You missed the grenade disarming class?

If you've been a visitor to Defend University for any length of time, you know that we talk more about concepts and principals than we do about specific techniques.

Although serious discussions about techniques are useful, the problem is that the nature of self-defense is chaotic, spontaneous and unpredictable. Events unfold with an infinite number of variables. You can't possibly foresee all of these variables and come up with techniques for all of them.

Okay, for example...what if someone walks up to you and tells you they are going to kill you with a hand grenade they have? What's the technique for that? And don't laugh, that's precisely what happened to a woman in Tucson (July 2, 2006).

Police reported that 38-year-old Edward D. Otero had a World War II vintage grenade in his possesion, walked up to a woman and -- pulling the pin -- told her that she and her family would die.

So now what?

Your self-defense training should be broad enough that the principles and concepts that you've trained with in one area can apply in another -- often unexpected -- area.

For example in the Rape Escape program, we teach non-martial artist females a number of concepts that allow them to protect their heads while attacking a man's weakest targets -- and in a way that makes it difficult to physically take the woman somewhere. We've found that, after one or two Level 1 courses, the students begin to show effective responses spontaneously to attacks they've never seen before.

In this case? The woman "wrestled" the hand grenade from the deranged man. No details are given as to how she did it. Police say the grenade had a live fuse, but that the explosive charge had been removed and a hole was drilled through the casing.

But, hooray for the unidentified woman who reacted, responded and prevailed.

As for Otero, he was arrested on suspicion of aggravated assault and burglary and on a warrant charging him with violating probation.