A fight is a dirty business. Real-life confrontations are messy, and are rarely solved in one go e.g. you perform a particular technique, it works, and you’re safe, etc. In reality, you fight, bit by bit, to gain an advantage, you build upon it, and gradually you start to improve on your situation. If someone ever tells you, that you just do this or that, and then suddenly you’re in command and control of everything, be very suspicious about that person’s actual experience. In most instances “tools” rather than “techniques” are what you use to protect and extricate yourself from violence, and it is these things which need to be trained and practiced, along with developing the creativity, and recognizing the opportunities to use them. In this article, I want to look at some simple tools that have a high pay-off, when coupled with aggression and a survival mindset (the things which really get them to work). Although these tools may not require much skill for them to have an effect, I believe they become most useful when combined with powerful strikes that can be used to deliver concussive force, etc.

I can’t recall ever having someone not pull their head back from a thumb in the eye. In my time working security in pubs and clubs, I used to use this to break balance, and set up my O-Soto-Gari i.e. my Major Outer Reap. I used to grab the side of the head, and then drive my thumb into an assailant’s eye, to move them in order to load weight onto the leg, I would then reap. In listening to some people talk about fighting and self-defense on social media, it’s as if nobody knew how to fight before MMA and Krav Maga were discovered; and I say that as a fan of the former and an instructor of the latter. Most violent altercations close distance very quickly, and however good your control of range/distance is, in many settings the environment will restrict/reduce your ability to do so e.g. imagine you are attacked in a subway car, on a bus, or a crowded space, etc. This often means you end up clinched/tied up with your assailant at ranges where it is difficult to deliver powerful strikes. By pushing a thumb forcibly into somebody’s eye, and pushing their head backwards, you may create for yourself the room and space to start delivering elbow strikes and headbutts, etc. I was once asked at a seminar how hard you push a thumb into the eye. The basic answer is keep pushing and pushing until you get a response, and then keep pushing i.e. it is your attacker’s responsibility to pull themselves away from the pressure, not yours to reduce it.

Elbows can be used, not just to deliver concussive force, but to drive, scrape and cut. I have used elbows to drive/push people away e.g. if you are in some form of front bear hug, where an assailant is burying their face so you can’t reach the eyes etc. getting your elbow up into the side of a person’s head, and using your other arm to push it, is a good way to slide, scrape and poke your elbow into somebody’s face, in order to force them to pull away or readjust their grip/position. It’s not a solution in and of itself, but it’s a tool that can be used as part of a solution. After making a concussive strike with the elbow, don’t just retract it, but instead slide it down, using it to cut/rip the relatively thin skin of the attacker’s face. If you can cut the lips open, they will bleed and bleed and bleed, and people are rarely comforted by the sight of their own blood. In the heat of the moment, it is unlikely that they will take a comprehensive inventory of their own injuries and are more likely to assume things are more serious than they are i.e. a cut lip. Heads are  also useful as tools to grind into an attacker’s face, such as against their nose, or around their eye sockets; and although they don’t have the same cutting effects as elbows, if you are looking to create space, using your forehead to drive into the sensitive areas of the face is a good and simple way of achieving this goal.

Fingers and thumbs are a great way to reposition somebody’s head to improve the effects of your striking. Lifting up the head by using the thumb under the nose – with your fingers driving into the eyes, is a good way to put an attacker in a vulnerable position, for your punches and elbows etc. These are things that we often forget because they aren’t allowed in sparring, or are against the rules in most combat sports, etc. and there are good reasons that they are banned i.e. they have the potential to cause serious damage, and that they don’t require much skill to be effective. When watching a combat sport, we generally want the most skilled and talented fighter to win, not the one who’s simply ripping and gouging at the other one’s face with extreme aggression; possibly whilst biting their ear off.

I’m not somebody who believes that aggression is a substitute for skills, or that a thumb strike is more effective than a punch etc. I am a big believer in developing fighting skills, which includes being able to generate concussive force through punching and striking, however in our journey to develop these things, we should not forget how other “simpler” things can be used in conjunction with these more “sophisticated” tools to create complete solutions.