Target Areas for Defense with a Stick

Here's another important video from the Personal Defense Network. Self defense is all about stopping power, so what we need to look at is how to use an impact tool to stop an attack or stop an attacker. The easiest way to do that is to target the parts of his body that allow him to be dangerous to you. It's the quickest and most efficient way to shut him down. So if we look at the context that you would be using an impact tool, he's gonna be swinging some type of contact distance weapon at you, you're using your impact tool against him. The primary danger that he's presenting to you is the weapon that he's wielding, so our first target is gonna be his ability to grip that weapon. If we look at the fingers, the hand, all the bony structures in the wrist and the forearms itself, that's what we're gonna be striking with the stick, ideally, to take away his grip on the weapon. That's also something that he's gonna be extending toward us and giving us the opportunity to hit him right off the bat. The next thing we're gonna look at is his ability to wield that weapon. So what we're looking at there is the motion of the shoulder, the function of the upper arm. So by striking the elbow itself, by striking the collarbone, the point of the shoulder, all the structures in the upper arm that allow him to wield the weapon, that's our next target priority. Finally, what we're gonna look at is his mobility. When we look at being able to stop an attack, if we can stop somebody with a contact distance weapon from being able to deliver that weapon to us, it's a great way to stay safe. With an impact tool, one of the primary targets we wanna go after is gonna be his lower leg. Striking to the upper leg doesn't work very well with an impact tool because you're striking into muscle, but hitting the knee itself, either from the front or either side, hitting the shin, hitting the ankle, any of these structures are very easy to break with a stick or other impact tool. If you can take his leg out of the fight you can take him out of the fight, create distance and create your opportunity for escape. Now, you may be wondering why we're not striking to the head. We do consider the head to be a valid target, especially when we're talking about very short impact tools. But the problem with the head is, we still have not taken the real danger out of the fight. We haven't taken away his ability to wield the weapon and it's an indirect approach to solving the problem. What you're trying to do is strike him and either knock him out or create enough disorientation to where he can't use the tool effectively. Until you've done that, until you've bypassed his weapon and gotten to his head, you haven't accomplished that. By targeting the parts of his body that make him dangerous to you, you solve the problem much more efficiently, much more effectively. Check out more videos just like this one at the Personal Defense Network.