For today’s lesson, we are going to learn an effective pressure point technique to help you deal with an attacker who is choking your neck from behind. A rear choke hold is what we call a master grip. Depending on your lung capacity, it has the capability to lend you unconscious in less than 6 seconds. Dangerous, to say the least, it is also the most common choke that kills people in fights. And with just seconds to survive, learning how to defend against such an attack is all the more important.

So, let’s take a look at an effective way to handle this sticky situation. First and most importantly do not PANIC! Get yourself into a proper posture to gain stability and keep your breath steady. This will help you conserve energy for the actual fight.

Next, you need to reach out behind your attacker's ears and squeeze the inner lining of the ears as hard as you can. The inside lining is a soft spot for all humans and an attack to it is sure to make anyone loosen their grip and bring them to their knees.

The lower you can bring your attacker, the more options you will have to counterattack them with. Take this chance to follow up with any of the attacks that you have learnt in the previous posts or flee from the scene, depending on your position and situation. While I sincerely hope you’ll never have any reason to use these techniques, I do want to remind you that the most important thing to remember here is to not panic and keep your BREATHING steady.

Knowing how to defend yourself against such an attack will give you the confidence to not panic in this situation. But it is equally important to practise these moves regularly – at home in front of a mirror or with a willing volunteer. Practice will ingrain these techniques in your mind and will do you a lot of good if you ever end up finding yourself in such a situation.

If you enjoyed reading about these techniques in self-defence, do check out our other blogs. You can also share these blogs with friends and family who you think will find the information useful.