Protecting Yourself with the Tools Closest to Hand

The most successful fight is the one you didn’t have. You’re safest if you can think, yell or run your way from danger. But if physical fight-back is required for survival, put your hardest and pointiest bits up against your attacker’s soft, vulnerable parts.

When I showed up to my first self-defense class in 1988, I had never fought before. I was always chosen last in gym.

In one of my very first classes I experienced an epiphany that still sings 25 years later.

We were talking about differences between armed and unarmed attacks when I understood with a start, “If I have a body and he has a body, we are even.”

I could fight back. My body could be a weapon. Yours, too.

Speak Up to Hate Speech and Become a Master of Verbal Self-Defense

Early in our relationship my future wife and I realized we needed to pack more than undies and a toothbrush for a visit to the folks.

In particular, her mom had a knack for the offhand insult.

She became legend among our friends for complementing someone’s chunky black kicks thus: “You can get away with wearing such ugly shoes, but I wouldn’t.”