The best way to hit first: a little trick

How to hit first without attacking first

In self-defense it is fundamental to do not be the first to use violence against some other:

• Due to legal reasons – In the vast majority of cases the law blames those who attack first (moreover, it is always better to avoid legal risks and costs)
• Due to ethical reasons – We practice for peace and we refuse violence (read The 6DKF’s diagram about the use of violence)
• Due to safety reasons – We know how it starts, we do not know how it will end (even if we are expert fighters)

To avoid violence does not mean, however, to accept it passively.

The situation

Let’s imagine a close quarter quarrel where:

• We are frontally standing against a potential aggressor that is become a full-fledged aggressor (he is attacking us)
• We have the hands resting in a normal way along our sides (wrong, read A little trick: the secret guard of the 6DKF)
• Our opponent is threatening us (eg. handling a baseball bat) but he is not an expert fighter
• Our opponent is at a short distance from us, a little bit more than the distance of an arm (read Ideal distance from the opponent during a fight)
• The possibilities of a peaceful resolution are ended (pacification, escape, read Personal defense: the S.A.F.E. method)
• The situation is totally out of control and the attacker is about to hit us (he is already loading the blow)

We are at risk of our safety and we must be able to defend ourselves before being hit, as soon as the aggressor in front of us starts to move.

How to defend first

The best way to hit first (eg. with a punch) is as follows:

• Let’s completely relax our body (especially the shoulders)
• Let’s (legally) wait for the beginning of his attack
• Let’s do not move the rest of our body in any way (including eyes)
• Let’s avoid any type of charge movement (even the smallest)
• Let’s forget the surplus of power that can give us a proper breathing (let’s only exhale, no inhalation)
• Let’s choose a sensitive and easy to reach target (eg. one eye)
• Let’s instantly establish the shortest possible path between the position A of what we want to use to strike (eg. our fist) and our target B (eg. the neck of the aggressor)
• Let’s start our attack in an explosive, direct and determined way from point A to point B
• Let’s imagine to strike beyond the point we’re targeting (this way we will hit harder and we will not lose it)
• Let’s move on the opposite side of the attack to add power to the shot and, at the same time, to dodge the aggression of the opponent
• After our opponent is hit so unexpectedly, let’s do not stop, we will have time to execute other consecutive techniques (blocks, knees blows, etc.)
• The clash is started, we must now continue with a sequence of combined attacks (without paying attention to the previous arrangement,s)
• Obviously, when the threat is ended (the aggressor has lost the ability / will to harm us), we must immediately stop (to do not create too serious damages and not to incur in the excess of defense)

Conclusions

Only in this way, our opponent will have:

• No perception of our reaction
• No time to defend

Final notes:

• We have to do only this, nothing special, difficult, technical, athletic or other
• This simple notion can make the difference (even between life and death, in an extreme situation)
• Using any classical / normal technique (in the vast majority of cases) we would be affected first
• There is a human limit in terms of reaction time and it cannot be trained too much (more about this later)
• The “trick” is based on the presupposition that the opponent uses a longer range of loading
• It’s useless to say that this kind of tricks works only against a novice and / or an improvised attacker and not against an expert

In the next article of this series, we will see the best way to defend us from a hurled attack, once again, from a short distance (read Personal defense: parry the first attack).

Author: Master Kongling

Founder of 6 Dragons Kung Fu.

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