Self Defense Tips

Personal safety is very important for us in our life; we should take it as our personal responsibility. A necessary fact to remember on the topic of personal safety is the importance of being aware of your surroundings. Ask yourself, "Am I knowing of any personal safety knowledge?" Personal crime prevention starts with the use of your common senses, easily ignored in our busy everyday lives. Ask yourself again, “Would you be able to defend yourself and your loved ones if someone were to physically attack you?” It's a question most of us don't want to care it. However, regardless of strength, size, or previous training, anyone can learn several effective self-defense techniques to protect ourselves. If crime is cannot avoid, however, to really protect yourself, you'll want to know ahead of time how to fight back effectively—it's possible even against someone bigger or stronger than you. Here are some basic self-defense techniques that can keep you safe:

According to Melanie Pinola, “depending on the position of the attacker and how close he is will determine where you will strike and with what part of your body you will employ. Do not step in closer, say, to strike his nose with your hand, when you can reach his knee with a kick. When striking a target on the upper half of the body you will use your hand. Effective strikes can be made with the outer edge of your hand in a knife hand position, a palm strike or knuckle blow for softer targets or a tightly coiled fist.” (http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2015/07/basic-self-defence-moves-everyone-should-know/) 

Below are some self defense tips provided by Melanie Pinola.

1.  Eyes: Gouging, poking, or scratching the attacker's eyes with your fingers or knuckles would be effective, as you can imagine. Besides causing a lot of pain, this should also make your escape easier by at least temporarily interfering with his vision.

2.  Nose: If the attacker is close in front of you, use the heel of your palm to strike up under his nose; throw the whole weight of your body into the move to cause the most pain and force him to loosen his grip on you. If he's behind you, you can strike his nose (from the side or front) with your elbow. Either way, aims for the nasal bones.

3.  Neck: The side of the neck is a bigger target, where both the carotid artery and jugular vein are located. You could possibly temporarily stun your attacker with a knife hand strike (all fingers held straight and tightly together, with thumb tucked and slightly bent at the knuckle) at the side of the neck. (For even more injury, you could thrust your elbow into your assailant's throat while pitching the weight of your body forward.)

4.  Knee: Knee is an ideal self-defense target, vulnerable from every angle and easily kicked without risk of your foot being grabbed. Kick the side of the knee to cause injury or partially incapacitated your attacker. Kicking the front of the knee may cause more injury but is less likely to result in imbalance.

When you're in a confrontation, you only have a few seconds and a few moves to try before the fight may be decided. Before an attacker has gained full control of you, you must do everything you can—conserving as much energy as possible—to inflict injury so you can get away. (This is no time to be civil. In a physical confrontation that calls for self-defense, it's hurt or be hurt.) So aim for the parts of the body where you can do the most damage easily: the eyes, nose, ears, neck, groin, knee, and legs.

• Use your elbows, knees, and head.

Those are the parts of the body that are most sensitive when hit. Now here are the parts of the body used most effectively for inflicting damage: your elbows, knees, and head (they're your body's bony built-in weapons). This video from Elite Defense Systems in IL explains how to defend you against three most common attacks by using these key body parts.

• Use everyday objects.

Everyday objects you carry around with you or things in your environment can also be used to your advantage as weapons. Hold a key or pen between your middle and ring finger while you're walking home in the dark for more assurance. Outdoors, you can toss some dirt or sand into your attacker's eyes. Women are often told to spray perfume or hairspray into an assailant's eyes.


by 
Lew Yee Tai
Students of Bachelor In Public Relations (Honours)
Faculty Social Science, Arts and Humanities
Tunku Abdul Rahman University College