Reflections on a violent encounter

It's a privilege to come out of an assault intact.

I say that because, as those of you in the field of self-defense know, it's far more often about luck than skill. Staying alert, knowing what to do -- yes, these are good things. But there's more going on in a violent encounter that you can't control than that you can.

Today I was lucky.

The man who came into the cafe wasn't after me. He was after another woman. He didn't have a weapon, but he had fists, elbows, a loud voice, and a shocking willingness to do damage to everyone between him and her.

I knew the moment I heard the tone of his voice that he was dangerous. We don't always get that kind of warning, but I did.

I dropped down out of sight, behind a cement barrier -- because I didn't know what weapons he might have -- and called 911. I wasn't his target, the cafe was small, and other people were confronting him, so that was clearly my job -- to make sure someone called for backup.

And backup was exactly what it was, because despite being in-city, by the time the cops arrived, some 10 minutes later, the man in the baseball cap and blue hoodie yelling threats at everyone including a pretty dark-haired woman he didn't know -- and then picking up a table and slamming it against the door that had been closed against him -- was long gone.

So I stand corrected: he did have a weapon. A table. He had been pushed outside, the door shut against him, and he picked up a table and slammed it against the glass door until it broke. Yelling, screaming, but unable to get back in, he finally left.

I found out later that the woman who was the target of this assault had just come in. He'd started yelling at her on the sidewalk up the block, out of the blue. She'd run into the cafe for sanctuary. He followed, yelling, threatening. Swinging fists and elbows.

She didn't know him. Had never seen him before in her life.

If he'd had a gun, or a knife, I am sure he would have used it. He didn't, so the woman was scared, shaken, but physically whole.

I've practiced these types of scenarios across the years. Today I saw that my training actually works; I knew what to look for, what to listen for. I knew what to do and how to do it.

More importantly, I knew what he could do, and what I could do in response.

I don't want to talk about weapons, or how to control them. I don't want to talk about mental illness, or violence. These are topics in heated discussion today.

Today I just want to say this:

Violence can be fast, unpredictable, and senseless. Sometimes, no matter what you do, no matter how fast or strong or prepared you are, all that stands between you and being the target of that violence is luck.

Today I was lucky.

Seattle Driver Backs up While Texting

Yes, I recently watched a woman do this. Luckily not from behind her car.

Whether you walk, bike, or drive, you are at risk from those who take their attention off the road to see what's on their phone. For what? A cute cat picture? Something to pick up from the store?

Is it worth a life?

As my regular readers know, I have some strong opinions about using a cell phone while driving that go well beyond "don't."

At highway speeds, in the time it takes you to glance away from the road to look at your phone, even just to see who called, you're covering the length of a football field.

How many bodies is that?

Remember when cigarette smokers claimed they weren't hurting anyone but themselves so they should be able to smoke where and when they liked? Smoking laws arose because enough people decided that it simply wasn't true.

When the cellphone-while-driving body-count gets high enough, maybe we'll decide it isn't true that drivers can safely share that much attention with the road.

In the meantime, while the pile of bodies is still not large enough to get our culture's keen attention on the matter, how do we convince people not to text and drive?

One way is to insist that they do. In 2012, a Brussels Driving Centre required teens to text during a driving test. See what happened here. What would it take to include something like this on the practical part of the drivers' test?

Another way is to use the technology itself. It would be relatively easy to write an app that tracks cell phone motion patterns to determine if someone is driving or not, and then whether they are texting or talking, and report that to their auto-insurance company. Or the police. Anyone working on this? Can I help?

And lastly, social condemnation can move mountains. You know that look you give someone when they light up a cigarette near the picnic table at which you and your family are eating? Do that. Scowl. Shake your head. Wag your finger.

Just be careful and stay out of the direct line from their car to your body. Bad judgment while driving is not limited to cell phone use.

The Moment Between Okay and Not Really

You know the moment - it's the one between between slicing your hand and the gush of blood, slamming the door and realizing you've left a finger behind, the mis-step and the fall.  It's the moment when things are still okay, but not for long.

We were prepping for a short bike ride. I'd hit the garage door button, dashing out from under the closing door, stepping carefully over the beam of light that stops the process when he said "oh, I left my helmet inside."

No problem, I thought, waving my foot across the beam. The door kept closing. No problem, I thought, thinking of the way elevators won't shut on your hand and will bounce back from the least resistance. So I put my shoe under the descending door.

Which descended anyway. Without bounce.  Without give. A powered heavy metal door coming down on my shoe, my toes, which was now clearly a really bad idea. I tried to pull my foot out. No way. I realized that not only was I stuck, but my toes were feeling quite a bit of pressure.

It's a special moment. It's when you realize that things might not be okay, and very soon.

I jammed my fingers under the door, pulled up with all my strength. Nothing moved. Then the pain began.

My friend had the presence of mind to run into the house and around to the garage and pull the quick release on the garage door -- a red handle, which makes so much sense now. The door released, came up.

I took another moment to survey the damage. It was my lucky day: the toes were insulted but not broken, annoyed but not crushed. Now, hours later, they are mumbling about my lack of good sense, but are ready to consider forgiving me.

Even so, the moment is limned in my memory, framed with all the intensity that an active, alert, and not-quite-panicking mind can create.

Such moments can change us, if we let them. They remind us that we are one slip, one poor decision, one moment's bad luck away from being mangled or killed.  Or, in my case, bruised, embarrassed, and feeling lucky.

And in more practical terms: garage doors are unforgiving masses of driving metal completely unlike sensitive elevator doors. Soft toes will not stop them.

The Myth of Self-Defense

I'm pissed again. This is why I don't attend martial arts classes any more, why my answer to "what martial arts have you done?" is "oh, this and that."

Because most martial arts talk is posturing and pretense and ego, not much to do with effective self-defense. Which I do care about.

I'm not going off on a rant how most martial arts practices have little or nothing to do with self-defense, or how most MA teachers haven't a clue how little they know about what they think they're teaching. Heck, I'm barely going to touch on how much worse than useless most "women's self-defense" training is. All that would take a book. This one is a good start.


But I will say this: if someone you care about really needs self-defense, give them a few critical basics:

1. No matter how much experience they say they have, your teacher can be oh-so wrong. They don't know what you know about your body, your mind, or your self defense situation. And gosh, if they aren't listening to you, they know even less.

2. Anyone who won't talk to you about why they teach specific moves, who can't answer "but why not just walk away?", does not know what they are doing.

3. Belts don't matter. Martial arts lineages don't matter. The name of the school doesn't matter. All those weapons on the wall? The big, lovely Japanese kanji? Irrelevant. Absolutely irrelevant.

4. You don't need lots of fancy moves. More techniques isn't the answer. You need one move -- just one -- that works. Okay, maybe two. Listen: if it's hard to do when you're calm, on flat ground, in a well-lit room, how hard will it be to do in the rain, on slippery pavement in the dark? Those moves should be simple.

If you want a good teacher, find someone who doesn't need to convince you that they're a good teacher. Find someone who teaches out of their garage. Find someone who, when you learn a bunch of moves, won't give you a belt.

And to the guy who tried to teach me women's self-defense tonight, who is probably nearly as annoyed as I am by the experience, who thinks pain and damage are the same thing, who told me that if I raise my arm over my head I'll be taller than my attacker:

I hope you find out how how little you know before you teach this stuff to any other woman who might actually need to use it. But I bet you won't.

We don't really live in a very violent place or time. Most of the women who learn these "self-defense" practices will never need them. I console myself with that.

And yet, somehow, I'm still pissed.

Use of Force

Today was tons of fun. We met in a grimy tavern in a grimy part of town, most of us martial artists for a decade or more, for a self-defense seminar taught by the pretty darned impressive Rory Miller, a man I consider one of my best fighting arts teachers.

We practiced what techniques we knew, and then practiced some things we thought we knew, like power generation, which we now know better. We did scenario fights with weapons and cars and and padded attackers, and after each one discussed how we'd justify use of force. Say you actually do hurt someone in self-defense, how do you explain what you did to a judge or a jury?  You have to understand legal issues of force and self-defense. You have to think.

The range of experience in the room was impressive and a delight to work with, but for me the great part was watching myself and those around me think in new ways about self defense.

Too many martial arts schools are clean, well-lit studios that teach that self-defense is about a bad guy attacking and you defending, and it's that simple. But in the real(er) world, there are chairs and tables, stuff on the floor, coolers with handles. There is your kid in the back seat of your car. There are guys with egos who won't back down, and there are innocent bystanders, and in the thick of it, you can't always tell the difference.

And there are many, many times when the best thing to do is to walk away.

What, Miller asks us in each scenario, is your goal?  What do you want? As much fun as thumping on each other is to us fighting arts geeks, what most of us want is to go home in one piece, not to engage in violence.  To study safety in the midst of danger and go home unharmed, to look at this subject after decades of training and learn new things -- wow.

I had a blast.