How to Defend Yourself against an Attack with a Club

Having to defend yourself while unarmed against an attack with a stick or club is not easy.  The attacker has a weapon that he can wield from a distance, which can be swung quickly at various angles and with a lot of force, causing serious bodily injury or even death.   Assuming you are out and about without any weapons of your own, and faced with this scenario, you will have to rely on your wits, reflexes and the ability to inflict maximum damage to vulnerable targets very quickly. 

While it may be possible to disarm your attacker at some point, that is not your goal.  Instead, your goal is to avoid getting hit, or at least avoid taking serious damage.  Learning self-defense from an article is not optimal, but there are a few ideas that can be understood and easily implemented in this situation.

Distance is key – so depending on the length of the weapon being used (let’s not discuss knives right now), you need to try and keep obstacles between you and the attacker to make it hard for him to swing the weapon and hopefully give you time to get away.  If these tactics won’t work, then you need to resort to more direct measures. 

There are generally two basic options when someone is swinging something at your head/body: move away from it and avoid getting hit or move towards it to get inside the arc where the club cannot cause damage.  In this article let’s examine what to do when you move back and away from the swing.

Moving away from danger is the natural reaction most people have – we do not instinctively think about moving towards a deadly weapon, and with good reason.  And while moving back and away means you will probably avoid getting hit, it does create a few challenges: you’re still facing an attacker who is unhurt, armed, and probably swinging a backhand strike at your head immediately after missing you. 

Once you move back and the club swings past you, one option is to immediately move in to jam the attacker’s swinging arm by bringing up your forearms and slamming them into his forearm.  Depending on your distance from the attacker and the speed you and he are moving at, you hopefully will end up striking the attacker’s forearm hard – stopping the strike, causing pain, and allowing you the chance to end the confrontation. If you are too far out, and the attacker is too quick, you might end up catching the club on one or both forearms – not ideal – but better than your head or body. 

After you have stopped the backswing, you want to do one of two things: 1) use one hand to grab the wrist and control the attacking arm while the other hand palm strikes the face as many times as needed to get the proper response – ideally the attacker being unconscious, or 2) use your arm and wrap it around the attacker’s arm trapping it in your armpit, and then continuing as above.  After I deliver a palm strike to the face, I like to hook my thumb under the attacker’s jaw as I push his head back, while sticking a finger or two in his eyes. 

If not unconscious, this should at least cause the attacker to drop the weapon, at which point you can shove the attacker away from you and the weapon, while you either flee to safety or pick up the weapon and prepare for any additional attacks.

You can find a ton of videos on this on the internet, but if you really want to learn defenses against these types of attacks, seek out a self-defense school that focuses on teaching effective defenses against realistic attacks.

Remain vigilant and stay safe!