Do you have the skills to win a fight that gets this close? Do you have the will not to be taken by surprise so that it gets here? You’ve got to practice Active Self Protection before and during the encounter so that you can survive a robbery attempt like this.

Details on the story from the local news: http://get-asp.com/urpw

Another view of the incident: http://get-asp.com/cxq0

How do I win a fight against a robber?

1. Situational awareness is always the first step to winning any fight. The worst situation is what this clerk found himself in, which is to be ambushed by a robber. In this case, the ambush was self-inflicted because of his cell phone though! Don’t allow yourself to be the victim of your cell phone. Put your phone in your pocket, or if you have to use it or want to check your TwitFaceInstaTube be sure to not get engrossed in the screen and know when people come into your vicinity.

2. The robber used a distraction tactic to further ambush the clerk, namely the sand or dirt that he threw in his face. When you get pelted in the face like that it will make your eyesight almost gone. It won’t have the pain of pepper spray, but it will temporarily have the effect of blindedness. It’s therefore important to be able to fight at the manipulation stage without the need for sight. You have to train to be unable to use your eyes but instead use your hands and your body and your kinesthetic sense to be able to know what to do.

3. As pro-LEO as we are at ASP, hitting the alarm button didn’t protect this clerk beyond shortening the fight against the perp. In the moment he had to defend himself, and on the day you defend yourself from harm the same will be true. There will be no officers there to protect you! You must be the primary agent in your rescue, so work on your attitude, skills, and plan to do so.

4. If you’re a firearms carrier (and I hope you are), you must realize that even if this is a deadly force encounter there was no opportunity for the clerk to get to any force multiplier. He had to win the fight with his hands!

Attitude. Skills. Plan.