In Search of Efficiency Part Fifteen: Control the Distance
Controlling the distance refers to the distance between you and the threat(s).
The great kick boxer, Joe Lewis used to say that the person who controls the distance wins the fight. If you give that some thought you can see the logic in it.
Controlling the distance also relates to assaults. If a bad guy wants to hurt you they have to get to the distance they need to do it to their advantage. On one end of the spectrum you have a sniper, and the world has faced some of these in criminal activity. The sniper wants distance from its target. Enough distance to not be seen at all or until it is too late. The mugger who uses intimidation to get what they want will be close enough to pose a threat but not close enough for you to act. The mugger who finds it easier to take what he wants off an body once it has been rendered harmless want to be close enough to use their weapon of choice.
The bad guy wants to choose and control the distance.
You need to take that control of the distance away from the Aggressor(s) .
In my book “Watch Out For The Pointy End” I state that your goal is to survive and there are four strategies to achieve that: Escape, Distance and deploy, or grab, a weapon, Disable or Control. I point out that in a knife assault you should only go for control when you employment requires it or for some other reason.
To escape you need enough distance to break away from the Aggressor and get so much more of that distance they stop chasing you. Or you get to a place where they no longer have the security or privacy to do what they wanted.
To deploy or grab a weapon you need distance to give you the time to do that. You may also have to maintain that proper distance to achieve your objective of getting a weapon into play to defend yourself.
To disable means you need to be close enough to do that and that distance will depend on what you a good at. If you are a long-range striker, then you need to be at a distance to use those long-range strikes. If you like to grapple, or a mix of manipulating and striking, then you will want to be up close and personal.
To physically control the Aggressor, you need to be up close and personal.
All the strategies for survival require you to be at the distance YOU want to be to employ the tactics and techniques to action them. Therefore, it is clear being the one who controls the distance is vital to surviving an assault just as Joe Lewis saw it as vital to winning a match.
To control the distance, you need to have an awareness of space. You need to be aware of where you are and the threat(s) are.
You need the timing to maintain that distance and you need the ability to read the movements of the Aggressor(s) so that you can bring the distance to what you want it to be.
To control the distance, you need the tactics and skills to obtain the distance.
Once again in my book it goes into how to handle propelling a person away from you to gain distance and how to close the distance for more control. You need these skills to control the distance. The drills for employing weapons once deployed will work on maintaining the distance you want.
Other training will address the same issue and give you the same skills, just make them part of your preparation and training.
An aspect of controlling the distance is to always look to be in a strategically better position after you move. I consider this to be part of controlling the distance because controlling the distance is, in essence, positioning; therefore, we should not only have an advantageous distance in that position but a strategical advantage as well.
If you ask two people to square off and perform a little drill their awareness of distance and position can be very telling.
The drill is simple, two people face each other in a fighting position.
Taking turns, one person gets to move to a new position first.
Then the other person gets to move and adjust to the other’s new position.
Spoiler Alert: The person adjusting will often move back into that squared up dueling position rather than moving to a strategically better position.
A good thing to train out of yourself. Seriously do this drill again with them and have the first person move to a strategically better position, then the second person move to a strategically better position. This will help condition them to see the better place to be.
Controlling the distance means you place yourself where you want to be to employ the strategy you selected to survive.