(The following text is a reprint of an article issued by REACT's training division)
Bodyguard in your pocket: part 2
In Part 1, we examined how the incredible light output of SureFire’s pocket-size tactical lights can be used to avoid and survive possible criminal attacks. I am pleased to report that we continue to receive positive feedback from clients who have used their SureFires to get out of potentially dangerous confrontations without being harmed. While these stories are great to hear, they come as no surprise. They correspond to the many reports that we are receiving from South African police officers, who are spending their own money to invest in SureFire tactical lights. Reports from these street-wise cops are confirming time and again just how effective SureFire tac-lights are when dealing with threatening subjects in low-light environments.
The techniques discussed in Part 1 involved the use of the super-bright beam from your SureFire to identify, disorientate and temporarily blind a potential attacker. In this issue I want to concentrate on how to use your SureFire if the ‘chips’ are down and you find yourself in a situation that requires you to defend yourself from a physical assault at arms length. In other words: your attacker has managed to sneak up on you unnoticed, at night, and is trying to physically hit you, choke you, mug you or drag you to a secondary location! This could be taking place in a parking lot, on your driveway, at an ATM… the scenarios are endless.
I fully understand that many people do not want to deal with the reality that they may actually be physically assaulted some day. Having said that, I am here to tell you outright that it happens… everyday… to people just like yourself and your family. I can also tell you, based on our exhaustive research into South African attacks, that those people who had spent some time getting mentally and physically prepared to deal with an attack are the ones that do best to survive in these situations. It’s the old story… the more prepared you are, the luckier you get!
Some background…
Before we get into the use of your SureFire as a fighting tool, we need to briefly cover some history, so bear with me for a minute. Back in feudal Japan, the legendary Samurai swordsmen, discovered that the wooden sheathes of their tanto’s (short swords) would sometimes swell when moistened by rain, making it impossible to draw the blade. As a result they developed a bunch of fighting techniques using their still-sheathed tanto’s as impact weapons rather than cutting weapons. The techniques proved so effective that they were passed down through the generations.
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In the late 1940’s a Japanese professor named Frank Matsuyama toured the western United States introducing police officers to a brilliant new defensive tool that he called the “Yawara stick”. Matsuyama was a master-level practitioner of a martial art called Yawara (a form of Ju-Jitsu), hence the name of his device. He had studied the unwieldy batons or “night-sticks” that American cops were carrying at the time and was convinced that a smaller, less-conspicuous baton, combined with the ‘sheathed sword’ techniques developed generations earlier in Japan, could be far more effective.
Matsuyama’s Yawara stick was simply a short piece molded plastic that was about the thickness of a broomstick and 14 or 15cm long. It had smooth rounded ends and finger-grooves molded into the middle portion that made for an extremely secure grip. When held in a clenched fist the Yawara stick protruded about 2cm’s either side of a closed fist. Matsuyama soon proved that while easily concealed, his Yawara stick was very quick into action and could be used to devastating effect on targets ranging from the small bones on an opponent’s hands to the bones of the forearms, ribs and even an opponent’s skull in life threatening assaults. As an added bonus, the Yawara stick looked insignificant and non-threatening compared to the old ‘clubs’ that the same cops were carrying. It therefore had significant PR value as well.
Years later, another Japanese martial artist named Tak Kubota saw the value of civilians carrying a Yawara-type device and downsized the original Yawara concept into a grooved rod about the size of a white-board marker. He called his derivative the “Kubotan” and it was an instant hit. Today Kubotans are carried (often attached to key rings) by literally millions of street-wise civilians around the world. These small impact devices can used to devastating effect and yet seem to have remained completely socially and legally acceptable. They are legal even in countries that have banned other non-lethal self-defence devices such as OC sprays. And, should you ever have to use a Kubotan, you get to tell the court that you just hit your attacker with your little key ring and he fell down?!
What makes the Yawara stick and Kubotan so effective? It’s simple physics really. It’s all about concentrating as much force as possible onto a small surface area. Picture this scenario. A male attacker is strangling an average-size woman. The woman clenches her fist and strikes her attacker on his nose with the base of her fist in a hammer type action. The force of her blow is spread over a rather large surface area being the base of her clenched fist. In addition to this the soft flesh of her hand cushions the force of the blow to a large extent. Now imagine she has a Yawara stick in her clenched fist when she delivers the exact same strike. The entire force of the blow is concentrated on the small, rock-hard surface area of the end of the stick (picture the rounded end of a broom handle). The difference in the effect of the two strikes is like day and night.
Note: For the movie buffs among you, I strongly suggest watching the movie “Twisted” that has just been on the big screen. The movie features actress Ashley Judd as a street-wise (although troubled) female police officer who carries a Yawara stick. You will not see a better example of how effective these devices can be than in this movie.
What on earth does all this have to do with my SureFire?
For all those readers that already own a SureFire, I want you to get your SureFire now and hold it in your hand as you normally would, with your thumb correctly positioned to activate the rear-mounted switch. Note how the ends of the unit protrude a couple of centimeters on either side of your closed fist. That’s right…your SureFire doubles as a perfect Yawara stick! You are holding a Yawara stick that is not only capable of delivering an extremely powerful blow but is also capable of instantly producing a blinding white light capable of stunning and disorientating your opponent. Kind of like a magical Yawara stick. I’m just guessing, but I reckon old Frank Matsuyama would have been a big SureFire fan!
Add to this the fact that SureFire’s are strong enough to survive the most extreme military/police conditions and you will realise that, even after several hard impacts/strikes, your SureFire will carry on producing brilliant white light if you need it to illuminate your escape in the dark!
For those readers that have not attended a “REACT to Survive” seminar, I would like to share one of my favorite last-ditch survival techniques. In last month’s newsletter I recommended that you should have your SureFire in your hand when walking around in the dark. Nobody will even notice that it’s there. It is now instantly available to light up ‘dark holes’ around you or to blind and disorientate potential attackers. Now you have learnt that, should you fall victim to a sudden physical attack, your SureFire can be employed as a Yawara stick by striking your assailant with bezel (lens) section of the unit. Trust me when I tell you, based on our force-on-force dynamic role-play sessions… these strikes are devastating… even when performed at half-intensity during training sessions.
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Now we get to my favorite part of this technique... YOU MUST ACTIVATE YOUR SUREFIRE WHILE STRIKING YOUR OPPONENT! Your thumb is perfectly situated to press the rear-mounted switch while you are striking.
Believe me, the combined effect of the flashes of blinding white light flying around your head and the extremely painful blows landing on your face, head, neck or collar bones is enough to turn the largest of attackers into a whimpering mass on the floor. The only way I can describe the experience is that it is like being attacked by a swarm of bees that are swarming around your head and stinging you all over your the face. Only bees don’t hit nearly as hard and they can’t blind you with bright light either!
The net result is complete sensory overload on the part of the attacker. He cannot see you to fight back and his temporary loss of vision means that he cannot see from where or when the next strike is coming. Based on real case studies, the attacker tends to go to ground instantly while covering his head with his arms. That’s when you run for your life. Remember you only ever fight until you can escape. Escape is always your end goal!
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If you already own a SureFire tac-light, I want you to ask a family member to stand in front of you in a dark room. Be sure to stand just outside of their maximum reach and then ask them to make as if they were hitting you in the face in rapid succession with your SureFire in hand. They must activate the unit with the thumb-switch as described above. Try to keep your eyes open and focus on them while they do this! Then, when you are completely disorientated, imagine that those strikes were landing with crushing force on your nose, skull, neck and collarbones. In fact, use your own SureFire to just tap lightly on the bridge of your nose, your temples, the side of your neck and your collarbones….You now have a remote idea of just how effective your “magic Yawara stick” is as a self-defence weapon!
"But the 2.5-kg, 5-Dcell torch that I keep next to my bed will make a far better club…"
Uh, yes it would, but I have a question for you. Do you carry your 2.5-kg, 5-Dcell torch with you whenever you are out at night? Even if you answered yes (and I don’t think too many of you did), there are some points to consider. You can’t conceal a large torch in the palm of your hand like a SureFire, so you loose the element of surprise. Also, the clubbing action with a long torch is a far bigger, slower movement than the quick direct strikes with a lightweight SureFire. Another point is that everyone holds a large torch behind the bezel (lens) section because that’s where the switch is positioned. That means that when you swing the torch like a baton the lens is going to be pointing at you, so you don’t get the benefit of using the light to disorientate your attacker while striking. In fact, if you depress the switch while striking (which is quite possible considering that your hand is on top of it) you will be shining the beam into your own eyes! Not good. Finally, you want a light output of at least 60 lumens to blind your opponent and even large mutiple-Dcell torches just don’t put out that kind of light.
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All of this has not been lost on the engineers at SureFire. While any SureFire tac-light will make a superb multi-purpose impact tool (or ‘magic Yawara stick’) SureFire have just launched a unit called the E2d Executive Defender. The Defender features a purpose-designed crenellated strike-bezel on both front and rear to further enhance its effectiveness as an impact weapon. It also produces 60 lumens of blinding light and benefits from all of SureFire’s trademark features such as a rear-mounted switch and extremely rugged construction. All in a unit that weighs just 90 grams and is 12cm long.
When would you use your SureFire as an impact weapon?
Of course a SureFire tactical light is not the answer to all attack scenarios. For example: If you already have a gun pointed at you when you realise that you are under attack, you would NEVER try to strike your opponent with your SureFire. Doing so would probably get you shot. There are far better strategies to employ in this scenario and we cover those in depth in our ‘REACT to Survive’ seminars. SureFire tac-lights are invaluable when used to identify and disorientate potential attackers in low-light scenarios, which is when the majority of violent attacks take place. As discussed above they also make extremely effective impact weapons for those cases when the chips are down and you have no option but to fight in order to create an opportunity to escape. As impact weapons they are ideal for use in muggings, hand-to-hand physical attacks and rape scenarios. Of particular importance is the fact that they require little or no specialised skill to use effectively.