“The Monkey Dance” refers to the back and forth posturing that individuals engage in before they actually enter a physical conflict. In the Krav Maga system that we teach, this occurs in the “Pre-Conflict” phase of violence: one where the threat of danger/violence has been explicitly directed at a particular individual(s). I mention the “Monkey Dance” because on Saturday we started to take the skills and techniques we had been learning in the previous 6 weeks and start to show their relevance in actual street scenarios i.e. a push followed by a swinging punch/haymaker. You can learn every defense against knife, stick and gun etc and yet if you don’t understand the context and situational components of the scenario then your knowledge will only have relevance to the studio in which you train and not for real-life.
What is important to understand is that this simple attack – a push followed by a punch – is effective for several reasons: 1) The person is acting, whilst you are reacting, 2) the push takes away your balance, and gaining it back will be your natural focus not to defend the punch and 3) one punch may be all it takes for you to emotionally crumble – most people “give up” a fight because they are emotionally exhausted/crumbled rather than because of any physical injury.
One thing to understand about 95% of untrained individuals is that they will attack with their best attack and have little planned beyond it. Despite its effectiveness the push & punch combination rarely has anything more sophisticated coming behind it; it is basically an opening for more of the same. Crude and unsophisticated attacks are rarely followed by anything more subtle and dangerous….unless the fight progresses and a knife gets pulled etc. The most significant thing to note is that there is a “monkey dance” which precedes the assault.
One of the hardest jobs I often have as a reality based self defense instructor is to convey to people that violence rarely just erupts without warning. In fact I would go far enough to say that physical violence directed towards an individual can always be predicted (if not always prevented), as opposed to violence against individuals who form part of a targeted group e.g. someone caught up in an act of terrorism that is directed at a group or target (a worker in the Twin Towers on 9/11) would have no chance of predicting what might happen to them that day. If a person is screaming and shouting at you over a perceived injustice, such as a spilt drink etc, it is easy to make a prediction concerning the likelihood of violence against you. This display of emotion and aggression is what forms the monkey dance.
Aggressors engage in the monkey dance for three main reasons: 1) they need to emotionally prepare themselves in order to make a physical assault/go to the next step, 2) they want to intimidate their selected target/victim so they are less likely to fight back and 3) they often need to make it clear to any onlookers/audience that they have a “right” to physically assault their chosen target. As I wrote in my last blog, I was bullied as a kid. One of the worst things about being bullied was the bullies supposed justification as to why they were bullying me. They knew that should the bystanders and onlookers call them in to question, they were finished and so they used to make stuff up about me in order to justify to themselves and others why they were behaving the way they did. In acts of aggression that are performed in front of a group, understand the importance the group has in validating the actions of the bully i.e. walking away and doing nothing – two responses I now understand and accept – are all it takes for their actions to be validated to them.
If a person needs to engage in the monkey dance it indicates that they are not ready emotionally to act and/or require validation/justification to act. If they are unready yet to get physical you have a chance to appeal to their reason and move beyond their emotions or go pre-emptive. If they need validation, then taking the reasonable route may also be productive. However you choose to respond to their aggression it is important to stay calm and be prepared to strike decisively. Your aggressor may see your lack of aggression as a weakness, just as George Foreman did against Muhammad Ali in the “Rumble in the Jungle” however it is sometimes best to let a person run themselves emotionally out of steam. We will talk about various methods of de-escalation etc in this weeks classes.
If a person pushes you and throws a punch, you better have a plan in place! See you on the mats this week.