Defending the Shove

Brad Parker of Defend University on attacks beginning with a shove.

Q:

I was wondering: would you say that fights often escalate from shoves where one person shoves another to try to intimidate that person?

If you were shoved by someone, what would you recommend to counter a shove in a way that lets the 'shover' know if he were foolish enough to continue trying to
intimidate you (further shoves, trash talk, etc.) , that you can more than
handle him, thereby preventing a fight in the process?

A.

I used to have a statistic from the Department of Justice that showed something like 74% of all assaults begin with a push or a shove. So, yes! -- a shove usually indicates the initial stages of an assault.

One common type of opening gambit is to shove the intended victim back to give the attacker range to connect with an overhand right punch. The key here is that the attacker is using the shove to "control" the distance. It's the same when the attacker grabs your shirt with one hand and curls it in. He is either pushing you away or grabbing you to control the distance to maximize the effectiveness of his punch.

On the shove, I've noticed that many guys (who are shoved) try to stop their rearward motion and react by stepping forward again to show the attacker that they aren't scared -- BOOM! They step right into the punch that is following the shove.

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