verbal altercation, and the other guy backed down, said, “Oh, okay pal, I was wrong, let’s shake.” No! That handshake is an opportunity for him to get close, control one of your weapons and your balance, and give you a sucker punch.
An arm around the shoulder is the same thing. Think about it, who do you let put their arm around your shoulder? You best mate, a drunken college buddy? Sure! An unknown guy who was about to kick your ass three- and-half minutes ago? Definitely not.
No matter what he asks, your answer should be “No.” If he is sincere in his attitude, he will shrug it off and go about his business. If not, he will take offense and escalate the situation again. His response tells you everything you need to know about how it was going to go down so either way you are ahead.
Here is an example of distance and perception. One night Wilder left a bar late with Sgt. Rory Miller and his wife. It was a weeknight so the streets were very calm with very few people out and about. Wilder crossed the street heading for his car. As he opened his car door, a twenty-five year old(ish) man jogged up to him and said, “Hey, I need some help.”
Wilder paused inside the doorjamb of his car and replied, “What’s up?” He assumed from the other guy’s frantic look that the problem he needed help with was something and the lines of a flat tire. Yet the unexpected response was, “I need some money for my wife and me.”
“Odd,” Wilder thought, suddenly realizing that he was blocked by somebody who was not who he thought they were.
Two cars down, Sgt. Miller was at the panhandler’s back. He had not gotten in his car and was watching the event. He slowly closed his car door so that nothing was between the guy’s back and himself.
Letting a hostile person get too close to you is an invitation for a fight.
That handshake was just a ploy to get you into position for a sucker punch.
“Okay,” Wilder said. Not usually inclined to give to panhandlers, he nevertheless reached into his pocket and pulled out some loose change hoping that compliance would make the guy go away and leave him alone. “Here,” he said handing over the money.
“I need more than that!,” the other guy growled. “This doesn’t help me one bit.”
As the other guy’s tone became increasingly agitated, Wilder realized that he was not dealing with a guy with a flat tire nor was he dealing with a panhandler. He had just let a mentally unbalanced person, some guy off his medications most likely, get too close to him. Miller knew it too. Watching intently, he shifted his weight a bit so that he could respond appropriately if things got violent.
“This does me crap!” the other guy shouted, throwing the coins to the ground and then reaching for Wilder.
“Don’t touch me and get back!,” Wilder commanded. He was blocked in, with his back to the open door of his car so he had no space to maneuver in. “Get back! Get away from me, now!,” he repeated.
Are you really going to let the guy who was about to kick your ass three-and-half minutes ago put his arm around your shoulder to make nice?
Not if you’re smart.
“I need real money!” the other guy snarled. This was clearly escalating. The other guy was too close and not responding to verbal commands. Wilder knew that if the other guy had a blade he was going to get cut. His mind flashed to the fireman who was stabbed to death some ten years earlier, randomly, by a mental patient after a Mariners baseball game in Seattle… “Crap,” Wilder thought.
Then, the other guy made his move. As abruptly as he had switched from a guy in trouble to a guy demanding more money, real money, he snapped, “Screw you!” He then turned and jogged back across the street and around the corner.
Wilder looked at Miller who had waited calmly the whole time. “So, see you later,” he said as he got into his car.
“Yeah,” Wilder replied, “See ya later.”
While driving home Wilder reviewed the entire event in his mind and started criticizing himself for letting the guy get so close. Finally, he relaxed a little, thinking, “These things happen. You can’t go through life all prickly at Condition Red. You assumed good will and that is not always a bad thing.” He told himself, “The context was all wrong for that kind of behavior. Would it have hurt me to keep my distance coming out of bar late on a weeknight with a guy jogging toward me? No! I wasn’t all prickly, or at Condition Red, but I did fail the distance test.”
There are no absolutes in self-defense. Every situation will be different and unique. In England and much of Europe, for example, you are likely at risk from a head butt in a fight whereas that type of attack is rarely seen in the United States where a punch to the face is more common. Either way, your adversary must get close in order to reach you. It is critical, therefore, to maintain sufficient distance between you and a potential assailant to give yourself time to respond to whatever he tries to do.
You may be in imminent danger from an unarmed attacker within about 10 feet. For an armed attacker, this range is extended to a bare minimum of 21 feet. The bad guy can close that distance shockingly fast. A second or two is all he needs to move in and strike.
While that may seem a rather lengthy separation, several tests, including the famous Tueller Drill, have been conducted that validate this assertion. This drill, named for Sergeant Dennis Tueller of the Salt Lake City Police Department, was first described in his 1983
In his drill, Tueller conducted a series of tests showing that people of various ages, weights, heights, and physical conditions could close a distance of 21 feet in an average time of 1.5 seconds, about as long at it takes a highly trained officer to draw a handgun and fire one or two aimed shots. Knowing that people who have been shot do not often fall down instantly, or otherwise stop dead in their tracks, Tueller concluded that a person armed with a blade or a blunt instrument at a range of 21 feet was a potentially lethal threat. A defensive handgun instructor whose class Kane took reiterated this point, stating that it takes a fatally wounded person between 10 and 120 seconds to drop, so you must fire and then move off-line while expecting your attacker to continue his assault even after your bullets have hit him.
In training as well as in real-life encounters, even highly trained police officers are frequently unable to draw their guns and fire a shot before being cut, sometimes fatally, by a knife-wielding opponent moving toward them from distances as great as 20 to 30 feet. It is reasonable to assert that the average civilian is somewhat less prepared for such encounters than the typical law enforcement professional.
While it’s intuitively obvious with fists, distance can even keep you safe from bullets. Most gunfights take place at a distance of less than ten feet. In fact, according to FBI statistics, 95 percent of officer-involved shootings occur at less than 21 feet, with approximately 75 percent taking place at less than 10 feet and a little over half at closer than five feet. The farther away the other guy is, the tougher it is for him to hit you. Further, you have a much better chance to escape to safety or dash toward some source of cover that can protect you.
Throw Debris to Distract or Injure Him
Throwing debris is really an extension of distance. It is not a stand-alone technique, but rather a facilitator that can keep the other guy back and help you escape. You can kick dust, throw rocks, hurl trash, swing garbage cans, or otherwise chuck stuff at the other guy to distract or potentially injure him. Don’t throw your weapon if you have one though. You’re going to be giving up your best source of defense by throwing it away.
Here is a rough way to estimate your ability to throw an object and have a reasonable chance of hurting somebody: Wilder calls this the “baseball test.” It was developed through rigorous threshold testing while he was at college. To do the test, march off about a quarter of the dormitory hallway floor, turn and face the fire door at the
