So there’s this thing…. the Bottle Bezel Self-Defense tool. (h/t to James Rummel).

Self-defense bottle caps. Um… OK. It’s certainly novel.

Now, let’s ignore the whole issue of bottled water, and the fact that a gun or a knife trumps a lump of knobby plastic atop your water or soda bottle (both you being attacked by, and that they’d be better tool choices for yourself).

Could this thing be a reasonable self-defense tool?

Actually, maybe it could. Maybe.

I think about dan bong (short stick) techniques, seen in Korean martial arts such as Kuk Sool, Hapkido, and Hwa Rang Do (and their variants). Not that I think this bottle cap actually could work dan bong style, but it’s something I’m familiar with and as soon as I saw the bottle cap and thought a bit about it, dan bong techniques came to mind. One premise of dan bong techniques is directing hits to sensitive/vital areas, pressure point targets, and so on. This article describes some of the points, but lacks visuals. So instead, here I have a visual taken from Kali, and I have seen a similar illustration from a Modern Arnis book I have by Remy Presas. You can click on the picture for more details (it’s discussing the Presas approach), and you can see the basic striking points and angles of attack. Dan bong is similar. While with this bottle cap you may not take a true Kali/Arnis/Eskrima or Korean dan bong type of strikes, thinking about those weaponologies… take strikes with the butt-end of the stick, apply them to these vital target areas. And so yeah, maybe a knobby lump of plastic might do something. I would think the cap would be more effective applied to bony areas, bare skin (clothing pads and would diminish the effects)… striking, grinding it in.

But on that token, I think that’s where the cap has limited application. Someone attacks you middle of winter, they’ll be rather covered up… where are you going to strike them?  Or even if it’s in the summer and lots of flesh is exposed, the striking/grinding application of the cap is only going to be effective in certain places. I guess go for the head and hope. Which brings up another point… this is a contact weapon. You’re going to have to be close in to use it, and that’s probably too close for comfort. This is where tools that utilize projectiles are useful.

I also wonder about the structural integrity of the bottle. Many bottles now are being made out of very skimpy and flimsy plastic, so bottles collapse and crush pretty easily. Can those bottles withstand such a use? And would you trust your life to that? Maybe these will screw on top of the steel (reusable) water bottles. Most of the steel ones I’ve seen have a female top with a male cap, and this Bottle Bezel is a female cap for the male disposable bottle tops… so unlikely to work unless you can find a steel one set up the right way. But steel would be better than plastic bottles. Then perhaps you could use other striking techniques with the bottle itself, but even that’s a bit unwieldy.

I’ll say this. While I applaud their efforts to create a “less lethal” self-defense tool, one key part of self-defense is to stop the attack so you can escape. Is this bottle cap going to stop an attack? By look alone? I highly doubt it. I mean, flash a gun or a knife and attackers typically stop… flash a bottle cap?  Then by effective application? Well, perhaps, but it seems so limited and difficult to trust. 

I don’t know. Maybe. I haven’t actually seen or played with one so I can’t make a complete assessment. But just looking at the logic of it all, I can’t see it. If they really want to market it as a self-defense tool, they ought to show how it can be used. Give us some honest material and ways to view this as anything other than a gimmick or talisman. Maybe they can create their own martial art and call it “H2-Do” (sorry, the pun was there). At this point, it’s not something I’d put my faith in. I have more effective and proven tools, and I’ll stick with those.