Category Archives: martial arts

How Effective is Pepper Spray?

When I was a 21-year old Studentessa in Rome, living away from home I bought myself some OC (Oleoresin Capsicum) spray because I thought it would be an effective incapacitant and would cause instant temporary blindness and involuntary coughing and sneezing, and put down any potential rapist or mugger. But the reality is very different. Soldiers and police are trained to overcome the effects of OC  spray through sheer willpower. Here is a video of a female USMC recruit doing just that.

So as an incapacitant OC spray usually isn’t very effective, and it is also going to be very difficult to use in an attack. I can draw and shoot a firearm far more quickly and accurately than I can an OC cannister, which is too small and tricky to operate. And if that wasn’t bade enough I’ve got to get a direct hit in the face without catching any myself. So you might expect me to say that OC spray is a poor choice for personal defence but actually I think it’s a very good choice for a girl, as long as she understands it and has the right product.

FOX LAB MEAN GRREN

I sometimes carry Fox Lab MEAN GREEN, which is legal in Italy because it’s under 10% OC, and is probably the best OC spray on the market. It has a 6% concentration of 3 million SHU pepper resin. As Fox Lab point out a higher percentage of resin can delay reaction time, making the spray less effective. What makes an OC spray effective is the  Scoville Heat Units (SHU), because this causes intense burning pain. OC isn’t going to involuntarily shutdown an attacker, it’s the burning that will stop him. So the hotter the better.

But what makes Mean Green the best product on the market for me as a girl is that it’s also a green dye that will cover his face.

Mean Green Face

If someone tries to rape, mug, carjack or attack you, the pain will deter them but the green dye will identify them if you go to the police. Also if they were able to resist the spray, the fact that they were green and easily identifiable would also be a deterrent. A man has got no chance of claiming consensual sex if he’s been sprayed with OC and painted green by the girl.

Obviously, if a girl carries OC there is a risk that she might get sprayed herself, if she tries to use it to close to her attacker. So be sensible use it as soon as you feel threatened. I also carry Fox Labs Sudecon wipes in my purse, just in case I have a blonde moment and accidental spray myself. :shock: They’re designed to remove the spray and decrease decontamination time but they won’t stop you looking like Shrek.

I don’t think OC spray is an alternative to a firearm and knife but its an effective non-lethal addition, and if you can’t carry a gun or knife, then it’s a must.

Girls Can’t Hit

In my opinion, striking martial arts have little if any practical self-defence application for females because girls can’t hit. You’ll get the exception to the rule — the Two-Ton Tessie , who couldn’t get laid in Rikers Island — but most girls can’t throw, can’t park and can’t punch their way out of a wet paper bag. This is why I always wonder what girls expect to get out of karate, TKD,  kung fu or krav maga class. If it’s self-defence, they’re deluding themselves.

This is Lori O’Connell a 4th dan black belt in Can-Ryu jiu-jitsu demonstrating the typical sort of open-handed strikes that you find in most striking based martial arts and girls’ self-defence.

With the best will in the world that ain’t going to stop many geezers from knocking her on her April. No bird is ever going to do serious damage to a geezer with a dry slap or karate chop. I can slap pretty hard but that’s because I’m a 90kg bloke — it helps – but I can do a lot more damage with my fist, forearm, elbow or my head. So I’ve never really understood why it would be a good idea to slap some wrong ‘un, unless I wanted to mug him off.

So what about punches?

I know this little bird’s form ain’t great: she ain’t sitting into her punches and using her legs or core, but even if she was trained by Freddie Roach, how hard is a girl ever going to hit?

Amica can punch hard for her weight but 48kg is still only 48kg. The two main benefit of boxing in girl’s self-defence is it conditions her to keep fighting and move out of the way.

Knife Defences: Blocking & Parrying

This is the final post in the knife defence series, then I’ll be giving Stefania her blog back. So this post is about blocking and parrying. A lot of people don’t know the difference between the two but it’s real simple: a block meets force head-on in a straight line and a parry deflects it in another direction. So lets use an example: you’ve got a shield — why have you got a shield I hear you ask? I don’t fucking know, it’s only an example — as I was saying, you can block a sword attack with a shield either by letting it strike the shield or you can thrust that shield directly into the path of the strike, which is a more powerful block. With a parry instead of thrusting the shield directly in a straight line at the sword, you deflect it away from you, knocking it off-line with your shield. Okay, you can put down your imaginary sword and shield now because we won’t be using them any more.

Now that’s settled, lets talk about blocking and parrying knife attacks. First off, lets be clear, there is a high risk of getting cut — knives are sharp and shit happens. I said before I’ve only ever been cut under the arm and across the chest; well that was a lie, I forgot I’ve also got a 6cm cut in the small of back where some cunt slashed me — hey, I can’t see it — and a 1cm cut over the knuckle on my little finger when I blocked a stab to the face with a bottle. To be fair, when I was working as a bodyguard I used to wear leather vambraces — leather is sexier than kevlar — and they got cut a few times but I’ve blocked and parried a knife without them more than once or twice, so getting cut isn’t a necessity. It’s not like your going to get called a pussy if you don’t get cut in a knife fight. See how I did that, I changed it from knife attack to knife fight. If you’re being attacked with a knife you’re in a knife fight, and if you don’t have a knife of your own and you get the opportunity; stab him with his.

Rick Kirkham makes an important point in his video on blocking, there is no rule against getting out the way. I can’t stress this enough, if someone is lunging at you with a knife and your reaching out to block the attack, even if you’re an exercise shy salad-dodger, it really doesn’t hurt to try and get your body out the way. There are one handed, two-handed, forehand and elbow blocks and parries that you can use against a knife attack. The one-handed extended arm is one of the most instinctive blocks. A lot of people say don’t do it but the truth is when you see a blade coming towards your groin, you’re going to do it. The best place to clasp the knife arm is the bicep, followed by the elbow then forearm. If you get the chance a two-handed block is better, and you end up covering your body with you forearms. Remember your imaginary shield — a strong block thrust forcefully into the line of attack — a forearm or elbow block is better than a block with your hands because you can drive more forcefully behind it. The reason for a strong parry or block is that it slows down the next attack.

Martial artists often have these weird and wonderful ideas about how to defend themselves from knife attacks. They think they can block or parry, then disarm an attacker with some bullshit wrist lock or disable him with a poke to the eyes. This is pure unadulterated fantasy. No attacker is going to stand still like a lemon while you do your best Steven Seagal, Bruce Lee or Matt Damon impression. He’ll keep trying to knife you and he won’t stop to catch his breath. He’ll disfigure, castrate, gut or kill you while you’re twating about trying to twist his wrist, and trying to stick your finger in his eye is about as useful as trying to sticking it up his Khyber.

over/under bodylock

What you can do is shove him off. It’s a technique I use in firearms training: shove them off, get clear, draw your firearm and fire several warning shots… into his head! Even if you’re unarmed this isn’t a bad technique, especially if you shove him to the floor, because it gives you reaction space — for those who were shagging behind the bicycle sheds during physics lessons — time equals distance over velocity. The more space between you and him the more time you have to react.

One of the things you can do after blocking an attack and are likely to do is clinch. The over/under bodylock was both my grandads’ favourite hold, and although you’re still at risk, if you keep the attacker moving, you can throw him before he can stab you. I’ve used the over/under bodylock myself, tying up the knife arm and lifting him off the ground and throwing him to the floor. The single overhook and underhook are more risky but can work  if you’re aggressive and keep him moving. Another thing that works after a block is to stab him with his own knife by thrusting his hand back at him. As for disarms, if you must, the most effective I’ve found are biting the little finger or thumb of his clenched fist.

Knife Defences: Covering up

If you can’t get out the way of a knife, covering up is an instinctive defence. So if someone tries to knife you, covering up is something you might find yourself doing anyway. But unless you’ve got a jacket wrapped around your arm or some form of armour on, there’s an almost certain chance that you’re going to get cut. So why do it? Because it’s better to get slashed across the arm or back of the hand than the face.

Facial Knife Scar

My Dad was slashed with a Stanley knife (box cutter), when he was working as a bouncer at a rave. This black geezer tried to slash his face. My Dad saw it coming and covered up. He was cut across the upper arm but then grabbed hold of him and threw him to the floor with a hip block. My Dad broke the black geezer’s arm on the floor and took the knife off him. He had a result because he only needed eight stitches in his arm. I don’t know how many stitches the black geezer had but my old man gave him a nasty Chelsea smile.

The lesson here is that if you cover up, you’ve got to be able to react after the knife cuts you. The natural thing to do in that situation is clinch the attacker, which is why it’s good to do that in training, instead of some stupid shit like wrist locks, Indian burns or eye gouges. Once you’ve clinched them you’re at risk of being knifed again. So you don’t have time to piss about, you either shove them off you or throw them to the floor. This is where judo and wrestling come in handy.

Knife Defences: avoid the blade

Most successful knife defences occur before the attacker has drawn the knife, recognising that someone is going to attack you and taking them out first is always the preferable option but that’s not always possible. If someone tries to stab or slash you, you will do one of three things: stand still, move toward the blade, or move away from the blade.

Avoid the Blade

Moving away from the blade isn’t always possible and it might not be very sexy but it is usually the best way of avoiding a blade and if you avoid the blade you don’t get cut. That’s why I’m quite prepared to jump back if necessary to get out of the way.

I’ve been in this situation on many occasions when I was working the door, jumping back and circling out the way might not be taking charge of the situation and won’t stop them from attacking you but neither does getting stabbed in the gut or the groin. Also remember time equals distance over velocity, so the  further away from your attacker you are, the more time you have to react to his attack. This is one of the reasons that practising martial arts that teach you knife disarms actually increases your chances of getting cut with a knife because you train yourself to do the opposite. You also need reaction space to draw a weapon or pick up something and use it as a weapon or shield.

Knife Defences: don’t let him draw the knife

Most knife defences martial artists teach are complete bullshit. Most of them have never faced a knife, let alone faced one on a enough occasions to give any sort of informed opinion on what works and what doesn’t. I’m not saying that a martial art instructor who has never faced a knife attack can’t teach realistic defences, just that most don’t. So I’ve decided to post some realistic knife defence advice.

Don’t let them draw the knife

The first and best piece of advice I can give is don’t let them draw the knife. I don’t mean some tree-hugging, limp-wristed, pacifist horseshit about de-escalation and conflict avoidance, which is liable to get you stabbed; what I’m talking about is pre-emption. The best time to take out an attacker is before he even thinks about drawing a weapon.

People don’t normally go around  stabbing people at random. There is normally some sort of build up. If someone is going to attack you, you can see it in their face. It’s obvious when someone is right up in your face giving you a load of verbal that the situation is going to get physical but you’ve also got to be alert to people trying to throw you off-guard. A good example is some stranger who wants to shake your hand for no reason. I’m not saying if you’re going for a job interview that you should nut the cunt if he tries to shake your hand — he probably wouldn’t give you the job if you did — but if some strange bloke walks up to me and tries to shake my hand in club, I wouldn’t think twice about dropping them.

That might sound like an overreaction but that’s the time to react, not after he sticks a knife in your back with his other hand. As the saying goes, “Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you”  – if you think you’re being followed or about to be attacked, then it’s a pretty safe bet you are. Being switched on to that can be the difference between walking away or being carried away from a knife attack.