What is Self-Protection?

 

   “Everyone knows that self-defence is a matter of learning a few simple strikes and grappling techniques so that you can disable or escape from an attacker. Sadly, everyone who knows that is wrong. Self-defence begins with you; the process of protecting yourself begins long before a confrontation develops. However, the term has acquired certain connotations that can make it’s use misleading.

   Words like “self-defence” mean different things to different people, so we will draw a distinction between self-defence and self-protection for the sake of clarity.

 

• “Self-Defence” refers to the skills of fighting, evasion and fleeing that are used to thwart an attack that is imminent or already taking place.

 

• “Self-Protection” encompasses many layers, one of which is the act of self-defence. Self-protection also includes alertness, target hardening, confrontation management and a host of other skills used to avoid, deter or prevent attacks – or to deal with them if they do happen.

 

   Self-protection is about acknowledging that there is a risk of attack, weighing it, and acting accordingly. That is not to say that you should be afraid. You have every right not to be. What you should be is aware. Aware of the dangers, aware of what you can do about them, aware that you are worth protecting and aware that you know how to protect yourself. There are many layers to self-protection. Defeating a physical assault is the final stage in the process of self-protection when all other measures have failed.

 

   Self-protection begins when you take the (rather intimidating) step of admitting that there are people out there who may choose to attack you. From there it is a small step to analysing how, when and why that they might do that, and taking steps to reduce the risks. Fighting (or “self-defence”) skills, and tools such as rape alarms, fall into the category of back-up plans; they are there if you need them, but it’s much, much better not to have to use them.”

 

   Excerpt from “The Self Defence Manual”.  Used with permission from Martin.J.Dougherty; author of the book, SDF member, and all round good bloke!