Why Are There No Verbal Self Defence Classes

Why are there no verbal self-defence classes?

A quick google shows that the market worldwide for martial arts classes is over $100 Billion a year.

Here’s the point I want to make.

A lot of people spend a lot of money on learning how to fight and defend themselves physically. Even though most people’s chances of getting into a physical altercation - outside of a playground - are pretty low. I personally haven’t been involved in any kind of physical altercation since I was as university over thirty years ago.

But I was involved in two pretty nasty confrontations yesterday. I had an argument with my wife, which, if the judges were fair, might have been a draw on points. Who am I fooling, I came out of it looking like an utter dick.

And then later I had a conversation with my mother where - just like something out of a martial arts movie, the little old practitioner, tiny and bent double barely had to straighten up and lift a finger to flatten me and leave me gasping and nursing my wounds, flat on my back on the mat.

Here’s the point.

Most of us don’t get into physical altercations every day.

Most of us do get into verbal altercations multiple times a day. And if there are that many verbal fights happening every day, there are at least half that many losers from those fights. I say at least half because, like many actual fights, the result is that both sides lose.

From this line of reasoning, you would perhaps think that there would be verbal “self-defence” classes. I don’t think there are. Are they? Please, tell me if you do know of any.

I don’t think there are any - there’s one kind of niche that I can think of - we’ll mention it later.

And I think it’s worth asking.

Why not?

OK, I’m going to suggest some possible reasons.

Possible reason #1 - because sparring is just too dangerous?

I know nearly nothing about martial arts. But I’ve seen boxing sparring in gyms on the TV. The boxers have gloves on. And they haven padded helmets. And there’s always a grizzled trainer to break things up if they get too aggressive.

But think about it. If you were going to run a verbal fight club, how on earth would you set it up so that you don’t get sued? One well-placed laugh, a little sneer. A pause even! And someone could be injured for life. Injured for life and then desparate to make themselves better by suing everyone in sight or accusing everyone of some prejudice.

It’s obviously not true that you can’t say anything these days. It is absolutely true that you can say a lot of things that can get you into a lot of trouble.

Possible reason #2 - because it’s more obvious with verbal sparring than it is with physical sparring that fake situations are no help with real situations?

Let’s just count down the way that a sparring match in boxing is made safe.

Only two people are involved at once.

They’re both roughly the same weight.

They’re wearing gloves, to limit the damage they can do to themselves and each other.

There’s someone watching who can stop the fight if it gets out of hand.

Anybody can surrender at any time.

It’s in a limited space. Yes that means that it’s difficult to run away, but it also means it that the opponents can’t stray into territory that would be dangerous. They don’t have boxing sparring matches on the edges of tall buildings, or on quicksand. Fight promoters? Feel free to use these ideas for your pay-to-view events.

Two people at once

Yes, we can set this up for a verbal sparring match. We can make it so only two people are talking and that prevents a “pile on” or a load of people ganging up on one person, or indeed a bar fight / gang fight where things kick off in lots of different directions. But…

they’re both roughly the same weight.