Other potential situations

1. If you fall, try to fall on top of your attacker. While falling, keep the pointy parts of your body pointy (your knees and your elbows) and aim for your attacker’s groin, ribs, and neck.
2. If your attacker is wrestling with you on the ground and has you pinned under him/her, grab his/her body by unlocking his/her arm joints, or pin a hand to the ground. Then, put one leg firmly on the ground, push off of it, and swing your hips over. This will have you falling on top of your opponent, which should be done with a good amount of pointedness.
3. If an attacker attacks with a weapon, know where the weapon is effective. If he/she has a knife, try to stay out of stabbing range, and if he/she has a gun, don’t count out running and dodging left to right. Also, note that the attacker invests him/herself on that weapon and can leave him/herself open to grabbing/pinning the weapon hand or a different attack.
4. If you get a chance to leave safely, go for it. Be sure that you’re safe from your opponent when you decide to stop defending yourself.

Tips

Defending yourself from the front

1. If the attacker is trying to punch you or grab you from the front, put your hands on your forehead in a “Not in the face!” sort of gesture and your arms tight on your body. This may look like a weak defensive position, but that is to your advantage since it brings your opponent’s guard down. In addition, this position protects your face and your ribs, two places you’ll likely want to protect.
2. From your “Not in the face!” position, when you are close in on your assailant, lift your elbows into your opponent’s lower ribs or right below his pectoral muscles. These are sensitive spots and can cause a lot of pain.
3. If your assailant’s upper body is far from you but you are still at risk (e.g. your opponent is choking you), attack their legs. This is especially effective on larger attackers because the bigger he/she is, the more stress he/she has on his/her legs and knees. Do not deliver a typical Karate Kid style kick; instead, kick his/her shins soccer-style (with the instep of your foot). This is a quick and painful kick. In addition, if his/her legs are close enough, lift your knees into their inner leg (femoral nerve), outer leg, knee, or groin. These will break down your attacker and may disable him/her, as only 12-16 pounds of pressure are needed to break a knee.
4. If your opponent has his/her head in reaching distance (which is often the case when you attack his/her legs), you will want to attack it. Try to poke or press on the eyes, as no one can resist an eye poke no matter how big he/she is. Clapping on the ears can stun or, if done perfectly, breaks the eardrums. Striking the cheekbones can cause bruises or broken bones. Striking the nose causes nosebleeds and temporary blindness.
5. In some cases you may also want to attack your attacker’s neck (usually open when the head is). To effectively choke someone, do not do the typical Hollywood “hands around the entire neck,” but instead just put your thumb and fingers around his/her trachea (especially easy to find on men with large Adam’s apples). Also, right below his/her trachea is a notch in his/her neck. Dig, drive, and sink your fingers into this notch and they will experience intense pain and probably fall down.

Attacks from behind

1. If an attacker tries to attack you from behind to choke you, press his/her forearm against your collarbone instead of trying to pull it directly off (which doesn’t work well). Put one hand above his/her elbow (on the forearm) and one hand below it (so your hands are on both sides of the elbow). Then, in one strong and determined movement, step and swing your entire body around like the arm is the hinge to your body acting as a screen door. This will get you out of his/her choke and leave his/her head, ribs, and legs wide open to your counterattack. (Also note that, when your attacker is behind you, his/her shins are right behind your legs and primed for your stomping and raking.)
2. If the attacker is trying to pick you up from behind, drop your hips quickly and violently as if you were plopping down on a love seat. This will make you harder to pick up and give you an extra moment to attack them and fend them off (stomp on their shins).
3. If the attacker is trying to choke you by wrapping his arms around your neck, bring the ball of your foot forward, as if you just kicked a soccer ball, and fast and FORCEFULLY, slam it into the area of their leg between their ankle and mid-leg. This will, (if done hard enough) break their leg.

Confrontations

1. If you find yourself in an uncomfortable situation, try to leave the situation. In an uncomfortable social situation, this can be as simple as firmly asserting yourself (“Back off right now!”). Take all verbal or directional paths to non-confrontation; actual physical confrontation should be your last line of defense, although sometimes it may be the only.
2. Try to stay standing with a wide base, both left-to-right and back-to-front, so that your feet are diagonal from each other (a typical martial arts fighting stance). This will lessen your likelihood of getting knocked or pushed over.
3. Assess your potential assailant: tall/short, stocky/thin, male/female. Look at their hands. If they were about to attack with their hands, they would have their hands out. However, if they are concealing a weapon, they will have them hidden or at their side.
4. The best tactic in any confrontation is to RUN.

Preparing for a confrontation

One simple step to judge when a confrontation has passed the point of a verbal exchange is when the person starts to invade your personal space. To mark this, you put up a fence. A fence is simply putting your hands in front of you in a conciliatory/peaceful gesture (palms out). If the assailant tries to move past your fence, you are entering a physical confrontation – what other reason would they have for getting closer?. The general (but unpalatable) consensus at this point is you have to end the fight as quickly as possible by striking first, striking hard, and striking as many times as you can, then escaping. This goes against the oft quoted ‘bushido’ or warriors code and our innate civilised sensibilities, however not many assailants care for either of these.

The difference between walking away and becoming tomorrow’s newspaper headline is how well you are prepared to protect yourself in a bad situation. By keeping this information in mind you will know what can be done before and during an attack.

There are various types of confrontations:

• The ‘wind-up’, the argument before the fight erupts,
• The ‘duel’ an arranged meet to resolve a dispute between conflicting parties or the ambush.
• The brawl will usually be only after the verbal “woofing” has been exhausted and someone throws a punch.
• An ambush is usually premeditated and one or more assailants will attack when they feel the timing is right, usually after distracting the victim with a question e.g. “Have you got the time?”.

Steps

Why martial arts for seniors? Or, to pay lip service to being pc, why should boomers and old folks be interested in a martial art?  Simple answer: reversing or slowing the effects of age. Sorry, I can’t help with the grumpiness! Actually, exercise is a great stress reliever and mood elevator so, maybe I can…<grin>.

When I googled effects of age +exercise,  I got  9,880,000 hits. It is a huge topic. Huge. And you’ll never find this article hidden under all that!

If your understanding of the martial arts comes from the movies as it does for most people, then you can be forgiven for thinking that only 20 year old hard bodies practice the traditional martial arts for fame and fortune. The reality is that many folks over fifty train for health and relaxation and to prepare for later years.

One five time winner of the U.S. national grand championships won his division titles while in his sixties, having started his training in karate at forty-seven years old because he was double his health weight and had developed heart problems.

As the fitness generation edges up into their pre-senior years they have kept their commitment to fitness for health and have refused to go gently into muscle loss, frailty and balance problems. In their search for a stronger and healthier retirement they have the support of a number of university studies that have focused on identifying the process of ageing and methods to slow the process down.

Dalhousie University in Halifax reports that after the age of thirty the changes of ageing; loss of muscle mass and strength, brittle bones and tighter joints are inevitable.

Since these changes are exactly the same as the deterioration you suffer from an inactive lifestyle, if you do not exercise into your forties and fifties you are in effect doubling these detrimental body changes. This greatly impacts your quality of life during retirement.

The good news is that the ageing process can be drastically slowed down by exercise, which also reverses the losses attributed to an easy rider of the easy chair lifestyle.

“Active people decline at a far slower [rate]…that means that people who are physically fit can lead an actve life longer. They’ll be able to take care of themselves [better than] someone who is sedentary.”

~ I say: DUH

They also claim that it is never too late to gain the benefits of exercise whether you are looking for muscle tone, muscle building (size) or joint loosening. Emotional benefits of starting an active lifestyle at any age include feeling better from the release of stress and tension, decrease in depression and increase in self confidence. Osteoporosis (brittle bones) and balance problems also decrease.

While Victoria doctor Richard Backus, whose credits include the dramatic recovery of Olympic rower Silken Laumann, is mostly involved with the rehabilitation of injuries, he has found that his work translates well into the special problems of the elderly.

“Much of the ageing we see is not an inevitable process but rather a decline due to prolonged inactivity. We need to reactivate those people.”

Even if you are presently nursing an old injury, exercise and not rest is one recommended cure.

“Activity is the key to recovery from soft tissue back injuries, not extended bed rest,” says Dr. Kelly Flannigan of Victoria’s Summit Rehabilitation.

Dr. Flannigan is also known for prescribing martial arts techniques to help show clients how to use legs and hips properly, in order to save their back from extra stress.