When it comes to protecting yourself and your loved ones, the first steps you want to take are avoiding any type of confrontation and making sure your home is secure. But even the best preparations can leave you vulnerable, and you may be forced to defend yourself from dangerous and violent criminals.
This is something that needs to learned and practiced well ahead of time. You want yourself and your family to all feel confident that they can handle any type of threat they’re faced with.
You never want to rely on a single way of self-defense. You never know who you’ll be up against, what weapons or tools you’ll have on hand in that moment, or what a criminal with intent to harm you is capable of.
In a survival situation, especially, you’re going to be dealing with people who are desperate. They have given themselves the excuse that it’s okay to steal, rob and plunder other peoples’ supplies, even though they didn’t bother to take precautions to plan for events like this.
There are Different Ways to Defend Yourself Depending on Your Comfort and Safety Levels
Everyone has a different approach and believe when it comes to certain self-defense tools. You may be someone who believes in sticking to non lethal self-defense. Or you may be someone who is on the opposite end of the spectrum – someone who believes ‘my home is my castle’ – and anyone who breaches that sanctity must expect the gravest consequences.
Regardless, there are many different weapons and tools that you can choose from that will help you in any type of dangerous situation. When you are shopping for self-defense products, you have to think about what situations you may find yourself in – so you can be prepared and have the right weapons to use.
For example, if you were to use a stun gun or taser, you may have to get up close and personal enough to the attacker in order for it to be effective, which also puts you at a lot more risk than if you were able to stay quite far away and defend yourself with a rifle.
Some self-defense tools give you a temporary moment to get away. For example, pepper spray could be an effective deterrent, but it has been shown that quite a lot of criminals are able to still keep attacking in spite of it. Always assume the worst case scenario, not the best case. A worst case scenario with pepper-spray or a taser may be the criminal is ‘high’ on ‘P’ or other methamphetamine drugs and won’t feel nor react to the spray or being stunned – they just keep coming at you or your family.
Using something like a whistle or alarm might perhaps deter someone from attacking you in a public setting where there are lots of people around, but it won’t be helpful in a survival situation where they are entering your home and don’t care about anyone hearing anything.
There are flashlights that can blind an intruder temporarily, but that may not be enough to defend you in an attack. Only you can decide whether you want to have other means of self-defense on hand, ranging from a baseball bat to a knife or firearms.
Concealing Your Self Defense Tools and Knowing When to Use It
Regardless of which method you choose to use, you need to understand that your self-defense tools can make you a target if others are aware that you have them. Especially in a survival situation, people may want to steal your knife, firearm, or other self-defense mechanisms to protect themselves or to use them against other people.
You always want to be discreet about your self-defense approach. You don’t want to brag about them to others or show them off openly in a way that makes others aware of how you would plan to defend yourself.
Invest in holsters or pouches that will carry your weapons or self-defense tools and they are made to blend in with the rest of your outfit so that they don’t stick out and make you a target.
You can find clothing items that are designed specifically for self-defense products, which may include a built-in holster or deep internal pockets that are hidden to the average eye.
You can also layer your clothing so that whatever self-defense item you are carrying is not visible or obvious to other people. Choose baggy shirts that can help you conceal your weapon from everyone else.
If you’re not in a survival situation, you have to be aware of local laws regulating where you can take any self-defense items. Make sure you understand these laws so that you are not putting yourself in a vulnerable legal position. For example – do you live in a State or jurisdiction where you are allowed to carry a concealed firearm or not?
Martial Arts as a Means of Self Defense
There may be times when you are caught in a situation where you don’t have any type of weapon or tool on hand to protect you. Or, you may have started out with one and had it taken by your attacker.
It’s important that you know the physical self-defense skills that can protect you and your family, and that each family member knows some form of martial arts that they can use for self-defense.
Not everyone has the time, money and dedication to become a black belt in a martial art skill. But you and your family can learn a number of effective self-defense moves that you can practice over and over again until you are confident you can defend yourself against an attacker. It will be money well-spent if you pay a martial arts trainer for a number of private lessons to teach just you and your family those moves.
By having these skills, your family is going to feel more confident in their ability to stay safe, even if they are young or old, male or female. You always want everyone to have a diverse defense strategy that they can rely on.
There are different martial arts disciplines that you can choose from, some of them more focused on self-defense than others. You can find martial arts classes locally or even take them online.
One of the most popular ones is karate, which will allow you to strike the opponent using your hands, arms, feet and legs. Not only will you learn how to defend yourself, but there’s a mental discipline involved in this martial arts form that helps you make decisions quickly and easily while under duress.
Krav Maga is another martial arts form that is great for self-defense. This is one of the methods that is used to disarm your opponent, including multiple attackers that you may face in a survival situation.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is perfect for survival situations, because you may find yourself on the ground during an attack, and this can help you escape that danger. Not only can you immobilize your opponent, but you can find ways to escape and adapt to any scenario needed to keep you alive.
Taekwondo is another great martial arts form to learn for survival purposes. This is perfect for those in great physical shape who can use kicks against their opponent, allowing them to keep a distance and escape danger.
Regular Practice Gives You Peace of Mind and Improves Your Capabilities
Not only do you want to practice martial arts with an instructor who can teach you the proper form, throws or kicks and tells you what you’re doing wrong, but you also want to practice using other self-defense skills.
If you are using a firearm, for example, make sure you sign up for classes at a local gun range where they can teach you safety measures and also help you properly use your firearm to protect yourself.
Practice isn’t just about learning the proper form of self-defense. More often it is a way to help you stay safe under extreme stress. When you have practiced something to the point where it comes naturally to you, you’ll be less likely to make a mistake and be capable of making split second decisions that could save your life.
The key to preparing a self-defense plan for yourself and for your family is to make sure that everyone has a way to protect themselves and teach it in a way that doesn’t make them paranoid about possible threats, but instead empowered to handle anything that may come their way.
In the end, avoidance is one of the best forms of self-defense possible. Being aware of your surroundings and not having your face buried all the time in your smartphone the entire time is the first thing you need to change and adapt to.
Excel at situational awareness – it is critical to avoiding any type of situation where you will be put in danger.
Now that you know about the importance of Self-Defense skills it is time to move on to the next Report in our Survival Prepping 101 series – Part 18: How to Learn local Navigation Without GPS
If you’ve missed the previous article you can check it out here – Part 16: Securing Your Home is Vital to Your Survival.