July 30, 2026

All You Want is Self-Defense??

If you’re interested in self-defense, not learning a martial art, not becoming a martial artist, this is for you. You see, learning a martial art is much different than “mere” self-defense. It means becoming the weapon. It means changing yourself through the discipline, mind and body. You probably already sense that in one respect, don’t you? What we want to do here is clarify what you already suspect through common sense.

If your goal is making sure you simply aren’t an easy victim but you already have other disciplines and commitments in your life so that learning a martial art isn’t your goal, that’s reasonable. What isn’t reasonable, by the way, is simply drifting along without commitment in life. We weren’t created by God to just exist and consume, but to develop great skill in something. In fact, that’s what Kung Fu means: great skill gained through focused effort over time. In other words, commitment and hard work. Kung-fu doesn’t mean fighting; it’s the recognition of the skill of an artist, a craftsman, a teacher, and so on. This modern American nonsense, and it’s dangerous nonsense, of :just wanting to be happy” without dedication to a craft, truly mastering it, and serving other through it, is exactly why we have so much depression and anxiety.

But that’s another blog for another day.

So, back to self-defense.

First, don’t do stupid things! Like getting drunk. If we simply eliminate that one behavior we rule out tons of potential trouble. It’s been said that alcohol is liquid courage. That’s not accurate. In truth, it’s liquid stupidity. Alcohol makes men and women the worst versions of themselves and, therefore, puts them in danger. Self defense rule number one: stay sober!

Number two is stay alert in public. No one is aware of their surroundings all the time. You don’t have to be Jason Bourne to have reasonable survival instincts. The trick is to not bury your face in your phone, or have your head in the clouds in transitional places like parking lots. That way you’ll be aware of something (or somebody) that seems weird. Again, it’s common sense and you already know this. Stay alert to anything that seems out of the ordinary or suspicious. That and being sober go hand in hand.

Third, don’t go to stupid places where there are stupid people doing stupid things. This can be said to be an extension of staying sober but warrants its own category. Some places are simply more dangerous than others and you already know that. If you’re in your house during the wee hours you’re a whole lot safer than if you’re at a Waffle House in North Charleston. Or in downtown Baltimore. Or Chicago.

Fourth, basic home safety. Get a dog if you can. A barking dog is a premier alarm system given to you by God. The dog doesn’t need good WiFi. Food and water and a nice walk and you’re good to go. You don’t need a dog that could kill a bear in combat, just one that’s willing to bark. And fight. If you have a hamster you call a dog (and I’m not judging you here), that’s fine, but you must be the fighter. The dog will alert you but isn’t much good beyond that if your average toddler can drop kick it across the room. On that count, if you’d like to be judged by a pet while you’re brutally murdered, get a cat. There’s nothing like the contemptuous feline looking on as your life is being snuffed out.

An alarm system won’t hurt either.

Then, for basic home defense, get a shotgun. If you’re small, or don’t have much experience (or any) with firearms, a 20-gauge youth model is great because it has less kick. A 12-gauge kicks. Like a mule. The thing is, the bad guy doesn’t want to get shot with either. The 20-gauge is still much more powerful than any handgun, so there’s that. But you need to take a few classes on how to run that weapon safely and properly. It’s worth devoting a few weekends of your time because, contrary to popular opinion, it does need to be aimed and you absolutely need to understand the tool you’re using. If you have a really big and aggressive dog, you might not need anything past that, which is why we started with the dog.

We pause to address the gun bros out there who have a small armory and think you should too. Listen, it’s all about being reasonable. If you’re engaged in the drug trade, have a meth lab in your cellar, routinely heap abuse on John Wick’s dog whenever you can, or owe money to the mob, you need more firepower. Most Americans, however, will not be the target of a small military force for home invasion, nor attacked by a former Delta Force super-soldier. A dog and shotgun will be fine to meet reasonable and ordinary self-defense challenges.

Next for home safety, is lock the doors! You’d be surprised by how often the very worst things happen because of something so simple. An unlocked door or open window is dangerous negligence. In one famous case, a woman was doing yard work in her backyard while her police officer husband slept upstairs. It was daytime and he worked night shifts. A man found her in the yard and raped her. While her husband slept. As he was leaving he said, “in the future, lock your door.”

Okay…now for the fighting stuff.

Get some mace. Or a small knife. Or a concealed handgun if you want. We’re not going to cover everything here, but when you’re out of the house, those tools work very well if you have them within reach and can quickly deploy them. But even still, allow me this: unless you put in lots of reps and become, as we said, a martial artist, you can’t count on your reaction being professional under pressure. That’s why a “self-defense” school or seminar can be a con if you aren’t careful. If you’re in a class learning self-defense, you’re learning a martial art. You can’t, repeat can’t, just learn a few quick moves, never practice them after you’ve done your seminar or gotten your belt, and count on that in a life-or-death struggle. Again: a self-defense school is teaching a martial art system. The teacher must be honest with the student about this. The problem is, many so-called teachers don’t know it themselves. They live in a martial art bubble inside their school.

When you say, self-defense, you’re talking about the moral right to defend yourself against unwarranted (immoral) aggression. How you do that is where a martial system gets involved. We’ve talked about avoidance. Actual fighting requires technique and tactics, and those require study and training. If you’re looking for kid’s karate classes so that your child can learn discipline and character, great. If you’re looking for self-defense classes, you need to be more specific. What style is being taught and by whom? We teach Jeet Kune Do, Wing Chun and boxing in Greenville, South Carolina. If we were teaching the same things in, say, Ukraine, which is at war right now as you may have heard, that would alter the tactical approach. Follow this? When you’re learning a martial art, you’re becoming the weapon, mind and body. You are taught to understand context.

If you have no interest in all that, and here’s where the logic leads, regardless of whether the point is comfortable or not, don’t bother with learning anything specific. Run! I mean it. Learn to play keep away with your body. Stay in shape so that you can move quickly and with necessary agility to avoid a fight. Remember: you don’t have to beat the guy. You’re the defender. It comes down to a viciously practical survival mindset! Keep moving because it’s always harder to hit a moving target. Use barriers. Run around your car, the kitchen island, the couch. Throw things. Scratch. Claw. Bite.

Is this perfect? Of course not. Nothing is. That’s the truth.

People often ask me what I’d do if I was attacked. I have been, though and that’s the issue. I’ve been in fights, sporting and otherwise, and have a good understanding of the nature of the beast as well as of my functional capacity. The question isn’t what a professional martial artist can do but what you can do. Under pressure! If you aren’t willing, for whatever reason, and many of them perfectly valid, to devote yourself to becoming an expert in a martial art, just follow these simple rules of safety and avoidance. And then, if you’re unlucky, do everything you can to just get out of there.

I leave you with Jennifer Lopez.

A very beautiful lady, sure, but the point is her role as a battered woman in the movie Enough. She tried avoidance and it kept failing. What did she do? She did exactly what we’re talking about here and she became the weapon. She learned Krav Maga. She put in the time and the reps and transformed herself into a martial artist. She mastered fear not by denying it but by becoming stronger than the threat. That’s the point. Don’t go halfway with this or be confused. Truly learning a martial art is a great thing. I love being a part of the process of helping someone who was once weak become an expert. I love the arts I teach and absolutely love the moral principles of self-defense. Hopefully, this article helped clear up some of the confusion.