When I give workshops or seminars, I normally begin by asking all those in attendance to define self-defense. I do this to establish a simple criteria for success when considering their objectives during a violent encounter:
My preferred answer: you are not truly self-defended until you have exited a dangerous situation, as quickly as possible, with little to no damage to yourself.
While this may seem fairly obvious, I have found that many people still view self-defense with the same lens Hollywood has conditioned us to use; focusing on knocking out, injuring or otherwise damaging their attacker.
Krav Maga has always considered self-defense from the vantage point of the defender being the weaker, slower and smaller. Given all this disadvantage, it is foolhardy to attempt to overpower or overcome your attacker. Indeed, the goal is to create enough mental/physical disruption to create time to quickly leave the scene. The emphasis shifts from creating damage or even pain to our attacker, and moves towards disruption of their balance and focus.
I remind all my students that pain tolerance and/or the ability to absorb power shots is different from person to person. What might concuss one person might barely be felt by another. Factor also the possibility that drugs and alcohol might be in the attacker’s system and you further fight an uphill battle for them to relent from attack due to pain.
Another criteria used when studying self-defense is the idea of T. O. T, or “time on target”. The longer you are connected to your attacker, the greater the chance that they are able to recover from your initial defense, deploy a weapon you didn’t know was present or have a third party come to their aid. Indeed, the mission is to quickly defend, disrupt and ultimately leave the scene in under 8 seconds.
Keep in mind, that if the defender’s mobility or agility is in question, it becomes necessarily to create some level of injury or incapacitation to prevent the attacker from giving chase.
Simply put, you counter and strike as much as you need to but no more than you have to to ensure safe retreat.
In the end, our objectives must be clear and attainable. We must enough to the attacker to create an opening that allows you to exit the scene.
