Yelling "Stop!"

[bushido_man96]

we also say "break" at the end of our matches in Hapkido. A funny side note. Recently while my 6 year old son was at the dentist (I was also in the room) My son didn't like the dentist cleaning his back teeth and started to tap out.

That is kind of cute! The things that kids do, huh?

[baronbvp]

Good stuff.

I like your signature.

[gheinisch]

Our Hanshi used to bounce, as he would say "a long time ago" and he has used this in real life. You would be surprised at how many people will stop in their tracks when you hold your hand up and yell STOP. He deescalated several confrontation this way, at the very least it disoriented his attacker long enough to give him the advantage. There where times it didn't work as well.

[longarm25]

I dont know about yelling stop but distraction can be very effective

[Ann-Marie]

I found myself in a situation a few years back whilst walking home from the pub with a few friends. As we turned a corner we were contronted with two people attacking a young lad. They were beating him to a pulp - no joke - he had blood pouring from his eye socket, temple, nose, mouth and other random cuts. His friend was desparately trying to get him away. There were lots of bystanders who looked absolutely dumbfounded (bystander effect I think it's called). My initial feeling was complete shock at the state of the guy and I just yelled "THAT'S ENOUGH". Apparently i was quite aggressive with it. It had an IMMEDIATE effect and the agressors backed off instantly. some guys in the crowd moved in to put a barrier between the attackers and victim and the victims friend pulled him away to get help.

With hindsight it probably wasn't the best of reactions that i had as they could quite easily have turned on me. I got the biggest telling off from my friends and some stopped speaking to me (no loss there in my opinion).

My point is, is that yelling something sharp and load at them made them stop in their tracks - but these people were working on full fight emotion and had lost control. A martial artist, who had learnt to detach themselves from the fight and flight mechanism, may have enough mental control to consider the request and respond with a no - it might not work in that situation. It would be difficult to test in a dojo as martial artists are conditioned to obey commands.