Should You Run From a Fight?

By Robby Thomas


If you ever get yourself into a situation where you're not able to protect yourself, expect that a fight will take place. If a fight does take place, you should be prepared for all the medical, emotional, and legal consequences that accompany this terrible situation. If you ever have a window of opportunity to avoid fighting an attacker, you should try to do this first. An experienced fighter who is street smart will always tell you to stay away from fighting an attacker while the tough guy will foolishly try to head towards a fight. A wise fighter won't do something stupid that would risk his life or health just to show he's superior. He'll always try to make the best decision that will preserve his well being.

If you think running away from your attacker simply involves turning around and running away, you'll be surprised to know is not that easy. In an ideal situation, if you have plenty of room between you and an assailant, it won't be a problem accomplishing that. However, if your attacker is within arm's reach of you and can physically harm you, or if the situation has already turned into a fight, you need a strategy to create temporary confusion for your attacker so you have an opportunity to run away. If you're not able to temporarily confuse your attacker and increase the gap between the two of you so you can run away, you'll risk leaving yourself wide open for an attack.

If you do succeed in incapacitating your attacker, even for just a second, you should take advantage of that moment of confusion and disorientation and run away as quickly as possible. Since your attacker won't be able to react or run away, you have the opportunity create substantial distance to allow you to escape to safety. If you see an opportunity to create a space between you and your opponent, you should automatically try to maintain that distance and make it bigger one. You shouldn't think about trying to move in closer to your attacker and starting a fight.

If you want to practice running away from an attacker, you should seek a nearby martial arts school or gymnasium and designate a safety zone you want to reach. The object of your practice session is to reach this safety zone while your partner tries to stop you from getting there. You are allowed to use any appropriate self defense strategies to create distance between the two of you. You want to try to increase the space between you and your partner and reach the safety zone.

A second practice exercise would involve having two teammates on either side of the self defense school or gym, while the person practicing escaping is in the middle. The object of this exercise is for the person in the middle to head towards the first partner and start practice fighting. Once you start fighting with the first partner, you will then try to create an opportunity to escape so you can head towards the other end of the gym and practice fighting with the other partner. This practice session will help you learn the techniques necessary to create a window of opportunity so you can escape from your attacker.




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