Many years ago I read his book, Tricks of the Mind, and I still remember the section about how to use confusion as a weapon of self-defense.
I never hear anyone talking about it, though, and I couldn't find anyone quoting it verbatim online, so I decided to type it out myself. Which was a total pain in the ass but that's how much I love you guys.
I think it's brilliant. I hope you do, too, because really how ungrateful can you be? Sheesh.
Confusion and Self-Defense
by Derren Brown
One year I was attending a [magic] convention in Llandudno and was walking back to my hotel in the early hours of the morning. I had long hair at the time, as well as the Emperor Ming goatee, and was wearing a velvet jacket, waistcoat, and fob watch; in those days I thought I had an old-world dapper charm, when in fact I looked like a gay time-traveller.
As I headed back to my hotel, I found myself heading towards a young couple coming in the opposite direction. They were both quite drunk and arguing loudly. By the time I realized that they were going to be troublesome it was too late to cross the road and get out of the way. As they approached me, I might have caught the guy's eye (a mistake if I did), because I was suddenly aware of the horrible words "What the fuck are you looking at?" shouted at me from suddenly close range with the force and pent-up anger of a very aggressive Welch drunk. Peripherally I saw the girl walk off down the road and leave us.
There's an old Wing Chun Kung Fu technique I would normally have snapped into without thought: in the face of aggression, you lie on the floor in the fetal position and sob, kissing the toecap of your aggressor's shoe. However, having given thought to the use of confusion techniques to disarm aggressors, I was able to put some of my theory into practice. So I made my body relax and my face friendly and warm, and I said, "The wall outside my house isn't four foot high."
He paused for a moment. "What?!"
"The wall outside my house isn't four foot high. But I lived in Spain for a bit and you should see the walls there — enormous, right up here!" I gestured with my hand to clarify how high I meant.
Now, you're going to thank me for this, so bear with me. Here's what happened. He has come at me with a huge amount of adrenalin and force, and his question "What are you looking at?", like any intimidating question, is designed to put him squarely in the position of aggressor. No direct answer to his question can change that. My confident and friendly answer about the walls makes absolute sense within itself, but is completely out of context. This guy has to work out what I'm talking about, and in doing so he becomes enormously confused. By offering him more of the same (talking about Spain), he feels he might be afforded some relief from the confusion, but such clarification doesn't come. He is wrong-footed, confused and no longer in control. He experiences something of an "adrenalin dump," which leaves him useless.
After I told him about the Spanish walls, I added, "But here, they're tiny! Look at these ones!" And I pointed out a tiny three-brick-high wall around the garden right next to us. He looked at the wall, and that movement told me that I now had the upper hand. He looked back at me, rather slumped in himself by now, let out a long, "Oh, fu-u-u-u-ck…" and crumpled, hanging his head hopelessly. To my delight and surprise, he started telling me about his girlfriend bottling someone at a party, or similar. He sat down on the curb, distraught and broken, and I sat next to him and listened for a while, offering sympathetic noises and understanding.
When I left, he thanked me.
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