Knife attacks are increasingly common these days. Nearly every week in the UK there is news of at least one knife murder. At least, it seems like that. It amazes me that so few people try to learn how to defend themselves from a knife attack. This article gives some helpful suggestions on how to defend yourself from a knife attack but it also looks at some key life lessons that can be learned from the art of knife defence. Recently a young girl was murdered in a park. She was knifed repeatedly as she begged her attacker not to knife her 'there' or 'there'. She was stabbed about a dozen times by a merciless assailant. She and her friend had made the mistake of not fighting her attackers earlier before they were bundled into the boot of a car and taken to a park. She was knifed to death. Her friend was shot but lived to tell the tale. One key self defence lesson is to never allow yourself to be taken from where you are to a place which suits your attackers. It is better to risk fighting back at once. In ordinary life, it is clearly wiser to deal with a problem immediately when you still have some control over it rather than waiting for it to get worse. Human beings are problem solving creatures. Even a knife murderer who is trying to kill you will keep stabbing or slashing until he gets round your defences and finds a vulnerable target. This might involve changing the angle of his attack or using his other hand to hold the knife if what he is already doing is not working. If he keeps stabbing the same way that he started, he will probably fail to kill his victim and may even end up badly hurt or dead himself. The same principle applies from the defender's point of view. If his block isn't working too well, he will, if he is lucky, receive one or two shallow wounds. This should be enough to convince him to change his method of defence before he gets stabbed in a vital area or gets stabbed deeply enough to kill him. He might try a few swift kicks at his attacker's shins or even spit in his face to cause him to flinch long enough to allow him to launch a telling attack. The defender cannot hang about. He has to find solutions rapidly or 'die'. He might even remove his belt and swing the buckle at his attacker's face. He will need to practice taking off his belt at speed! A chair is another useful option both for defence and offence. The same lesson about changing what we do applies in the less intense areas of life that we normally face every day. We need to change what is not working as soon as possible. If we carry on repeating the same old mistakes we will die a slow death of mediocrity. Every day is a kind of life or death struggle against living a very ordinary and boring life. If we don't change fairly soon we will find ourselves in a deeper and deeper rut bound tight by inefficient habits which make escape unlikely before we eventually die unfulfilled and having made little difference to the planet on which we live. We should change what we are doing if it is not working and try something else. It is very tempting to do what we are convinced will work even if reality tells us that our strategy is ineffective. We should give up our old ideas and try something new. We are not giving up our goals; we are just trying to reach them by a more effective route. A third lesson from the knife scenario, which has already been suggested, is that a sense of urgency is essential. Any delay means death or severe injury in a knife defence situation. In our ordinary lives, delay means that bad habits have a chance to take hold and slow us down and turn us into the walking dead. Statistics suggest that people on benefits who have not worked for two years will never work again. They need to get back to work of some kind as soon as possible before they become incapable of regular work. Delayed action means loss of momentum and loss of the excitement that goes with the rapid achievement of our goals. Delay gives a chance for distractions to creep in and prevent the focus necessary to reach a goal. It has been said that we need to be patient about the results we want (since we cannot fully control results) but need a sense of urgency in doing the things that we believe to be necessary to achieve those results. These actions are under our control. We can take action slowly or fast. Fast is usually better unless you are defusing a bomb and even then it might explode sooner than you think! We cannot be sure that we will avoid death or injury in a knife attack but we can control the speed at which we react to the attack. If we move slowly, we will be dead meat. If we move fast, we have a chance. In life, in general, a missed opportunity does not always return. We need to 'seize the day' and get on with things if we want to make the most of the chances that come our way. If we are in business, few things please a customer more than fast, efficient service. When I buy info products on the internet, I really appreciate product owners who provide you with an immediate download. With others, you have to wait for an email which could take two or three days to arrive or you have to jump through several hoops before you can actually clap eyes on the product. You can guess whose products I am most keen to buy. A fourth lesson from knife defence is that you need a very clear sense of priorities. If the knife is close to you, your priority is defence i.e. stopping the knife entering your body at any point. There is little point in swapping a punch for a knife wound. You might land a punch on his jaw but, if you are not making defence a priority, he might well have killed you with a stab. If the knife is not an immediate threat because you have grabbed his knife arm or it is some distance from your body, your priority is to hurt your attacker so badly that he will no longer wish to continue his attack. Failure to establish these priorities has harsh consequences. In normal life, the same is true to a lesser extent. If you waste your time on secondary tasks and neglect the important ones, your chances of achieving your goals are slim. If possible 'make your money' early in the morning by completing your priority tasks whatever they are. Writers may like to write for an hour before they do anything else. The health conscious may prefer to go for a walk first thing. The highly organized might plan to clear up clutter for half an hour. This will help them to work with greater power and energy for the rest of the day. So then, choose your own ground to fight on and start your fight back as early as possible. Change what isnt working. Take action with a sense of urgency but be patient about the results. The seed takes time to grow. Decide on your daily priorities and start in on them as early in the day as possible. If you fight on your own ground, change what is not working, act with speed and urgency and follow your key priorities, you may survive a knife attack and you may also live a powerful and exciting life. Incidentally, I owe much of the above advice on dealing with a knife attacker to a great self-protection instructor called Richard Dmitri from Montreal in Canada. |
