It’s a pretty sad commentary on modern society when there are more sexual assault crimes committed against women in the US than are committed against women in places like Afghanistan. Yes, women in those countries have a whole host of other equality problems but sexual assault crimes are so rare in some parts of the world they make international news.
They are so common in the US that sexual assault doesn’t even rate being mentioned in the local paper.
Worse, women that are single or divorced are three times more likely to be assaulted.
Worse still, the overwhelming majority of sexual assaults are from men the woman knows.
It isn’t the stranger that attacks the woman unaware. It is the friend or even boyfriend.
And what is a woman to do?
The man is bigger, stronger, and faster. Once the assault starts there is preciously little the woman can do.
Kick him in his “jewels”?
Sorry that almost never works. Men guard that area instinctively and if a woman is in a state of fear and panic kicking the groin almost never gives the result the woman defending herself is after.
The kick mostly misses the mark, causes only minor pain … and a lot more rage in the man and he starts really beating on her.
Worse still, the instinctive female response of trying to put distance between yourself and danger (e.g. backing away from a male attacker or trying to push him away) are all wrong. Going one step farther is “shut down” caused by fear where the woman completely stops moving, paralyzed in fear.
I’m a father of three girls (ages ranging from 22 to 14 as I write this) and the above really scared the daylights out of me. It scared me that some thug of a man might attack my daughter.
The problem however is that most of what is taught by modern day martial arts is worthless to the point of being dangerous. Some of it might work in some situations for a man fighting a man, but otherwise its pure unadulterated garbage.
So I began a study of street defense techniques. Techniques that could allow even my 14 year old daughter to take out a 250 pound man in 10 seconds or less.
The great thing is that as strange as it sounds, when a man goes to attack a woman most of the time he actually wants the woman’s arms and legs in places where very severe damage can be done in a very big hurry.
Before I get into it, let me say a few things.
The closer he is to you the more damage you can do and the faster you can do it. It seems very counter-intuitive, but you actually want him close.
What I am going to be talking about through the rest of this article are things that are exceedingly dangerous. You can hurt someone very badly. However in my opinion if someone is going to attack you, they deserve it.
Sometimes, playing defenseless and pretending like you will just let the attacker do whatever they want without fighting back is a good strategy. You want the attacker to feel a false sense of security. The more certain they feel you are defeated and will let them have their way the less they are likely to use their strength to control.
The Frightened Kitten
This is a devastatingly effective strategy that plays off what I just talked about above. You want to pretend to be scared and absolutely compliant. You want to pretend that you will do anything for the attacker, let him do anything to you, if only he just doesn’t hurt you.
And as he gets in close …
You use your palms and you strike both of his ears simultaneously. Even little more than a tap can rupture ear drums. A good stiff “whack” will disorient the attacker for several seconds.
Now you take your hands and place them on either side of his head and you jam your thumbs into both of his eyes really, really hard. He will back off and shake away from you with a fair bit of force, quite possibly breaking your grip. You hang on for as long as you can but even just a second of your thumbs cramming into his eyes is enough to blind him for many minutes if not permanently.
Now here’s an important tip about this. When you are pushing your thumbs into his eyes, push slightly upward toward the top of his skull. There are two reasons for this. First it angles your thumbs so that instead of pressure directly on the eyeball it pushes your thumbs into the space between the eye orbit and the eyeball giving you deeper penetration. You will be able to hang on better, it’s slightly less damaging log term, but it increases “ocular pressure” meaning a greater likelihood of short term blindness instead of permanent (which helps with your defense later).
Secondly it also causes him to want to lift his chin to escape what you are doing, exposing his throat.
The goal here is to get him retreating from you as quickly as possible at the same time he is leveraging his head upward.
As soon as his head is extended upward use one of your hands to strike at this throat, not with a full closed fist, but with a half fist closed up like a cat’s paw so the knuckles are hitting him. You’re looking to hit the area of the adam’s apple but really any where against the front of the neck is good.
Now you grab him by the hair of his head (or even just his head if he’s bald or had really short hair) throw his sorry but off you like a rag doll and you call 911. You must call 911 right away. Use your cell phone and call 911 as you leave the area.
Once again, you must call 911 right away. You want to show that you are not trying to flee the seen of a crime other than to get away from an attacker. You want the 911 people to know that someone is very seriously hurt and you aren’t trying to escape or fleet from that. The guy is going to need immediate medical attention. You do not want to give the police or anyone else any room to say that you knew that really you did something wrong and you were trying to flee the scene.
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Please Know This
You will almost certainly be arrested. The guy is probably going to be heading to the hospital with numerous injuries. It is possible, if you “did your job correctly,” that he is temporarily blind, struggling to breathe and on his way to the hospital in very real danger of dying.
Now there are a ton of theories regarding how to deal with this situation. Former police officers have said that you should never allow yourself to be questioned by the police without a lawyer present.
Their job is to arrest people for crimes.Their job is gauged by how many people they arrest for how many crimes. The more arrests they make, the better of a job they are perceived as having done.
If you severely injure the guy (and you should) then the police might try to have you charged with assault claiming that you didn’t have to hurt him so badly. Even in so-called “stand your ground” states this is a very real danger.
The problem with this is that some kind of a crime was actually committed. They can’t really arrest the guy, he’s in the hospital. So, tag you’re it.
If you don’t answer their questions you can absolutely believe they are going to hold you for 24 hours before they let you contact an attorney. Now, it is possible that you will get someone that has daughters and is willing to be fair and reasonable and if you answer their questions and tell your version of the story without a lawyer you’ll be let go right away.
Most cops aren’t jerks. Most actually are reasonable people and they aren’t trying to screw you over. Some however are jerks and looking to screw you over and you have no real way of knowing which is which. Is he being empathetic with you as a ploy to trick you or because he’s genuinely concerned? It’s impossible to tell.
Now let me be clear about something. I’m just a guy, a dad. I’m not licensed as an attorney, I am not here to give you legal advice. I can only tell you how my daughter’s have been taught to handle the situation.
“Look officer, a crime has been committed. It’s your job to arrest people and charge them with crimes and the more people you arrest for more crimes the better of a job you are seen as having done. I was attacked, I defended myself, and I will not say anything else without my own lawyer present.”
In other words, what I have told my daughters, what my lawyer has confirmed is the right course of action to take, is to not be questioned by the police without a lawyer. My recommendation is that you should, in your specific situation, obtain appropriate and licensed advice from a lawyer.
The police will keep asking you questions, wanting you to give specifics. They are trained in strategies to make you talk.
Keep have been told to repeating over and over, “I was attacked, I defended myself, and I will not say anything else without my own lawyer present.”
They’ll ask you things like “how did you defend yourself” … or … “what did the idiot do that made you have to defend yourself?”
They’ll ask you questions like, “Are you thirsty?” That’s designed to get you answering even a small question. “What would you like to drink,” to answer another question. “I’m really sorry this happened to you ma’am, I know this must be traumatic. You need to keep yourself hydrated. When was the last time you had something to drink?”
They will use empathy, they will try to make it seem as if they are on your side … and probably they actually are … but again, what if you get the one jerk cop just looking to put someone in jail and they don’t care who or for what.
“I was attacked, I defended myself, and I will not say anything else without my own lawyer present.”
Now there are some questions you have to answer such as your name and the location of your ID if you don’t have it.
If they ask you any question dealing with the guy, if you knew him … anything dealing with the day. “You look hungry, when was the last time you ate? We can get you something if you like.” (them trying to start establishing a timeline)
Again, I’m not a lawyer so I can’t give you any legal advice. All I can say is that my daughters have been told that in any situation where they are attacked and they defend themselves, they are not to answer any questions. I guess my point here is this … seek your own legal counsel.
I know it stinks. It will probably annoy the police officers. However, if you can remember, just tell them in as calm a voice as possible “A crime has been committed and your job is to arrest people for crimes. Your job is gauged by how many people you can arrest for how many crimes. Therefore I will not answer any questions without my own lawyer present.”
Now I want you to notice something … “my own lawyer present.” You don’t want to say “a lawyer present.” That’s to prevent the police from pulling in a District Attorney (who is a lawyer) and saying, “here you go, now a lawyer is present.”
You want your own lawyer (in my totally unlicensed and non-attorney that isn’t giving you actual legal advice opinion)
Ladies, here’s the thing. If you’ve been attacked and you had to defend yourself, the last thing you want (in my opinion) is to now be attacked by the legal system as they try to pin some bogus assault charge on you because you were tricked into answering a question a certain way by a manipulative officer.
Again, most officers aren’t like that. The problem is that some are and you have no way of knowing which kind of officer is questioning you. So I tell my daughters to get their own lawyer.
In fact, I tell my daughters that they are to call our lawyer first. Their first call is to a lawyer and then only if they can make other calls do they call and tell family.
Did This Article Frighten You?
That’s a good thing, it’s supposed to. Far too many women are attacked, far too many damaged psychologically and/or physically for the rest of their lives.
My hope is for you to not be injured by some attacker and my hope is for you to not then be attacked by the legal system because you were capable of defending yourself.
Now this article did give you a strategy for defending yourself against an attacker. The problem is that you may not be able to make a good strike at his ears and that’s what starts the whole thing off.
There, not only will you get more self defense techniques, I’ll also give you a diet and exercise plan to help you look fantastic without it being difficult to follow or require that you eat a gazillion times a day or anything else foolish like that.
Written by Matt Goffrey
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