The Tactical Difference
It started like a lot of the stories my students have to tell, however it ended up tragically because the young lady in question had not been taught the critical skills she needed.
A girl had been jogging through a secluded park with her dog when an attacker came at her with a knife and demanded her wallet.
When he was caught later his version of the story was that when he had pulled the knife, she fell into stance and began attacking him with martial arts. She had stunned him and was at the point in the fight where normally it is easy to finish someone, only , he said, she didn't seem to know how.
He recovered sufficiently to pick up a rock from the ground and knock her unconscious. By the time she woke up, he had her gagged and bound in the back of his van. Three days later he killed her, then let the dog go.
The most disturbing thing about this story to me as a teacher was that this poor girl who was obviously a spirited fighter had not been taught how to neutralize an attacker. She had been taught martial arts as a sport and she had reacted as trained and stunned her opponent, had a judge been there, he would have awarded the match to her .
However there are no rules, no referees and no judges when your life is on the line. There are only the techniques and responses that your training has embedded in you.
Her teacher had not taught her to think tactically! When she initially stunned her attacker, she should have run away as fast as she could, chances are she would have been long gone before he could recover, but she wasn't trained to think that way.
Even better, the same move that stunned the attacker could also have instantly killed or rendered him unconscious, but again, she wasn't trained to react that way.
It broke my heart to hear this story and to repeat it does so again, I wish she had been my student.
Let's contrast this with a true story of my student Diana (not her real name) being ambushed on a rainy night by two knife wielding attackers intent on abducting her.
Diana was driving home slowly through the rain, late at night on a secluded road when she noticed a man sprawled out on the side of the road, apparently the victim of a hit and run driver.
She pulled over and dashed back to see if she could help and as she got close, the man jumped to his feet with a knife. She wheeled back towards her car and found another attacker between her and her vehicle.
As the first attacked with the knife she punched him in the mouth, which didn't stop him; as he renewed the attack she struck him in the throat, breaking the Hyoid bone (one of the tactics taught in 10 moves). He collapsed, suffocating, going into shock and was out of the fight. He would die a few minutes later.
The second one was on her by this time, she wheeled and did a foot reap and knocked him off his feet. As he tried to get up, she delivered a snap kick to his nose with her shin. This is a take off on a Kamate strike which drives fragments of the nose bone into the brain and causes a quick death.
While I do not take joy in the death of another person, I was pleased that my training had been effective enough to allow my student to survive and win when attacked.
If you'd like to learn the skills to protect yourself and your loved ones, come and take my classes, you'll be glad you did one day