Self Defense Tip #6
Throat grab

by Thomas Kurz, co-author of Basic Instincts of Self-Defense and author of Stretching Scientifically, Secrets of Stretching, and Science of Sports Training.

To read the previous installment click here.

What should your first reaction be when someone grabs you by the throat?

First, protect your throat! Bring your chin to your chest to prevent attacker's fingers or thumbs closing on your throat. If the attacker already has his or her fingers or thumbs on your throat, trapping them under your jaw will make it more difficult to squeeze your throat. If you let the attacker squeeze your throat hard enough to crush the cartilage in your windpipe, you will die of asphyxiation. It may take a minute or more for you to pass out but you will die in great pain, gasping for air, no matter what you do to your attacker.

Second, grab the attacker's wrists (it may be done simultaneously with digging your chin into your chest), squeeze or push them toward each other, while jerking your upper body away from his or her hands. I say “upper body” because you should not move your head alone as this would open up your throat.

Now, when you see someone teaching “defenses” against hand chokes, where the demonstrator allows the attacker's hands on the front of the throat—you know they are phonies. It does not matter what defender does to the attacker, how he or she tears off the attacker's ears, gouges eyes, locks arms, kicks shins or groins—if the fingers can squeeze the throat, and that takes only a split second—the defender is dead.

To learn more techniques, see Basic Instincts of Self-Defense.

To read the next tip click here.

This article is based on the video Basic Instincts of Self-Defense.
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