A Night at the Improv

Sally was leaving work after a particularly long and draining day.  As she made her way to her car, her hand was feverishly searching her purse for her car key.  Halfway down the block, a strange feeling enveloped her, causing her to quicken her step and look around.  The sight of an empty street made her laugh to herself.  A grown, professional woman who has been trained in martial arts doesn’t just get the “eeby-geebies”!

As Sally finally approaches her vehicle, her hand magically lands on her car keys.  She breathes a sigh of relief at not having to empty her purse on the hood of her black Lexus…again.  She glances into the backseat, as is her habit.  All that is visible is the martial arts DVD that she bought to practice with at home.  She makes a mental note that the tool would do her much better in the house than in her backseat.

Sticking her keys into the door, Sally hears footsteps rapidly approaching.  The hair on the back of her neck stands up and she quickly turns toward the sound, ready to explode in a cloud of martial arts moves by instinct.  However, her attacker meets her swiftly and knocks her down to the ground.  Her hope is that all he wants is her car or her purse.  Perhaps he will grab her keys and take off, leaving her safely on the street.

No such luck.  Seeing this damsel in distress causes the bad guy to feel indestructible.  He turns to make his way to Sally….What should she do?  What would you do?

This type of a scene plays out in less than thirty seconds.  That is not much time.  Sally (or you..or your wife or daughter) needs to be able to think quickly.  The truth of the matter is that even with martial arts training and practice with a martial arts DVD, you need more in order to handle a situation like this.  You need applicable training and tools.  Tools, in this case, means weapons.

Weapons training used to be a large part of any martial arts training.  However, today we have quickie schools geared for sport or self defense.  Many of these schools teach ample hand techniques.  While this is great, and I myself teach plenty of hand to hand combat techniques; you can’t underestimate the power of weapons.  I’ve talked about this before, but I want to expand on it by offering up a short list of potential weapons.

Because Sally is at her vehicle when her attack occurs, she could use the following as a weapon:

•    Car Keys – Thrust or rake at soft tissue targets or pressure points.  Soft tissue will be more effective because you don’t have to think about where the pressure points are.
•    CD Case – Can be used for sharp edges to scratch the face or soft tissue
•    Flashlight – Every vehicle should contain a flashlight. The more accessible, the better.  That means right next to your seat or in your door panel.  A flashlight (especially a long handled one) makes a great stick with which you can inflict some blunt force on your attacker.

Now here’s the thing…I’m all for weapons in self defense.  The more you can improvise, the better.  Watch some news stories and see how many times you hear that a bad guy has the weapon.  How many times do you hear of an attack or robbery thwarted by hand techniques?

The question of weapons is how well can you use what is available to you?  The question is not whether or not you should; but how quickly you can identify a weapon and use it.  A street fight or attack is nothing like what you get into in martial arts class.  While you need to learn moves to get free, you also need to address the options of weapons and learn how to use as many as possible.