Fighting Options:
Improvised Weapons

Fighting Options include improvised weapons ranging from prehistoric rocks and clubs to almost anything you can get your hands on.

Watching TV one night, Doug never heard the burglar entering his unlocked back door. It wasn’t until he went into his kitchen to toss out a half-full glass of warm soda that Doug came face-to-face with the glaring burglar gripping a knife and demanding, “Freeze – or I'll kill you!” In a flash Doug startled him by flinging the soda into his face, then palmed the bottom of the glass and slammed the glass rim into the burglar's face, gashing it. Next he grabbed a pan and bashed his head again and again. The burglar dropped the knife. Doug grabbed it and started hacking at him, then suddenly spun and ran outside, yelling for his neighbors to call the cops. The burglar fled.

A New York woman used her high-heel shoe to beat a man to death in a lover’s brawl.

Two teenage boys begged an elderly woman to let them in her door to use her telephone. Suddenly they pushed-in through her opened door and wrestled her to the floor. But the truly great-grandmother, though 93 years old, blind in one eye, and needing a cane to walk, pummeled them with her cane until they fled.

A weapon is any object used to inflict harm. Beyond the obvious scissors, kitchen knives, screwdrivers, and hammers, your home is loaded with normally benign objects that can be used as makeshift weapons – anything you can pick up to throw at or use to club an attacker.

The hard edge of a book, a vase, or light furniture can be used to club him. A closed umbrella can jab like a pool cue-stick into his throat or eye. You can swing a belt in a sweeping fashion with the buckle on the striking end.

Sand, dirt, powder, loose change, or a pillow can be thrown in his eyes to surprise him and precede other strikes. Or throw hot coffee, and then jam the cup’s rim in his face. Or throw hot food cooking in a pan into his face and club him with the pan. Or spray his face with a fire extinguisher then club him with it. The wasp-killer spray in your garage reaches a good distance and can cause permanent eye damage to an attacker.

Away from home as well, makeshift weapons are all around – almost anything at hand. Your pockets, too, may hold a key (held ready to insert into a lock – or an eye).

A woman alone inside a Middletown NY church was sitting in a pew and writing in a notebook. A surveillance camera shows a man walking in and sitting down nearby. Then he suddenly leapt on the woman and began groping her. She stabbed him in the neck repeatedly with her pen until he fled.

A simple ballpoint stick pen (a shaft-like pen minus it's cap) serving as a handy and superb knife-like weapon when used to stab an eye, throat, or almost any body part. Better yet, two pens can be used with both hands. Perhaps hold one pen in the "ice-pick grip" (pointed end sticking out the little-finger side of your hand, with your thumb covering the butt- end) ready to repeatedly "overhead-hammer-swing." Hold the other pen in the "key-into-lock grip" (pointed end held between your thumb and index finger with the butt-end secured against your palm) ready to repeatedly jab. See Subway Encounter in Posturing.

Of course, it’s always possible for a weapon to be taken away from you and used against you. That largely depends upon your willingness to wield a weapon with absolute intent to do grievous harm.

Simply brandishing a weapon in a threatening posture might not dissuade an attacker. Would you be willing to instantly use the weapon if your attacker continued to approach you anyway? You must effectively attack or you’ll simply provide your attacker with your weapon. Never bluff. Use it or lose it. Attack him with the ferocity of a mad dog. Also, beware of him merely faking surrender only to launch a surprise attack after all. See Acting and Optimal Mindset.

But he knows you won't hesitate to use Pepper Spray and he'll likely leave you alone. Also have Personal Security Alarm (a.k.a. noisemaker or screamer).

Beyond all that, learn the Fighting Options (in the menu below) as a backup because your natural weapons (hands, knees, and so on) are always with you.

Self Defense Techniques

Go to
Fighting Options - Overview
Crime-Safety-Security Home Page