Definition of Self Defense

When most people speak of self defense, they are usually referring to combat situations involving some sort of martial art or weapon used to deter an attacker. This is truly defending oneself, of that there's no question, but to use this as the only definition of "self defense" is to severely limit the true broad scope of what self defense actually is.

Pictured: a mugger... or a ninja chef.

There are plenty of situations in which you can find yourself in danger, yet can not be solved by combative means, no matter how many black belts you've attained, or how big a gun you've got. In fact, I would go so far as to say that, in your daily life, you are more likely to encounter a non combative situation than a combative one. This creates a problem because most folks neglect any sort of training that could help them in, say, a house fire where they might have to carry an unconscious family member to safety. Perhaps you may have to quickly climb a tree to escape an attacking animal or flood waters. Maybe you will have to be able to balance across a slick fallen tree to cross a river when you find yourself lost in the forest, or need the ability to run and negotiate obstacles if you are attacked by a large group of people.

Zombies don't do Parkour. 

It's easy to see that in these situations, you may not be able to utilize martial arts to protect yourself. You can't roundhouse kick a blazing inferno no more than you can grapple with a flood; bullets will not carry your unconscious/injured family members out of danger. In case of an emergency it's up to you to be physically capable of defending yourself or others, and that calls for training in natural movement capacities that we've long been negligent of. 

Training programs that follow this ideal have been around since at least 1902 when French naval officer Georges Hebert created Methode Naturelle in response to his experience in Saint-Pierre, Martinique when he successfully rescued nearly 700 people from the chaos that ensued when Mount Pelee erupted. There he saw citizens in full blown panic, physically incapable of surviving the stampeding mass of people, raining hot ash, molten lava, and hordes of venomous snakes retreating from the forest getting tangled in and biting their legs and feet.

Methode Naturelle became the core of the French navy's physical regimen and those who partook in the training soon became ranked with world-class decathletes. These sailors trained with the motto "Be strong to be useful." Unfortunately, Hebert and his instructors would die before they could pass the training on to other nations.

Today, however, a man named Erwan Le Corre has revived Methode Naturelle, adding and enhancing the program to be fully scalable and applicable in today's modern world. He's deemed the program MovNat and has brought this training to the masses, holding clinics all over the world and annual 5 day summer seminars in West Virginia. He urges people to break free from what he calls the Zoo Human lifestyle, where we drive everywhere, sit all day, and do useless exercises on unnatural machines in the gym, and eat garbage. 

This is what the rest of the world thinks of when they hear the word "America".

This brings me to another extension of the "self defense" definition: Diet and Nutrition. You can't punch diabetes, heart disease, or obesity. You can't even run or climb them away entirely. These illnesses and many others are brought about by eating poorly which is easily changeable when you take the effort to break your addiction to eating crap food. Eating well strengthens the immune system and gives you massive amounts of energy.

So when I say self defense, I mean defending yourself from all forms of peril, be it combative, situational, or nutritional. Not only does practice in these fields increase your chances of living longer, it increases your ability to live happier, healthier lives, free from the constraints of illness and disability. Whether you do it for preparedness, just for the sake of reconnecting to your inner human animal, or just for the fun of it, you'll benefit amazingly from incorporating all these aspects into your training.