Self Defense with One Arm Full

Question

I have studied a few different martial arts (Krav Maga, Jiu Jitsu, MMA) on and off over the years but, after becoming a mother and establishing the practice of having a baby on my hip 18 hours a day, I have been realizing just how small a percentage of my training I would be able to use in a real-life, self defense scenario with one arm full (as I usually am, especially in public).

Can anyone shed light on any strategies or techniques that might still be useful with only one arm free? I'm not looking for a magic solution or silver bullet, but any shared wisdom or ideas would be helpful.

Answer 1

First, get a small, child sized sandbag - you can train with the weight without necessarily risking having your baby getting rocked around with the training you'll be doing.

Second, start with your evasive footwork and short sprints. You'll want to really become comfortable with how your balance changes with the baby AND having to change direction suddenly. Be sure to practice both arms and how that feels as well. You won't really "square up" against an opponent as you may have been trained, so you'll want to ingrain this different movement in early.

Third, practice your safe falls with the bag. Unlike normal safe falls, you now have yet another thing to protect, which makes it more complicated in terms of movement. This is also really useful in case an attacker knocks you down - they usually won't expect you to recover quickly or be ready to fight.

Finally, I'd practice elbows, knees, and stomps. You're not trying to hang around and box it out with folks - you're looking for quick moves to stun and drop and push past them. Rushing forward and driving an elbow in is something few folks will expect, knees and stomps are also great close range attacks. You also will find it harder keep balance with the hip twists you'd normally do for punches or kicks, while elbows and knees can do more damage without having to shift your balance as deeply.

Answer 2

Rule 1: Cardio! ^{Zombieland, contains gore.}

Fighting with an infant in your arms is beyond impractical even if using said infant as a mass¹. Any techniques will not work as expected, your balance will always be off (infants do struggle), and you will have to always worry about harm coming to the infant.

So, run towards safety as fast as you can. Shielding your infant should be a priority so using your own body as a shield between them and whatever the threat is.

Obligatory link to no nonsense self defence where you can learn a little more about how to keep yourself out of trouble in the first place. This should be your goal: Not being there when violence starts is the safest thing to do.

Martial arts… Maybe?

Kicks are good but balance will be a problem although you can practice that with weights. However, a struggling screaming infant is a different thing. The last thing you want is to end up on the floor.

Punches will be much less powerful than if you could put your whole body behind them thus are unlikely to do much good.

In this situation, the less said about grappling, the better…

Weapons, such as knives, guns, or CS-gas are all possibles but escalate the situation massively and can be illegal to use. What is you lose control of the weapon? Not a good idea at all.

However, one of the things that will help is your increase in self confidence from doing martial arts. It will make you appear less like prey and more like a predator.

---

^{1 Clearly a suboptimal substitute for a mass and said in jest. Do I need to say that⸮…}

Answer 3

Something my trainer often tells us, is to run away. If that's not possible, try to talk the attacker out of it. If they still insist, a single, strong lowkick can actually work. It will show them you've been trained and shouldn't be messed with. Stop after that lowkick (or any other attack you're confident with) and try talking the attacker out of it again. Usually, they'll stop, as nobody actually wants to get their ass whooped. If they don't stop, you'll have time to put the infant aside.

All this relies heavily on something Sardathrion already mentioned: Confidence. If you try to talk an attacker out of fighting, but have little to no confidence, you'll actually encourage them. If you're beaming with confidence, little to no words may be necessary to stop them.