YOU – Page 2 – Conflict Manager

The Ghosts of Christmas – Garry Smith

Scrooge, that wonderful character, skinflint, miser and sociopath, from ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens will no doubt have been on our screens in recent weeks. The book itself is excellent but I am an unashamed fan of Dickens. Scrooge was visited by three ghosts of Christmas past, present and future in order to teach him the error of his ways. The reason he has been on my mind, notwithstanding Christmas just passed is that the past, present and future have been much on my mind lately.

The past first. In December I received an email from a friend, Paul, offering me (and Bill Barrott) some books, he wanted them out of the way as he was clearing his mothers house after her death. We went round expecting a dozen or two books and were very surprised to be met by 24 boxes of books. Shocked more than surprised really. We are still cataloguing them to be fair when we can get together and it has been a really exciting experience. Paul wanted us to have them as he knew we would value them and he was right.

It is quite a collection and covers most of the martial arts spectrum and some great self defence books too. There is too much to look at, it is a library of the fighting arts, there are books there that I have failed to but on eBay, classic texts, some worth hundreds of pounds and multiple copies of some. However the value in monetary terms is secondary for me, holding in my hands some of these books is pleasure itself, one such text ‘Jiu Jitsu; A Manual of the Science’ by Captain Leopold McLaglan, (Undefeated Jiu Jitsu Champion of the world) is an absolute classic, and I would say is written around 1914. Pictures of Tommies fighting the nasty Hun or damn fine policemen dealing with roughs abound. I just love it.

There is also a 1931 edition of ‘Scientific Self Defence’ by W.E. Fairbairn, then Superintendent of the Shanghai Municipal Police, another absolute gem, better still as inside the front cover it is annotated with a list of regiments from 1939 to 1945 which we think this person trained and the towns and countries visited during this period, this book has travelled and been well used. This is not just a book it is a piece of social history,

I could go on and on about what we have inherited, 12 copies of the ‘Complete Kano Jiu Jitsu’!!! 18 copies of ‘The art of Ju Jitsu’ by Professor Yukio Tani!!! The thing is it is treasure, and we are its keepers now. These antiquated volumes with there incredible photographs are a resource that has value beyond money. For me they represent the history of what I do and even they do not reach back that far. The above mentioned Captain Leopold McLaglen talks of authentic sources quoting Ju Jitsu to have been in existence two centuries before the existence of Christ, well that is some time ago but these books are tangible, you can see, feel smell them. They are historical documents, they are the past.

The present is fleeting, ever changing, we are constantly running to keep up with an ever changing world. Some things stay largely the same though, I am thinking of my training, our training, it is a social activity after all. Immediately after writing this article the music goes on and the weights come out, that is me investing in me time. Later I will be training a class in self defence and combat fitness and tomorrow 2 classes of Ju Jitsu, I teach and train a lot. The link between past and present is unbroken. Recently I have been filming and photographing our syllabus, this is to provide a training aid for all my students. Jayne pulled one book out from the collection and showed how good the photographs were as illustrations of techniques we teach today, we will imitate this.

It seems like nothing is new, we are quite literally the current custodians of our arts. Ours is the responsibility to keep the tradition alive. Evolution means that things can and do morph, they change subtly over time but the central tenets remain the same, it is our responsibility to pass them on.

This is where the future comes in. My youngest daughter Frances is a first dan in Ju Jitsu, she has not trained for some time but her son is now at the start of his journey in Ju Jitsu. At our Ju Jitsu Christmas party here at Smith Towers, he could barely contain himself when he opened his present and found a pair of sparring/bag gloves, granddad had to go get the focus pads out and he certainly gave them a pounding. Jaynes son and Bills son and daughter are all training now for their black belts. They are the future and the present and future are inextricably linked every time we train with our juniors. Training anyone is a privilege training our young is an awesome one.

Indeed the past, present and future are inextricably linked in so many ways. Looking forwards and backwards helps us make sense of where we are now and who we are now. Identity is central to our sense of self, for many of us what we do, our job, our hobby whatever, helps us to form the sense of self we call identity. For myself, I had no idea when I walked into our dojo, where we still train, that I was taking such a major step, one that was literally life changing.

It seems I stepped into a form of time travel, not just for me either, it was like throwing a stone in a pond, once thrown you cannot stop the ripples moving outwards or the stone sinking to the bottom of the pond. So life goes on into another year, my grandchildren grow and the eldest trains with me now as did his mum, life is complete, but it is not. It is too early for that to be possible. As the past stretches back behind us the future stretches out in front. There are paths not yet discovered that we may or may not choose to walk down, I took the crazy decision to learn to ride a motorbike last year and passed my test and bought a bike, a Suzuki Bandit Streetfighter 1250cc no less, some bike!

So what lies ahead will be interesting to find out, as my Academy and CRGI grow my/our universe expands, new vistas appear daily, its a roller coaster life. I will take my 4th dan grading and Jayne her 3rd dan, hopefully our examiners will think us worthy of passing and your editors will make progress, many of our students will grade too, they will learn the ancient art and some of them will go on to train others, Jaynes son will become an instructor in the near future I am sure, he certainly has the potential.

Yes there are occasional uncertainties, problems along the way, sometimes huge obstacles appear but history teaches us one thing, there is no going back only looking, we need to keep going forward. When I teach fighting skills I maintain putting down effective suppressing fire and continuous forward movement, it is how I am, I know other tactics work better in certain situations but I suppose I am a take their ground and hold it kind of guy. So I leave you with a Happy New Year and a suggestion, take a look behind you, then take a look in front, what you see will help you make sense of where you are now. Do not end up like old Scrooge tormented in his bed, you choose what you do, no one else, the past, present and future are one not three.

DO YOU CHOOSE SITUATIONAL BLINDNESS? – Mark Hatmaker

“The only fights you truly win are the ones you don’t have.”-Lee Childs.

Keeping the above quote in mind, along with the fact that crime is a product of opportunity, we go a long way towards being “masters of self-defense” if we simply remove as many opportunities as possible from our behavior.

With that said, let me point to a bit of advice from former CIA operative Jason Hanson, who says that the number one tip he can offer to making anyone and everyone a bit more like Jason Bourne in the modern world, is simply this “always be aware of your surroundings.”

Easier said than done, right? Well, he goes a bit further by offering what he considers the number one concrete tactic to becoming aware of your surroundings-don’t use a smartphone. That’s it.

He says spy craft prohibits the use of smartphones not simply because of the tracking potential but because it encourages absorption, a retreat from where you are to some-place else that is not here.

He points to the numerous instances of car crashes related to smartphone use, but says that observation does not go far enough. He has catalogued an impressive battery of incidences where victims were chosen simply because they were the unaware animals at the watering hole with their heads down blind to their surroundings.

Least anyone think that the use of the word blind goes too far, he backs up this contention with copious examples of security camera footage of people simply blindsided in all sorts of public surroundings simply because their eyes were glued to the screen.

Two astonishing examples come to mind-the first a bar is robbed at gunpoint, the predator actually stands next to our smartphone user during the robbery. The smartphone user moves down a seat as if in courtesy giving the man next to him room. He never looks up from the screen. When the police arrive after the robbery, the smartphone user has nothing to offer in assistance, he had no idea the robbery even took place.

The second example sent to me some time back, a man boards a bus in San Francisco the camera shows EVERY other passenger with their faces glued to screens. The newest rider pulls a gun and brandishes it, no one notices it. The predator looks confused, puts the gun away, seems to think for a moment and then pulls it again, this time he uses it-the precious window of reaction to avert a tragedy has been lost.

If (if) we think “Well, I’m not that way, I’m perfectly aware of my surroundings even while I use this marvel of technology” your self-judgment goes against all the science of the brain’s executive function. We simply do not multi-task well. In a recent study of “time loss perception” smartphone users were monitored while they periodically checked their phones in a casual dining experience. They are being timed by observers on the scene unbeknownst to them.

When approached and asked how long they thought their interaction with the phone had lasted, they unanimously underestimated the phone interaction by 80%. That is, they (we) have no idea how long our attention is actually lost, how long we are blind.

Side-Rant from Mark: I’ve got a biased dog in this fight. I abhor texting and phone use in my presence. I think it’s rude, it says to the others present “Yeah, you’re here but this person that didn’t take the time to actually come out and meet with me is going to get my priority. You’re my analog booty-call.”

This behavior is displayed even by folks whom I personally like, it’s simply a cultural shift I don’t get-I admit that. It would not fly a decade ago. It would be akin to me stopping in mid-conversation, pulling out a worn paperback copy of Moby Dick and knocking off a page or two and then getting back to my fellow human. I think even inveterate texters would find that a bit odd, if not rude.

But I assure you today’s lesson is not “Mark shakes his finger at these kid’s today” it’s about being situationally aware.

Back to the topic at hand…

Blind to our dinner companions is one thing, blind to predators with a gun is another.

Since even highly trained spy personnel are told to drop the smartphone, do you think we the lesser-trained citizens of the world will be any less resistant to its temptations?

I offer a drill, for those brave enough to survive electronically-teatless for a day, dock the phone and be awake in the day. Be aware.

Shoot for a week, particularly if you found the exercise uncomfortable.
I will say, it is an oddity of the power of these devices that often when I offer some clients drills such as complete 500 burpees in the course of a single day or some other such physically taxing challenge, more often than not people step-up. They do it.
When this “wean yourself from the electronic teat drill” is offered the failure rate is far, far higher.

In short, we can’t have it both ways, we can’t be prepared operators in the world who claim to give value to awareness and self-protection and at the same time be checking every ping and chime that sounds in that electronic leash. Aware animals, operational professionals don’t text, and don’t surf the web outside of the home. It’s either no-phone or a flip-top phone that is, well, a phone.
So, ask yourself, are you aware? If you’re reading this on your phone and you are not at home, Mr. Hanson and I both would say you most definitely are not.

http://www.extremeselfprotection.com

Self Defense Pays Off – Andrea Harkins

I went to the gym the other night and when I was working out on the weights a man approached me and asked if I was a martial artist. He had noticed me wearing my gi and black belt earlier in the evening. After we spoke for a few moments he said he wanted to share a story with me about how important learning self-defense really is and how it paid off, for him.

He travels frequently for business, often out of the country. On one particular trip, however, he was in the States, in Atlanta, Georgia. After a day of work he was walking toward his parked car with a briefcase in his hand. Without warning, someone jumped him from behind. A couple of months earlier, he would not have known what to do. Since he travels so frequently, he decided a few months earlier to take an intensive self-defense course. I believe he said the course took a few weeks, with varying lessons. He knew that someday his luck would run out with the frequency of his travels to unknown places.

When attacked from behind, his self-defense instincts took over. He remembered how to throw someone over his shoulder who was grabbing from behind, and with one quick movement he successfully threw the culprit over his shoulder to the ground. The unfortunate thing is that this attacker would not easily give up. Even though he clearly hit the ground with force, he got back up and started running toward this victim. Again, self-defense instruction took over and he barely had to move, other than to stick his elbow straight out and strike the attacker thoroughly in the chin with the point of his elbow. He heard a cracking sound and was sure he broke this guy’s bone, but again, the attacker did not give up.

As my gym-mate ran and got into his car, the attacker actually jumped on his car window, as if thinking he were Spiderman, and tried to cling on. When the car abruptly started and took off, the assailant fell to the ground. Not knowing if the perpetrator was dead or alive for a moment, my friend sped off, but finally saw in his rearview mirror the man get up on his feet again. He said that if not for the self-defense training, he would have never known what to do.

I know that often we think of this type of training for women, but the truth is that these few techniques probably saved his life. The attacker had no boundary for pain, was probably on drugs, and didn’t care about the outcome. This is the most dangerous of situations. Then, he explained that his self-awareness defenses kicked in dramatically after that.

When in Paris and entering a train through a turnstile, he was again attacked from behind and pushed through the turnstile without warning. He turned and proceeded to fight back with all his might. When he was on top of the attacker ready to throw a final punch, a group of people stopped him. They explained that often people who do not have money for the fare will push foreigners or visitors through the turnstiles simply to get a free ride on the train.

Since then, whenever in Paris, he actually watches for such people and allows them through the turnstile with him. Still, there was no way he could have known this when the event first happened and because of self-defense training he knew he was not ever willing to compromise his life through an attack.

These stories are interesting because for those of us, like me, who have never been attacked, it is a good reminder that it can happen at any time and when you least expect it. A person with no martial arts training or no self-defense training is going to languish in these types of impacts.

As martial artists and instructors, we should feel compelled to at least emphasize the importance of this type of training to everyone. What would they do, today, if grabbed from behind without warning? Clearly both men and women need this type of training. For women, the problem with training seems to be two-fold. The most evident issue is that they are normally smaller than men and so they need this training just to be able to contend with a larger sized attacker.

The other, almost more important issue, is that women do not attend self-defense classes and the root of this problem really should be examined. Is it fear of what will happen in the class? Is it worry that they will look foolish? Is it concern that they have never tried it before and don’t know what to expect? I think some of these reasons are possibilities.

In order to get them to attend, instructors need to think outside the box. Free classes don’t seem to pull women in any better than those with fees. Classes with female instructors sometimes get more attendance than with male instructors, but not always. What is the key? I’m still trying to figure it out myself, but I know one thing. Traditional marketing does not seem to get a big enough response. Can we bring self-defense to the schools, the workplace, or the universities? Can we somehow showcase self-defense in a more modern approach, or make it more prevalent in the media?

All I know is that if we want more people to learn how to defend, just like my friend at the gym, then we still have a lot of work to do. One step of importance is learning to teach in a way that shares, motivates, and even slightly entertains students in order to pique interest or keep them engaged. There are a slew of options we can examine on how to successfully get both men and women to learn self-defense. One thing is for sure, though. Whether classes charge a fee, or are free of charge, Self-defense pays off.

Monkey Lessons – Erik Kondo

Everybody loves when the underdog defeats the bully. But what about when you are the stronger or more skilled one? How do you justify beating someone else senseless? Well, you go with the next best thing. You claim the recipient of your beating deserved it. Now, all is right with your world. You were just teaching a much needed lesson to a misbehaving cretin.

Using Rory Miller’s terms for types of social violence, you were not engaging in a Monkey Dance, you were just administrating a much needed Educational Beatdown.

The internet is filled with videos of one person beating another to a pulp. When one of the commenters sides with the Victor, he or she will typically justify the beating with various claims such as:

1. The Victim deserved it because of his prior actions (Blaming the victim).
2. The Victim deserved it because of he was a scumbag (Othering the victim).
3. The Victim deserved it because he was dangerous and could have caused harm to the Victor (Fearing the victim).
4. The Victim deserved it because his “type” always acts in this kind of anti-social manner (Stereotyping the victim).

In order to really feel good about the beating, it needs to be established that the Victim had it coming to him or her. The above four methods show how people justify their support for the use of force, including excessive force. Once they can establish in their mind that the Victim deserved whatever he or she received, they can enjoy the beating without guilt. In their minds, it’s not that they are racist, bigoted, or sexist, they just want to see justice served.

Many acts of violence are in essence enforcement actions of some real or perceived boundary (social rule) violation. Almost all enforcement actions can be categorized as Under-Enforcement (too little), Over-Enforcement (too much), or appropriate for the situation. How the enforcement is viewed is in the eye of the beholder(s). This sounds all well and good, until we realize that many times the Beholder is your Monkey Brain/limbic system.

Instead of using your Human/rational brain to evaluate the violation (real or perceived) and formulate the best level of response, your Monkey/emotional Brain jumps at the chance to teach someone a lesson. But in order to teach someone a lesson, you also need to have the Means and Opportunity to do so (as in Intent, Means, Opportunity). The greater your advantage (Means) relative to the recipient of your lesson, the more incentive your Monkey/Ego has to want to use it.

When people talk about “how cash burns a hole in your pocket”, they are talking about how the simple act of having available money in your pocket means you feel the need to spend it. Cash is the Means that drives you to seek the Opportunity to spend it, even if your original Intent to purchase was relatively low. Your Monkey wants you to spend the cash, even through your Human/rational brain knows you need to spend the cash on your rent and groceries for your family.

Let’s assume your Monkey wants to give out behavioral lessons to those it feels deserve them. Your Monkey needs to have three things:

The Intent to give a lesson to a particular person, and the Means to give the lesson to that person, and the Opportunity to give the lesson to that person.

The combination of Intent and Means is the “cash” in your pocket. Now, you only need the Opportunity to spend it. The higher the magnitude of your Intent and Means, the more likely you are going to encounter an Opportunity to provide a lesson to someone. Another way to look at it, is that you have a “chip on your shoulder” and you are just waiting for someone to knock it off.

Let’s say you carry a weapon and/or train in “combative arts” for self-protection. Weapons and skills are effectively force multipliers which provide you with a greater magnitude of Means. If you also happen to be the kind of person that habitually,

1. blames certain groups of people for wrongdoing,
2. considers certain groups of people less than you, (othering)
3. believes certain groups of people to be dangerous (fearful)
4. sees certain types of groups as all acting in the same type of anti-social manner, (stereotyping)

then, it is likely, you are predisposed to wanting (having the Intention) to give a person in this group a lesson. And you will jump at the first Opportunity to do so.

Your Monkey/limbic brain is only concerned with the here now. It is not concerned with the consequences of its actions. It doesn’t consider that the consequences of “giving a lesson” may be that you go to prison, and/or spend thousands of dollars in legal fees, and/or you are seriously injured/killed, and/or you seriously injure/kill “your student”, or you become a victim of a revenge action by “your students” friends and family, and/or some other undesirable consequence.

Now you are faced a paradox. You carry a weapon and/or train in the combative arts as a way to keep yourself safer. Yet, in fact, these actions actually have the effect of subjecting you to more risk of destroying your life. Which, in effect, puts you at risk.

It’s not your weapon or your training that puts you at-risk. It is the influence of your Monkey/limbic brain. One way for you to mitigate the risk created by your increase in Means is to learn to control your Monkey/limbic brain with your Human/conscious brain via critical thinking and non-emotional decision making.

Another would be to reduce your tendency to engage in the blaming/othering/fearing/stereotyping certain of groups of people. That requires acknowledging and taking steps to lower your implicit bias against said groups.

In other words, sometimes the biggest threat to your personal safety is you.

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.

Conflict Management Literacy, Part 1 – Erik Kondo

What does it mean to be literate in something? The general answer is that you are well versed in the various aspects of the subject.

For example, someone who is Financially Literate has a strong understanding of how to deal with money on a personal and professional level. On the other hand, someone who is Financially Illiterate does not understand the financial world. That doesn’t make them unintelligent. It makes them ignorant of “how monetary things work”.

Someone who is Literate in Conflict Management has knowledge and understanding of the many aspects of dealing with interpersonal human conflicts. Having the ability to fight or physically defend yourself doesn’t necessarily make you literate in Conflict Management. But it may make you literate in one aspect of Conflict Management.

Rory Miller has defined the Seven Aspects of Self-defense. They are:

Legal and Ethical
Violence Dynamics
Prevention
Counter-Assault
The Freeze
The Fight
The Aftermath

Using this framework, Self-Defense Literacy requires having a working knowledge, understanding, and ability to apply all of these seven areas, not just a few of them. Literacy means being well rounded in multiple areas, not just a specialist in a single area.

A large part of Conflict Management (Self-defense, personal safety, etc.) revolves around the ability to make critical decisions, assessments, and problem solve. These aspects require an understanding of how to interpret statistical data and assess risk and reward ratios, a/k/a cost vs. benefit equations.

Let’s look at some practical examples of this idea.

One thing many self-defense instructors and practitioners like to do is review view video footage of actual attacks. I do it all the time. There is much that can be learned. But there are also hidden dangers for the unwary (illiterate).

When you view a video of an attack, the odds of an impending attack occurring are 100%. You know it is going to happen. The title usually gives it away. (Example Title: Woman at ATM Viciously Robbed). Here I am using the example of a person being mugged at an ATM as the video clip.

Watching the video has the effect of creating a Cognitive Anchor of 100% attack odds. This has the effect of increasing your own assessment of the actual odds of being robbed at an ATM.

A Cognitive Anchor is when you attach to the first data point and use it to determine future assessments.

For example, I say the number “5”, and ask you to pick a random number. You say “10”. I say, “One billion”, you say, “One million”. In both cases, you could have picked ANY number, but you anchored to mine. My anchor influenced your “random” choice.

From Wikipedia (1): “Anchoring or focalism is a cognitive bias that describes the common human tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered (the “anchor”) when making decisions.”

“Anchoring and adjustment is a psychological heuristic that influences the way people intuitively assess probabilities. According to this heuristic, people start with an implicitly suggested reference point (the “anchor”) and make adjustments to it to reach their estimate. A person begins with a first approximation (anchor) and then makes incremental adjustments based on additional information. These adjustments are usually insufficient, giving the initial anchor a great deal of influence over future assessments”.

When you watch a video of someone getting attacked at an ATM, you anchor to 100% probability of an attack. Therefore, you are likely to start believing that this type of attack is more frequent than it actually is. So what are the statistical odds of being attacked at an ATM in the United States? 1 in 50? 1 in 100? 1 in 1,000?

According the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing, the odds of being attacked while doing an ATM transaction are greater than 1 in a million (2).

That means, on average, for every 30 second of video clip of an ATM attack, there are over eight thousand hours (350 days) of non-attack video. While the exact numbers differ, this same phenomena occurs for videos of kidnappings, elevator assaults, home invasions, police shootings, and much more.

It is not only self-defense aficionados that view these attack clips, anyone (the general public) who watches the news or listens to the radio, also effectively watches these clips too.

While this discussion may seem obvious to our conscious/rational/thinking brain, our unconscious/emotional brain isn’t good a math. It determines risk based on what it “sees” and “hears”. And it sees and hears about people getting attacked on a “regular” basis without any context for the true odds. This brain doesn’t take into consideration that attack video clips are edited content taken from a tremendous amount of raw content where nothing happens.

The average person bases their assessments of danger and problems in our society, not on actual facts, but on how they subconsciously “feel” about the issue. For example, an activist who LIKES a Facebook Page that highlights incidents of police use of force shootings, will see video clips of police shootings on a recurring basis on their News Feed. Before long, they be convinced that these events happen much more often than they actually do. They do happen. But what is important is the actual rate at which they happen, not the perceived (emotion based) rate.

How many of these activists will research actual statistical evidence to support their outraged claims of frequency? And of those that do, how many will have an understanding of how statistics and studies can be misleading, misinterpreted, and be used to outright lie?

An important part of Conflict Manager Literacy requires having a deeper understanding of how to interpret statistical risk. And also understanding how our unconscious minds influence our decision making processes, including assessments of Risk vs. Reward.

NOTES:

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring

2) http://www.popcenter.org/problems/robbery_atms/print/

Right Here Right Now – Garry Smith

Fatboy Slim aka Norman Cook aka Quentin Leo Cook is a solo electronic performer according to Wikipedia, I like a lot of his music, in particular I like a track called right here, right now. Its where we live, we think about the past and the future but we live right here right now.

Last month I used this picture in my article ‘Going Forward to the Past’ about Lifelong Learning.

It is one I use when I work with my students, it is something I am always encouraging others to do, to go to the place where the magic happens. A couple of days ago I caught the tail end of somebody a class in a local college as I waited to do my class, and the tutor used the exact same picture to encourage her students to think about their young entrepreneurs project. I thought she was excellent in how she used the material and talked for some time after he class about actually doing it, getting up off the sofa and stepping away from the comfort zone.

Well before I go on here is an update on the motorbike riding. I went out on the road on a 650cc Suzuki the other day, we did a lot of miles at some speed too, it is very early days but I an beginning to feel comfortable but still high on the magic of the new experiences and sensations. I have now bought all the gear short of an actual bike but have been spending quite a bit of time checking out different bikes and their features on the internet, my head turns now as I drive past bike shops and I have an urge to go in and look. I never thought I would do this until a few weeks ago, all my life people told me motorbikes = death, I lost good friends young who died on them, I visited good friends in hospital who had major accidents on them, motorbikes were for looney tunes, I once went pillion a few times with a mate and it scared the crap out of me. I am not sure what that says about me now, have I lost the plot or have I overcome my fear.

We its possibly a bit of both depending on your perspective. When you do this type of thing at 55, something out of character, without warning people first they look at you funny and the words mid life crisis are used, jokingly, but it has been said by a few. That’s cool I can live with that. To be fair I do not really know myself what makes me do these things, when I went to college then university and ended up lecturing in further and higher education it was the same, I really wanted to learn and had to overcome the fear of failure to be ready to do so.

So here I lay bare my biggest fear, it is the fear of failure. It is why we get nervous when we take tests and exams, we fear being the one who fails. When I stepped onto the mat to take my black belt in Ju Jitsu I had trained hard for years, training three times a week for many months and then some. The first this we have to complete are 25 throws and every aspect of each one must be correct, your uki’s are punching full of and there is no room for error, about 10 throws in and I was convinced I had already failed, I felt like shit, I could hardly breathe and had to fight myself mentally as well as my uki’s physically in order to carry on. I passed, its history now.

Last Friday I failed the first part of my MOD 1 riding test, I repeat I failed. I made one mistake right in the middle of the test, I knew I had failed at this point. I still had three difficult tasks to complete, I took a breath, focused and did them, including the one I was most scared of at the start of he training, the swerve manoeuvre at speed. In the debrief the examiner told me he knew I knew I had failed when I made my one mistake, he complimented me an told me he was really impressed that I completed the rest of the test, he told me it was excellent. My instructor had described my ride prior to the test as fantastic and that was because I had a clear passion for learning to ride, this applied also to my fellow student who did pass.

Later we talked about some other stuff and the subject turned to how we learn things that help us to ride better. I mentioned the above picture and we talked about comfort zones and leaving them. I had already booked a retest for next week, best to get straight back on etc, I know that I did 90% of the test spot on, I know I can do the thing I did wrong, I understand I can do it. I was disappointed but not upset that I had failed, I took the test after 5 days of training, before that I could not ride at all. I got 1 thing wrong and people the feedback was surprisingly good. Putting the failure in the context of how much I think I have achieved, especially venturing up to 60 miles an hour on something I never thought I would ride, something I previously feared I still classed the test as a success.

If you live your life in the comfort zone, you are not living your life.

Fear is horrible, fear prevents us doing things, fear is the most negative of emotions, this we all know. Few people are fearless. Fear can paralyse us and keep us from trying something new. Most peoples lives are controlled by fear and they do not even know it. When we see an opportunity to do something new, whether it is something we have always wanted to do or just something that crops up, there will appear that little policeman in your head that will tell you not to do it, the little policeman will tell you it is not for you, it might hurt, you cannot do it, people like you do not do it and if you ignore all this stuff you the inner policeman will remind you that if you try it you might fail.

The little policeman inside your head uses fear to control you. Fear is a form of social control. I do not subscribe to conspiracy theories, I am not sat here with my head wrapped in tinfoil to stop the CIA reading my thoughts. We are taught fear as we are socialised into society. Learning to fear certain things, poisonous snakes, tigers, sharks etc that are dangerous helps keep us safe. The thing is we also learn to fear failure and yes this has a name, Atychiphobia.

“Atychiphobia is the abormal, unwarranted, and persistent fear of failure a type of specific phobia. As with many phobias, atychiphobia often leads to a constricted lifestyle, and is particularly devastating for its effects on a person’s willingness to attempt certain activities. The term atychiphobia comes from the Greek Phobos meaning “fear” or “morbid fear” and atyches meaning “unfortunate”.

Persons afflicted with atychiphobia considers the possibility of failure so intense that they choose not to take the risk then these persons will subconsciously undermine their own efforts so that they no longer have to continue to try. Because effort is proportionate to the achievement of personal goals and fulfilment, this unwillingness to try, that arises from the perceived inequality between the possibilities of success and failure, holds the atychiphobic back from a life of meaning and the realization of potential.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atychiphobia

The good new is that it is abnormal, most people do not suffer this correct? I think not, this is only my opinion, I think we all suffer from it when we face a challenge, a test an exam. It is not retarding us all the time but how many of us can say we have not felt nervous before or during a test or an exam especially where we really want or need to pass and where failure would lead to us being not good enough. Fear of failure is directly related to how we see ourselves and how we want others to see us.

Most Conflict Manager readers train and/or are trainers. We all know about exam nerves, now we can name the beast that is atychiphobia. Naming things is important part of learning how to deal with challenges and learning how to help others deal with them too. Different individuals will develop different strategies, there is no one cure. Even when you have trained and trained and passed mock test after mock test the real thing wakes up the little policeman inside your head and he starts to go to work. Does this mean I am anti testing? No, the pressure created by facing a test can really focus the learner so can be a good thing. It can also be important in keeping us safe, had I made my one little mistake on my riding test out on the road I could have placed myself in danger, could not would, but I can see why it was enough to fail me.

So life long learning is a wonderful thing, I embrace I, I send out the message to try new things as often as possible, I do it too. In a couple of hours Jayne and I are off to BBC Radio Sheffield to do a thirty minute live slot talking about Ju Jitsu and doing an on air demonstration. This will be Jayne’s 3rd time this year, she was really nervous the first time but did an incredible job, this time we are both looking forward to it and will have a lot of fun, well she will as she will be throwing me around. The request for us to do this is linked to the imminent release of the film Suffragettes and their training in Ju Jitsu. Hopefully this will bring in some new students to our classes, people who simply by turning up are facing one of their fears, of exposing themselves to the possibility of failure. Our job today on air is to show how both Jayne and I did just that, we are senior instructors now but we were complete novice white belts once.

My grandson Billy is five years old and has just done his first 2 Ju Jitsu classes, his mum sat watching is a 1st dan black belt, she climbed the UK’s 3 biggest mountains when she was 7, she is a fully qualified teacher, like her I want to teach Billy, and all my other students, not to fear failure, it happens, we fail, dream of successes and go out and create them.

I told all my students that I failed my test last week, I want them to learn that if they take a test it can happen, if everyone passes the test then it is not much of a test. Our local McDojo sells guaranteed black belt courses. One of their first dan black belts in karate MMA, (don’t start me off), was in one of my sessions recently doing self defence, he had a meltdown and could not complete the class, I said and did nothing about him or his training, I think the poor kid heard and saw things that exposed the dross he will have been filled up with, I felt really sorry for him. We have had their 13 year old second dan black belts come train with us before. They were not even green belts by our standards, their tests are not tests they are purchases.

So please let your students know its ok to fail, taking the test is an achievement in itself, if you do not pass then the work starts to pass next time. Not next week, not next month, but right here, right now. The antidotes to atychiphobia are confidence and passion, inculcate these qualities in your students and you will be doing a fine job, help them to overcome the negative control of fear and you will create winners.

Pride and Self-Exploration -Tony Peston

Maybe it could be a good idea to teach the intricacies of pride as part of a self exploration module during our formative years, what I mean is helping young people to cope with peer pressure that screams fight back, or don’t allow an insult to go unpunished. Maybe then as adults we would be more equipped to deal with the overt confrontations that are waiting to explode all around us like I.E.D’s placed in our path. It is always these hidden unexpected explosions that catch me out, ignoring any cognitive resonance my logic being completely pushed to one side and any rationality over ridden, forcing me to go to my DNA blueprint for the primal response which is either run or inflict violence. Of course having such a hard wired response, the type of reaction that comes forth without consideration or care for consequences or the aftermath it’s actions leave in it’s wake is either a curse or a blessing.

The old saying it is better to be judged by 12 than carried by six comes to mind here, such thinking helping us to deal with the fact that we could be charged with serious criminal offences even though we believe that our primal instinct to strike is in actual fact self defence. In the hard light of day can we justify our actions and can we deal with the ecology of extreme violence? For most people who practice martial arts and self defence I believe that question will remain unanswered but for some my self included, they will tell you that if those violent actions came through self preservation then they can deal with what comes after and meet the aftermath head on with a righteous justification that it was him/her/ them or me. Setting the auto responder aside, the dark passenger, the one who we have little control over, especially when the brown stuff hits the fan, what of the man himself the thinker the one who is given the luxury of a considered response?

I say luxury of a considered response, but consideration invites the adrenalin rush that has to be managed correctly otherwise we can lose the considered thinking and revert back to the old blue print, striking out and asking questions later. Most combat orientated arts are trained from either a defensive stance or a combat stance, both physically and importantly psychologically, I think it is a rare thing to find a club or an instructor that addresses the issue of the aftermath, the possible life changing consequences of that single punch or that sustained violent action to neutralize the person who is your opponent. Teaching the physical is easy enough but helping people understand that taking the physical forward with total conviction will require a mental attitude that is certain and accepting, there is no room for anything else in a life or death situation. So striking someone causing a knockout or for them to become seriously injured is a life or death situation for them too. The question is was it necessary?

There are too many people serving long prison sentences that will tell you that what they did was not necessary and that they allowed themselves to be controlled by pride. As a self defence and Krav Maga instructor it is my duty to be honest in my teaching of the subject, I have to be honest and tell my students this is fact based upon my own experience and that is theory because it is a technique I have never used in a conflict situation. The truth of the matter is that there are very few things I can teach as actual fact, but when I teach them I teach with 100% certainty.

Working on the door can help people develop many basic skills, such as knocking people out and so forth and of course the door has been a breeding ground for men looking to do just that, thankfully there will always be complete gentlemen who can work the doors without the need to use violence as the backbone of their skill set. These doormen are the ones who have honed their communication skills and only use violence as a last resort. As I mentioned before I could teach 100% fact in physical terms but in honesty I could only teach as a theory the communication skills required to avoid a violent situation. Of course this is a major problem if teaching self defence because unless one has really used the art of de- escalation and distance management or can really be clear in the explanation of the fence, well I believe we are just teaching people to fight or at best fight off an attacker.

I would like to think that I am not alone in saying that I am no stranger to violence as a youth and younger man, I was using a lot of primal thinking which was flawed in many ways, of course as a result I have devoted a life time of study to my own thinking in an effort to work out why I do what I do, one of the weaknesses I had identified was the need to react with an equal or greater response to being threatened with violence. Working the door was a great opportunity to face this situation and immerse myself in it to explore the theory on a practical level. When I decided to work the doors I had a clear vision to avoid violence and use the soft skills to navigate through each night, ans by actually treating people with respect even though lots of people where abusive angry and drunk, I found that I was able to work my first year with very few incidents where violence was needed. That year was like a master class in the use of the fence. Look out for my book which is presently being edited and will be ready for release in the near future, it’s called, “1 year on God’s door”.

Going Forward to the Past – Garry Smith

A couple of weeks ago I started to learn how to ride a motorbike. I passed my full UK car driving licence 39 years ago when I was 17 years old and have driven regularly for almost all that time. I have driven a car in 16 different countries too so I am a fairly experienced driver and I once hired and rode a scooter for 3 days in the South of France many, many years ago. That 3 days on a scooter is my only riding experience apart from the fact that I do cycle quite a bit. Riding a bicycle on our roads requires a very different skill set to driving a car and here was I stepping up to a bicycle with an engine…..

So the adventure began as I started training with a company called Bikesafe, a little research led me to them and after an initial assessment and familiarisation session one Sunday morning I signed on as a learner.

Let me tell you now, stepping out of my car and onto that motorbike was stepping right out of my comfort zone, literally. No comfy seat with music playing and a metal protective shell around me and a seat belt and air bag to boot, now it was me sat up on my 125cc beast with some fairly protective clothing and a helmet, and after a couple of days on a car park, stopping, starting, slow control, weaving in and out of cones and doing the figure of eight, u-turns and how to negotiate different types of junctions safely, all great fun if quite difficult I might add, it was a 2 hour assessment out on the road.

Yes the road, full of cars, lorries and buses that would be trying to kill me…. Well it was OK I obviously survived and I passed my Compulsory Basic Test, the following Thursday I say and passed my Motorcycle Riding Theory Test, after quite a few hours working right through the official manual and practising the hazard recognition tests. So now I am ready to go out on the road with my instructor and put the hours in training.

I struggled like mad at the beginning and found the transition from car to bike very difficult, on the first day whilst most of the class went out on the road after just a morning doing the above car park stuff, I was kept back, my instructor told me she thought I was not quite ready, I told her she was damn right and I happily stayed behind to practice more on the car park, those cones would be mastered. The next training day I cracked it on the car park and really enjoyed it out on the road, after our two hours out, I had certainly put into practise everything learned to date on the training and my road experience certainly kicked in. It felt good, I love learning new things, I was on a roll.

I love learning, the phrase lifelong learner certainly applies to me, I remember applying to go to college on an access course to university, I had no formal qualifications, when I was 29 years old with a partner, daughter and our own house, I was a window cleaner, self employed but a job with low status. Filling in the application form I described myself as an autodidact, big word that for a window cleaner, but calling myself an extensive reader across many subjects was something of an understatement, I devoured books, was thirsty for knowledge and that is why many friends pushed me to go on a full time access course.

Well no need for the details, I successfully completed that course and did so well I was admitted straight onto the second year of my degree course, I got a 2:1 honours degree in 2 years. I am not bragging, I left school with nothing, worked damn hard labouring and window cleaning but self educated. The formal courses were fantastic and attending the Northern College and Warwick University gave me experiences I could not have got elsewhere.

My personal tutor at Warwick was president of the British Sociological Association and I made very good friends with the head of the International Sociological Association, we used to like to have a fag and a cuppa in her office. At both institutions I was exposed to some incredibly intelligent, knowledgeable and skilled teachers, I learned from them in so many ways, especially how to teach.

I went on to teach myself in further and higher education, including teaching post graduate students and gained post graduate qualification too, not bad for a former window cleaner. The thing is it was not easy but it was not hard either, because I had the bug, the desire to learn, my brain was spongelike in soaking up information but the formal education honed my critical ability. It was 4 years of self indulgence and I kept on cleaning windows right through my ‘education’.

I will not even try to list the range of subjects that I am interested in, I also train in Ju Jitsu as you know, and I teach Ju Jitsu to others. I just love learning and cannot see a point when I will stop short of death. Worryingly that brings me back to the motorbike. I am not in any rush to buy a motorbike, I may not buy one although I have been checking out a few, I will do the full test though and it is not a mid life crisis, I am past that in more ways than one. What drives me, excuse the pun, to learn to ride a motorbike is a desire to learn something new, about myself.

I have just read a nice book by Sebastian Faulks, ‘Human Traces’, set at the end of the 19th and start of the 20th centuries it revolves around 2 main characters both involved in the very early developments in psychiatry. Much of the discourse revolves around discussing what it is that makes us human, as seen from the perspective of the 2 main characters and their studies and experiences, it contains some profound thoughts for their day that now are pretty much commonly known and accepted facts. We all experience reading differently even when we read the same printed text, because we all approach it from our own particular perspectives, so we will all take our own view.

What touched me most was how the novel dealt with our evolution as a species and the development of the brain, remember this was in the context of what was known at the time the novel was set. Woven into the novel is a great deal of educational information and the story is beautifully constructed. The triune brain is not referred to as such but this was when the first discussions on architecture and function were taking place with the debate around evolution vs creationism still raging in the background. What is it that makes us human? Well my take on this is very simple, that we are learners. Trace our roots back as far as the archaeological and socio-anthropological evidence can go and it is clear our early ancestors adapted to their environments and eventually not only managed them but changed the almost beyond recognition.

We are a species of learners, we are by definition, and should strive to be Homo Sapiens (Wise Man). Other hominids existed, our ancestors outlived them, may well have exterminated some of them, but certainly out-competed them. Our brain is the most oxygen thirsty organ in the body, it is also thirsty for knowledge, its capacity is huge. I remember reading ‘The Wisdom of Bones: In Search of Human Origins’ a few years ago, it was an incredible read of an incredible piece of exploration, it led me to read quite a few books on similar subjects, see how it happens.

One new discovery, to me that is, and off I go, the brain rules. Learning appears to be my addiction and it appears I inherited it through my physical and cultural evolution. In many ways I have come full circle for a while as I am enrolled on the motorcycle training course but I remain, stubbornly remain, an autodidact, I celebrate the fact that I am in charge of my own education and here is an example of why. Becoming a learner again in the role of student motorcyclist has already helped me to learn how to be a better instructor. I have gone back to school and alongside learning to balance my throttle, clutch and rear break for slow manoeuvring I am learning to learn again, and because I found the just described procedure difficult I was lucky enough to have 2 different instructors teach me how to do it. As I did before I am learning how they teach not just what they teach and reflecting on how I teach too. It is a really nice experience, sit back, listen, try, evaluate and progress, that is how I do things.

We are all learners, we just need to be conscious learners to be more effective learners. We sometimes need to step out of our comfort zone to find new ways of doing things, just like our ancestors, right back through time. Learning is part of our species being, it is what makes us human.

Blazzing Saddles UK – Mo Teague

As a child I was raised by cowboys and brought up the cowboy way, I don’t mean cowboys as in builders but as in the ones who ride horses, herd cattle and fight injuns (native Americans, first generation peoples).I gotta tell ya it was tough but it made a man of me. Being brought up as a young cowboy taught me a lot that would stand me in good stead through the years and saved my sorry ass on more than one occasion. Cowboys are tough with a work ethic second to none. They work hard and party harder, they live basic but meaningful lives close to nature and to one another forging friendships that endure over lifetimes. It’s also a dangerous life, working with unpredictable animals in harsh conditions and extreme environments, scorching summers and freezing winters not to mention bears and rattle snakes, and all this on bad food , low wages and scarce female company (no mention of Brokeback Mountain please) So whilst not a glamorous lifestyle there are compensations and you just can’t beat a sing song around the old camp fire with a mess of beans, a slug of whiskey under a starry night sky with your fellow cowboys after a long day in the saddle…….is that a wolf howling in the distance….or those pesky injuns ?

Ah the golden age of cowboy movies, you see I wasn’t as you probably already know, brought up by cowboys, at least not directly. Let me explain. My father was sailor and away for long periods of time (years) so as a young boy I was bereft of male guidance and searching for a male role model, searching that is until we acquired our first black and white TV and the Lone Ranger (and Tonto) appeared on our screen, I was hooked and a cowboy from that day onwards. Now I understand it’s a generational thing so when I talk cowboys I don’t mean the anti hero Eastwood type or God forbid Brokeback Moutain, I mean real cowboys , Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, Alan Ladd, Henry Fonda and of course the cowboys cowboy John Wayne. Now I can picture you reading this and thinking WTF where is this going, but bear with me and I will get to the point!

The point is information can be gleaned, interpreted and adopted from almost any source, even cowboy movies if you have an open mind. So what did I learn from cowboy movies you may ask?

Well the first thing I learned and understood was that there were good cowboys and bad cowboys, good cowboys were handsome and wore white hats whilst bad cowboys were ugly and wore black hats, both sets have lived by an unwritten code, one good , one bad , the clash of codes obviously became the movies story line. Now as I grew older I started o understand the good cowboy code and adopt certain values and attitudes such as calling my parents Ma and Pa and eating more baked beans than was good for my intestinal tract not to say the atmospheric conditions within the ol’ homestead

I also started to understand that good manners were central to the cowboy code especially regarding women and children as was kindness to animals and the weak and the vulnerable, and most important that violence was always a last resort after the hero has been pushed too far and with no other choice, hence the big shootout showdown in the final scenes which despite being wounded the good cowboy always wins and kills the bad cowboy or at least runs him out of town.

You see the point of this article thus far is, you gotta have a code, a personal code that articulates your values and guiding principles to life, see if you don’t know what you stand for you will fall for anything. What will you fight for? because someone spilt your beer or looked at you the wrong way? (Bad cowboy code) or will you walk away with your honour and integrity intact because you were true to your code. Any damn fool can get into a fight it takes a man of character to walk away if he can, especially when he knows he can whup the other guy. Only when there is no option other than to fight, well that’s when the metaphorical six guns come out of their holsters. OK I gotta rodeo to git to so take care.

To be continued……..