Saturday’s seminar was excellent. Ernie Kirk covered a lot of material in four hours. His anecdotes about being a bouncer at various venues were humorous and at the same time enlightening.
After starting the class off with some unique warm-up exercises, we went right into the various self-protection drills.
One drill involved reacting to your partner grabbing your wrist either passively or aggressively. If your partner grabbed your wrist passively, you might react by using a wrist release technique. After all, an elderly woman may grab your wrist to get your attention. However, if your partner grabbed your wrist aggressively, you might stiff arm him in the chest or throw a punch.
The aforementioned drill was followed by a drill whereby the entire class walked around the room. If someone grabbed your wrist, you had to be sensitive to the grab and react accordingly. A little bit later in this drill, it was announced that someone was carrying a knife.
Another drill had your partner wearing focus mitts. Whichever direction you moved, he had to follow (shadow) you. Picture a NFL football game with a defensive cornerback shadowing an offensive wide receiver. At some point, you turned and punched the focus mitts.
Later, this drill was changed to you shadowing your partner and at some point, he turned and attacked you with a knife.
We also did some triggering drills whereby you had to make a decision as to when you would strike your partner. The strike could be based on his aggressive movement toward you or a movement that was interpreted as reaching for a weapon.
The close quarter short range punching drills were great. Ernie explained the importance of moving your hip first to generate power. He used examples of how one generates power by swinging a baseball bat or a golf club. We practiced some close quarter short range punching by doing some hockey-style fighting with focus mitts.
Ernie talked about the four techniques often used by attackers, especially muggers and rapists, in preparing victims for attack. They’re known as The Four ‘D’s – dialogue, deception, distraction and destruction. According to the book by Geoff Thompson, “Dead or Alive: The Choice is Yours”, they’re the most important element of self-protection to be aware of.
Dialogue designed to disarm and distract the targeted victim is the professional attacker’s most common priming technique. His objective is to make you think about his question, so that you do not notice the weapon he is drawing or his accomplice coming round behind you.
An attacker uses deception to make himself appear harmless. Do not expect dangerous people to stand out in a crowd.
Distraction is a part of deception and usually comes through dialogue. The attacker may ask his victim a question and then initiate attack while the victim is thinking about the answer.
Destruction – Few people survive the first physical blow and most are out of the game before they even realise that they are in it.
Even trained martial artists often get suckered by the four ‘D’s because these do not appear on their training curriculum. The attacker uses the techniques of deception and distraction to prime a victim that is only trained in ‘physical response’.
As I stated in the beginning, the seminar was excellent and there was a lot of material covered in four hours... too much to cover in a blog. The bottom line is… don't underestimate an attacker. There are some diabolical and sociopathic predators out there. Stay alert… stay alive!
