Too often, security at all levels is putting out fires after the fact, instead of preventing it. Lack of experience and advanced planning as well as under-staffing are some of the known reasons for playing catch-up. This night, however, I was lucky enough.

I followed the suspects, recruiting another security officer on the way. The three made their way to the center of the club, met up with a couple more of their friends, and then proceeded to confront another group of about five guys – just as I had expected. Before this turned into a full-blown brawl, I stepped between the two groups as my partner went behind them. I hoped to defuse the situation rather than engaging, since there were only three of us as security officers for ten potential brawlers. Using command presence, I told them “Whatever the problem is, don’t do it here. Respect the club, and take it outside – just walk down the street and do what you have to do. You’re free to go.” This tactic has a good chance of working, but only if you use it at the right time and place, and with the right people. This particular club is considered a “hot ticket”. It is difficult to get into, with a long line on most nights — and a lot of people turned away. Fighting inside would get anyone banned from the place forever. However, I did not recognize these people as regulars, so I did not know how much the threat of a ban would sway them. One of the members of the first group spoke up, distinguishing himself as the leader. He seemed to agree, and started to walk toward the door. And here is where my “luck” ran out, as it does on so many of these occasions. A member of the opposing group suddenly ran over and took a swing at the leader – and a 10-person brawl broke out in the blink of an eye.

Now, why would the assailant do that? The answer is simple – and one we see much too often. He and perhaps others in his group didn’t really want to fight, but also didn’t want to lose face by backing down. They were simply too afraid to get into a “fair” fight, or a prolonged one. Whatever the root causes may be, the methodology is always the same. People who do not really want to fight start fights in the presence of competent and responsive security, where it will be quickly broken up, rather than risk going “unlimited” outside. As the action took off, I quickly went in and separated the two main combatants. As expected, the offender really did not want to fight. He just wanted to get a cheap shot in quickly, feel tough, and then throw his hands up and say he is done. Unfortunately, the person struck was now out of control, and at this point, he was done listening. In a ritualistic ego fight like so many you will encounter wherever alcohol is served, an unscripted and “unfair” act – such as punching a person who is walking away – can easily drive a combatant over the edge. At this point, the “wronged” party (a) does not care whom he is fighting anymore (i.e. whether it’s the original offender, someone in the opposing group, a bystander, security, or the police), and, (b) is beyond the reach of higher-level reasoning and verbal commands. The only recourse left under the circumstances is physical action.

I tried to restrain him, but he needed to fight someone at that moment, and when that someone became me, he became assaultive. He was swinging with a great deal of motivation, and was completely unresponsive to anything except superior force. Most people would find it very counter-intuitive how much damage even a smaller person can do in 3-4 seconds once they are escalated to that primal level. I moved behind him, restricted his ability to counter, power-slammed him into the ground, and pinned him there until he calmed down. I would never leave my back vulnerable, but as this event was unfolding, I could see that the only real action was taking place right where I was, and my other two officers had taken correct positions. Even though it was only three of us this night, I had been through a lot of ugly situations with this crew and knew that they would be at the right positions and take the right actions when necessary.

From the perspective of all law abiding citizens out for entertainment, there is an important lesson to be learned from this typical incident. Finding yourself in an upscale establishment, a peaceful or fun environment, and/or where there is a visible security presence are all factors that can instill a false sense of safety. There are a lot of young men (and increasingly, women), who don’t really want to fight, but will use the atmosphere of an upscale locale, tight quarters, crowded rooms, the very presence of security – or anything else that can quickly break up or de-escalate a fight – as a crutch to start up violence they never intend to finish. The trouble is, once violence erupts, no one can control the outcome. And you may find yourself in the midst of a potentially life-threatening situation as an innocent bystander before you even realize what is happening. So here’s the simple moral of the story. Always pay attention to your surroundings and never make assumptions based on appearances alone. Look around the room and assess the situation before you relax. Be aware of where the exits are. Never drink so much in public that your sensory-motor skills are significantly impaired. Work proactively on your situational awareness. If it looks like trouble is brewing, even if it does not involve you or your group, do not be swayed into inaction by inertia, comfort, or a dissonance between your surroundings and an impending act of violence. Simply remove yourself physically as soon as you can, and further evaluate the situation from a distance if necessary. You would not believe how many innocent bystanders we see get hurt, and how many of them would be saved from a world of harm by following these simple suggestions.

Michael Biggs is a self-defense and defensive tactics instructor at Personal Safety, LLC. Michael also holds the position of Managing Supervisor and Training Officer for a security company in Boston that specializes in event, nightclub, and executive security – with a reputation for taking on the toughest assignments from which other security companies shy away. Michael is an active-duty veteran of the US Navy and has held top-secret clearance. His background includes classified military training, accomplishments in multiple martial arts, and over 10 years of in-the-trenches experience providing security for the toughest environments in all of New England. Michael has trained closely with Marcus Lincoln, the Chief Instructor for Close Combat and Self-Defense at Personal Safety, and was selected by Marcus to be the lead in multiple specialist areas including private security training. Michael brings a wealth of experience from the front lines, handling real-life violence almost daily, in addition to supervising and training other officers who do the same. His writing reports from the night life, from entertainment, sporting and music venues, and other events and establishments that any civilian can easily find themselves in – providing an invaluable perspective on Personal Safety.

Here, we offer a framework that can be used by everyone from the uninitiated to the expert to understand the components that need to be present in every self-defense situation. The 5 D’s divides the entire spectrum of self-defense into five distinct stages. These stages are defined by the five steps of the strategy of DECIDE DETER DISRUPT DISENGAGE DEBRIEF.

DECIDE is the preparation step. It is the foundation of self-defense. It is made up of planning, education, acceptance, training, conditioning, avoidance, and strategy.

Decide not to be a victim. Use preparation and planning prior to an act of aggression. Learn about crime and criminal behavior. Train to respond to all forms of aggression. Practice avoidance and risk reduction. Acknowledge the existence of risk. Condition your body and mind for the realities of violence.

DETER is the prevention step. It begins when you leave an area of safety and continues until the moment of the actions of DISRUPT. It involves repelling all potential aggressors and building your readiness for a physical assault. It is characterized by awareness, intuition, attitude and appearance, assertiveness, body language, boundary setting, and deception.

Deter and prevent an act of aggression. Learn how to de-escalate a confrontation. Project confidence with body language. Be assertive. Practice situational awareness. Respond to the warnings of intuition. Create safety zones. Utilize boundary setting. Deceive when necessary. Build readiness. Determine Confirmation of Bad Intention.

DISRUPT is the violent and most physical step of self-defense. Its sole purpose is to create the opportunity to escape. It begins with the trigger to act and involves the concept of attacking the attacker to surprise, shock, or cause injury to your attacker.

Disrupt the aggressor. Respond to the Trigger to Act. Foil his plans. Apply verbal and/or physical techniques. Use tactics such as the employment of weapons of opportunity. Execute a decisive strategy. Attack the attacker. Utilize any means available. Create the Opportunity to Escape in order to disengage.

DISENGAGE is the immediate goal of self-defense. It involves your complete commitment to get away from your attacker. Alternatively, it is the result of your actions that has caused your aggressor to discontinue the attack. It is characterized by your flight to safety, or either the aggressor being unwilling or unable to continue his actions.

Disengage and get away from the aggressor. Respond the Opportunity to Escape. Create an ending. Carryout an exit strategy. Cause the aggressor to break off his actions. Evade and escape. Terminate the aggressor’s ability to engage and cause harm. Flee to safety. Get out of there.

DEBRIEF is the long term goal of self-defense. It is the after effects of an assault. The ultimate purpose of self-defense is to minimize the long term consequences and the aftermath of aggression. This concept includes creating peace of mind.

Debrief and discuss the consequences of aggression. Reduce the after effects. Promote physical and emotional healing. Get legal advice. Seek support and assistance. Learn resilience.]]> http://personal-safety.com/the-5-ds-of-self-defense.html/feed 0 http://personal-safety.com/is-my-technique-effective-on-the-street-ask-the-natural-counter.html http://personal-safety.com/is-my-technique-effective-on-the-street-ask-the-natural-counter.html#comments Wed, 02 Feb 2011 21:16:46 +0000 MarcusLincoln http://personal-safety.com/?p=1549 Every seasoned instructor of self-defense, close combat, defensive tactics et al has heard the ageless question and its many incarnations countless times: Is a certain technique effective on the street? First, it bears repeating that no single technique or “move” is effective on everyone and at all times, no matter how flawlessly executed. There are no guarantees in life, much less in a case of human interaction gone horribly awry such as physical conflict. As Clint Eastwood once said in the Rookie, “If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster”.

Next time you hear or ask the question about street effectiveness, however, before you get lost in misleading details, know that there is a reliable benchmark you can apply to self-test all your techniques for street-effectiveness – the concept of natural counter. Ask yourself this simple question: what is the natural counter to my technique and does it prevent me from executing the technique successfully?

A natural counter is simply what an untrained average stranger naturally does in response to your technique — simultaneously with your move, not as a reaction afterward. There may be multiple natural counters to the same technique or event, often following a bell curve distribution, but there will almost always be one that is most prevalent across the board — with variations on the same theme that you can learn to recognize through experience. If you grab someone, most people will counter-grab and try to tear themselves off you. How exactly they do so will vary, but the gist of it does not. If you try to strike someone above the collar bone from anywhere except directly behind, most people will move their head and their spine, and the startle / flinch response will engage. This concept applies to weapons as much as it does to empty hand. It applies whether you are the one doing the assaulting as a matter of job description, as in a SWAT team, or you are a civilian defending yourself against a common street thug.

There will always be exceptions and outliers who do not spontaneously respond with a variation of this common natural counter, but the point is, if you do not train for what happens most of the time, then you have no reason to even hope to be safe most of the time. That natural counter which happens most of the time is what you have to worry about most of the time, if you ever have to try your technique on the street. And that natural counter will be what foils your game and renders your training useless, most of the time. So, to put it simply, if your technique gets defeated by the natural counter, it is not street-effective. Most people would be shocked and demoralized to find out just what percentage of what they think they know how to do falls in this category.

So next time you find yourself getting into an academic argument about whether something will work “in real life”, try this simple recipe. Invite a friend off the street who (a) has no idea about dojo, ring or octagon etiquette, (b) is completely untrained in martial arts, martial sports, MMA, sparring, or defensive tactics, (c) does not inhabit any hierarchy with the practitioner of the technique, nor has any implicit trust relationship with said practitioner, and, (d) believes the practitioner (i.e. you) are about to do something dangerous and that he/she might get hurt. Now try your technique without first explaining what you’re about to do, and give the subject full explicit permission to simply resist and defend themselves. Next, bring in two more people with different mentalities, sizes and body types and repeat the process. I promise you that you will start having revelations as fast as your neurons can fire. Among other things, you will have revelations about hidden faulty assumptions in your own thinking, inherent weaknesses of your art, sport or other training, weaknesses of your personal form, technique or game, and the list goes on. You will realize that far too often throughout your training history, your training partners have either (a) not resisted fully (b) resisted too late, letting you have your “turn” first, (c) resisted by the patterns if not the rules of your system, and/or (d) resisted in ways that may appear convincing but are still predictable and manageable by you, much less (e) proactively assaulted you simultaneously with your move. These points (a) through (e) are simply not true about anyone you may have to engage on the street. This is a Pandora’s box few like to open, but at Personal Safety, we are in the business of saving lives, so we do not have the luxury to ignore elephants in the room.

You will find that unlike your polite martial arts partners, academy buddies, or not-so-polite MMA opponents, the average untrained person who is spooked enough with the threat of imminent harm will do highly unpredictable things with great gusto. You will also find that those same spontaneous natural counters become magically predictable in hindsight — when you’ve seen them enough times. You will find that, yes, Virginia, the startle / flinch response does exist, most people have it, and it’s faster than any technique. You will find that folks will clinch, duck, push, turn, and flail their way out of your technique with extreme prejudice, and a great deal of success, if not, perhaps, with a great deal of grace in movement. You will find that a 128lbs man is nearly impossible to restrain by 2-3 larger people, if he is really non-compliant, and a 300lbs man can become as wirey as a 12-year-old when the adrenaline hits — at least for those few seconds that count. Now, consider how much more true all this will be of a complete stranger who is fully adrenalized, a predator who has never before been counter-attacked with confidence, or anyone who seriously fears for their life.

Now, what about all the trained opponents out there? Well, instead of natural counters, they will (at least theoretically) have trained counters to your every possible move. So there are theoretically as many trained counters as there are training systems, but only one prevalent natural counter with variations. So do we have to worry about all those trained counters? Not so much. Ever seen a competent martial artist in a bar brawl? Or an MMA fighter assaulted outside the sports context by someone not overly concerned with the 31 UFC fouls? You will find that most trained people will be instantly reduced to gross motor movements and engage the natural counter when the first adrenaline dump occurs, when the elements of surprise and fear are present, when they are taken out of their contexts, or when they experience your self-defense or counter-attack as their moment of ambush. Depending on the quality of their training, they may be able to subsequently break the freeze, recover higher consciousness, and start fighting the way they have been trained. But at that most crucial moment when first engaged, almost everyone — regardless of their training of lack thereof — will respond with the natural counter. That is why it is absolutely critical to test your training against natural counters. Simply put, in real life, you will not be playing a game or sport with both written and unwritten rules, or fighting people who have made strange unspoken prior agreements with you to behave in very specific ways in response to certain stimuli. If you do not test your training against natural counters and correct what is not working, your training may be merely building up a mental construct that will fail you at every turn when the chips are down.

Ok, after this depressing picture, you may want to hear some good news. If you find, like most people do, that the natural counter foils your technique an unacceptable percentage of the time, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve been sold a bill of goods. It may simply mean that the way you have learned the technique (or are teaching it if you’re an instructor) is flawed — not the technique itself. To correct the flaw, and make your technique street-effective, identify the mental error first. Figure out what faulty assumption(s) you made about what an opponent will or won’t spontaneously do most of the time, and with any real technical proficiency, the solution will reveal itself.

A final word to prevent confusion: Testing your techniques against natural counters has nothing to do with training to react to the opponent. Action beats reaction, your defense must be built into your offense, offensive mindset wins, it’s always your turn, weaken the opponent first (through distraction, freeze-framing, or injury) — and all the rest of the axiomatic statements we use at Personal Safety are in no conflict with the concept of natural counters. Those axiomatic statements are tactical imperatives. They always hold true, and they are what you should do when engaged. But while you’re supposed to get busy doing all those things, it is critical to make sure you can actually physically do them. So, training for the opponent’s natural counter is not training to react to the opponent’s action or reaction, but rather making sure that you can complete your own action in the first place. In other words, we are talking about training for what the opponent will do while you act — and we are training to prevent that before it happens, cancel it out while it happens, or complete our move despite its presence. In this context, the word “counter” itself may be misleading. Counter does not imply an event that comes later chronologically, as a reaction by your opponent, once you’re all done acting, presumably unhindered. Rather, it is all about what the opponent will do simultaneously and spontaneously while you act, often preventing you from successfully completing your action.

At Personal Safety, we have developed a methodology to combat this rampant problem in almost all training, and we train everyone from novices to high-end professional operators and instructors in identifying, preempting and overcoming natural counters. By applying this methodology, we see every day how even seasoned experts discover potentially disastrous mental errors in their training — and correct them through a better understanding of natural counters. What you do not know can and will hurt you. Do not let natural counters be the chink in your personal protection armor. Incorporate this critical concept into your training — because it may save your life someday.