STANCE AND MOVEMENT IN DIALOG

The situation dictate the spoken word and the stance. Your prime weapons are your forearms/hands, they will be the first of your limps to touch/hit your opponent. They must be risen and ready, elbows in line of your hips, hands a bit turned to the outside, signalling a passive and partly submissive stance.

If your hands are down, behind your back or in your pockets, you won’t stand a chance to defend against a sucker-punch.

From here your hands and body language must follow the situation. If your opponent is having “low” hands, then your hands must follow this line, is the situation getting more tens, then our hands must be more firm to mark your border and distance. Make yourselves comfortable with your hands in front of your body, train different hand positions. For some the “Italian hands” is natural, for others it doesn’t work. The most important thing is to be in control of any forward movement without being obvious.

Find out what works for you but let your everyday stance be your fighting stance. It must feel and look natural.

Remember to collect information as the first thing. How many are there against you, can you see the fingers (weapons indicator), who is the biggest threat, where is your escape.
If the dialog gets into movement or you are being pushed, don’t go straight back. Change directions so that it is harder for the opponent to plan when to hit. While doing, this scan your surroundings, make sure to keep a distance so that you don’t get to close, a head-butt is hard to see and harder to catch….

Threat display:

The primary purpose of threat display is to avoid physical violence, where ever by bluff or communication of actual danger. It shows how serious they are.
They say, i might attack!

Signals:

Change of voice
Change of words
Speech cadence
Facial grimaces
Lean, body language
Chin jut
Chin lift
Puffing, inhaling
Changing breathing patterns
Aborted lunge, stops before real attack
Drawing a arm or leg back to attack
Raising the hand
Red and white in face
Vacuum attack, done in air
Environmental attacks, chairs, loud etc.
Invading space

Up in your face threats are common were weapons is not common.

The monkey(limbic brain) in you, will do everything to get you to:

Not back down
Stomp the threat flat
Chase the other monkey out of your sight
Teach him a lesson, punish
Show everyone else the cost of messing with you. Your human brain must owerride the monkey brain.

Self defense is:

Troubles comes to you
It won't let you leave
You're not provoking the other person
Self defence is to defend your body, not your emotions, self-esteem or imagined social status

FIGHT

(Next chapter)