Usually when we talk about street self defense and tactics we talk about how to control an aggressor when they actually attack you. What many martial artists don’t often talk about is what to do in the run up before the aggressor attacks, what to do when the situation is hotting up and violence is about to rear it’s ugly head.
What if you could gain complete control of your opponent before he even gets a chance to make any kind of move on you? What if you could control someone in this situation without them even knowing it? Well, with The Fence, you can do exactly that. Not only will you be able to control your opponent with this technique, you will also be in just the right position to counter any attack that is made against you.
It’s All about Control
So in basic terms, the fence is all about control of your opponent, physically and psychologically. This what Geoff Thompson, the creator of The Fence
concept, had in mind when he came up with the technique. He worked the doors for a long time and he wanted a way to completely control a potential attacker and keep himself safe at the same time, and to Geoff’s credit, he has succeeded on both these fronts.
In one of my previous articles I talked about the three A’s of self defense, which are: attitude, awareness, action. The Fence is brought into play at the action stage, when your attitude and awareness haven’t allowed you to escape the situation at hand and you are left with no choice but to stand and deal with it.
I have always advocated escaping potentially violent confrontations, by whatever means, first of all. This isn’t always possible though. Sometimes, for whatever reason (not for egotistical reasons I hope) you have to stay and confront whoever is being aggressive towards you. You simply don’t have a choice and this is were The Fence comes in.
In a street self defense situation you usually have someone in your face, shouting and being abusive towards you, building up to smacking you one. Most people react to this kind of abuse and posturing by being abusive right back and getting involved in a stare of or pushing and shoving contest before the fists start to fly. Reacting to aggression with more aggression is only adding fuel to the fire. Not only that, it draws you into the red mist and your thinking skills go out the window. When you get to the red mist stage you begin to operate on pure adrenalin and rage. Tactics go out the window and all you want to then do is beat down and dominate whoever is in front of you. You become an animal, in other wards, and you don’t want that, because animals don’t have much control, which as we know is bad in a self
Now I can try and explain to you how exactly to bring The Fence into play and how to use it properly, but I really don’t think I will do it justice here. Instead I will let the man who invented it explain it to you in the following two videos. I urge you to watch them and listen to what Geoff is saying. I firmly believe that the technique is more important than any other self defense technique there is and if mastered, can save you a lot of trouble if you ever get into a street self defense situation were you have no choice but to stand up for yourself against an aggressor.
Get to Know The Fence
I hope after watching Geoff explain the fence concept in the videos that you can now see how valuable such a technique would be in a real situation. If you can master controlling an opponent in that way then you will have no need to get into drawn out confrontations because you will have controlled and dominated your opponent even before they have thrown a single punch. This to me is the ultimate self defense tactic and beats all others hands down without a shadow of a doubt.
The only situation I can’t see the fence working in is one were there are multiple opponents involved, as you obviously can’t control them all at once. Your options are severely limited here. If you can’t run the only option is the pre-emptive strike and to try and take out as many of them first before they all crowd in on you.
Get to know the fence and its intricacies though. If any street self defense technique is worth learning it’s this one.
Trust me, you won’t regret the time you spend on it.
Further Reading
