Copyright © Geoff Thompson 2004
The right of Geoff Thompson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
No part of this book may be reproduced by any means, nor transmitted, nor translated into a machine language, without the written permission of the publisher.

Priming – putting a fence around your factory

‘Attack is the secret of defence: defence is the planning of an attack.’
Sun Tzu

In this chapter we are working on the premise that you have already exhausted all other options, i.e. avoidance, escape and verbal dissuasion. Most self-defence situations and attack scenarios, as mentioned in the previous chapters, issue rays of prior warning if you are perceptive enough to spot the attacker’s ritual. If you are foolhardy enough to heighten your vulnerability by placing yourself in a dangerous situation (like walking down a dark alley at night) you cannot expect any prior warning and will have to make the best of a bad situation. You then fall into the ambush attack. Most people in society are so switched off, both mentally and environmentally, that many attack scenarios fall into the ambush variety. If this is so, and it so often is, you will be fighting tooth and nail for your very existence. The majority do not survive the ambush attack.

Previously I talked about the verbal communication (four ‘D’s) that nearly always precedes an attack upon the person and the victim who is quite often disarmed or shocked rigid by it. The time lapse between the disarming or scarifying verbal (which can be very short) and the attack itself is your time. During these seconds the victim may seize the moment, as it were, and be pre-emptive, effecting attack/escape, or elongate the verbal by replying to the aforementioned dialogue with aggressive counter-verbal, unbalancing the attacker’s psyche.

These seconds before battle are absolutely pivotal and must be managed quickly and without demur; remember, hesitancy begets defeat. This arena is that of the three second fighter.

When the police talk about self-protection the key is target hardening – we mentioned this earlier in the book – that is, making yourself a hard target by means of placement and awareness of environment and the enemy. When I talk about the physical aspect of self-protection I am always working on the premise that, for whatever reason, a situation has gone beyond this and reached dire straits and the possibility of escape is no longer an option or that option has been lost.

As I have just said, pre-fight management is vital if you want to survive intact. Who wins and who loses in most situations is usually determined by what happens pre-fight as opposed to in-fight. Most situations start at conversation range, this being talking or handshake distance. If this is mismanaged it degenerates rather quickly to vertical grappling range and then ground fighting – not a good place to be if you don’t know the arena. While conversation distance is not the chosen range of the majority – most people feel safer at about four or five feet – it can be maintained so that it does not degenerate further into grappling range by ‘putting a fence around your factory’.

If you had a factory that you wanted to protect from robbers the most sensible thing to do would be to place a fence around it to make it a hard target so that a potential robber has got to get past that fence before he can even think about attacking the factory. While the fence might not keep him out indefinitely it will make his job decidedly harder. Rather like a boxer who constantly flicks a jab into his opponent’s face, even if that jab does not hurt his opponent it still keeps him at bay, and if his opponent wants to employ his knock out blow he first has to find a way past his opponent’s jab. To the boxer the jab is the fence around his factory.

In self-protection the fence around your factory is your lead hand, placed in that all-important space between you and your antagonist to maintain a safe gap.

Like the factory fence the lead hand will not keep an aggressor at bay forever – just long enough for you to initiate an escape or a pre-emptive attack – but it will place you in charge, even though your aggressor may not know it. Placed correctly the lead hand will not only maintain a safe gap but it will also disable the attacker’s armoury of right- and left-hand techniques/ head-butts etc. Though he may not know it on a conscious level he will instinctively realise that, until that fence has been removed or by-passed, his techniques have no clear way through.

SENSORY TENTACLE

The lead hand should be held in a non-aggressive way (see illustrations) and should not touch the aggressor unless he makes a forward movement and tries to bridge the gap between you and him. It acts as a sensory guide to your aggressor’s intentions; if he moves forward he will touch the fence and set your alarm bells ringing – this forward movement should be checked so as to maintain the safe range by using the palm of the lead hand on the aggressor’s chest. Don’t hold the touch as this may be seen by your assailant, on a conscious level, as a controlling movement (while of course it is a controlling action, it’s better at this stage that the aggressor does not feel that you are in control). This will force him to knock your hand away or grab your wrist and possibly cause him to attack you prematurely, so as soon as you have checked him return the lead hand to its standby position.

One of the final subliminal precursors to an aggressor’s attack is distance close down. If he tries to bridge the gap that you are maintaining it is usually because he is making his final preparations for assault, so if he does move forward and touch the fence you should, as well as checking range, be getting ready to make a pre-emptive attack or suffer the consequences should he break down the fence. In my opinion the maximum amount of times that a potential attacker should be allowed to touch the fence is twice – after that you’ve got big problems and will probably end up in a match fight situation or on the floor with a crowd around you, depending upon the calibre of fighter you are facing. Every time the attacker touches the fence the danger doubles.

The fence should look and feel natural; this will come with practice. If it doesn’t and the attacker notices it on a conscious level he will try to knock it away and bridge the gap. Ideally the fence should be fluid, always moving, like you are using your hands to talk.

A professional may notice the fence no matter how well you disguise it and try using deceptive dialogue or body language to bring the fence down. Once down he will act. This often entails telling you that he does not want trouble, or that he just wants to talk; he may ask directions, the time, your name, anything to disarm you enough to lower the fence. An experienced fighter will offer to shake hands to get rid of the fence or try to close the gap by putting his arm around your shoulder in a pally kind of way. Don’t have any of it – if there is the slightest chance of threat then don’t let anyone touch you; a good fighter will only need one shot once the fence is down, so keep it up. If he still persists in coming forward and you don’t feel ready to strike, or indeed are not even sure that a strike is called for, don’t hesitate to back-up the check with a firm verbal fence: ‘Just stay where you are’.

With the modern enemy the rule of thumb is ‘if his lips are moving he’s lying’ so don’t believe a word that he says. If he still persists in coming forward then he has given you the ‘go’. Having said all that, if the potential attacker has already made his intentions obvious by demanding your wallet or threatening you then there is nothing to contemplate: you should go the first time he touches the fence.

RANGE FINDER

The fence also acts as a range finder. Many trained fighters misjudge the distance of their attacks in a real situation because the range is foreign to them. By touching the opponent with the lead hand before initiating your attack you can judge the exact distance, giving you a more accurate and solid shot.

ACTION TRIGGER

If and when you have decided to initiate an attack the lead hand also acts as a physical action trigger. You touch the opponent with the lead hand, finding the range, and bounce off the touch using it to trigger your attack. This should be coupled with the verbal brain engaging action trigger detailed earlier.

MULTIPLE ATTACKERS

The fence can also be used to maintain the range and even position of multiple attackers, but this is tantamount to fighting on more than one front. It is very difficult to maintain the range of more than one attacker and a speedy decision to attack or escape should always be sought.

The fence can be constructed in any way you choose as long as it blocks the gap and looks inoffensive. You can use a stop fence by placing the palm of the lead hand in front of the opponent, but this will bring the control to a conscious level and may catalyse alarm in the opponent. Where possible it is best to control him without him knowing it.

HERE ARE A COUPLE OF SUGGESTED FENCES:

The pleading fence (PF)

This is a nice fence because it is submissive and inoffensive but it blocks range beautifully. It also leaves the fingers ideally placed for an eye attack should it be needed. It is often best to underline the fence with firm dissuasive dialogue: ‘look, just keep away from me, I don’t want trouble’ or a more assertive ‘stay where you are – don’t come any closer.’

Being submissive is ideal if you have decided that you are going to employ a pre-emptive attack or you are using the deception to escape. It will mentally disarm your opponent, making him an easy target. It has a bad point, however. Many attackers will see submissiveness as a meal ticket to an easy victim and spur on their assault, which is OK if you are setting the trap but not so good if you are not expecting it. Personally I use the submissive approach quite a lot because it really does disarm the opponent and give you a clear line for the sniper attack option, whereas other times I will use an assertive, even aggressive fence, to psyche out the opponent.

Assertiveness can be a good thing and a bad thing. If the attacker thinks that you are confident it may cause him to abort his intended attack, but if he is committed to attacking you no matter what, your assertiveness may trigger his aggression and you may lose the element of surprise and give him added adrenal turbo.

Having spent a lot of time working with and controlling violent people, I have learned to judge the right time for assertiveness and the right time for submissiveness. Not every one will be able to do this, so if you have to choose and there is no other way, use submissiveness to disarm and then attack and run, or use firm (but not aggressive) or submissive verbal dissuasion.

Both hands are placed in front of you, palms facing the attacker and several inches away from him but not touching.

The staggered fence (SF)

Similar to the PF with palms facing forward but with the hands staggered by about one foot, the hand at the back would be the ideal one used to attack though with practice the lead hand would be ideally placed for a finger strike to the eyes.

The exclamation fence (EF)

The hands, palms upward, are held as though in exclamation, the lead left hand pushed forward as fence and the right hand, cocked to strike, to your own right hand side (left if reversed).

The verbal fence

The verbal fence is an excellent tool if you can see menace on its way in and works well pre-fight, in-fight and post-fight. I have used it successfully many times. An extract from my book Watch My Back exemplifies a post-fight fence rather well:

‘The fight with “The Karate Kid” had been on the cards for several months, I’d tried to avoid it but was unable. I pick up the situation as it reached its conclusion – the post-fight fence comes in at the end of the fight when one of his friends becomes involved [this was a match fight by the way].

‘I’d spent two months trying to avoid this situation and was fed up with trying, I had no more chances left in my “chance bag”.

‘As The Karate Kid got closer his face began to grimace and I sensed he was going to strike at any moment.

‘“BANG!”

Almost in slow motion, I hooked my right fist onto his advancing jaw, pushing it backwards, shaking his grey matter into the realms of unconsciousness. As he fell I volleyed his face and he spiralled, like movie strobe. I kicked him so hard that it hurt my foot. I felt hate leaving my body; he landed face down and forlorn on the cruel, black tarmac of defeat. Many people were watching, so I thought I’d give them a display, not for exhibitionism, nor fun, nor ego, I just wanted to take out a little insurance. Making the onlookers [mostly his mates] think that I was an animal would, in the future, insure that they did not tangle with me. It’s what the Chinese call “killing a chicken to train a monkey”.

‘“Kiaaa!” I screamed as I brought an axe kick onto the body of my sleeping quarry. To the onlooker, it probably looked barbaric [which is how I wanted it to look], but in reality the kick was empty, I pulled it on impact, just as I had a thousand times in training.

‘The man with the weasel face [The Karate Kid’s mate] ran at me, from the crowd of onlookers, with ill intent and I stopped him in his tracks with a lash of my tongue [the verbal fence].

‘“GER OUT ’F MY FUCKING FACE BEFORE I DESTROY YA!”

‘I pointed at him to underline my resolve. He stopped like an insect on fly paper.’

Unlike the varying genres of physical fence the verbal fence is best aggressive – the more so the better – it has to pierce the opponent’s subconscious and register danger with the brain, causing an adrenal reaction in him that, hopefully, he will mistake for fear.

In America they have a saying in the prisons: ‘give me five feet’. This means ‘keep at least five feet away from me’, five feet being the distance they feel they are relatively safe at. This only works if you’re aware enough to spot menace at a very early stage. More often than not a fight will come through an argument or some kind of aggressive verbal so the five feet rule is already lost and the physical fence comes into play.

If you are using the verbal fence you must, as I have said, be very firm, even aggressive.

‘Stay where you are, don’t come any closer, stay!’

This would be underlined by placing your lead hand in front of you in a stop sign.

This can even work in-fight if someone tries to attack you whilst you are fighting or defending yourself. I have been grappling on the floor with one opponent when his mate has tried to join in against me. Noticing this I used an in-fight fence by telling the guy that if he joined in I was going to batter him afterwards. He quickly changed his mind.

Pre-fight verbal fence

I’m trying to find a way to write this now so that it does not sound over-complicated. Here goes. If you use the verbal fence pre-fight it is important to create a gap – about five feet would be good – between you and him with a sharp shove, using the lead hand fence. It’s very hard to control an opponent with a verbal fence when they are already in your face. So if the situation has reached an impasse and you think it is going to become physical, but you do not want to make a preemptive attack for whatever reason, then shove him hard on the chest so that it knocks him backwards and out of immediate attacking range (this may take some practice in the gym with training partners). This minimal physical contact will also cause an adrenal release in the opponent. Then back the shove up with a very aggressive verbal fence, even using expletives to add aggression. The reason for the gap is many fold but not least that it takes the opponent out of his striking range. What it also does is take the opponent from a state of reaction to a state of response. Let me explain. If you shove the opponent but not out of range he may automatically react to the shove with an attack of his own. He’ll do this without even thinking; it will be very easy for him because it’ll be an automatic response. In effect, by staying within strike range you are forcing the opponent into a fight response. His instincts will inform him that he is cornered and that he should fight his way out. That is not a good thing for obvious reasons. If however you shove him out of attack range you will trigger his flight response and give him the instinct to run or freeze. Even if he does not run away, the fact that he feels like running away will cause confusion, which triggers more adrenalin, and then you have the downward spiral to capitulation.

Once you have created the gap and the confusion, the opponent is forced out of a reactional mode and into a response mode, which means that now, if he wants to attack, he has to be able to consciously override all natural instincts and move forward. This very often leads to the sticky feet syndrome. He may really want to move forward but his feet appear stuck to the floor, his body lurches forward as though trying to move but his feet stay stuck firmly to the ground. To add to this effect and to make yourself a hard target you can add ballooning or stalking. This is done by pacing left to right without taking your eyes off the opponent, at the same time shouting out verbal commands, ‘stay there, don’t move!’ and pointing to the opponent, this acting as a back-up fence to the verbal.

Interestingly, the ballooning triggers innate fears within the opponent that go right back to the dawn of man when we were not at the top of the food chain and were the prey of bigger animals. This will only add to the opponent’s woe if he thinks that he is being stalked like a wild beast. If you watch the cheetah when he hunts the antelope he balloons or stalks before he attacks; in fact most animals do it, we are no exception. It can be used by us as an attacking tool to trick the opponent into a flight response, or against us – often inadvertently – to effect the same freeze tendencies.

The psychological fence

The psychological fence is a fighter’s reputation or confident/aggressive gait – this places an invisible fence around you that only the very brave will try to pass.

The negative psychological fence

Deliberately dropping the physical or psychological fence by pretending to be scared or unthreatening can draw the opponent forward onto your intended attack. He walks into a trap.

The invisible fence

An experienced player will use what I call the invisible fence. That is, he will have the confidence and experience to face an opponent or opponents without employing a physical fence. He knows his range and his enemy so well that he can sense when there will be movement and he can feel bad intent. If his opponent moves forward he will move back or use a stop hit attack instinctively.

On the one hand the physical fence will control range and prime your attack. On the other hand, if you are not sure whether to strike or not, the fence allows you time to maintain a relatively safe range whilst you plan a course of action – bearing in mind that decision-making this late in the game is not a good thing, though sometimes it is unavoidable.

Sir Winston Churchill once said that occasionally people stumble upon the truth – and then get back up and wander off as though nothing happened. The truth is that in the three second fight, the fence is one of the best, if not the best, little techniques available for controlling the early stages of an altercation, but it is so simple that many people often fail to see its importance. It is too easy and they are looking for something more advanced or fantastic. To be honest the advanced stuff, the fantastic stuff, only works in the James Bond films. The fence should therefore become the bedrock of all your physical self-protection work. Ignore it at your own peril.

ATTACKING OFF THE FENCE

As formerly mentioned, if you find it necessary to initiate a pre-emptive strike, then attack off the fence. What you use as an attacking tool is your personal choice; out of necessity it is best to employ your strongest, most comfortable attack. There is nothing to gain and everything to lose if you throw anything less.

The attack is your chosen main artillery technique and whilst many techniques should be practised and perfected, one or two, the ones that work best for you, should be taken to one side and isolated. These will be the techniques used in your sniper option.

There is no sense in beating about the bush and saying that main artillery can be taken from any range because they can’t. If punching range is the one most often given in a real situation then that is where the main artillery should be drawn from. Having said that I always think it is wise to have one or two very strong techniques at every range; after all a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

So hand techniques are the order of the day, and there is little point in manufacturing another range when the one you are in is the most clinical anyway. Kicking and grappling range are far from clinical: they are, at best, elongated ranges where it usually takes several blows or seconds to finish an adversary as opposed to the split second it can take to finish a fight with a good hand technique. Punching range is also a very mobile range and a good puncher can move through several opponents in as many seconds. If you beg to differ then I respect your opinion but please don’t try and convince me, have an animal day (a training session where the participants fight all out with very few rules and any range is allowed) at your own club and see for yourself. When you watch someone like the brilliant Rick Young teach trapping it makes you realise what a valid part of your armoury it can be, but even Rick will probably tell you that it is an incidental range used to back up main artillery technique. Basic trapping therefore is a valid (though very small) part of the support system. A fight goes from talking distance to in-your-face in the blink of an eye.

People often ask me what is the best means of physical defence and I always reply ‘learn to hit fucking hard’, and that’s the bottom line. Learn how to hit very very hard and you’ll come out of most situations on top, but please learn to do it from the right range. It’s one thing being able to hit hard from a comfortable range and from a guard position or perhaps even using combination to build momentum and power, but how well will you fare when the distance you are used to is halved and you have to punch from a no-guard position? It’s a completely different ball game so it is important to train your techniques as close to reality as possible. Then the step from dojo to street is not such a big one. If you are used to compliance in training you’ve got a very big shock coming to you when the shit hits the fan.

In the vast majority of situations I have been involved in I have used a left lead fence to set up a right-handed punch – sometimes a cross, sometimes a hook. My base was, and is, almost always a very small left lead forty-five degree stance and I always ask a question before I strike to trigger my action and to engage the opponent’s brain. Other people I have worked with preferred a left-lead stance and a right-hand fence, punching with a left hook off the lead leg; others still favoured a left-lead fence from a left-lead stance and attacked with a pummelling head-butt. The lead hand or reverse hand finger strike is also a good stopping technique.

It’s worth remembering that your opponent will be experiencing tunnel vision as a by-product of adrenal reaction. In real terms this means that by placing your attacking hand, left or right, slightly outside of his tunnel vision you can strike him without him seeing the blow.

The following illustrations are some of the favoured off-fence attacks.

Here are a few of the more common ‘line-up’ techniques taken from a fence:

RIGHT CROSS/HOOK

Thrown from the rear of a left-leading stance: can be tremendously powerful and effective. Its only real infirmity is that, because it is thrown from the rear leg, it can be slightly telegraphed.

From a right-lead stance this technique may be executed using the left-hand.

LEFT HOOK

Thrown from the front leg of a left-lead stance. If employed by a ‘practised’ pugilist, this punch can be very destructive. Because it is thrown from the front leg it is less telegraphed than other techniques and it has less distance to travel to the target. Because of the high skill factor involved it is not a recommended punch for the novice.

HEAD-BUTT

An attack method that inflicts a huge amount of pain, usually directed at the opponent’s nose. If executed correctly utilising the body weight it can cause enormous damage to an adversary, though it is not known as a knockout technique.

As a final point on attack, don’t ever pull your technique. If a situation has got so bad that you are forced to hit someone to protect yourself then they deserve everything they get. Pulling your technique is the quickest way to the graveyard, so either attack all out or do not attack at all. The only exception to this rule is if you are very experienced and feel you can judge the potency of your attacker. I was often faced with people that were not enough of a threat to demand a good hiding so I would use an adrenalin switch to psyche them out and thus beat them without coming to arms. This takes a lot of experience and unless you are very experienced, don’t take the chance.

It is also my recommendation that, once you have hit your opponent, you make good your escape. The only time you need to finish off an opponent is when he is still a threat; if he is not then there is no need. I know this contradicts some of the things I have said in

Watch My Back but that (bouncing) is a different arena where many rules have to be broken to keep the peace long term. I have seen many people go for a finish when a finish was not necessary, and lose as a consequence. Use the distraction of your attack to make good an escape. That’s my advice if the situation is a selfdefence one; if it is a fight situation you may need to stay and finish off.

but that (bouncing) is a different arena where many rules have to be broken to keep the peace long term. I have seen many people go for a finish when a finish was not necessary, and lose as a consequence. Use the distraction of your attack to make good an escape. That’s my advice if the situation is a selfdefence one; if it is a fight situation you may need to stay and finish off.

ACTION TRIGGER

This is a word or sentence that you can use to trigger action. When facing potential menace it is very often difficult to initiate a physical response, never quite knowing the right time to attack. A key word or sentence will take away decision making. Your chosen word/sentence will automatically initiate your attack. The trigger word/sentence can be any of your choosing. Preferably it should be a submissive question as opposed to a flat statement, as this will serve the triple purpose of switching off the opponent’s adrenalin, brain engagement and action trigger. The submissive question is also a subliminal intimation that you wish to prolong the conversation, whereas shorter sentences, certainly single syllables, send the message that conversation is coming to an end.

While the flat statement, ‘I don’t want trouble’, is submissive and can act as an action trigger, it does not adequately engage the brain because it does not demand an answer. Neither does it suggest that you wish to prolong the conversation. Even an abstract question has that triple purpose because of the confusion factor, for example ‘how did the City get on today?’ What has the City result got to do with the situation in hand?

Of course this all works nicely in the context of the four ‘D’s, your multi-faceted question being deception and distraction before a decision to fight (destruction) or flight. If the antagonist proffers a question, you may wish your pre-emptive blurb to be in the guise of an answer to it, or you may wish to feign deafness by saying, ‘Sorry mate, I didn’t hear you. What did you say?’

SUMMARY

Once you have put up the fence and lined up the antagonist with your chosen technique (this should be done within the first seconds of any confrontation) and you are sure that an attack upon your person is imminent, utilise the response sequence previously detailed. If you have to attack, distract and engage your opponent’s brain with your chosen trigger then, if no other option is open to you, make a pre-emptive strike from your pre-cocked ‘line-up’ position. Your engaging verbal should veil your attack.

I also try not to ask a question that can be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’, e.g. ‘can we talk about this?’ It does not engage the brain as well as a question that demands a longer answer, such as, ‘what are you trying to say?’

One thing is certain: the longer you take to act, the graver the situation becomes, especially when faced with more than one antagonist. Time is of the essence, so don’t waste even a second.