Erik Kondo – Page 29 – Conflict Manager

WeaselCraft, My Approach to Survival & Self Defense – Terry Trahan

Oftentimes during one of my seminars, or when I get a new student, the question arises, what is WeaselCraft, what does it mean, and why do you use it. Origination of the term comes from famed Firearms writer and instructor Massad Ayoob. He defined it as all the non-traditional things you do in a fight to survive. Back in the heyday of internet forums, I was part of the moderator team at SelfDefenseForums.com, and my Brother and fellow moderator Don Rearic made a comment about me in a thread that stuck, he called me a ‘street weasel of the first order.’ Because of this, the name stuck, and soon all of the things I taught or wrote became labelled as WeaselCraft. A friend did a couple drawings representing a street weasel, and thus it was born.

Now that we have the history, I will go into why I still use it, and what it means to me. I like the term, it is unique, and it really sets the boundaries and marks the differences between what I teach and believe from other approaches. In a way, for me, it harkens back to the animal styles of Chinese martial arts, but for me, the animals become Weasel, Rabbit, Honey Badger, Fox, and Crow.

Above all else, WeaselCraft is a mindset. A way of thinking that has only one goal, to get myself and my loved ones home, any way needed. There is no dogma or tradition, no rituals, just a set of concepts and loose rules that inform the way I operate and move through my environment.

As mentioned, the most important aspect of WeaselCraft is results, I want to get home, I don’t care how, as long as there is as minimal an impact on our lives as possible, and we are safe, from both the immediate threat and the aftermath. This outlook and goal orientation makes a lot of options available, as when you realize, for example, that machoism has no place in a survival incident, and there is no shame or ‘proper’ form in surviving, you can get straight to the point.

Skillsets become very important when you are applying anything to a survival situation. In my experience, software, or skillsets, become much more important than hardware, or all the neat little tools and toys on the market. With the proper skillset and outlook, tools can be applied as needed, or created on the spot, but the opposite is not true. As we have all heard, when all you have is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail, when you have a complete mental toolbox… I think you get the picture.

But, what skillsets are important?

Awareness and observation; these are listed first because without them, nothing else matters. If you cannot see the problem, or the escape route, you cannot do anything about the issue at hand. This applies to confrontation, violence, and emergency situations of all types. To be good at WeaselCraft, or personal survival in general, or life itself, spend more time working on these skills.

Mental flexibility; the ability to see outside the box, alternative uses for items, differences and how to use them to your advantage.

Adaptability; I wanted to say resilience, but adaptability hits closer to the core of my philosophy. The ability to bounce back, use what is given you, change what you have to what you need, and see how and what you need to see. These are key skills, and without them, nothing else works.

Toughness; the ability and attitude to keep going to achieve your goal. But not in the limited definition, it also means the toughness to make hard choices, forgo ego stroking or feel good decisions, to complete your mission.

Decision making; this is an oft overlooked aspect of skill development. In a live fire event, the quicker you can decide, the better choices and more time you have to affect your plan.

Related to these, and falling more into the physical realm, WeaselCraft looks at physical skills that we deem more important than the fighting aspect. Things such as trauma care, escape and evasion, conflict communications, anti-abduction skills, active people watching and awareness, and other “black bag” type skills.

All the above skills are important to us, as it is better to avoid than confront, better to confront than fight, and better to fight than die. Avoidance skills need constant practice, and take up a large portion of our mental workout, and individual training.

Physically, our skillset is primarily taken from the SouthEast Asian martial arts, particularly Silat and Kali. However, the way we apply them is much more combative in nature than you normally find them. We take the principles and motion base from our arts, and apply them to modern situations.

We place great emphasis on maintaining a low profile, non-tactical appearance. I would say we follow the Grey Man theory, but now I see that has been made into a commercial venture, so we just try to look as normal as we can, considering we are very tool oriented.

Finally, a large portion of our training time is devoted to weapons, both use of, and defense against. The reason is simple, we are more likely to be attacked or threatened with a weapon, so we need to know how to deal with them, and with our first rule and goal being to go home, weapons are the equalizer, especially against larger, or multiple opponents. The weapons we concentrate on are small knife, various impact/stick weapons, pocket stick and variants, and a few flexible weapon skills.

None of us live in a vacuum, and we try to apply all of these skillsets and hardware to the modern legal context, as long as it supports our goal of being safe, and going home.

As I sit here listening to Mississippi Queen, at home, I hope you take my approach, think about it, and let it inform your own way of getting home.

Words As A Force Option: Part II – Tim Boehlert

“People never forget verbal abuse. It sinks deeper and festers longer than any other kind of abuse.”

“Words cut deeper and their wounds fester longer than traumas of the sword.”

Dr. George J. Thompson, Verbal Judo: The Gentle Art of Persuasion

My favorite Doc admission was that he was his own best student. Doc used his background and his training in rhetoric and martial arts to create a lasting legacy that we can all benefit from – who hasn’t been baited and taken the hook for a personal criticism, and then lashed out defensively without thinking? One of Doc’s great tools is learning how to deflect the negativity – his samurai depiction of moving the head to avoid the spear. You truly CAN do better. We all can.

“The choices you make while attempting clear communication can be the difference between having an average/typical evening and one that ends in the arrest of a person for taking umbrage with your message using less skillful methods.”

i.e. he pulled a knife after I asked him to leave!

Yes, it actually happened something like that.

‘On Ko Chi Shin’ = Study the old, understand the new. Something that Doc brought to the fore when developing his Verbal Judo program. Doc referenced from his Martial Arts training to Jigoro Kano, and Japanese Samurai wisdom to correlate what he was trying to do with words with what the Martial Artists did with their physical force OR wisdom. Judo was developed by Jigoro Kano after he learned more about body mechanics and physics – to move the immovable more easily. Ju – Gentle, Do – way. Truly studying from the old to understand the new – using words to move the unwilling to do what you want them to, without use of physical force.

Doc’s inspiration to name his ‘system’ Verbal Judo was Jigoro Kano, the founder of Judo. Doc pulled many ideas from his Martial Arts experience to formulate his own maxims based on his knowledge of Judo techniques and the maxims of Jigoro Kano. Doc cites many references to this in his second book on Verbal Judo: Redirecting Behavior With Words.

“Doc has been very active over the last few weeks -nudging me in a few new directions!

I’ve been doing some spending and research based on things Doc wrote in his second VJ book about the origins of VJ and the correlation between the verbal aspects and the physical techniques of Jigoro Kano. To better understand Doc’s intentions, I have to fully understand the connections to specific Jigoro Kano Maxims and techniques that Doc names and describes in the book. Trying to run down Doc’s reference to Jigoro Kano’s study at Oxford whereby he studied muscles and bones and determined that he needed to change some of his techniques based on his newfound knowledge of physiology.”

“Using verbal commands to aid in getting a situation under control can’t be underestimated – you have to tell them what you need in order for them to comply. One person should be doing the communicating. It needs to be slow, concise, and deliberate. Sometimes they fight back as their survival instinct has kicked in – they may be fighting to ‘stay alive’ only, and not fighting ‘you.’ They may be fighting your actions to control them – YOU need to make that distinction, it’s YOUR job to do that.

Don’t take the actions personally. Treat it as a negotiation. Put it in context – it may be more than you counted on or outside your experience. It could be drugs, mental health issues, MR or Autism that you are seeing and dealing with. Don’t assume anything. Be the professional, and continually re-assess your actions. To get compliance sometimes you just need to explain your actions while you’re engaging them physically to get that. Your goal is to do so with minimal damage. Explaining yourself to them may make ALL of the difference. Use your Verbal Judo knowledge and skills to get that result – safely, and compassionately. Review often. Improve your skills continually.

Here are some sagely words to live by, as outlined in Doc’s 16 Maxims from his second Verbal Judo book, ‘Verbal Judo: Redirecting Behavior With Words’:

MAXIM #1: “Move confrontations away from conclusions back to the reasoning process.”

MAXIM #2: “Help them seek new approaches rather than argue about the right answer. Never debate any point that can be resolved by examining the facts.”

MAXIM #3: “Motivate others by raising their expectations of themselves.”

MAXIM #4: “Seek what they do well, help them define their own self-worth.”

MAXIM #5: “Persuade others with their energy.”

MAXIM #6: “Learn what is in their best interests. Persuade them through an appeal to that interest.”

MAXIM #7: Direct others rather than control them.”

MAXIM #8: “Recognize their need for independence. Assume responsibility for their doing well, not for doing their job.”

MAXIM #9: “Give way in order to control.”

MAXIM #10: “Seek a middle position that will satisfy their needs and your limits. Insist on discussing principles, not personal preferences.”

MAXIM #11: “Embrace frustration with empathy.”

MAXIM #12: “Always harmonize with their pain. Lead them though their distress with reason.”

MAXIM #13: “Overcome hard with soft.”

MAXIM #14: “Ignore the impact of their insults. Enforce the authority of the institution, not the power of your anger.”

MAXIM #15: “Be disinterested when you punish.”

MAXIM #16: “When you punish for clearly defined rules violations, set aside personal indignation. Respect the authority that empowers you to discipline.”

There is a lot to be learnt from these Maxims! And I’ll leave you with: ‘11 Things You Should Never Say‘:

01) “Come Here!”
02) “You wouldn’t understand.”
03) “Because those are the rules.”
04) “It’s none of your business.”
05) “What do you want me to do about it?”
06) “Calm Down!”
07) “What’s YOUR problem?”
08) “You never…” or “You always…”
09) “I’m not going to say this again!”
10) “I’m doing this for your own good.”
11) “Why don’t you be reasonable?”

“The goal of education is to expand the mind. A person’s mind cannot be expanded unless he or she is motivated. There are many ways to motivate a person, but there is only one underlying principle: raise expectations.”

“And with thanks to my family, who might have wished I had been a quicker learner.”

Dr. George J. Thompson

Other resources:

Corrections One: http://www.correctionsone.com/writers/columnists/George-Thompson/

Dr. George J. Thompson on FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-George-J-Thompson/261812673873736

Managing Organizational Conflict – Rory Miller

One of the most frequent and entrenched forms of conflict in a large organization stems from an element of group dynamics that is largely invisible. Usually, the organization is actually composed of two different groups with different languages, cultures, values and social rules.

We’re not talking about obvious divisions within an organization, like Human Resources, Production, Logistics, Public Relations and what-have you. This goes much deeper.

Almost any group can be categorized as either goal-oriented or longevity-oriented.

Goal-oriented (GO) groups exist to accomplish a mission. Your status with the team is based entirely on your contribution to getting the job done. Hard work, intelligence, and creativity are valued and rewarded.

The ultimate goal-oriented groups are task forces or teams of specialists brought together for a single mission. Next up are tactical teams, like SWAT or special-operations groups.

Longevity-oriented (LO) groups exist to perpetuate the group. Status is based on rank and service to the group. Hard work and intelligence may be rewarded, but they are secondary to making others comfortable. Creativity almost always threatens the status quo, and is almost always discouraged in a longevity-oriented group. Social ritual, whether hazing and initiations or policy and protocol are the lifeblood of the LO group.

A pure group type is very rare. Even an extreme GO team, unless they are assembled for a single mission, will have to deal with training, logistics, and the day-to-day issues of work between missions. Even the most bureaucratic LO team still has some kind of job to do, some mission. They will also occasionally have crises that will require at least a few mission-oriented thinkers.

These types of groups can and must exist within the same organization.

Line staff, be they cops on the beat, emergency room staff, or factory workers, have a job to do: areas patrolled, patients triaged and treated, units off the production line. Failure at the job is measured by what didn’t get done. Line staff tends to be a goal-oriented group.

Administration needs to be longevity oriented. It is their responsibility to make sure the organization survives into the future. Getting the basic job (patrols, patients, product) done is important, but other things can do much more damage. Big lawsuits, lack of funding, negative media exposure can all damage the organization quickly and brutally.

The jobs that administrations must do are very much about relationships. Coordinating or making deals with other organizations and businesses, arranging a budget in a government entity or fighting for a piece of the budget in a company, handling company image.

This naturally extends to a relationship-oriented outlook within the organization as well. The policies and procedures, the meetings, the organizational charts are rituals to identify and maintain a group identity.

Most large organizations will find a profound cultural rift between management and line staff.

The two groups have wildly different ideas of what is important, different ways to communicate. Both groups think they are carrying the entire organization. Line staff know they are getting the job done, and the job is the only reason for the organization to even exist. Administrators know they are the ones keeping the big wheel turning, fending off threats the line staff isn’t even aware of.

Have you ever seen someone promoted who was terrible at the job? From the goal oriented perspective, a promotion is a reward and you reward good behavior and effectiveness on the job is how goal oriented groups define good behavior. When an ineffective worker is promoted, his former colleagues see it as a mistake in management, a sign of managements ignorance of who their good people are, or even as a direct insult to the good workers.

But the people who decided on the promotion were likely longevity oriented. In their mind, a promotion is not a reward. Their job is not to reward or punish anyway, but to balance the dynamics, to put people in the positions where they can best benefit and protect the group. They do not promote Helen because they think she was good on the factory line, they promote Helen because they think she will be good supervising the factory line and interacting with other branches of the organization.

Think about it. Many of the people who were poor at the basic job did well when they were promoted. And many of the hard workers floundered.

This is common and causes a lot of missed opportunities and grief in the business world.

There are individuals who are goal oriented and others who are relationship oriented. Though most will be happiest in a group that matches personal preference, there is extreme value in having a mix.

Goal-oriented people tend to ignore feelings and let a lot of basic relationship maintenance slide. They don’t need company picnics or set up parties to mark big transitions, like promotions and retirements. A purely goal-oriented team can feel pretty sterile. Having a few relationship-oriented members can help build relationships and keep things running smoothly during quiet times. Often a goal-oriented group runs best in crisis and can become very aggravating when things are going well.

The relationship-oriented people who run longevity-oriented groups often need a few goal-oriented people. Why? Partially to keep them on track and remind the team of the need to get the basic job done, but primarily because goal-oriented people tend to respond to crises much better. Solving the problem is usually a better strategy for dealing with disaster than maintaining relationships and protocols.

Often longevity- or goal-oriented people in a group of the other orientation do not understand and can be alienated from their own group. It does no good if you are a manager who can communicate with line staff if you have trouble understanding other managers.

It also helps for each group to have some members that can relate to the other group. Having goal-oriented people in your management team helps facilitate communication with goal-oriented teams.

These two types of groups almost always exist in the same organization. They have different values, and so sometimes they work at cross purposes. They interpret language differently— one of the highest compliments to a GO group is simply to tell them they’re doing a good job. According to “Richard Conniff’s The Ape in The Corner Office to senior administrators, “Good job” is a veiled insult, implying the person needs outside validation. The differences are that profound— an insult in one group is a compliment in the other group.

And, because the organization is a single entity, the presence of two very different groups is invisible.

The dynamic between the GO and LO levels within an organization can be extremely positive or toxic. It is a symbiosis and they need each other. Generally, the organization exists for what the line staff, GO people, do—whether that is fighting crime or producing steel. The customers come to the organization for this.

But organizations exist in a complex community of trade, public opinion, politics, reputation, and relationships. In order to thrive and survive, the organization needs specialists to work these dynamics

At their best, the two levels respect each other.

It becomes toxic when the groups become enemies, when they treat each other with contempt. The most toxic I have seen was a law enforcement agency where the line staff universally believed every member of administration had sought promotion because he or she was afraid to do the job . . . and the administration thought no one would stay on line unless the officer was too stupid to take the tests.

The British Army officer William Francis Butler once said, “The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards.” The toxic version of the LO/GO dynamic exemplifies this.

MY SAFE SPACE – Garry Smith

Well safe spaces are certainly in the news these days, social media and old fashioned media, newspapers, TV and radio, are certainly making us aware that they exist. The whole issue around safe spaces is polarising rapidly, hell I have had to retreat into my room to get this out of my head. Yes I have a room that is just my own, my own little retreat at Smith Towers.

Currently I am sat at my desk typing, I have a really nice leather sofa my wife bought me as it is really cosy for me to take a nap on. I have an exercise bike, my weights and bench and a free standing punch bag. There are lots of books and a ton of training gear and weapons, I like my weapons, although I have moved all my swords and some of my sticks higher up the house.

Its a cool space, quite big with a large bay window overlooking the street. Most of my toys are in here and it has become a bit of a sanctuary. My wife is next door in the lounge listening to some David Bowie on vinyl, it is horrible outside, cold, wet and windy, so today the heating is on an we are tucked up in the warm. We are in our safe space, our home.

In the last week I have taken a lot of bookings for self defence training for next year. Some of the organisations I work for are booking into July and August and another organisation, a very large one, is booking me from January through to March with a hell of a lot more to come in September and October. Things are looking up, a few years back I was really struggling and could have easily given up, but as you can guess it is not in my nature, so onward and upward I hope. It is also fantastic that our self defence and Ju Jitsu training are starting to fill up too, we work damn hard to make it as good as we can then look to see how we can make it better and as I said last month, I have surrounded myself with some incredible people.

And here is the rub, these are people who can disagree, we are not a bunch of sycophants crawling up each others bums. I am pretty strong minded and determined, when I get my teeth into something I tend not to let go. I really can think of nothing worse than inaction. I like to do things, to drive things, to create things. I have a very active, and I like to think, creative mind. I love debates and discussions, I enjoy having my ideas challenged. Edward De Bono, the father of lateral thinking once said, “What is the point of having a mind if you cannot change it”.

That is one of my favourite quotes, but I was not always like this. I remember a discussion in a bar with a few friends and I was listening to them argue over something, what it was is lost, but one of them asked me what I thought. My explanation straddled the two opposing camps views. After I finished he said to me that since I had been to university I could no longer give my opinion on one side or the other as I always had before. You see when I went to college I was 28 years old, not a kid. I had children, I had worked for may years in different occupations, I had, in may ways, ‘been around’.

When I went from the career of an autodidact to entering formal education I was presented with the greatest riches in the world, vast caverns of knowledge were opened up to me, I went in as someone with very strong left wing views, I still had left wing views when I left but exposure to many other viewpoints had changed me. Previously I would have closed down people who spouted ideas or opinions I disliked, the sort of stuff that still goes on, mention immigration and you are a racist, disagree with gay marriage and you are homophobic, your ideas are foul pollutants to the mind of the right thinking people.

Now remember where we started, in my safe space. Well you are welcome to come into that space and to talk, discuss, debate. Threaten me and you may meet one of my toys before I role you unconscious ass out of the door, but my safe space is a space where ideas are welcomed, controversial or not. I have some wonderful friends and family but there is not one that I agree with on every subject. There are some things that are not discussed with certain people because those involved Know they disagree and we can agree to disagree. Where is the problem with that, its how we manage to co-exist. I the last Conflict Manager Marc introduced the work of Jonathan Haidt, he got me to read ‘The Rightous Mind’ earlier this year, I did and agreed with Marc that this was a profound piece of work. It took me right back to my days as a keen as mustard sociology student.

When I discovered sociology in all its complex and contradictory beauty that is when changes started in me that are still evolving today. I was like a sponge at first eager to absorb as much knowledge as possible and I did. The difference between autodidactism, where I grazed widely and freely in the pastures of my own mind, and the formal education I enjoyed at Northern College and the University of Warwick, was that I was now exposed and forced to consider things I would not have done had simply stayed with my own choices. The most wonderful experience of developing the ability to think critically is in my opinion, what separates us from the animals. Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.

I remember other students criticising sociobiology, it was the whipping boy of ideas, nonsense, racist sexist, its originator Wilson was pilloried, I felt guilty because I thought there was something in it. I wanted to like it, it was my guilty secret. Advances I understanding the human genome have largely validated most of what Wilson was saying. Haidt’s book on moral psychology is a must read if you want to know what makes us tick. Read it and you will begin to understand yourself more.

Its what I like to do in my safe space. These days I do not go to university or attend many formal learning events, like most people I can now access vast, infinite amounts of information on my laptop and even my phone. However, information is not knowledge. Information has no intrinsic value just by being, it is only of used when it is digested by the brain, turned around, mulled over, looked from different angles, reconstituted and applied. The brain is like any other part of the body, if you do not use it enough it will atrophy.

So when I hear stories of people needing safe spaces so that the can be protected from ideas they do not like, my heart starts to ache. When I hear this from students at universities it makes me really sad. I listened to a really interesting debate on the radio the other day between a feminist blogger and comedienne and a student union official. The former had had a booking to do a show at a prominent UK university cancelled because some students did not like her position on the sex trade. She supports the punters being arrested not the women, so the banned her, she was effectively declared a non person. Yes the thought police have arrived. I listened to much of what was discussed with disbelieve. WTF is wrong with people.

If you are so profoundly weak that the fact that somebody has an idea or political view you do not agree with, that you hide behind rhetorical name calling and censorship, then you surely must kill yourself now before the evil idea can get you. I shudder to think of a world where people like this end up in charge of things, and guess what, if you start to look around you they very often are.

Personally I like to call a spade a spade but am smart enough to know I can do more than just dig with it, go ask Rory about affordances. So for me a safe space is where we are challenged because without challenge we cannot develop as humans, a safe space is not hiding under the bed afraid of the bogeyman, its coming out and confronting the bogeyman. I have a safe space other than the one I am sat in, its behind my two fists and behind me is a safe space for hose I protect. They are the only safe spaces I want. Man up world.

Kung Fu Math – Jeff Burger

Talking with Sifu Lam about the importance of skill and strength and skill vs strength and how to prioritize my training and he gave me this.
I call it “Lam’s Equation”
10 skills = 1 strength
10 strengths = 1 will

I understood the 10 skills = 1 strength piece. You simply need a skill advantage to beat a larger stronger opponent. If you don’t think size and strength are factors then you are living a dangerous misconception.

I was confused on will, I took it as meaning heart.
A fighter who has heart just keeps going, tired, hurt, losing … he presses on, but that’s not what he meant by will.
He said it meant having a real reason to fight.

I was teaching a women’s self defense seminar when one woman walked away from the practice and just sat down.

I asked her if she was OK, she said ” I’m fine, I just don’t know why I’m here. I’m never going to be able to beat a man, they’re just stronger.”
I said “What if he is trying to rape of kill you?”
She replied “Read the papers, women get raped and killed everyday.”
The group had heard this and I could feel the moral drop.
I knew this woman personally and knew she had two daughters ( 8 & 10 ) so i asked her “What would you do if someone was trying to rape and kill one of your kids?”
She pretty much snapped, her posture went from defeated and hopeless to something unstoppable and crazy, scary and said “I’d ****ing kill them.”

OK, so what happened to change things? Why is it what she couldn’t possibly do for herself was something unquestionable for her kids? Not to sound cheesy but the answer is unconditional love for her kids, she had a real reason to fight.

So I told her “Think about what would happen to your kids if someone killed you. How would your death effect them ? Who would raise them ? You need to tell yourself I’m going to be there for my kids, I’m going to watch them grow up and be there for birthday parties, Christmas present, graduations, get married and I’m going to hold my grand kids and nobody is going to take that away from me.”

I took a few things away from that experience.

1. Don’t fight unless you have a real reason, if only for the fact that you wont fight your best ( not to mention legalities ).

2. Why couldn’t she tap into that for herself ? My thought is she ( we ) don’t love ourselves unconditionally.

Why? I don’t know. Maybe because we know all our short comings, even the stuff we’d probably never tell anyone, so maybe we feel unworthy of it. As for your children, well they can have all kinds of faults and we still love them unconditionally.

3. How could she ( we ) tap into that strength? You tell yourself this person has no right to take you away from your family.

Love or Fear

Eye Contact: Observe Surroundings, Part II – Tristan Chermack

Observe surroundings

Any self-protection must involve you paying attention to your surroundings, regardless of whether there are people around. Keeping an eye on people adds a little more difficulty to the task, but it is still pretty easy to do. Let’s look at each of these separately.

When observing your surroundings, you should first be looking for anything that might pose a danger. Accidents claim more victims than predators, and self-protection skills also work with accidents. Many accidents happen because of a lack of awareness. The street crossing analogy comes into play here: look to see if you can safely cross the street regardless of what the light says. Potential threats come in many shapes and sizes, so we cannot possible tell you every way to spot them here. Keeping your eyes open for potential problems, or accidents waiting to happen, is something you must build. The practice of looking around rather than having your eyes buried in a cell phone or iPod works splendidly.

It should take a quick look around, for only a second or two, to get a decent feel for your surroundings. Familiar surroundings are easier, but you should take the time and effort to notice anyway. If a place is familiar to you, looking around can show you something that is out of place or not normal. This can be helpful to give you a heads-up that something might be amiss. Your instincts will pick up on these things, you only need to scan around and take in what you see.

If you are in an unfamiliar place or somewhere that gives you an uneasy feeling, you will probably look around a lot before becoming assured that you will be safe. This is an instinctual trait so use it. Once you have looked around extensively and still feel uneasy about where you are, you should really leave. If you cannot leave, get yourself to a position where you can see anything approaching you. This brings us to the next point about observing surroundings.

When you observe a room, you should be doing more than looking for threats. You should look for where the exits to your immediate area are. If you had to get out fast, which ways could you go? These exits are also entrances. We will discuss observing your surroundings for people next, but you should know where they come in so you can see who comes into your area. Knowing where the exits are is a good habit to build.

Another thing to watch for with your surroundings is where you are in them. Are you in a place where you can be approached by someone without noticing they are coming? In the best case, you should be somewhere that you easily notice people approach you. It is also best that you are in a place that has an exit handy from any given direction. The last thing you want is to be cornered by a threatening person, with nowhere to go to escape.

One last thing to look for in your surroundings is obstacles. They can provide a place for you that make approach difficult. It may happen that you notice a bully or group of potential bullies coming and want to stay out of their path. Rather than running for an exit, you can position yourself near obstacles to make it difficult to get to you. The great benefit of this approach is that you can usually move there casually without drawing attention. It will be easy to notice if the people you are concerned about are approaching you, and then you can move to an exit if it appears they are coming for you.

If you have ever been in the same room with a bully, you may have experienced looking at your environment in these ways. It is best to have an idea of what is around you before that panic hits and you are desperately looking for where to exit. We believe in preparing early, and this is a perfect example. It takes only a second to notice exits, so take a look. You might not need it, but if you do it is great to know already.

Now that we’ve covered the environment itself, the really important part is to watch people. You should at very least look for a moment at every person in your immediate area. If the area is very crowded, you should scan the crowd for anything that appears out of the ordinary. When you do your scan, let your instincts talk to you. They will tell you if you should be concerned.

This kind of looking around and scanning is more than glancing up from time to time. If you are sitting hunched over a book or cell phone and glance up momentarily and down, then you are missing two points: posture and observation. These two should work together.

Keep good body posture whether you are standing or sitting and scan regularly. Take your time scanning and don’t rush it. Anyone looking at you will quickly be able to tell which is more important to you: looking around or not paying attention to surroundings. It is okay to be absorbed in a book or texting with someone, but go to a place where you are safe to do so and look up and around frequently.

It is very common to watch for people when you know they might be present, and it is almost always someone you already know to be a potential threat. Kids who are around bullies learn to watch for their bully through pure fear. They are constantly scanning so they can see them coming and get out early.

One thing to add here, which is something more common to adults than children, is that purposefully not making eye contact is also a signal. Take care not to think that this is imperceptible because it is. If a potential predator looks at you and you are intentionally avoiding eye contact, he will very likely be able to tell. This is a signal of pure fear, which is not the signal you want to send. A confident person does not fear making eye contact.

Once you make eye contact, what you are thinking is pretty easily conveyed through your facial expressions. I’m not talking mind reading here, but simple mood and attitude. What is on your mind will affect the signals you are sending, so take care of what is on your mind. Be smart, not oblivious – confident, not fearful. This type of communication is fascinating, but not within the scope of this article.

What we take in about our surroundings and the people within it is crucial to avoiding trouble. You can think of it this way: your goal is to see trouble before it sees you. A predator decides when and where he will strike, which is powerful. Predators will avoid targets which are aware (hard to approach undetected) and do not look like good opportunities. They will dismiss inviting targets which are not in a good place or time to strike. The first indicator is eye contact or lack thereof. An unobservant target is very inviting. You might never even make direct eye contact with a predator. He may very well dismiss you as a potential target merely because he sees you scanning the area, staying aware, and appearing ready. It is so much better to avoid being targeted early than try to evade a predator who has already chosen you as a target.

Eye Contact: Your First Signal and More, Part I – Tristan Chermack

Making eye contact is something we do many times each day, and we may not even realize it but we all use it to communicate, consciously or not. Eye contact is a subset of body language and this article is meant to be an introduction to this language and how it works, with a particular focus on how it pertains to the art of self-protection.

There are excerpts here from my book “What the Bully Doesn’t Want You to Know – A Streetwise Guide to Your Bully Problem”. The book itself is focused on bully problems which children face and is written for kids and their parents. Neither the book nor this article are designed to be comprehensive works on body language, but a beginning. The reason for this article is that virtually all of what is written on body language is extremely broad and most of the material is not pertinent to self-protection or potential conflict situations.

I will expand on the material from the book to include information about adult interactions. The fundamentals are the same as they are for children and have added nuances for adults.

Let’s start with some basics. What we are talking about here is only the first few moments of eye contact. Virtually all adults realize there is far more to extended eye contact and the cues which can be learned from watching someone. Our instincts can indicate whether someone might be lying, in a bad mood, nervous, troubled, or any of a vast number of things. Let’s begin with the first impression we create when we make eye contact.

Eye contact

The importance of eye contact is hard to overstate. It is almost always the first contact we have with someone else. The eyes really are the window to your soul. The way you look at people, or don’t, tells them something about you.

Quickly lowering your eyes when you make eye contact with someone is a basic animal signal of submission and fear. This signal indicates to that person that you are weak, or at least that you think you are weaker than them. Animals reflect their ‘pecking order’ by showing signs of submission to those higher on the order than themselves. Lowering the head, and eyes, is a prime signal of submission. It is usually an unconscious response, but with a little practice you can learn to send a signal of confidence to those around you.

First, let’s define what you should and should not do. We have already indicated that quickly lowering your eyes and head down and away from someone is submissive. So, don’t do that. Almost everyone has done this, and it is a very common habit. So what should you do? If you find you have locked eyes with someone who you feel is threatening (or just about anyone else for that matter) it is a good idea to hold their gaze for a second. And we do mean a second literally, as in one-one thousand. Holding a gaze, or staring, for several seconds or longer can be construed as a challenge. It is possible to gather a lot of information about someone in one second. Once you have held their gaze for a second, move your eyes away calmly in a HORIZONTAL direction. This sends the message to someone that you see them, and you are unafraid. In others words, you are not being submissive.

Practicing this is actually rather easy. Simply go out and do it. Here is how:

Try it a few times in the mirror. You don’t have to go overboard here; just try to get the hang of what a confident gaze looks like for you.

Start with your friends to get the hang of it. By the way, they don’t even have to know you are doing it. You might be surprised at how they react.

Next, move on to strangers or anyone else who makes you uncomfortable. This should be a little difficult at first. You want to get used to feeling uncomfortable so that it ceases to be uncomfortable at all anymore. This can be done just about anywhere. A good place to practice is in a car where people are naturally reticent about looking at the person next to them.

Continue practicing this until you have made a habit of it.

You are on the way to controlling the message you send with your eyes.

If there was one thing you should recognize when it comes to reading someone else’s eyes, it is what is called the ‘hard stare’. The hard stare is a determined look that someone is mentally prepared for a fight. It is a reflection of what has gone on in their mind, locking out distractions and trivialities, focusing purely on the task at hand which is intently watching the target.

The hard stare is easy to recognize and will probably flip a subconscious mental trigger in you that something is wrong. The stare itself is identified by the eyes being open slightly wider than usual and lack of blinking. The eyes will lock on the target and not stray. The facial muscles and chin will tighten with a stony expression, which looks more like pure determination than anger. Once you see a hard stare you will recognize it instantly. It means the decision has been made and the eyes are issuing the challenge. This is a clear sign saying “I am ready to fight you right now.” You should treat this signal as what it is: a very clear signal of imminent threat.

Along with the stare, usually the aggressive party will usually stand up or already be standing. You’ll notice the body will go into a fairly prepared stance with the knees bent and the chest will face the target. Again, this is how the brain subconsciously prepares for battle. The time for sweet talking is over and you should either calmly depart or prepare quickly for a fight. This means get near an exit, with as many friends as possible, and among cover to keep from being surrounded.

Those first moments of eye contact will leave an impression, we cannot help that. What we can do is make sure we are sending the right message, not one which looks inviting to a potential predator. We wish to send the message that we are not prey by not using the same body language that prey uses.

You could call this the external benefit of eye contact: how others see you from the outside. Next we will cover the internal aspect, which is the benefit you receive when you learn to use your eyes well.

m time to time. If you are sitting hunched over a book or cell phone and glance up momentarily and down, then you are missing two points: posture and observation. These two should work together.

Conflict Management Literacy, Part II – Erik Kondo

This is a continuing series on the many aspects of Conflict Management Literacy.

Cost vs. Benefit Analysis a/k/a Risk vs. Reward

Let’s start with the problem of crime. Most people (non-criminals) would agree that crime is undesirable. So is anything that decreases crime desirable? Well, actually not. If we eliminate the human population, we have also wipe out crime. Almost all people would find this to be an undesirable solution. The cost is too high. What we want to do is reduce the rate of crime where the crime rate is the number of incidents per unit of population. But we also want to reduce the crime rate in a manner that doesn’t greatly affect our everyday lives. We want a solution that has a low cost to implement, yet provides the benefit of a lower crime rate.

All solutions to existing problems have some sort of cost (risk) vs. benefit (reward) analysis associated with them. If the solution has no associated cost, then it would just get done, and the problem would be eliminated. For example, as a society, we don’t have a significant problem with people punching themselves in the face on a regular basis. This is because the solution is free – just don’t do it. It cost you nothing to not punch yourself and you reap the benefits. The no cost solution translates into no problem.

On the other hand, society does have a problem with people punching other people in the face. The solution to this problem has an associated cost. The higher the cost to solve, the greater and longer term the societal problem. For example, in order to deter people from punching other people, society enforces a cost on the Punchers (fines, prison terms, etc.). This cost is intended to change the cost vs. benefit analysis of the Punchers.

The Punchers are punching as a solution to their particular perceived problem (rational or irrational, strategic or Monkey Brain driven, punching is still intended as a solution to something). Punchers are trying to solve their problems by punching. Thus, punching provides a Benefit at an associated Cost. Raise the Cost and the Benefit may no longer be worth the Cost. The purpose of deterrence is to raise the cost so that the benefit becomes less desirable or not worth the cost.

Society may raise the cost of punching by increasing the penalties given to Punchers. But enforcing these penalties has an associated cost to society. Besides the legal and incarceration costs, putting the household breadwinner in jail creates dependent families, single parent households, etc. If these costs are deemed to be too high, the proposed solution doesn’t get implemented. It is cheaper to deal with the cost of people being punched, than it is to try to eliminate the problem (reap the benefit).

Now take a look at any number of societal problems that don’t seem to get solved over time – sexual assault, police brutality, inner-city violence, domestic violence, mass shootings, racism, sexism, etc. Eliminating or reducing each of the problems would provide a benefit to society. But that result would come at a cost to society. When problems don’t get solved, society (or those that control society) has deemed (rightly or wrongly) that the cost of solving the problem is not worth the benefit. Changing the cost vs. benefit analysis, changes which problems get solved and/or which get priority to be solved.

Correlation vs. Causation

One commonly misunderstood concept is the relationship between Correlation and Causation. One method to eliminate or reduce a problem is to eliminate or reduce the source of the problem. In this case, the Source is a cause of the problem. The Source could be the only cause of the problem or it could be one of many causes of the problem. But there exists a direct causal link between the Source and the Problem. Reducing the Source, reduces the Problem. We can represent this situation by the equation

(Factors)(Source) = Problem (This is made up equation for illustration purposes only!)

When two entities are correlated it means that they follow the same pattern. Graphically, this pattern could be Crime Rate vs. Time. For example, in the past twenty years in the US, the Crime Rate has decreased as represented by a downward sloping line (where y-axis is the Crime Rate and the x-axis is Time).

Over the past twenty years, Other Things have also decreased with time. When those Other Things are graphed next to the Crime Rate, if the lines look similar on the graph, then the Crime Rate correlates with them. Or if the graph of the Other Things is a mirror image, then those Other Things inversely-correlate with the Crime Rate (Ok, that’s a simplification, but you get the idea).

People who don’t understand correlation will look at graphs of correlating events/incidents/rates/etc. and assume causation between them. The mistaken assumption is that because the graphs look similar there must be a cause and effect relationship. When in fact, there might be one and there might NOT be one. Correlation graphs do not give enough information to make that determination.

Now ask yourself, how many people, politicians, Pro-gun activists, Anti-gun activists, Hard on Crime, Pro-Prison Reform, etc. have claimed that since their Thing/Anti-Thing is correlated or inversely-correlated with the lower crime rate that their Thing/Anti-Thing is actually the cause of the lower crime rate? My answer is – A LOT. They offer correlation as proof when they actually need to prove causation.

Going back to the above equation, the Source becomes the Thing

(Factors)(Thing) = Problem

in the real world ,it looks like (Well, kind of sort of, let’s not quibble on details)

(F1)(F2)(F3)(F4)(Fn)(Thing) = Problem

Where the F’s are the Factors involved and there are N number of Factors. In order to prove causation, ALL the Factors must be accounted for. You can NOT assume that the other Factors remain constant and that only the Thing changes to affect the Problem.

For example, maybe less legal restrictions (F1) on concealed carry weapon holders has caused the lower crime rate. Or maybe, less legal restrictions (F1) on CCW has caused the crime rate to be LESS low than it would have been otherwise (that means that less restrictions causes a higher crime rate). In both examples, less restrictions will correlate with a lower crime rate. We have no idea, since all the factors (F2,F3,F4, Fn…) have not been accounted for.

To summarize, those that claim that because Some Thing correlates or inversely-correlates with Some Other Thing, that it causes or reduces Some Other Thing, and those that don’t take into account the Cost vs. Benefit Analysis in problem solving are effectively illiterate in these aspects of conflict management.

Next time, the Inverted U-Curve and effect of False Positives on Risk Assessments.

Be A Good Witness: Describing People – Toby Cowern

Often, in the ’back room chats’ here in CRGI we find a number of contributory concepts throw up interesting and useful little ’nuggets’ of information. I often find, these ‘nuggets’ come in the form of something one or more of us founding members deeply ‘know’ and are (pleasantly) surprised when we realise that this maybe ‘new’ to people. It’s a balance between ‘how can people not know this?’ and ‘well, we can share this because it’s really good to know’.

I was recently re-reading some of Marc MacYoung’s and Rory Miller’s work as well as back issues of this publication, and while walking with my daughter Christmas shopping this weekend, suddenly a little ‘nugget’ came too mind. Clint talks clearly about the importance of ‘Witness Coaching’ as do Messrs. MacYoung and Miller. In a previous issue of CM Magazine I wrote about the concept of ‘Left and right of Arc’, thinking about the nuance, details and extremes of any given subject.

My youngest daughter is now 10 years old and is insightful and curious about many things. This has seen a great opportunity to increase her observation and awareness skills of late. We previously have been looking at behaviors and ‘things that stand out’, but I wanted to move now to memory and recall. The game we played, was she had to describe someone nearby and I had to point out who it was. My wife played also and it was interesting to see who picked up on what ‘descriptor’ details. Then a flash of recall…

In many ‘follow ups’ and investigations I’ve conducted both in military and civilian occupations, I have used, with very good effect, the British Military ‘Descriptor’ Template. Anyone who knows anything about the Military, knows they have to have reports in a ‘standardised’ formats. A quandary was reached in the early 80’s when military housewives, while being encouraged to ‘stay vigilant’ and look for suspicious activity in and around military accommodation (due to the escalating terrorism threat) made regular reports to barracks police who then had to try and make the (widely varying quality of) details given, not only ‘fit’ in the reports, but be of any use.

Thus was born the ‘A-H’ system. A simple, easy to remember list of ‘Key headers’ that people could use to identify and remember details (of use) and provide comprehensive and consistent reports. The Key Headers are as follows:

A – Age
B – Build
C – Clothing
D – Distinguishing Features
E – Elevation
F – Facial features
G – Gender / Gait
H – Habits

We can expand on each of these with a little more detail:

Age – if you can’t be specific then try and ‘bracket’ within (ideally) five years e.g Between 25-30.

Build – Athletic, Obese, Skinny as some examples, but I’ve also had ‘sexy’, ‘curvaceous’ ‘muscly’ and ‘rugged’ used as well. If people struggle to define a build, I’ll often ask ‘Who are they built like?’, sometimes it’s easier for people to give a specific (normally celebrity) example and then get further detail from there. We are trying to build an overall profile and description and build is an important header.

Clothing – I encourage people to be methodical here, either describe head to toe or toe to head. So type/colour of footwear? What clothing items on the lower party of the body? On the Torso? Gloves? Items around the neck? Headwear etc. Here we can also think about ‘presence of the abnormal’. If it’s warm summer weather and the person was wearing a heavy or bulky jacket that is potentially useful information to follow, but then we digress to investigative procedure…

Distinguishing Features – What stood out about this person? Scars? Tattoos? Tribal identifiers (e.g. Uniforms, Use of Gang Signs)? Prosthetics? If you were closer enough to hear or engaged with them, Accent? Use of Slang? Etc etc

Facial Features – Of most use here will be the shape of the face, details on eyes, nose, mouth, ears and skin tone. Distinguishing features also cross over here, along with specifics such as if facial hair is present etc.

Gender / Gait – So here we are squeezing two descriptors into one heading.

Gender, either actual or assumed.

Gait is something people very rarely think about. To clarify ‘Gait’ is referring to ‘locomotion achieved through the movement of human limbs’, or to put it simpler ‘how people move’. While appearances can be masked, clothing can be discarded, even facial features to a point can be changed it is very, VERY hard to change the way you move. In fact, many of us could pick out a spouse or loved one from a distance on this alone, so this shows how useful a header this is… Ambling, unco-ordinated, uneven, lop sided, powerful, swaggering, are just some of the many ‘Gait’ descriptors I’ve heard, but there are many more.

Habits – There is a very wide range here. Do they smoke or similar? Any facial ticks or twitches in the limbs? Use of certain actions or phraseology (Rory mentions recognizing ex-cons by how they interact face to face, to give just one example)? These would be some of the ‘broad headers’, all the way down to the detail, what brand of cigarette? They drink, what were they drinking? Presence of religious symbols also fit nicely into this category.

We are, by nature, creatures of habit and many a person has been caught because of a habit they could not break.

Ultimately, all of these descriptor details present the authorities the greatest opportunity in being able to identify people that may have had involvement or been witness to an altercation or incident you were involved in. Imagine being involved in a situation or even a ‘near miss’ and the frustration you would feel in not being able to give a clear concise description of those involved. Being a good witness is about not only observation, but remembering relevant details. It is hard to know what may be relevant at the time, but we can safely say accurate descriptions of people involved will always be useful information.

A central tenant here in CRGI is helping ‘make people better’. I particularly enjoy writing on subjects that may be of use to students and instructors alike. So, Instructors, consider for your next class having your students spend a few minutes trying to describe someone in the room and see how well others can guess who they are referring to. If you are finding a low success rate, consider introducing your students to the ‘A-H’ system and see if it helps. I know I have benefited from it greatly not only as an investigator but also as a witness.

Active Shooter – Dave Ashworth

Those of you who don’t know me I’ll give you a quick introduction.

My name is David Ashworth and I served in the British Army for 9 years. I spent the last half of my military service with a Covert Counter Terrorist Unit, in both an operational and training role. After leaving the Army. I then worked as a Private Security Contractor and did this constantly for 8 years, spending 5 years in Iraq and 3 in Afghanistan. I’ve provided security to Various UK/US and Foreign Government Departments, as well as high-ranking military officers and Other Government Agencies (OGAs). I have also trained teams and individuals to operate in Hostile Environments. After leaving the contracting world I went into Law Enforcement, which I continue to do now.

With the latest events in the San Bernardino, California and also in Paris, France it’s worth us revisiting the Active Shooter(s) Scenario. Which as a civilian is one of the most dangerous situations you will find yourself in. A worrying trend in the Terrorist Modus Operandi is the multiple shooter and location tactic.

Now how does that affect you as a civilian? You will either be armed or unarmed in these situations and you will have to decide what your priority is. Is it escape? Is it locating your family? Is it neutralizing the threat i.e. the active shooter(s), or is it to protect your loved ones and get them to safety. It may be to leave the scene and brief law enforcement agencies. There are so many options and it will depend on you, your mindset, your training, your will to fight or your will to survive.

So let’s look at what we need to try to survive an active shooter(s) situation. I say ‘try’ and survive because you could do everything right and still get killed by a lone gunmen because you went left instead of right. It happens! Better men than me have been killed by an act of fate, rather than by skill. It is worth noting a guy out of it on drugs can kill a Special Operations warrior just as easily as anyone else. Think about that for a minute.

I hope that’s taken a moment to sink in. Because I want to make something clear; too many people are looking for quick fix self defence techniques; “What do I do if I’m attacked like this?” People want an answer that is like, If A happens, do B, If C happens do D. Violence whether in a war zone or in the street outside the grocery store is dynamic, it changes, its a problem. The best way to deal with it is to have a problem solving attitude and train for those problems. You can drill everyday on the range and do a thousand scenarios, but when the time comes to draw down, odds are it will be none of the 1000 scenarios you went through on the range, but you can bet money, it’s close to 1 or 2 of them. So adapt to the situation and own it.

So you’ve trained in some self defence techniques and you’ve been to the range, do you think you are ready to deal with an active shooter?

Let me put it in another context: you’ve gone to the gym and done a few boxercise classes and then you’ve hit the punching bag a few times, for the last 6 months. Are you ready to step into a professional boxing match with Mike Tyson? I didn’t think so. If you do think you’re ready, we need to have a chat.

As someone who has been down range, and on the receiving end of some “almost” well-placed shots, I don’t think you can ever train enough. After those rounds have come at you, you will be wishing you’d gone to the gym more, you’d fired more rounds on the range and carried out more drills so you were quicker.

So what skills do you need to survive? Those of you who have attended any of my courses know that I push Situation Awareness; it’s my religion. You need to be aware of what’s going on around you. Anytime you step out of the house, bad things have the potential to happen. If I go anywhere outside of my home I’m aware a long shooter might decide today is his day, or some terrorist group decided its Zero hour. Sadly; it’s the World in which we live in. If I’m aware of people and how they act, their body language will give me an indicator to what they are doing and what their intentions maybe. So your head has to be on a swivel, and you will be looking for any combat indicators that something maybe about to go down.

The modern terror threat we face is multiple shooters hitting multiple target locations. So lets look at it, odds are you won’t see the shooter, you’ll have an audio cue, the shots or the screams. A visual cue, people running from the shooting, Police or security directing people. Now the next question you have to ask yourself is “How ready for this are you?”

This is really going to boil down to the training you’ve conducted prior to it going loud made you ready. Picture it, sat in the food court with your family at the mall. Bang! Screams, Bang! Bang! Bang! Are you still sat there? Are you grabbing your kids? There isn’t any point in spending thousands of dollars on range time, only for your spouse to get hit in the gun fight and you not know what to do medically. You need to train in all aspects of tactical life. The guys and gals, I’ve trained know my mantra: shoot, move, communicate, medical. They are the four factors that make a good operator, whether that be a Tier one dude, or a well-trained civilian.

Let’s say you aren’t carrying a weapon. What’s your priority? Escape right? So you noted the exits when you came into the mall, where the nearest cover was in the park. Where the elevated positions are that a shooter might use and the best place to move to if it happened. These are things that have become part of my lifestyle. I do them without really thinking about it. My students have learned that it’s not a mindset, it’s a lifestyle.

If you are armed, what are you going to do? Are you going to move to the sound of the gunfire? Are you going to draw your weapon? What will your posture be if the police see you? Are you ready to deal with this situation? What if someone mistakes you for the shooter? What if the police are given your description? What if you find injured people, do you stop and help, or move on? Do you have any medical equipment on you? Do you know how to use it? Do you have a flashlight? Do you know how to enter a room? How do you clear an open/closed door? Can you move tactically down a hallway? Can you move outside the building? Are you ready to take someone’s life to save others; this isn’t a Hollywood movie where you are going to be the hero. This is real life; if you fire a shot and it misses and hits someone it’s not aimed at, then you’ve just blown it. There are no second chances; miss the target and they might not miss you. I could spend hour’s war-gaming with you, but I just want people to start thinking about this issue. As sadly; it’s becoming a part of our every day lives. The threats are out there.

As you can see here, there are a lot of factors. I’ve only glossed over them here. I just want you to think about the situation you may find yourself in and how you plan to problem solve it.

Train hard and Stay safe,

Dave