Don’t Let It Happen in the First Place

"No one is so brave that they are not startled by the unexpected."

-- Julius Caeser

Anyone who has been around the fighting arts for any length of time has probably run into the folks who like to play “50 questions” with you or what I refer to as the “What if game?”

You know the ones, they are the smart asses who will ask you the most off the wall questions about what you would do if a person say pulled a gun on you, what if someone grabbed you, or what would you do if they pulled a knife on you and on and on as if you’ve never considered these things before. You get the idea. In this Blog Post, I’m going to cover this topic but not from the perspective of what to do about answering these questions, but from the mindset, you need to have in the first place.

In the previous Blog Posts, such as, “Awareness the Line in the Sand” but it can never be said enough because as I stated that it may be one of the most important posts you read from me since it is always your first threshold when protecting yourself or your loved ones for it deals with the subject of “Awareness”. To rehash, “Awareness” is your first step in the decision-making process as to how to respond to a given situation and helps drive everything you do. 

It is the ability to anticipate and avoid a potentially bad situation because something just didn’t “feel” or seem “right”. It’s all about mastering the ability to recognize, anticipate and act while understanding the “context of a situation”.

Again: Wrong Mindset = Wrong Interpretation = Wrong Conclusions (and I’ll add one) = Wrong Outcome.

In most martial arts training settings whenever a person is taught to deal with the various types of attacks or the most common types of attacks the training generally goes like this:

“When a person does this then you step over here and do this or that and so on…”

Usually, the solution that is offered to various types of attacks under these scenarios, are based on a dynamic that doesn’t exist in the real world. Their demonstrations and solutions are “too situational” or “prescriptive” and “contrived” to be of any effect unless you’re a gifted athlete with years of training under your belt.

The other problem is they’re not taking into consideration that the enemy gets a vote and is probably not going to go along with your plan. They assume the bad guy is going to cooperate on some level or can only throw strikes the way they taught you how to deal with it. If that’s your plan, I have bad news for you. The bad guys will do whatever they want, that’s why they are the “bad guys”.

Also and I need to point this out because I’ve also had to deal with these “defensive arguments” for this stuff when pointing out those flaws. These systems also do not take into consideration that when you’re right in front of someone you see the attack from a different perspective that is much harder to perceive at a short distance. The point is it’s easy to “Monday Morning Quarterback”, from the safety of the comments section of your “YouTube” video telling people what they did wrong, and what “technique” they should have used.

I’ve come to believe that the reasons they do this is either they don’t really know how such attacks go down and are just regurgitating what they have been taught or that they are trying to put in into a context that makes it “less scary”. They don’t want to be perceived as not having an answer so they make one up that “seems” logical.

Don’t let it Happen in the First Place

Most of the time, not letting things happen in the first place “is” the answer. Don’t get me wrong I’m not against technique, the point I’m making is there are a thousand variables that you may have to deal with at that moment and for me trying to “guess” what corresponding move I should do while simultaneously trying to “guess” my attacker’s intentions is a fool’s errand. If you are “hoping” that the attacker complies on some level again I have bad news for you. “Hope” is not a plan!

Will they attack and throw the strikes the way you trained?

What if they throw something you’ve never trained for what now?

At a time like that, is that what you really want to know?

Students who have attended our seminars know that from time to time when asked the “What if” questions they have heard me say when dealing with the question, “how do I deal with this or that?” Again I tell them, “Don’t let it happen in the first place!”

While this may seem like a flippant answer it generally is the only answer. Think of this as a preemptive measure to throw a monkey wrench into the bad guy's plans.

There are several reasons for this.

• You don’ necessarily know what they are going to do
• Generally speaking, by the time they begin to move you may not have enough time to respond due to the delay in your reaction time
• You’re under no obligation to wait for someone to attack first
• If you know for whatever reason you’re in a bad situation, why would you wait for someone else to do something first?

For the rest of this posting, I’m going to focus on the last statement. You see most people as stated in previous newsletters have been conditioned to be victims. Or they think if they take action first they will get in trouble because people will assume/presume that people will perceive them as the aggressor. In the Marine Corps, we use to have an expression, “Better to be tried by 12 than carried by six…”

The point being better to be alive to defend yourself in court that have the honor guard carrying your body. A good example of what I'm talking about and that is let’s say you’re walking down the street late in the day and you turn the corner and you run into a scene like this, with what looks like three nefarious characters.

Do you walk right through or around them?

Challenge them?

Or maybe find another way?

Generally, the right answer is don’t go down there if possible and don’t get into it in the first place.

In the image below this guy while suspicious looking with his head down, hood up, hands concealed etc…seems harmless right?

Or maybe not!!!

The point is you don’t know! All you know is that if someone looks suspicious your “Spider Senses” need to be tingling. Because the last thing you want to see as in the image below is yourself looking up from the ground seeing this!

Not good!

"Awareness" Is Not Paranoia Just Smart

When I’m asked what to do if someone walks up on you and pulls a gun or attempts to grab you. I often say,

“What you just let someone walk up on you and pull a weapon or grab you out of nowhere?”

 “Where’s your awareness?”

It’s like football you can be the best team in college football but if you don’t put points on the board you can’t win the game. The point is you can’t win on the defense. Again, who said you had to wait for the bad guys to do anything? If they look bad, they probably are. You don’t have to be paranoid about it just prepared to act. Being observant and cautious doesn’t mean you’re crazy it just means you’re not stupid.

The point is you don’t know, you don’t know, you don’t know…

Understand that in order for a person to attack you someone has to move. Regardless of what direction they come from either they have to move toward you, you have to move toward them or a combination of both. At the end of the day, you’re just dealing with “motion”.

For example, if a person walking toward you and raises his arm, are they going to grab you?

Punch you?

Or try to stab or shoot you?

You don’t know. I’ll say it again you don’t know, Hell I don’t know either. Why? Because my eyes work the same way as yours. So I have to hedge my bets by having my mind in the right place beforehand.

What we all know though is that in order to accomplish whatever they are trying to do their arm, or rather their body “has to do something”.

As a side note, the reason thugs generally carry concealable weapons such as small knives and handguns and eschew the use of a holster for their guns. They understand that a holster is cumbersome and if they have to go for their weapon time is crucial.

What you don’t think that some drug dealing thug can’t afford a holster? They don’t want anything impeding their ability to draw their gun. If they’re going to use a knife it’s going to be “fast” not like the movies and in both cases the element of surprise whether trying to take someone to or to rob them is key. They want to catch you off guard. Why? They don’t want to get hurt either.

All this business about devising clever counters to various attacks is useless if you haven’t developed the mindset to recognize a potential threat beforehand.

Sure anything can happen it’s not a perfect world but it’s also been my observation that people who have a “Warrior Oriented Mindset” even when taken by surprise if they are not incapacitated immediately tend to fare better than those who have taken on the “spirit of fear”, simply because their reactions to the situation are better even if they have no training.

That’s it for this Blog Post, later on, I’m going to get into some other aspects to further develop your Warrior Mindset or what I also refer to as our “Pioneering Spirit”.

Well, that’s it for now thanks.

     Al Ridenhour

     CEO, Creator Warrior Flow State™

Al Ridenhour has nearly 40-years of Martial Arts experience and is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the US Marine Corps.  With 28-years of service active and reserve and multiple tours to Iraq and Afghanistan. He is the Co-Author of "Attack Proof: The Ultimate Guided in Personal Protection (Human Kinetics, 2010) and the Co-Author of "How to Fight for Your Life" (June 2010). He is recognized as a self-defense expert worldwide and is highly sought out for seminars, workshops, lectures, and special individualized training.  

For more go to https://protectyourself.mykajabi.com/

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