Rules of a violent Encounter

• Beau Doboszenski, Owner/Lead Instructor

• Originally published May 11th, 2018

What are the rules of defense in a violent encounter?

This may seem like an odd question, or maybe a legal question, but it’s worth exploring. We know that violent encounters on the street don’t have the same “rules” as an MMA fight or wrestling match, but are there any constraints or overarching rules that apply?

I enjoy listening to philosophy lectures, and I was inspired to think about the rules of defense from a recent Q&A/lecture session by psychology professor Jordan Peterson. He posited:

“If you’re playing a game, obviously the game has rules. So if it’s a chess game or a basketball game, there are things you can do and things you can’t do. So it’s a “closed world” in some sense. But the fact that there are things you can’t do, in a game, open up a world of possibilities of things you CAN do in the game. Chess obviously constrains you to a board and to a certain number of men and a certain number of rules. But the strange thing is, when you put in those rules - rules sound like limits, like things you can’t do - but when you set up a constrained world like that and a system of rules, what you do is open up a near infinity of possibilities.”

This hints that knowing the rules surrounding a violent encounter would allow us to explore the "near infinity of possibilities" with which to train and prepare to win.

When I began working in the industry, part of my job was to deeply ponder the use of firearms in self-defense. That time of contemplation eventually led to the massive amounts of DMT training content. There were general principles about how a firearm self-defense operation would go, and these led to drills that improved specific skills. But I never reached an overarching theory of the rules of defense.

As I dive into this with new perspective, here are my first two proposed Rules of a Violent Encounter:

Neural Pathways are very Powerful

Under the physiological response to lethal force stress, you will only do what you’ve hardwired into a neural pathway, or what you have conditioned a response to override or work in concert with the hardwired response.

Training for this rule limits us in some ways, and frees us in others. To begin with, some responses cannot be overridden - the cut response as an example. When you are cut, you will jerk away from the cut. You cannot override or train to change this.

Other hardwired responses that cannot be overridden:

• Heart rate rise from stress hormones and physiological response to stress

• Short term target fixation on threat

• Clench response to being scared

However, we can still lay down neural pathways of our choosing that will come out under lethal force stress, IF we program them in correctly. The amazing human brain allows us to develop almost an unlimited number of pathways. We should note that each pathway takes careful planning, careful programming, and dedicated perfect practice over a considerable length of time for it to work effectively and unconsciously, especially in a lethal force encounter.

So which of the myriad of neural pathways that I could prepare do I need to prepare? At DMT we broke down the huge possible numbers of pathways into five categories from which a neural pathway should be developed for defense.

1. Movement (Run away, take cover)

2. Physical Defensive Action (strikes, grabs, kicks)

3. Deploy and Use a Tool (firearm, edged weapon, impact weapon, improvised weapon)

4. Deter (posture, eye contact, verbalizations)

5. A combination of the above (deploy tool and deter, deploy tool and use coverfire movement, use a physical defensive action like a punch and then deploy a tool)

Recognizing that we have limited time to develop any specific pathway, how do we use this information to focus on what will be most effective?

Tools increase capability and decrease limitations and should therefore be used whenever possible

As there are no formal rules for defense against a lethal threat, there are therefore no rules about which tool you may or may not use.

If everything is a potential "tool" for our defense, we should broaden our ideas of what a tool might be. As an example, the tool does not necessarily need to be something you pick up. A large object, wall, or floor makes a great tool for slamming someone’s head into a wall or object while clinching, trapping someone’s body part between your strike and a wall or floor, or using a throw to have the threat strike the ground.

Tool deployment practice would also be critical to developing neural pathways for using that tool in defense, according to the first rule above. If you have a folding knife and never practice deploying it, it will be useless when you’re under stress. The proof: folding knives are rarely deployed by defenders in a lethal force encounter, even when they have a knife. Neurologically, you will be unable to use that deployment pathway in a lethal encounter if it has never been created. Same for deployment of improvised tools, and even firearms! If you aren't practicing a draw under stress, it won't just suddenly deploy when you need it.

The fact that we think about these kinds of parameters is why DMT's training is so very different from the average firearms training academy. We're looking at your training and development from the neurological and physiological level.