There is a lot of discussion about improvised weapons in the self defense community, but much of what I have read seems to have promoted improvised weapons as replacements for actual ones. I don’t think this is a good idea. If you are going to arm yourself for self defense start with tools that were built for that purpose. We improvise only when we are forced to deviate from our plan.

Most of what I have read are laundry lists of things that can be pressed into a self defense use. I don’t like these lists because they leave out far more items than they include. It is more useful to think about “classes” of objects rather than specific items. I also tend to see things listed that are not all that much better than nothing, so it is a waste of time readying a weapon that isn’t any better than being unarmed.

Distractions This best summarized as “throwing your hot coffee in his face”, but anything at hand will do. Basically if we have something in our hands that can’t be used as a weapon is getting thrown at his face and followed by strikes. I don’t subscribe to the “distract and run” theory, because most distractions will only buy you a second. That second is enough to land a good blow, but probably not enough to create a useful amount of distance.

Striking Tools Anything that you can hold in your hand that will give you an advantage can be used as a striking tool. If it is harder or sharper than your hand it will probably work as long as it isn’t likely to damage your hand. Most of the time striking with a fist sized is done with a “hammer fist” type strike or a “palm heel” that uses the object as the striking surface. Larger items (pool cues, sticks, etc.) work pretty well with a baseball bat swing in the absence of a fancier or more sophisticated techniques.

Since we don’t have a lot of control over the targets we are going to hit, I wouldn’t use anything that I would be unwilling to strike full-force against a heavy bag. The “keys between the fingers” is a good example of this, you are about as likely to tear up your hands as you are to punch the keys into your assailant.

Projectiles There isn’t much of a role for throwing hand-sized objects. Anything that you could throw that would inflict injury with you could probably strike with and don’t stand the same chance of missing. Normally if an assailant that is far away enough to make throwing things worthwhile then the time would be better spent running.

Generally I think about throwing furniture. Hurling a chair or overturning a table can slow down a charging assailant. Kicking furniture into their path can also be helpful in that regard. Putting barriers between you and the attacker increases the amount of time for you to respond with something else.

Fixed Objects Rather than striking the assailant with an object, strike the object with the assailant. Things like telephone poles, picket fences, mailboxes, parked cars, and traffic are great things to drive people into.

Fixing somebody against a wall or the ground increases the power of your strikes because it takes away their ability to “roll” with it. Strikes against downed opponents are frequently a fight ending scenario. If you look at professional MMA you can see that “ground and pound” is still a pretty solid strategy. What you don’t see in MMA is kicks, stomps, and elbows against downed opponents – these techniques are disallowed in the rules because of the frequency of serious injury.