Smarter Thinking, Not Smarter Fighting

You bump into someone in a bar. Voices rise, shoulders square. Or maybe it’s someone invading your personal space on a night out, ignoring your signals to back off. In either case, what’s your move? Do you try to prove a point, or do you step back?

Most people think self-defence means being able to fight better. The truth? Most of the time it’s about not fighting at all.

Learning fighting skills does build confidence, and that’s important. But real skill is knowing when to use them, and doing everything you can not to.

The real danger is overconfidence. Psychologists call it the Dunning–Kruger Effect: people with little experience often think they’re more capable than they are. In self-defence, that kind of false confidence gets people hurt. Add ego into the mix, the need to win the argument, save face, or refuse to back down and suddenly you’re escalating instead of staying safe.

And fights are never clean. Getting hit by bare fists or someone wearing rings isn’t like sparring with gloves. Grappling on concrete or broken glass isn’t the same as rolling on mats. Even breakfalls change completely outside the gym. On mats, small mistakes don’t matter much. On concrete, the same mistake, like landing on your knees, can cripple you in the moment or for a long time after, possibly forever.

And beyond injuries, there’s the law. Every strike, every hold, every push has legal consequences. Even if you “win” the fight physically, you may still face charges or lawsuits that can wreck your life just as much as an injury.

That’s why de-escalation isn’t just “common sense.” It’s a skill. The way you talk, the way you carry yourself, the way you read intent, all of it matters. If you don’t train it, you won’t use it when it counts. The strongest fighter is the one who can stop a fight before it starts.

Of course, sometimes you don’t get that choice. If it goes physical, you need to act fast: either create distance and get to safety, or if you can’t escape, control the situation until help arrives.

But here’s the paradox: the smartest win often looks like a loss. Walking away from insults, apologising when you weren’t at fault, or giving up property rather than risking your life might feel like weakness. In reality, it’s the biggest victory of all, because you walk away intact.

Self-defence isn’t about bravado. It’s about awareness, discipline, and control. The best practitioner isn’t the one who proves themselves in every fight, it’s the one who gets home safe able to carry on with their lives a they enjoy, without the heavy consequence's that violence leaves us to deal with.