Self-defense training and martial arts training are not, contrary to what is popularly imagined, the same things. Too many martial artists learn this unfortunate truth too late—and, worse, too often they learn it the hard way.

Training in a dojo or dojang is not the same as training for the street. A martial arts school is (and ought to be) a sanctuary. The atmosphere is invariably civil: bright lights, encouraging music, soft mats, friendly faces.  It is a social activity.

Martial arts training rightly emphasizes mutual respect and physical safety. Your fellow students mean you no harm. A sensei or master is always there to supervise, to intervene even if perchance the spiritedness of training should momentarily begin to get out of control.

In a violent street encounter, however, things are already out of control. Chaos rules. Worse, in the streets the chaos begins when you least suspect it. Criminals do not announce ahead of time that they intend to attack you. Criminal violence is by definition asocial. You may be assured that they are not inviting you to the prom.

Instead, they will seek out a situation that favors their committing the crime and escaping detection. They will most likely try to ambush you or otherwise take you by surprise. They will choose a place to attack you when visibility is poor: a parking lot, an alley, a stairwell, a wooded area.  For the same reason, they will choose a time to strike: often at dusk or, better still, in the evening. They will wait—often patiently—for that brief moment when you have dropped your guard.

The most professional as well as the most vicious criminals are neither afraid to plot and plan their crimes nor to pick and choose their victims with the most exacting due diligence.

In short, they will look for a time and a place to attack such that neither you nor others can see (or hear) them until it is too late. The immediate advantage is most likely going to be theirs.

Nor are they going to respect the parameters civilized people do regarding the use of violence. They will not be reluctant to use excessive force. Indeed, you can count on them to do so right from the beginning if only because the commission of a violent crime implies an excessive use of force.

Too many commercial martial arts schools neglect to take these facts into account in the training they offer—and it shows in their practice. Worse, it shows up on the streets—sometimes with tragic results.

Know Thy Enemy?

The training is typically, indeed necessarily, artificial. One student assumes the role of the attacker and the other that of the defender. Each knows his role and what is expected of him or her.

In a real-time encounter, you don’t necessarily know who your attacker is. He may look like an ordinary passer-by or other harmless stranger. He may look like an upstanding member of your community, someone whose appearance and demeanor conforms to those of others in your neighborhood.

Worse, you may know your attacker but have never suspected that he was planning to attack you until that very moment. This is a particularly vexing problem for women and women’s self-defense training. According to a Department of Justice study, almost 90 percent of sexual assaults committed against women were committed by someone who the women knew.

So what can you do?

Plenty. Here are two important things to keep in mind.

Self-defense training first and foremost is about situational awareness.  No martial arts training will save you if your attacker gets a decisive upper hand. As my First Sergeant in Basic Training used to repeatedly remind us: Stay alert. Stay alive.

How right he was—and still is.

Second, make sure you choose a school that teaches reality-based self-defense training and whose instructors have real-time experience. My own experience is that many of the best instructors typically (though not always) have a background in the military, law enforcement, corrections or as bouncers. The Bronx Hapkido Center in New York is an outstanding example.

In my next post on self-defense training, I’ll explain another reason why martial arts training can get you killed and what you can do to make sure it doesn’t.

In the meantime, you might want to take a look at these two videos to get an inkling of what real self-defense training looks like:

Combatives expert shows how to defend against a lapel grab decisively:

The late Carl Cestari briefly demonstrates the set-up to another defense against a grabbing attack.