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Defusion is an art in itself
(GM Keith Kernspecht shown) |
I was conducting some pre-fight work with my students yesterday, something I had neglected to do for some time. While watching the role-plays I had set up pan out, I was a little dismayed at some understandable but obvious errors almost all were making. I had to quickly correct them.
The scene was the common scenario of someone in an aggravated state moving in on their target and closing the distance to zero while being verbally abusive. The intent is, of course, to invade their victim’s personal space in a classic gesture of animal dominance. The specific instruction to the student playing the aggressor was to move in so close that the foreheads of both students were touching, while maintaining verbal aggression.
The students were to first experience that forehead contact a couple of times while being abused, as a desensitisation experience. They were then told to place their hands up in a defensive, palms-out position to prevent body contact, physically redirecting the aggressor while seeking to verbally defuse the situation. If the aggressor turned physical, a number of response-actions were taught but the initial aim was to defuse the situation not physically escalate then terminate it.
The aim of the exercise was to practise the skill of maintaining personal safety but without resorting to physical violence — on the presumption that it was a valid option in the circumstances. A multitude of mistakes were made, reminding me I needed to ensure more practise was given to this phase of a confrontation.
There were two standout errors. Firstly, being overly physical with their hands in putting up a fence. Secondly, verbally instructing the aggressor to “calm down” or “chill out”.
The first error was clearly a lack of appreciation and skill in applying physical force through their hand control, which was meant to be firm enough to deflect the continued forward motion of the aggressor but soft enough to not be consciously registered as a controlling force.
The students were laying far too firm a hand on their partners, some bouncing them off in another direction — hardly an action that would defuse such a situation in real life. Subtle physical control accompanied with defusing verbal dialogue is the aim.
The second problem exhibited by my students, in telling the aggressor to calm down, is a little more invidious. It is common and almost instinctual to just blurt that out when facing an emotionally aggressive individual, but it is one of the least helpful things you can say in such circumstances.
To direct someone who is emotionally upset to ‘chill out’ is in effect to negate their feelings of the moment; to effectively state they are wrong for behaving that way and they need to correct that by changing their behaviour. It just sets up a solid emotional barrier against which their emotional energy will crash.
The first rule of verbal self-defence is to deal with and reduce the emotion of the situation (I did say reduce, not remove), if you are going to resolve a situation without resorting to force. So, you either say something that just absorbs their emotional attack or goes at 90 degrees to it, to redirect it just as we do for physical force. Even more important than the words are the tone, pitch and volume of speech, and particularly critical is the accompanying body language.
Take a typical scenario where you are subject to a verbal assault, where the intent of the other person is to upset you emotionally. An example of an absorbing response is to say something bland such as ‘thanks for pointing that out’. Or you could just nod, as an acknowledgement that a statement was made, but give it no energy by reacting negatively or aggressively to it. Our natural reaction is, of course, to respond in kind and then the situation will spiral out of
our control.
Look upon their verbal assault as that of an adult who for the moment has become overcome by their emotion and so has reverted to being like a child; a kid in the schoolyard calling another kid names. Their capacity to act as a rational adult has, for the moment, been lost. But for you to respond in the same vein means you have joined them in the schoolyard.
In contrast, while directing this person to ‘chill out’ or ‘calm down’ is not childlike, it is, however, acting like a parent telling the child off. And how do you think the child will react to that?
Graham Kuerschner is a 41-year veteran of the martial arts and an instructor in six systems. He can be contacted through his website at www.sdtactics.com.au.
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