True, he really did the best anyone without a ranged weapon could do in the situation. No one can be of much use while bleeding on the ground with a hole in their liver.
The only thing I don't like is that the stabber gets easily distracted because the amount of targets, and it was more than one person, meaning that they had a chance to reduce him individually or in group. When he goes back to the park after being with the guy, it was a perfect moment to just grab his legs and mf his way out of there
I remember when you talked about a knife attack a while back and showed a Chinese girl getting stabbed to death in broad daylight which people walking by. The friend was freaking out, but no one walking by even tried to help. That video has stuck with me since I saw it.
The attacker in France chose a playground during a weekday. Most adult men were at work. He attacked babies in their strollers and their caregivers. (The falling lady is not a family member of the child being attacked) The guy with the backpack was doing a pilgrimage, walking from one cathedral to another in France. So you're probably right about him not being used to violence. At least he tried to help when other people ran away and he kept the attacker away.
9:36 "You don't _rise_ to the occasion. You _fall_ to your level of training." Such a powerful statement. The difference between what we tell ourselves we would do in a situation vs. what we actually do in a scenario where primal fear has taken over. Great video!
I liked how he saw it both ways, the people that have never been in a fight before no training won't do anything not going to suddenly start throwing haymakers, wind milling they'll just freeze but the ones conditioned to fight won't make what might be the sensible choice and run away they'll fight. had a situation when I was very young, in school whether in the playground or the rugby pitch if a fight broke out I'd fight, if other people where fighting I'd pull people apart, someone attacking someone else I'd get in there and sort it out. school fights aren't very dangerous I was a bigger stronger kid not a problem for me. when I was 17 walking to a bus stop some daft kids threw some eggs at a couple of goths, the goth pulled out a knife to threaten them with, I shout at the goth and took him to the ground took it off him. the lad was soft as shit he was no where near the lads he was threatening he was not going to do anything it was fucking stupid thing for me to do. if someone told me about the situation beforehand I'd never say that's what I'd do, but all i'd ever done was rush into melee's on the rugby pitchso that's what I did. didn't think about being on my own didn't think he's mate might also get a knife out. nowaday's it's 6 years since I've played sports (switched to American football) years since any altercation because adults don't tend to fight that often no idea what I'd do now suspect I've not got that bravery or aggression anymore.
You would react properly to stay safe. This guy is full of it. His talking is the consequence of too much news. He's cherry-picking cases.I live in north Philadelphia & before that Tijuana Mexico. I've seen old lady's hit harrasers with umbrellas, sticks, shoes, purse, rocks, we're programmed to run from danger or to stay safe.
@evilwayz1464 yes you are talking about "harassing"situation ,we are taking about a 100% chances of live or die situation and in those situations most people will let their daughters,mothers or friends died and do nothing but froze or run and cowered out,,if not believe watch Hamas invading israel what most people did
@eedumi1gmail I'm talking about being harassed physically with knife, bat, dick, piss, whatever you can think of. People are programmed to do what's safe. Yes, look at Hamas. People ran for their lives to take cover & hide. Maybe when you talk about freezing, you're talking about what you would do. And I'm not gonna argue that. You know yourself better than I know you. And if you say you'd freeze, I believe you. I live in the north Philly ghetto. When there's a shooting, I see all the people in the corner & street running for safety.
I'd define that some will have motivation rising to the occassion, but the actual performance can vary absurdly according to how well they are trained and/or understand the situation, and/or are actually capable of managing it. While some of those with training will still not act unless external leadership triggers them, or not anyway. People are probably going to be acting to a higher degree with training than they would without.
Yeah, say that to the people who've lifted insanley heavy objects off of things that they care about in desperation. People who believe they'll arise to the occasion are more likely to do so than people who don't. Preparation is definitely wise. However, it is just the result of hope and will. Hope and will without preparation results in desperation. Which in The Art of War can allow a smaller force to rise against the odds.
I can confirm about the sideration effect. Once when I was in university, I was doing last minute checks of my notes before an important exam, waiting for the doors of the class to open. A girl just in front of me fainted. But I was so focused on memorising my notes that I didn't compute what just happened. I watched the girl collapse and think nothing of it, my eyes went back to my notes. Seconds after, other peoples came to her help and I finally noticed. I was so ashamed of myself that I took first aid lessons the next year.
Our martial arts instructor in South Africa, Gus Hornsby, amazing guy! The first thing he teaches is when someone approaches you, yell “back off!!” We spent numerous lessons starting this way. It seemed silly at first but then we realized it was a brilliant way to elicit attention from bystanders.
So Clever, this will also alarm not only bystanders but also cops around also there are cops that not wearing uniforms for the sake of their operation, cops with civil cloth.
It's also cover you in court, "I instructed the person to get away from me with a sharp, 'back off', and they continued to invade my space." A person can't claim ignornace, "I didn't know this person was feeling threatened, they never told me to back off. I was just having a conversation, and they started hitting me."
Not just attention but the real reason is to show everyone that can be a potential witness that you warned the before and don't want to fight and had no choice as you told them to back off meaning they are the one who is the aggressor as they are coming towards you and you weren't the one going towards them. Even if you the one that was the one doing the approaching it would appear they were as you are telling them to back off which is very smart and can be the difference of being in prison for life or no charges being filed at all.
@@nightboard9926 Yes this is what most people get wrong about fights. You may be strong and win the fight but the courts will tell a whole different story and now you have charges against you.
Of course, that's second nature. You state "back-off" and if they don't listen, you walk forward with a dead eye stare until THEY back off. Your force them to create the space.
My husband lost a friend to knife violence a few years back. His friend was a much more complete fighter than most people. Tonnes of ju jitsu competition gold, bunch of striking and had amateur fights. He got stabbed in the heart one time with a kitchen knife, by his "friend" who was upset after losing at horsing around at a party. Kind of woke all our brains up. Introducing one little thing, one little variable, and someone would wouldn't lose a conflict a single time in 100 gets killed pretty much instantly by someone who would look silly hitting pads. All the way in, or all the way out. And if you're going to go for it, it better be to protect something you value more than your own life.
@@MrWayne1701 Yip, it may even be possible that if he wasn't trained, he would have ran away. At the very least, he wouldn't have handled that coward so badly that he thought to get a knife to even the odds.
Was your husband’s friend even aware of the knife before getting stabbed. Most people aren’t until it’s too late, thinking they have only been punched.
This is a great analysis of the human mind under stress Mike. I grew up in Hawaii, spending a lifetime in the ocean. I had an encounter in the ocean once that has forever informed my POV on stress like this. I was bodyboarding at a beach that's not tourist friendly and on a day when the surf was chaotic but not overly big (3'-5' wave faces but coming from all directions and at odd intervals, just a lot of sloshing around). In the break zone with me was a mother and daughter without any fins or boards, just kinda quietly bobbing around, feebly swimming in when they could. I passed them in and then paddling back out again a half dozen times, close by, within 6 or 8 feet of them each time. They never said a word to me until I finally asked if they were ok and at the sound of voice they erupted into panic, "no, please help us!". I slid off my board, passed it to them and started to swim them in, pulling the board by the leash on my wrist. A larger wave came in, pulled them over and past me, nearly drowning me now as I was tied to them without the board. Finally got them to the beach where they stood up, turned without saying a word to me and hurried off to the far side of the beach, the calm side where tourists usually stay, where the husband/father was still sitting alone with no idea where his family was. This is what I have come to expect as baseline behavior from almost anyone who is not a first responder or operates regularly under heavy stress. And I think it's an important lesson everyone needs to have. As you said, peoples behavior under stress will be extremely strange and non intuitive.
Don't feel too bad. They were in extreme duress and stress and clearly failed both their saving throw and charisma rolls. Most people are ata least a tiny bit thankful when you save their life.
Somehow this reminds me of Mike's video where he shows that the best way to avoid sketchy situation is to have an excuse to avoid that situation. People don't want to be seen as weird, so they will do the thing that is expected of them even if their gut says otherwise (for example, walking to their car that has a suspicious stranger waiting for them). The people you helped might be in similar situation where they don't know what is the socially appropriate thing to do in that situation, so they try to act normal, until you came along and give them validation that their situation is not normal, which gives them an excuse to ask for help. In other words, it's the bystander effect, except in this case the bystander is also the victim.
I had a similar reaction 7 or 8 years ago; I jumped in a river to save a kid that was drowning, pulled him to shore and he ran off as fast as he could without looking back 😂 There were about 20 other people just standing there doing nothing when he fell in and panicked and said "help!"--bystander effect
After the Battle of Gettysburg, several muskets were found near dead soldiers; interestingly, they were loaded as many as a dozen times, but never fired. Historians believe that most drills involved practicing the loading process, but the weapons weren't fired during the drills. Under the stress of battle, the soldiers reverted to the movements of the drills (which didn't actually include pulling the trigger), and ended up loading and reloading their weapons without firing them. From the very astute observations in your video, it doesn't look like things have changed much since the Civil War.
Awesome story. This video made my think what my response is. And looking back at situations I tend to hang around out of curiosity. The one time I did run away was when I was partially intoxicated so probably less stressed. Which is interesting.
I read that it wasn't several, but maybe as much as 40%. The training to reload may have been a factor, but what I read was that if you don't reload when the company does after a volley, it becomes obvious that you aren't participating, whereas if you hold your fire, then nobody notices in the chaos. This comes from David R. Grossman's book "On killing" (a very good read), in which he says that confidential interviews after WWII revealed that as many as 80% of rifleman (American) never voluntarily fired at an exposed enemy. Grossman concluded that most people if they have anonymity and don't have leaders pressuring them to kill, won't kill unless they are conditioned to kill.
@@davidhoffman6980 I'm more inclined to believe the "training scars" theory because Grossman is a fantasist with his "80% withheld their fire" theory. He originally based it on the work of S.L.A. Marshall...which turned out to be largely a product of Marshall's own imagination
Man, you got this one SPOT ON! I'm a Marine Corps veteran and 30 years of law enforcement under my belt...I've seen people freeze and people rise above and take care of business. Some of them would surprise you because they just didn't seem to be that guy. I was watching Bosch with my daughter and something happened, the cop reacted swiftly and I said " you fall back on training ". Immediately Bosch said the same thing. My daughter accused me of having already seen the episode, but I pointed out to her that it was new. It is just a very well-known fact in the military and law enforcement
These days playing the role of a good Samaritan can get the good guy in jail too. It's just best to not get involved at all and just run away. There's no upside to helping people.
@KrolKaz You just have to make the decision if you can live with yourself afterward. It would have to be a case by case basis . Like the Clash " Should I Stay or Should I Go "
James Clear adapted that saying: “You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.” Thats why you focus on the process. The score takes care of itself.
either way mentality i think is more important than training and some people just dont have that strong mind nomatter how hard they train, its not the same fighting and breaking bones inside a ring or cage to an actual street life or death situation or potentially life or death situation, its sad bc sometimes the best people are the most vulnerable, they just dont have that evil inside them
@@TheFourtHokage100Evil dosent exist or good. Every person has their motive even if we can't understand. That said you have survival interest to protect your life. I believe you can rise to the occasion and I do believe that is more essential then having trained. A person willing to stake his life Everytime will win over a person that has trained but isn't willing to see death in the face. I have lived this myself. Never underestimate someone with a strong will, big balls or ovaries, and the I don't give a fuck but I will destroy you even if it kills me attitude. I don't agree with the guy in the video. It's just the people that appear usually have weak heart and no skill. A strong heart with a body and mind that have practiced every day to see death and accept it is the most refined of all.
@@TheFourtHokage100 fighting to protect others is the opposite of evil, fighting to protect yourself is neutral (in a good way). None of them are evil. Fighting for revenge could be considered evil (although there are some cases where revenge is highly justified)
I'm a Marine veteran with tons of martial arts experience. I carry a knife daily and have always tried to prepare myself mentally to use it as a last resort when faced with a lethal threat. Well I was attacked at a bar by a knife wielder back when I was stationed in Hawaii, and not once did I pull my knife or do anything that was not a part of my typical martial arts training. He stabbed me in the arm and fortunately it had serrations that got stuck in my bone and he could not remove it to repeatedly stab me. You make a great point and it definitely holds true in my experience in a knife fight, my experience in combat and in my experience in martial arts and military training. I now carry pepper spray as my primary self defense weapon and train heavily with it. Even after being sprayed a knife wielder is dangerous but if you practice spray then run, well in my opinion that's your best strategy.
I'm 4-0 with pepper spray now and swear by it. I had a crazy man even drop his knife to stumble away swearing at me. Be careful with pepper gel though, it has a delay before it effects the attacker.
Semper FI Brother & as a MARINE we are not the same as the regular civilian, when pressed the average smuch cannot handle the Horror we’ll unleash on them …
@@hankdietz In Canada, using the bear spray would get you arrested, and they probably wouldn't even look that hard for the real perp. A woman warding off a rapist with bear spray can be charged. We have zero right to self defence. It is ridiculous. Good for you though!
As a restraint trainer at my job for corrections I made this same type of speech all the time. Rarely if ever did anyone take it seriously for all the same reasons you just said. It's hard to break people of their perception of themselves that they have in their head. Only when stress happens do they see who they truly are.
yeah, one thing is to saw it on youtube or movies other thing is to actually be there. either way i think the smartest way to going if you manage to do it and you cant run, is to use your shirt as a way to cover your arms or try to slap the attacker eyes with the shirt, grab somenthing, a chair, a piece of wood, wathever that has more reach and just go crazy on them atleast so they start respecting you and break their predator mentality down, if they go berserk on you and you cant manage to show them that they could get injured and think twice they will torn you apart
26 years retired corrections, this video scared the crap out of me. This is reality, Lord willing no one ever experiences such a horrific event. Thank you for your expert, and excellent opinion, thank for sharing.
My first few months in corrections saw me standing silent in the face of those yelling abuse at me. Keeping my mouth shut was all I knew. De-escalation tactics were not drilled in emough.
Silence can be a double edge sword. Many offenders won't know how to read you if you're silent and use neutral body language. This also means they'll be less likely to snitch to you. On the other hand, the rare occasion when you do have to yell, you're more likely to be heard. When I did knife training with officers(before I was told to stop teaching unapproved techniques), many approached the situation like they had it under control. They trap my knife hand and try to muscle me into submission. Until I switch hands and start poking them again. "That's not fair!" Damn right it's not. Did you ever have an issue with officers attaching their mikes to their belts, rather than centered in their chest?
I can verify this is true. Before I started training any kind of martial arts, my friend and I were walking back from a bar in Washington DC late at night when we got confronted by two dudes. I tried to just keep my distance, but more or less just froze up, and it took my friend telling me to "run" to finally trigger that response.
Similar thing happened to me. I was in a parking lot when shots starting ringing out from multiple directions. My buddy and I started going one way and then another not really knowing where to go to be safest. It took a random guy being like, “wtf are you doing? Get out of here.” We then went straight for the car and peeled out. Thinking back on it I still can’t say that was our safest option for sure, maybe we shoulda found the closest available cover, hunkered down and not left until the shots stopped but I do know leaving worked
Running doesn't work. I was in a street fight and I punched him in the face, he backed up and I closed the distance. He then realized I was too skilled for him despite that he was much bigger than me. So he ran off, and I ran after him, caught up to him and beat him much more viciously because he was a coward who ran off like a chicken.
Obviously the guy with the knife knew what he was doing and had intent. When the shit goes down in New Yawk, you better know what you are doing. NYers are so, desensitized to violence, unlike in the movies, everything jumps off quick. The guy kept the knife in front or the flashlight position and near his body, and his guard hand near his knife should the guy try to grab he could deflect, his frame was tight and compact, and he walked the guy down. What worse, fighting shirtless only exposes all the vitals, and trying to box unless you know how to position yourself against an edged weapon remember flesh runs from steel. Your talking to some one that survived a knife encounter in Bodymore, Murderland aka Baltimore, MD and a jagged edged from a long stem glass encounter in a DC night club. In both situations I came away unscathed my training kicked in and I commanded the attacker after the first move, stop and the guy literally froze, I'm 6'1, 23 0lbs, LOL! I then entered his space up-close both of them walked away. Of course, I trained in an edged weapon based FMA Kali and taught it a number of years, I'm from Bklyn, NY. New Yawk these days are off the chain, expect everyone to carry some form of edged weapon the slashers in the Subways have gone amok, it's worse than the 80s. Karma had shirtless guy's address, in Baltimore he was wanted for murder.
Ive been threatened with a knife. Also trained a long time in martial arts. Robbed at a cash point in the dark. Do not engage with a knife. Kept my cool, didnt panic. Honestly, didnt get an adrenaline rush and gave the guy what he wanted. It was super weird. But do not engage if you dont have to. 2nd video, kill the guy....not saying I'm the guy to do it, but kill him
@3nertia all of my instructors have always taught knife defence techniques. But they all taught the caveat that not engaging is the best thing to do. Even the instructor with an instructor who has had to defend against a knife would agree
You make a very good point. Different scenarios require different responses (sometimes opposite ones), and you have a split second, if you're lucky, to choose wisely. Glad you did the right thing.
About the guy with the backpack, I hardly see how much better you want someone not trained to react. The guy has made a small interview, he had no training, and he actually achieved something big : he shoved off a man stabbing children off the playground. I'm not sure you realize how much he has done ?
Absolutely! Very well said. The guy is a peaceful religious dude (yes, you find some of these) who doesn't spend his days fighting, and yet he tried his best to face and fend off the terrorist, which obviously takes great courage. And yet you find people (meaning: keyboard warriors) to berate him! Crazy.
Context is likely "he's not accomplishing much" in regards to _neutralising_ the threat. But in regards to distracting the threat he's obviously doing a good job and much better than doing nothing or falling over.
@@sman14GTA In some instances lives will be saved if someone sacrifices his own life or health and distracts a knife attacker (like during London knife attacks). But the thing is, you won't know that beforehand. You could also just have thrown your own life away for nothing. So there is no simple answer.
What people have also missed about the backpack is he's created space by swinging the backpack in front of himself, that's a deterrent for the attacker who's weapon needs to be much closer than what he can mentally achieve easily
As someone who trains martial arts, I find it a little annoying, or at least silly when people ask "what would you do if (insert random self-defense scenario)" because the answer is always a combination of "it would depend on my state of mind which is not something I can predict with certainty while I am here calmly answering this question" and "I can't tell you what the ideal response is, because it would depend a lot of specific details about the situation, which are not included in this abstract hypothetical question". Anyone who tries to tell you exactly how they would respond in a violent/dangerous hypothetical situation is either not honest or not self-aware.
i'm pretty late to your comment but you're so spot on. i'm not trained in martial arts (or any type of fighting) and i know for a fact that i /wouldn't/ know what i'd do in a self-defense or life/death situation. also the same situation, same circumstances, same everything, could happen again and i somehow could Save The Day the first time, then completely freeze the next. life isn't a movie.
I was a radio commo guy in the Army so I have a lot of experience talking over radios and phones under stress. Calling in 9-lines, tracking troop movements, calls for fire, and all of that crap. And I also did medical training and BJJ in the Army and there were also buddy carries and stuff. Well, my grandmother passed away in Febuary from chemotherapy, and a month before she passed away she fainted in the kitchen from the Chemo. I caught her and guided her down, put her in a recovery position, and yelled for my sister to call 911. She froze up and took forever to bring the phone, and when she finally did she couldn't speak clearly. I had to yell at her to give me the phone where I then, clearly, and concisely explained everything and got an ambulance on the way. The moral of the story is, Mike is right. Something as simple as calling 911 standing and fighting, or running away in an emergency takes some level of training.
Similar situation here... found my father dead in bed as a teen. Called downstairs to my mother to come upstairs, then calmly told her. She panics a bit, but seemed moderately ok. I told her to call the cops and ambulance. She gets phone then looks at me, "What number do I call?" I look at her dumbfounded and say, "9 -- 1 --- 1". I kept my cool pretty good until everyone was there to take care of it, but then went to call a friend and couldn't remember his number... that I call daily. Had called daily for years. Brains are funny.
You're absolutely correct. I don't think it's all to do with training, though; some people just aren't wired to perform in any type of challenging situation or environment. In the UK we have a pass the buck culture now, whereby someone thinks they have completed their civic duty by calling 999 and don't need to do anything else after. They even get irate and combative when asked to give the address and then confirm it to the call taker. It's all about them, you see, not the patient.
Commo here too and I can really relate. I've also been in several dangerous situations outside of the military where my instincts kicked in and I took control of the situation as well as started giving orders to those around me who didn't know how to react. Every time you're "tested" and perform under stress, it just seems to build that confidence and enable you to calmly execute the next time something happens.
My father always taught me that under stress you stay calm and focus on the first step you need to take to handle the situation in front of you. Then you repeat that process step after step until your problem is solved, or at least minimize. This is something I have never had formal training for but that my dad always repeated to me anytime he saw me stressing in sports, school, and at work, (I worked with my father for awhile). I can say confidently from experience both from a head on vehicle collision, and a friend who shattered his knee while hiking, I’m severely cutting myself at work one time, that, in every one of those situations I have naturally gravitated towards breathing, and just focusing on the next step, I need to take to fix the issue. With the car accident I immediately checked my surroundings and made sure there was nothing else I should brace myself for and then proceeded to check myself for injuries, and then look for a way out of the car. The hiking accident I check my buddies need and could immediately tell his knee cap was busted and pulled had him lay down and made a splint from the walking sticks he had, then gave him my phone sense it had signal and went to find help. The cut I had I immediately cut my shirt and stuck it in the cut after rinsing it out and applied pressure until I could drive myself to urgent care. For some reason in each and every situation I have found myself in that would he considered an emergency I have managed to stay surprisingly calm and my mindset just defaults to tending to the issue as well as I can
Very interesting. I have been practicing martial arts (various ones and my main one) for almost 40 years. I worked as a bouncer on weekends for 10 years in a really rough bar. I have been in lots of fights. My training with knives has taught me that 1) most knife defenses don't really work that well, 2) None work all the time, 3) I will get stabbed, 4) if I have a choice and I choose to stay and fight I will probably die. My work as a bouncer has taught me that even with training, exposure to stress and violence that sometimes you will do the unexpected. One time, that I'm not proud of, I just froze. To this day I can't explain it.
its a necessary ancient response that keeps you safe sometimes. Fight Flight or Freeze - they are all auto responses and you didn't in that moment have a choice - I'll bet you got back in the game soon enough. The next knife I see .....I just fear that day. It will be the ultimate test.
This is a very interesting and complicated topic. Thank you for taking the time to address it. There are documented evidence where ”bad ass people” have broken down into a big pile of nothing during extreme stress while ”ordinary people” have risen to the challenge. I’ve seen it for myself during my time in the military and at accidents. A PT at my gym.. (Krav Maga trainer) got killed when trying to disarm a guy with a gun that came in from the street. He grabbed the gun but lost his grip and that was it. All those years training and fighting, and he got shot in 15 seconds by a 16 year old kid with a stolen handgun.
Yeah there are a lot of layers to successfully thwarting an attack. There is the training, there is the decision or instinct to act, the unpredictability of when the event will occur, and the level of complexity for whether your skills match the problem to be addressed. It is noble but kinda arrogant for people to believe that they are capable of solving these kinds of problems but I don't think they can. I think people want to frame it as a rubix cube where you know there is a path to the solution but typically they're more like a landmine that you stumble on. If violence was so easy to respond to humans would have probably solved it already and the fact that there are so many approaches, should be evidence that we don't have a really good answer.
That is a complaint I've had for many years. People only practice and drill the motions, but rarely put themselves in real scenarios. Ask someone to rob you with a loaded paintball gun or airsoft and tell them to take you seriously. Ask someone to attack you with a blunt knife. And do it in regular clothes with shoes on concrete It might sound crazy but you will be surprised how years of training in a gym on a soft mat in workout clothes will quickly fail you.
Bad ass people don’t train Krav Maga for 15 years and then get killed by a 16 yo over nothing. You don’t know what someone is capable of until under pressure, like you don’t know who is your friend until times get tough
I live in Guatemala. Growing up I got mugged several times at gun point. Every single time I reacted differently, sometimes I ran, sometimes I shout, sometimes I froze, sometimes I was relaxed.
That's so true! Every situation is unique! Not only because the attacker and locations are different. But also we are different: slept good or bad, hungry or good, with or without headaches...
Glad that you took the time to talk about this, Mike. I spent a good portion of my career training folks in first aid, lifeguarding, and cpr, and something that we alwayd tried to bring home to the students was that you HAD to practice alerting your backup, checking the scene, clearing bystanders, and getting the 911 call out before attempting a rescue. Otherwise, when the time comes, you forget those steps, and that's when you get into deep trouble. Personally, I had a reminder of this just last year when I was a good samaritan for an incident. It's funny how, even years and a couple of career changes later, you find yourself reverting to old training and habits. While I couldn't remember all of the details, even directly after it happened, I was able to assist to the best of my abilities and the victim was successfully transferred to EMS. As for the incidents you talked about, and the internet's responses: It seems to me that folks who haven't ever gone through those sorts of trainings or had to act in high-stress scenarios really underestimate just how much practice you need to be able to perform reliably under pressure.
That was always drilled into me in lifeguarding and every CPR class to maintain my EMT license. The one time I approached someone who was unresponsive and shaking in the gym absolutely nobody was around so I just called 911 myself while assessing her. Thankfully it was just a panic attack, I never knew people could just shut down and be unresponsive from them before. Meanwhile a woman was giving this nonverbal shaking woman water and later claimed to be an EMT. I can't even.
@@genesmolko8113 you can do cpr training if you want the basics and a taste of it. Full on emt training is a couple hundred dollars and a few months but teaches you a lot. It depends on how far you want to go.
Good points. When my son was around 8 we were having a BBQ at the lake. He was not a great swimmer. I told him he could use the air mattress if he stayed in the shallow water. I then went on to lite the fire. When I looked up he had fallen off the mattress and was silently , frantically trying to keep his head above water. I only looked away for a minute or 2. After I dove in and got him out I asked why he wasn't calling for help I was only 30 feet away. His only answer was I never thought of it. Who would have thought you need to practice calling for help
When you are in primal survival mode your body is quite busy with the mechanics of staying alive, all that social stuff of screaming and shouting to alarm and get help, is on the higher level that you can access when you get conscious control of yourself.
besides if you've suddenly choked with getting the slightest water the wrong way muscle spasms in the epiglottis close inducing full close where one cannot yell or induces relatively inaudible coughing.
I think your son got scared and couldn't scream as it was his only means of getting air in the water. We should start to tell everyone to scream regardless if it sounds girly, it is better to call help than be in grave danger.
This is probably some of the best and most real life commentary on self defense I've heard from anyone. This type of real world training is sorely needed. Train to call for help, train to run away if given the opportunity, train to fight for those chances to run away. Train on what to do after the situation is over.
Until I trained running away, dodging and then eventually training standing my ground, I only knew how to shout but not do anything. And it's because of what you're saying about the stress response. I literally sat helpless as someone who I had recently met had randomly begun attacking an old lady when I was around 16. All I did was try to tell him to stop, even though I had the idea of being the hero since a young kid. Now I train hard and I'm gaining weight too, because the simple reality is that you have to prepare or lose to those who have.
@bastiat you must have lived a fairly hard lifestyle for you to adapt that quickly. Sorry to hear you've had to deal with that. Yeah I definitely think shock was a part of it, but I had been "practicing" martial arts for years, just not actually fighting with it. None of my taekwondo, jiu jitsu or boxing kicked in at all in that instance. It took a few more encounters before I began actually taking action. So maybe it's both here
You do what you trained, especially under stress… Here in Germany, apparently there was an incident of a police woman in a gunfight - she fired a low number number of shots at a time and in between secured her gun and put it back in the holster, because that was how she practiced. She didn’t even realize. At least that’s how I remember the report.
Here in the states when the revolver was king BG (before Glock) it was not unheard of for police to finish a gun fight and find they had unloaded and retained empty brass in their pockets, force of habit from being on the range and saving brass.
You know what, I think you are right. I thought "i dont have an ego, i just run if possible" but in reality everytime im in a stressful situation my brain jumps back to my MMA training. I would wrestle that dude and probably get stabbed...well that is kinda tough to accept
Never grapple a knife wielding opponent. Just my observation from watching many knife videos . Real and self defence class. I don't train enough, but I always think, 'cause pain' meaning strikes of some kind. I would avoid a fight if I could but would not wrestle if forced into a fight with a knife. - Cheers
My Grandfather (Served as Trainer in the Indian Navy) Used to say... Man who knows swimming drowns first The first clip and your insights on the effects of confidence/instincts on a man's decision making/practicality reminded me of this As always..very important & Mostly ignored points made in this video..Thank you
@tube2023yellow-kc8hu it is a navy saying, in the middle of the ocean, if you try to swim away - you are a dead man. A non swimmer would try to cling on to some floating debris.
Mike, I saw the show where you went up against a simulated knife assailant in a closed room and were sewing-machine stabbed about a billion times in a minute. I have no illusions about my ability to, bare-handed, successfully fight with a guy who has a knife.
I think there were five tries. Even though he didn't get any point I believe Mike would have survived two of those attacks, because the stabs weren't deep enough. Maybe got one light stab in the stomach and one from behind in the ribs. But still, only two times out of five? And he had I think 70 hours of knive defense training? It's always better not to fight a knife guy.
@@dramalexi Yeah, and to be clear, I wasn’t at all disparaging Mike. It was a just great illustration of the lethality of a knife in the hands of a determined attacker. I’ve said it before: I’m not going to attempt any weapon disarms until I can successfully grab the tv remote out of my wife’s hand.
I think trying to kick his legs out and pounce on him as fast as possible is your best bet. Use and train with leg kicks. At least you gain a little range
Here’s a funny idea. Spend a year as a security guard. I’m not talking about mall security, loss prevention, or bouncing. I’m talking boring corporate security guard. You are trained to observe and report. Never get hands on (with very very few exceptions). You learn how to identify someone in very basic terms, verbalize it, descalate situations, stand way the heck back from danger, etc. it’s probably what I’d default to. But I guess it depends. I may do something else. But that’s what I was trained to do.
The last place I was living there was a fight in the street in front of our porch,the police rolled in deep for a domestic disturbance next door (different people), and someone drove into the side of our house with their SUV. The silver lining of the situations was really learning how I react under stress. Definitely opens your eyes to what you need to work on when you live out something for real.
The guy who drove into our house almost went through a wall. We had bad foundation damage. The weirdest part of that experience for me was running outside ready run after a construction worker driving a bobcat since construction was next door. When I saw the SUV and driver passed out at the wheel I was glad other bystanders were already tending to him because I wanted to fight him to badly to give proper medical attention. We had the landlords, paramedics, and everyone else in and out before the local news could show up.
This is why I hate all the armchair expertise on "how you should react" to a situation. It's not a recipe for baking a cake. Many people would basically have you believe you shouldn't even try to be prepared to defend yourself because "something you aren't expecting might happen." Well no shit, I'm not expecting to get attacked in the first place. But if boxing, wrestling, and carrying something like pepper spray increase the odds of successfully defending yourself by even as little as 5%, that 5% is going to save someone's skin eventually and it might just be mine. Damn sight better than being guaranteed to be a helpless victim.
I 100% agree with what you said in this video about stress taking over. Last week I witnessed a kid being beaten up at school. I watched the whole thing happen, I saw how the fight started and how it ended, and in my mind I would’ve thought my ten years of martial arts training would’ve kicked and I would’ve rushed in and helped the kid, but instead I just stood there frozen until both kids backed off and the only thought in my head was “what the fuck did I just witness?”
You know, sometimes I wonder if that's what people go through when they go to war. At first you just freeze and everything around you just seems to slow down and play on mute. You feel panic and weak to your legs. So yeah I know how you feel. I feel like the important thing is to not let your emotions get in the way from accomplishing the objective - neutralizing the opponent. Gosh, not even that, just first defending yourself! See all. I know is Taekwondo but, that's the mindset I have. I believe that you don't let your anger or emotions freeze you - the best fighter is never angry. Then again, I've only been a few fights outside the dojo in my life and I will say, it's really unpredictable. The whole Tai Chi mindset of staying grounded really helps. Good luck and be well.
I was involved in a car accident in high school, and I had to be told what happened afterward. Apparently, after the collision, my friend was in the driver’s seat and couldn’t open his door, and I was standing in the middle of the street, staring at the sky, completely unresponsive. After a bit, I snapped out of it, but it’s hazy. None of what I’d like to think I would’ve done transpired, and instead, I simply froze up.
I’ve had two similar experiences in my life. Nobody wants to be the person that freezes up, but a lot of us are. It was a punch in the gut to realize that about myself, and i want to train to change it.
Great message and reminder Mike. In the Marine Corps we'd say, we "Fight as we train." Meaning how you train is how you'll fight. There's a good book I've given to several of my students by LtCol Grossman, On Combat. I highly recommend anyone, especially military, law enforcement and martial artists to read it.
I've read "On Killing" and "On Combat" and are now reading "Warrior Mindset". All great books that explain a lot about human nature and what people who experienced trauma go through.
The problem is self defence is boring and very tiring and not fun. Martial arts becoming a sport took away the self defence aspects. Most places hardly ever talk about self defence nor do it, they become obsessed with sport. Hard to change this mindset. If did knife training, put on lots of weight, short bursts then lots of rest and listening. It's taboo, people assume martial arts will just prepare you for danger.
I was being retrained from Infantry to being a medic and one of our nurses taught a class that was very much what you just said. He told us that when we are in the heat of battle we will do whatever training stuck the most unless we somehow overrode our programming. So, for those who started in Infantry, I would probably think of shooting the enemy. Our mechanics would first think of logistical stuff. We had to slow down and not react (after taking cover of course) and assess the situation and decide if our talents would best be served keeping fighters in the fight and saving lives or going back to our primary training. In the many years since then, I have kept that mentality and it has served me well in many situations working accidents or disasters in my civilian life. What I didn't think of until watching this video is that I should be TEACHING this as a martial arts instructor when get to self-defense. We need to start not only telling our students to run away, but we need to practice it.
@@tatumergo3931if you go back to look at WW2 hand-to-hand Training videos the techniques are pretty basic but very effective. It’s raw moves & raw violence, it’s block /parry / thrust wether it’s knife fighting or bayonet fighting. There’s no - if he pivots with left foot and swings low then you triple backflip and give him a flying axe kick. It was basic, reactive moves that you’d remember instinctively when confronted by death & your adrenaline is sky high after getting ambushed in a jungle or taking a sudden turn while trench clearing.
@@garfish213 it was simple because military guys, on average, aren’t that good at fighting and need concise instructions. You wouldn’t actually find peoples who were good at close quarters combat because nobody trains it to a satisfactory degree because nobody engages in it enough for it to be that important Historical manuscripts some knight would’ve learned from are more complicated because that depth could be afforded
@@tillburr6799 I served active duty light-infantry, airborne & airassault infantry, and most of the men whom I served with my whole career came from combat sports and/or martial arts backgrounds prior to military enlistment. The majority were good unarmed fighters before enlisting and in my experience the kind of personalities whom are attracted to the Infantry, Light Infantry and Special Forces warrior professions come out of competitive fighting sports or competitive martial arts. Many men I served with came from Collegiate Folk style Wrestling backgrounds, others from golden glove boxing, pro-boxing, Muay Thai, Judo, Kyokushin, BJJ, kickboxing and MMA. So it's wrong as two boys kissing to say "most" Soldiers or most Infantrymen can't fight very well, based on my years active duty U.S. Army light-infantry /infantry. One of the best fighters I knew in the Infantry had zero martial arts & zero combat sports training prior to the active duty Army service. But he was feared by other Soldiers whom had years of wrestling, Jiujitsu, boxing or MMA experience because he fought so dirty. . .He twisted testicles, fish hooked nostrils then tried to peel the nose over the forehead, digital choked the throat, shoved fingers up nostrils til noses bled, hooked and pulled the lower jaw bone trying to dislocate it, he'd grab and try to break fingers, he'd bite anything near his face. . .including genitalia, inner thigh, neck, ears, nose, fingers, , ,he was like a depraved honey badger and many combat sports veterans screamed like a woman when they accepted his challenge in hand to hand combat. His name was Sgt Velasco of Vera Cruz Mexico. Very few Soldiers in the Infantry didn't come from a combat sport or martial arts background prior to enlisting. . .Then we received Jiujitsu , MMA , based Combatives training. We also had battalion amateur competitive sports which included wrestling and boxing. So you're very wrong in your assessment that, most military soldiers can't really fight. Had you said most military POG's , then you may have been on point but you said "military guys" which includes Infantrymen. . .that was your mistake.
@SoldierAndrew counter point: I beat the shit out of a 6'5" army nerd less than a month ago because he thought he was a beast, but was actually a fucking cupcake. He bumrushed me even knowing I wanted nothing to do with it and I was injured. Still beat the shit out of him without even throwing a single serious punch or kick. Both of us sober. Army combat training ain't **shit**
What a great video. I try to teach my lady, family, and friends this fact all the time. If you don't train and make a plan, you will likely not react like you think you would. My family sees me dry firing my gun, acting as if an attacker is breaking into our home that I'm engaging. They think I'm nuts. If someone ever tried to break into my house, I have a good chance of ending them. I even practice having my alarm go off in the middle of the night, half asleep to get my firearm to quickly engage the "threat." The first time I practiced concealment, I recorded myself. I thought I had good concealment, but the video showed I was completely exposed. I even had to practice the simple task of concealment to get it right, and people really believe they would rise to the task at hand never practicing it, smh...
Everything you described can be seen from Active Self-Protection's videos. From knife attacks, to shooting, to beat ups, to being surrounded and ambushed. And yes, it actually gets worse. When the danger is presented, often times you'll see people who are trained actually fall to the level of training they went under, whereas the rest just either take the danger as is, or freeze and do nothing due to shock and adrenaline. It's one of my go-tos to remind myself that, some of the training I do aren't sufficient, and that I either do what I can to control the simulated situation, or up the ante of my training to match it. It's unfortunate that real-life dangers need to happen in order to prevent them.
I was all set to 'shoot you down' with perfectly reasoned 'shite', I love you said 'real-life dangers need to happen in order to prevent them', but you missed, 'learn now, don't be wishing you were a 'black-belt' after you have been creamed.
Yes, I agree with these points. That's why I think the best "self-defense" practicing martial artist isn't necessarily the one who's the strongest, fastest, or most lethal, but the one who is the hardest to take by surprise. Everything you said about people reverting back to their instincts under stress happens because they were in a situation that took them by surprise. Personally, I think a great "Week 1" lesson for self-defense is to just tell people that a violent attack could happen at any time, and that anywhere you go, you should automatically be scanning the area and people for potential threats / hiding spots / ways to run, etc. One of the things Jason Bourne movies got right about self-defense and urban survival - he's constantly assessing his surroundings.
I think the point is more that that's only what you should learn _if you intend to be that kind of person._ If you're gonna be a spy, or a cop, or a soldier, absolutely, you should be scanning every room you enter tactically, looking for potential trouble-makers or problem areas, escape routes, etc. But that is a very specific kind of lifestyle and mindset that is, frankly, not healthy for most people, and not healthy for society if it's a majority of people. On a societal level, what that looks like is a barbarian horde, and I can pretty confidently say that most of us don't want to live that way. Almost all of the time, for almost all humans, the correct course of action, and the correct preparation for these kinds of situations is: do nothing, and let other humans specialize in dealing with these kinds of situations, and get on with the rest of your life.
@@barefootalienGet on with the rest of your life? That might not be a plan. It reminds me of what the jumpmasters always said about chute malfunctions before a jump: “Remember, you have the rest of your life to deploy your reserve.” If you don’t take action you might die. No going on to live your life.
@@barefootalienIt would be unwise and potentially f*tal to NOT monitor your surroundings consistently. Look in this vid when the situationally unaware person nearly walks into the middle of the knife fight -- the guy with the knife could have ended that person in a blink.
So true and well said. Also the nice thing about being constantly vigilant is that it makes you have deeper self-awareness and a better understanding of how to respect others space and also be courteous while also being on guard for you and your family's safety. Cheers.
@@barefootalien If EVERYONE in society has that mindset of: Do nothing to prepare because someone else will then nobody will be prepared. Your statement about it not being healthy for a society if the majority of the society is walking around in public hyper vigilant. And I can’t disagree with that more. The reason so many people are victimized (and killed) today is because they falsely believe the world to be an inherently safe place and they do nothing to prepare. Unfortunately, just looking at statistics alone 1-3% of humans have antisocial personality disorder (they’re either psychopaths or sociopaths) and odds are, a serious proportion of those individuals actively fantasize about harming/killing people. Legitimately violent and dangerous individuals with a desire to harm. So when you’re in a crowd of a hundred, thousand, ten thousand - you’re statistically guaranteed to be surrounded by at least a few individuals who actively fantasize about killing humans for fun. Life isn’t safe. It was never safe. Psychopaths are absolutely real. Telling people to be hyper vigilant isn’t going to destroy our society. It will save lives.
This is highly accurate and probably one of your best videos. You cannot do what you've never trained and practiced for - at least not well, fast, and definitely not under stress. This is true for anything - I like to use driving as an example, an extraordinarily complex task that most people do fairly well, but need hundreds and thousands of hours of practice in, and will probably fail miserably (i.e, crash and possibly die) if something they've never experienced happens (like an oil spill, ice, idiot driver doing something idiotic...). It's important to practice mentally. It's important to practice physically, as much as possible. But some things will happen that you cannot prepare for, and for those rare events, practicing composure and clear-headedness is paramount. Learn to correctly assess the situation, and to do it fast, and respond with whatever you know how to do, that'll be optimal. This cannot take more than a few seconds, at most. I've practiced for thousands of hours with bladed weapons. I may be less reluctant to engage someone with a weapon like that, than is otherwise recommended. I must bear that in mind, and not let my inclination dictate my choice. This is because I'm not the only variable in the situation - I'm only one, and not necessarily the most important one. I'm the protagonist of my own story, but it's not always my story.
I’m 70, have exercised all my adult life. I go to the gun range (outdoor range where we can draw and move). I carry a hickory walking cane where I can’t carry a gun. I have trained with the cane, but only at home. This is such a great video. I think I am prepared to act in a violent situation (When Violence is the Answer) but one never knows. I figure at the very least I have thought through scenarios.
Great, great video, Mike… one of the most honest, truthful self defense videos I’ve seen in a long time. You are actually perfectly conveying in common sense language the “Dunning-Kruger effect” - which is “a cognitive bias whereby people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a type of task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge.” Stress testing your skill sets and understanding what duress really means in practical, real world violence is soooo crucial. Thank you for this.
Very good points. We need to practice all the points mentioned more before every sparring. Something I have never seen practiced is coordinating others to get the attacker (not just ask for help, but give directions, like you do in CPR training). This needs to be integrated into practice.
One of my most vivid memories of my black belt test last year was Rener Gracie pointing a (dummy) shotgun at me, yelling at me to keep my hands down. All the disarming techniques I'd practiced involved having my hands up around my chest. And all that ran through my head was how to lift my hands without getting "shot". When I tried my technique, he said, "Bang. You're dead.". We circled up shortly after, and one of the issues we discussed was that scenario. He said no one bothered to ask him what he wanted. No one offered their wallets or valuables. Everyone defaulted to trying to disarm. It was an eye opener in terms of hindsight being so different than reactions in the moment.
@9:40 "You don't rise to the occasion, you fall to your level of training". One of the best videos I've seen on the psychology of self-defense, BRAVO SIR!
Funnily enough, when I did my 1st Dan grading, my grading partner when faced by a knife attack just legged it off the mat and when questioned just said "That's what I'd do Sensei" Smartest response but he was still made to perform the responses taught on the syllabus.
ive practised various disciplines through the years, the one time i had a situation, the training that kicked in was my parkour training. the reflex was so immediate i was simply not there anymore. that really changed my thinking on a lot of things.
@@mohammadtausifrafi8277 When it's applicable to run in the first place. Sometimes you don't always want to even if it's not in the interest of protecting other people around you like that playground clip.
I have been through lots of training sessions in which we practiced defenses against knife attacks. The next time we have that practice I will be sure to bring up the running away defense. Thank you.
Hi Mike, i live in France, and the Annecy knife attack was horrifying, i wouldn't know what to do in this situation. just as a reminder : 2 weeks ago 2 nurses got stabbed to death at their worked place. and even if i was a security guard, you re rarely ready for this.
@@GLOCKADEMICS Some security guards in French hospitals do wear body armor (so-called "bulletproof" vests). Which is kinda pointless as they are not armed themselves to return fire! (So, at best, their vest will only delay them being shot to death.) Also, as you know, most "bulletproof" vests won't stop knife attacks anyway...!
@@aiglonducal314 depends also of the equipment, most security guards in France are living scarecrow, and most of the time they are not allowed to pack heat nor wield a baton or tonfa unless it is theirs attribution and training (former ERP1 and IGH1 here)
@@jeffmaesar As much as America has its flaws for so many people having all sorts of weapons it baffles me that there's countries that are the opposite. As in, in a self defense scenario if faced with somebody with a weapon, you have nothing to defend yourself with. How do things like home invasions work? If somebody has no weapon in their own home are they just expected to not do anything and wait on police? Cause in America if somebody owns a gun and they're broken in on, that guy who broke in will be dead before the thought even crosses the mind of the homeowner to call the police. As should be the reaction. Where I live for example, even just the nearest police car could be 10 minutes away. I'm not gonna die or get hurt waiting on police that might not even be of help. At least I know if I shot the dude, the immediate threat is gone and I'm safe.
It's kinda funny to admit but I ran so many times from a fight I'm kind of a parcour runner by now. *Btw you're the most self-reflected, so to say most real and down to earth trainer I've ever witnessed. Pointing out incapabilities of what you have to offer and what someone could achieve is just so much more important than planting some delusional dreams into peoples heads that might keep them going for a while.
Mike, your perspective on self defense is one of my faves. This video has me thinking: what can I do to fix those bad tendencies? Like my tendency to be cool with being in half guard or my tendency to not run and call for help? Because realistically I know I’m not going to be able to practice turning and running in Muay Thai class.
One of my friends in college actually tested my reaction by rushing at me when I didn't see him in a crowd. I immediately went into a boxing stance and faced him before realizing he was messing with me. You really do react how you train. People also tend to react very differently depending on how they handle stress as well, I just repress all emotions and handle the situation at hand, which helped a lot as an EMT. You get desensitized to it as well over time.
It's biology 101. When the sympathetic system (i.e., adrenaline, fight or flight) kicks in, your body prioritizes reflexes over higher thought. That's one of the main reasons why martial arts look graceful in practice and sloppy AF in actual application. I totally agree with your take , just like anyone who's been in a dangerous situation or a fight would too. We all look back in hindsight and say, "I totally should have done [fill in the thing that probably will be forgotten next time too 😂].
As someone who has done prison time and been violent, your realist take is refreshing. Very few people are willing to be an actual front-line type. As you said, all you hear is id do this or id do that. Meanwhile, they have shit running down their legs in even the most minor confrontation.
I've trained for like 16 years, for things like this. I've also watched a lot of youtube on martial arts n things, cause it's turned into quite a passion of mine but this... I think this may be THE BEST self defense video I've ever seen. Props to you, man. Just, yeah. You are truly using you're status for good
In our school we teach "escape" as the first level of self defense with the hopes of helping this exact problem. We even added a level for our grab-based self defense of "Don't let them touch you" and we ALWAYS get on the students about using their voices in every SD situation. All I can do beyond that is pray none of my students ever need to find out the hard way like I did
Yep, 100% training and practice is key. As a senior nurse working with the hospital 'crash team' for years, resus (I think over the pond your call them 'codes') is automatic for me, including the initial LOUD shout for help, in real situations or in the yearly training scenarios. I've seen many good colleagues get ripped by the instructor for not doing the shouting bit convincingly
I like your phrase"Just-Jitsu". People regularly saying what they would have done if it were them, because it's easy to say it when you can watch it happen to someone else, and then analyse how it went wrong for them. In reality if it happens to you without warning then you don't get to do any planning. Being trained how to seek help or deal with stress during an attack is really important. It doesn't even have to be a physical assault that makes people freeze - I've been involved in and watched people do live performances and improv on stage. Sometimes they just don't know what to do, and they freeze. They aren't going to be hurt or die, but people don't know how to act under stress so they just stop doing anything. They will tell you later that they can't explain the feeling, and how terrible it was. Sometimes it is bad enough that they never want to be put under that stress again, like PTSD.
3:22 judging by what we see, the lady actually broke that fight up for a moment, both dudes completely let their guards down, stances changed, all 3 of them were just looking around confused ... what an absolute baffling sight
I have done a lot of martial arts and a little self defense. I have trained with absolute beginners in both and I can confidently say, that bringing someone to actually punch you is just as hard as bringing someone to really yell. It's super weird and foreign to most people. Personally I don't know if I would remember to be load and get attention.
I once watched a girl in the supermarket fall and hit her chin on the edge of a pallet. At first, when she stood up, it she seemed she was only a little surprised and hurt, and she cried just a little. But when it became clear that she was bleeding like crazy and the blood was dripping down onto the floor and onto her hand and all over her shirt, her cries then kicked into overdrive and were both terrifying and heartrending, and they must have echoed throughout the entire huge store. It made me realize how totally evil and alien a killer's mind must be to enjoy evoking such anguish. And I agree that it would be basically impossible to prompt such a scream in any kind of practice session. Interestingly, while the mother basically panicked and just started yelling "Help!" and while I just passively observed the situation, not knowing what I could do to help, one guy sprang into action and grabbed a roll of paper towels, ripped it open, and helped out some with the blood. Makes me think that maybe one in twenty people are decisive "action" people when something unexpected and terrible goes down.
@@polarvortex3294 Also I wouldn't be surprised to find those "action people" score pretty high on psychopathy (without necessarily being full-on diagnosable). When it's not based on tons of training and repetition for that specific scenario, that's what we call being able to keep your cool when everyone else is frozen in place by some extreme emotions like horror: psychopathy. So... it's a good and a bad thing that we don't all have it.
Excellent video, Mike. I had a coach who used to tell us all the time, "You play like you practice." He said it when we would try to cruise through practices, but it is exactly what you are saying here. Thank you and keep it up!
From someone who has taken many a kick to the face, I love how much you emphasize the grounding experience of *real* impact and the crystallisation of *I don't know shit* that hits the first time your reality is upended. Proper lifeline you are mate
One of the best and useful things I've gathered from just watching a self defense or martial arts video. Definitely not talked, thought about or practiced much.
A must watch, this is probably the most overlooked aspect of self defense. Most people including myself are way different in our minds. You have a great channel, thanks
A very true and honest representation, much appreciated. I've been 'thought' never to engage in a knife fight, but indeed not really in practice. We do knife attacks & defense in our Karate/Kobudo training, and the only conclusion every time is that you'll get hurt if you engage.
As a civilian who was involved in an armed conflict “in the crossfire” (though no shots were fired) if you will, this is spot on. I’ve seen even local police react like this when something they’re unprepared for and don’t expect happens
Very true and very important video. I can say anecdotally, this has definitely happened to me. It wasn't involving human violence, but one day my wife and I were walking our dogs and a stray pitbull walked up to us (too close by the time we saw it for us to try to walk away) and started a fight with one of our dogs. I don't know how many people here have experienced a real dog fight, but they're terrifying especially if you're not expecting it. Anyway, my wife was holding the leash of our dog that got into the fight, so she started trying to kick the dog away. I walked up and just grabbed the dog by the scruff as though I was grabbing a collar. That was a stupid thing to do, but grabbing a dog's collar or leash was just always the way I'd trained to control a dog's movement. Luckily (and it was just sheer dumb luck) the dog was trained to some degree and immediately sat and stopped fighting when I pulled it away from my dog by the back of the neck. My wife took our dogs back home while I waited there with the stray for my dad to come with a spare leash. The owner came down the street looking for the dog shortly after I'd got the leash on it. So my training had a very lucky outcome, but it was a stupid thing to do and it could have easily gone a completely different way and if I had the time to think about it at all before doing it I definitely would not have. But the whole thing happened in seconds, so I just automatically did what I'd always done with dogs.
Start carrying POM. I haven't seen a dog that liked it yet. Spray it's eyes and mouth, and it'll forget where it is. You don't even have to let it get aggressive. Even if you end up spraying your own dog, sure he'll hate life for a bit, but they do get over it. And from what i've seen, they do remember you, and how you handled them previously.
I have seen a video where this dog attacked a family at a church (I am pretty sure it was a church). The guy grabbed the dog in a rear naked choke until it died. I am sad about the dog's death. But he obviously cannot be trusted. It was a completely unprovoked attack. The man was a badass for that move. Saved his family
That dog should have been taken to a shelter for adoption and retraining. And the owner held for police to investigate. Staffordshire Terriers ('Pit Bulls'), were considered the best family dog in the Victorian Era. Because they are naturally gentle and loving with children. They have to be trained to fight, on purpose or neglect.
@morticiaheisenberg9679 Yes. But, these seemingly unprovoked attacks are bad training or PTSD (Yes, dogs are complex emotional beings), but there are always unseen triggers at the foundation of the behavior.
I've only had one instance where someone wanted desperately to fight me, was baiting me verbally and getting right in my chest and face. He was a very good friend of one of my best friends. Didn't want to fight him. He had been in fights before, I had not. I just kept retreating and used my car to put something between us. He even hit the hood of my car, dented it, didn't take the bait. He eventually huffed off and I drove home. At my friend's wedding, he told me he really respected me for that.
He didn't respect you for that, he lied. That was just his excuse. He is thankful and relieved he didn't end up hurting you due to your backing of so he didn't end up serving time for assault or manslaughter so he was thankful for that since he couldn't' control his anger. He had to squash it as the both of you shared a mutual friend and anything else would be awkward.
I love the honesty! Most times, when things get real, the thought process goes straight out the window. I've trained with weapons and can be honest, I have no idea what I would do 😅
Absolutely true. Been there. Done that. I had to help someone very dear and close to me through a very dangerous situation, and neither of us acted nowhere near the correct way or even the way we would've wished t act. Luckily someone who WAS trained to deal with the situation was nearby and saved the day! We can laugh about it today, but it could've been a lot worse 😢.
Mike, this was a great video. You are one of the few guys that doesn’t just refurgitate what you heard from some other trainer. You really think through and process self defense. This helped me understand why we train certain things at our gym and I shared this video with our gym chat as well. Thank you for sharing these ideas with us.
I was carjacked with my girlfriend at the time and your exactly right. She was a hinderance. Did nothing to save herself. The second she saw the knife she immediately burst into tears and I had to verbally instruct her to open the door of the car. Move to the back or the car car. Run. Run in what direction. Run faster. Totally froze. people crumble under pressure. Afyer it was done I had to crash tackle her to the ground because she was trying to run away from me for whatever reason… (we lost our phones in the car so if she ran off I’d have lost her).
That... is rough to imagine. I find myself to be pretty selfless... often to my detriment. I wonder if I would have stayed with that person afterwards. We need to have each other's back, and you put us in more danger.
@@yoeyyoey8937 That's what I meant to get at. It did sound like, "You put me in danger, so fuck off" But, it was supposed to be more like "There should be a point when the tiny bit of stability around you (his instructions) keeps you from straight up whiting out."
Really good and important video Mike ! I just asked myself after the attack in France what I had done. Honestly I didn’t know. I love the stress test scenario training. But I think it’s still different when it comes down to reality.
This is excellent and one of the best videos I've seen recently. The part about your kids really hit home. One of my waking nightmares is that my kid won't run. One of the reasons we put her into MA is because her whole life she's the kid that jumps in to help other kids, and we recognized that we can't really change that, only better equip her to be who she is. But there's a part of me that is terrified that if push comes to shove that she won't know when to just run or yell for help. All the wrestling, bjj and muay thai has made her tough, resilient and strong and I'm proud of the person she's becoming, but also wondering if there are critical tools I'm not giving and in so doing, failing her.
Maybe try training sprints with her in the yard disguised as a game where you’re chasing her. If consistent it might work well. It would be bad if, heaven forbid, a man ever tried to give her crap and she tries to box or grapple with him.
Great point! I think it’s a good idea for girls to learn self-defense. but at the end of the day men are bigger and stronger and a girl is much better off running and screaming for help.
Never let her get too confident. Many chicks who do fighting sports get cocky, and start to think, that they can take men their size. They can't, and for their own protection, they need to be very aware of that.
@@NiVoldiza Honestly, same thing can happen with smaller-framed guys as well. I think it's good to have sparring sessions with very large guys every once in a while where they don't go too easy. Make sure you just get that experience into the mix to keep things in perspective.
@@deschain1910 Of course, there's nothing in your reply that I disagree with particularly. Small framed guys could get too confident, and just get annihilated by the sheer brute force of a larger opponent. That's common sense. *However* , my point was concearning females. I said, that women could get cocky, and think that _they can take _*_men their size_* . See the difference? You're talking about a small dude against a big dude. I'm talking about a woman against the man her size. Even if the woman has martial arts training, the pound-for-pound male with no such training, can in most cases over power her with sheer force. If a small framed guy with martial arts background squares up with a guy *_his size_* who doesn't have said training, the guy with the training most likely can defend themselves guite well against the assailant, unless they have a weapon. See what I'm getting at? I'm having trouble understanding, how your "but what about men" -point disapproves my claim, that women are physically weaker than men, and should therefor never rely much on their self-defence training. It can buy you a couple of minutes of time, or a chance to run away, but _a girl still won't kick a grapist's/mugger's ass just because they feel like they're a boss biatch because they do karate_ .
Once I was at a beach with family, back in 2013. All of the sudden this kid jumps off the pier about half way down, myself and everyone looked for a minute and then my ex said "do something" and i went from frozen in place to in the water. I don't know why but no one else did anything, they watched me swim out to him but even after I got to him no one tried to help they just watched. I never trained to save someone in water, I was a soldier so this situation was out of my league. The kid was 10, couldn't swim and had asthma so the only thing I could thing was to try to keep him calm (we learned this in CLS, don't panic to the victim) and kept my composure, thankfully we made it back to shore. Very scary situation though, and I didn't feel like anything special I felt exhausted and my chest was on fire. Very realistic talk, I appreciate the work you do.
I wanted to opt out when guy number 2 pulled a knife. His proximity to my fiance kept me engaged long enough for guy number one to provoke me into the fight while guy 2 engaged my blindspot. I went to what I knew, tear guy 1 apart and I got stabbed twice.
@@sludgerat444 Yes, fortunatley, and she had my back. The cops said the second time I got stabbed if she hadn't been there it would have been a more focused attack. As in he was committed to it, but her commotion interrupted his intent and allowed me to respond. Stabbed in the back of the rib cage and nothing vital was penetrated.
7 mins in you made a good point no one trains to run, yell for help, get help from someone while assesing the sitution at hand. I can honestly say the only experience i have training those things was when i became lifeguard certified. Which we did train to yell for help right away. Every other job i have had has never ran a safety course or even a run down of what happens when shit hits the fan like that. It for some reason is assumed that you will make the right choice in a moment that no one has talked to you about.
I agree with some of the other comments here. The guy with the backpack was effective. He maybe wasn't *as* effective as he could've been had he practiced using a backpack as a weapon, but he kept the guy on the defensive a bit, kept him moving, kept him distracted. That's pretty huge in a scenario like that. That said, Mike is right. You fall back to your highest locked-in level of training. You can be a black belt in three different schools, but get into a fight and fight at a functional skill level that's three belts lower. You can also be a lower belt and get into a fight and perform at your technical level. All depends. In one of my martial arts schools, it was recommended to yell "I don't want to fight you!!" so that people telling the police later would remember that you weren't the instigator and were trying not to fight. However, I don't recall that ever being practiced. Which means that most of the students would not actually do that in a real fight. On the other hand, despite never having trained for this scenario, or even thought about it, my wife and I were in an accident a number of years ago. I couldn't open my door and my left hand had no strength, and my wife started yelling about being unable to move her leg. I then immediately unbuckled, threw my weight against the door, forcing my hand to work, literally ran around the car and wrenched her door open. By then, an off-duty firefighter in the car behind us had gotten out to help, and my adrenaline wasn't needed anymore. I then realized I could barely put any weight on my left ankle either. Ankle was just badly sprained, while my wrist had a fracture. Sometimes you can pull off doing the right thing in a scenario even without training.
Fair point... Nervousness is a huge factor in all combat situations.. it's a good thing for coaches and people training to remember to study the situation and application of what they're learning and when to apply it and when to run .. There is a huge difference between competitive fighting and combat sports and self defense/ hand to hand combat...great video ...
This one hits close to home. Even if I have some 40 years of training and in 21 years as a bouncer been through some pointy-stabby situations, there is a chance I would kinda freeze for a moment and think "is this happening?" or react but for some short but critical seconds forget that I'm not wearing bodyarmor right now!
Thank you for this video. One of the most important message in self-defense - you always revert to whatever you trained (and if you didn't train, you have even less of an idea of what you would do.)
Excellent advice and insight. Thank you. I often cite the videos of the Paris airport attack several years ago. People talk about "fight or flight"....and forget the 3rd "F", which is freeze. Watch the videos - average folks just stand there, as their brains are trying to grasp what they are hearing/seeing and compute it against their life experiences. They are stunned /confused into inaction. At one point, a woman even cowers down behind a piece of luggage as the shooters approach.
I was in France the 13th November, at the corner of Bataclan when they started to shoot in the street...I am so glad, I froze 1 second, turn and run and made it alive.
This was put so well. And With the right amount of emotion. You just gave me something to forward to clients because it was articulated better here than I have ever done or heard before.
I'm out of practice now, but I've had a decent amount of training and sparring in my life, but my reaction to high-stress situations is often a mixed bag. There's been times where I freeze, times where I stand up to protect the other person, times where I run, and times where I'm just way too non-chalant😐
I was once in a situation where an assailant held a dog up to my pregnant wife, i deescalated the situation, bystanders surrounded my wife, he eventually was convinced to walk away, and no one got hurt. I myself am trained to fight in at least 3 disciplines. I always think back to that time that i couldve done more, im glad to hear i did the right thing.
@@LukeD91 Yeah it can be scary. I have had german shepherds and they're lovely, but I', always aware that they could rip my head off if they wanted to! It's never the dog, always the owners fault... Glad your wife wasn't hurt!
The guy with the bag kept the attacker at bay and contained until the police arrived. May not have been violent but still a hero.
Any time an adult spends distracting the dude is time he's not spending stabbing children; worth the risk in my opinion
True, he really did the best anyone without a ranged weapon could do in the situation. No one can be of much use while bleeding on the ground with a hole in their liver.
"at least he did something" I think is Mike congratulating that guy as best as he could
Bag served as a shield, good thinking!
The only thing I don't like is that the stabber gets easily distracted because the amount of targets, and it was more than one person, meaning that they had a chance to reduce him individually or in group. When he goes back to the park after being with the guy, it was a perfect moment to just grab his legs and mf his way out of there
This is one of the more important, honest, and candid self defense messages on the internet right now. Good talk Mike.
FACTS!
Fax
Faques
100%
I remember when you talked about a knife attack a while back and showed a Chinese girl getting stabbed to death in broad daylight which people walking by. The friend was freaking out, but no one walking by even tried to help. That video has stuck with me since I saw it.
The attacker in France chose a playground during a weekday. Most adult men were at work. He attacked babies in their strollers and their caregivers. (The falling lady is not a family member of the child being attacked) The guy with the backpack was doing a pilgrimage, walking from one cathedral to another in France. So you're probably right about him not being used to violence. At least he tried to help when other people ran away and he kept the attacker away.
He was definitely brave for facing a crazy dude with a knife. The full video is horrific
Is it a terrorist? Wtf happened. Who stabs children?!
If there are levels in heaven, dude is going straight to the top, putting himself in harm's way for strangers.
not everyone is trained, Bag guy tried what he could while others running. Really respect to him.
@@AlexanderMason1 the motive is unknown for now but to me it seems like either a mental illness/purely evil or a possesion by a demon or satan maybe.
9:36 "You don't _rise_ to the occasion. You _fall_ to your level of training." Such a powerful statement. The difference between what we tell ourselves we would do in a situation vs. what we actually do in a scenario where primal fear has taken over. Great video!
I liked how he saw it both ways, the people that have never been in a fight before no training won't do anything not going to suddenly start throwing haymakers, wind milling they'll just freeze but the ones conditioned to fight won't make what might be the sensible choice and run away they'll fight. had a situation when I was very young, in school whether in the playground or the rugby pitch if a fight broke out I'd fight, if other people where fighting I'd pull people apart, someone attacking someone else I'd get in there and sort it out. school fights aren't very dangerous I was a bigger stronger kid not a problem for me. when I was 17 walking to a bus stop some daft kids threw some eggs at a couple of goths, the goth pulled out a knife to threaten them with, I shout at the goth and took him to the ground took it off him. the lad was soft as shit he was no where near the lads he was threatening he was not going to do anything it was fucking stupid thing for me to do. if someone told me about the situation beforehand I'd never say that's what I'd do, but all i'd ever done was rush into melee's on the rugby pitchso that's what I did. didn't think about being on my own didn't think he's mate might also get a knife out. nowaday's it's 6 years since I've played sports (switched to American football) years since any altercation because adults don't tend to fight that often no idea what I'd do now suspect I've not got that bravery or aggression anymore.
You would react properly to stay safe. This guy is full of it. His talking is the consequence of too much news. He's cherry-picking cases.I live in north Philadelphia & before that Tijuana Mexico. I've seen old lady's hit harrasers with umbrellas, sticks, shoes, purse, rocks, we're programmed to run from danger or to stay safe.
@evilwayz1464 yes you are talking about "harassing"situation ,we are taking about a 100% chances of live or die situation and in those situations most people will let their daughters,mothers or friends died and do nothing but froze or run and cowered out,,if not believe watch Hamas invading israel what most people did
@eedumi1gmail I'm talking about being harassed physically with knife, bat, dick, piss, whatever you can think of. People are programmed to do what's safe. Yes, look at Hamas. People ran for their lives to take cover & hide. Maybe when you talk about freezing, you're talking about what you would do. And I'm not gonna argue that. You know yourself better than I know you. And if you say you'd freeze, I believe you. I live in the north Philly ghetto. When there's a shooting, I see all the people in the corner & street running for safety.
I'd define that some will have motivation rising to the occassion, but the actual performance can vary absurdly according to how well they are trained and/or understand the situation, and/or are actually capable of managing it.
While some of those with training will still not act unless external leadership triggers them, or not anyway. People are probably going to be acting to a higher degree with training than they would without.
"You don't rise to the occasion, you fall to the level of your training." This video is insightful, has me thinking. Thank you!
if you live you rose to the occasion
it is just projection and lack of confidense. and psychological bullshit, cause he obviously knows who his typical viewers are...
This is a quote he uses a lot in his videos. However, it's a very good quote.
Sooo... Continue your daily knife drills and always carry a good folding knife.
Yeah, say that to the people who've lifted insanley heavy objects off of things that they care about in desperation. People who believe they'll arise to the occasion are more likely to do so than people who don't. Preparation is definitely wise. However, it is just the result of hope and will. Hope and will without preparation results in desperation. Which in The Art of War can allow a smaller force to rise against the odds.
"You don't rise to the occasion, you fall to your level of training."
That is an important piece of self-knowledge to have.
I can confirm about the sideration effect. Once when I was in university, I was doing last minute checks of my notes before an important exam, waiting for the doors of the class to open. A girl just in front of me fainted. But I was so focused on memorising my notes that I didn't compute what just happened. I watched the girl collapse and think nothing of it, my eyes went back to my notes. Seconds after, other peoples came to her help and I finally noticed. I was so ashamed of myself that I took first aid lessons the next year.
Don't be ashamed, just another day in the life of university finals season 😂
Dont fall for it, stay on your grind.
@@tommaguzzi1723😂
Thats not very ashamed lol.
Our martial arts instructor in South Africa, Gus Hornsby, amazing guy! The first thing he teaches is when someone approaches you, yell “back off!!” We spent numerous lessons starting this way. It seemed silly at first but then we realized it was a brilliant way to elicit attention from bystanders.
So Clever, this will also alarm not only bystanders but also cops around also there are cops that not wearing uniforms for the sake of their operation, cops with civil cloth.
It's also cover you in court, "I instructed the person to get away from me with a sharp, 'back off', and they continued to invade my space." A person can't claim ignornace, "I didn't know this person was feeling threatened, they never told me to back off. I was just having a conversation, and they started hitting me."
Not just attention but the real reason is to show everyone that can be a potential witness that you warned the before and don't want to fight and had no choice as you told them to back off meaning they are the one who is the aggressor as they are coming towards you and you weren't the one going towards them. Even if you the one that was the one doing the approaching it would appear they were as you are telling them to back off which is very smart and can be the difference of being in prison for life or no charges being filed at all.
@@nightboard9926 Yes this is what most people get wrong about fights. You may be strong and win the fight but the courts will tell a whole different story and now you have charges against you.
Of course, that's second nature. You state "back-off" and if they don't listen, you walk forward with a dead eye stare until THEY back off. Your force them to create the space.
My husband lost a friend to knife violence a few years back. His friend was a much more complete fighter than most people. Tonnes of ju jitsu competition gold, bunch of striking and had amateur fights.
He got stabbed in the heart one time with a kitchen knife, by his "friend" who was upset after losing at horsing around at a party.
Kind of woke all our brains up. Introducing one little thing, one little variable, and someone would wouldn't lose a conflict a single time in 100 gets killed pretty much instantly by someone who would look silly hitting pads.
All the way in, or all the way out. And if you're going to go for it, it better be to protect something you value more than your own life.
Was that Daz from Blackburn?
A prime example of being great in a sport, but not doing so well at self-defense...Sorry to hear about your husbands friend.
@@andyjcoop His name was Brian Burke, from Ireland. The guy who done it got 10 years.
@@MrWayne1701 Yip, it may even be possible that if he wasn't trained, he would have ran away. At the very least, he wouldn't have handled that coward so badly that he thought to get a knife to even the odds.
Was your husband’s friend even aware of the knife before getting stabbed. Most people aren’t until it’s too late, thinking they have only been punched.
This is a great analysis of the human mind under stress Mike. I grew up in Hawaii, spending a lifetime in the ocean. I had an encounter in the ocean once that has forever informed my POV on stress like this. I was bodyboarding at a beach that's not tourist friendly and on a day when the surf was chaotic but not overly big (3'-5' wave faces but coming from all directions and at odd intervals, just a lot of sloshing around). In the break zone with me was a mother and daughter without any fins or boards, just kinda quietly bobbing around, feebly swimming in when they could. I passed them in and then paddling back out again a half dozen times, close by, within 6 or 8 feet of them each time. They never said a word to me until I finally asked if they were ok and at the sound of voice they erupted into panic, "no, please help us!". I slid off my board, passed it to them and started to swim them in, pulling the board by the leash on my wrist. A larger wave came in, pulled them over and past me, nearly drowning me now as I was tied to them without the board. Finally got them to the beach where they stood up, turned without saying a word to me and hurried off to the far side of the beach, the calm side where tourists usually stay, where the husband/father was still sitting alone with no idea where his family was. This is what I have come to expect as baseline behavior from almost anyone who is not a first responder or operates regularly under heavy stress. And I think it's an important lesson everyone needs to have. As you said, peoples behavior under stress will be extremely strange and non intuitive.
Don't feel too bad. They were in extreme duress and stress and clearly failed both their saving throw and charisma rolls. Most people are ata least a tiny bit thankful when you save their life.
Somehow this reminds me of Mike's video where he shows that the best way to avoid sketchy situation is to have an excuse to avoid that situation. People don't want to be seen as weird, so they will do the thing that is expected of them even if their gut says otherwise (for example, walking to their car that has a suspicious stranger waiting for them).
The people you helped might be in similar situation where they don't know what is the socially appropriate thing to do in that situation, so they try to act normal, until you came along and give them validation that their situation is not normal, which gives them an excuse to ask for help.
In other words, it's the bystander effect, except in this case the bystander is also the victim.
They were probably so freaked out and forgot to thank you. Amazing job anyway
God Bless You Brother!!!!
I had a similar reaction 7 or 8 years ago; I jumped in a river to save a kid that was drowning, pulled him to shore and he ran off as fast as he could without looking back 😂 There were about 20 other people just standing there doing nothing when he fell in and panicked and said "help!"--bystander effect
After the Battle of Gettysburg, several muskets were found near dead soldiers; interestingly, they were loaded as many as a dozen times, but never fired. Historians believe that most drills involved practicing the loading process, but the weapons weren't fired during the drills. Under the stress of battle, the soldiers reverted to the movements of the drills (which didn't actually include pulling the trigger), and ended up loading and reloading their weapons without firing them. From the very astute observations in your video, it doesn't look like things have changed much since the Civil War.
Awesome story. This video made my think what my response is. And looking back at situations I tend to hang around out of curiosity. The one time I did run away was when I was partially intoxicated so probably less stressed. Which is interesting.
I read that it wasn't several, but maybe as much as 40%. The training to reload may have been a factor, but what I read was that if you don't reload when the company does after a volley, it becomes obvious that you aren't participating, whereas if you hold your fire, then nobody notices in the chaos. This comes from David R. Grossman's book "On killing" (a very good read), in which he says that confidential interviews after WWII revealed that as many as 80% of rifleman (American) never voluntarily fired at an exposed enemy. Grossman concluded that most people if they have anonymity and don't have leaders pressuring them to kill, won't kill unless they are conditioned to kill.
Had more to do with the fact that they didn’t want to kill the men in front of them.
@@davidhoffman6980 I'm more inclined to believe the "training scars" theory because Grossman is a fantasist with his "80% withheld their fire" theory. He originally based it on the work of S.L.A. Marshall...which turned out to be largely a product of Marshall's own imagination
Very interesting takes in this small comments group.
Man, you got this one SPOT ON! I'm a Marine Corps veteran and 30 years of law enforcement under my belt...I've seen people freeze and people rise above and take care of business. Some of them would surprise you because they just didn't seem to be that guy. I was watching Bosch with my daughter and something happened, the cop reacted swiftly and I said " you fall back on training ". Immediately Bosch said the same thing. My daughter accused me of having already seen the episode, but I pointed out to her that it was new. It is just a very well-known fact in the military and law enforcement
These days playing the role of a good Samaritan can get the good guy in jail too. It's just best to not get involved at all and just run away. There's no upside to helping people.
@KrolKaz You just have to make the decision if you can live with yourself afterward. It would have to be a case by case basis . Like the Clash " Should I Stay or Should I Go "
James Clear adapted that saying: “You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.” Thats why you focus on the process. The score takes care of itself.
@archsys307 yes!
Probably one of the best videos on the subject. You don't rise to the occasion, you fall to the level of your training. great quote.
Heard it countless fuckin times in the RAR
either way mentality i think is more important than training and some people just dont have that strong mind nomatter how hard they train, its not the same fighting and breaking bones inside a ring or cage to an actual street life or death situation or potentially life or death situation, its sad bc sometimes the best people are the most vulnerable, they just dont have that evil inside them
@@TheFourtHokage100Evil dosent exist or good. Every person has their motive even if we can't understand.
That said you have survival interest to protect your life.
I believe you can rise to the occasion and I do believe that is more essential then having trained. A person willing to stake his life Everytime will win over a person that has trained but isn't willing to see death in the face.
I have lived this myself. Never underestimate someone with a strong will, big balls or ovaries, and the I don't give a fuck but I will destroy you even if it kills me attitude.
I don't agree with the guy in the video.
It's just the people that appear usually have weak heart and no skill.
A strong heart with a body and mind that have practiced every day to see death and accept it is the most refined of all.
Level of your training. In my case this is sprinting the other way
@@TheFourtHokage100 fighting to protect others is the opposite of evil, fighting to protect yourself is neutral (in a good way). None of them are evil. Fighting for revenge could be considered evil (although there are some cases where revenge is highly justified)
I'm a Marine veteran with tons of martial arts experience. I carry a knife daily and have always tried to prepare myself mentally to use it as a last resort when faced with a lethal threat. Well I was attacked at a bar by a knife wielder back when I was stationed in Hawaii, and not once did I pull my knife or do anything that was not a part of my typical martial arts training. He stabbed me in the arm and fortunately it had serrations that got stuck in my bone and he could not remove it to repeatedly stab me. You make a great point and it definitely holds true in my experience in a knife fight, my experience in combat and in my experience in martial arts and military training. I now carry pepper spray as my primary self defense weapon and train heavily with it. Even after being sprayed a knife wielder is dangerous but if you practice spray then run, well in my opinion that's your best strategy.
From a purely efficiency perspective, half a mag of .45 center mass is probably your best strategy.
What style did you train in?
I'm 4-0 with pepper spray now and swear by it. I had a crazy man even drop his knife to stumble away swearing at me. Be careful with pepper gel though, it has a delay before it effects the attacker.
Semper FI Brother & as a MARINE we are not the same as the regular civilian, when pressed the average smuch cannot handle the Horror we’ll unleash on them …
@@hankdietz In Canada, using the bear spray would get you arrested, and they probably wouldn't even look that hard for the real perp. A woman warding off a rapist with bear spray can be charged. We have zero right to self defence. It is ridiculous. Good for you though!
As a restraint trainer at my job for corrections I made this same type of speech all the time.
Rarely if ever did anyone take it seriously for all the same reasons you just said.
It's hard to break people of their perception of themselves that they have in their head.
Only when stress happens do they see who they truly are.
yeah, one thing is to saw it on youtube or movies other thing is to actually be there.
either way i think the smartest way to going if you manage to do it and you cant run, is to use your shirt as a way to cover your arms or try to slap the attacker eyes with the shirt, grab somenthing, a chair, a piece of wood, wathever that has more reach and just go crazy on them atleast so they start respecting you and break their predator mentality down, if they go berserk on you and you cant manage to show them that they could get injured and think twice they will torn you apart
26 years retired corrections, this video scared the crap out of me. This is reality, Lord willing no one ever experiences such a horrific event. Thank you for your expert, and excellent opinion, thank for sharing.
My first few months in corrections saw me standing silent in the face of those yelling abuse at me. Keeping my mouth shut was all I knew. De-escalation tactics were not drilled in emough.
@@CS-pm5bf De-escalation skills are a must.unfortunatley sometimes as much as you don't want, for you own safety you have to put your hands on people.
Silence can be a double edge sword. Many offenders won't know how to read you if you're silent and use neutral body language. This also means they'll be less likely to snitch to you. On the other hand, the rare occasion when you do have to yell, you're more likely to be heard. When I did knife training with officers(before I was told to stop teaching unapproved techniques), many approached the situation like they had it under control. They trap my knife hand and try to muscle me into submission. Until I switch hands and start poking them again. "That's not fair!" Damn right it's not.
Did you ever have an issue with officers attaching their mikes to their belts, rather than centered in their chest?
On in places with wokist mind virus and privileged complexions. Go live in a rural white area, everything is safe and fine.
[@@nightboard9926 Did you ever have an issue with officers attaching their mikes to their belts, rather than centered in their chest?]
Elaborate?
I can verify this is true. Before I started training any kind of martial arts, my friend and I were walking back from a bar in Washington DC late at night when we got confronted by two dudes. I tried to just keep my distance, but more or less just froze up, and it took my friend telling me to "run" to finally trigger that response.
It's that button. There is a book called meditations on violence.
Similar thing happened to me. I was in a parking lot when shots starting ringing out from multiple directions. My buddy and I started going one way and then another not really knowing where to go to be safest. It took a random guy being like, “wtf are you doing? Get out of here.” We then went straight for the car and peeled out. Thinking back on it I still can’t say that was our safest option for sure, maybe we shoulda found the closest available cover, hunkered down and not left until the shots stopped but I do know leaving worked
Running doesn't work. I was in a street fight and I punched him in the face, he backed up and I closed the distance. He then realized I was too skilled for him despite that he was much bigger than me. So he ran off, and I ran after him, caught up to him and beat him much more viciously because he was a coward who ran off like a chicken.
@@nextleader7543 lol
Obviously the guy with the knife knew what he was doing and had intent. When the shit goes down in New Yawk, you better know what you are doing. NYers are so, desensitized to violence, unlike in the movies, everything jumps off quick. The guy kept the knife in front or the flashlight position and near his body, and his guard hand near his knife should the guy try to grab he could deflect, his frame was tight and compact, and he walked the guy down. What worse, fighting shirtless only exposes all the vitals, and trying to box unless you know how to position yourself against an edged weapon remember flesh runs from steel. Your talking to some one that survived a knife encounter in Bodymore, Murderland aka Baltimore, MD and a jagged edged from a long stem glass encounter in a DC night club. In both situations I came away unscathed my training kicked in and I commanded the attacker after the first move, stop and the guy literally froze, I'm 6'1, 23 0lbs, LOL! I then entered his space up-close both of them walked away. Of course, I trained in an edged weapon based FMA Kali and taught it a number of years, I'm from Bklyn, NY. New Yawk these days are off the chain, expect everyone to carry some form of edged weapon the slashers in the Subways have gone amok, it's worse than the 80s. Karma had shirtless guy's address, in Baltimore he was wanted for murder.
Ive been threatened with a knife. Also trained a long time in martial arts. Robbed at a cash point in the dark. Do not engage with a knife. Kept my cool, didnt panic. Honestly, didnt get an adrenaline rush and gave the guy what he wanted. It was super weird. But do not engage if you dont have to. 2nd video, kill the guy....not saying I'm the guy to do it, but kill him
Sounds like good threat assessment to me
@3nertia all of my instructors have always taught knife defence techniques. But they all taught the caveat that not engaging is the best thing to do. Even the instructor with an instructor who has had to defend against a knife would agree
@@3nertia so Mike's right, you revert to training I guess
You make a very good point.
Different scenarios require different responses (sometimes opposite ones), and you have a split second, if you're lucky, to choose wisely.
Glad you did the right thing.
All the time I did Kali it was drilled that engaging should be your last resort and you WILL get cut/srabbed
About the guy with the backpack, I hardly see how much better you want someone not trained to react. The guy has made a small interview, he had no training, and he actually achieved something big : he shoved off a man stabbing children off the playground. I'm not sure you realize how much he has done ?
Absolutely! Very well said.
The guy is a peaceful religious dude (yes, you find some of these) who doesn't spend his days fighting, and yet he tried his best to face and fend off the terrorist, which obviously takes great courage. And yet you find people (meaning: keyboard warriors) to berate him! Crazy.
Yes! Exceptionally brave of him!!
Context is likely "he's not accomplishing much" in regards to _neutralising_ the threat. But in regards to distracting the threat he's obviously doing a good job and much better than doing nothing or falling over.
@@sman14GTA In some instances lives will be saved if someone sacrifices his own life or health and distracts a knife attacker (like during London knife attacks).
But the thing is, you won't know that beforehand. You could also just have thrown your own life away for nothing.
So there is no simple answer.
What people have also missed about the backpack is he's created space by swinging the backpack in front of himself, that's a deterrent for the attacker who's weapon needs to be much closer than what he can mentally achieve easily
As someone who trains martial arts, I find it a little annoying, or at least silly when people ask "what would you do if (insert random self-defense scenario)" because the answer is always a combination of "it would depend on my state of mind which is not something I can predict with certainty while I am here calmly answering this question" and "I can't tell you what the ideal response is, because it would depend a lot of specific details about the situation, which are not included in this abstract hypothetical question". Anyone who tries to tell you exactly how they would respond in a violent/dangerous hypothetical situation is either not honest or not self-aware.
That's what I always say. Until you're in that situation, you won't know what to do. I'd rather be a little scared than overconfident.
i'm pretty late to your comment but you're so spot on. i'm not trained in martial arts (or any type of fighting) and i know for a fact that i /wouldn't/ know what i'd do in a self-defense or life/death situation.
also the same situation, same circumstances, same everything, could happen again and i somehow could Save The Day the first time, then completely freeze the next. life isn't a movie.
I was a radio commo guy in the Army so I have a lot of experience talking over radios and phones under stress. Calling in 9-lines, tracking troop movements, calls for fire, and all of that crap. And I also did medical training and BJJ in the Army and there were also buddy carries and stuff. Well, my grandmother passed away in Febuary from chemotherapy, and a month before she passed away she fainted in the kitchen from the Chemo. I caught her and guided her down, put her in a recovery position, and yelled for my sister to call 911. She froze up and took forever to bring the phone, and when she finally did she couldn't speak clearly. I had to yell at her to give me the phone where I then, clearly, and concisely explained everything and got an ambulance on the way. The moral of the story is, Mike is right. Something as simple as calling 911 standing and fighting, or running away in an emergency takes some level of training.
Most people have the survival instincts of a potato.
If you live in the UK the ambulance would then take a week to turn up, rendering all this good work useless.
Similar situation here... found my father dead in bed as a teen. Called downstairs to my mother to come upstairs, then calmly told her. She panics a bit, but seemed moderately ok. I told her to call the cops and ambulance. She gets phone then looks at me, "What number do I call?" I look at her dumbfounded and say, "9 -- 1 --- 1". I kept my cool pretty good until everyone was there to take care of it, but then went to call a friend and couldn't remember his number... that I call daily. Had called daily for years. Brains are funny.
You're absolutely correct. I don't think it's all to do with training, though; some people just aren't wired to perform in any type of challenging situation or environment. In the UK we have a pass the buck culture now, whereby someone thinks they have completed their civic duty by calling 999 and don't need to do anything else after. They even get irate and combative when asked to give the address and then confirm it to the call taker. It's all about them, you see, not the patient.
Commo here too and I can really relate. I've also been in several dangerous situations outside of the military where my instincts kicked in and I took control of the situation as well as started giving orders to those around me who didn't know how to react. Every time you're "tested" and perform under stress, it just seems to build that confidence and enable you to calmly execute the next time something happens.
"You don't rise to the occasion you fall to your level of training." Damn that's good I'm for sure stealing that one
@@christopherlee627 that's interesting I will definitely do more research thanks man
How do you explain ppl whether soldiers or cops or civilians that broke that barrier?
@@aliceakosota797exceptions do not disprove the rule
My father always taught me that under stress you stay calm and focus on the first step you need to take to handle the situation in front of you. Then you repeat that process step after step until your problem is solved, or at least minimize.
This is something I have never had formal training for but that my dad always repeated to me anytime he saw me stressing in sports, school, and at work, (I worked with my father for awhile).
I can say confidently from experience both from a head on vehicle collision, and a friend who shattered his knee while hiking, I’m severely cutting myself at work one time, that, in every one of those situations I have naturally gravitated towards breathing, and just focusing on the next step, I need to take to fix the issue.
With the car accident I immediately checked my surroundings and made sure there was nothing else I should brace myself for and then proceeded to check myself for injuries, and then look for a way out of the car.
The hiking accident I check my buddies need and could immediately tell his knee cap was busted and pulled had him lay down and made a splint from the walking sticks he had, then gave him my phone sense it had signal and went to find help.
The cut I had I immediately cut my shirt and stuck it in the cut after rinsing it out and applied pressure until I could drive myself to urgent care.
For some reason in each and every situation I have found myself in that would he considered an emergency I have managed to stay surprisingly calm and my mindset just defaults to tending to the issue as well as I can
Very interesting. I have been practicing martial arts (various ones and my main one) for almost 40 years. I worked as a bouncer on weekends for 10 years in a really rough bar. I have been in lots of fights.
My training with knives has taught me that 1) most knife defenses don't really work that well, 2) None work all the time, 3) I will get stabbed, 4) if I have a choice and I choose to stay and fight I will probably die.
My work as a bouncer has taught me that even with training, exposure to stress and violence that sometimes you will do the unexpected. One time, that I'm not proud of, I just froze. To this day I can't explain it.
its a necessary ancient response that keeps you safe sometimes. Fight Flight or Freeze - they are all auto responses and you didn't in that moment have a choice - I'll bet you got back in the game soon enough. The next knife I see .....I just fear that day. It will be the ultimate test.
Kudos!
You are open to experience and honest to yourself. Best premise to grow further and become better. That's all we can do and expect.
Your honesty is very appreciated and needed👍.
This is a very interesting and complicated topic. Thank you for taking the time to address it. There are documented evidence where ”bad ass people” have broken down into a big pile of nothing during extreme stress while ”ordinary people” have risen to the challenge. I’ve seen it for myself during my time in the military and at accidents. A PT at my gym.. (Krav Maga trainer) got killed when trying to disarm a guy with a gun that came in from the street. He grabbed the gun but lost his grip and that was it. All those years training and fighting, and he got shot in 15 seconds by a 16 year old kid with a stolen handgun.
Yeah there are a lot of layers to successfully thwarting an attack. There is the training, there is the decision or instinct to act, the unpredictability of when the event will occur, and the level of complexity for whether your skills match the problem to be addressed. It is noble but kinda arrogant for people to believe that they are capable of solving these kinds of problems but I don't think they can. I think people want to frame it as a rubix cube where you know there is a path to the solution but typically they're more like a landmine that you stumble on. If violence was so easy to respond to humans would have probably solved it already and the fact that there are so many approaches, should be evidence that we don't have a really good answer.
That is a complaint I've had for many years. People only practice and drill the motions, but rarely put themselves in real scenarios.
Ask someone to rob you with a loaded paintball gun or airsoft and tell them to take you seriously.
Ask someone to attack you with a blunt knife.
And do it in regular clothes with shoes on concrete
It might sound crazy but you will be surprised how years of training in a gym on a soft mat in workout clothes will quickly fail you.
Bad ass people don’t train Krav Maga for 15 years and then get killed by a 16 yo over nothing. You don’t know what someone is capable of until under pressure, like you don’t know who is your friend until times get tough
@kayc7442 It reminds me of the old reruns of "Get Smart" where he is always trying to "test" him. Seems like a solid practice though.
@@kayc7442 exactly! Train as often in your daily clothing with everything in your pockets, slippers shoes, backpack etc. Even as a beginner.
I live in Guatemala. Growing up I got mugged several times at gun point. Every single time I reacted differently, sometimes I ran, sometimes I shout, sometimes I froze, sometimes I was relaxed.
That’s why we keep mugging you
That's so true! Every situation is unique! Not only because the attacker and locations are different. But also we are different: slept good or bad, hungry or good, with or without headaches...
🇬🇹😼
I am the same when approached by a pretty girl. Sometimes I shout, sometimes I froze, sometimes I run away.....I am still running...
Glad that you took the time to talk about this, Mike. I spent a good portion of my career training folks in first aid, lifeguarding, and cpr, and something that we alwayd tried to bring home to the students was that you HAD to practice alerting your backup, checking the scene, clearing bystanders, and getting the 911 call out before attempting a rescue. Otherwise, when the time comes, you forget those steps, and that's when you get into deep trouble.
Personally, I had a reminder of this just last year when I was a good samaritan for an incident. It's funny how, even years and a couple of career changes later, you find yourself reverting to old training and habits. While I couldn't remember all of the details, even directly after it happened, I was able to assist to the best of my abilities and the victim was successfully transferred to EMS.
As for the incidents you talked about, and the internet's responses: It seems to me that folks who haven't ever gone through those sorts of trainings or had to act in high-stress scenarios really underestimate just how much practice you need to be able to perform reliably under pressure.
That was always drilled into me in lifeguarding and every CPR class to maintain my EMT license. The one time I approached someone who was unresponsive and shaking in the gym absolutely nobody was around so I just called 911 myself while assessing her. Thankfully it was just a panic attack, I never knew people could just shut down and be unresponsive from them before. Meanwhile a woman was giving this nonverbal shaking woman water and later claimed to be an EMT. I can't even.
Sounds great, where can I get training like this? Is this general lifeguard training?
@@genesmolko8113 you can do cpr training if you want the basics and a taste of it. Full on emt training is a couple hundred dollars and a few months but teaches you a lot. It depends on how far you want to go.
I think you are one of the most honest guys on TH-cam. The best thing to learn and practice is defending yourself, not fighting to win.
Good points. When my son was around 8 we were having a BBQ at the lake. He was not a great swimmer. I told him he could use the air mattress if he stayed in the shallow water. I then went on to lite the fire. When I looked up he had fallen off the mattress and was silently , frantically trying to keep his head above water. I only looked away for a minute or 2. After I dove in and got him out I asked why he wasn't calling for help I was only 30 feet away. His only answer was I never thought of it. Who would have thought you need to practice calling for help
yea no one can cry for help while drowning with water splashing around, that's a hollywood thing. Most drownings are completely silent
When you are in primal survival mode your body is quite busy with the mechanics of staying alive, all that social stuff of screaming and shouting to alarm and get help, is on the higher level that you can access when you get conscious control of yourself.
@@McPhysX Yes, yelling requires a lot of energy expenditure, something your brain sees no ROI on at that moment.
besides if you've suddenly choked with getting the slightest water the wrong way muscle spasms in the epiglottis close inducing full close where one cannot yell or induces relatively inaudible coughing.
I think your son got scared and couldn't scream as it was his only means of getting air in the water. We should start to tell everyone to scream regardless if it sounds girly, it is better to call help than be in grave danger.
This is probably some of the best and most real life commentary on self defense I've heard from anyone. This type of real world training is sorely needed. Train to call for help, train to run away if given the opportunity, train to fight for those chances to run away. Train on what to do after the situation is over.
Until I trained running away, dodging and then eventually training standing my ground, I only knew how to shout but not do anything. And it's because of what you're saying about the stress response. I literally sat helpless as someone who I had recently met had randomly begun attacking an old lady when I was around 16. All I did was try to tell him to stop, even though I had the idea of being the hero since a young kid. Now I train hard and I'm gaining weight too, because the simple reality is that you have to prepare or lose to those who have.
@bastiat you must have lived a fairly hard lifestyle for you to adapt that quickly. Sorry to hear you've had to deal with that. Yeah I definitely think shock was a part of it, but I had been "practicing" martial arts for years, just not actually fighting with it. None of my taekwondo, jiu jitsu or boxing kicked in at all in that instance. It took a few more encounters before I began actually taking action. So maybe it's both here
You do what you trained, especially under stress…
Here in Germany, apparently there was an incident of a police woman in a gunfight - she fired a low number number of shots at a time and in between secured her gun and put it back in the holster, because that was how she practiced. She didn’t even realize. At least that’s how I remember the report.
Here in the states when the revolver was king BG (before Glock) it was not unheard of for police to finish a gun fight and find they had unloaded and retained empty brass in their pockets, force of habit from being on the range and saving brass.
You know what, I think you are right. I thought "i dont have an ego, i just run if possible" but in reality everytime im in a stressful situation my brain jumps back to my MMA training. I would wrestle that dude and probably get stabbed...well that is kinda tough to accept
Never grapple a knife wielding opponent. Just my observation from watching many knife videos . Real and self defence class. I don't train enough, but I always think, 'cause pain' meaning strikes of some kind. I would avoid a fight if I could but would not wrestle if forced into a fight with a knife. - Cheers
My Grandfather
(Served as Trainer in the Indian Navy)
Used to say...
Man who knows swimming drowns first
The first clip and your insights on the effects of confidence/instincts on a man's decision making/practicality reminded me of this
As always..very important & Mostly ignored points made in this video..Thank you
Would it be competency makes you confident. But over confident makes you take risks that may be too big to handle.
Big fan of your work
@tube2023yellow-kc8hu it is a navy saying, in the middle of the ocean, if you try to swim away - you are a dead man. A non swimmer would try to cling on to some floating debris.
@tube2023yellow-kc8hu It basically means overconfidence kills.
@tube2023yellow-kc8hu been through the overconfidence punishment myself, resulting in a broken arm. So I know....ha ha
Mike, I saw the show where you went up against a simulated knife assailant in a closed room and were sewing-machine stabbed about a billion times in a minute. I have no illusions about my ability to, bare-handed, successfully fight with a guy who has a knife.
Wut
I think there were five tries.
Even though he didn't get any point I believe Mike would have survived two of those attacks, because the stabs weren't deep enough. Maybe got one light stab in the stomach and one from behind in the ribs.
But still, only two times out of five? And he had I think 70 hours of knive defense training? It's always better not to fight a knife guy.
@@dramalexi Yeah, and to be clear, I wasn’t at all disparaging Mike. It was a just great illustration of the lethality of a knife in the hands of a determined attacker.
I’ve said it before: I’m not going to attempt any weapon disarms until I can successfully grab the tv remote out of my wife’s hand.
@@urlawyer No I wasn't accusing you of anything. The other fighters didn't do much of a better job.
I think trying to kick his legs out and pounce on him as fast as possible is your best bet. Use and train with leg kicks. At least you gain a little range
The statement about momma bears and all those parents claiming they would go berserk and then doing nothing is so accurate! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Here’s a funny idea. Spend a year as a security guard. I’m not talking about mall security, loss prevention, or bouncing. I’m talking boring corporate security guard. You are trained to observe and report. Never get hands on (with very very few exceptions). You learn how to identify someone in very basic terms, verbalize it, descalate situations, stand way the heck back from danger, etc. it’s probably what I’d default to. But I guess it depends. I may do something else. But that’s what I was trained to do.
The last place I was living there was a fight in the street in front of our porch,the police rolled in deep for a domestic disturbance next door (different people), and someone drove into the side of our house with their SUV. The silver lining of the situations was really learning how I react under stress. Definitely opens your eyes to what you need to work on when you live out something for real.
The guy who drove into our house almost went through a wall. We had bad foundation damage.
The weirdest part of that experience for me was running outside ready run after a construction worker driving a bobcat since construction was next door.
When I saw the SUV and driver passed out at the wheel I was glad other bystanders were already tending to him because I wanted to fight him to badly to give proper medical attention.
We had the landlords, paramedics, and everyone else in and out before the local news could show up.
Thomas Sowell said "There are no solutions, only trade-offs." This is true in self defense situations as much as economics.
This is why I hate all the armchair expertise on "how you should react" to a situation. It's not a recipe for baking a cake. Many people would basically have you believe you shouldn't even try to be prepared to defend yourself because "something you aren't expecting might happen." Well no shit, I'm not expecting to get attacked in the first place. But if boxing, wrestling, and carrying something like pepper spray increase the odds of successfully defending yourself by even as little as 5%, that 5% is going to save someone's skin eventually and it might just be mine. Damn sight better than being guaranteed to be a helpless victim.
I'm shocked that the Chuck Norris method of disarming knife attackers doesn't work.
But many people believe it does.
Please stop listening the sowell
@@themightykabool why? Do you have specific references to concepts he has espoused that you take umbridge?
@@theboynurse too numerous to count.
You pick your favorite
I 100% agree with what you said in this video about stress taking over. Last week I witnessed a kid being beaten up at school. I watched the whole thing happen, I saw how the fight started and how it ended, and in my mind I would’ve thought my ten years of martial arts training would’ve kicked and I would’ve rushed in and helped the kid, but instead I just stood there frozen until both kids backed off and the only thought in my head was “what the fuck did I just witness?”
You know, sometimes I wonder if that's what people go through when they go to war. At first you just freeze and everything around you just seems to slow down and play on mute. You feel panic and weak to your legs. So yeah I know how you feel. I feel like the important thing is to not let your emotions get in the way from accomplishing the objective - neutralizing the opponent. Gosh, not even that, just first defending yourself! See all. I know is Taekwondo but, that's the mindset I have. I believe that you don't let your anger or emotions freeze you - the best fighter is never angry. Then again, I've only been a few fights outside the dojo in my life and I will say, it's really unpredictable. The whole Tai Chi mindset of staying grounded really helps. Good luck and be well.
I was involved in a car accident in high school, and I had to be told what happened afterward. Apparently, after the collision, my friend was in the driver’s seat and couldn’t open his door, and I was standing in the middle of the street, staring at the sky, completely unresponsive. After a bit, I snapped out of it, but it’s hazy. None of what I’d like to think I would’ve done transpired, and instead, I simply froze up.
I’ve had two similar experiences in my life. Nobody wants to be the person that freezes up, but a lot of us are. It was a punch in the gut to realize that about myself, and i want to train to change it.
Great message and reminder Mike. In the Marine Corps we'd say, we "Fight as we train." Meaning how you train is how you'll fight. There's a good book I've given to several of my students by LtCol Grossman, On Combat. I highly recommend anyone, especially military, law enforcement and martial artists to read it.
I've read "On Killing" and "On Combat" and are now reading "Warrior Mindset". All great books that explain a lot about human nature and what people who experienced trauma go through.
The problem is self defence is boring and very tiring and not fun. Martial arts becoming a sport took away the self defence aspects. Most places hardly ever talk about self defence nor do it, they become obsessed with sport. Hard to change this mindset. If did knife training, put on lots of weight, short bursts then lots of rest and listening. It's taboo, people assume martial arts will just prepare you for danger.
Hey thanks for the recommendation. I read "On killing", but I never knew he wrote other books. I need to order them.
I was being retrained from Infantry to being a medic and one of our nurses taught a class that was very much what you just said. He told us that when we are in the heat of battle we will do whatever training stuck the most unless we somehow overrode our programming. So, for those who started in Infantry, I would probably think of shooting the enemy. Our mechanics would first think of logistical stuff. We had to slow down and not react (after taking cover of course) and assess the situation and decide if our talents would best be served keeping fighters in the fight and saving lives or going back to our primary training. In the many years since then, I have kept that mentality and it has served me well in many situations working accidents or disasters in my civilian life. What I didn't think of until watching this video is that I should be TEACHING this as a martial arts instructor when get to self-defense. We need to start not only telling our students to run away, but we need to practice it.
@@tatumergo3931if you go back to look at WW2 hand-to-hand Training videos the techniques are pretty basic but very effective. It’s raw moves & raw violence, it’s block /parry / thrust wether it’s knife fighting or bayonet fighting. There’s no - if he pivots with left foot and swings low then you triple backflip and give him a flying axe kick.
It was basic, reactive moves that you’d remember instinctively when confronted by death & your adrenaline is sky high after getting ambushed in a jungle or taking a sudden turn while trench clearing.
@@garfish213 it was simple because military guys, on average, aren’t that good at fighting and need concise instructions. You wouldn’t actually find peoples who were good at close quarters combat because nobody trains it to a satisfactory degree because nobody engages in it enough for it to be that important
Historical manuscripts some knight would’ve learned from are more complicated because that depth could be afforded
@@tillburr6799 I served active duty light-infantry, airborne & airassault infantry, and most of the men whom I served with my whole career came from combat sports and/or martial arts backgrounds prior to military enlistment.
The majority were good unarmed fighters before enlisting and in my experience the kind of personalities whom are attracted to the Infantry, Light Infantry and Special Forces warrior professions come out of competitive fighting sports or competitive martial arts.
Many men I served with came from Collegiate Folk style Wrestling backgrounds, others from golden glove boxing, pro-boxing, Muay Thai, Judo, Kyokushin, BJJ, kickboxing and MMA.
So it's wrong as two boys kissing to say "most" Soldiers or most Infantrymen can't fight very well, based on my years active duty U.S. Army light-infantry /infantry.
One of the best fighters I knew in the Infantry had zero martial arts & zero combat sports training prior to the active duty Army service. But he was feared by other Soldiers whom had years of wrestling, Jiujitsu, boxing or MMA experience because he fought so dirty. . .He twisted testicles, fish hooked nostrils then tried to peel the nose over the forehead, digital choked the throat, shoved fingers up nostrils til noses bled, hooked and pulled the lower jaw bone trying to dislocate it, he'd grab and try to break fingers, he'd bite anything near his face. . .including genitalia, inner thigh, neck, ears, nose, fingers, , ,he was like a depraved honey badger and many combat sports veterans screamed like a woman when they accepted his challenge in hand to hand combat. His name was Sgt Velasco of Vera Cruz Mexico.
Very few Soldiers in the Infantry didn't come from a combat sport or martial arts background prior to enlisting. . .Then we received Jiujitsu , MMA , based Combatives training. We also had battalion amateur competitive sports which included wrestling and boxing.
So you're very wrong in your assessment that, most military soldiers can't really fight.
Had you said most military POG's , then you may have been on point but you said "military guys" which includes Infantrymen. . .that was your mistake.
@@SoldierDrew nope im still correct
@SoldierAndrew counter point:
I beat the shit out of a 6'5" army nerd less than a month ago because he thought he was a beast, but was actually a fucking cupcake. He bumrushed me even knowing I wanted nothing to do with it and I was injured.
Still beat the shit out of him without even throwing a single serious punch or kick. Both of us sober.
Army combat training ain't **shit**
What a great video. I try to teach my lady, family, and friends this fact all the time. If you don't train and make a plan, you will likely not react like you think you would. My family sees me dry firing my gun, acting as if an attacker is breaking into our home that I'm engaging. They think I'm nuts. If someone ever tried to break into my house, I have a good chance of ending them. I even practice having my alarm go off in the middle of the night, half asleep to get my firearm to quickly engage the "threat." The first time I practiced concealment, I recorded myself. I thought I had good concealment, but the video showed I was completely exposed. I even had to practice the simple task of concealment to get it right, and people really believe they would rise to the task at hand never practicing it, smh...
Good points. It bothers me a lot when I take things seriously and people think it looks funny. I believe that those people lack emphaty.
Everything you described can be seen from Active Self-Protection's videos. From knife attacks, to shooting, to beat ups, to being surrounded and ambushed. And yes, it actually gets worse. When the danger is presented, often times you'll see people who are trained actually fall to the level of training they went under, whereas the rest just either take the danger as is, or freeze and do nothing due to shock and adrenaline. It's one of my go-tos to remind myself that, some of the training I do aren't sufficient, and that I either do what I can to control the simulated situation, or up the ante of my training to match it. It's unfortunate that real-life dangers need to happen in order to prevent them.
I was all set to 'shoot you down' with perfectly reasoned 'shite', I love you said 'real-life dangers need to happen in order to prevent them', but you missed, 'learn now, don't be wishing you were a 'black-belt' after you have been creamed.
Yes, I agree with these points. That's why I think the best "self-defense" practicing martial artist isn't necessarily the one who's the strongest, fastest, or most lethal, but the one who is the hardest to take by surprise. Everything you said about people reverting back to their instincts under stress happens because they were in a situation that took them by surprise.
Personally, I think a great "Week 1" lesson for self-defense is to just tell people that a violent attack could happen at any time, and that anywhere you go, you should automatically be scanning the area and people for potential threats / hiding spots / ways to run, etc. One of the things Jason Bourne movies got right about self-defense and urban survival - he's constantly assessing his surroundings.
I think the point is more that that's only what you should learn _if you intend to be that kind of person._ If you're gonna be a spy, or a cop, or a soldier, absolutely, you should be scanning every room you enter tactically, looking for potential trouble-makers or problem areas, escape routes, etc. But that is a very specific kind of lifestyle and mindset that is, frankly, not healthy for most people, and not healthy for society if it's a majority of people. On a societal level, what that looks like is a barbarian horde, and I can pretty confidently say that most of us don't want to live that way.
Almost all of the time, for almost all humans, the correct course of action, and the correct preparation for these kinds of situations is: do nothing, and let other humans specialize in dealing with these kinds of situations, and get on with the rest of your life.
@@barefootalienGet on with the rest of your life? That might not be a plan. It reminds me of what the jumpmasters always said about chute malfunctions before a jump:
“Remember, you have the rest of your life to deploy your reserve.”
If you don’t take action you might die. No going on to live your life.
@@barefootalienIt would be unwise and potentially f*tal to NOT monitor your surroundings consistently. Look in this vid when the situationally unaware person nearly walks into the middle of the knife fight -- the guy with the knife could have ended that person in a blink.
So true and well said. Also the nice thing about being constantly vigilant is that it makes you have deeper self-awareness and a better understanding of how to respect others space and also be courteous while also being on guard for you and your family's safety. Cheers.
@@barefootalien If EVERYONE in society has that mindset of: Do nothing to prepare because someone else will then nobody will be prepared. Your statement about it not being healthy for a society if the majority of the society is walking around in public hyper vigilant.
And I can’t disagree with that more. The reason so many people are victimized (and killed) today is because they falsely believe the world to be an inherently safe place and they do nothing to prepare. Unfortunately, just looking at statistics alone 1-3% of humans have antisocial personality disorder (they’re either psychopaths or sociopaths) and odds are, a serious proportion of those individuals actively fantasize about harming/killing people. Legitimately violent and dangerous individuals with a desire to harm.
So when you’re in a crowd of a hundred, thousand, ten thousand - you’re statistically guaranteed to be surrounded by at least a few individuals who actively fantasize about killing humans for fun.
Life isn’t safe. It was never safe. Psychopaths are absolutely real. Telling people to be hyper vigilant isn’t going to destroy our society. It will save lives.
This is highly accurate and probably one of your best videos.
You cannot do what you've never trained and practiced for - at least not well, fast, and definitely not under stress. This is true for anything - I like to use driving as an example, an extraordinarily complex task that most people do fairly well, but need hundreds and thousands of hours of practice in, and will probably fail miserably (i.e, crash and possibly die) if something they've never experienced happens (like an oil spill, ice, idiot driver doing something idiotic...).
It's important to practice mentally. It's important to practice physically, as much as possible. But some things will happen that you cannot prepare for, and for those rare events, practicing composure and clear-headedness is paramount. Learn to correctly assess the situation, and to do it fast, and respond with whatever you know how to do, that'll be optimal. This cannot take more than a few seconds, at most.
I've practiced for thousands of hours with bladed weapons. I may be less reluctant to engage someone with a weapon like that, than is otherwise recommended. I must bear that in mind, and not let my inclination dictate my choice. This is because I'm not the only variable in the situation - I'm only one, and not necessarily the most important one. I'm the protagonist of my own story, but it's not always my story.
I’m 70, have exercised all my adult life. I go to the gun range (outdoor range where we can draw and move). I carry a hickory walking cane where I can’t carry a gun. I have trained with the cane, but only at home. This is such a great video. I think I am prepared to act in a violent situation (When Violence is the Answer) but one never knows. I figure at the very least I have thought through scenarios.
Great, great video, Mike… one of the most honest, truthful self defense videos I’ve seen in a long time. You are actually perfectly conveying in common sense language the “Dunning-Kruger effect” - which is “a cognitive bias whereby people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a type of task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge.”
Stress testing your skill sets and understanding what duress really means in practical, real world violence is soooo crucial. Thank you for this.
Very good points. We need to practice all the points mentioned more before every sparring. Something I have never seen practiced is coordinating others to get the attacker (not just ask for help, but give directions, like you do in CPR training). This needs to be integrated into practice.
One of my most vivid memories of my black belt test last year was Rener Gracie pointing a (dummy) shotgun at me, yelling at me to keep my hands down. All the disarming techniques I'd practiced involved having my hands up around my chest. And all that ran through my head was how to lift my hands without getting "shot". When I tried my technique, he said, "Bang. You're dead.".
We circled up shortly after, and one of the issues we discussed was that scenario. He said no one bothered to ask him what he wanted. No one offered their wallets or valuables. Everyone defaulted to trying to disarm. It was an eye opener in terms of hindsight being so different than reactions in the moment.
Knife Attacks in NYC and France Have Something In Common
Aside from fighting point of view. It is dieversity.
@9:40 "You don't rise to the occasion, you fall to your level of training". One of the best videos I've seen on the psychology of self-defense, BRAVO SIR!
Funnily enough, when I did my 1st Dan grading, my grading partner when faced by a knife attack just legged it off the mat and when questioned just said "That's what I'd do Sensei"
Smartest response but he was still made to perform the responses taught on the syllabus.
ive practised various disciplines through the years, the one time i had a situation, the training that kicked in was my parkour training. the reflex was so immediate i was simply not there anymore. that really changed my thinking on a lot of things.
fuling good point. i'll think about taking something up like that for this very situtation
I think parkour is fabulous for self defence.
@@mohammadtausifrafi8277 When it's applicable to run in the first place. Sometimes you don't always want to even if it's not in the interest of protecting other people around you like that playground clip.
I took classes with knife work for about a year. That training informed me to avoid knife fights.
I have been through lots of training sessions in which we practiced defenses against knife attacks. The next time we have that practice I will be sure to bring up the running away defense. Thank you.
Hi Mike, i live in France, and the Annecy knife attack was horrifying, i wouldn't know what to do in this situation.
just as a reminder : 2 weeks ago 2 nurses got stabbed to death at their worked place. and even if i was a security guard, you re rarely ready for this.
@@GLOCKADEMICS Some security guards in French hospitals do wear body armor (so-called "bulletproof" vests). Which is kinda pointless as they are not armed themselves to return fire! (So, at best, their vest will only delay them being shot to death.)
Also, as you know, most "bulletproof" vests won't stop knife attacks anyway...!
@@GLOCKADEMICS in France ? Good one dude, good one :-)
@@aiglonducal314 depends also of the equipment, most security guards in France are living scarecrow, and most of the time they are not allowed to pack heat nor wield a baton or tonfa unless it is theirs attribution and training (former ERP1 and IGH1 here)
Dealing with the politicians who import those people on purpose would be a good start.
@@jeffmaesar As much as America has its flaws for so many people having all sorts of weapons it baffles me that there's countries that are the opposite. As in, in a self defense scenario if faced with somebody with a weapon, you have nothing to defend yourself with. How do things like home invasions work? If somebody has no weapon in their own home are they just expected to not do anything and wait on police? Cause in America if somebody owns a gun and they're broken in on, that guy who broke in will be dead before the thought even crosses the mind of the homeowner to call the police. As should be the reaction. Where I live for example, even just the nearest police car could be 10 minutes away. I'm not gonna die or get hurt waiting on police that might not even be of help. At least I know if I shot the dude, the immediate threat is gone and I'm safe.
It's kinda funny to admit but I ran so many times from a fight I'm kind of a parcour runner by now. *Btw you're the most self-reflected, so to say most real and down to earth trainer I've ever witnessed. Pointing out incapabilities of what you have to offer and what someone could achieve is just so much more important than planting some delusional dreams into peoples heads that might keep them going for a while.
Mike, your perspective on self defense is one of my faves. This video has me thinking: what can I do to fix those bad tendencies? Like my tendency to be cool with being in half guard or my tendency to not run and call for help? Because realistically I know I’m not going to be able to practice turning and running in Muay Thai class.
One of my friends in college actually tested my reaction by rushing at me when I didn't see him in a crowd. I immediately went into a boxing stance and faced him before realizing he was messing with me. You really do react how you train. People also tend to react very differently depending on how they handle stress as well, I just repress all emotions and handle the situation at hand, which helped a lot as an EMT. You get desensitized to it as well over time.
I hate when that happens. I threw a check hook at one of my friends who did the same thing.
It's biology 101. When the sympathetic system (i.e., adrenaline, fight or flight) kicks in, your body prioritizes reflexes over higher thought. That's one of the main reasons why martial arts look graceful in practice and sloppy AF in actual application.
I totally agree with your take , just like anyone who's been in a dangerous situation or a fight would too. We all look back in hindsight and say, "I totally should have done [fill in the thing that probably will be forgotten next time too 😂].
As someone who has done prison time and been violent, your realist take is refreshing. Very few people are willing to be an actual front-line type. As you said, all you hear is id do this or id do that. Meanwhile, they have shit running down their legs in even the most minor confrontation.
I've trained for like 16 years, for things like this. I've also watched a lot of youtube on martial arts n things, cause it's turned into quite a passion of mine but this... I think this may be THE BEST self defense video I've ever seen. Props to you, man. Just, yeah. You are truly using you're status for good
In our school we teach "escape" as the first level of self defense with the hopes of helping this exact problem. We even added a level for our grab-based self defense of "Don't let them touch you" and we ALWAYS get on the students about using their voices in every SD situation. All I can do beyond that is pray none of my students ever need to find out the hard way like I did
@@tatumergo3931 True, that's why I said "don't let them touch you" but you have to know what to do when that doesn't work
Yep, 100% training and practice is key. As a senior nurse working with the hospital 'crash team' for years, resus (I think over the pond your call them 'codes') is automatic for me, including the initial LOUD shout for help, in real situations or in the yearly training scenarios. I've seen many good colleagues get ripped by the instructor for not doing the shouting bit convincingly
I like your phrase"Just-Jitsu". People regularly saying what they would have done if it were them, because it's easy to say it when you can watch it happen to someone else, and then analyse how it went wrong for them. In reality if it happens to you without warning then you don't get to do any planning. Being trained how to seek help or deal with stress during an attack is really important.
It doesn't even have to be a physical assault that makes people freeze - I've been involved in and watched people do live performances and improv on stage. Sometimes they just don't know what to do, and they freeze. They aren't going to be hurt or die, but people don't know how to act under stress so they just stop doing anything. They will tell you later that they can't explain the feeling, and how terrible it was. Sometimes it is bad enough that they never want to be put under that stress again, like PTSD.
3:22 judging by what we see, the lady actually broke that fight up for a moment, both dudes completely let their guards down, stances changed, all 3 of them were just looking around confused ... what an absolute baffling sight
I have done a lot of martial arts and a little self defense.
I have trained with absolute beginners in both and I can confidently say, that bringing someone to actually punch you is just as hard as bringing someone to really yell.
It's super weird and foreign to most people. Personally I don't know if I would remember to be load and get attention.
I once watched a girl in the supermarket fall and hit her chin on the edge of a pallet. At first, when she stood up, it she seemed she was only a little surprised and hurt, and she cried just a little. But when it became clear that she was bleeding like crazy and the blood was dripping down onto the floor and onto her hand and all over her shirt, her cries then kicked into overdrive and were both terrifying and heartrending, and they must have echoed throughout the entire huge store.
It made me realize how totally evil and alien a killer's mind must be to enjoy evoking such anguish. And I agree that it would be basically impossible to prompt such a scream in any kind of practice session.
Interestingly, while the mother basically panicked and just started yelling "Help!" and while I just passively observed the situation, not knowing what I could do to help, one guy sprang into action and grabbed a roll of paper towels, ripped it open, and helped out some with the blood.
Makes me think that maybe one in twenty people are decisive "action" people when something unexpected and terrible goes down.
@@polarvortex3294 Also I wouldn't be surprised to find those "action people" score pretty high on psychopathy (without necessarily being full-on diagnosable). When it's not based on tons of training and repetition for that specific scenario, that's what we call being able to keep your cool when everyone else is frozen in place by some extreme emotions like horror: psychopathy. So... it's a good and a bad thing that we don't all have it.
Very good video mike, super informative and sobering.
Excellent video, Mike. I had a coach who used to tell us all the time, "You play like you practice." He said it when we would try to cruise through practices, but it is exactly what you are saying here. Thank you and keep it up!
From someone who has taken many a kick to the face, I love how much you emphasize the grounding experience of *real* impact and the crystallisation of *I don't know shit* that hits the first time your reality is upended. Proper lifeline you are mate
One of the best and useful things I've gathered from just watching a self defense or martial arts video. Definitely not talked, thought about or practiced much.
A must watch, this is probably the most overlooked aspect of self defense. Most people including myself are way different in our minds. You have a great channel, thanks
A very true and honest representation, much appreciated.
I've been 'thought' never to engage in a knife fight, but indeed not really in practice. We do knife attacks & defense in our Karate/Kobudo training, and the only conclusion every time is that you'll get hurt if you engage.
People who love you will tell you hard truths. Thank you Mike. I should probably train harder
As a civilian who was involved in an armed conflict “in the crossfire” (though no shots were fired) if you will, this is spot on. I’ve seen even local police react like this when something they’re unprepared for and don’t expect happens
Very true and very important video.
I can say anecdotally, this has definitely happened to me. It wasn't involving human violence, but one day my wife and I were walking our dogs and a stray pitbull walked up to us (too close by the time we saw it for us to try to walk away) and started a fight with one of our dogs. I don't know how many people here have experienced a real dog fight, but they're terrifying especially if you're not expecting it.
Anyway, my wife was holding the leash of our dog that got into the fight, so she started trying to kick the dog away. I walked up and just grabbed the dog by the scruff as though I was grabbing a collar. That was a stupid thing to do, but grabbing a dog's collar or leash was just always the way I'd trained to control a dog's movement. Luckily (and it was just sheer dumb luck) the dog was trained to some degree and immediately sat and stopped fighting when I pulled it away from my dog by the back of the neck. My wife took our dogs back home while I waited there with the stray for my dad to come with a spare leash. The owner came down the street looking for the dog shortly after I'd got the leash on it.
So my training had a very lucky outcome, but it was a stupid thing to do and it could have easily gone a completely different way and if I had the time to think about it at all before doing it I definitely would not have. But the whole thing happened in seconds, so I just automatically did what I'd always done with dogs.
Start carrying POM. I haven't seen a dog that liked it yet. Spray it's eyes and mouth, and it'll forget where it is. You don't even have to let it get aggressive. Even if you end up spraying your own dog, sure he'll hate life for a bit, but they do get over it. And from what i've seen, they do remember you, and how you handled them previously.
@@thewatcher611
Yeah, I carry a citronella spray for dogs now.
I never take my dog out without it anymore.
I have seen a video where this dog attacked a family at a church (I am pretty sure it was a church). The guy grabbed the dog in a rear naked choke until it died. I am sad about the dog's death. But he obviously cannot be trusted. It was a completely unprovoked attack. The man was a badass for that move. Saved his family
That dog should have been taken to a shelter for adoption and retraining. And the owner held for police to investigate.
Staffordshire Terriers ('Pit Bulls'), were considered the best family dog in the Victorian Era. Because they are naturally gentle and loving with children. They have to be trained to fight, on purpose or neglect.
@morticiaheisenberg9679 Yes. But, these seemingly unprovoked attacks are
bad training or PTSD (Yes, dogs are complex emotional beings), but there are always unseen triggers at the foundation of the behavior.
I've only had one instance where someone wanted desperately to fight me, was baiting me verbally and getting right in my chest and face. He was a very good friend of one of my best friends. Didn't want to fight him. He had been in fights before, I had not. I just kept retreating and used my car to put something between us. He even hit the hood of my car, dented it, didn't take the bait. He eventually huffed off and I drove home. At my friend's wedding, he told me he really respected me for that.
He didn't respect you for that, he lied. That was just his excuse. He is thankful and relieved he didn't end up hurting you due to your backing of so he didn't end up serving time for assault or manslaughter so he was thankful for that since he couldn't' control his anger. He had to squash it as the both of you shared a mutual friend and anything else would be awkward.
@@komodo420. no, he stormed off mad that he couldn't bait me into fight him. The second part happened about a decade later at my friends wedding.
I love the honesty! Most times, when things get real, the thought process goes straight out the window. I've trained with weapons and can be honest, I have no idea what I would do 😅
Absolutely true. Been there. Done that. I had to help someone very dear and close to me through a very dangerous situation, and neither of us acted nowhere near the correct way or even the way we would've wished t act.
Luckily someone who WAS trained to deal with the situation was nearby and saved the day! We can laugh about it today, but it could've been a lot worse 😢.
Mike, this was a great video. You are one of the few guys that doesn’t just refurgitate what you heard from some other trainer. You really think through and process self defense. This helped me understand why we train certain things at our gym and I shared this video with our gym chat as well. Thank you for sharing these ideas with us.
I was carjacked with my girlfriend at the time and your exactly right. She was a hinderance. Did nothing to save herself. The second she saw the knife she immediately burst into tears and I had to verbally instruct her to open the door of the car. Move to the back or the car car. Run. Run in what direction. Run faster. Totally froze. people crumble under pressure. Afyer it was done I had to crash tackle her to the ground because she was trying to run away from me for whatever reason… (we lost our phones in the car so if she ran off I’d have lost her).
That... is rough to imagine. I find myself to be pretty selfless... often to my detriment. I wonder if I would have stayed with that person afterwards. We need to have each other's back, and you put us in more danger.
@@MrTehNoms It's a woman
@@MrTehNoms if you’re selfless then you wouldn’t ditch her for that reason 🤔 but it could reveal psychological fragility which is another problem
un momento de mujer
@@yoeyyoey8937 That's what I meant to get at. It did sound like, "You put me in danger, so fuck off" But, it was supposed to be more like "There should be a point when the tiny bit of stability around you (his instructions) keeps you from straight up whiting out."
Everything you said is 110% correct! We need to practice properly for stressful situations so we may respond correctly.
Really good and important video Mike ! I just asked myself after the attack in France what I had done. Honestly I didn’t know. I love the stress test scenario training. But I think it’s still different when it comes down to reality.
This is excellent and one of the best videos I've seen recently. The part about your kids really hit home. One of my waking nightmares is that my kid won't run. One of the reasons we put her into MA is because her whole life she's the kid that jumps in to help other kids, and we recognized that we can't really change that, only better equip her to be who she is. But there's a part of me that is terrified that if push comes to shove that she won't know when to just run or yell for help. All the wrestling, bjj and muay thai has made her tough, resilient and strong and I'm proud of the person she's becoming, but also wondering if there are critical tools I'm not giving and in so doing, failing her.
Maybe try training sprints with her in the yard disguised as a game where you’re chasing her. If consistent it might work well. It would be bad if, heaven forbid, a man ever tried to give her crap and she tries to box or grapple with him.
Great point! I think it’s a good idea for girls to learn self-defense. but at the end of the day men are bigger and stronger and a girl is much better off running and screaming for help.
Never let her get too confident. Many chicks who do fighting sports get cocky, and start to think, that they can take men their size. They can't, and for their own protection, they need to be very aware of that.
@@NiVoldiza
Honestly, same thing can happen with smaller-framed guys as well.
I think it's good to have sparring sessions with very large guys every once in a while where they don't go too easy. Make sure you just get that experience into the mix to keep things in perspective.
@@deschain1910 Of course, there's nothing in your reply that I disagree with particularly. Small framed guys could get too confident, and just get annihilated by the sheer brute force of a larger opponent. That's common sense.
*However* , my point was concearning females. I said, that women could get cocky, and think that _they can take _*_men their size_* . See the difference? You're talking about a small dude against a big dude. I'm talking about a woman against the man her size. Even if the woman has martial arts training, the pound-for-pound male with no such training, can in most cases over power her with sheer force. If a small framed guy with martial arts background squares up with a guy *_his size_* who doesn't have said training, the guy with the training most likely can defend themselves guite well against the assailant, unless they have a weapon. See what I'm getting at? I'm having trouble understanding, how your "but what about men" -point disapproves my claim, that women are physically weaker than men, and should therefor never rely much on their self-defence training. It can buy you a couple of minutes of time, or a chance to run away, but _a girl still won't kick a grapist's/mugger's ass just because they feel like they're a boss biatch because they do karate_ .
i respect this...and i love the fact that you are honest in including yourself in this; i love the self awareness the humbleness, great great content
Once I was at a beach with family, back in 2013. All of the sudden this kid jumps off the pier about half way down, myself and everyone looked for a minute and then my ex said "do something" and i went from frozen in place to in the water. I don't know why but no one else did anything, they watched me swim out to him but even after I got to him no one tried to help they just watched.
I never trained to save someone in water, I was a soldier so this situation was out of my league. The kid was 10, couldn't swim and had asthma so the only thing I could thing was to try to keep him calm (we learned this in CLS, don't panic to the victim) and kept my composure, thankfully we made it back to shore. Very scary situation though, and I didn't feel like anything special I felt exhausted and my chest was on fire.
Very realistic talk, I appreciate the work you do.
I wanted to opt out when guy number 2 pulled a knife. His proximity to my fiance kept me engaged long enough for guy number one to provoke me into the fight while guy 2 engaged my blindspot. I went to what I knew, tear guy 1 apart and I got stabbed twice.
Sorry that happened. Did your fiance get away unscathed?
@@sludgerat444 Yes, fortunatley, and she had my back. The cops said the second time I got stabbed if she hadn't been there it would have been a more focused attack. As in he was committed to it, but her commotion interrupted his intent and allowed me to respond. Stabbed in the back of the rib cage and nothing vital was penetrated.
@@wolfmand9641 I hope those assholes get what's coming to them
7 mins in you made a good point no one trains to run, yell for help, get help from someone while assesing the sitution at hand. I can honestly say the only experience i have training those things was when i became lifeguard certified. Which we did train to yell for help right away. Every other job i have had has never ran a safety course or even a run down of what happens when shit hits the fan like that. It for some reason is assumed that you will make the right choice in a moment that no one has talked to you about.
I agree with some of the other comments here. The guy with the backpack was effective. He maybe wasn't *as* effective as he could've been had he practiced using a backpack as a weapon, but he kept the guy on the defensive a bit, kept him moving, kept him distracted. That's pretty huge in a scenario like that.
That said, Mike is right. You fall back to your highest locked-in level of training. You can be a black belt in three different schools, but get into a fight and fight at a functional skill level that's three belts lower. You can also be a lower belt and get into a fight and perform at your technical level. All depends. In one of my martial arts schools, it was recommended to yell "I don't want to fight you!!" so that people telling the police later would remember that you weren't the instigator and were trying not to fight. However, I don't recall that ever being practiced.
Which means that most of the students would not actually do that in a real fight.
On the other hand, despite never having trained for this scenario, or even thought about it, my wife and I were in an accident a number of years ago. I couldn't open my door and my left hand had no strength, and my wife started yelling about being unable to move her leg. I then immediately unbuckled, threw my weight against the door, forcing my hand to work, literally ran around the car and wrenched her door open. By then, an off-duty firefighter in the car behind us had gotten out to help, and my adrenaline wasn't needed anymore. I then realized I could barely put any weight on my left ankle either. Ankle was just badly sprained, while my wrist had a fracture.
Sometimes you can pull off doing the right thing in a scenario even without training.
Fair point... Nervousness is a huge factor in all combat situations.. it's a good thing for coaches and people training to remember to study the situation and application of what they're learning and when to apply it and when to run ..
There is a huge difference between competitive fighting and combat sports and self defense/ hand to hand combat...great video ...
This one hits close to home. Even if I have some 40 years of training and in 21 years as a bouncer been through some pointy-stabby situations, there is a chance I would kinda freeze for a moment and think "is this happening?" or react but for some short but critical seconds forget that I'm not wearing bodyarmor right now!
What were the situation when you were attacked by knife?
Thank you for this video. One of the most important message in self-defense - you always revert to whatever you trained (and if you didn't train, you have even less of an idea of what you would do.)
Excellent advice and insight. Thank you. I often cite the videos of the Paris airport attack several years ago. People talk about "fight or flight"....and forget the 3rd "F", which is freeze. Watch the videos - average folks just stand there, as their brains are trying to grasp what they are hearing/seeing and compute it against their life experiences. They are stunned /confused into inaction. At one point, a woman even cowers down behind a piece of luggage as the shooters approach.
I was in France the 13th November, at the corner of Bataclan when they started to shoot in the street...I am so glad, I froze 1 second, turn and run and made it alive.
This was put so well. And With the right amount of emotion. You just gave me something to forward to clients because it was articulated better here than I have ever done or heard before.
I'm out of practice now, but I've had a decent amount of training and sparring in my life, but my reaction to high-stress situations is often a mixed bag. There's been times where I freeze, times where I stand up to protect the other person, times where I run, and times where I'm just way too non-chalant😐
I was once in a situation where an assailant held a dog up to my pregnant wife, i deescalated the situation, bystanders surrounded my wife, he eventually was convinced to walk away, and no one got hurt. I myself am trained to fight in at least 3 disciplines. I always think back to that time that i couldve done more, im glad to hear i did the right thing.
What kind of dog? the size and breed makes or breaks this story lol
and the assailant will continue to to this to others, this is why you carry
@@michaelbrown-ne7vo I live in England, but I see your point
@@PaulnJenna lol you're correct. Big mastiff, obviously poorly looked after. I don't blame the dog. Still scary situation
@@LukeD91 Yeah it can be scary. I have had german shepherds and they're lovely, but I', always aware that they could rip my head off if they wanted to! It's never the dog, always the owners fault... Glad your wife wasn't hurt!
I'm going to have to practice my running away skills!