[sigvirt]

Training is your friend. Learn to be on both sides of the fist and stick and gun - what is and is not possible. For some illustration of outcomes, see youtube for "28 foot rule" or "21 foot rule". Learn to see the setup and the ambush, though there are fewer who teach this. One of the best introductory defense programs I've seen, for when push came to shove, was Bay Area Model Mugging (although for women only). There can be a time to step-up/speak-up and defend yourself and friends, a time to hand over the goods, and a time to run like hell. Training goes a long way to replace panic with healtier options. And call the police right away; it might save the next local victim half an hour later.

[throwaway62991]

Unfortunately, most of the training that's available is worse than useless. It's fantastical, unrealistic and informed by neither research nor practical experience. It teaches physical techniques that are demonstrably ineffective, it fails to teach the core mental skills of self defence and it gives a completely false sense of confidence. Bay Area Model Mugging seems to be far more serious than most, but their website copy does seem a little concerning in places.

de Becker's The Gift of Fear is such an important work because it emphasises everything that happens before a violent confrontation. By the time most people realise that they might get hurt, they've already missed a dozen opportunities to recognise the situation and act to protect themselves. It applies not merely to the random acts of violence by strangers that many people fear, but the far more prevalent and insidious forms of violence that develop within relationships of all kinds.

Any meaningful self-defence training must include real fear, real violence and real pain. It must start with the essential skills of situational awareness, threat perception and decision-making under acute stress. It must be rooted in the understanding that skill and technique are nearly always trumped by size and strength, and that most violent confrontations have the possibility of suddenly and unpredictably becoming catastrophic.

[sigvirt]

Yes. Well put and necessarily said, 62991. Hopefully, one has the peace-time luxury of a leisurly acclimation toward the deeper end of the pool; too many in the world sadly don't. Absolutely, awareness and preemption are paramount. btw - instead of "healthier options", I perhaps should have said "healthier instinctive responses". All that aside, any day arriving home alive and intact is a good day.

[paublyrne]

My old karate club used to and I'm sure still does run self defense courses twice a year, partially as a way to get new members. One of the instructors used to repeat the same mantra at every course, echoing the old master Gichin Funakoshi, that the best defense is always to be somewhere else.

[ryan-allen]

Our Sifu at Kung Fu when demonstrating the 'best defence' would run as fast as he could out of the kwoon. It got some laughs but he was deadly serious!