Your aim with self defense should be to avoid confrontational situations altogether. Being aware of your surroundings and the people in it is key to this. However, there could be a time when you find yourself in a situation where someone is being verbally aggressive towards you.
Part of your training should include developing verbal skills to enable you to defuse this sort of aggressive behaviour before it escalates. Being able to successfully use these skills will help to prevent a potential aggressor from launching into a physical attack.
Generally a person being verbally aggressive towards you is doing so to “size you up”, they are trying to determine whether or not you are going to be easy prey. Their language is aimed to intimidate you and to try and get you to fall into their script.
They are looking to see if you become passive, fearful, timid and/or nervous. These signs show the aggressor that you are probably going to be an easy target.
Now there are times when you may want to use this type of behaviour as a deceptive strategy, however this carries a higher level of risk. The best course of action is to avoid showing these outward signs. Internally you may be fearful and afraid, but it is important that externally you appear focused, confident, relaxed and ready.
Some situations can start with as little as eye contact. You could be in a busy bar or club and inadvertently make eye contact with someone. Next thing you know they are right up in your face saying “What the f*** are you looking at?” It is important to remember you aim here is de-escalation. Do not get caught up emotionally on what is going on. Try using closed statements rather than questions or open sentences. Simply replying with “nothing”, or “I wasn’t looking at you” will probably lead to a continuation of this aggressive behaviour.
At Practical Self Protection we are committed to, and focus on, reality based self defense training. We focus on state of the art techniques and training methods that give you immediate results.
