People vary both physically and mentally; therefore, the techniques and tactics used for self-defense must also vary from person to person. The moves and strategies you use should fit your aggression, physique, and skill, so it has the best chance to be quickly assimilated into a natural response. Self-defense starts by adding to your strengths and continues by eliminating your weaknesses.

Some people seek to avoid confrontation while others are more willing to engage in a situation to prevent its escalation. Neither is incorrect, yet acting out of character can potentially escalate a situation. What you do and say to protect yourself must have some confidence or strength behind it. If you are going to make a threat, then your demeanor must show a willingness to carry it out. If you are not comfortable with being extremely close to people, then your tactics should help to maintain distance. If you are not willing to pull a trigger, break an arm, or throw a punch, then carrying a gun, learning jujitsu, or training boxing may not be the best option for your natural level of aggression. Learning verbal judo and some basic aikido would be an alternative way to defend yourself.

Size matters. A 6ft 4in 265lb all muscle opponent is intimidating. Height, weight, reach, fat, and muscle mass are all important factors in technique choice. Your physique may not have a threatening presence, and it may also impede you from quickly learning certain martial arts. The natural choice for a heavy person is to choose powerful violent moves, but if that is against their aggression level, then they may not be willing to use them regardless of the costs. If you have a bad back and hip, don’t grapple (wrestle). If you have to put yourself in a compromising situation to use the move, then it is the wrong move. Some things are just easy for your body to do and some things are naturally inferred from observation of your body.

Your moves should be easy to perform and effective against an uncooperative opponent. Punches are not easy or natural for everyone. The same goes for verbal de-escalation. The ability to think on your feet is a skill and if you don’t have it then use what you do have. Skill is purely your ability to perform the desired technique or tactic under pressure. When adrenaline hits fine motor skills diminish, voices crack, and you may stumble over your words. What can you do well under stress? Use a variation of that for your self-defense. Learn things that are simple, easy, and natural.

Your self-defense should be an extension of your natural aggression, physique, and skill (mental or physical). You must be authentic. Remember you can see when someone else means business, so the inverse is also true. There is a unique strength in you. Hone it to find your self-defense style. 

Torriente Toliver

​Torriente is the owner and head instructor at Mind Body Defense which is a kickboxing and self-defense school in Chicago IL. He has over 20 years of martial arts experience and believes that self-defense is about empowerment through mental and physical training. For more information please visit his website MindBodyDefenseChicago.com

Pragmatically the goal of self-defense is to avoid or deescalate the situation quickly and safely. Boundary setting accomplishes this by monitoring threats based on your ethical code. Once you know what is and is not acceptable, you will have no problem taking precautions to protect not only your body, but also your state of mind. When faced with a self–defense situation, every person has to work through two facets: knowing your moral/ethical limits and threat assessment.
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Each person has a set of beliefs which are things that are “real” to the person. Those realities turn into values which are the things someone finds important. The hierarchy of values develop that person’s morals or ideology of what is right and wrong. Each progression leads to your ethics or rules to which you adhere. This connects to boundary setting because you will always be at a disadvantage when a threat has violated your beliefs/morals/values/ethics without your attempt to maintain them. For instance, if you believe in personal space and you find it important to have that elbow room, you will view an unwelcome advance into your personal space as wrong. It is at this point when a lack of boundary setting has let someone infringe on your ethical code. If you value space, then you must enforce your claim to your space. I am only speaking ethically not legally. One should not wait until they are in a fight to decide when they are willing to fight. Knowing ahead of time what your limits and boundaries are allows you to make better decisions in a timely fashion.


The next step is recognizing a threat. You will never be able to recognize a threat if you do not understand the boundaries they are attempting to penetrate. This process is commonly referred to as awareness, but this is an oversimplification. The truth is that many people have tons of experience but they don’t take the time to analyze it. Can you recognize a con man in a movie? Then you can in real life. Some things are that simple. You know what is normal to you. When things aren’t, your body sends you signals like an elevated heartrate, compulsion to listen carefully, or tunnel vision. The problem with self-defense is that the perpetrator is not going to attack when you are ready. They look for the lost, weak, or distracted. Therefore, your experience may not be enough. If you have never been mugged then you may not know the signs. You should seek out training that will give you the information to recognize problems before they can escalate. Awareness is the process of information collection and interpretation. The key is to understand how the information relates to your situation.


Together boundary setting is knowing who you are and what the situation is. From this base, all other techniques and tactics arise. Otherwise, you might over- or underreact to a situation.


Torriente Toliver


Torriente is the owner and head instructor at Mind Body Defense which is a kickboxing and self-defense school in Chicago IL. He has over 20 years of martial arts experience and believes that self-defense is about empowerment through mental and physical training. For more information please visit his website MindBodyDefenseChicago.com