{"id":4636,"date":"2017-06-21T07:29:15","date_gmt":"2017-06-21T14:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fightfast.com\/blog\/?p=4636"},"modified":"2021-04-01T15:08:48","modified_gmt":"2021-04-01T15:08:48","slug":"8-phases-to-effective-self-defense-by-derek-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/2017\/06\/21\/8-phases-to-effective-self-defense-by-derek-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"8 Phases to Effective Self-defense By Derek Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"In my special agent combative system<\/a>, I attempted to include what I felt was the greatest thing missing from most martial arts and self-defense programs. That is a structured and systemized outline designed to help you easily learn a tried, true, and simple to learn, system of self-defense. Special agent combatives are not to be confused with the step-by-step self-defense moves taught in most self-defense courses, the preset techniques or curriculum that spells out what skills and techniques you will learn at what level. Instead I teach a few techniques and then concepts on using those techniques. \n\nI do it this way because what I learned from teaching special agents, those who deal with violence every day, is that learning a lot self-defense moves is very difficult to retain, and when the shit hits the fan, most people will only use a few core moves they are very comfortable with. So in this article, I outline a formula of action that I believe make up a complete system for real-world self-defense.\n\nBelow are 8 phases of a complete self-defense strategy. Each element is important for you to ensure you have as many of the right options for handling as many different threats and dangers as possible. Each of these phases makes up your overall strategy for you to devise a predictable approach for dealing with a dangerous situation and be able to handle it effectively.\n\nAs I teach self-defense students, there are 8 Phases<\/strong> to effective self-defense:\n

1) General Awareness<\/h3>\nIn this phase, you need to be aware and educated about the following areas I will talk about in a moment. Most people I see walking around today are what I call \u201cmouth breathers.<\/em>\u201d Most are walking around totally oblivious to what is happening around them, talking and texting on their cell phones while walking right into danger. You should be aware of:\n
    \n \t
  1. The various types of dangers that exist in the world and how they can affect you.<\/li>\n \t
  2. Which of these dangers are most likely to actually occur in your world, affect you so that you can prepare correctly.<\/li>\n \t
  3. Where you might encounter these dangers so you can either avoid them all together, or at least know what to do in these environments. For instance, there are mall and school shootings occurring all around America. You cannot avoid these places, but you can learn how to deal with a threat should you need to.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    2) Situational Awareness<\/h3>\nOnce you start paying attention to what is happening around you and start to notice your environment, it is time to start interpreting the situations that are occurring. You begin to take note of certain things:\n
      \n \t
    1. What is occurring in your surroundings and what can you use in your environment (what weapons, both real and improvised, are available to you, what obstacles exist, what dangers are present and what options do you have?)<\/li>\n \t
    2. What are people around you doing (who is acting suspiciously, is someone acting out of character, is someone being overtly threatening or aggressive towards you or others?)<\/li>\n \t
    3. What is your own state of mind and well-being (are you alert and aware of what's going on, are you staying healthy and fit to fight, are you nervous, ill, distracted, or otherwise emotionally unbalanced?)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      3) Escaping to safety<\/h3>\nNow that you have developed your awareness you should start to think about pre-planning and what you are able to do to stay safe. You should start to consider the following:\n
        \n \t
      1. If you find yourself in a dangerous environment, how can you escape. Even at a movie theater, restaurant, or wherever I go, I do three things. I place my back to a wall, I ask for a seat where I can see what\u2019s happening (and near an exit if I can get one,) and I take note of escape routes.<\/li>\n \t
      2. Learn to hide or conceal yourself from a potential attacker. Do you know the difference between concealment and cover? Concealment will simply hide you from the threat, but cover can actually protect you. For instance, if you have to get behind your car to avoid a shooting, you would not duck behind the door. That is just concealment and will not stop a bullet. But if you can get behind the engine block, or the wheel well, that is cover and could potentially stop the round from striking you.<\/li>\n \t
      3. Again, seek cover which are those barriers and other shields that will protect you from incoming gunfire, thrown objects or other weapon attacks.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        4) Psychological Distraction Tactics<\/h3>\nIf you find yourself confronted and cannot get away just yet, try confusing or otherwise distracting the attacker's attention from you as a target. You can do this through the use of:\n
          \n \t
        1. Acting a certain way (like faking a heart-attack or some other debilitating illness.)<\/li>\n \t
        2. Feigning Ignorance (like pretending that you didn't hear or understand his threats or orders. Pretend that you are mentally challenged and of no threat to him\u2026until you are ready to become a threat.)<\/li>\n \t
        3. Using Humor (tell a joke or otherwise act as if the assailant is only playing around or that you're too easy of a target for him and not worth his effort.)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          5) Dissuasion Tactics<\/h3>\nYou can try confronting the attacker with direct, committed, verbal and body language that both give him a last chance to change his mind, AND communicates very clearly that you will not be an easy target and will not allow him to continue with his attack without resistance. You make the call.\n\nIf you sense that this will not work and will only anger your attacker, or make him want to eliminate the threat, you, then you might want to avoid this one. At 6 foot, 250 and a bald black guy, I can easily come off as intimidating. Sometimes this is what I want, but other times I want to be the big jovial guy that is seen as a clown, rather than a threat.\n

          6) Physical Self Defense<\/h3>\nThere may come a time during these phases where physical conflict is unavoidable. It is during these times you will need to resort to using appropriate and properly applied fighting skills to evade and counter your assailant's attacks using techniques such as those I teach in my Special Agent Combative Course<\/a>, or some of the other great training products offered by Fight Fast and TRSDirect.\n

          7) Regain Your Composure and Control<\/h3>\nDuring and after a stressful situation there is going to be some post-traumatic stress you need to deal with. You will need to effectively handle and neutralize the effects of this post-trauma stress so that you can acknowledge that your attacker gave you no other choice but to take the actions that you did in Stage 5. I advise you to actually prepare for and practice what you will need to do to deal with this long before a self-defense situation ever occurs.\n

          8) Deal with the Legal Issues<\/h3>\nUnfortunately, even if your actions were correct. There may be legal issues to deal with. You may be arrested or the ATTACKER may try to sue you. While defending yourself is perfectly within your rights, you will have to demonstrate that you did everything in your power to avoid physical aggression if you are to convince the police not to arrest you, or jurors not to find you guilty. This is why I gave you phases 1-5 to try to avoid the situation in the first place.\n\nI have found over the years that most self-defense programs mainly focus on the physical aspects of self-defense. While they are indeed necessary, we at Fight Fast understand that strategic thinking and having a goal other than the conventional idea of \"winning\" as seen in the competitive fighting styles, allows for a sense of control over situations that physical techniques alone cannot provide.\n\nThat's why I teach, and have shared with you these 8 Phases of self-defense. Each one provides you techniques, tactics, and options for your defense. Having a complete understanding and control of these strategies will make you a complete and better warrior should the need arise.\n\nClick Here For More Instruction From Derek Smith<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          In my special agent combative system, I attempted to include what I felt was the greatest thing missing from most martial arts and self-defense programs. That is a structured and systemized outline designed to help you easily learn a tried, true, and simple to learn, system of self-defense. Special agent combatives are not to be Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,4,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4636"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4636"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12824,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4636\/revisions\/12824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}