Rory Miller is a Corrections Officer in Oregon. He has written several books on the subject Violence, both Social and Asocial. His occupation as a C.O. has given him an up close and personal insight to both. If you're interested in reading any more of his material, all his books are available on Amazon ( and no, I don't get a cut from Amazon. The two books I would recommend are "Conflict Communication" and "Facing Violence".
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The Four Basic Truths of Violent Assault
By Rory A. Miller
As a corrections officer, I am often thrust into sudden violent situations. On one
particular occasion, I responded to an incident between two inmates.
One was brushing his teeth. The other came up behind him and struck him on the
right side of his head. The tooth brusher tried to turn but was pressed into a corner,
punched again and again with hard rights until he curled into a fetal ball. Blood
splashed (not smeared) onto the wall at shoulder height.
Do you train for this? Do you respect the power of a sudden attack and a constant
barrage?
The attacker broke several bones in his hand and did not know it. He didn’t break
just the metacarpals of a boxer's fracture, but also one of his fingers was deformed.
He did not know it and just kept hitting. He started complaining of the pain several
hours later.
Do you ever teach that pain alone will stop a committed attacker, that if you break a
bone, it's over?
I told the attacker that he was lucky. If the other guy had fallen or hit his head on
the wall and suffered more serious injury, he could be looking at some heavier
charges. He said, "Nah, I held his head with my other hand so it wouldn't hit the
wall. I know how you guys trump up charges and if I'd let him hit the wall you'd try
to get me for attempted murder."
Do you and your students realize how rational, how planned, a sudden assault can
be? It's only sudden for the defender. Far too often “sudden” is part of his plan. Do
you understand that there is a sub-group of human beings who can savagely beat
another human being while coolly thinking of their eventual court case?
The Four Basic Truths
Assaults happen closer, faster, more suddenly and with more power than most
people can understand.
Closer: Most self-defense drills are practiced at an optimum distance where the
attacker must take at least a half step to contact. This gives techniques like blocks
enough time to have an effect. You rarely have this time or this distance in a real
assault. Give some thought to how your technique will work if there is no room to
turn or step. Remember that the attacker always chooses the range and the location,
and will pick a place and position that hampers your movements.
Faster: When your martial arts students are sparring, use a stop watch and time how
many blows are thrown in a minute. Even in professional boxing, the number is not
that impressive. Then time how many times you can hit a heavy bag in a second. Six
to eight times a second is reasonable for a decent martial artist. An assault is more
like that. Because the attacker has chosen a time when the victim is off-guard, he
can attack all-out with no thought of defense. A competent martial artist who is used
to the more cautious timing of sparring is completely unprepared for this kind of
speed. You can strike ten times a second. You can’t block ten times a second.
More suddenly: An assault is based on the attacker’s assessment of his chances. If
he can’t get surprise, he often won’t attack. Some experts will say that there is
always some intuitive warning. Possibly, but if the warning was noted and heeded,
the attack would have been prevented. When the attack happens, it is always a
surprise.
More power: There is a built-in problem with all training. You want to recycle your
partners. If you or your students hit as hard as they can every time they hit, you will
quickly run out of students. The average criminal does not hit as hard as a good
boxer or karateka can, but they do hit harder than the average boxer or karateka
usually does because of gloves and dojo etiquette. More often than not, the first
strike in an ambush will find its target. Fighting with a concussion is much different
than sparring.
Responses to the Four Basic Truths
There are specific ways to train to deal with these truths about assault. You must get
used to working from a position of disadvantage. Put yourself and your students in
the worst positions you can (face down, under a bench, blindfolded to simulate blood
in the eyes and with an arm tied in their belt) and start the training from there. No
do-overs. Work from the position you find yourself in. There is no “right” move
anyway, just moves that worked or didn’t that one time.
Contact-response training. Condition (as in operant conditioning) for a quick,
effective response to any unexpected aggressive touch. Trained properly, the
counter-attack will kick in before the chemical cocktail of stress hormones. This will
give you one technique at 100%, and possibly the initiative, to the expected victim.
Remember, when you are pumped full of adrenaline, you will loose much of your fine
motor coordination, peripheral vision, etc. So you need to have your 100% technique
trained to be automatic.
Train to “flip the switch”. Make your students practice going from friendly, distracted,
or any other emotion to full on in an instant. Make them play music, converse, fold
clothes, write or pour tea as an armored assailant attacks. The key is that the
distraction must be natural and relaxed, not the jerky half-preparation of someone
who expects an attack.
In slow motion training, use realistic time-framing. Do not let them pretend that
“Monkey plucks jade lotus and presents to golden Buddha” is one move; do not let
them pretend that a spinning kick is just as fast as a jab.
Get used to being hit, and get used to being touched, especially on the face. For
various reasons, face contact between adults is loaded with connotations. Accidental
face contact almost always results in both students freezing and can cause an
outpouring of emotional sludge. Criminals use this by starting with an open-hand
attack to the face (called a “***** slap”) that has paralyzing psychological effects.
Teach common sensitivity. They must respond to what is happening, not to their
expectations or fears. If there are weapons mounted on the walls of your dojo and
you are practicing self-defense someone should be reaching for the weapons or
running for the door.
Forbid giving up. Winning is a habit. Fighting is a habit. Put them in positions where
they are completely immobilized and helpless and set the expectation to keep
fighting.
The Flaw in the Drill
In the end, a martial artist is training to injure, cripple or kill another human being.
However, in the dojo we cannot go about breaking our students So in any drill where
students are not regularly hospitalized there is a DELIBERATE flaw, a deliberate
break from the needs of reality introduced in the name of safety. In every drill you
teach, you must consciously know what the flaw is and make your students aware of
it.
