self-defense

     Goals (and levels of readiness accordingly) can be set as:

1 To be able to stand up against one sober or a couple of drunken unarmed attackers (disregarding their weight, size and strength)

2 To be able to handle a fight with two sober unarmed attackers or a group of drunken non-professional attackers, possibly armed with cold weapons (like bottles, clubs and knives)

3 To be able to fight at least one sober attacker armed with cold weapons

4 To be able to fight two or more sober attackers armed with cold weapons

    There should be a clear understanding that in a case of physical violence a certain part of success depends on a chance or luck. In spite of any skills and alertness there is always a chance of getting serious injury or getting killed. Such chance increases dramatically if any cold weapons are involved in a conflict; in case of a presence of fire arms chances of surviving are getting less than a chance of lethal injury. However, being prepared mentally and physically, you are increasing your own chance to survive.

                                                        Mental readiness

Any physical strength and skills mean completely nothing unless they are properly used during a conflict. In a real fight there is no place for "potential" things. You either do something "here and now" or you do not.

  Situations in life can happen to you when you least expect them. There are a few crucial points you must always remember:

   First, at the very beginning of any conflict situation, even better, before anything starts, you must understand and realize clearly "why" you do want to fight and if there is a possibility to escape fighting at all. No one can define reasons except you, it is very personal. For example, is it really worth to risk your life and fight for your money during an ordinary hold-up? In many cases I would say "no"... but what if this is your only money you worked and saved hard for? Would you rather survive a rape and live? Could you live with the burden… or would you want to know you fought back with everything you have? Seeing or hearing someone pleading for help, which way would you go, knowing there is an armed gang and very likely that it would be your last fight? 

There are no answers except your answers. It is good to know your answers before anything happens. It also can be extremely hard to know the real answer, not an imaginary one, for a person who never experienced such things before. Real pain, physical or emotional, is completely different from an imaginary one. Usually experienced people can give themselves more realistic answers, although the very meaning of experience comes at a paid price. 

The good thing is that apart from experience, there can be a psychological steadiness, and such quality can be trained and improved.  Discipline is a great quality to have. That means you do what you are supposed to do in spite of how you feel about it. Fear is one of most natural feelings in a living creature; it is absolutely normal to be scared of something. You don’t even need to try to dismiss your fear. But if being scared, you still do what you have to do, that’s a great quality to have during a fight. Discipline is not a substitution for experience, neither is blind bravery, but my point is that even if you are about to do something for the first time in your life, there are things you can have to counterweight a more experienced attacker. There are a lot of examples in humans’ war history when people who never fought before had to face a stronger and experienced enemy, and they deserved a great honor in fighting.  Ones life, friends, pride, stubbornness, grief, feeling of duty, desperation - everyone had probably their own reasons. Some people were probably born soldiers and fighters, but most of them became soldiers and fighters when they had to.