For today’s lesson, we are going to learn some very effective moves you can keep in mind do deal with an aggressive wrist grab. Wrist grabs are a very basic attack. More often than not, assailants use wrist grabs to control your moment or to stop you from reaching for a tool or weapon that can help you fight them. This can be frustrating and is likely to create panic, which may even lead to the victim freezing in place.

This is not a great position to be in. So, let’s take a look at a more effective way to handle this sticky situation. First and foremost, take a step back to gain stability, keep your breath stable and relax your wrist. The tighter your wrist, the harder it is to turn your wrist.

Next to break the wrist hold, rotate your wrist toward the attacker’s thumb in a clockwise direction. This move should remove your wrist from the hold. As you turn your hands in the opposite direction to retract them, you can continue the attack to cause further damage.

Use the inner side of your palm to strike the Adam's apple with some force. This will choke and disrupt the attacker’s breathing. Giving you enough time to flee from the perpetrator and get yourself some help, as he coughs and gasps for breath.

A word of caution here – be careful of the amount of pressure you exert when striking. The Adam’s apple is a sensitive spot and too much force can have serious consequences. 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 keep your BREATHING steady. A steady breath will help your mind be stable and allow you to respond to the attack instead of freezing in place.

Keep practising these techniques in front of a mirror or with a willing volunteer. Practice will help you develop muscle memory. And in a flight-or-fight situation, this muscle memory can be the difference between saving yourself and falling victim to a physical attack.

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.