If you have good reason to think that you might be in harm's way, studying self defense tactics is a strong choice for 'best way to spend your time'. There's little more frightening than having someone determined to hurt you and having no idea what to do about it. Fortunately, there are some simple things you can learn -- mental tricks, physical maneuvers, and spiritual disciplines -- that can turn the tables on your attacker with surprising ease.
Mental Tricks
Attackers rely on your fear to make their job easy. They expect you to cower, run, hide, stumble, fumble, and generally fail. There are a lot of various opinions on how to get over this, but there is one mental trick that always works: hurt him. That means spending some time, every day, to imagine in great detail that you are being attacked. Imagine the feelings of resentment and anger coalescing in the pit of your stomach, and imagine striking back with complete intent to kill. The more vividly you picture it in your mind, the more easily that feeling will surface when the moment finally comes, and fear will be replaced with focused outrage.
As a side benefit, the imagination, when clearly used, actually does train muscle memory. That's why sports stars, martial artists, and other people in physical occupations spend so much time discussing the benefits of visualization. It can prepare you, mentally, emotionally, and physically, for being attacked, and if you aren't prepared, the best self defense tactics in the world won't help you.
Physical Maneuvers
There are such a wide variety of physical maneuvers from such a wide variety of disciplines, from martial arts to military self defense courses, that to even compile a list of the top 1% would be too long for a small novel. But there are three truly simple moves that will momentarily incapacitate and inflict pain on any attacker.
Gouge the Eyes: Even a light touch to either eye will force a blink, and any decent impact will cause flinching and watering of the eyes -- a few precious seconds you can use to escape or set up a more devastating counterattack.
Strike the Throat: Any decent impact on the throat will cause gagging, reflexive back stepping, and distraction. Hit it hard enough, and you'll incapacitate your foe for several seconds.
Clap and Rip the Ears: Clapping someone on the ears can cause dizziness, deafness, and pain -- but following that clap up with an earnest and violent attempt to remove the ears in question follows that stunned moment up with an abiding panic that tells your attacker that you are deadly serious.
Spiritual Disciplines
"Spiritual" might be an odd word when discussing self defense tactics, especially if you're familiar with one of the more pragmatic perspectives like the military self defense style. But it's a simple fact that people who believe they will survive, do. Whether you're talking about recovering from cancer or surviving a beating: the stronger your reason for living and the more certain your faith in whatever you believe in, the more likely you are to survive.
That doesn't mean you should enter a fight believing God will protect you -- in this case as in any other, fortune favors the prepared. But if you know that someone out there is really, genuinely ready to harm you, it pays to make your spiritual peace.
None of these tricks involve a lot of study or training. That can be a good thing if you're in such danger that you don't have time. If you have any ability, of course, it's critical that you obtain instruction in self defense tactics from a reputable source as soon as possible. Having a few tricks up your sleeve doesn't begin to compare to having real experience with self defense tactics.
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