Defensive Grooming Gestures
Rob PincusDescription
Defensive grooming gestures are great defensive techniques for when you aren’t sure what’s going on or for when you are sure but don’t want to escalate a situation by making more overt moves. Rob Pincus demonstrates these defensive grooming gestures.
Possible Scenarios
Imagine you’re walking down the street and see a couple of kids coming toward you and gesturing to each other, or looking at you nervously, and you aren’t sure what they’re doing. Maybe they’re just making fun of you, but maybe they’re targeting you for a knock-out punch attack, or worse, a more serious crime.
You may not be ready to put your hands up in a defensive posture, or yell at them, or cross the street. If you’re just worried or suspicious, that’s ok. Healthy awareness of what’s going on around you is the first step to preventing an attack. That awareness of possibly suspicious activity should prime your defensive system and put your defensive measures into play.
Defensive Grooming Gestures
If you’re not ready to go all out in unarmed self-defense mode, a defensive grooming gesture may be an appropriate action. As you get close to the person(s), you can reach your arm up and do any of the following: scratch your head, run your fingers through your hair, rub your nose, stroke your chin, or scratch your forehead. What you are doing is preparing your hand and arm to be in a position to defend your head if someone throws a strike.
Deterrent Effect
You may also be deterring that strike, because a person loading up their arm to throw a big punch to your head may realize he can’t easily knock you out with one punch because you have your hand up
These grooming actions are subtle, natural, and very easy to do.
Let's say you're walking down the street and you see someone coming towards you that you're just not quite sure about. Maybe it's a couple of kids gesturing towards each other, and they're sort of looking at you nervously and looking at each other, and you dunno what they're doing. Maybe they're making fun of your shoes, or maybe they're targeting you for one of these knockout game punches, these thrill punches, these thrill attacks, or maybe it's a serious personal crime about to happen. You're not quite ready to stop and put your hands up in a defensive posture, you're not ready to yell at 'em, you're not even ready to cross the street. You're just a little suspicious, maybe a little worried. That's okay. That healthy awareness of what's going on around you and maybe seeing something that could be a pre-contact cue is supposed to prime your defensive system, and put your defensive measures into play. But maybe you're not ready to go all-out, and you wanna do something more subtle. And that's where a defensive grooming gesture can really come in handy. If I'm walking down a street and I see someone that might pose a threat but I'm not ready to take overt action. As I get close to them, maybe I get to within an arm's reach, I may just reach up and scratch my head. I may reach up, and if I had hair, run my hands through my hair. I might come up and just kinda scratch my goatee, maybe my beard. Maybe I'm just gonna scratch my nose or scratch my forehead. When I'm doing this, this is called a grooming gesture. But what I'm also doing is preparing my hand and my forearm to be in a position to defend my head if someone were to throw a strike. Maybe I'm also deterring that strike, because if someone's down here loading up getting ready to just throw that big haymaker punch into the side of my head and they notice that my hand is here, maybe they're gonna realize, you know what? I can't just knock this guy out with one punch, he's got his hand up, I guess I'll have to attack someone else. That's the kinda thing you wanna do. It's very subtle and it's very easy. Maybe you're talking to someone, maybe someone's agitated with you. Maybe someone's encroaching you, they're asking you for money, they're asking you what time it is, they're asking you for directions. And you're not ready to say, stay back, and get into your posture of defense and put up a fence. But you're absolutely ready for the fact that they may throw a strike at you. So maybe you're talking with your hands and they're getting a little too close, and you're just gonna come up here and just rub your eye. Well, again, this hand is in a perfect position to be a defensive tool or to strike if you need it to be. When a hand is in motion, it's also very easy to move that elbow as an elbow strike, it's easy to push that hand out and push someone away to create space. You can do a lot of things with your hands when they're already up here in motion. But if you do this, you may actually escalate the situation. Obviously, if you ball up the fist, this is a pre-fight cue, this tells somebody you are ready to fight. But this, this just tells somebody that maybe, you've had a long day. Maybe you're fighting off a headache, maybe you're just wanting to fix your hair, maybe you're wiping some sweat from your brow, maybe you got an itchy nose. Any of these grooming gestures can be great defensive techniques when you aren't quite sure what's going, on or when you absolutely are sure what's going on, but you don't wanna escalate the situation by doing something more overt. Consider a defensive grooming gesture.
Good ideas. I first learned of these gestures from Louie Lamoure books written 50 years ago. Of course Louie wasn't just a writer, but a professional boxer and tank commander during WW-II.
Subtle, but possibly effective. Nice!
Excellent subtle defensive move. Thanks.
I guess you have to guess from which side the possible strike will come from. If I am grooming my left side, I am preparing for a right handed strike. Since most people are right handed, this would seem correct. However, a left hook is pretty devastating.
If I am in a neighborhood or circumstance of serious possibility of danger. My suggestion, take my gun out, keep a distance, and let them be aware(visual) I have a gun. Better than scratching my forehead. Best way to dissuade them ! Whats to worry, that they will report you. Don't have a CCP? so what. Better than being seriously hurt or killed.. Remember, judged by 12, than carried by 6.
Your best bet is to change direction and remain aware of what they do in response, then if they feign a reason to close with some bogus question, 'interview' stance while keeping your eyes on their hands. Why not teach that?