Self Defence Tips
by Jennifer Seaton

The best self defense tip that anyone can give is: stay calm. When defending yourself it is important to keep your wits about you, act fast, and control the situation.

Think things through:
When in a stressful survival situation, your brain will want to “fight or flight”. Essentially, your body is going to freak out and act instinctively because it will be convinced that if it does not take over you actions you will die. The more “primitive” areas of the brain start pumping out chemicals and you revert to instinct. However, your brain is not with the times, and your ingrain instincts are not the best reactions in a defense situation. Keep your wits about you and think about the best course of action. For example, if someone is pulling you, it is not necessarily best to pull back. That is force against force and if you are not the strongest one, you will loose. Stay calm and look for opportunities.

Act fast:
When you panic, your muscles tense up. Tense muscles move slower than relaxed ones and if you are in a situation where every second counts, you want to be as fast as possible. Also, it takes energy to tense up your muscles, keeping them relaxed will conserve precious energy.

Control the situation:
Take control of the situation. Use their energy and force against them. Control the flow of energy. Later issues will continue with this topic and look at specific techniques, but nothing beats a good self-defense course. Knowledge is power in this situation, the more you know the better chance you have of making it through. Knowledge will also keep you calm, if you know how to control the situation, you are much less likely to panic. Nothing beats proper preparation.

And don’t forget to BREATHE!