Your Voice Is a Fist

I wanted the pounding and screaming to stop.

When you hit someone, you have to mean it. But knowing why to strike is just as important as how.

In my training, punching, kicking, throwing knees or elbows, and head butts all fall under the category of strikes called combatives. Combat, specifically hand-to-hand combat, is the core use of Krav Maga. Self-defense is not a sport. It is not sparring or a competition. Strikes are brutal, fast, and simple techniques to counter violent aggression.

One goal relentlessly drilled in our heads was what our instructor liked to call “disrupting the computer.” His colloquialism encouraged an attack on the decision-making center of the body—the brain.

Movie punches are choreography. Those fights are for show. Waiting to take a punch before you throw yours is theater and potentially deadly if a criminally vicious attacker wants to harm you. Combatives have a well-defined goal— a single-minded objective—to stop the threat. The real-world practicality lies in swift and repetitive action. A baseline response in Krav Maga is a minimum of three combatives in a brutally blurry progression.

But three never seem like enough. Not only is adrenaline coursing in nearly violent spasms throughout your body, but even admittedly brutal techniques are never foolproof. Techniques fail. Self-defense is ugly, but training to strike with an undaunted drive provides a mindset of following through even though an approach is wrong.

The repetition is not aggressive posturing. Seemingly gratuitous aggression is essential because of the freeze. This stutter happens when humans plan or expect one outcome and get another. The freeze is a cognitive hiccup. This lagging response is why one shove, punch, or kick will not deter a wild-eyed thug. One punch makes someone angry. It does not make them stop.

To tattoo this phenomenon into our psyches, we all had to train as an assailant. Becoming the target of a victim’s fury immerses you in the principles you just learned. It is like self-defense method acting—invaluable training through discomfort.

During one class, we concentrated on defending against a knife attack. We were learning techniques that were effective but never foolproof. (Yes, in a successful knife defense, using great technique, you will get cut.) And that is a successful defense. As I practiced and watched others, I knew the wound would not be a small nick but a gaping open slash. But it would be better than being gutted while pleading for mercy.

My instructor pointed to me and said, “In the cage.” It was an ominous directive.

We would drill at full speed, using all our pent-up aggression and stamina. This new drill would simulate what an aggressor felt and when they felt it.

The attacker would wear a mouth guard to prevent teeth from splintering to jagged shards or biting their tongue in half and a heavily padded helmet with a thick wire face mask. The helmet was affectionately called the Cage. We took turns—you were either the attacker or the victim.

My instructor pointed to me and said, “In the cage.” It was an ominous directive. “You’ll attack me,” he said. I saw a slight sparkle in his left eye. I tried not to show any emotion, no stress, while I slowly placed the cage on my head, adjusted the straps, and grabbed a blunt, plastic training knife. I faced him, and with the rest of the class forming a loose ring around us, he looked at me, nodded, and said, “Ready? Okay, attack.”

I was intent—almost rabid—to cut him. I went in with the knife, jabbing toward his abdomen. I would thrust with the knife and then retreat—moving around him in an arc, looking for an opening, teasing. I made a deep thrust with the knife. He blocked my jab, locking his arm under my forearm and elbow. It was a technique we all practiced regularly, and he used it with swift efficiency. I tried to retreat with my knife-wielding arm locked in his clench. My legs pumped backward to gain space in a frantic attempt to escape. I had the knife. I was the assailant, but he attacked me.

He struck me with a palm heel strike—hard. Then, his arm moved like a hammer. The cage absorbed much of the damage. The concussive jolts were not precisely painful but grew increasingly disorienting. He released a breath with each strike, escaping in a yelled, “Oohsss.” We had all heard it and used noises like it to expel air and strike harder, and it was the yelling that I remember most of all. Screaming in my ear may have caused a similar confusion, but the yelling, coupled with being retained and repeatedly struck in the head, is brutal and disorienting.

My fingers still gripped the knife automatically. I struggled to wrench my arm loose and slice open anything in my way. He was striking my head and screaming with each throbbing punch, and for a few seconds, I focused on the stabbing. But as I struggled, the punches and shouting continued, and my disorientation and discomfort grew. The cage protected my face, but the screaming pierced my skull with every strike. He moved with me. I squirmed, moving left and right to wiggle out of his grip. I had forgotten about the knife. I wanted the pounding and screaming to stop. I bent lower, leveraging my weight as I pulled away from the eddy of abuse. Suddenly, with a strike to my head, I stumbled back, my legs struggling to keep me upright. The drill was over.

Sweat ran down my forehead and into my eyes as I unfastened the velcro straps holding the cage secure and slid it off my head. I swallowed mouthfuls of air and stretched my neck side to side, taking time to consider what happened.

I broke down the stuttering replay. Two questions floated above my falling adrenaline. I had the knife, so when did I become the defender? Why was I trying to escape?

I lost my advantage when he grabbed me. By restricting the arm that held the knife, he controlled me. I stopped concentrating on attacking. Instead, I looked for a way to get free. Reflexively, I tried to pull away, leaning back and throwing my weight toward an escape. It was a base instinct, and it made me even more vulnerable. The driving strikes to my head made me reel and struggle to get loose in sloppy, panicked lunges.

Being detained against your will and punched in the head is a position of weakness and acute danger. But the screams weakened my mind. I could not think. My brain fogged. The adrenaline rush raised my heart rate to a feverish pace, and I was confused, acting without reason.

Though I recall the concussive dream of being seized by the arm and slammed in the head, I most remember the screams. Those screams made the drill tangible and memorable.

Self-defense isn’t one technique but a mixture of choices and actions. What if my instructor grabbed me only to halt the knife? My left hand would have been free to retaliate. The strikes to my head stopped me eventually, but at first, they only made me angry and intent on escaping and striking back. But the screaming—it made me want to drop the knife and run.

All drills teach something. That night, I learned you can strike with your voice.