This is the second time this happened to me, I failed to 'manage distance' in a 'street encounter' (at first).
We've all had this happen, we're standing in line to check out of a store, shopping cart in front of us and some dimwit either bangs into us from behind, tries to elbow us out of the way to put their stuff up on the checkout belt area, brings a big bag or article (like in Lowe's) and bang it into your from behind.
You turn around and say 'Sir, Ma'am, you're banging into me with your stuff, cart, your kid kicked me'.
They are nice and say 'sorry! Billybob, stop kicking the nice man'. Billybob, kicks you again 'like this?'.
A lot of time you can see it coming. What I'm thinking is I need to get in front of the cart, block the cart wheels with my foot so they don't use the 'Rick O'Shea' technique on you.
The reasons you want to do this and be aware of this are:
1. Situational awareness
2. Pre-emption of some kind of confrontation
3. Learning when you 'see it coming' you take steps to not be there.
So, if we've got some stuff in a cart and this starts to happen, you can:
1. Abandon
2. Fortify
3. Barrier
4. Call for a Manager (if it happens to a threshold level).
What we tend to do is:
1. Confront
2. 'Step outside' (wrong, wrong, wrong.) - if you solve it inside the store, use the manager, get the person(s) ejected or pulled elsewhere, or call 911 and say 'I'm being stalked, harassed, bothered'. You sidestep the legal system if you handle it 'outside'.
3. Leave your stuff and come back later, go to another line. (If you know something is going down in a store you need to have a signal to leave the cart and go to the car). We get 'attached' to our 'stuff' and it causes a SA fail.
4. Listen to your fear, spidey sense and don't blow it off. You could end up shooting someone over trying to get that hamburger that got left out of your bag at the delivery window (real event almost happened).
As in firearms and other close range weapons systems, the key components are 'time', 'distance' and 'cover' (or concealment). These are universals. In H2H 'cover' could mean forearm shield, peek-a-boo boxing defense (Crazy Monkey; Floyd Patterson). Time and distance could mean 'timing' or broken rhythm in H2H, and of course distance in firearms is similar to bridging the gap, ranges of fighting and effective ranges of firearms, knife attacks (Tueller drill).
But my problem with the Gracie's video is that why is a purple belt (their example) complaining because he, a sport-fighting enthusiast, was not taught by the Gracie method that you might (OMG) get punched if he took his game to the street. He blames his instructor 'why was I not told...'?
Well, he failed to 'think' about fighting, and limited it to sport strategies, and/or he thought he was all that because he could win a tournament, or maybe his affiliate didn't start out with the right 'base' (SD).
I think by the time you're a purple you should have a 10,000 foot view of SD, sportfighting, training, self-coaching.
great points... i like your threads.
on point 3 of what we do... beware if you try to get mgmt to step in and all they do is escort the troublemaker out. you exit and troublemaker is outside waiting for you all the while seething and you get blindsided.
Stick, yeah, that's OK, I'd stay in the store and call 911 OR, one thing you can do is ask the manager to escort you to your car. THey'll do that in the major grocery stores.
That's one thing that I talk about when I discuss situational awareness. A woman or elderly person goes out to their car at night. They are armed so they feel empowered. BUT, they will fail at two points. Putting the groceries in the car and getting into the drivers seat.
So armed or not, Fedor-like MMA abilities, you can't beat having a manager walking to your car and helping you load the stuff in. IOW, then two pairs of eyes and two people beat firearms and MMA skillz.
Thanks for the kind words.