LS2 tries...Self-defence

With student crime allegedly rising, LS investigates self-defence

By Adam Richardson

“Go on, try it!” cried a voice from the newspaper office. Five days later I was running around the Conference Hall like an 11 year old at school.

I had signed myself up to a self-defence class, and having introduced myself to the group, we got to work on a quick warm up jog round one of the Union’s larger rooms before getting onto the art of self-defence.

Run in collaboration between the Knowledge campaign and Ben Hockman, a former University of Leeds student, these free classes are there for students to learn some basic self-defence. But the hope is that you never have to use any of the techniques taught.

Having been well and truly warmed up, we set about learning how to hit to get away. The common conception of the punch is to ball up your fist and then hit the guy with as much force as you possess. This, apart from being ineffective, will leave you with a broken fist. The way to hit someone to get away is to open your palm and hit with your palm, whilst also using your body weight. This means that there is a bigger area to hit someone with, but also lessens the damage to yourself.

Self-defence is considered by many as an area that they don’t want to go into based on the hope that ‘it will never happen to them’, so part of the session was devoted to explaining the role of the law in cases of self-defence. Many fear reprisals in the law courts if someone is injured whilst you defend yourself. However, the law is quite clea

r on matters of self-defence. The accused must show that he used reasonable force to defend himself, another person, or to protect property, in circumstances where it was necessary for him to do so.  The question of ‘reasonable force’ will always be a tricky one to pin down, but courts take consideration of the circumstances.

The latest self-defence classes organised by Leeds University Union and the Metropolitan Union have been fully booked. I posed the question to Ben whether people were more scared than years ago. He replied: “There has been a definite increase in numbers attending self-defence classes. 15 years ago there were not the same amount of self-defence instructors as there are today, so that shows that it has grown into something that people actively do.”

Back at the class, we were being taught how to kick someone. Again, it is all about using your body weight, not just your foot. Part of the problem of teaching someone self-defence, is the mental barrier. Most people aren’t used to hitting anybody, so kicking or punching someone who has cornered you can be a problem.

At the start of the session, most of the group (including myself) were apprehensive about hitting the protective pads, which highlighted the problem. However, as the session progressed, we became more confident. My partner got so into it that at one point he hit the pad so hard it hit me in the face, which led rather to a bleeding lip. The irony wasn’t lost on me!

The idea behind self-defence is that it will try to help you to buy yourself a few seconds in which to get away if you are in a potentially dangerous situation. This can be by punching or kicking someone, as it is less risky and easier to deal with if you can use pre-emptive force.

However, if someone has a choke hold on you, just lift your arm that has been grabbed and turn at the same time. This puts pressure on the aggressors thumb, which makes it impossible to maintain a grip, thereby forcing the aggressors hands away. One, or a combination, of the moves we were taught earlier could be used to stun an attacker to ensure enough time to get away.

Self-defence is all about learning how to manoeuvre out of a tricky situation, but the one thing that was constantly relayed to us was that to use force as a last resort. Always try to use reason if at all possible. However, if you are attacked, do not be afraid to use the requisite force to get away.  

Another technique we were taught was how to move someone if they are on top of you, such as in a rape scenario. If they are, just use your foot to force one of their legs down. The body is like a table you see, if one leg collapses, the structure falls too.

However, our final task of the session was highly enjoyable, as we tested our newly acquired techniques on the most passive of victims, an orange. Using our techniques, our oranges were squished, splatted and flattened by palms. Not only was this tremendous fun, but it also proved that people now had the confidence within them to hit the orange hard enough.

Warmed down, I found some time to speak to Ben after the session. I asked him whether people were more scared of being attacked in 2010. He responded by saying: “People probably are more scared of attack these days. They are certainly more aware of it happening.” 

He wondered whether it was the media which had made people more concerned about their personal safety: “There is definitely an increase in fear of crime, whether this relates more to media exposure or to an actual increase in crime, it’s hard to tell. Certain violent assaults, such as knife crime, have certainly increased.”

Self-defence is something that everyone should have a basic grasp of, and it is fairly simple to get a basic understanding. For just two hours of my time, I may have learned something that could be the difference between being seriously hurt and getting away safely.