Today, i want to ask you a question.
How do you approach your training when it comes to dealing with violent criminals?
-Do you think defensively?
-Do you think neutrally?
-Do you think offensively?
You see, there are three types of mindsets.
1- The Defensive mindset; always thinks about what he/she will do, if someone attacks them in a certain manner, or what their defensive "move" will be? Will they do a 360 defend or a deflect? Or trap and counter? They will always think that an attacker is going to attack in a particular manner and nothing more, due to their type of training in class, they will always think, "When he does this, i'll do that".
2- The Neutral mindset; Always thinks one thing, "I live in one of the safest areas, That will never happen to me".
3- The Offensive mindset; Doesn't have just one thing on it's mind, it's has everything on it. What do i mean by "everything"? By everything i mean, Everything it needs to Survive and Live.
Here's where perspective in training comes in handy.
Many T.M.A's and Systems train with a defensive perspective, from a "civilian" P.O.V. that dictates, you not attacking your attacker no matter what, but instead "defending" yourself and then to just hit once and run. But what they don't teach you is, 'once' isn't always enough.
See, first of all, majority of the victims in past cases who didn't survive their attackers had defensive wounds on their hands, from edged and blunt weapons, it's because rather than attacking, they defended.
Defensive mindset can only get you so far, at max, it can help you in certain "Alpha Male" anti-social situations...maybe... and that's a BIG Maybe, but in asocial life and death ones? It's a dead end.
Now, the offensive perspective, puts you in the criminal's shoes.. so to speak. You begin to think like one, you see things from a P.O.V. that not all are able to, and once you start thinking like one, you know what to look out for.
If you think like a predator, you'll identify other predators from their body language and will steer clear of them and in some cases, they will be able to identify you from the way you talk, the way you walk and your overall body language, so they will steer clear of you too, since most attackers only choose victims they see as weak and know won't fight back. This is not true with all predators, but majority of them. Some don't care how tough your body language is, if they want to victimize you, they will victimize you and your family, but that's a topic for another post.
Besides all that, with a predator mindset, you'll know what true violence is capable of, which will help you regulate yourself in certain conflicts, and not escalate a minor situation to a full blown fist fight, helping you avoid, rather than having to fight your way out of the situation.
With an offensive mindset, you know what to do and that is to not just stop with one hit, but continue till the target is down and out, stay on your two feet and not stop fighting until you're the last one standing, then escape or not having to get into situations like that in the first place.
As for the neutral mindset, well, the people with this mindset are often the ones to say "I never thought this would ever happen to me". These are the ones, who are most often mugged or assaulted.
Anyway, that's it for today. Thanks for reading.
Btw, i read a really good and informative Blog Post today. I really think you should read it.
It goes more into detail about why you shouldn't think criminals are just dumb and weak animals who prey on the helpless and how they actually study and train to be the perfect killing machines and more about CQC, etc. This is not a promotion, i just thought it was really interesting and wanted to share with everyone.
