Tom Hill - The Art of Self Defence

Title Page

The Art of Self Defence

by

Tom Hill

Publisher Information

The Art of Self Defence published in 2014 by

Andrews UK Limited

www.andrewsuk.com

The right of Tom Hill to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998

Copyright 2014 Tom Hill

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any person who does so may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Introduction

The purpose of this book is not to try and teach you self defence moves - for this you should join a good Martial Arts Club. Although this article may help you choose one.

Over the past 41 years I have trained and taught in the Martial Arts from the age of 21 and have specialised in self defence and fitness. Training for about 8 to 10 hours per week during that time, pretty much non-stop. My club has about 20 to 30 members of all adult ages and a few of my students have been with me for over 30 years. My main experience is Goju (hard soft) Karate but have incorporated anything that I think works into this system - much was already there. I have been lucky enough to have trained with many world famous Masters of Martial Arts from the East and from this Country.

Over the years I have trained Door Security Personnel, Soldiers, Detectives, Policemen, Boxers, Wrestlers, Ju Jitsu Practitioners, Barristers, Businessmen, all manner of sports people and fitness fanatics, other Karate styles, other Instructors and other Martial Arts practitioners too numerous to mention.

This articles purpose is to pass on to you some of the things I have learned or considered during this time. I hope it helps you to think about the subject in general and how it could improve the safety of your life and increase your personal security and bolster your self confidence and perhaps give you a little motivation to progress.

To learn Self Defence techniques you will need to join a good club that specialises in the subject, but hopefully by reading this article you will have a better idea what to look for and precisely what you are interested in.

If you are a Martial Arts instructor it may help you formulate some new thinking, strategies and syllabus for teaching self defence in your class. Or may just help crystallise your thinking on self defence and fill in a few gaps.

If you are a student of self defence it may help you formulate what is good or lacking in your current training regime and hopefully give you a few new areas to consider and a few questions to ask your teacher or incorporate into your training regime.

If you are a person who likes the idea but has never taken it any further - it may help you decide how you wish to progress, what to look for in a Martial Arts Club and help you decide what you wish to achieve.

Even after reading this book and even after years of training you could still fall victim to an assault and may even come off much worse than your assailant. The plus side is that by training and trying to improve your self defence you are stacking the odds in your favour - perhaps considerably, depending on your effort and ability. If you fail once, at least you tried. If you succeed then you succeed every day - because what you learn should stay with you each day and enrich your life.

If nothing else I hope it makes you think about the subject in more detail than perhaps you have before - it could even save your life.

Chapter 7

Anticipating problems

Check your environment, make this a habit. In the Wild West the gunfighter would always sit with his back to a wall facing the door. In this position he could anticipate any potential problems, see who may be a potential hazard as they walked through the door and avoid getting shot in the back.

Without becoming paranoid make it a habit to check your environment for potential hazards to your safety. If you are walking the streets always keep an eye on what is coming towards you, whats behind you or around you. In a social situation are you being watched or stared at? Is the place you are in, a potential trouble spot? Are there heavy drinkers or drugs around? Does the atmosphere have a bad vibe?

Are you aware of people holding grudges against you or other potential grievances?

Forewarned is forearmed !

Chapter 8

The strategies of self defence

There are three main strategies of self defence: attack, defend, avoid. It may be helpful to consider these points before rather than after a conflict.

To Attack (Punching, kicking, grappling, throwing etc)

Its advantages are:

• Its quicker.
• Putting your assailant under constant pressure and forcing them to defend.
• It gets your opponent on the back foot and possibly off balance for counter moves.
• It generally has the better opportunity of success. (Fortune favours the brave - who dares wins etc)
• It helps give you the mental attitude of the victor.
• It takes the fight to your opponent rather than to you.
• It generally needs to be done quickly and with a high degree of success to be effective.

Its disadvantages are:

• Its very tiring - you expend a great deal of energy very quickly and you may exhaust yourself - giving your opponent the advantage over time and possibly victory.
• You may be seen as the aggressor and may face the legal problems of undue force.
• It stands a good chance of causing more sever injuries to your opponent - this can be good or bad depending on the circumstances.
• You may feel guilty afterwards or suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
• It gives your opponent the opportunity of taking advantage of your mistakes. It is often easier to counter an attack successfully than it is to generate a successful attack.

To Defend (by using blocks, avoidance, controls, psychology)

Its advantages are:

• It gives you moral superiority and is morally correct - if thats any good to you.
• It may help any legal problems if you simply used defensive manoeuvres.
• It has less likelihood of serious injuries to your opponent.
• Good defence could result in no injuries to either party.
• If you are successful in your defence you can simply tire out your attacker and subdue them more easily.
• It helps to avoid guilt later and is more easily justified to yourself, other people or the Judiciary.

Its disadvantages are:

• You may at some point be forced to attack anyway.
• You may put yourself at a major disadvantage if you are confronted by more than one opponent, if you only use defensive measures.
• You put yourself in more immediate danger.
• It may encourage your opponent to try harder.
• Its slower. The longer the conflict the more dangerous it can become and defence in general takes longer than attack.
• A mistake in defence can often have more serious consequences than a similar mistake in attack. For instance to fail to block a strong accurate punch is more serious than to fail to punch a target in attack.

To Avoid (leaving, running, escape, talking, turning the other cheek)

Its advantages are:

• Its the right thing to do.
• It hopefully helps avoids retaliation later.
• It hopefully avoids conflict.

Its disadvantages are:

• You cannot always avoid attack.
• You may leave it too long and loose the advantage.