Christensen Loren W. - Fighting The Pain Resistant Attacker

There is a truth in the world of hand-to-hand combat that too many martial artists arent aware of or refuse to believe: Every time you discover a sure-thing technique, one that makes all your training partners groan and writhe in agony, there exists out there in the mean streets, a host of people who wont feel it. If you havent dealt with such a person, understand that the sudden realization that your technique isnt working can create an instant pause in your thinking and in your actions.

Consider what martial artist and author Steven J. Pearlman wrote in his excellent book The Book of Martial Powers:

The opponents who challenge us do so first and foremost through a mental action, an act of will or intention. As long as their will remains, we will need to contend with them. We can strike them, lock them, grapple them, shed their blood, and break their bones but if they still possess the will to continue at us, they will do so. In this sense, we apply physical martial arts techniques to their bodies in an effort to reach their minds. We interact with their body-mind through pain, injury, or submission until their body convinces their mind to relent.

Pearlman talks about an attackers will to continue, even after we strike them, lock them, grapple them, shed their blood, and break their bones. Sometimes the attackers will remains as a result of not feeling the pain from all these things you have done. His brain has blocked the incoming signals. Therefore, you must either change your technique to one that is so painfully acute that it penetrates his dulled brain, or forego pain and opt for a technique that incapacitates his ability to attack you.

Before we examine these people who might be tolerant to pain, lets look at three objectives to keep in mind when dealing with such formidable attackers. In short, your task is to control the violent person, control the situation and control yourself. All three are interrelated because without any one of them, there is no control of the other two.

C ONTROL OF THE ATTACKER

Control is established by a strong, confident presence, the application of calming words, control holds, punches, kicks, strikes with environmental objects, or any other technique that incapacitates the persons physical ability to attack.

C ONTROL OF THE SITUATION

You control a situation by your confident presence, calming words, use of your surroundings, strategic positioning in relation to the threat, help from a friend, and an understanding of your own physical vulnerability.

C ONTROL OF YOUR ACTIONS

Sometimes a defender, out of fear, anger or lack of confidence, will overreact and use more force than a situation requires. So this doesnt happen to you, know that when youre in command of both the situation and the attacker, youre more likely to control yourself, even when you discover that the threat has a high tolerance to pain.

A martial arts friend says, Fighting is about chaos and your objective is to bring order [control] to it. This objective and mindset must guide your actions so that you do what needs to be done for your safety and with minimum injury to the attacker.

Note: Although many of the techniques in this book are designed to debilitate an assailant who hasnt responded to other control measures, you must always strive to affect minimum injury. Its the legal thing to do and its the honorable thing to do.

I know Im preaching to the choir here, and thats okay. We all need to be reminded from time to time of these three control factors since they are never more important than when dealing with a violent person who doesnt react to pain.

Its easy to become conditioned to the way training partners respond to our techniques: their frantic slapping on the mat, the way they cry out in agony, how they clutch desperately to whatever hurts, and their comments about your mother. Your training can so condition you to this that when a street attacker doesnt respond similarlyhe only mildly reacts or he doesnt react at allit can cause that aforementioned physical and mental freeze. Its happened to me and Ive seen it happen to others.

Here are the categories of attackers in which there are always a few who can tolerate pain to some degree.

• Attackers who have large fat or muscle bulk.
• Attackers who are intoxicated on alcohol.
• Attackers who are under the influence of drugs.
• Attackers who are out of control with rage.
• Attackers who are mentally deranged.
• Attackers who feel pain but like it.

People carrying excessive fat or muscle bulk are often tolerant of certain pain techniques simply because their mass prevents proper application, or it literally pads the pain receptors.

On one occasion, several officers and I were dispatched to help an ambulance crew control a 400-pound former Olympic weight lifting competitor they had gotten onto a gurney. The giant man was normally a pleasant fellow but he had run out of pain medication that he was taking for a crushed nerve in his neck. He had dropped a monstrous barbell on his top vertebrae a couple of years earlier.