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In this next segment, we're gonna talk about hand-to-hand self defense tactics. So what's happened now is everything that we've talked about previously, all of the preventative measures, all of the awareness of your surroundings, the pepper spray being able to be used from ten feet away, so that your aggressor can't even reach you, has obviously failed or something went terribly wrong. We were surprised, we didn't see it coming, they disarmed us of our pepper spray. But in any way that this occurred, the fact of the matter is, they have their hands on us and now we're presented with a choice. We either defend ourselves effectively or we potentially are assaulted or even killed. So let's talk about the soft targets and the anatomy of both the aggressor and who we're going to be hitting or attacking to defend ourselves. But also our anatomy. On how we're going to use our anatomy as defense weapons. So I think it's really important that, when we start breaking down effective self defense tactics, that we identify the anatomy and physiology of the perpetrator and identify what we call soft targets, and what I've coined as semi-soft targets. And we're going to go from head to toe and describe what these areas of the body are that we're going to be aiming for when we're trying to neutralize the threat of our attacker. We start with the eyes. The eyes are a soft mucus membrane, they are easy to jab, to gouge with our thumbs. And not only will it blind and stun our perpetrator, it can buy us enough time to escape. Obviously the nose is cartilage. If we hit it with a palm strike and we break that cartilage, it not only has a sympathetic response to the body where eyes water, they squint, but it's extremely painful. It can cause a gush of blood to come out, it can shock our aggressor as well. The chin can cause a whiplash effect. Remember it isn't the punch, necessarily, that's gonna knock the person out. It's the coup contrecoup of the brain slapping forward and backwards, much like we see in car accidents, that we need to do to shock the brain, stun the aggressor, even potentially knock them out. We talk about the one punch knock outs. It's not because of the strength of the fist, it's the sudden impact and the slapping of the brain inside the skull that can shock our aggressor. We're also gonna talk about the cartilage and the esophagus of the throat. This cartilage, this Adam's apple region of the throat is a soft target that we can palm strike, punch, or we can, with the "v" part of our hand, we can actually come in and strike to be able to really injury our aggressing attacker and stop them from continuing the attack. As we move down the body, I personally want to stay away from the solar plexus, the anatomical part of the abdomen. Well there's a lot of talk out there, and you may hear other people say, "you know it's the xiphoid process, you hit 'em in the xiphoid process and they're all done." "If you hit 'em in the top of the abdomen, you're gonna knock the wind out of 'em." That's too subjective. We don't know where that's at, number one, because of the baggy clothing. Number two, what does he have on underneath his clothes? Number three, what if he's conditioned or he bears down and can take the punch? We're gonna move to a much more effective soft target on the male anatomy, which is the genital region. We're gonna use palm strikes, hammer fists, and knees to injure that area of the body and basically make our aggressor neutralized in their attack. These would be called the soft targets on our aggressor. The semi-soft targets are joints. The joints, the knees, the elbows, potentially the wrist. These are soft targets. Maybe the skull just behind the ear. These are all the targets that are a little harder to impact, and it takes more precision, but they too can be effective in disarming this threat. So we've talked about the soft and the semi-soft targets of the aggressor, and what we're going to be targeting to neutralize the threat. But it's important for us to also look at the anatomy of the person practicing self defense. What do I have built into me that I can use as weapons against a perpetrator? So let's talk about that for a moment. We're gonna start from head to toe systematically. The first weapon we have been gifted with is the skull. We're gonna show how this is used when we have no hands to fight with, no feet to fight with, and the perpetrator in distance where we could possibly headbutt them from the side, the front, or the rear to shock our aggressor, to have them drop us, so that we can move into a better position, make some space, and finish the fight, so we can evade this attack. The next one as we go down the line is our hands. I prefer not to make fists to punch. There is so many small bones in the hands. It takes months and years for professional fighters to wrap and condition their hands, and strengthen their hands, to be able to handle that kind of impact. It's too easy to miss the target, break our hand, and basically victimize ourselves, and no longer be effective in self defense. So I prefer an open palm. Open palm strike to the chin, open palm strike to the nose, to the throat. Hammer fist. I do like hammer fist. We close the knuckles, but instead of using the knuckle part of our hand, we now are using this strong part here on the base of our hand for a hammer strike. This side, we call this the blade side of our arm. If we're being caught like in an arm lock, we might be able to take this and use that long arm bone as almost like a bat, if you will, to be able to do a strike against soft tissue when we have no other way to get to our aggressor. As we continue to move down our bodies, we look at the elbow. In many of these skills that we're going to be teaching you, we are so close that the only thing that we can actually strike with, with any force, is not our hand but our elbows. And as we bring our elbows through, we can use this as a very strong hard to injure tool or instrument of self defense. And then the bottom side, we're going to be using is the knees, for knee strikes, and then also the foot. Both the top of the foot, if you've got hard shoes on. Maybe the end of the shoe. And then lastly, the heel of the foot. We've been blessed with anatomy that is awesome when it doubles as self defense instruments. I think it's important for us, when we're learning self defense, to realize what anatomical parts we all have at our disposal to help defend ourselves from a perpetrator. We're now gonna move to the next step, which is learning how to use them.
Human beings have soft several targets that we should aim for when we are trying to neutralize an attacker. First, aiming for the eyes can blind or cause pain. The nose can be struck and cause bleeding that can confuse and stop an attacker. The throat, or the Adams apple, can be struck which will injure the the attacker and stop him. Although the stomach is soft, it can be difficult to cause enough pain to stop the attacker. A hard strike to the groin on a male will cause an attacker great pain and will most likely cause him to stop. Joints like the elbows or wrists can be effective but require more precision and force.
You body has several parts that can be used as weapons against a threat: the skull, the open palm of the hand, hammer fist with knuckles closed, elbow, the knee, and the foot.