Self-defense: how to recognize when we are about to be attacked

In real self-defense preparation (read Best martial arts for self-defense), one of the most crucial skills to be developed is the ability to read and evaluate the signals that our potential attackers send us:

• Through their body language
• Through their spatial disposition
• Through their premises
• …

Note – This article has been asked by one of our Core Course practitioners on Patreon (see how to attend our home study classes here Learn Kung Fu online: a beginner-to-expert course).

A note by Master Kongling – If for us self-defense is not just a hobby to make new friends in the gym, let’s try to be wary of those who do not address these issues in an appropriate and thorough way. Fortunately, most of the “dangerous” courses (in the sense that instead of increasing our safety, they decrease it) are easily recognizable: in these, in fact, they start with things like liberations or (worse) disarming with knives and above all, the mental aspect of preparation is relegated to phrases like “please don’t do it unless…” or “leave your wallet” or even “if you see the knife, run away”.

Why and when self-defense does not work

Self-defense: do not start from liberation techniques

In this tutorial, we are therefore going to list some of the most common attitudes that, in a real-life scenario, we must warn against a possible and real aggression.

Here are the contextual signals that identify a (probable) imminent attack:

• Point (aggressively) the finger with the hand tightened to a height greater than the neck
• Hands gesturing with fast movements, violent and sharp
• Stiffening of the nostrils accompanied by slight movement of the ears and by raising the outer part of the eyebrows
• Step forward with the opposite leg to his “favorite” (eg. the right for lefties)
• Variation in the speech (speeding up or slowing down), this means that his mind is busy to plan the attack
• Various and any nervous tics (cheeks, mouth, eyes, etc.)
• Redness of the cheeks, a general warming of the upper half of the body
• The violation of our “breathing space”, he enter insistently in that circle which is defined around us by our arms stretched parallels to the ground
• Just before the attack his back stiffen and rise up, the chin drops (instinctively to protect the neck)
• Look to the right and left without a reason (to find general danger)
• The pupils dilate
• Close the eyes and raise your eyebrows in the sense of tolerance, resulting in stronger and wider exhalation from the mouth and nose

How to avoid errors

For consistency must be said that:

• Only one signal is not necessarily indicative of an imminent attack
• A pair of concurrent signals are indicative of a high risk of attack
• Of course, in no case we find all the listed signals simultaneously
• We are all different and there may be some signs differ
• Only direct experience will develop our ability to understand how people feels

These signals are identified mainly in the “ordinary” people, martial artists / athletes of fighting disciplines have slightly different contextual cues: we will see them in the next article.

In the next article of this series, we will see instead a selection of signals that may represent a false positive (read The signals that do not necessarily precede an aggression).

In-depth video courses

• Self-defense basics: how to – The full path to self-defense of our school
• Self-defense: not violent self-preservation – Everything we teach to do before recurring to violence
• Deception / lie detection: how to – Understand and exploit body language and deception
• Basic 6 Dragons Kung Fu exercises – The exercises to make our martial skills effective in combat
• Advanced speed and reflexes training – How to build real combat speed and improve it day by day
• Mind self-control hacks – How to take control of your mind and improve its performance
• Worst combat errors to avoid – The small mistakes that make us weaker than we could be almost without effort

In-depth articles

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Questions

Reply in the comments and share your experience:

• Have you ever been attacked?

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