The Pre-Emptive Strike

[elwin]

I'm more of a leg man. Attack their base and they absolutely have to re-establish it before they can counter.
Sean

I agree totally and I'm a leg man myself. Only, when I feel the need to attack the legs it will be to break it. Thus meaning permanently injuring my attacker. In the case before "she did'nt want to hurt him too badly or permanently injure him", in which case it's anyway not necessary to fight him.

 

[K831]

With our laws, that would be construed as assault. Essentially, an aggressor has to have 'present ability', if you need to walk up to them in order to hit them first, it's assumed that they'd have to do the same to get you.... and as such, it's not a real threat. A big part of our teaching self defence approaches takes into account the legal aspects as well, as I feel it really has to.

I agree, it is important to include legalities in training, and I think laws in most areas likely work similarly to what you described. However, there are times when we need to close distance regardless, and attempts at "diffusion" gives a good way to do this.

Consider a potential multiple attacker situation. You may realize that escape is not immediately possible but feel like an attack is imminent. In this case, you could use attempts at diffusion to close the gap with the "leader". Put him away soundly and create an option to bolt. In my experience, the group looses some steam when the "mouth" goes down... and if you are already making your exit, they are often likely to try and scoop up their sputtering leader rather than give chase.

I know many times things happen too fast for any of these considerations, but often they don't.

Just one example of where one may choose to use what I described.