Punching Day: Fight Back! 🌭

There is a wide spectrum of philosophies when it comes to self-defense books. Some suggest obliterating the bones and organs of your attacker. Others warn you should only shriek an alarm and look for an escape. But 1978's Fight Back - A Woman's Guide to Self-Defense is the closest I've ever seen a book come to suggesting you lay down and die at the first sign of crime.

To give you an example of how huge the difference can be between self-defense techniques, let's look back on a Lady Karate book from this same era,  How to Protect Yourself and Survive - from one woman to another. It was about groin blasting and car key stabbing. In How to Protect Yourself and Survive, the muggers looked like they were getting their souls knocked the fuck loose from their mortal frame. In Fight Back, it's one bored guy getting his perm interrupted by tiny, delicate fists. The Fight Back karate model takes punches like a voiceover asked him if he's tired of the same old vegetable medley.

Self-defense trainers generally brag about some kind of martial arts background they've "adapted for the streets." The authors of Fight Back go the opposite direction. Before the preface is over, they establish they only have a Wikipedia-level knowledge of a few martial arts styles, and they think they're all pretty much the same except karate is best since you can use it for attacking and defending. It's not quite "Webster's defines 'punching' as...", but it's very close.

Karate-speaking, this is like me writing a book about tampons and opening with, "Pads were invented to absorb menstrual blood, and each one has a spirit name like Jenette or DeShawn. Cotton for the gentle flows of carefree whimsy. Poly-fabric blends for emergency spurting or undersea. Green and yellow when it's time to get ill. Most experts plug it up with steel wool, as that also reduces the yearning of your pelvic humours. Jamming a mix of sawdust and tree sap originated in Malaysia more than 2,000..."

My point is, if you went into this book knowing anything about fighting, you now know less. And if you went into it knowing nothing, you spent $6.95 in 1977 money to give your next mugger an easy day at work and a funny story.

After this academic look at martial arts, there are about fifteen pages of "street survival" tips. Most of them are things it would be difficult to leave childhood without learning-- don't walk past dark alleys, never be alone, and ask to see a badge if someone claims to be a bra inspector. But there are a few unusual tips like this one:

Did this fucking karate book just tell me to carry $10 for muggers? Is that to buy him a plunger to pull his balls back out from where I kicked them? What? It's to "appease" him? You coward, if this is a book about surrendering, why is it called Fight Back? I don't need to read about someone giving up completely and throwing away their dignity; I already follow Dennis Miller on Parler, cha cha.

Next up, the authors answer some common questions about self-defense asked to them by people too pathetic to be anything other than imaginary. Fight Back was written for people hoping to summon the courage to beg their attacker for permission to die.

If I was teaching you karate and you asked, "If I hurt my attacker, won't he just get mad and hurt me worse?" I would assume I didn't hear you right and answer, "Of course he'll get mad when his heart bursts, you dumb shit. Is everyone who doesn't know karate this goddamn stupid? Show of hands, who else here is just dumb as all fucking shit?"

I have never seen a self-defense book so certain its readers are afraid to use self-defense. Was anyone worried there was some kind of "attacker immunity" loophole? A jury convicting you of defending yourself while they're trapped in a box right next to your lethal karate is absurd for two obvious reasons.

"Excuse me, shouldn't we channel all this timidity into fleeing? No? Women are too slow to run from danger? Okay, thank you. Great book so far, by the way."

"Hi, this isn't really a question, but more of a comment? I'm going to get completely fucked up. Love the book, thank you."

Eight? You should hurt him around eight? I think it's important to remember this is an amateur martial artist answering hypothetical questions from people who don't exist about how much to win a fight against an opponent whose size, weapons, and intentions could be anything. How would the answer to any of these questions be anything other than, "Use your best judgement, imaginary person who clearly doesn't have any." Nobody ever fucking asked this. These authors have so little wisdom to give they had to literally invent people dumb enough to need it.

"Is it okay to swallow gum? Should I carry a custom keychain in case my groper is named Jeff? Do I give extra money to my attacker if they have to help me up? Great book, thanks for putting answers to all these questions in one place."

"I already know I've screwed up the kick. So what now? Oh. Oh, that's not at all what I wanted to hear. That's very bad news. Are you sure I can't convince my attacker to let me try the kicks again? Yes, of course I have a keychain that says Jeff. Well, how was I supposed to know his name was going to Harold? I'm barely a yellow belt."

Jesus, these pathetic failure fantasies have become fully sexual. I think this book is for perverts with a cowardice fetish. "Hi, sensei. My boyfriend choked me out last night. Love the book! I bought a copy for my aunt who also needs the shame of defeat to get off. Thanks."

Hey, hypothetical question-asker, I'm starting to think having control over your life isn't for you. It might be time to ask your doctor to induce a coma and leave a note on you that says "FREE BEANBAG."

I know you don't exist, nonviolent commenter, but you should have considered your nonviolent stance before you bought a book called Fight Back. You imaginary dumbshit. This is like paying someone to have sex with their horse and asking them, "I would rather not have sex with horses; I don't want to fuck any of your animals." I'll tell you the same thing that horse owner will tell you: you don't have to put up a fight, but events have been set in motion and I can't unfluff this animal.

This book is a mess of unlikely advice for weaklings, but it is refreshing to see a self-defense author tackle the issue of "just forgot karate." I don't think I'm tempting fate at all when I say there is no way this victim's questions get any more tragic.

Fuck, yikes. Shit. That's my fault. Never dare a karate book to disappoint you.

I think that's enough questions. Let's move on to the actual combat part of Fight Back. Here's how it starts:

This is an entire unedited page listing some of your body's natural weapons. Have you heard of Teeth? See figure 17e for more information, which is the word "Teeth" and a picture of Margaret's teeth. And don't forget the Foot contains two weapons-- Foot and Heel. These parts will be referenced later in the book, so study them carefully. Look, I'm not sure how to joke about this. This woman took a picture of her teeth to explain Teeth and I can't imagine something dumber. I guess I could say something along the lines of "it's like taking a picture of your head to explain Head," but that exact thing is also there on the page.

Next, they show how "objects" can also be used as "weapons." So feel free to use Mop if you don't have access to Head. Again, I feel like there's no nuance to this failure worth communicating. It's simply as dumb as a thing can be. They should have called this book Bored Pussies Listing Things. These people put themselves in charge of protecting you from crime and took a picture of a man smelling a book. A chimpanzee could live to be 400 years old and never consider doing something this stupidly pointless.

Margaret Leeds kicks like someone who asks herself in her own book, "What if my kicks don't stop him?" She kicks like a baby giving up on a fruit snacks wrapper. At best this kick moves your attacker's penis into a more comfortable spot. And I get we're here to learn very serious karate and not engage in theatrics, but it's not a confidence booster when your training partner has fully recovered from your kick before you've put your foot back down. I don't think this has any right to be called a "FRONT KICK," so I'm changing it.

The moves, which the authors already suspect you'll forget, are almost exclusively harmless bonks to disrupt Frankenstein attacks. Like this twirling hammer punch to the part of your attacker's face that makes him cranky but not unconscious:

I'm not sure it's worth getting deeper into how these moves wouldn't work. Margaret already knows. She wrote this book for ladies certain they're going to die the first time someone tries to take their purse. And thanks to the delicate attacks and her partner's deadpan face, every photo looks like an abused husband trying to make their relationship work. So I'll shut up so we can sit back and enjoy it.