Self Defense Tips: A Recipe for Unarmed Defensive Skills

One of the most common questions I get at the end of a pistol class, or just in general when people find out that I teach personal defense topics is, what martial art should I take if I want to be really ready to defend myself? What unarmed skills do I need to prepare to use in that defensive moment? You know, most people realize that they're much more likely to need unarmed defensive skills than they are to need their firearm. Of course, a lot of people aren't ready to have a firearm as part of their personal defense plan, but they are open to the idea that they should develop some skills. So this is a really important question.

The truth is, I don't think any one martial art as I experienced them, has all the answers. Nor do I think that you should put yourself into a system which is really designed around the the literally artistic completion of a set of tasks or a long period of training. If you need to defend yourself next week, but you entered into a 15 year program to become a grand master in some martial art, it may not help you at all. You may spend more of your time learning how to tie knots or count a foreign language, than you are actually learning how to fight. So what I recommend generally is a recipe for developing unarmed defensive skills efficiently is that you look to two different places.

One, you look to striking and two, you look to grappling and for my money the most efficient way to develop good close quarters striking skills is going to be a Muay Thai school. If you can find a Muay Thai school that will teach you how to throw elbow strikes and how to throw knee strikes in close quarters those are probably going to be your most useful unarmed offensive skills at striking distance. If someone doesn't have a hold of you if they haven't pressed you up against the wall or into a seat or down onto the ground if you're still able to maintain arms reach distance, throwing elbows, throwing knees and then creating more distance, maybe to access a tool probably going to be your best bet. If you look at real fights there isn't a lot of punching that goes on from the person who's defending themselves. Very quickly someone who throws a punch will close in on you and that's where you want those close quarters elbow and knee striking skills.

Plus the elbows and knees are excellent close quarters, defensive tools. Now the other side, the grappling side is a little harder to find a good resource for. It's easy to say, look for Brazilian jujitsu. But remember a lot of jujitsu schools are teaching sport grappling. They're teaching grappling for competition and that may not be where you want to focus but even if that's all you can find if you can spend a few months learning the basics of any ground-based grappling course, you're probably going to get a lot out of it.

Now, there are some stand-up grappling skills that are going to be useful, but once you learn how to move your body while in contact with someone else once you understand the basics of leverage and especially the things that you're going to get from Brazilian jujitsu that involve getting up, escaping getting out from under someone those are going to be really valuable defensive skills. So, probably three to four months in a Muay Thai school maybe five, six, seven months in a Brazilian jujitsu school and you're going to learn the basics. Then it's about practicing. Don't worry about getting fancy or moving up into the higher levels of competition. Worry about really rehearsing and practicing those things that you learn in those first few months.

That I think is the best most efficient recipe for unarmed defensive skills.