by Mike Vassolo
originally published in 1999

When I wrote Kamikaze Fighting, the Self-Defense of Last Resort a decade ago, I gave short shrift to unarmed self-defense against weapons, probably as a result of denial. After all, it seems almost impossible to escape an armed attack without suffering some kind of grievous injury, and, of course, being killed is also a very real possibility. As a highly trained martial artist, I simply refused to admit that my system’s techniques weren’t foolproof—or even likely to be very effective—when facing an attacker with a weapon. The problem wasn’t with any individual techniques that I might use against the criminal. The real challenge was surviving the initial attack so those techniques could be delivered with accuracy and power.

Troubling questions about the effectiveness of what I was teaching nagged at me for years, until I finally forced myself to squarely face the issue with a candid, critical eye. This helped me develop the concepts and techniques that led to the writing of my new book, Death’s Doorstep: Unarmed Self-Defense Against Weapons. The book’s conceptual foundation is brutally realistic, and the self-defense techniques are simple and powerful, because they are intended to save lives on the street, not win trophies in competition.

Death’s Doorstep offers an alternative to what typical law enforcement officials counsel, which is complete submission to attackers of all kinds, particularly those who wield weapons. Although there is certainly some wisdom in that point of view, if you believe that vigorous self-defense is better than being a passive victim of a heinous crime, you must have an arsenal of simple, powerful techniques to choose from. Then, if you train consistently and diligently, you should have a legitimate fighting chance to survive what is, at best, a harrowing ordeal.

Of course, if you are to have any chance in unarmed self-defense against weapons, the techniques that you train must be designed to maim or kill, because the stakes are so high when you are faced with such a clear and present danger to your physical and psychological well-being. Given the lopsided balance of power that exists when an unarmed victim faces a weapon-wielding criminal, any self-defense response that’s done with less than maximum power is likely to encourage an even more savage counterattack.

If you do decide to move against the attacker, you must do so with no consideration given to your safety at that particular moment, because this will only distract you. And, if you hesitate even for an instant, you will be stabbed, clubbed or shot—probably more than once. The bottom line in self-defense against armed assailants is that you’ll have to go all out to survive. If you’re not prepared to do this, it’s probably better to quietly capitulate. Of course, you’ll then be in the dicey position of hoping that an armed attacker will have a sudden change of heart and become merciful rather than ruthless. I wouldn’t want to bet my life on that.

After all, criminals use weapons to get a more decisive upper hand during the commission of a crime. That’s obvious. And, if you are to respond in kind, you need an equally deadly weapon. The problem is that as a law-abiding citizen, you, the innocent victim, don’t carry a weapon. But that doesn’t mean you want to be a lamb led to slaughter, so you must depend on unarmed self-defense to save your life—a risky proposition, indeed, even if you’re a highly skilled, experienced martial artist.

In addition to defining the seriousness of the crime, a weapon also clarifies the intentions of the attacker. When you’re faced with an armed assailant, the only reasonable assumption you can make is that he intends to take your life. To believe anything else is to engage in wistful thinking. When someone puts a knife to your throat, swings a club at your head, or jams a gun in your belly, he obviously doesn’t care if he kills you or not. All you can be sure of is that his heart is black, his intentions are savage, and if he doesn’t kill you, it’s probably because he’s not very good at using the weapon. In short, when you defend yourself against an armed assailant, you are engaged in a life-or-death struggle, pure and simple. In terms of self-defense, anything less than a virtually flawless, ferocious response will probably cost you your life.

Admittedly, there are many gray areas in self-defense, particularly when it comes to facing down a deadly weapon. Paradoxically, if you do decide to defend yourself, the best way to save your life is to be ready to give it up. That means you must willingly assume the possibility that no matter how vigorous and effective your counterattack, you still may be seriously injured or even killed. This notion is the hardest of all to accept, but it’s firmly rooted in reality. Given the gravity of the situation, being ready to die while defending yourself against an armed attacker isn’t a sick or perverse idea. In fact, it can provide you with the extra energy and determination required to fight to the finish, using every physical, mental and spiritual resource at your disposal.

Of course, in contemporary America, the implications of self-defense are far-reaching and can change your entire life. Given some of the strange things that have recently happened in our country’s courts, you might be sued by an armed attacker or his family, if you harm or kill him during self-defense. Crazy as that may sound, anything is possible, because you never know what will happen in a courtroom, so it pays to be thoughtful about everything you propose to do, well before you do it. That cautionary note most certainly applies to self-defense, especially the kind that employs potentially lethal force.

When faced with an armed attacker, you should show no quarter, and expect none from the criminal. But you can’t afford to make a mistake. If you misinterpret the severity of the attack—was that the glint of a knife in his hand or a car key?—you may act in a way that’s questionable from a moral and legal point of view, and quickly find yourself transformed from the role of innocent victim into a lawbreaker who can be held criminally and civilly liable. In self-defense, the cost of flawed judgment can be enormous.

Ultimately, only you can decide what the right response should be under any given set of circumstances. For now, just make sure that you give at least as much thought to the when, where, and why of defending yourself as you do to the how. Then, if you’re forced to use self-defense, you’ll know that you did your best to prepare for it, not just physically, but morally, too. It may be difficult, but it’s the only reasonable road to take.

In The Book of Five Rings the renowned samurai swordsman Miyamoto Musashi wrote that when facing an armed opponent one must think only of the cut. What he meant was that concentration on flawless execution of technique is all that ultimately counts in a deadly encounter. It’s the only thing you can really control—the only thing that gives you a fighting chance. In the end, I can’t think of any better advice than Musashi’s, so if you do decide to defend yourself against an armed assailant, “think only of the cut.”