Being able to defend yourself against strangulation is part of self defense fundamentals. When it comes to know whether attackers often use these techniques or not, we don’t have a clue.
Anyway, knowing how to defend yourself against strangulation is essential, because it is a particularly dangerous technique and self defense aims at providing you with solutions to as many risky situations as possible.
Unfortunately, strangleholds are very much fantasized. Now, is there anything we can do about it?
Fiction VS Reality
You’ve probably already seen them, those action movie heroes who are strangled by an assailant and try for a long minute to grab a nearby object to smash it against the aggressor’s head! Once the job is done, they get up as if nothing had happened, ready to keep fighting for another half hour without interruption!
Just like many of the stereotypes associated with fighting, people have integrated this image into their psyche and turned it into something they consider to be true.
In these movies, the ones who are strangled can hold on for a long time and keep struggling without feeling too much pressure.
Well the reality is quite different! Unfortunately, very few people can integrate this without trying it in realistic conditions.
During a real strangulation, i.e. not with the fingers flat on the neck but with the thumbs turned inwards and compressing the larynx, the reaction is instantaneous: the victim has an expiratory reflex caused by the pain and the overpressure created in the airways. This same overpressure will push back the base of the tongue, which will block breathing and cause asphyxiation within a few seconds.
Compression of the trachea by strangulation techniques rarely crushes it, as it is protected by rings of cartilage (it requires an impact instead), but even when the victim is released on time, the damage caused to the larynx can be long lasting. It results in a fracture of the hyoid bone, for instance.
Enough to prevent you from talking for a while, as opposed to what is portrayed in the movies!
