In the previous month, I covered the importance of a fighting structure for “defense”, and this month, I want to show you how that basis now creates a great opportunity to attack offensively.
One of my self-defense mentors once said, “You want to be the person who hits the first-est, fastest, hardest”. Although there may be some grammatical and spelling errors in there, it makes an important point. Now, before someone reads this and says something about legalities of hitting someone first, I completely understand their concern. The fact is that we can’t go around striking people, so I understand that.
However, if there are two bigger attackers cornering you and your loved one in an alley way, ready to rob and do you great bodily harm, that is different than someone simply bumping into you and calling you a name in a public place. If you perceive a serious threat, and you cannot escape safely, you have the right to defend yourself, including the right to strike the “first-est, fastest and hardest”.
If you read my previous article, you know that putting yourself into a defensive structure actually gives the attacker the benefit of the doubt, and “tells” them physically and verbally that you do not want to fight. Therefore, if the threat persists, being in that defensive structure will give you the option to attack offensively. The defensive structure puts you in that bladed stance, with your knees bent and hands up, ready to protect yourself.
Therefore, we will cover both a pre-emptive and counter attack in this article. The pre-emptive technique is an eye jab. In a defensive stance, our hands are up and if someone is in our face, our fingers are probably only 6-12 inches away from his eyes. We perform the eye jab with a quick snapping motion, where we want to make contact with the eyeball, temporarily taking away their vision.
The counter attack is the groin kick. It is fast and even after someone attacks us, their low line is usually open. We can either lean back to avoid a strike and then kick down low, intercept the attack while they are attacking or take a step slide back to evade and then pop the low line kick where it counts.
The goal here is not to make it complicated. The defensive structure is simple, natural and can attempt to de-escalate the situation. However, it perfectly sets us up to go offensive when needed with the high line eye jab or low line groin kick. These means can give us an easier way to escape, or follow up with additional combatives.
To understand how quick you can transition from a defensive to offensive strategy, check out this video I made walking you through the transition: www.FearlessStreetFighter.com/OffStructure
