One spring morning a lady is in her apartment going about her day when suddenly there’s a knock at the door.  The girl looked through the peephole to see who it was and saw her ex boyfriend on the other side.  The main phrase here is “ex boyfriend”.  She doesn’t open the door and tells him to leave.  They are yelling back and forth through the door.  She finally opens the door a little and he rushes in.  Before he leaves he verbally and physically assaults her.  What would you have done?

There’s a quote that says “people will do more to avoid pain than they will to seek pleasure”.  If that’s the truth then people must live an extremely submissive and confining life.  They must live a life that limits what they do and doesn’t allow them to live life to its fullest.  Living in fear must be a terrible thing.

The definition of a coward is “a person who lacks courage in facing danger, difficulty, opposition, pain, etc.; a timid or easily intimidated person”.  This definition doesn’t paint a picture of a bad person.  To me, it paints a picture of a person who doesn’t know what to do when faced with these situations.
When a person is able to face danger and survive they are often times called a hero.  Doesn’t it make sense that this “hero” is simply a person who applied learned knowledge?  Does “doing what we know to do” make us heroes?  I don’t think so.  I think it makes us prepared, responsible people.

The question remains though, what’s to be thought of those who aren’t prepared?  Are they to be thought of as irresponsible?  I say yes, especially when training is so available.  Remember, there are many things worse than death and performing poorly is one of them; or so many times not performing at all.

As hard as I try it is difficult to make people believe that crime can happen anywhere, to anybody, at anytime.  I can teach all the techniques in the world but if people don’t begin to accept the fact that crime can happen to them and that they need to be prepared to deal with these situations, then all they have really received out of the class in a few hours of exercise.

As a father of two daughters I want to give Katie Wolfe a special shout out for doing what she can to guide our female youths.  Keep up the outstanding work Katie.
As promised, here are some of the safety tips that I talked about at the event that may help you have a better holiday shopping experience.
On-line shopping

• Only order from reputable sites
• Use sites that were referred by friends
• Be sure to allow time for deliveries
• Have shipped to a second location (you don’t want kids going through the stuff)

Parking lots

• Park in well lit areas
• Be sure you can see the doors of the store (if you can’t see the doors they can’t see you)
• Watch for suspicious people sitting in their cars
• When leaving your car cover your packages or put them in your trunk (don’t make it easy for thieves to see your packages)
• Always be alert while walking in parking lots and be on the lookout for anything that looks suspicious

Shopping

• Shop in a group (the more the merrier and the more the safer)
• Don’t leave purses unattended (even “just for a second”)
• Don’t carry expensive bags (the bag alone can catch a thief’s eye do to the fact that they can get money simply from the bag.
• If you pay with credit cards only carry a few and then have all the information you will need to reporting them of they become lost or stolen

Nobody wants to think about negative things happening, especially at Christmas, but it’s better to take a Pro Active approach to our holiday shopping to ensure we have a safe and wonderful season.
Merry Christmas!

We at Escape Plan are so ahead of the curve when it comes to realistic thinking and self defense.  Over and over again I talk to people about this fact: if you think you are going to be attacked, you need to hit first to increase your odds of success.  It is so hard for people to grasp this concept because it goes against everything they were ever taught their whole life.

I urge all of you that have been through the Protective Thinking course or who are familiar with ours teachings to embrace this “strike first” rule.  Remember, you have a right to defend yourself against a perceived, imminent, attack.

Jeff

I have tried to talk to experts about heart rate and motor skills. When I try to explain to them that certain things they teach, like poking someone in the eyes, won’t work, the common response I get is, “it will if you practice”.  That’s partially true. Poking someone in the eyes is a fine motor skill and that skill deteriorates when you are faced with a situation where you think your physical demise is at risk. Or in other words you think you are going to get hurt or killed.  You see, a part of your nervous system, called the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS), kicks in causing your heart rate to go up and your motor skills to go down. If you haven’t practiced your technique in a situation that causes your SNS to kick in then you don’t know how you will react. Unfortunately, the only way to cause this to happen is to train in situations that if you aren’t successful you get hit. That adds realism to your training. When you train like that then you know the result of failure is pain, and in some situations injury. The pro to that type of training is that it prepares you for real combat as much as any training can. The con is you can get hurt. People will do more to avoid pain than they will to seek pleasure and because of this they won’t train. Not the way they need to train to know how they will perform in a real situation.

The way I see it, if you aren’t willing to accept pain in your training then you are just exercising. No man can attest to his courage unless he has been in battle. Now it wouldn’t be prudent to go and seek battle. Not sure it would be legal either. However, you can help yourself know how you would perform by putting your sheepish nature aside and get hit.

This is the law.
The purpose of fighting is to win.
There is no possible victory in defense.
The sword is more important than the shield
And skill is more important than either.
The final weapon is the brain.
All else is supplemental.

- John Steinbeck

I look forward to reading your responses!

Jeff

The experts say when you are in a knife fight you should expect to get cut.  If you are expecting to get cut, when it happens you’re not surprised and you can continue to fight.  You have “made it your friend”.  When Evander Holyfield fought Mike Tyson, Holyfield said he knew Tyson hit hard so when he did he wasn’t surprised.  Holyfield had already dealt with the fact that he was going to get hit hard.  He had made that fact his friend and didn’t wait until he was hit to figure it out.

If you wait until you are faced with an attacker to figure out what you are going to do, then you have waited too long.  In that hormonal induced stressful situation you will be unable to formulate a strategy.  You have to know what you are going to do in any given situation before you are faced with it so when it happens you react immediately.  No hesitation.  Hesitation too often leads to injury or death.

How can you make these things your friend?  One way is through training.  Putting yourself in as many situations as you can in training helps you to prepare for the real thing.  Another way is mental rehearsing.  Here’s something we all can do and I’m sure many of you already practice this technique.  Imagine walking to your car late one night when it’s dark and you are faced with somebody who means to do you harm.  What are you going to do in this situation?  By doing this, (mental rehearsing) you can start to prepare yourself for the encounter.  In your head you have already made plans on how you will deal with the situation.  Whatever your plan is, if the situation presents itself you will already have a plan on board and you will react immediately. 

Making pain your friend, simply put, means having a plan on how you will deal with pain, or a confrontation, or anything you can think of.  When you make these things your friend you have dealt with them before you are faced with them.  This allows you to make an immediate decision that is based on training.   

I leave you with this: “To know and to act is one in the same”

I suspect this is how it is for many buildings in the downtown Indianapolis area.  But what if I had been a predator just looking for a victim?  It wouldn’t be difficult to walk in to many buildings and simply pick a floor and then randomly find my victim.

If that’s too far fetched for you then imagine the same situation only instead of going inside the building I just wait in the garage for you.  I know of too many stories of just this thing happening.  The tragic thing is that it all could be prevented so easily.  I’m not necessarily talking about going to one of our classes.  I am simply talking about being aware.  Going to your cars in pairs.  Two of you go to the car on the highest floor and then driving the other down to theirs.  I know I know.  This all sounds like a lot of trouble to go through, but how important is your safety?

Please, just take a few more steps in your day to keep yourself and your coworkers and friends safe.

When I was a young boy seeing my dad’s abusive behavior towards my mom, there was nothing I could do. It’s a different situation now. My mom has long since divorced my dad and my oldest sister was killed after being hit by a car walking to work. As for me, I now fight for those who can’t fight for themselves.

I have been a police officer since 1998 and have seen so many battered women I can’t remember them all. As a police officer, and a Defensive Tactics/Combatives trainer, I was in a position to train members of the community from time to time.

Since forming Escape Plan with Karen Kell, we have been able to share with hundreds of people and a variety of corporations information that will help them make better decisions in the event that they are faced with a dangerous situation. Thanks to our video, we can reach people all over the world who have a need to learn how to protect themselves.