Rory Miller's Blog, page 36

Values in Sparring

This is a preview/think-out-loud for the print edition of "Drills" that should be out in 2012. The publisher wants added material, so that it can compete with the e-book version. That's fine. I'm going to add a section on sparring. Different types, different purposes.
The thing that hits me again and again about lots of drills is that what we are learning (or simply ingraining, creating a habit without any awareness) is rarely what we think we are learning. That's huge for instructors, too-- You may not be teaching what you think you are. There's a video out of some instructors 'woofing,' screaming horrible, rude things in student's (largely women) faces. The instructors are certain they are conditioning women to the emotional context of an attack. But the women are practicing, rep after rep, letting a threatening individual invade their space, take a position of physical and psychological dominance, and the women practice doing nothing.
Sparring, at any level, is a special case. Humans mistake intensity for truth. Things that trigger bigger reactions- fear or anger or exultation- simply feel more real than than the drudgery of day to day. In almost any given martial art, sparring is the most intense training methodology and feels 'more real' than any other exercise. Humans rarely question such a natural feeling. Most have never had their roulette table moment.
That means that any bad habits learned by sparring are learned deeply. And there must be bad habits. The essence of martial arts is the manufacture of cripples and corpses. If you have never crippled or killed anyone in training either what you do doesn't work or, more likely, you have also learned flaws with every drill. Those flaws are critical in any live training. Never forget that you are practicing at least as many reps of not hurting people as you are of hurting people.
Sparring is not a fight simulation. Maybe most types of sparring are intended that way and certainly people believe that they are, but the math doesn't work. At some point two oiled-up guys in speedos of the same weight getting together face to face without weapons at an appointed place (without obstacles) and time to work under an agreed set of restrictions somehow became 'reality fighting.' It's not, and if you feel a need to defend it as "as real as it gets" take a deep breath and think for a second.
So lets start there. MMA contact sparring/competition. It covers a lot of skills and it is pretty damn effective at what it does-- which is prepare you for MMA competition. I don't think that's it's real purpose, though. The real purpose is deeper than that. There has been a long evolution of coming up with the best venue for testing ourselves. Boxing and wrestling always tested the essence of manhood-- strength and speed and endurance and toughness and smarts. By making it broader, MMA added an incredibly valuable level of mental flexibility. MMA deepened how far you can go with strategy. At higher levels all contact sports are strategy sports. MMA took that to a new level. If you want to find out who you really are, MMA is the way.
There is lots in there that applies to self-defense. Same with any of the contact martial sports. People who get hit regularly have a huge advantage over people that don't (until the concussions start to add up.) People who actually hit moving targets are way ahead of people who hit air. The fact that it hurts... damn, people, fighting hurts. It shouldn't be a revelation to anyone. And pain is a great motivator to train harder.
It's good training, but it predicates on bad strategy-- equal people, weapons, techniques, location, no surprise. All that jazz. If this is your gig, be sure to spend some time working solutions when you give the opponent 50 pounds of weight advantage and your back. It can be done, it has been done. But if (again) you have this urge to come up with excuses about why it is impossible, you've confused the game (MMA) with the solution.
Similar stuff goes for all the heavy contact stuff. Boxers are formidable fighters because they are used to taking and giving hits. There is something fundamentally fucked up in martial arts if being 'used to taking and giving hits' is special. That's the natural environment of a fight, people. That said, there is also something fundamentally screwed up about a fighting style that has its own fracture. When boxers do use their skills in real life far too often their hands are shattered. Outside of the safety equipment (tape and gloves) the essential weapon of boxing is more likely to hospitalize or cripple the guy using it than the guy it is used on. That's a whoops. What does boxing develop? Courage, and that is huge.
Moving and controlling a body is one of the core skills of fighting. You will learn this in a grappling art (especially one with throws) better than anywhere else. It is huge and important. It makes everything else easier ("Position before submission!") Good grapplers/throwers will also teach you much of what you need to know to handle bigger and stronger people, especially if they are old-school enough to practice without weight classes. Definitely spend some time here... but it is not fighting. In a fight, moving and controlling a body is intended for another purpose, like escape or disabling. In order to get really good at grappling, people often forget the context-- bad guys and weapons and obstacles and "Why am I here?"
As a general rule, if your grappling changes a lot when the other guy has a knife, you were probably a little too caught up in the game side. Or, to phrase it another way: If you grapple differently when the threat has a knife you were probably doing it wrong when he didn't.
And then straight non- or controlled-contact kumite. This was the big epiphany in Minnesota, at least as regards sparring. Marc has a drill he calls the 3-2-1. I will probably misrepresent it here. For the pure version, work with him. But my understanding (or misunderstanding) is damn useful, so here it is:
There are ranges and positions where someone can stand and hit you without any telegraph. The threat has to be in range (drop-step exception) and have their limbs in certain positions. This is a code red thing, or what Marc calls "1". The bad guy can hit you in one motion.
For the most part that's not true. Even in range, most positions require you to shift your center of gravity (CoG) before delivering power (again, there is an exception for the drop step. I love the drop step). Marc calls this a "two". It will take two motions, a precursor and the attack itself, to do you any harm.
"Three" means the threat has to change his foot position (and the drop step, in certain positions turns all three to a one... very cool) as well as shift CoG.
I spent a lot of time in close proximity to very bad people. More than a few commented on how relaxed I was. It's powerful. Relaxation can be disconcerting, it makes the criminal think that you know something he doesn't. This was why I could do that. Not only could I tell if the bad guy could reach me, I knew, in advance, exactly what he would have to do or where he would have to shift his center in order to attack. I knew when I was safe and I knew exactly what to watch for should the threat try to move.
These are critical skills in point sparring. Minor, maybe, and nothing like what I though I was learning (timing and strategy and ...) But killer skills in the real world.

It Was Sort of Awesome

Just got back from the Secret Giant Violence-Prone Play Group. Very cool.
First, the concept behind the VPPG:KJ and I started ours a year or two ago. The original notice is here:http://chirontraining.com/Site/VPPG.html
I've had a few people ask about joining who aren't from around here, which won't work really well. Here's the deal, and the format. Nothing is written in stone, so if you decide to form one, do it your way.
There comes a point in everyone's life/career where they should start running out of instructors, or at least start running into questions that the available people can't answer. It happens in every science, and that is how science keeps growing. Everyone, if you've been doing martial arts for a while, should have a 'mystery': "What are the principles behind X?" "What are my options if..." "Does technique Y or drill Q really help? What is it really teaching/ingraining?" "How do I teach ____?"
Stuff like that, and even more. If you don't have questions you might be in your comfort zone. Or brainwashed. Or maybe dead. If all of your questions can be answered by your available resources, you need to get out more. That's my opinion.
So the idea behind the original VPPG was to get together people we respect from the widest variety of backgrounds possible. Not a lot of people-- any group that is willing to play at that level will be pretty small. We get together when schedule allows (rarely, right now, since two of the other key members have regular jobs and I'm traveling most weekends).
The format goes like this, "Kevin, what are you working on?""Well, I've been trying to figure out how to..."Then we all brainstorm it.Then we go bang. Pressure test. Scenario. What-if. Levels of contact matter because there are some things that can only be evaluated at certain levels of contact... so it has to be a group that we trust for everything from judgment to contact to first-aid skills.
When we are all good and sweaty, and maybe have some insights or (gasp!) answers, we go back to the circle and the next person kicks out a question.
Question, brainstorm, bang. That simple.
R&M (we never really discussed how secret the secret VPPG last weekend would be, so I won't use names) asked me months ago if I could set up a perfect VPPG, who would I want?
Two very different reality instructors. Two top eclectic practitioners. Two weapons guys. Two super-traditional.*
M offered a venue, R pressured me to set a date...and with about two months lead time, I sent out invitations. The group of eight I envisioned was a group of five. Which isn't bad for the phenomenally busy people that were invited.
Two days and nights in a remote piece of northern California. Hikes, shooting, brawling and brainstorming. It was sort of awesome. I got to play a little and talk extensively with someone I've admired for a long time. Got to look at the thought process behind his teaching (for almost everyone, how and why they teach is far more valuable to me than what they teach.)
Played flow. Brainstormed operator problems, and having operators and martial artists there made for an interesting synergy because each worked really hard to make sure the other side understood the underlying problems. Got called on some of my own bullshit, "You say it's a bad habit to practice moving straight back and yet you love fencing. Isn't that pretty linear?" Touche.
I think everyone left with pages of notes, plans, new ideas. Some got answers and I think everyone found a blindspot or two.
So my legs are sore, face sunburned, and a new scratch is scabbing nicely. Very nice.
*Which is another blindspot. I have access to some pretty extraordinary sport MAs and it never occurred to me to add two of them. Hmmmmm.

Obsolete Technique

Used to be, back in the day, (imagine a reedy, old-man voice) we sometimes had to go in on combative inmates without weapons or armor.
For whatever reason, you had to pull a guy out of his cell. Used to be for any disciplinary reason: he was tearing things up or making so much noise the other inmates couldn't sleep. Nowadays, we would just let them vent. In order to be a Threat, a person must have Intent, Means and Opportunity to hurt you. Going into the cell would give Opportunity, the third element. We would be responsible for making him a danger. So only self-harm (for which there is always Opportunity) really justifies entering.
So the tactical problem, back in the day, was that you would have to go into a concrete cell through a standard (except for the steel reinforcing-- standard sized) doorway. On an inmate who can see you clearly, is completely prepared for you, may have weapons, sometimes made armor out of blankets and occasionally soaped the floor. Commonly in a boxing stance just inside the door.
Even in Corrections, at least in our system, this is an obsolete problem. But before the Team and pinning shields, when no one was allowed to carry OC (pepper spray) or Tasers, it both common and dangerous. An unarmed or semi-unarmed classic 'funnel of death' problem. Only one person could go through the door at a time...
It's obsolete even for Corrections. Enforcement always had force options available, so this never was an issue. For citizens, there is no intelligent reason to close the distance on someone who is prepared to fight you. That makes it a remarkably useless technique, but technique isn't the point. It's all the nuances that made it work that apply to everything.
What follows is the first actual technique I came up with as a DT instructor. Sgt. Gatzke presented the problem.
It's simple, really. Hands up, non-threatening, you approach while talking. As you get to the Critical Distance Line you drop-step hard and fast, forward and very slightly off-line to his lead side, pass/parry the lead hand and voila, you are at his flank or behind him, out of the danger zone and with a plethora of options.
Approaching, hands up and non-threatening. Hands are in some version of the Fence (as described by Al Peasland who learned it from Geoff Thompson). Lots of people screw this up. If you look angry or tense, like you are ready to fight, not only will the threat have a better chance of clocking you when you make your move, the tension will slow you down. You must carry yourself like you believe talking will defuse the situation.
The second killer little detail is that you must walk unnaturally. Humans are direct-register animals, like cats. When the left foot goes forward, the right hand goes forward. In this instance, your right side moves together. Done fluidly enough, I've never had a threat notice.
As you get to the critical distance line. You must be able to read exactly when the Threat can reach you. Most of the ones I've used this on seemed to have boxing backgrounds and I needed to know exactly when I was coming in range for the jab. You had to be able to read when any shift in feet or center of gravity altered the critical distance line or loaded a different limb.
You must time it so that you will cross the Critical Distance Line with the mirror side. If the Threat is in a left lead, you must cross the CDL with your right hand and foot. That makes the distance for your drop-step and parry as short as possible. Short distance makes for better speed.
And you must be smooth. If you try to adjust your footing on the way in, the walk will be unnatural and the Threat will know something is up. You can't stutter-step or skip to get to the CDL with the right foot forward.
While talking. Sort of. You also want to judge the distance and speed of approach such that when you cross the CDL, the Threat is talking. Not critical, I've made this work on a number of Threats who were stone silent and watchful. But if you can get him talking there will be an additional delay, just a fraction of a second, before he figures out what is going on. For that matter, look at everything going on in this technique and see how much of it is about shaving fractions of seconds. Talking guys have slower reflexes.
Drop-step. A good drop-step is an incredible power and speed multiplier. Unless you can throw yourself to your feet from a push-up one handed, you fall harder than your arms can hit. Because gravity is always on, there is no delay and no natural telegraph. Unless you screw it up with hesitation movements or weird breathing or something, you will be moving before the threat sees, and probably finished moving before he can react.
The drop step is slightly off line. You don't want to fall into him or into his punch. You fall (and can add a fencer's lunge for more distance but DO NOT sacrifice the drop step and surprise by loading the lunge) to just outside his lead foot. The angle takes you off line of jabs and crosses. The drop tends to protect you from high hooks and roundhouse punches. Low hook you would have seen coming from his hand position at the start.
The drop step has to be practiced, by the way, and I've seen some very odd things called drop steps.
Pass/parry his lead hand. I learned it as the mirror block decades ago. Hard to describe in print. Basically, both open hands make part of a circle. The lead (right hand for this example) has the palm to the left and comes from belly button to ear, ending with the back of the hand right near the left ear. The left hand, palm facing right, follows from the other rim of the circular action.
You don't block. Ideally, your drop-step was just enough out of line that the punch, if it happens, missed with no contact. The mirror block is just a form of insurance, with the added benefit that that the left hand will come in contact with the leverage point at the distal end of the humerus. Especially if you have practiced forearm rolls, you will have the leverage and power to completely turn even a much larger man.
Oh, and trained karate guys tend to screw this up because they point their fingers up like a shuto block, which costs them four inches compared to the far more comfortable technique known as a handshake.
This all puts you in his dead zone, that special place on the rear flank where it is very difficult for him to apply power. You have force options ranging from a simple off-balancing push (or an ear-splitting scream I guess, if you want a very low force option) through spine controls, joint locks, damaging and crippling strikes all the way up to lethal force.
Again, don't nut up on the technique. It's obsolete anyway. Just as in breaking two fighters apart there is a lot more to think about than just the technique. How people walk naturally and how to exploit that. The need to train your eye for reading range and balance shifts. Application of gravity for speed. How communication affects reaction time. Lots of stuff.

Minnesota Mini-Debrief

First of all, it was a great week. Eight days of training, 10-12 hour days except for one (that was just eight). Except for ConCom, this was the first time Kasey, Marc and I have watched each other teach our material.
Even ConCom we split and did solo. Marc and I have done a few ConCom classes each over the last year and we usually talk afterwards. It's become really apparent that we get different questions from our students. Questions coming up are a sign that something is being missed. If one instructor is getting the questions, there is something in the presentation that is less clear... so it was a good chance to watch each other talk and see what and why.
Couple of things deserve whole posts: True value in sparring (found it!) More convinced than ever that a lot of training paradigms are crappy for what we think they are and really, really good at developing abilities we aren't even aware of.
Pre- and post-internet language and instruction. Touched on this before, but a few things have to come together to get useful insight in certain areas. Not a lot of people in any given area have a complete package. Even fewer, before the internet, wrote anything down. That's created a network of private languages and theories for similar observation. Interestingly, it's also created an etiquette that feels natural to the people raised with it.
The ConCom issues are big, even and maybe especially in teaching. Saw excellent examples of that.
Symbiotic adversaries. Take two longevity-oriented groups who have their identities based on being enemies. Neither side can ever 'win' without losing. Neither can let the other win. Even when they agree, they must highlight the differences...
Do some things need to be taught? Or is just playing with the ideas better?
And maybe a technique post, an obsolete thing that I teach because of everything that goes into making it work.
There was more. Kasey could apply the body mechanics of sword to take-downs in a tactical entry because body mechanics don't change. We used different words but all three of us talked about structure and motion and core, smooth versus staccato or explosive, damage versus pushing or unbalancing. 'Gifts' became common shorthand. My esoteric sounding 'big wave' body mechanics are exactly the same as Marc's "It's just exactly like puking, bro." Make the connections.
DTs taught in coordination with force law and local policies. Knives the way bad guys learn them. Brainstorming each class of violence from the point of view of the perpetrator. We even got some range time. Five inch pattern at seven yards. I am way out of practice.

East Coast Good News

Jeff Burger ("All it takes is all you got"), after years of teaching in other people's schools, has finally opened his own. It's in Peabody, MA (which is pronounced sort of like pibedy there).
This makes me happy and this is the big news I've been sitting on since I was in Boston, patiently (ha!) waiting for the official announcement.
Jeff is part of my ECBT (East Coast Brain Trust), one of a handful of people I go to for reality checks, advice and ego control. It's a pleasure to drink coffee with someone with such deep experience. Jeff stories: Once upon a time, a young karate kid decided to try kungfu, but it was right at the beginning of the kungfu craze and he was observant enough to notice that all the new kungfu schools were just new signs on old karate schools. "Hmmmm, what to do?" he thought. It seemed logical that he must go to China.
So he learned some Cantonese (completely wrong dialect for where he was going) and went. His first exposure was one of the tourist trap, state-run schools. It struck him as suspiciously easy. So he picked the best instructors and asked where they had trained...and he wound up in a far more dingy, far less comfortable training center with very few tourists and tons of hard work. He loved it.
Then he got curious and did the same thing in Thailand to learn Muay Thai. Again, not at one of the resorts pretending to be a school. At the place where the poor kids hoping to break out of poverty and into a little fortune and fame trained to give and take a beating.
So, in Jeff, you've got a guy who can and has taught pro MMA fighters how to improve their strikes and clinch work...and he can also teach stuff like rope dart and iron fan. And tai chi, but I hear he's looking for a yoga instructor to rent some time in his building. Evidently he can't teach that. Yet. If he decides to, he'll probably feel compelled to go to India.
Two other things. He's a former bad guy. Not super bad, but he's spent enough time in that strata that much of the bullshit in self-defense training won't get past his filters. When he teaches SD he is teaching how to deal with someone the way he used to be, how to deal with predators that he knows very well.
Last thing- unlike yours truly, Jeff teaches kids, and he (and Jess) are good with them. He's run a non-profit for years to get MA classes to kids who can't afford them (or, I guess, technically, to get the kids to the classes, but you know what I mean.)
He credits martial arts with giving him a reason not to become a criminal. He uses the K.I.C.K. program to pay that forward.

"Hi" From Minnesota

At some point I have every intention of getting some sleep.
Swords with Kasey yesterday, a nice class showing the physics of sword and how that applies to takedowns (primarily) and other aspects of force. It was a blast, and I always like playing in the gray areas between my training and someone else's-- especially someone who is good that I absolutely respect. Got to bang with western sword as well, a little.
Today, taught ConCom to a group of (primarily) LEOs. Seemed to go well. Actually it seemed to go very well and cops tend to be a tough audience, but I never think my teaching is good enough. Hopefully that will be incentive to always improve.
Tomorrow I get to watch Marc teach his "Martial Mechanics" class for the first time. Later in the week, high- and low-level defensive tactics (Me); edged weapons (Marc); Environmental fighting (Me)... some other little classes as well as a day on the range with the local SWAT. Lots of stuff. Not so much sleep.
And good talks, too. Kasey is one of the (despite his age, he's relatively young) old-school tactical operators. Work hard, laugh much, keep the world safe. Have a cigar and some nice scotch when you can look around and your part of the world is safe... Surrounds himself with good people as well.
Still some class times available:http://chirontraining.com/Site/Home.html
-----------------Lots of comments on the last post. Too tired and rushed to review them all, but I want to make sure that the point is not lost: Size (strength, speed, ferocity...anything you can name) does matter. But it's not a binary thing and never has been. 'Matter' does not mean the same as "If you have more X than I do, life is hopeless." And it's not just harder or easier. It changes more than that, sideways things.
It changes the value of evasion.It changes the relative value of the principle of conservation of momentum.It changes the importance of environmental fighting.It reorganizes the relative values of the MPDS paradigm from Meditations.
Lots of stuff. You can't fight big guys the way you fight small guys. It's a different problem. In friendly matches with friends I think the most weight I've ever given up and won was about 240 pounds. Only around 100 with real criminals. Ergo, I have some confidence that it can be done... but I also know damn well that I would have failed in those matches or fights if I'd tried to go toe to toe. I've also been surprised by a very, very good MMA kid who used a technique on me that a bigger man could not physically have done (If you're reading this, Joey L. that was awesome).
If you are studying with someone who gets his feedback from sport with weight classes, not only might you not learn the techniques, mindset or principles that have to be emphasized when fighting, defending from or attacking a bigger person, you won't even be exposed to the concepts. And if you aren't careful, you might wind up in a weird state of denial.

Big and Bad

This is one of the things that is so obvious I sometimes don't mention it at all. It only comes up when someone says something about fighting different sizes and the only way to get to that conclusion is to miss this point...and that's weird, because I don't think you can miss this point. I believe that you must choose to be willfully and actively blind to miss it.
You don't fight very large people and very small people the same. It's an entire galaxy of reasons, from differing legal justifications (very unlikely that the force you need to stop an angry 100 kilo guy is the same force you need to stop an angry 40 kilo guy) to different angles (a foot difference in shoulder hight is a foot difference in the origin of all the hand strike attack angles) to different dead zone sizes and different access to the dead zones. The threat's lever arms are different lengths and the mass you need to control with those lever arms can vary widely.
It's not just that you take the skills in your weight class and take on someone three weight classes up and do your stuff harder or better or more. The things that work are qualitatively different.
Take the elbow leverage point, (what Al Arsenault calls, "the magic place"). At around my weight class I can reliably control the threat's entire upper body. Someone smaller, unless they have extraordinary rooting, I can get absolute control with one hand. But on an immensely strong or big threat, it takes all my structure to turn or to prevent him from turning and the wonderful control technique buys me time to get to someplace else and do something else.
And that's not all. If I have the edge in size and strength, I can work the elbow point with unidirectional power-- just push where I need the threat's shoulder (and then spine and pelvis) to go. With the super strong, I tend to shock-stop it and wait for the recovery power I know is coming and use that.
We all know this. If you have any exposure to judo at all you know that some throws are very difficult to make work against some body types, and some may be difficult depending on your own body type. Full-entry hip throws work great short-and-stocky versus tall-and-lanky but are hard to work the other way. The momentum throws tend to work great against strong, aggressive people in a fight, but not very well in matches at all.
Simple and obvious things-- whether you go over the humerus or under it to turn a body at close range is a matter of comparative height. So is the efficiency of working the back of the neck versus the chin. Head hunting on someone a foot or more taller is completely different (and loses a lot of efficiency).
There's more going on than just size or strength, or even just the threat's size and strength for that matter... but it's still one of those things so obvious that it might be missed.

Crabs in a Pot

The bad thing with any major life change is that circumstances conspire to prevent you from changing. That's how it seems, anyway. One of the reasons so few people really change, even when they are living a life with a definite expiration date, is that they stay in the same environment with the same people.
You decide to change profoundly and give up crime and drugs... how do you think your druggy criminal friends will respond to that? We all know it's harder to give up any bad habit, like smoking, when we spend time with people that smoke.
One friend uses the analogy of crabs in a crabpot. If one did figure out how to climb free, the others would pull him back. Changing your life affects the homeostasis of all those around you. Maybe they don't want to live with the constant reminder that if you can change so could they. Maybe it's darker and they want you to fail so that the part of the brain that's afraid of all change can point to you as an example and keep from trying at all. Maybe...
But there are other crabs in your own mind, things that pull you back. I'm watching two people right now that have made huge gains and it looks to me like they are about to lose it all. That's what has me thinking. But in small ways, we all self-sabotage to prevent change, including success. Some write and don't publish. Everyone has great ideas that they don't try to produce (why have I never got around to substituting the peanuts in a Snickers bar for coffee beans and sold them on college campuses?)
Everyone, with just a few minutes thinking can come up with a plan to make life better. Profoundly better. Almost none will ever write down the plan or execute the steps. Those that do have found a pair of super-powers, planning and execution. But most won't. Crabs in the head hold them back. "That's for special people, not you." "You'd just fail anyway, it would be better not to try."
The crabs in our head hold us back with whispers, not claws.

Simple Brutality, Brutal Simplicity

The title is a quote from Kris Wilder.
Another thought from the week of insane business:Fighting is complicated and hard and can take quite some time to learn.
Hurting, damaging, injuring, killing (whatever level of harm you wish to invoke) is relatively easy, and often the matter of a simple decision.
If you and I were standing in arms reach you could take me out.  Orientation wouldn't matter-- standing side by side on the deck or walking past each other or sitting on the bus.  If size and strength were too disparate, you simply employ a tool.  All provided you could simply decide and act.
Most can't.  Physically, most people have a host of precursor motions and telegraphs and intention signals.  Mentally, it's not enough to simply have a good reason.  Most people need a justification as well (killing someone to protect yourself or your children is a reason.  "Because he was a bad guy" or "He was a piece of shit" are justifications.)  Killing animals 'for food' is reason enough.  We don't need to be angry, don't need to convince ourselves that the animal is bad. Socially, most people must go through steps as the conflict escalates, must seek hooks so that they can blame their own violence on the victim.
And so we have a tendency to kill animals, but to fight humans.  And everything about fighting is inefficient.  Bullshit dominance games played out physically.
And so, for self-defense, you don't 'fight off' and attacker.  You hurt him.  You make him pay.  If necessary, you kill him.  But you don't fight.  He's a human too, and may have needed both a reason and a justification and all that jazz... which meant he wouldn't have picked you if he had any concerns about winning the fight.  Work on conditioning and skill.  They will never harm you.  They will take you off the target list for many predators.
But if you, or your students, are on that list, the skills needed are qualitatively different than simply being a good fighter.  You need to know how to break a human being (the easy part) and you need to be able to make the simple decision to do so.  Not fantasize about the decision, not imagine your heroics.  Simply decide and act.

1234

"1234" was our code word for mentally ill or emotionally disturbed. Crazy. "I've got a twelve thirty-four..." We used to joke that their should be a "Two-four-six-eight" for the ones that were twice as crazy as usual.
Sometimes, teaching a Conflict Communications course, one of the students will be in a Mental Health field and will ask about dealing with the mentally ill, or a cop will ask about dealing with someone in extreme emotional crisis.  THat was my job for a long time.  There are techniques and stuff to know and ways to talk... but most of what I learned came from an attitude.
I admired these guys.  Understand that I was working with severely mentally ill people in a jail.  Mental illness is one thing.  Some (but not all) were also pure criminals.  Most, outside of the jail, were homeless.  How many people do you know, including yourself, that could handle being homeless?  Could figure out where to get food and shelter and clothes and the occasional shower?
Add to that that you can't even trust your own mind.  Not all of the things you see and hear are real.  You are sometimes compelled to do things you don't want to do or can't force yourself to do things you need to do...
"I know Sarge, I do better on meds and I'm happier when I'm on meds, but I can't make myself want to take them..."
And these guys (and gals) survived.  They didn't thrive, not by any stretch of the definition, but they survived.  Would I?  Dumpster diving and hustling would be hard enough, coming from my old-school pioneer stoic background (Stoics suck at panhandling) but not knowing if the person I was begging from was even real?
Every time I looked at the inmates in the Mental Health units, every time I was tempted to look down on them or feel superior, all I had to do was look at the other officers or counselors or nurses or myself and wonder if we would even have survived.
Same with criminals, and this is a weirder line to cross.  There are many, many violent criminals, some extremely depraved, that I got along well with.  To put it another way, there were a few that I would play chess with and listen to their problems and even counsel that I would shoot without hesitation if I saw them near my children.  As people, I got along with them. As predators, my job was to stop them cold.  It wasn't an either/or thing.  Both.  At all times.
Most, at least most of the ones I knew, were raised to be criminals.  Daddy a drug dealer and pimp, mommy a drug addict and whore.  Extended family and many friends and some of the neighborhood similar.  Sometimes you wanted to bang your head.  What was the rite of passage in your family/group to be a 'real man'?  First deer?  First time getting laid?
For one family I knew from jail, it was prison.  Not jail, jail didn't count. "Hard time" a violent felony and more than a year sentence were prerequisites to being a man.  They couldn't wait until they were eighteen and it became a possibility...
Raised in this environment, some profoundly antisocial things made sense.  Lying was constant, since giving up information in that environment was unsafe.  Trust is stupid.  Intimidation is fine but showing anger? When you felt anger you showed a smiley face and got a weapon.
Like a lot of officers, I don't believe in rehabilitation.  We simply haven't seen it work.  You raise a violent criminal's self-esteem he gets more, not less, violent.  I have enough background in psychology to be able to tell how individual studies were fudged.
But sometimes I think we made a difference.  When someone who had been raised to lie and con as the only effective ways, short of violence, to get what he wanted would start the long story and we'd say, "Eddy, you don't need to hustle me.  Tell me what you want and if it's within the rules, no problem.  You don't have to work so hard."
I don't know how many, if any, really changed.  But showing someone raised in the criminal subculture that there was sometimes a better way, that sometimes they could get what they want without lying, without pissing people off, that there was an effective solution that was safer...
They had never learned, growing up, that sometimes it was safe and effective just to ask.  That away from their family and friends and subculture people being out to screw you was the exception instead of the norm.
So, I don't think I ever rehabilitated anyone.  But teaching a few that there were less damaging ways that were safe and effective may have been small steps to habilitating a few.
"You can't rehabilitate someone who was never habilitated in the first place."-- Don't remember who said it, one of my instructors two decades ago.