Just about all of us in the defensive training business spend a lot of time encouraging our students and readers to have a defensive plan. That is just because it is so darned important. Expecting trouble and having a plan to deal with it allows you to get creative about meeting the defensive challenge, and one of the most important advantages that you have is the ability to do the unexpected.
All sorts of things can come up in your head, especially for those of us with a somewhat devious mind. Obviously, if the bad guy gets close enough, throwing a cup of hot coffee in his face will give you time to deal with him. If the bad guy is stupid enough to go after a woman in her own kitchen, there are all sorts of really bad things that can happen to him if the woman will just keep her cool and use her head.
One of the funniest examples occurred when a friend of mine was being followed by three street punks. As they closed in, my friend just stepped into a public ladies' bathroom. As the bad guys stood around, outside, wondering what kind of weirdo they had been following, my friend called the police on his cell phone. The ladies in the restroom got a big kick out of it, too, while they watched the police haul the crooks away.
I recall the evening when I had to arrest the huge construction worker all by my little old self. He was standing there, grinning at me, and I knew I was toast if he ever got his hands on me. So I just pitched him the handcuffs and told him to put them on. He continued to stand there. He continued to grin. My advanced police training told me that he was not taking me seriously.
So I just planted a 230-grain hardball right between his two feet. He quit grinning and actually did a pretty darned good job of getting the handcuffs on. There are probably some good reasons why you wouldn't want to apply this solution, nowadays, but my point is that doing the unexpected may be just the thing to tip a defensive problem in your favor.
