Physical violence never just happens. However for many people the early stages of a conflict, when it is still in its verbal – Pre-Conflict – stage, are taken up with trying to assess the situation: trying to understand the reasons why the conflict occurred in the first place, trying to overcome denial (that this is really happening to us) and often wondering why nobody witnessing the incident is intervening on our behalf etc. These are all things worth considering but not in this exact instance. In the first stages of a potentially violent altercation there are practical things to do, which may help deter an assailant from making an assault or at the very least improve your chances of surviving it. It is worth stressing again that your job is never to simply beat the person(s) you are dealing with to a bloody pulp but to prevent them doing what they want to do to you – if the only way to do this is to beat them into unconsciousness then this is what you must do; fortunately this is rarely the case.

The first step in dealing with a verbally aggressive assailant is to deny them an opportunity to attack you – just because they are in front of you doesn’t mean they are able to assault you. The easiest way to do this is to confront them with a problem that they have to think about overcoming. If you can force them to think, then you have started to reduce some of the emotion in the situation, and therefore the likelihood of them attacking you. By raising your hands up in front of you, with your palms facing your assailant, you will be putting a protective barrier between you and them, without escalating the situation (closed fists would do this). By taking a step back, your assailant will have to move before they assault you – a good pre-violence indicator. If you step slightly to the side, they will have to turn if they want to attack you. If they have to find a way to get round your protective barrier, take a step forward and turn before they can launch an attack, these are three things they need to think about doing. If they then try and do these things you have at least gained some time and space in which to implement the next step in the process.

People often panic and want everything to happen and be over at once. They want to be able to do one thing which will finish the fight – this is rarely possible and can only happen if you have a good fight finisher that you can deploy before or at the very moment the conflict starts, such as a TASER, stun gun or a very accurate and powerful, well timed strike. In most instances your best bet is to try and disrupt your assailant (you have done this to a certain extent by your movement and relative body positioning described in the previous paragraph). As the person turns and moves towards you, throw out an eye strike, a groin slap or something similar; a quick strike to a soft target that doesn’t require you to be in a great position or that relies on you generating any power. This strike won’t finish the fight but it will give you the opportunity to set yourself up for power strikes that potentially will.

After disrupting your assailant’s attack/movement with your soft strikes, you need to enter the damage phase. This involves inflicting enough pain on your attacker that they can’t function or cope and want to remove themselves from the fight. This is where you need to attack with full emotion and commitment and convince your attacker that this is not a fight they want to engage in. If your assailant continues, then you will need to move from damage to destroy mode. This is where you need to somehow physically incapacitate them; either by breaking limbs, choking the person out (especially if they are pain resistant due to drugs or alcohol), or knocking them out – something which is very, very hard to do.

At some point you will need to disengage. You should disengage at any point where you can create safely create/put distance between you and your attacker. The earlier you can disengage from a conflict the better, as this will reduce the risk of injury to yourself.