Martial Arts and Self Defense Articles, The Self Defense Company

Self defense can be broken down into two categories: Proactive and Reactive. The difference between the two is based on the amount of time and distance you have to react.

Proactive self defense is when you see the threat and you have the time to establish distance, put a strategy together and proceed accordingly. If you’re being fronted or you’re in a situation where you can identify the threat, you will have the time to prepare and position yourself for your initial offensive assault.

Reactive self defense is when your threat gets the jump on you and you’re taken by surprise. In this situation you must react as fast as possible. Since your assailant has the momentum you must react in a way that will give you the best chance to shift momentum in your favor and take the fight to the enemy.

So its stands to reason that proactive and reactive self defense must be trained and treated differently.

Proactive training: always train your strong or comfortable side and practice in combinations of 3 or 4 instinctive and convulsive techniques. Since you know where your target is, you have time to establish distance and take the fight to your target. In this situation, there’s no need to train both sides of your body, like you would in some Karate or Tae Kwon Do systems. You only need to train out of one “stance” or position in the way you feel most comfortable. Because when you’re stressed, you will go with what you feel most comfortable. You will react in the way that you feel you’ll have the best chance for success. For this reason there’s no need to practice both sides of your body in proactive self defense scenarios.

However, reactive self defense training is a different story. Instead of training 3 or 4 technique combinations you only have to train 2 techniques but you MUST train them from ALL directions (front, rear, left and right), since these are the only conceivable directions by which you can be attacked. When you’re taken by surprise you obviously don’t have the time to prepare your strategy, so you have to react in such away that allows you to mount a counter assault as fast as possible. For this you only have to train two techniques (which techniques depends on what you are comfortable with- you’ll discover that in your training) and practice them until they are instinctive and convulsive (what else is new).

Why only two techniques? Well, after you react and you’ve managed to get a couple of techniques off you will now move onto the offensive which is proactive self defense. At this point, the fight is under way, you now know where your threat is and you are going to proceed in a manner that feels most comfortable to you.

As a rule when you train you practice combinations of 3 to 4 techniques with your target in front of you. Then you train single and double combinations from all four directions and from mid range and close range.

How long do you do it for? Until it becomes “INSTINCTIVE AND CONVULSIVE”.

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