Posted: 07 October 2006 at 11:37am | IP Logged

Before we begin practicing self-defense tactics, we need to understand what "self-defense" is. While knowing the "how-to" of self-defense is important, it is equally important to understand the "when-to".

If you were asked to write down a definition of self-defense, you might use words like awareness, protecting myself, being prepared, fighting back, and so on. If we were to explore the topic in a larger sense, we could define self-defense in legal terms. That definition might sound something like this:

The next phrase, reasonable person, is also important. Any actions that you take during an attack situation must be seen as "reasonable". This is because your conduct will be evaluated by what is referred to as the doctrine of "objective reasonableness".

Now, how do we determine what is reasonable? The legal standard for this is actually fairly simple. Would a reasonable person in the same situation have done what you did? If the answer is yes, then you have acted reasonably. This legal standard takes into account such variables as age, gender, apparent physical ability, etc. This means that we would understand a small or elderly person using greater force in response to an attack than someone who may be younger, larger, or athletic.

Believed to be necessary refers to your understanding of what would have to be done to overcome an attack. This is where it pays to have some previous knowledge about self-defense tactics. If you have trained physically before an attack, you will have a good idea of what tactics to employ to escape from the situation. But if you have no previous training, your tactical belief-system will be unsophisticated and potentially dangerous to you. The untrained results of what you believed to be necessary will then be completely out of proportion to what it would actually take to successfully respond to an assault. The likely result would be that you would "under-respond" when faced with an attack.

The other extreme to this example is that an untrained response can also be considered excessive. For example, if you were to pursue a fleeing attacker who no longer posed a credible threat to you, this would be a case of "over-responding" to an attack.

The other aspect of perception is in advance preparation. Perception suggests that you have an intellectual understanding of what is happening to you. If you know the tricks of the typical street thug, you will "perceive" going on that may not be so obvious. Studied preparation gives you the basis for evaluating information that will allow you to perceive clearly, analyze accurately, and respond quickly.

Defend oneself or another, laws will allow for the justifiable defense of a second party. Typical examples would be the presence of a spouse, child, or friend. As an unaccompanied patron in a nightclub, your self-defense mission would have certain requirements. When you are responsible for the care of others, these requirements will change significantly. Many self-defense experts fall short because their scenarios do not allow for the presence of others who may depend upon you for their safety.

Imminent simply refers to how soon the attack is coming. When an assault is imminent, it is on it's way, NOW. What can be confusing is when we distinguish between an assault and the verbal threat of an assault. Here is an example. Imagine someone is standing a few feet away from you. Now imagine this person looks right at you and says, "I'm going to punch you in the face".

The reason this gets tricky is because both of these examples are recognized legally as an assault. A threat is considered an assault if the threat places you in fear of immediate physical contact that will be painful, injurious, insulting or offensive, coupled with the apparent ability to execute the act. It is the perpetrator's apparent ability to act on his threat that elevates mere harassment to an assault.

If the perpetrator is standing across the street from you, the distance that separates you impacts on his ability to carry out an attack. This is a much different circumstance than having the person standing right in front of you. Time and space relationships have a significant bearing upon the immediacy to react. If he has threatend you while sitting in his wheelchair, the complexion of his apparent ability to act has changed. Your ability to evaluate a perpetrator's apparent ability will assist you in assessing their overall threat potential.

Unlawful force. We started our legal definition with the word force, and we will end with it as well. There is a circular relationship between the force that is used by the aggressor as well as the defender in a self-defense scenario. What constitutes unlawful force is when the force being applied is in violation of one or more laws. What qualifies the force that we would use is justification. Our justification is provided by the perpetrator's actions and the circumstances surrounding the assault. In the presence of unlawful force, a reasonable force response is always justified.

Mike Gillette is a former Police Chief who currently is training director of the National Law Enforcement and Security Institute. He has extensive credentials from police, military, and martial arts sources.(Reprinted with permission)