So you've had enough banter with someone who's beong aggressive, your "fence" is up and you've manouvered into position for a good set up. You sense that this person is about to attack, so you launch your pre-emptive strike. Is that right? Not quite. It is advised that in order for a pre-emptive strike to work well, you must engage the brain of your attack a split second before you strike. Is that right? Thoughts?
I'm not really sure of what you mean by 'engage the brain of your attack' could you elaborate? Unless you mean, do you have to think before you attack?
He means you talk to the person to "derail" their train of thought and thus distract them. Then, you hit them. Hard. In a good target.
More than just talking to them you need to ask a question. Something irrelevant like - "what colour is your car?" Try as they may - they WILL think about the answer! And as they do - WHAM!
Reminds me of what my friends grandpa did back in the day. Someone was messing with him in a bar and it got to the point of going to blows very soon. So his grandpa gives the other guy a fork and says "here, use this" and then decks him
Grrr Yoda you beat me to it. In Tony Blauer terms this action is called a pattern interrupt distraction. Basically, as Yoda put it, in most cases the brain can not help but spend a moment processing the question. However, there is a caveat here. You need to be dealing with a rational attacker. This falls under the "If they talk they can be made to walk" idea. If they are still capible of communication, this works great. However, if they're enraged to the point of higher function shut down (adrenal dump, etc) then their brain may have temporarily lost the capacity to notice the question along with other things like coherent speech. Should the situation get to this point a fight is completely inescapible and it's time to start hitting and hope you connect first. - Matt
Asking a question is a form of talking, after all. But, yes I did mean ask a question I just did not specify properly. On the other hand... Making a statement might work as well as asking a question if it is the kind of topic that "grabs" people's attention. It would need to be weird, outlandish, perverted, or all of the above. How about: "Guess how big my mom's **** are!" Of course, you need to have a big stupid grin on your face and say it with lots of enthusiasm. That should cause a few of his synapses to misfire. While he ponders your sick, twisted home life you knock him out. It helps if you have some ability as an actor.
How about this: If you are wearing a baseball cap grab the bill with left hand which makes it look like you need to take it off to fight, the quickly push the hat to their face and punch through it with your right hand.
Matt, I'm not convinced. I think the brain will still register the question, but instead of trying to process an answer, it will try to process the question first. That said I'm not psychologist. What I think is important is the type of question you ask. It should be an open question, these take longer to process because the answer is more detailed than "yes" or "no". Paratus, I love your grandpa's sense of humour
Not convinced about which part? As far as the complex question vs the yes/no, I would imagine (without research) the complex question would create a larger gap. However, I also question how easy it is to construct a complex question under pressure. I can say that I recently took a gun defense course that included live (chalk training rounds) gun disarm. I was prepped for the confrontation. Having a converted .357 pointing at your chest with a live, albiet chalk, round cocked in it tends to cause a little bit of a breakdown in higher brain function. I was able to get a question out, but found that keeping it simple kept me from tripping over my own words. In fact the closest I came to getting shot (the round missed me by inches) is when I attempted to ask a complex question and used a more complex motor function. I'd rather lose a few mili seconds with a yes/no, then risk all that time by overextending my delivery system in hopes of more time. - Matt
Matt, its back to the adrenal activity again. I agree entirely that its almost impossible to think of a good question without tripping over your words, but as always this is overcome with practice. I was disagreeing with the opponent not being able to register the question, let alone process it, due to rage etc. Sorry I wasn't clear. Perhaps timing is important. If someone is already in action, then I would agree that talking, in whatever guise, is pointless (unless is a cry for help!).
Jud, Don't you know everything gets back to adrenal activity I think you made an important point in your post. Once someone stops talking due to rage/adenaline the attack is on it's way. Once the attack is in motion, talking is definitely off. So there may not be any time to ask the question. However I will point out that, having watch a raging individual be physically pulled off another person, it was the physical restraints, not the verbal commands that initally stopped that person. It took a while for him to get coherent enough that he even appear to be reacting to the verbal stimulus. - Matt
