I have Google alerts set up for a wide range of subjects, but one of the main is Bartitsu. This wonderful Edwardian Martial Art is passion of mine, and I look after another blog on it, on behalf of the Bartitsu Society. Via this alert I today came across this article focusing, as many do, on one of the wackier more unusual part of the art - self defence with a bicycle.
Peter Robins, the journalist of the piece recounts a time he was assaulted whilst riding his bike and 2 things leap out from his account.
It happened late at night. I was cycling slowly up a steepish hill. I passed a shell-suited gentleman - he on the pavement, me on the road - and he mumbled something. I asked him to repeat it, thinking it might be “You’ve got a puncture.” His response was to do nothing for about 15 seconds, then sprint around in front of me, shout at me, and punch me in the mouth.
What was right for me, I discovered, was to wait, stunned, for a couple of seconds until he started to walk away, and then carry on cycling while using my tongue to check whether any of my teeth had come loose. Perhaps if I had studied Bartitsu I might have been able to scare the man away. Or perhaps I would have been empowered to do something really stupid.
The most obvious is the failure in awareness and decision making that lead to a mine on a bike being overtaken by a man on foot and assaulted. The second is the more telling. He wanted to scare the man away. Scare him.
Not defend himself, not fight back. Scare him away.
What Mr Robins seems to want is to be able to protect himself without having to really do anything. To have a magic technique of waving his bike pump like a wand and ‘Muggerio Runawayio’, have him run off with his tail between his legs like a villain from a Harry Potter novel. Sadly this is just not possible. The guy who attacked Mr Robins picked him for a reason. He selected him as the target of his rage because he recognised someone who would not fight back. Someone he could hit without anything happening to him. A clever trick with a bike pump will not change that correct assessment. Some sensible, realistic training would.
Such training would show Mr Robins that the something stupid was not fighting back, as he seems to suggest, but rather the stopping for 15 seconds whilst a thug worked himself up to hit him. It was stopping for a chat with a dodgy stranger on a deserted road at night. With effective training, a reasonable level of fitness (certainly an experienced cyclist would be fit enough) and the right mental attitude fighting back would have been an option, as would the decision making to avoid having to do so. Sadly his incredulous response to this advice would indicate having anything like the willingness to defend himself against attack is a long way off.
If you are accosted, stand firm. Co-operating with a mugger is never going to help. What if they wave a knife under your nose? Well… any idea of what a bicycle pump can do to an eye or throat?
Of course, giving up ones bike, phone or wallet is a far better option than having to get physical, if that option does not seem open to you than I would suggest using a bike pump in such a way would be an excellent idea.
