Kali Calgary

One early morning I was walking back to my car in a darker, less friendly part of town. I was late and behind all my coworkers that night, they had already walked the 2 blocks to our parking lot. I stepped out from the alley onto the street and looked left. I noticed someone waiting on the corner, waiting to cross the street, no big deal. I looked right, and noticed someone a block away on the street corner. That is the way I needed to go, but people exist and everything seems to be okay. I start walking to my right towards where my car is parked. 

Now something happens, the guy that was to my left waiting at the corner is now not waiting and is now following my path down the block. That is strange to me, could be innocent, but a change in my environment that I picked up on. Now I am alone with someone behind me and someone in front of me. Forcing movement comes into play, I can continue down my path and find out what everyone’s intentions are, or I can force movement. 

So, I j-walk across the street. If I was getting set up in a pincer ambush, I moved out of it. Maybe, everyone was a nice stranger, but something wasn’t right. If these two are working together – if they want me now, they have to cross the street. If either one crosses the street – a big warning sign. If both cross the street = massive warning.  

A more aggressive forcing movement would be starting to yell – GET BACK! STAY AWAY!

Sometimes forcing movement is subtle, and sometimes it is more apparent. I’ve been forced before with Dudes’s shoulder checking my center mass. Two people walking directly towards one another, do you turn to the side and allow the other to pass. I have had multiple thugs on public transit feel they were entitled to enter my space and use their shoulders. Head on a swivel, they might be forcing me into a situation I do not want to be a part of. 

Forcing movement is a close cousin to some of my other favourite tactics in self-defence. Baiting and luring. In subject control tactics, the most dangerous subject is the cooperative but potentially uncooperative subject. With completely uncooperative subjects I know where they stand, they are not doing what I am saying. Potentially uncooperative subjects CAN explode, and caution needs to be applied. Jail environments are filled with potentially uncooperative, and cautious of baiting and luring tactics should always be employed. Why are they dangerous? Stress inoculation to use violence to achieve what they want. 

Martial arts gym training is not the same thing as real situations. Remember and apply that. Self-defence needs to be an explosion along a flat curve.

I advocate understanding how to use a weapon to put up a good defence against a professional with a tool. I do not advocate violence. Verbal de-escalation should be the primary goal in every professional interaction. Verbal de-escalation and awareness are the first levels of self-defence. See self-defence is about fight avoidance. Combatives go out looking for that fight and focus on ending that fight.

Training physical skills makes me capable of ending physical encounters without serious harm or injury. But, my training mentality is fun, and fighting on the street is never fun. I enjoy training, I do not enjoy fighting. So, I am fortunate enough to have developed strong oral communication that has prevented some serious incidents from going badly.

Without going into too much detail, one night I crossed paths with a man who had been out robbing folks with a big knife. He had also been beating on his girlfriend, which is how we met. I had equalizers as well, a baton, nothing that is going to drop him on the spot if he wanted to use his equalizer AKA that big knife on me. Thankfully I was funny enough that night, or scary enough, that I said just the right thing to defuse a situation where he was losing, and we ended on good terms. I did not get stabbed, buddy boy left in handcuffs.

What do I mean by great equalizers? Well, for the most part, the untrained knife-wielding assailant carries a big throw-away knife because that is going to overcome resistance when brandished. Why the big knife? Because, the average tough guy that thinks they are good at fighting does not want to deal with a knife.

The average street cop walking around has the physical skills of a basic white belt student. This might be fine in an unarmed dust-up, but when we start talking weapons that is scary. So to prevent serious harm or injury we give police weapons to equalize and overcome.