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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, evaluate and cross the signals that our potential attackers send us:

Through their body language
Through their spatial disposition
Through the scenario’s 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).

The 2 levels of reading

In our method, the reading of the opponent’s intentions is divided into two categories:

Static (when the fight is not started) – This is the easiest level, within the reach of everyone (practitioners and not-practitioners); in this case, we are in fact calmer and we have relatively broad time windows of analysis (the success of the analysis is “just” a matter of recognizing the signals we are going to list)
Dynamic (during the fight) – Excluding the banalest attacks (carried out by those with no martial preparation whatsoever), this is a high-level skill that requires years of conditioning (read Martial arts sparring [MINI-GUIDE]); the difficulty comes from the fact that our mind is incredibly more occupied, the signals are shorter / smaller and the time windows inevitably become microscopic; such premises forcibly require speed, experience, well-trained combat instinct and quick reasoning (read Quick reasoning in combat: how to develop it and Kung Fu: how to react to an attack)

Let’s start with the first reading level: the static one (in a real scenario, it could literally save our lives).

A note by Master Kongling – Self-defense isn’t just about (apparently) effective fighting tricks. If we are not searching just a sort of hobby to make new friends in the gym, let’s try to be wary of those who do not address this kind of topics (in an appropriate and thorough way). Fortunately, most of what we call “self-defeat courses” (those that instead of increasing our safety, decrease it) are easily identifiable: they start with liberation techniques (read Self-defense: do not start from liberation techniques), or worse, directly with the disarming ones but above all, they relegate the mental preparation to phrases like: “please don’t do this unless…”, “leave them your wallet…”, “if you see a knife, run away…” (etc.). It’s a bit like limiting a fighter’s preparation to phrases like “remember to hit hard in the ring” but without ever explaining how or actually training him / her to do it (read Why and when self-defense does not work).

Reading aggressivity signals: the effectiveness premises

When it comes to reading a person’s intentions, it is important to clarify that in no case is it possible to make certain predictions.

There may be factors that, going beyond our understanding possibilities, can distort our assessments. In other words, it is a matter of reasoning on the probable and never on the certainty.

Said this, the dynamics we are going to expose are:

Extremely common (all over the world)
Connected to human instinct

As they occur (cross-referencing them with the current context), it is therefore important to trigger proportional precautions (read Personal defense: the S.A.F.E. method): anyway (it doesn’t matter if our assessment is wrong).

A note by Master Kongling – With “proportional precautions”, we mean within the limits of law and protecting (as much as possible) the physical safety of all the people involved (read The 6DKF’s diagram about the use of violence).

10 signs that may help us recognize an imminent aggression

A note by Master Kongling – The reference scenario is that of a dispute situation already in progress (read Self-Defense: 10 things to avoid in a quarrel). We are referring to a situation against a normal person where the focus is on rage (not a military one, not a robbery, not a cold revenge, etc.).

These are some of the most common contextual signals that can identify an imminent attack (in order of importance, from the less significative to the most relevant):

Body overheating – Redness of the cheeks caused by the general warming of the upper half of the body; this can happen even if a person is not about to fight but a rapid and visible increasing redness may certainly be an indicator of a fury escalation to do not underestimate; this symptom comes in fact from human ancestral instinct that activates a blood flow to allows better fighting performance
Variations in the speech – An acceleration may mean an increase in rage or loss of control (eg. with repetitions, nonsensical statements, etc.); on the other side, a slowing down (eg. lengthening the words) or an improvise pause may mean that his / her mind is busy planning an attack
Body tension – Stiffening of the nostrils, rapid raising of the outer part of the eyebrows (without frowning), tensed jaw muscles, eyes wider (with pupils dilated), biting of the lower lip, clenched fists, shoulders / back stiffening or rising up and / or the chin that drops (to instinctively protect the throat) are all common combat preparation signals
Eye contact variations – Prolonged, unblinking eye contact can signal deep rage, while sudden avoidance may indicate internal conflict or planning; if he / she doesn’t look us in the eyes, let’s also pay attention to where he / she looks insistently with a shifty gaze (probably he / she may have already chosen where to hit us)
More violent gesticulation – An acceleration of hands / head gesturing with fast, vibrating and sharp movements (eg. swaying from side to side, hitting something, wide fast trajectories, etc.); maybe pointing the index finger aggressively toward us (not upward and with the arm tightened to a height greater than the neck)
Adjusting clothes – Adjusting trousers (especially the waist) is a typical preparatory action aimed at preventing the fabric from slowing down / inhibiting large and fast movements (sprints, kicks, etc.); taking off the jacket (not undressing to show the muscles) is another action aimed, this time, at making the action of the upper limbs easier; another example is getting rid of footwear that limits stability without adding anything in terms of power (eg. slippers)
Check for dangers – Look to the right and to the left; this is a strong cue of an oncoming aggression, he / she is controlling if there are impediments to his / her violent action (people who might interfere, witnesses, cameras, etc.)
Arm the hands – Searching for a more or less improvised weapon or simply freeing the hands / arms / shoulders from any kind of obstacle (bags, delicate objects, etc.) to be in condition to exploit them at the best of / his / her possibilities
The invasion of our personal space – He / she enters insistently in that circle which is defined around us by our arms stretched parallels to the ground (read also Ideal distance from the opponent during a fight)
A backward motion – While an experienced fighter will never do this, most common people, when they quickly throw back an arm, hand, foot or shoulder, are certainly trying to charge up a blow with all the force within their disposal; in many cases, it is also interesting to note that, it is part of the instinctive tactic of a non-practitioner to try to hide his / her hands behind the back (partly to have a loading space, partly to appear harmless and partly to position them of our visual range)

How to avoid errors

For consistency, it must be said that:

Only one signal is not necessarily indicative of an imminent attack
2 or more concurrent signals are indicative of a high risk of aggression
In no case, we will find all the listed signals simultaneously
As we mentioned in the beginning, for a specific person, some cues may have a different meaning from the one we shared but in general they are very common
These are not mathematical rules, although it is quite difficult, an attack can occur even without being preceded by any of the signals we have listed
Only direct experience (based on focused observation) will develop our ability to truly understand how people feel (the secret is to correlate the signals with the evolving context through logic)

How to react consistently?

What to do once we recognize the premises of a probable imminent attack? Let’s read Defend from the most common attacks [MINI-GUIDE].

Final notes

A few conclusive thoughts:

One of the mistakes that less experienced people make most often is to think that the person in front of us is in the same state of mind as us or that he / she has thoughts, logic, hesitations and limits similar to ours, it is not at all certain that this may be true
What really happens in the brain is infinitely complex and almost unknowable; which is why (especially in moments of tension) it is always better to rely on what it passively triggers rather than pontificate on how it reasons (eg. it is easy to understand that a person is, probably, about to enter the water because he / she is wearing a diving mask, another thing is to try to understand why he / she is doing it or irrationally decide that he / she will not do it because for us it is too cold)
Essentially the signals we have provided could be seen as bridges between idea and action, intermediate steps that, being often involuntary, often necessary and (in most cases) beyond the understanding of those who perform them, reach a more than acceptable level of accuracy
The importance and effectiveness of these notions come from the fact that if lying with words is relatively easy, doing it with the body requires training and self-control that very few people have
…

In the next article of this series, we will see a selection of signals that may represent false positives (read The signals that do not necessarily precede an aggression) and then how 6 Dragons Kung Fu addresses the problem of wrong interpretations / deception.

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

Self-defense: aggression in front of a supermarket – A real application of S.A.F.E. self-defense method
6 Dragons Kung Fu: what does it teach? – The teaching program of our courses

Questions

Reply in the comments and share your experience:

Have you ever been attacked during a quarrel?

Author: Master Kongling

Founder of 6 Dragons Kung Fu.

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