Self-Defense Tip 6 Throat Grab

What should your first reaction be when someone grabs you by the throat?

The only good first reaction to being grabbed by your throat

First, protect your throat! Bring your chin to your chest to prevent the attacker’s fingers or thumbs closing on your throat. If the attacker already has his or her fingers or thumbs on your throat, trapping them under your jaw will make it more difficult to squeeze your throat. If you let the attacker squeeze your throat hard enough to crush the cartilage in your windpipe, you will die of asphyxiation. It may take a minute or more for you to pass out, but you will die in great pain, gasping for air, no matter what you do to your attacker.

Second, grab the attacker’s wrists (it may be done simultaneously with digging your chin into your chest), squeeze or push them toward each other, while jerking your upper body away from his or her hands. I say “upper body” because you should not move your head alone as this would open up your throat.

Now, when you see someone teaching “defenses” against hand chokes, where the demonstrator allows the attacker’s hands on the front of the throat — you know they are phonies. It does not matter what the defender does to the attacker, how he or she tears off the attacker’s ears, gouges eyes, locks arms, kicks shins or groins — if the fingers can squeeze the throat, and that takes only a split second — the defender is dead.

Recommended reading:
Self-Defense Tip #24 — Realistic Defenses vs. Phony Defenses: Grappling Attacks

This tip is based on the video Basic Instincts of Self-Defense. Get this video now and have all the info—not just the crumbs! Order Now!

Self-defense tip from Thomas Kurz, co-author of Basic Instincts of Self-Defense and author of Science of Sports Training, Stretching Scientifically, and Flexibility Express.

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