Hi there! This is the first post on the Urban Krav Maga Blog for the City School of Urban Krav Maga. I was humming and hawing trying to decide what the first post should be about when I get the email below from my sister in Glasgow:
“Hi Aasim!
Nothing to worry about as we are both OK. We had an incident here last night just after midnight. A guy was beating up a girl in the street and Jamie knocked on the window and told me to call the police. Jamie opened the window to ask the girl if she was Ok and she said ” You’d better watch, he’s coming to get you”. Next thing this guy’s broken through the security door downstairs ran up to our storm door and broken the door off it’s locks and broken through the glass in our inside door. Jamie’s pushing the door to stop him from getting through Jamie got cut by the broken glass and the guy was putting his head through the now big hole in the glass. He was shouting God knows what and finally ran off cuz he saw me calling the police. The police were here for hours and they called an ambulance to look at Jamie’s arm which thankfully only needed paper stiches. Trying to get a 24 hr joiner to make us secure was a nightmare but finally got a guy at 3am and he stayed till 4am banging away but our door’s so big it takes 2-3 weeks to order and he could only patch us up but he did with thick planks. We look like a war zone Glasgow style! Jamie says he’ll never do a good turn again as this is what happens. And the stupid girl pissed off and will obviously go back to this guy and not grateful at all. She will definitely end up in hospital from this character. I have never seen anyone so off thier nut on drugs and alcohol. We’re hoping he won’t remeber much so that he doesn’t come back. Anyhow that’s the gist of it. Clearing up all the mess today, insurance company only deals with claims Mon-Fri! Can you believe that?! Any how got the ball rolling. Can’t wait for our super new storm door which better be imprenitable. We’ll see you Sat. Been trying on saris galore and have whittled it down to two! lol. xxx”
I know what you’re thinking terrible grammar, that’s what 15 years in Glasgow can do to you!
OK, I think most people would agree that is a pretty shocking experience, and my sister lives in a relatively nice part of Glasgow believe it or not. Now this does bring up some intersting issues when it comes to self protection and intervening to protect others.
Here are a few things that come to mind:
1. There may be some pretty extreme consequences to helping people who are being attacked. I’m proud of the way by brother in law stuck up for this woman, he may have saved her from severe injury or even from death. However he probably was not expecting the response he got. The man reacted with extreme aggression and had the intent to do some serious harm to him andor his wife. It is important to note what a man amped up on alcohol (and who knows what else), couple with extreme rage is capable of. He may well be sufffering with broken bones from his assault on the doors and with some severe cuts from the glass but that was not stopping him at the time. If he had managed to get through that final door I shudder to think what may have happened.
2. I would recommend keeping an “equalizer” for such occasions somehwhere out of sight but easily accessible. By equalizer I mean something you can use as an effective weapon in the worst case scenario, a hammer perhaps. I wouldn’t go for many people’s favourite the baseball bat as there is not often the space or time to use it effectively i such situations. Keep it out of sight because you don’t want the intruder getting his hands on it and using it on you!
3. You must accept the fact that in such situations you will need to be very aggressive and ruthless yourself. In any physical encounter you must decide early how ruthless you will be, and then act!. In the situation described in the above email you would have to be totally ruthless. You are dealing with an adversary who will have no compunction about severely hurting or even killing you. You must match that. I know sometimes when I teach techniques and principles for self protection some students wince at the thought of eye gouges, stomping on the head, crushing someone’s larynx. Yet in the above situation I would have no qualms about such techniques. Now change to a scenarios where the attacker is a 14 year old getting gobby and threatening on the tube or bus, and obviously such responses would not be suitable. However put a knife in the same 14 year old’s hand or even tucked in his belt and again you need to be ruthless if you cannot leave the scene and avoid the fight. You must make the ruthless level decision early. If it is an ambush then assume the worst and be ruthless! Better safe than sorry.
4. Sometimes you will witness attacks or serious threats on innocent people or friends by scumabgs like the guy described above when your are out and about. Practice the various scenarios in your training as I am doing with my students this week. Remember you don’t have to give the other guy notice of what you intend to do. Surprise is your best ally. By the time he knows that you are going to help the innocent party, if you play your cards right, it should be all over!
5. Do not allow yourself to be intimidated by the other party’s agrression and patter! For all his bravado he is just a man with all the weakness that go with it. Concentrate on what you are going to do to him. Execute your plan and adapt as you need to.
Well that’s enough for my first post … I hope it gave you some food for thought!
If you are not able to get to lessons at my school or any of the affiliated Urban Krav Maga schools you may be interested in the UKM DVD box set that Stewart McGill put together with help from myself, Andy and Gershon. One of the 6 DVDs in the set concentrates on defending others under attack: http://www.urban-kravmaga.co.uk/urban_km_dvd.htm
