Self Defence vs. Fighting
assault
the purposeful application of force to your person without your consent
self-de·fense
1. legal right to defend self – the use of reasonable force to defend yourself, your family, and your property against physical attack, or the right to do this
2. fighting techniques – fighting techniques used to defend yourself against physical attack, especially unarmed combat techniques such as any of the martial arts
3. justifying of self – the defending of your own ideas, principles, or actions
The above is pretty clear and to the point but what do the words really mean? What is reasonable force? What is a physical attack and if you defend yourself how much trouble will YOU get in?
Self defence should be black and white but what most people don’t know is that there is in fact a grey area. That grey area is understanding when it’s okay to defend yourself and when it’s not and knowing when self defence turns itself into fighting. For starters, some people believe that there must be an elevated level of force for it to be even considered an assault. For example: a shove would not be considered an assault but a punch would be. To set the tone, I teach my students that “no one is allowed to touch you without your permission”. Of course we know the exception of emergency personnel saving your life while you are unconscious but other than that, while you are of sound mind and body, consent must be given in order for contact to be made. This means that ANY physical contact without consent could be perceived as an assault and warrants self defence; ie, push, trip, slap or even spit. We are taught from youth to be tough and tolerate physical violence from bullies because “he ONLY pushed you” or “he didn’t MEAN to do that”. The fear of not being popular also silences us because tattling on your aggressor can be perceived as weak and therefore not worthy of popularity. As we age we learn that this is nonsense but the conditioning that we receive when young can still paralyse even grown men and women. Physical contact of any kind without consent warrants the appropriate level of self defence.
Now that we understand when we can apply self defence we have to understand reasonable force. Reasonable force is the act of defending yourself in such a fashion that you have kept yourself safe and only administered enough physical retaliation as to difuse the situation or restrain your attacker from further violence. A simple example would be if an attacker threw a punch at you and you effectively blocked it, threw your own counter strike, performed a take down and then simply performed a single finishing technique to deter them from getting up and attempting a second attack. Knocking them out is not mandatory and should only be done if you are convinced, and can prove in a court of law, that if you had not done so your life would have been in danger.
It is quite easy to take this scenario and turn it into something quite ugly. Without the right emotional control a victim can easily be turned into an attacker by not knowing when to “let up”. If we examine this circumstance in another light where instead of simply deterring the attacker from a second attempt via persuasion or submission, the victim goes out of his/her way to repeatedly hit the attacker until unconscious, well after the attacker has given up their intention of attacking. In this case the attacker now has legal right to sue or press charges against their victim for aggravated assault. Unfortunately, this is the type of behaviour that the UFC encourages; training fighters to beat their opponents into unconsciousness. This behaviour must remain as sport fighting and cannot ever be confused with self defence.
Self defence is as much a state of mind as it is a state of body. Martial arts training with positive people and experienced instructors is paramount to successful self defence within your legal rights.
Know your rights and defend them with your life!
Updated – November 10, 2011 – 8:36pm