matter of fact, those best friends even joined in the laughing and mocking from the sidelines (because they wanted to appear to be on the bully’s side to prevent themselves from being bullied).

And, if they confided in school administration, teachers and/or counselors, nothing meaningful ever happened to the bullies, and, arguably, things got worse because of the inevitable revenge attack once the school bell rang.

What can be done?  Truly, I don’t know for sure; but I do know something must be done.  Parents must be more pro-active.  They must ask intelligent questions.  Maybe not like “Honey, are you being bullied at school?  Although that’s a start.  But probing questions about how things are going; who are your friends?  Tell us, what you did today at school, etc.  Just showing that type of interest every day can bring great results.  But, please, don’t stop at questions.  Observe.  Look for signs of depression.  Look for changes.  Is he eating less?  Caring less about hygiene?  Gone silent?   Gone from a good student to a poor student with slipping grades?  Don’t stop there, either.  Contact the school and ask questions.  Ask the administrators enough questions and be persistent and I guarantee they will start looking into things.

And the school.  Cripes, the school.  How about a Zero Tolerance Policy on bullying?  How about following through with a class or two?  Do something about it.

As for me. I will continue to put out my Bully-Be-Gone classes and posts.  It’s what I do.  But unless parents become Safety Coaches and teach their kids these skills and augment the skills with their love and support and total effort to extinguish the relentless pain, anguish and shame (and I have been there.  These are not meaningless words), bullies will continue to hold forth in our schools, playgrounds and neighborhoods, and we can expect to read and weep about more children at the end of the rope.

Please Stay Safe.

Hammer

April 2, 2009

A BEAUTIFUL CHILD MURDERED IN OHIO

It doesn’t matter if a child is beautiful or not.  When a child is killed by a sexual predator it is always an unthinkable tragedy.  But Esme Kenney was in fact a beautiful 13-year old child, a very loving and active child.  Maybe being active this March day in Cincinnati was not a good thing because she was abducted as she jogged along a newly built recreation trail by a convicted sexual predator who had just been released from a nearby halfway house. 

Esme was only a block or so from her home and it was 3:30 in the afternoon and it was broad daylight.  But there are blind spots even on a recreational trail in the light of day and evil was waiting for her as she rounded a corner.  Poised in a tree in a pre-selected observation post, Evil waited patiently.  Evil had performed intelligence on the trail, knew the blind spots by heart, and also knew this would be the time the young girl would be running by.  Alone.

Esne was attacked and captured at what John Hall, the founder of Kid Escape, calls the initial crime scene.  She was dragged to the always deadly secondary crime scene, this one about 100 yards into the woods.  Every year the ravaged bodies of thousands of young girls and boys, as well as men and women victims are discovered by police in woods and forests just like this one, and none were killed there.  All were taken from an initial scene – a public scene – and carried off to this secondary scene because that is where this ungodly, evil miscreant can carry out his unspeakable acts upon his victims without interruption.

If you have followed my blog posts even randomly, you probably are familiar with my repetitious suggestions and admonishments for “victims” of these predators to do whatever they can to remain in the initial scene.  I understand that sometimes, when taken by surprise by a larger, stronger and totally committed evil entity, that staying in the first scene just isn’t possible.  

Then I guess the best self defense is prevention and avoidance.  God, I hate running over all the countermeasures against evil again, but that is just what I will do over the next few posts.

Until then, please, for your own sake and that of your loved ones, Stay Safe.  Until then—

Hammer

ACTION AGAINST VIOLENCE

March 21, 2009

EVADING AND ESCAPING THE CHARGE AND TACKLE

Being tackled to the ground can be a terrifying turn of events for anyone.  Probably why the charge and tackle is one of the 30 most common types of street attacks.  Successfully defending against such an attack requires a combination of mental and physical countermeasures, including:

1. Mental Conditioning.  Stay focused mentally. Stay calm.  You have less than 1 ½ seconds to orchestrate your actions and now is not the time to panic and freeze.  More likely than not, your mental curriculum should include:
   • AWARENESS.  Now is not the time to be oblivious.  Surprise is the best friend of the tackle-attacker.
   • ANTICIPATE:  You need to be Spinal Tuned.  In other words, your mind and body should be prepared at all times to act.  At some point before the attack, you need to have a plan of action, germinated by the self-thought:  “What would I do if such and such happens?”
   • TACTICAL BREATHING.  “Breathe, don’t freeze.”
   • SURVIVAL PSYCHE.  If all of the above is in place, the primal thought in your mind should be “I knew this could happen and I am ready for it.”

1. Balance is always an advantage.  Feet shoulder width apart, your power foor slightly rearward, giving you not only a wide but deep platform.  Knees bent and your nose directly over your center.  More about balance in a future post.

1. MOVEMENT.  Evade the tackle with good tactical movement (GTM).  GTM includes quickly moving diagonally, never straight backwards.  Moving linearly back is slow – the attacker will easily overtake you – but it is easy to trip over your own feet.

1. COUNTERSTRIKES.  In a wide open environment evasive movement is crucial.  A J-Step often will keep a tackler at bay.  However, in a closed environment, your movement will be restricted, so you are going to have to stop the attacker with a strike or two, depending upon how he attempts the tackle.

1.  
   • HIGH TACKLE/NARROW ENVIRONMENT:  Palm Heel Strike to the attacker’s forehead or chest to slow down the attack.  Follow up with other strikes.
   • MID LEVEL TACKLE/NARROW ENVIRONMENT:  As the bad guy attempts to tackle you around the waist, lower your center as you drive both forearms hard onto his Supra Scapular Nerve Motor Points (where the traps connect to the sides of his neck).  This should slow him down.  Now, with his head still lowered (as it will be when he attempts the tackle), grab the back of his head and drive it downward while driving an ascending knee strike into his face.
   • LOW LEVEL (ANKLES OR LOWER SHINS) TACKLE/OPEN OR NARROW ENVIRONMENT:  Defeat this pernicious tackle attempt by quickly sprawling both feet backward, thereby evading his grasp, and simultaneously driving your body and both palm heels against his rear shoulders.  You will end up on top of him, and he should end up face first on the ground.  Never stop hitting and kicking him until you can escape.

A CAVEAT HERE:  You cannot hope to learn genuine Survival Skills in a blog.  These will work best in a hands-on self defense program.  The suggestions above come from my PPCT GAGE (Ground Avoidance and Ground Escapes) Program.  I also teach these and other techniques in my self defense course for women, men and teenagers.

Until the next time.  Stay Safe.

Hammer

ESCAPING COMMON STREET ATTACKS – The Hair Pull.

The Hair Attack is almost entirely restricted to attacks on women, often performed by other women.  Either way, a hair attack is painful, maybe even mortifying.  It is also a tough-escape.  When performed against a woman by another woman it is almost always motivated by anger, jealousy (over a man, perhaps), even rage.  If you have ever seen this type of attack, you know it can get pretty ugly, fast.

When perpetrated against a woman by a male attacker the motivating factor often is a preamble to a sexual assault with a lot of malice thrown in.  The side-goal is to humiliate and dehumanize the woman.

But motivational factors is not the point here.  Escape is.  The two moves I have in mind will work against either gender, but they are designed primarily against a man. 

1. The male attacker expects you to try to desperately pull away.  Thing is, the more you try to distance yourself from the attacker – by pulling away – the more painful the hair pull.  I say, do the opposite of what you naturally feel like doing while also doing the opposite of what the bad guy expects you to do.

1.  
   • Move #1 is difficult to describe outside of the classroom setting where you and I could work together.  Clamp both hands down on top of the bad guy’s hand to prevent him from twisting your hair harder.  Also, you want to gain control over that hand.  Now, lower your center and turn clockwise until you are at an angle where you are slightly behind him.  By doing so you create a nice little wrist lock.  Painful.  While he is trying to gain control over his hand and prevent you from breaking his wrist, you can attack vulnerable targets.  Try a slanted foot strike down on his knee.  Break it.  Go home and watch 30 Rock.

1.  
   • Move #2.  Quick and devastating.  Clamp down on his hand or hands.  Prevent him from twisting.  Quickly turn your body toward his – not away from his as he expects.  Release one of your hands and drive a fist or palm heel into his groin, hard.  Keep hitting vital targets.  Go home and watch Family Guy.

Next Blog.  Another Common Attack.  Another cool escape.

Until then, Stay safe.

Hammer

MOST COMMON STREET ATTACKS AND BEST BETS TO ESCAPE, PART I.

I thought it would be cool to go over some of the most common types of street attacks and suggestions on how best to escape them (in Part II). 

OF course, I have repeated this mantra so often in past posts that I’m sure you are tired of reading it, but your best escape move is never to have to make the move.  By that I mean that nothing – and I mean nothing – beats prevention and avoidance.  And topping the chart of prevention and avoidance has to be the 4 A’s of Assessing yourself and your surrounding; Awareness of obvious and not so obvious changes in the other person and the environment; Anticipation, meaning, always have a plan of action, or at least a mind set that asked “what would I do if the worst case scenario goes down?”and, finally take Action exactly when action is required!

THE MOST COMMON STREET ATTACKS

1. Wrist/Arm Grabs.
2. Lapel or collar grab.
3. Lapel Grab and Sucker Punch.
4. Front Choke.
5. Rear Choke.
6. Roundhouse Punch.
7. Front Bear Hug.
8. Rear Bear Hug.
9. Side Headlock and Punch.
10. Hair Pull.
11. Charge and Tackle.
12. Front Headlock.
13. Rear Strangle Hold.
14. Overhead Strike with Weapon.
15. Bad Guy In Mount (straddling the chest), Victim’s (Woman) Hands Pinned To Ground.
16. Ground and Pound from the Mount Position.
17. Choke From Mount Position.
18. Choke From Guard Position (Man in between woman’s legs, on the ground).
19. First In-First Out (attacks when victim is first going in or first coming out of a car, garage, house, etc.).
20. Bear Hug From Rear/Objective is to pick woman up and carry her off.

Next Post:  How To Escape.  In the meantime, give some thought to what you would do?  How you might prevent this from happening?  How you might defeat this attack before it even begins?

Stay Safe.

Hammer

SSSS (SUPER-SECRET SELF DEFENSE SHIT) – AGAINST ANY ATTACKER!

I don’t care who the attacker is, if he or she attaches his or her hand to any part of your upper body, man, do I have the SSSS move for you!  Ok.  Let’s say you are a woman and a man accosts you.  You ask him nicely to back off and leave you alone, but, predictably, he declines your offer.  His right hand has purchase on your shirt right about where your heart is,  and he twists and squeezes the material.  Time to make your Super Secret Self Defense Shit (SSSS) right now.

Remember to breathe so you can think and act. Now, take your same-side hand (left) and dart it straight into the stupid asshole’s eyes and gouge.  The attacker will not be able to stop your attack because he has already committed that side’s arm to grabbing you.  Beautiful.

This SSSS move can be used against Bullies, also.  Since we are talking about a bully, though, let’s take it down a notch and bypass the deadly eye gouge.    If you are the intended victim of a bully and the creep grabs your shirt and starts twisting, simply Fake Compliance by holding your hands out in front of you, palms facing the bully as if pleading for mercy.  More likely than not, when you plead for him to let you go and wave your hands, he will start to pull you in.

Too bad for the bully.  As he is pulling you in – or, if he just stands there and continues to taunt you and refuses to heed your requests for “mercy” – drive one or both of your hands into his face and strike him as hard as you can with the heels of your palms.  Now that he is stunned, either escape the bully, or, if that is not possible, move in and attack his Center-Line Targets.

Center Line Targets include his nose, mouth, chin, chest, stomach, thighs, shins and feet.  

Until Next Time, Stay Safe.

Hammer

ACTION AGAINST VIOLENCE

March 8, 2009

Now You See It.  Now You Don’t – Distractions.

I was watching Casino Royale, a recent James Bond flick.  Bond was in a life-or-death stalemate with the knife-wielding villain.  Each had equal strength and it was going to come down to who could find the strength to sink the gleaming blade into his foe.  Suddenly. Bond jerked his face up and to his right – as if seeing something awesome or terrible – and, oila, the bad guy involuntarily looked in that direction. Taking his mind off the struggle for a millisecond.  End of story.  Bond swaggers off with a saucy brunette with a wheelbarrow full of cleavage and the villain—Well, you get the picture.

Point is and will always be, your mind is your most powerful weapon.  Never forget that.  Please.  Also, never forget that the mind, if not used well, can be your most awesome enemy.  To use your brain well, train it to be and then continuously allow it to be a crucial connection or nexus with your body.  The body can only be powerful when you need it most when it works harmoniously with the mind!

As I have pointed out in past posts, the bad guy will almost always attack you after a distraction technique.  He knows instinctively that you are weakest when you are the most distracted!  Which is why he will ask you questions to influence you to look away or down and to sink into your own mind (for answers to the questions) before he will attack. 

I say, then, that we must Reverse the Distraction to separate his body from his mind.  If you recall, I have often proposed that the attacker of women almost always has his own Fantasy Script and that the further he is allowed to carry out that script the more confident and dangerous he will become.  Well, I say let’s shatter that script right away!

When I train law enforcement officers I always include Distraction Techniques, or Distraction Reversals.  Always get the Bad Guy’s mind spinning to weaken any thoughts or actions toward resistance.  For instance, here are a few great distraction reversals that we have used with great success:

ORAL DISTRACTIONS

“Artie, lookie, man, you just pissed your pants!”  (Used versus very bad people who we knew were armed.  He had just given a urine sample, so when the officer made the statement, Artie did look down at his groin area, and we arrested him without him ever thinking of pulling the gun.)

“Wiggle your fingers, sir!”  (I teach this during prone handcuffing.  I have the Bad Guy look away from me and look at his hand.  When he wiggles his fingers he takes his mind off resistance, and he is cuffed without resistance).

“Sir, what’s your birth date?”  (I train officers to say this just before they cuff the first hand.  Same effect.  The Bad Guy tries to answer, but before he can, he is cuffed.)

DISTRACTION REVERSALS

You can come up with your own Distraction Reversals, but here are a few that women have used with success and one or two you might think about using:

• “Hey!  Don’t I know your mother?”  A woman used this on a bad guy who “had that attack look in his eyes.”  Stopped him in his tracks.
• “Hey!  911!  Almost anything coherent you shout spontaneously can reverse the distraction.  Bad Guys do not choose victims who not only see them coming, but are bold enough to shout at them!
• Object Distraction.  Throw a hat, a pencil, a book, at their face when they get close.  It should induce a nice little startle response.  Trick is, you’d better be ready to attack, or, if safe, disengage.
• Surprise is a great distraction.  Lull the Bad Guy into thinking he has you where he wants you and then attack suddenly.

Ø      He grabs your hand and expects you to pull away.  Okay.  Pull away, but, just as he relaxes and starts pulling you in to him with his superior strength, spring in to his center-line targets using his momentum, and attack him!

Ø      He has entered your personal space.  Do what he expects by putting both hands up, palms out, and beg him not to hurt you.  When he smiles and takes that step in, Bam Baby!

Can you think of some Distraction Reversals?

Until Next Time.  Stay Safe.

Hammer

SAFETY COACHES:  HOW YOU CAN USE ANIMALS AND BUGS TO TEACH YOUR KIDS TO SURVIVE A PREDATOR!

If you’ve been following my posts, you already know that I advocate parents acting as their child’s Safety Coach(es).  To teach them skills and techniques that can help them survive attacks by a sexual predator.  If this is your first taste of my Action Against Violence blog, just let me say that parents and teachers can become excellent coaches and can provide the needed support for a child in a dangerous world.

IN this post I would like to suggest that you can speed the learning process along by sparking your child’s vivid imagination.  And few things spark a child’s imagination better than animals and bugs.  I use this same kind of imagery when I do my S.T.I.C.K. and C.A.T. (Survival Techniques and Intervention Concepts for Kids/Parents and Counter Abduction Tactics) trainings for children. 

PARENTS (Safety Coaches), here are a few of the imageries you can use to teach your child how to physically escape and evade the predator:

• Claws.  Kids have no problem imagining they are a tiger or a cat.  Make claws out of your hands and rake the attacker’s eyes when he bends down to pick you up.
• Paws.  Pretend you are a wily cat or dog and you don’t want to be carried away.  Squirm and wiggle your way free.  Also I use this imagery for my wrist grab escape where the child quickly turns and moves his hand and wrist out of the Bad Guy’s grasp.
• Hug Like A Bug.  Grab onto whatever is close to you and hug it like a bug.  A tree.  A Pole.  Your bike.  A post of your bed.  The Bad Guy’s legs and torso themselves when he tries to put you into his car.  One kid I taught, who was being abducted from a bathroom stall in a park rest room, dropped to the floor and hugged the bottom post of the stall and curled himself into a ball.
• Roar Like A Lion.  Let everyone know this is not your father trying to carry you off.  Also, roar at the Bad Guy as he approaches,  The abductor is not looking for a crazy, noisy kid.
• Crab Walk Away.  All kids know what a crab does when it scrambles away on the beach.  Teach your kid to sit down, keep his or her eyes on the Bad Guy, place a hand on each side of his or her rump, and “walk” away using his or her hands and by raising the rump.  When the Bad Guy catches up with him, teach you child to kick wildly and scramble in a circle.  If this fails to scare away the Bad Guy – which it probably will – the last resort is to Hug His Legs Like A Bug, making it hard for him to carry your child off.
• HULA HOOP.  I use a hula hoop to teach kids their Personal Safe Zone, within which no person should be allowed to enter uninvited.  Control Your Space.
• THROW YOUR SLEEPING BAG ONTO THE TOP BUNK.  Teaching small kids how to get into a combat stance to block incoming punches is tough.  This imagery, where they throw their arms up toward their faces helps.
• BEAT YOUR BONGOS.  Is a great image that most kids easily understand and helps me teach them to knock a bully’s punches down.
• The Cobra Eats The Fly.  I use this image to teach children how to block a bully’s roundhouse punches.  I do not teach blocking skills against an adult predator.

Until the next post.  Stay Safe.

Hammer

            HIGH-LILLY HIGH-LOW AND OTHER WINOLOGY PRINCIPLES

                IT IS DAMN near impossible to engineer a foolproof Fighting Arts System of self defense that will work every time against every imaginable attacker in every imaginable attack scenario.  Mater of fact, even if I could design such a system, I doubt seriously if I could or even would attempt to train it since the attack format can not be predicted.  I know I cannot predict it, but, more importantly, I know the predator himself cannot predict it. 

              SURE, the attacker, much like any predator, has a hunting plan – how to spot his victim, track and stalk his victim, and, just to make certain his prey is not going to be able to fight or run,  how to test his victim.  When and how to attack may mutate with how the intended prey reacts during any one of these stages.  Once the attack starts, everything goes at a ferocious pace, and, if you – the victim – isn’t prepared to stay in the fight regardless of the pace and ferocity of the attack, simply put, you are screwed Big Time.

              ONE THING for sure:  If you have not trained and practiced assiduously – meaning hundreds of repetitions in dozens if different scenarios, the techniques you learned and rehearsed (Martial Arts Kadas) against the myriad of attack possibilities are likely going to fail you.  What always works, though, are what I call Timeless Principles. 

             Timeless Principles (of the Fighting Arts) cross all the variegated situation you might be confronted with in an all out fight for your life.  I can’t guarantee success, but these Winology (the art science of winning in combat situations) Principles, each of which is simple, easy to do, and are always heavy with time-proven truth.

GREAT WINOLOGY PRINCIPLES OF SELF DEFENSE.

• THE PRINCIPLE OF HIGH-LOW AND VICE VERSA.  Or as I call it in my SD For Women classes:  High-Lilly, High-Low.  This timeless Winology Principle simply suggests that when the Bad Guy attacks you high, all his targets will be open low.  Therefore, the attacker wades in striking at your face; block and counter-attack him low.
• HIT SECONDARY TARGETS TO OPEN UP PRIMARY TARGETS.  Winology suggests that the Bad Guy can only possible block 3 of his targets at any one time, meaning, if you stay focused, you must find easy-to-hit targets.  Hit secondary targets to open up the High-value Primary Targets that will stop him from seeing (eyes). Breathing (throat). Moving (groin).  Targets that will take away his fighting spirit (stomach, nose) and his ability to stand (knees).
• IGNORE THE EMOTIONAL STATE OF MIND AND CONCENTRATE ON THE TASK AT HAND.  Accept that you are scared.  It is natural.  Focus instead on the task of hitting open targets, moving, breathing and thinking.
• THANK YOU FOR GRABBING ME THERE.  This principle actually celebrates the occasion of the Bad Grab grabbing his victim.  Dave Guglielmi, one of my self defense co=trainers, would actually say “Thank you” before destroying the attacker who had just grabbed him.  Why?  Once you are grabbed, several good things happen. 

Ø     If the attacker grabs you with two-hands, you now are aware that he can no longer block or strike with either hand.  All of his targets are open.

Ø     If he grabs you with one hand, you know that he cannot both block and strike with his free hand.  Almost all of his targets are open.

Ø     When he grabs you, you now are free to trap the Bad Guy’s hand to you.  You can strike various vulnerable parts of the hands, fingers, wrist and forearm, and/or move that hand and arm in a direction it was not meant to be moved.

• EXPECT TO BE HIT, CUT, OR SHOT.  The Bad Guy knows how to dispirit and defeat you almost before the fight begins.  He knows most easy victims have a plan until they are hit.  Worse, many attackers are triggered into escalated violence when their victim cries, begs for mercy or just freezes in place after First Touch.  Remember that Self Defense Is not an Injury-Free Activity.  When you are trying to fight off an attacker, expect to be hit, maybe even cut or shot.  Shake it off, if you can.  Most likely, if you realize you have been punched, cut, or even shot, you can and will survive it.  Tell yourself, Hey, look at me, I’ve been punched and I’m still in the fight.”  Now, go out and win the damn fight!

Stay Safe.

Hammer