When Violence Is the Answer: Learning How to Do What It Takes When Your Life Is at Stake

by Tim Larkin

because the body follows the mind, effective combat is all about shutting down your opponent’s most valuable weapon—his brain.

Ninety-nine times out of one hundred, the answer will not be violence. It will be avoidance or de-escalation. But that one time when violence is the answer, make no mistake, it will be the only answer.

Social aggression is about competition; asocial violence is about destruction.

In the midst of a violent encounter, to think merely of “defending” yourself—rather than incapacitating your opponent—is essentially to curl up in a ball and hope for the best.

The tools to protect yourself against lethal violence are much more accessible than you think. You don’t have to earn a black belt or put on an extra fifty pounds of muscle. You do have to learn about the vulnerabilities that make all human bodies equal, and you do have to build the intent to take advantage of those vulnerabilities in time to save your life.

Targets are entry points for maximum force at places on the body that are critical for normal functioning and are often prone to injury.

Whether something “hurts” your opponent is irrelevant; what matters is whether it breaks and incapacitates.

A bullet flies straight, fast, and true. It goes in, through, and out the other side of whatever stands in its way. That should be how you think about applying the principles of violence in a life-or-death situation.

there are more than seventy anatomical areas on the human body that can trigger the same incapacitating reflex if injured.*

fearlessness is never far from recklessness.

There’s a huge difference between pain and injury. Pain hurts, and then it’s gone. Injury is lingering and long-lasting.