Depending on your definition of “success” in a handshake—whether that’s a brief moment of connection between two people, or a prickish display of jerky-armed masculine dominance—Donald Trump is either very good, or very bad at executing them. There have been several compilations made of the signature Trump shake—an overly long hold punctuated by a strong tug bringing his competitors directly into his musky orbit—but we’re partial to this one from John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight, capturing awkward hand-on-hand interactions with everybody from V.P. Mike Pence to Neil Gorsuch to Trump’s old Apprentice contestants.
But how do you protect yourself from such an erratic, clammy-fingered shake? A Columbus, Ohio-based jiu-jitsu academy has some ideas, with Robin Gleseler of the Relson Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy offering up a short tutorial on how to fend off such an overly aggressive maneuver. (Note: Gleseler makes it clear in his video that you absolutely should not do this to Donald Trump himself, a sentiment that we would like to loudly agree with for the benefit of any Secret Service agents in our audience.) But if there’s someone Trump-like in your life executing this kind of power play, Gleseler lays out how to make them stop: a fairly simple-looking wrist lock that turns a would-be dominant wrist into an easily escaped ”goose neck.”
Again: If you ever have the chance to shake hands with the president, we can’t emphasize enough how bad an idea it would be to do this. Even if it’s already 15 seconds in, and things have clearly gotten weird.
[via Vice]