Hartman, R.

http://tkdtutor.com/07Defense/DefenseInfo/DefenseInfoI.htm
TKDTutor.com (2003)

Recommended w/reservation

The author gets full kudos for writing coherent content for the web and putting it out there for free - it can be a thankless task. Compared to some of the material available on other sites, this author makes a sincere effort to go beyond a simple checklist and provide something that can generate a bit of thinking. This article is one of many on www.tkdtutor.com, and talks about practical self-defense for taekwondo practitioners. Unlike books on the topic, it does not provide much specific guidance on technique, but rather discusses a mindset and strategy for defending yourself.

On the positive side, the article is wide-ranging. It talks about not only expected topics such as how to deal with muggers, how to avoid conflict if at all possible, and offense as defense, but it also touches on the legal implications of defending yourself too vigorously. Even though it is not close to comprehensive on any of the topics it includes, it does provide enough points to make you stop and think. Plus, there are additional articles on the site that go into more detail on some of the issues raised.

Unfortunately, I think the article made contentions I don't think belong in a short article targeted at those who know little about practical self-defense. For example, in a section on Self-Defense Strategy, the last point, made without any supporting discussion, is, "More opponents mean you have more potential obstacles to use." Well, that is technically true, but I think it misses the much more important issue that more opponents means there are more people who are going to hurt you. The author is clearly knowledgeable and has thought about this topic. But it is a disservice, and weakens the overall article, to make this sort of broad generalization that may be of use to advanced self-defense students, but is of little value to someone just getting started. The focus of the article is inconsistent - it would have been more useful if it simply tried to either be a broad summary with a few useful nuggets that a beginner can understand, or else an article about HOW to do more advanced techniques such as using opponents as obstacles. There is some cursory discussion of this later in the article, but only enough to potentially be dangerous. The implication that more opponents may be a good thing is not appropriate for a beginner. Aside from this issue, there are places you have to ignore a fair number of typos and make your way through sentences that need to be read several times due to missing/incorrect words. In addition, there are sections that are so pedantic they detract from the larger point, such as listing the directions of attack and spelling out "north" "northeast" "east" and so on in a long list.

This article is a quick read if you want to get a few thoughts about how your classroom taekwondo training may help or hinder you if you are attacked, and help make you think about some of the issues. That can't help but be good. After you finish the article, however, you will probably feel unfulfilled. Look for a good book.

Annotated by: Jeff Blum (April 2004)

Martial Arts: Taekwondo |

Topics: crime | self-defense |