The Attack

They will often provide you with many clues indicating that they are about to start their attack. If you notice a shortening of speech patterns, increasingly challenging sentences, head pecking, finger pointing, and a shift to one-syllable words, these signs indicate a precursor to violence. In most cases, the attack will be a big, right-handed swinging punch to the head.

While they are still pointing, poking, pushing and shouting, you are still being tested; they are not ready to hit you, or they already would have done so.

If you choose to because you see no way out, then this is the time in which to strike – often known as going ‘pre-emptive’. They are not expecting an attack while they are still talking. You can justify pre-emption against someone who is screaming in your face and pushing you.

The mugger is looking for the moment that you become distracted. This is their cue to act; once you fall into their trap, they will take your phone, bag, etc.

This difference in emphasis gives a big clue as to how you should try and respond. Against an obvious aggressor who is looking for a fight, verbal diffusion of the situation must take first priority. Only if your communication strategy fails should you go preemptive.

A mugger, on the other hand, is looking for an effortless victim. They don’t want to risk a violent confrontation or the chance of attention and capture. They want to get your guard down – snatch and grab. If you disrupt their routine and pose a threat, they often withdraw and retreat.

Don’t make the situation worse

What follows is a concise summary of how people routinely provoke attacks. Violence would NOT have happened if they hadn’t violated the following standards. Once you know about them, you can see why a situation is escalating and almost predict when violence will happen.

Don’t Insult them

You may believe that insulting them is a threat display that will cause them to back off, but it’s an insult. This insult will trigger a violent person to retaliate, as it crosses the boundary from assertiveness to aggression.

Don’t Challenge Them

When we are emotional, we not only act foolishly but also tend to engage in magical thinking. We believe, “If I do this, they will do that.” An example of such thinking is “If I show them that I’m not scared of them, they’ll back off.” This attitude can manifest itself by issuing a challenge, often saying “you don’t have the guts”, etc. Unfortunately, outside of the limited options you can see, there are all kinds of other things he can do, including attacking you because you’ve challenged them to act.

Don’t Threaten Them

Don’t threaten to ‘kick their ass’, as this is a form of challenge. Also, telling them you’re going to call the police constitutes a threat to them.

Don’t Deny It’s Happening

Violence is a rarity. Many people can go their entire lives without ever having been involved in a physical fight. Even in lifestyles where violence is common, it doesn’t happen 24/7. People take breaks from it to eat, sleep and engage in other activities. There is, however, a big difference between those two lifestyles. People with lifestyles where violence is common immediately recognise when it’s happening and react accordingly. All other priorities fall away.

For people who believe that violence ‘doesn’t happen’ or who haven’t experienced physical conflict since childhood, there is often a significant factor of denial. However, most people express denial through threat displays, which often leads them to insult and challenge others.

Give Them a Face-Saving Exit

This is one of the most common mistakes people make. Let them back away with some semblance of pride! Sometimes violence was not going to happen, but it’s common for someone to react to an effective threat display and decide to back off — only to have the other person just open their big mouth again and effectively rub their nose in it.

Nobody is genuinely interested in engaging in violence where they could lose their life. Face-saving exits allow someone to find a reason NOT to fight. That is a key element of de-escalation. When friends grab those in conflict and pull them apart, it serves as another example of a face-saving exit, leaving both parties satisfied that they would have retaliated violently if their mates hadn’t intervened.

Asocial Attack

Asocial confrontations usually proceed straight to the violence. Some street thieves discover their own techniques to make sure their task is as easy as possible. Usually this type of assault involves attacking from behind.

If you have positively identified your situation as an asocial attack and see no way out, then in this case the only solution is violence. You must learn how to strike first and make the attacker non-functional.

There are a lot of psychological hurdles to overcome with learning to use potentially lethal material, as you must be prepared to use it. Often some types of techniques are too extreme for sane, socialised people to perform with intent – such as eye gouging, neck and spine breaks, etc. You must understand that there are no guarantees, even with these extreme systems. Criminals commenting on these systems have said that they give the victim too much hope – when they took people out, they “made sure they never saw it coming”.