One of the byproducts of training in martial arts for about a decade is the periodic "Will you teach me basic self-defense?" that I get from friends and family. What these seekers inevitably have in mind is an investment of an hour in which they can learn some "stuff" to use in a situation where they are threatened. My general policy has been to respond politely, but firmly, in the negative.
It ain't cause I'm worried about giving away the magic.
I've inherited some of my teacher's beliefs. He always called these little self-defense primers "bag of tricks" sessions and condemned them pretty strongly. His reasoning was fairly simple: martial arts isn't simple. A martial art is a collection of complex skills that have to be honed over time, through a process of intensive, focused repetition. Retaining access to all the education you get in martial arts while under the influence of stress takes years of exposure and desensitization.
Ever heard the phrase "a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing?" In few places is this more true that martial practices. The worst thing I could do for someone would be to give them a few extremely rudimentary skills, and endanger them with a false and unrealistic belief in their own ability to defend themselves in a violent situation. It would be like sending someone into a gun fight armed with a feather duster. Thus my firm "no".
About a year ago, I decided to say "yes", but on my own terms.
My friend asked me the inevitable question regarding my "stuff", and in that moment, a devious plan formed in my mind.
Instead of turning her down, I said, "Sure thing. I'm up in Tampa on Saturday anyway. There's a place I go up there to work on my stuff. We can meet up there at 6:30, before I'm set to meet everyone else. Just wear comfy clothes."
She agreed and I gave her the address.
I pulled up in front of the place and leaned against my car. I took out my phone and waited. See, she is a total gadget-lover, and I knew that her smart phone would be dictating the directions to her. I knew that at some point, she would figure out the problem with my plan. The phone buzzed in my hand.
"Pat, I think you gave me the wrong address!"
"I might have," I said, "Go ahead and read it back to me."
She did. "Nope, you've got it perfectly."
"But this is a Starbucks!"
"Exactly. I'm out front in my red pullover."
"I thought you said you came here to do martial arts sometimes!"
"I said I come here sometimes to work on my stuff. The beauty of the term 'stuff' is that it is inclusive... it is martial arts, but it is also a lot of other things."
"You're going to throw me around in the Starbucks parking lot?"
"Even better. I'm going to talk about some stuff that will make you safer."
I could tell she was disappointed, but she agreed to humor me. She pulled into the parking lot and we went in and got some coffee. (Well, in truth, I got a latte.. I think Starbucks has terribly burnt coffee. I can't remember what she got.)
We sat down at that point, and I talked to her. I think it took about an hour to peg down all the details. We went through all of her daily habits and I gave her some safety advice. I suspect I did more good in that one hour than I could have done with a few days of teaching her how to crank on someone's wrist or bust them in the face.
This began the evolution of a process. I've now shared this information in a similar fashion (minus the Starbucks ruse) quite a few times now. It was, in fact, just such a sharing that prompted me to write this in the first place. ("You really ought to write this down somewhere!") The following is a collection of information which I think is useful safety information, which frankly will probably keep you safer than even the fattest "bag of tricks".
Who am I to share it? Certainly no expert of any kind. I'm not an expert in martial arts, criminology, sociology, psychology, or military strategy. What I am is a guy who spent half a decade dealing with street crime as part of my job, and spent more than a little bit of that time talking to criminals in a very candid nature about what they did and why. This advice is the embodiment of a lot of the very predictable, over-arching patterns I saw in civilian criminal violence in this country.
All of the posts related to this topic will carry the label "Safety First".
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