DUNBAR SELF DEFENCE

The fence is not so much a single technique but rather a concept which each individual must learn and tailor for their own needs, not only are we all different shapes and sizes but we all have different life styles that will place us in a variety of situations it is therefore neccessary to personalise the fence once you have the basic concept.

The idea is to gain and keep control of your immediate environment, to protect your personal space and set out some boundaries that you are not willing to allow anyone to encroach upon, if anyone persists in doing so then they are giving you a clear message that some other action is needed.

At Dunbar Self Defence we practise the fence on four levels:-

1) Passive v Deceptive, in this case we have a partner attempting to lure us into conversation, asking questions etc, he is trying to make us lower our defence enough so that he can touch us on the head, we are trying to stay calm and keep control of our space to prevent any contact.

2) Passive v Aggressive, this scenario is a frontal verbal assualt with insults and challenges being issued, the goal is the same, to get our defences down enough for the opening attack, although our response is also the same we must raise our game a level and be aware that the situation could explode in violence at anytime, we also introduce elements of de-escalation at this point in an attempt to calm things down and extricate ourselves from the situation.

3) Assertive v Aggressive, if we feel that the situation warrants it we will respond to the verbal assault by firmly pushing the aggressor away and taking a step back creating distance between us, we will then issue our own threats underlined by pointing and posturing, this is triggering the fight or flight reponse, having given our opponent some distance he will be more inclined to opt for flight, albeit on his own terms, than he would if still nose to nose, also havung created the distance if he decides to attack we will most certainly see it coming and be able to deal with it.

4) Pre-emptive strikes, if the situation is serious enough that we feel we are going to be fighting then we want to get in first, so using a partner with a focus mitt to engage us in verbal and the odd push if he can reach we will practise lining up the target and firing off our preffered strikes.

Using this template as a starting point we all learn to build our own fence for a one on one encounter, we then proceed to two on one and mutliple assailants, then we can introduce other factors much of which will be built on current trends and feed back.

 Alan Beckett

The fend

The Fight