very long-winded reply
Good question. Great responses. I'll throw in my two cents worth and see what happens.
To question is too broad because, as the responses have shown, the question begs for a wide range of factors to consider.
For starters, there is mindset. To restate the obvious, the goal of mindset is to place ourselves into a manner of thinking and being that will allow us to best survive street-related adversities. Mindset is divided into three factors: Spiritual, mental, and emotional.
To me, the spiritual factor has to do with what we believe in. If we believe that we are fighting for something we can not justify or understand, we will not be as effective as those who believe they are fighting for something as dire and obvious as saving a little girl from a cold-blooded killer.
What's important is how we view against adversities in general. A wide-open subject for debate, I am currently geared towards the belief that one of the greatest crutch is that we fight to win. I believe this "Hollywood" mentality is detrimental because, although our goal may BE to win, fear of Losing our lives or similar will cause us to hesitate when initiatives are necessary. (Interesting side-note, but there is the eastern concept of fighting to die. I don't believe either way is better, but rather, a balance must be struck.) I believe those who are serious about self-defense must learn to liberate themselves by consciously letting go of any expectations of winning or losing. Instead, we need to learn to simply fight. Just go into every encounter with the belief in doing as much damage as possible, regardless of the outcome. Don't be afraid of death or great loss, but don't be afraid to live either.
Mentally, if you're like me, the mind is full of thoughts and distractions. That will lower your awareness of the surrounding. The idea is nothing more than to clear out your mind as much as possible whenever possible. Personally, I think the easiest way to practice this to go through everyday tasks as though they are our last. The nature of our activities is irrelevant. It's the mindset, the ability to learn to focus and clear out our mind that is important. Awareness comes from more focus and less distractions.
There is the emotional factor as well. The problem with emotions is fairly obvious: They can cloud our judgement. Negative emotions such as anger and fear can cause us to hesitate or do what is contrary towards the improvment of a poor situation. Emotions also need to be honed. The best way so is a lot of understanding and learning. In fact, I believe
my three rules will help. (Shameless plug.
) Thus far, I believe this is the best way to develop ourselves. (An interesting aside, enough practice will help us return to the "enlightenment" state. It's not some religious or spiritual mumbo-jumbo. What it is, among other things, is a very heightened state of awareness of ourselves and the world around us. And, it may be one of the greatest gifts we can give to ourselves and to those around us.)
Whew. Now for what we can do physically. I believe the most important thing we need to learn to do is to control our breathing. I don't know why this is, but I do know that when I delibrately take relaxed, deep breaths, I more able to remain calm and be able to deal with situations at hand than when not. It doesn't take much to practice this either. Take whatever causes you sudden, intense stress (your significant other or a scary movie
), and when it happens, just concentrate on your breathing. And what is the ideal breath? I believe it is the ones we take when we are asleep. To get an idea of what that would be, I would study myself right before I fall asleep and right after I wake up.
I believe balance is the next important thing. Balance is important so that when someone does jump you, your body are already in a position such that it would be the most difficult to take down. Also, an ideally balanced body will maximize our agility, allowing us to respond to threats as best as possible. For balance, it is important to have a relaxed body with bent joints. Relaxed breathing produces relaxed bodies. During moments of sudden, intense stress, it is a good idea to freeze for a moment and study what parts of the body tight when they don't need to be. After a while, you may get an idea of what parts of our body consistently needs special attention. The shoulders for example. That way, when you need to get serious, you can condition yourself to automatically check these body areas to be relaxed without having to waste time thinking about it. The idea is to be able to physically go into any tense situations as relaxed as our most comfortable moments.
Sight is next. Again, I don't know why this is, but we have two fields of vision. The narrow one is the one I think we use most. They allow us to focus on details and colors. We also have our peripheral vision. They can't detect colors or details. What is can do, however, is detect movement. This is important because, most of the time in self defense situations, we only need to scan for movement. For me, the most spectacular display of the ability of our peripheral vision is looking around right before dawn. Using peripheral vision, I find panoramic sceneries even more beautiful and enjoyable than to just focus in and look at it. But of course, there is the self-defense side of it. I never did quite ingrain it like second nature. I don't know why. I do my best to scan with my peripheral vision, but ultimately, let my eyes do what they want.
It's just as well. In many public locales, there is simply too much information scrutinize. We need to develop an eye for specifics. A common one among the self defense crowd is the palm. Open palms that we can see is safe while closed or concealed palms may require attention. Other things such as facial or body expression is also a good information. As a rule of thumb, the more you have to scrutinize around you, the slower the pace you need to take it.
Next comes positioning. Positioning is an age-old game that involves nothing more than to cover our back. The general rule of thumb is to hug the walls. Put another way, don't walk down the center of an open area if you can help it. Proper positioning will do more for you than awareness alone. Positioning enters an interesting dimension when you add people. Now, you not only have to watch your back, but more importantly, you may have to watch theirs. You don't have to join the Secret Service to learn this (though I'm sure that would help), but simply be mindful of where your people are, where other people are, and where you and your people are most vulnerable. This topic is beyond the scope of this post. I think for the most part, though, you'll find yourself using what is known as the "spearhead" formation, walking behind someone and to the side, to keep them in your peripheral vision while being able to observe your own surrounding.
Clothing is probably next. Speaking only as a male, the shirt is the camoflauge of the urban jungle. The basic rule of thumb is to be discrete. I recall reading a sociological study once that said that T-shirts are the modern individual's personal billboard. If so, don't advertise. Don't stick out.
If the shirt is the camoflauge, the pants is the utility portion of the clothing. I usually don't care about the appearances of my pants as much as I do my shirts. Rather, I have a certain list of items I feel necessary, and it's a matter of finding a pants/belt arrangement that will accomodate it all. I believe in dressing for summer. That's when we will most likely wear the least, and therefore, is the most difficult time to conceal. If you can pull that off, chances are you can use the exact arrangement year-round, with or without your legal CCW.
But when it's all said and done, in the end, I think all we need is common sense. However, common sense is relative and it's geographical. What will seem common sensical will make no sense in another country. Even when operating at home base, I believe the best way to avoid confrontation is advanced preparation. Get as much relevant intelligence as possible about where you are going and how best to get there. Find out what we need to do and plan out in advance how best to execute it. And always have a back-up plan!
Finally, before I leave my perch, I would like to impart yet another rhetoric of mine: Those who are successful need not fight. Comments and feedback are highly welcomed. Thank you.
[Edited by SB on 01-16-2001 at 12:35 AM]