Hostile Ground

Our personal and professional lives often put us in contact with ­people who exhibit intimidating, menacing, and sometimes outright violent behavior. Ed Lewis has faced more than a thousand such ­confrontations as part of a professional restraint team at a mental health facility as well as on the streets as a private investigator, and in those environments he discovered the psychological and physical secrets of defusing such hostile subjects or, if necessary, restraining their attacks.

In Hostile Ground, he gives you a graduate course in such topics as

• handling fear during a confrontation
• recognizing different types of aggressors
• identifying common reasons for assaultive behavior
• reading body language for signs of impending violence
• defusing a hostile situation
• managing physical assaults if all else fails

The book concludes with real-life accounts of how professionals and civilians alike have used Lewis' techniques to handle potentially explosive situations. Whether your job puts you in harm's way or you're simply an ordinary citizen who interacts with the public on a daily basis, you will learn from this book.

Edward Lewis has taught self-defense since 1967. He has been listed in the Who's Who in Karate and is a former representative for the Karate International Council of Kickboxing and PKA Full Contact Karate. A mental health counselor, Lewis leads an elite team that defuses, restrains, and gains control of violent mental health patients, and has created violence-prevention programs for law enforcement and social service agencies.