So you’ve taken a couple of self defense classes with and without firearms. You’ve got all the latest gear, shooting regularly and practicing self defense. You try to watch everyone when you go out and you are starting to get use to that. Now you are starting to have a style.
How you dress, what you carry, what you drive, where you go, who you go with, and what you do when you get there is all part of your style. The idea is now to take your life and mold it with your fighting style.
How you dress and what you do will have a big impact on what and how you carry a weapon. If you are a lawyer and work in a federal courthouse you can’t carry a gun and probably not a knife, but you can carry a pen. You should also lean heavily on weaponless defense and take more hand to hand fighting classes than you should firearms.
If you work for an armored car company like I used to, you open carry all the time. My company actually had a policy against carrying any other weapons beside your firearm (no knife, no pepper spray, and no batons). So, when I worked for them, I took a lot of firearms training classes and trained mostly with my carry gun.
Most of our lives aren’t as cut and dry as that, but you get the idea. You should lean your training toward your lifestyle and how you fight. Bob Mayne, with whom I generally guest host on his podcast, used to love appendix carrying a gun (think gun tucked in a holster inside the waist band above your right front jeans pocket). It fit his lifestyle very well, as he drives a lot for work, and was very comfortable for him. It also fit the way he dressed, so he adapted his training to fit his life style.
Weapon choice has a lot to do with your fighting style. I don’t always carry a gun (can’t at work), but I always have a knife. I’m very good with my knives and don’t mind getting in really close to use the knife if I have to. I also don’t mind fighting on the ground after taking years of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
If you enjoy boxing, you aren’t going to get in as close. Distance works for you. You might (if legal) want to carry a small collapsible baton instead of a knife for a weapon. It probably fits your fighting style and training better.
I personally don’t carry pepper spray because I hate when it gets on me. So, if I spray someone and they don’t give up or let me escape, I will get in close and may end up on the ground with them. If that happens, all that spray will get rubbed on me, too, and I’ll be feeling the effects of it. Like I said, I hate being sprayed, so pepper spray doesn’t work for my fighting style.
Women, if you like to wear tight clothing to show off your beauty, then it’s hard to hide a gun, but you always carry a big purse, you may want to put your weapon in the purse. What type of weapon comes down to your fighting- and life-style. Do you have kids that are always going through your purse? That makes a big difference in what you carry. I personally like off-body carry and have a man bag that I will carry my gun in a lot. It also has a bunch of other first aid and survival tools that I know how to use. Having a gun on you is best, but having a gun in a bag next you is better than not having a gun.
Think about your style. What’s your life look like? Who do you hang out with? Where do you go? What do you do for work? What do you have training in? What kind of practice do you do? Mold all that together to get your own personal fighting style, then, choose the weapons that best fit your style.
Stay Safe,
Ben
Knives are great tools, but if you haven’t been trained to fight with them then you are going to be in for a very rude awakening if you ever have to. Even with training the odds of not being cut or stabbed in a knife fight are around zero. Something to think about. Test it out with a friend and use markers in place of knives and see what happens… scary!
I totally agree. Part of your fighting style should be what you want to train with. It you don’t train with a knife you should consider something else to carry for protection.