Self defense made easy? A list of the best, simple moves?

Well, as close to it as I can get on a blog post. This is from my Think Like A Black Belt newsletter #10, which you receive when downloading my self defense ebook.

Some of these moves can knock someone out, but they also create a few moments of shock and pain for the attacker, otherwise known as distraction, so you can escape.

Unless you are trained, one move may not be sufficient, so be ready to run to safety or follow-up with another move.

NOTE: Some of these moves are graphically explained, so proceed at your own discretion.

HEEL PALM TO CHIN
With wrist bent back toward your own arm and fingers out of the way, the lower, fatty part of the hand makes a good striking surface. For a chin strike, an uppercutting motion is best. The motion is similar to a pushing someone away, but the hand moves in a rising motion from your chest or stomach level forward and up under their chin. Strikes need to drive through the chin, not stop and bounce back, but don’t lose your balance leaning forward.

STRIKE TO NOSE
Take a pen or pencil and tap the long part of it across the bony, top part of your nose. Start softly, but then tap until it hurts a bit. You will find it takes very little tapping pressure to cause some pain. Now imagine bringing down a closed hand, a rock, or a bottle of water on someone’s nose, and you have some idea of how effective this can be.

SHIN KICK
If you’ve ever hit your own shin, you know this pain. This strike can be made with a quick, powerful kick (no long wind-up like on TV) or swinging a very hard object downward onto the shin (like a bat).

SMASHED HAND
When someone grabs your wrist or arm, find ways to quickly and forcefully slam an attacker’s hand into something to cause their grip to loosen or release. This is especially painful for them if you hit their fingers or top part of their hand against a metal door knob, the edge of something, or the corner of a wall.

ELBOW STRIKES
The elbow can strike in many directions: forward or backward into the ribs or upwards into the solar plexus or chin. One strike is very similar to the motion you make to reach back across yourself in the car to grab your seat belt. The trick is to strike while putting some weight behind it. Just throwing an elbow with arm muscle power alone won’t be too effective. Think more like a batter getting reading to hit a baseball — use the hips and body weight behind the elbow to give it power.

PINCH
OK, so a super-macho person may laugh at the idea of a pinch, but it’s about location, location, location. Imagine where you would never want to be pinched and you know where to pinch an attacker. Any place the skin is thin, like the back of hands, are most painful. You can try it for yourself it you want.

STOMP ON TOES AND FEET
We’ve all dropped something on our toes or stubbed them. The pain can drop you to your knees. To do this, your knee comes up (which raises your foot) and then strike down onto their foot with your heel. Best to have some weight behind it. Also, it takes very few pounds of pressure to drive a high heel through another foot (or other body parts).

HEAD BUTT
Think about how you sneeze. The head tilts back as your breathe in before the sneeze and then comes forward fast and hard during the sneeze. That’s pretty much how you do a head butt, except with deliberate power and targeting.

Hit with the area of the forehead close to the normal hairline. A good target is coming down on the bridge of the nose, but the cheek bones, hinge area of the jaw, eye socket, and temple are vulnerable to the head butt’s power.

MAKE ATTACKER LOSE BALANCE & TWIST OR FALL
Timing a hip check on an attacker as they pass by something like a coffee table, cliff edge, or a sharp, pointy object can cause them to fall or worse. Think hockey player, but don’t give the move away early.

EYE GOUGE
It’s nasty sounding, but a blinded attacker is a lot easier to free yourself from and escape. No, don’t try to do a Three Stooges eye poke — unless that’s all you can remember to do and then do it with power and repetition. The thumb goes in the eye at the outer edge of one eye socket while the middle finger goes in the other eye, also at the outer edge of the eye socket. Push in, bring thumb and finger toward one another (closer to the nose), and pull.

HAMMER FIST
When you make a fist, the pinky or little finger side of the fist is called the hammer fist. Imagine bringing a hammer fist down on a nose! It can also be used to strike powerfully down on the front side of the shoulder to break the clavicle. If grabbed from behind, you can hammer fist backward into the groin.

EAR CLAP
Eardrums are vulnerable because they can’t take sudden pressure change. You can create that sudden change by cupping your hands and bringing them forcefully together like a powerful clap, but instead of clapping hands together, you clap (strike) the attackers ears at the same time.

FINGER BREAK
Yes, this is painful and it takes hardly any pressure to perform. The trick is to grab the finger before they pull away and to bend the finger in the direction it will break. Just grabbing a finger and flailing won’t help. You must grab and snap it painfully back with full power.

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It’s best to visualize and practice these before you need them. If you can learn to flow powerfully from one move to another, you will add immensely to your self defense options.

Disclaimer: Consult a doctor before engaging in any physical activity and do not practice this with a partner unless under the supervision of a trained instructor. Use them only in self defense situations in which you feel your life or the life of another is in imminent danger.

When using self defense moves:

• Feet must be apart or you will lose balance as you create power.
• Use “whole body” motions instead of just the arm or leg muscles.
• Stepping with a strike can add power, but watch your balance.
• Strikes must be delivered with a powerful & resolved mindset.
• Since one strike may not work, move quickly to repeat the strike or move to another.
• Keep striking until you can free yourself and get to safety.
• Use deep, powerful yells to add power, attract attention, & psyche yourself up.
• If you are grabbed by the wrist or both wrists — practice deliberate calm — you still have many other weapons at your disposal.

Thank y0u for stopping by to learn about self defense,

Lori Hoeck

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Photo: kennymatic

I love this line in the song by Sara Bareilles King Of Anything: “Who cares if you disagree? You are not me”

I heard this today and had to make it an Independence Day song for those dealing with (or done with) their narcissist, crazy maker, unsafe person, or emotional manipulator. Here’s the link to the video.

VIDEO:  Sara Bareilles KING OF ANYTHING

{Excerpts from the lyrics. NOT THE FULL SONG.}

You’ve got opinions, man
We’re all entitled to ‘em, but I never asked
So let me thank you for your time, and try not to waste anymore of mine
And get out of here fast

I hate to break it to you babe, but I’m not drowning
There’s no one here to save

Who cares if you disagree?
You are not me
Who made you king of anything?
So you dare tell me who to be?
Who died and made you king of anything?

You sound so innocent, all full of good intent
Swear you know best
But you expect me to jump up on board with you
And ride off into your delusional sunset

You’re so busy making maps with my name on them in all caps
You got the talking down, just not the listening

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I don’t have to tell you, but you can decide “it is your turn to decide.”

Photo: Kalyano2

Thank you to my ebook readers!

The free self defense ebook  Think Like A Black Belt: Take Charge of Your Own Safety and the powerhouse ebook on narcissists (and other crazy makers, emotional predators, or unsafe people) The Narcissist: A User’s Guide have generated over 1,000 downloads.

The response from readers has been overwhelmingly positive and hundreds have received my Think Like A Black Belt Newsletter (available when downloading the e-book of the same name).

The 1,ooo-download high point comes just after my 1-year anniversary of this blog, which I began in May of last year.

As my fellow bloggers know, I’ve been blogging longer than that, but this website on physical, mental, and emotional self defense taps into my decades of martial arts and self defense knowledge and training.

Hundreds of comments and emails (thank you for the feedback!) prove this site fits the need for many looking for information or insight into dealing with those who seek to do others harm — be they bullies, bull-shitters, abusers, criminals, or predators.

The Think Like A Black Belt website helped me connect with writer and blogger Betsy Wuebker who co-authored The Narcissist: A User’s Guide with me. Now she and I are combining our dynamic skills on an even more exciting project. It will focus on a comprehensive understanding the many trials, troubles, and tribulations that come from a relationship with a narcissist — but that’s all I’ll say for now! We are working behind the scenes to make sure our project rocks before unveiling it.

As for this site, keep watching for ways to Think Like A Black Belt.

And please leave a comment about what kind of future articles you’d like to see.

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Thank you for visiting and learning about self defense.
If you think others can benefit, please pass it on!

And thank you for a very wonderful first year!

Lori Hoeck

The most amazing thing about firefighters and emergency response people is their use of common sense and an ability to think in the midst of chaos. Firefighters especially learn to adapt whatever is at hand to put the situation more in their favor.

As farmers in Oklahoma, my family and I joked that we could fix anything with “some bubble gum and a little baling wire.” We also had enough sense of competition and pride to not just “make do” with what we had, but to create something better, stronger, and more functional that something bought in a store for the same purpose.

The ability to see beyond problems that a firefighter or farmer might encounter requires common sense deeply rooted in a broad type of situational awareness.

COMMON SENSE
Common sense means different things to different people. From my roots in rural, small-town American to my years in the martial arts and emergency response, I see it as the ability to integrate experiences. To me common sense is:

A knowing or perception regarding nature or human nature that allows a person to integrate situational variables or to extrapolate from a situation the best and most positive results.

Such wisdom is not based on specialized knowledge or advanced education. Rather, it comes from exposure to people or experiences that foster this awareness.

The opposite of common sense, then is unsound judgment or misperception regarding nature or human nature. I’ve witnessed such lack of common sense more among those who gain information from book learning as opposed to first hand experience or immersion into a situation.

BLOOD & GUTS
You can read about firefighting or farming or the martial arts for years, but until you roll up your sleeves, get dirt under your fingernails, or even shed a little blood from intense effort, you can’t understand the true nature what it is to be a firefighter, farmer, or martial artist.

So how does this apply to self defense and how to Think Like A Black Belt?

Everything and nothing.

Nothing because even a totally untrained and scared to death mother of a 3-year-old can kick an attacker’s butt because the mothering instinct and protective rage is so intense it drives her to heroic efforts.

Everything because most self defense is having a wary eye, being street smart, and staying in code yellow. To me these are common sense, but I find many people don’t think about them at all. Why?

The Needy Now
As a nation, my generation and my parent’s generation failed to teach common sense. Instead, lessons helped a generation focus on the needy moment at hand. This makes moments in life segregated, not integrated. We react to a news story and not the background issues. We react to a situation at school or work, but not the deeper historical or emotional variables. We want something to happen right now, and we are unwilling to let time take its course.

And as for self defense, many will see it outside the needy moment of right now, and not prepare — just like many people in the path of a hurricane wait until the last minute or until it’s too late to make good decisions.

Some people only learn to see the big picture when they take their first driving course, and the instructor tells them to keep in mind road conditions, the abilities of the vehicle, as well as all others driving or walking nearby.

Self defense — and citizenship or parenting — requires we see the big picture of what is going on around us. This is also known as situational awareness. Blinder-like inward focus must be replaced by frequent, habitual scans of our environment.

For self defense to work well, it’s best to see danger before it arrives. That gives you time to respond instead of react.

Hey, it’s only common sense.

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Thank you for visiting and learning about self defense.
If you think others can benefit, please pass it on!

Lori Hoeck

Photo: anomalous4

Deciding to take a stand for something you believe in isn’t easy.

(I decided to share this with my website audience for comments. It is an edited version of my latest newsletter (#12) for those who sign up for my free self defense e-book, Think Like A Black Belt — Take Charge of Your Own Safety.)

COURAGE TO TAKE A STAND — NO WIMPS ALLOWED

(Warning, I will get a bit philosophical today)

What does it mean to “take a stand”
against a burglar in your house?
against a bully at school?
against an abusive or arrogant authoritarian figure?
against a corrupt system?
against a change at school or work you find repulsive or counterproductive?

How do you take a stand and Think Like A Black Belt?

CHUCK NORRIS
Can you imagine any senior black belt shrinking back when attacked?
Can you see Chuck Norris bumbling his way through a bully’s intimidation?
Can you visualize Jet Li or Jackie Chan falling apart when faced with making a difficult decision or public statement?

When do you decide to get in the game, get dirty, and get something done despite opposition? What is the motivation between doing something or not?

I take action when I decide to take ownership, as I talked about in an earlier newsletter. I have to buy into taking a stab at improving the situation. If I don’t take the risk, my sense of personal honor and courage die a little for not employing them.

HONOR
Personal honor, for me as a senior black belt and long-time martial arts instructor, is when my personal integrity, my principles, and my standards are built into my character to the point that I will stand by them and exercise them despite opposition, doubts, or temptation.

When was the last time you made a stand for something you believed in instead of letting the situation go unanswered?

It’s tough to go against the flow, isn’t it? It seems easier to be the wallflower, the silent majority, or even the armchair quarterback.

But in the end, a person who Thinks Like A Black Belt must be able to look in the mirror and admire the integrity of the person looking back.

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Lori Hoeck

Photo: BlatantNews

Recently I mentioned a few gloom and doom articles on my family Facebook wall. I followed it all up with a rather negative assessment of the world situation.

In reply, one of my Facebook friends wrote in an exasperated tone:

“GOOD GRIEF.

“I feel like everyone is losing their minds, truly… What in the hell is everyone so scared of? [[[[FEAR, FEAR, FEAR, FEAR]]]] ……. :/ “

Here’s my reply:

“Awareness is not fear. Information is not fearful. An opinion is not fear-mongering. A book cannot create fear (so much so as to need banning). Fear is a choice, a response. Blaming others for [[[[FEAR, FEAR, FEAR, FEAR]]]] paints them into controllers of people’s emotional states and thus needing to be controlled for the welfare of all — never a good path to follow logically or socially.”

This back and forth reminded me of my earlier post on the boys in California who wore shirts with American Flags to school on Cinco de Mayo.

In both cases, one person or group is blamed for causing a negative emotional response in another person or group. By claiming the victim role and blaming others, we negate personal responsibility. When this happens, a power and control vacuum is created. Who will come in and save us? Who will make sure everyone plays nice? Who will make sure no feathers get ruffled?

This country was founded on several rights, one of which is free speech. It came with a citizenry who understood personal responsibility and could argue and debate with fervor. Writers of the freedoms deemed them important because up until that time in history, those in power controlled with a heavy hand and the arrogance of class superiority.

Once Americans had the right to speak their mind, specifically on politics and policies, power moved more into the hands of We The People. It was guarded for generations because citizens valued it enough to remain politically educated, alert, and self-controlled.

But now, it seems a talk radio host, a boy in a t-shirt, or a Tea Party sign carrier can threaten the stable fabric of our nation by inciting or causing others to act out.

If something I write or say has the power to control you, then two things — both destructive to a free society — must follow:

1) I will need to be controlled to prevent me from harming you.

2) You will need someone to watch over you because you can’t control yourself.

The result will be Big Brother “helping” us get along and a reduction in liberty.

Am I wrong?

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Lori Hoeck

Photo: surfstyle

The decision to learn emergency thinking skills and use self defense when necessary requires a mindset few are taught. Changing to a survival mindset isn’t easy.

First, people must come out of denial and never assume everything is safe or that today will just be like yesterday.

You must own your reality.

Second, people must make their body and mind ready to deal with danger or disaster.

You must own your preparedness.

Third, people must take responsibility for their lives and the lives they protect.

You must own your survival.

This type of ownership of ourselves is rare. Complacency, denial, and assuming others will take care of us is more the norm.

How do we move from wearing blinders to awareness and fully embracing our own personal safety?

1) Buy into it

Some of you will think:

“Well, Lori, the statistics say it’s unlikely anything will happen to me or my kids. I can’t think there’s a predator on every block, that’s just too paranoid. Besides, I live in Wyoming and nothing bad happens here except a blizzard now and again.”

It’s not about paranoia or self defense overkill. It’s taking wise, reasonable precautions. Hope for the best but prepare for the worse.

2) See the world with new eyes

Most problems can be avoided if we see them coming. We do this by being aware, honoring our intuition, and thinking with a self defense mindset. Just as the extra senses we use when driving in busy traffic become a habit, we can learn to keep an extra eye on our surroundings and pay more attention to patterns of behavior.

3) Self assessment

When you are training or teaching self defense everyday, your skill level operates at its peak. If people are not at this level, they may need reminders or cues to keep up awareness. Here are a few:

Car check — when going to or leaving your car, take 360-degree survey of your surroundings (without looking like that’s what you are doing).

What if – when you hear about a break-in, active shooter, or missing person, ask yourself what you would do if you had been the target.

Key up — each time you touch your car and house keys, use that moment to think about awareness, instead of habitually and blindly going through the motions of your day.

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Do work on your awareness skills?

Is self defense a big deal to you?

—————————————-

Thank you for visiting!

For more information on building your awareness and pro-active self defense skills, download my free e-book here.

Lori Hoeck

Photo credit:  bark

Enough is enough.

From an article at msnbc website:

On any other day at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, Daniel Galli and his four friends would not even be noticed for wearing T-shirts with the American flag. But Cinco de Mayo is not any typical day especially on a campus with a large Mexican American student population.

Galli says he and his friends were sitting at a table during brunch break when the vice principal asked two of the boys to remove American flag bandannas that they wearing on their heads and for the others to turn their American flag T-shirts inside out. When they refused, the boys were ordered to go to the principal’s office…The boys said the administrators called their T-shirts “incendiary” that would lead to fights on campus.

So let me get this right:

1)  It’s important to label these five youths as troublemakers and run them out of the school so that what the school administrators obviously see as a violent-ridden, Mexican American student population doesn’t go crazy?

(Isn’t that a bit racist?)

2) It’s more important to let a presumed fear of mob mentality rule the day instead of addressing those who are thought to become violent?

(Isn’t that setting up more violence?)

If I follow this logic, this means it’s OK for large groups to push their will on others by creating a perception of violence if what they want isn’t given to them — in this case the ousting of kids wearing American flags.

This means those students the administrators thought might become violent are not responsible for their actions because it would have been all the fault of the five boys and their incendiary clothing?

So if a woman wearing a certain type of clothing goes into a parking lot and her amount of bare skin incites a rapist to rape her, it’s her fault?

And if I carry a purse into a bad neighborhood where gangs are known to live and I get attacked, it’s my fault for inciting them with my purse and the possibility of easy money?

And if Glenn Beck rants about Obama as a bad president and a sniper decides to try to kill Obama, it’s all Beck’s fault because the sniper was incited to do evil by someone else?

What?! Evil, violence, and criminal acts come from inside a person. The choice is theirs.

When blame is shifted away from the criminal or those threatening violence, it only incites them to feel more empowered, because, after all, it’s not really their fault, is it?

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What are your thoughts?

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Photo credit: ayalon

If you sign up to get my free self defense e-book, Think Like a Black Belt: Take Charge of Your Own Safety, it comes with a companion newsletter. Here’s a part of one of the newsletters — so you can see what you are missing!

Keeping It Simple — The “Three As”

If you’ve taken a first aid or CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) class, you’ve probably been taught the ABC method of remembering the protocol:

Airway
Breathing
Circulation

The human body in cardiac trauma is fairly predictable — enough so that these simplified rules can apply to most cases of CPR.

In self defense, however, a lot of unknowns will pop up. So how can you get a better handle on the flow of action in a situation? With all the different ways to handle emergencies and attack, are there any shortcut methods of remembering a plan of action?

Most self defense experts can come up with some kind of system. Here’s a simple one I’ve created that you may want to use, adapt, or just keep in the back of your mind. It certainly isn’t complete. It’s simply a way to plan ahead.

The Three As — ALARM? ASSESS. ACT!

Alarm?
OK. Where? Who? What?

Assess.
Pro or punk?
Cover & concealment?
Expedient weapons & exits?
Terrain & territory?

Act!
Full-tilt or fakery?
Depart, deflect, defend, defer, defy?

Breaking Down the Three As

Alarm?
OK. Where? Who? What?

Accept (by acknowledging with the “OK”) that something unsafe is happening. Focus on defining it enough to respond. Don’t engage in denial. When you look down the hall of a huge mall and people at the far end start collapsing, holding their throats, denial won’t help. Fear, however, can compel your feet quite fast out the nearest exit and upwind.

Assess.
Pro or punk?
Cover & concealment?
Expedient weapons & exits?
Terrain & territory?

You don’t want a level playing field–you want advantage. A professional requires a lot more thought than a punk (insecure/newbie attacker), although both can maim and kill. What in your environment or skill set will help you gain advantage? That curtain might hide you, but it won’t stop a spray of bullets. The scissors might be a good expedient weapon, but a pen is easier to hide. That alley might be tempting to escape an active shooter, but does it dead end?

Act!
Full-tilt or fakery?
Depart, deflect, defend, defer, defy?

React or respond! Freezing is not the best response. Breathe. Stomp foot or yell to clear mind. Keep thinking. You have choices.

Full-tilt means giving 100 percent to a direct action, such as running or fighting back. Fakery means using ploys and acting a certain way to find an opening to escape to safety. Either choice requires total commitment.

The following can be mixed and matched as the situation and your response decisions change:

Depart – just turn and run to safety
Deflect by using humor or some story to gain time
Defend yourself with everything at your disposal
Defer to them as a ploy to play along until you can escape or attack
Defy with refusal to follow their demands, letting your words and attitude show them you are no victim and that they should go elsewhere

The best way to keep these concepts in mind is to take a moment at home, work, or play to visualize something alarming happening — perhaps something you heard about in the news. In your mind, walk yourself through different scenarios and what you might do.

Disclaimer: There is no one way or procedure I can recommend you take in an emergency or self defense situation. I can give options, but you must decide what to do in the heat of the moment and with the insider’s view of the situation.

For Younger Kids

For younger kids, the Three A’s can be simplified into these:

Avoidance - Don’t go there. Side-step trouble and troubling people.
Awareness - Notice surroundings and take action when red flags come up.
Assertiveness - Set boundaries, be firm, value yourself.

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You can start receiving more newsletter content like this by signing up for my e-book here.

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Additional preparation concepts to keep you safe can be found:

Distractions help movie heroes and self defense

Responding vs. reacting in self defense

The Power of Preparedness

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Thank you for visiting and learning about self defense.
If you think others can benefit, please pass it on!

Lori Hoeck

Beyond the Self Defense Tweets:
Taken randomly from my self defense tweets on Twitter.  I write super-short blog posts to go Beyond the Tweet, chosen from the archives.

The Tweet:
Best, oldest & truest warning alarm and protector from bad guys — a good watchdog!

Beyond the Tweet:
This is our latest addition to the family.

Sure, she’ll take another hour or more a day to feed, walk, train, clean up after, and referee between her and the cats, but I was taught animal ownership is a privilege, not a hobby.

Plus, she can act as a four-legged alarm who will protect us with ferocity. Another bonus? Walking a dog can get you in shape!

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Lori Hoeck

I tweet here @LoriHoeck.