Mark Hatmaker – Page 2 – Conflict Manager

Rookie To Pro, Its All The Same – Mark Hatmaker

“Diligence passe sens” (“Great is drill.”) Henry VIII

A common request among combat rookies and even intermediate players (and if we are honest some long-timers still think this way, too) is “What’s next?” or “What’s the next super-secret neato technique to master?” And I get this attitude, I mean who doesn’t want some new bit of information to chew over, some new skill to toy with and occupy the mind? For some, familiarity breeds contempt and if most of us don’t feel contempt for what we know we must do, we can at least admit that sometimes another day in the gym working on variations of the same things as we did last week can occasionally lead to a bit of staleness.
But, despite the occasional battle with “This again?” we must come to terms with and embrace the fact that this is the way of all great and serious endeavors. Let’s look to other sports for illustration.

If we were to step onto the court of any winning basketball team during practice, would we expect to see something unlike what we see in a basketball game itself, that is, athletes working on passing, shooting, rebounding, the full court press, et cetera?

In football practice from Pop Warner to the NFL you will see variations of the same drills and plays.

In tennis you will not see athletes forgoing tried and true serves in favor of developing jumping spinning back serves with a half-gainer twist.

In a good boxing gym you will see amateur and pro fighters alike working the bag with the exact same arsenal.

In good MMA gyms you will see good double leg takedowns and the same handful of go-to submissions being worked by rookies and pros alike.

In other words, if even those at the top of their games, those who play their given games for money are subjected to the exact same regimen as the beginner (with a difference in intensity, of course) than why would any of us not at that particular level expect to do something different to get to that same status?

There is a sometime tendency to see Drills as finite in that once a particular skill has been honed to an acceptable useful level we get to move on and leave it behind as we play with the next toy.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Manny Pacquiao still hones and drills the exact same jab that any 1^st day boxing rookie must work on.

Demian Maia still throws hooks in and uses the same rear-naked choke that any strip mall aspiring blue belt understands.

You can go on and on with examples of tactics and techniques that you are introduced to in your first year of training being much of the basis of what you will see emerge victorious in rings and octagons the world round.

We must not approach drilling as a soon to be reached destination with some threshold arrived at where we get to stop. Drilling must be a continuous process as we will never quite know what individual repetition or single drill session will be the one that does the job to make that tool what it is.

Here’s a passage from Ralph Waldo Emerson on the subject of drilling:

“At West Point, Col. Buford, the chief engineer, pounded with a hammer on the trunnions of a cannon, until he broke them off. He fired a piece of ordnance some hundred times in swift succession, until it burst. Now which stroke broke the trunnion? Every stroke. Which blast burst the piece? Every blast.”

Emerson and Colonel Buford’s lesson still holds, we never have any way of knowing which day of drilling our jab, our double leg, or our double-wristlock will be the day that puts it over the edge, the day that makes it move from the commonplace to the extraordinary.

But while we may not know the single instance that does the job, we do know that every instance contributes to the one (if such a one even exists). And with this wisdom in mind we should follow in the steps of Henry VIII, Emerson, Colonel Buford, Manny Pacquiao, and every other top athlete who does what rookies do, but they do it better because they never stopped working on what works and pursued something else. They just kept drilling and drilling and drilling.

Personal Security Theatre – Mark Hatmaker

The Transportation Security Administration [TSA], designated cops in schools [aka School Resource Officers or SROs], gun-free zones, random bag checks on subways, and other like-minded safety initiatives have been called security theater by more than a few wise minds.

Computer security maven Bruce Schneier is credited with coining the term security theatre. Mr. Schneier is author of the prescient and illuminating book Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World.

He offers that the TSA does little to nothing to “keep us safe” and this large outlay of expenditure and labor is there to act as nothing more than a pacifier or Linus’ security blanket for a cowed populace.

Mr. Schneir is not alone in this assessment, Ross Anderson, is a Professor of security engineering, University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. His research bailiwick is that of the economics and psychology of information security.

Professor Anderson is equally as scathing in the review and record of any of the mentioned displays of security theatre and their purported benefits. [His book Security Engineering is a must-read in the industry.]

Security Theatre is designed [well-intentioned or not] to convey safety/security benefits that dissolve upon close examination.

By this point we are all well aware of the cost-to-benefit absurdity of the TSA’s abysmal record; the TSA’s own internal assessments are less than admirable.

School Resource Officers also come up short, an excellent piece on the perversity of this policy can be found in the Reason magazine article “Why Are Cops Putting Our Kids in Cuffs?” by Robby Soave & Tyler Koteskey [Reason March, 2017.]

Studies of Random Bag Check Policies on Metro Subways in several cities reveal yields of zero arrests despite what many rightly see as infringement of rights. And gun-free zones, well, as we painfully know those who abide by that bit of theatrical law are the very ones we’d prefer to be armed. [At least that’s my preference.]

The purpose for discussing security theatre today is not to provide yet another reason for we the outraged populace to shake our collective fists at our “betters” in bureaucracies but rather to turn the accusatory lens around.

Yes, the aforementioned theatrical productions are unwise, immensely costly [in dollars, time, and in some cases lives] but our outrage seldom does little against our leviathan bureaucratic systems of governance.

Since we can do little to affect security theatre on the macro scale I ask what might we be able to do in the micro, that is at the personal level?

What habits, behaviours, bits of theatrical security showmanship might we be indulging in in our own lives that when we put the cold hard light of pragmatics on it dissolve into TSA uselessness?

Here’s a brief battery of questions to allow you to self-assess.

Do you own a personal protection device?

If so, do you regularly carry it?

Be that device a firearm, a tactical folder, a Taser, hell, it could be a phaser from the future, if it is not carried, that device is no more than a prop in your amateur personal security theatre production.

If you do carry a security tool, have you been trained in its use?

Do you regularly “groove” your training with weekly sessions? [We must always keep the mantra regarding skills in mind “Use it or lose it.”]

Is your device one of actual practical value? This must be asked, as over the years, I have seen many variations of doo-dads that can attach to your keyring or gravitate to the bottom of purses that may be nothing more than teensy theatrical props.

Case in point, the pocket kubatan. I have seen these for years and I ask you honestly how many reports have you encountered echoing these lines?

“I was approached in a parking lot by three shady characters, but fortunately I had my kubaton and lived to tell the tale?”

I’m not picking on the kubaton exclusively, with a little common sense and a little candour evaluate your own tool and ask if it is a benefit or a security prop?

Allow me to ease potentially ruffled feathers by reversing our lens again.

Assuming you think the TSA is an efficient and effective body protecting you from terrorist threat would you approve of a mandate that stripped them of their firearms and instead provided them with kubatons vs. terrorists?

Would you feel safe in a “bad” part of town if you knew that all the cops kept their guns not on their person but somewhere in their glove compartments or at the bottom of their cop purses?

How about if you knew they had never been range qualified for the weapons they carry? Or, if they had been qualified have never bothered to train with the weapon again?

You see what I’m saying, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If it is unwise policy and security theatre for those uphill in the hierarchy, I argue that is all the more unwise and dangerous when we look at ourselves as we are inevitably always the first responders in every incident in our own lives.

Let’s turn that lens around upon ourselves once again.

Have you trained in self-defense?

Notice I did not say tae kwon do, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, boxing, or any other combat sport. As formidable, fun, and worthy of merit they all may be in their own arenas, a mere 15 minutes out of your life viewing actual assaults on YouTube will reveal that violent reality seldom resembles a sportive construct.

So, again, have you trained in self-defense?

If so, do you regularly touch-up your skills?

If not, that krav maga class from a few years back or that half-hearted touch-up of skills occasionally is akin to the weapon seldom if ever fired.

Self-defense that does not reflect real-world realties is akin to mime in our security theatre presentation, that is, an art form best performed by oneself for oneself as no one really needs it. [Apologies to mimes everywhere, in truth, I find Chaplin a genius.]

To carry on our theatrical criticism, much lip service is paid to awareness, alertness, mind-setting, and like “eyes of a warrior” mentalities. And yet, I know many [many, too many] folks who preach that message who conduct their lives with heads-down and phones out—this is particularly conspicuous at airports and all large public gatherings where one would assume that this touted “warrior alertness” is most in need.

To give voice to awareness and mind-setting talk is, again, security theatre, the mere uttering of lines in a play. We say the words we think that a high-speed/low-drag seasoned Navy SEAL would utter, but if we aren’t stepping up to the words we are simply playing a role and we may be fooling no one but ourselves.

So, again, I ask you what’s your own bit of security theatre and what can you do to take it from the playhouse to the streets.

Historical Warrior Alertness Training – Mark Hatmaker

THE Primary Factor in self-protection/self-defense is situational awareness. Keeping in mind that crime is, more often than not, a product of opportunity, if we take steps to reduce opportunity to as close to nil as we can manage we have gone a long way to rendering our physical tactical training needless [that’s a good thing.]

Yes, having defensive tactical skills in the back-pocket is a great ace to carry day-to-day but all the more useful to saving your life or the lives of loved ones is a honed awareness, a ready alertness to what is occurring around you every single day.

Here’s the problem, maintaining such awareness is a Tough job with a capital T as most of our daily lives are safe and mundane [also a good thing] and this very safety allows us to backslide in good awareness practices. Without daily danger-stressors we easily fall into default comfort mode.

A useful practice to return awareness/alertness to the fore is to gamify your awareness, use a series of specific awareness/alertness drills on a revolving basis that allow you to keep your mind in the day-to-day routine while also making a bit of a game out of what may save your life.

In aid of that I use an extensive series of gamified awareness drills culled from historical warrior traditions across the globe. Where appropriate I have updated the drill to fit the 21^st century environment.

Below you will find just three of these many drills that you can take into your day to day life starting NOW.

The 1st Awareness Exercise for Warriors is from “Puewatsi Nemito” (The Wild Walker or Walk of the Wild) a Comanche warrior tradition.

“Tuhoit’u” [The Hunted One]

Today: You are on the Menu.

Whether in an urban or a natural setting live as if you are a hunted man, a targeted woman, a person on someone’s Kill List.
Know who or what is behind you.
Look into the faces of the people around you, are they the one who hunts you?
Look at the hands of all around you—is the method of your demise in any hand?
Keep to the edges of trails or sidewalks-only confident or foolhardy animals cross open ground.
Treat all security cameras as tools to locate you. Avert your face when passing by or beneath them.
Treat all birds as possible drones.
In short, live with eyes wide open, mind alert. Live as if you are being stalked.
At the end of the exercise ask yourself what you learned from this bit of role play.

Warriors must be aware. Aware of what? Everything. A Warrior must be Awake. All detail is interesting, all detail may be important. We do not know what detail will change our lives. We do not know what detail will save our lives.

Here’s another Drill adapted from “Puewatsi Nemito” (The Wild Walker or Walk of the Wild)

This is an inverse exercise of Hukhiap’u Puniti [Shadow Watcher} Drill.

Today: Look for Reflections

Today find all the reflective surfaces that you can. See what those reflections hold.

Find the trees in the windows of your home.
See the glint of the semi-truck in the window of a passing car.
See the rippled reflection of the sky or yourself in a puddle of water.
See the surroundings of the restaurant in the beverage glass before you.
See the reflections of the road in the heat haze on the highway in front of you
See the distorted you in the corneas of the person you are speaking to.
The only reflection to pay no attention to—that of any mirror.
Find any and all reflections-and mark how many surfaces provide mirror images.

I repeat: Warriors must be aware. Aware of what? Everything. A Warrior must be Awake. All detail is interesting, all detail may be important. We do not know what detail will change our lives. We do not know what detail will save our lives.

The next drill is an adaptation of a similar drill found in both Northeast Indian Warrior Traditions and the Viking tradition.

“If you are wise, be wise

Keep what goods the gods gave you

Don’t ignore five good senses

Seeking an unknown sixth.”-The Viking Havamal

“Don’t get caught looking for leaves in the trees in Autumn. Those leaves are on the ground.”-Comanche teaching

Or this short Puha [Medicine Man/Coach/Mentor] to a Ekasahpana [young warrior] exchange.

“Look.”

“At what?”

“Everything then you’ll never have to ask.”

WARRIOR AWARENESS DRILL: Take 3/Find 5

Select a 15-minute period in your day to execute this drill.
Take three steps, stop and list [verbally if possible] 5 distinct things in your environment that you can physically sense, These can be things you see, sounds you hear, scents, tastes on the wind, a breeze on the skin.
Take three more steps, stop and repeat cataloguing 5 more things. Do not repeat anything in any of your prior inventory.
Continue until the ¼ hour is completed with no repetition of what you noticed.

If you take the time to honestly commit to this exercise you will find there is far more to sense than we normally take in. We gloss over and glide through so much of life that what we miss can be astounding.

I repeat the above exchange:

“Look.”

“At what?”

“Everything then you’ll never have to ask.”

T’zare Tubunit’u Ekasapana! [Be Awake Warriors!]

www.extremeselfprotection.com

Hidden in Plain Sight? – Mark Hatmaker

Let’s see if we can pull off a thought through-line that moves from a concept in zoology called cryptozoicism to an incident in the history of Scottish warfare, to a passage from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, to Tap-Out T-shirts and NRA stickers, and finally to some speculations on personal protection.

First…crypto-wha?

Basically it is the technical term for evasive movement or deceptive covering as in camouflage or bio-mimicry, in which a species has evolved or adapted/adopted a strategy of blending in with its environment or taking on the guise of a creature deadlier than the self in hopes of deterring attackers. We have the chameleon or octopus at one end of the spectrum blending with its environment almost instantaneously and at the other end the venomous and vibrant coral snake and the sneaky but similarly colored [and harmless] scarlet king snake and the need of the rhyme “Red and yellow kill a fellow.”

The following passage from The Outline of Science, Vol. 1: A Plain Story Simply Told by J. Arthur Thomson is probably all the explanation needed for the concept.

“For every animal one discovers while observing carefully, there must be ten unseen. This is partly because many animals burrow in the ground or get in underneath things and dip into dark corners, being what is called cryptozoic or elusive. But it is partly because many animals put on disguise or have in some ways acquired a garment of invisibility.”

Modern hunters and indigenous peoples for ages have adopted cryptozoic tactics to stalk prey, from modern camouflaged duck blinds to American Indians swimming submerged under a bundle of cattails attached to the head to snatch water-fowl from below.

It is no stretch to assume that mankind also adopted cryptozoic strategies when facing other men in battle. Despite the long period of vibrantly colored military uniforms and attacking in formation, we see cryptozoicism in modern Battle-Dress Uniforms (BDUs) and have countless tales of “stealth by disguise” being used as a battle tactic. Let’s look to one for illumination.

If we are familiar with Macbeth we will know the story of the Walking Woods of Birnam. If you’re not familiar, no worries.

Macbeth was based on an actual royal spat. Malcolm was gifted The Royal Forest upon his marriage to the Princess Ada in 1160. A portion of the Royal Forest is known as Birnam Hill. The treacherous Macbeth has designs on Malcolm and his property, and Malcolm is aware of Macbeth’s solid military skill so rather than meet him head-on he uses a strategy of camouflage to get close to Macbeth.

In Act V/scene iv Malcolm advises his men:

“Let every soldier hew him down a bough

And bear’t before him; thereby shall we shadow

The numbers of our host and make discovery

Err in report of us.”

Spoiler Alert: This bit of poetic cryptozoicism is successful.

Camouflage, bio-mimicry, and cryptozoic tactics are and have been so successful for many species, including man, for so long it is a point of curiosity that it is largely abandoned in the civilian sphere in some quarters.

I call your attention to the proliferation of Tap-Out t-shirts and other like garments or tattoos that proclaim some affiliation with martial prowess.

I call your attention to the adoption of military clothing or law enforcement tactical clothing by members of the civilian population.

I have had remarked to me by many friends in the military or law enforcement that most of the folks you see in the mall who just so happen to be wearing tactical boots or some other such accoutrement more than likely are not currently on-duty with the local police or military personal on leave. Rather they are civilians who have adopted the costume of the life-style.

I use the word “costume” for three reasons.

The first, it is correct. Any clothing we don is and can be referred to as a costume.

I also use it in the “play-acting” sense as anyone who dons the clothing or gear of a particular lifestyle is signaling that they wish to be associated with the dressed-for occupation. After all when we see a child in a Spider-Man costume we don’t assume he’s thinking Wonder Woman thoughts.

Now, to be clear I am not mocking adopting costumes, we all do it to varying degrees. We see sports jerseys and baseball hats galore on any given day and yet how many of these folks do we think are actually actively engaged with playing the advertised sport? I do not think sports paraphernalia wearers are attempting to make me think “Hey is that guy in the #12 New England Patriots jersey Tom Brady?” I think I’m supposed to assume he’s a fan and likes football.

But when we see the guy in combat boots, slate-grey cargo pants, and a clip-knife showing are we to assume cop who just got off duty? Or big big fan of law enforcement fashion?

Again, no mocking going on here—stay with me.

What may actually be occurring here [wittingly or unwittingly] is one of two things: True Signaling or Decoy Signaling.

The True Signaling Combat adopter may indeed possess the military and/or LE background we are seeing in the costume and we are simply noting an expression of that background. It is also signals “Hey, I just don’t wear the jersey I play the game.”

The strategy of the Decoy Signaler is similar to that of the benign scarlet king snake being mistaken for the venomous coral snake: “I may not be a high-speed/low-drag Spec-Ops warrior, but I look like one so watch yourself.”

In either respect of signaling there is no real value judgment applied-yet.

Here’s what we must ponder. Gang colors are also signals, often True Signals. To those unaffiliated with any gang, colors often let us know which part of town to avoid or when to cross a street. A sort of porcupine or skunk strategy.

To the affiliated, gang colors signal to members of other gangs “Ah, a target!”

Most gang members are killed by other gang members who recognize that they are gang members exactly because of conspicuous signaling.

A bit ironic and a seemingly unwise strategy.

Also ironic—military and LE tactical gear is designed to be cryptozoic, to blend in. Donning said gear outside of the environment they are meant to blend in with is the opposite of their intended purpose, which leads me to assume we’re back to decoy signaling as opposed to utilitarian adoption. A Desert Camouflage Uniform makes sense in many hot-spot war zones, but far less so while shopping at Target.

Again, I have no argument against such signaling, I myself have been gifted hundreds of t-shirts from fight gyms the world over. I’ve had the honor of being in some of these gyms for only a single weekend and I wear them not because I am “affiliated” with that gym but rather because they were gifts from kind folks, because they are comfortable, and because they are convenient. I assume that is why many such conspicuous signalers wear their costumes as well.

But…we do have to ask ourselves when some predators have actively confessed that they see such costuming as targets of first choice in spree situations [as in gang colors] is this piece of apparel always the wisest choice?

It may be, it is merely a question to be asked.

With cryptozoicism in mind, for the next week each time you encounter any costuming ask yourself what signal am I seeing here? And more importantly, examine your own wardrobe choices and ask “What exactly am I signaling?” And are there any drawbacks to the signal I provide?”

http://www.extremeselfprotection.com

ARE YOU THE WEAK LINK? – Mark Hatmaker

First, let’s set the stage. The following quote is an extract from Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex by First-Mate Owen Chase. In 1820 Chase was aboard the ill-fated ship that was attacked and sunk by a sperm whale (the basis for the fictional account Moby-Dick by Melville.) The survivors spent 95 days at sea in harrowing conditions and ultimately cannibalism was relied upon to survive.

I offer the below extract and the commentary to follow for a very specific purpose.

“I found it on this occasion true, that misery does indeed love company; unaided, and unencouraged by each other, there were with us many whose weak minds, I am confident, would have sunk under the dismal retrospections of the past catastrophe, and who did not possess either sense or firmness enough to contemplate our approaching destiny, without the cheering of some more determined countenance than their own.”

First, note there is no bitterness or burden detected in that honest observation by Mr. Chase. Just a stark relation of fact-some people rely upon others to get them through the very same circumstances all are currently facing.

Those among us who have this “determined countenance” are the heroes of the world, they have the grit and determination to do what must be done, when it must be done, and often they must do so with the, and let’s call a spade a spade here, they must do it with the additional burden of taking up fellow victim’s slack.

They must do their job, pull their weight, and perhaps that of others all the while playing a bit of cheerleader for those less adapted/willing/prepared to step up.

Lest anyone think I am being too harsh here, keep in mind Mr. Chase and everyone else are all in the same boat-literally. At this point in time all are equals in adversity but there is some tangible difference indeed.

Now, it just may be that possession of a “determined countenance” is an inborn quality that we may simply have or have not in varying degrees, but I do not think this is the case.

Training and acclimatization seem to shape the human being in so many fields of endeavor I fail to see how we cannot expect that we can grow and expand our own capacities for a “determined countenance.”

Our bodies respond to exercise, our minds respond to education, our spirits respond to edification-perhaps our resolve, our survival prospects can and do also respond to training.

It is important to note that I am not referring to survival adeptness in regard to survival knowledge in the “prepper” sense. While such knowledge can be a plus, we have enough accounts of those with an excess of such knowledge folding when it hits the fan to assume that simply “tactical smarts” is the key. We also have exceedingly numerous accounts of men, women, and children with little to zero hands-on survival training who somehow do just that, survive and in retrospect thrive.

So, yes, survival know-how is a net-positive but it seems to not be the key. Any cursory view of reality shows such as Naked and Afraid highlights this fact that, while all have survival abilities to some degree, the can-do, cheerful, “let’s do this together” individuals do far better than the dour loners or complainers.

Once IT hits the fan, whether that IT be an avenging sperm whale, a catastrophic terrorist attack, or a mild fender-bender we stand in better stead if we are surrounded by proactive calm can-do people who know how to work as a team and take up slack. Nothing (NOTHING) is made easier by adding any additional burden onto an already stressful event-whether that burden be lack of effort, lack of spirit, lack of grit, or simply whining about a situation all are equally steeped in.

So, how do we know whether or not we are this weak link?

My guess is, take a look at your day to day behaviour. Do you regularly lament traffic? Grouse about how someone said something in a tone you didn’t like? Do you expound aloud the following “You know how I get when I get hungry?”

More often than not it is the small things that reveal us. Our trivial behaviour is often our character writ large under stress. Consider this, if we are pernickety and peevish when it gets a little humid out, imagine how we would be on day 88 of ocean survival in an open boat without food.

With this Small Behaviour = Large Behaviour equation in mind, we can take steps to correct if correction is needed or desired. By regularly monitoring our words, our texts, our posts, all of our communication and weeding it of the small peevishness that afflicts us all. My complaint of traffic means absolutely nothing to another person on the face of the planet. All I’ve done is add trivial noise to another’s day. If the stakes were raised and we are in an open boat surviving on a diet of turtle’s blood and facing the prospect of consuming deceased boat-mates, my trivial noise that must be counter-acted by another in equally dire straits is a disservice to the nth degree. In these circumstances my trivia becomes a net drag on the prospects for the entire crew.

With this said, to all of us with a mindset for grit, determination, and survival, let us learn from First Mate Chase’s grueling lesson and begin training ourselves to have this oh, so valuable “determined countenance.”

THE HAZARDS OF VOLUNTARY DOMESTICATION, PART. 1 – Mark Hatmaker

“We were wild animals for seven million years. We learned a lot of lessons. We should be careful not to lose them.”-Lee Child

Let’s keep that quote in mind as we compare a couple of definitions, the first—
Domesticated or Domestication, (from the Latin domesticus: “of the home”) is the cultivating or taming of a population of organisms in order to accentuate traits that are desirable to the cultivator or tamer.

For today’s lesson it is important that we hew closely to the scientific definition of this word. Merely finding a baby squirrel and keeping it as a pet is not by strict definition “domesticating” that animal, you are merely acculturating it to abnormal surroundings and there is a high probability that this “taming” will not survive sexual maturity. This is a lesson hard learned by chimpanzee and big cat owners, often what begins as an exercise in cuteness ends in the animal being what it is-wild. By the way, never the animal’s fault, it is merely being what it is-a wild animal.

Domestication by strict definition is a process of thousands of years or hundreds of bred-for generations to render a species more docile or yielding to human wishes.

A poetic but stark definition of domestication is the bred-for breaking of a species’ spirit over time to make us, the owner, happy.
The second word to be defined is Civilization.
We are not using the word in the broad sense of the combined progress and adaptation of social man to his environment, but rather, again, in a clinical sense. Man is not a domesticated animal in the strict sense of the word, as he was not purposely bred for tameness, as we have done with wolves to give us cute puppies, or predatory big cats that we have bred to be lazy window-sill nappers.
Man has never been subject to this strict purposeful breeding program so we are not domesticated, but voluntarily choose to be tame, or civilized. In this definition to be civilized is to voluntarily assume the mantle of a domesticated animal.

Man, in theory, can do what a dog or cat cannot do, we can revert to our wild state by choice. Yes, dogs can attack and cats can claw but no one will mistake their attempts at “wildness” for that of their ancestors. Man, on the other hand, can be just as wild as his primitive forebears as in essence he still walks around with the same body and the same brain that walked the savanna millions of years ago.

The same can’t be said for the Pekinese or Siamese at your feet begging for treats.
That bit of “Yeah, I’m a bad-ass caveman but I choose to be civilized and go all primal when I need to” may make some of us feel pretty fine indeed.
But is the choice of civilizing ourselves just a few shades off from domestication?
Just how quickly can we lose our primal abilities?

Let’s look outside our own species for a moment to another species, a highly intelligent one at that. Let’s see what happens when we remove it from the wild, attempt to tame it, and then do an about-face and attempt to free it back into the wild.

The below is from dolphin trainer Tom Foster’s account of trying to re-wild two wild dolphin, Tom and Misha, to prepare them for their release. [The following is from the excellent article “Born to Be Wild” by Tim Zimmerman in National Geographic 6/2015, pages 68-69.]

[Keep in mind the following account regards two wild animals that were born in the wild, captured and kept in captivity for a few years. These animals were not born in captivity.]

“…Foster didn’t see how he could restore Tom and Misha to the Olympic level of fitness they would need to survive in the ocean if he didn’t put them through a regimen of fast swims, jumps, and tail walks that would build muscle and stamina. ‘The only way is to train them so you can untrain them, he says.”
‘High-energy workouts require calories, so the first job was to overcome Tom and Misha’s picky eating habits and reacquaint them with the fish they would likely encounter in the Aegean, such as mullet, anchovies, and sardines. The strategy was to offer them a local fish species. If they ate it, they were rewarded with mackerel, a fish they developed a taste for in captivity. To mimic the unpredictability of food in the wild, Foster varied the amount and frequency of their meals. ‘When you bring them into captivity, everything from feeding to shows is very structured,’ he says. They develop a built-in clock and can tell exactly when they are going to get fed. We have to turn that around, because we know that in the wild they will eat more one day than another.’”

Now, I’m sure you’re way ahead of me by this point. A wild species that got fat and lazy due to a lack of exercise, regular meals, and finicky eating habits. Hmm? Sounds like we’re talking about…who?

OK, back to Tom and Misha two “civilized” dolphins, a creature of high intelligence with a remarkable cranial capacity (just like another species we know.)

“Foster also wanted to wake up their highly capable dolphin brains. He dropped into the pen things they may not have seen for years, like an octopus or a jellyfish or a crab. He cut holes along the length of a PVC tube, stuffed it full of dead fish, and then plunked it into the water. Tom and Misha had to figure out how to manipulate the tube so that the fish would pop out of the holes. ‘In captivity we train the animals not to think on their own, to shut down their brains and to do what we ask them to do,’ Foster explains. ‘What we are trying to do when we release them into the wild is get them off autopilot and thinking again.’”
Hmm? Brains on autopilot. Atrophied ability to think for themselves without predictable structure. We are talking about dolphins, right?

Allow me to call our attention again to Foster’s comment on how to “civilize” a wild animal: “In captivity we train the animals not to think on their own, to shut down their brains and to do what we ask them to do.”

So, to be clear it is absolutely possible to take a wild animal, even one as hyper-intelligent as a dolphin and to atrophy its physical and mental prowess with as little as a few years of captivity.

No, this is not domestication, not in any sense of the word…but the level of training required to wean a wild animal off of its civilization and to make it fit to be wild again is indeed food for thought.

A few years of civilization atrophied these animals’ natural abilities. What might a lifetime of civilization do? Generations?

Does voluntary civilization, and generations of it at that as opposed to one generation of catch and capture, compound the atrophy problem?
To be clear, this essay is not an anti-civilization and all its attendant benefits screed. No, instead it is intended as food for thought to an audience of individuals who consider honing self-protection skills, survival ability, self-reliance, independent thinking, and overall fitness as valuable.

With that intention in mind I ask us to pause and reflect to what extent have we ourselves possibly chosen voluntary domestication? And at what costs?
A key question at this point might be, is there a biological mechanism that points to us being able to lose physical and cognitive abilities in a remarkably short amount of time? A biological driver that once atrophied actually reduces our ability to even think about regarding some of these long lost abilities?
Without such a concrete mechanism this discussion is just philosophical piffle, or just another opinion piece.

So, is there such a biological driver?
It turns out there is. And this also comes from animal studies and we just may not like the animal that most resembles us in our current state.

We’ll cover that in Part 2. The Mechanism of Civilizing a Wild Animal.
Until then, have a second read of that quote:

“We were wild animals for seven million years. We learned a lot of lessons. We should be careful not to lose them.”-Lee Child

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

MISTAKING MODELS FOR THE REAL THING – Mark Hatmaker

We’re going to take a weird sojourn through 17th-century French theater, an eyewitness account (names withheld) of an embarrassing demonstration, 10-day weather forecasts, and end (hopefully) with a point about taking drills too seriously.

First, a trip to the theater with an excerpt from Moliere’s The Bourgeois Gentleman, the premise of which is that a shopkeeper newly come into money decides that to be one of the upper-crust he needs to take great pains to “become cultured.” He engages numerous “culture instructors” who gladly take his money and leave him none the wiser or better cultured.

One of these “culture instructors” is a fencing master who teaches him a few basics in the form of a call-and-response pattern (sounding familiar?) Later, within the play, our cultured dupe decides to display what he know about fencing with an un-cultured person who knows nothing about fencing.

Mr. Jour: Goodness me! The fencing master seems to set your teeth on edge. Come here, and I will show you at once your senseless impertinence. (He asks for two foils, and gives one to Nicole.) Here, reason demonstrative the line of the body. When you thrust in quart, you have only to do so; and when you thrust in tierce, only to do so! That is the way never to be killed; and is it not a fine thing to be quite safe when one fights against anybody? There, thrust at me a little to try.

Nicole: Well, what? (Nicole gives him several thrusts)

Mr. Jour: Gently! Hold! Oh! Softly. Deuce take the wench!

Nicole: You tell me to thrust at you.

Mr. Jour: Yes; but you thrust in tierce before thrusting at me in quart, and you haven’t the patience to wait till I parry.

Familiar scenario, huh?

Now, the eyewitness account (my own). In the distant past I observed a renowned instructor in the midst of a seminar-based video shoot ready to show a “fool-proof” top-saddle/mount escape. He hits his back, asks someone to mount him. The volunteer is simply a “Nicole,” by that I mean, he had no special training, just a good sort doing what he was asked to do by the man in charge.

Our “Nicole” takes the top position and our “instructor” does his thing which appeared to be a boisterous wiggle to which “Nicole” posts his hands on the mat and remains stubbornly on top. Our instructor tells “Nicole,” and I quote “You wouldn’t do that.” I and a few others present exchange looks with cocked eyebrows that say “Well, obviously he would.”

Instructor bucks again, Nicole does what he would not do yet again, and again is chastised. The third time is the charm as Nicole “behaves” properly and the fool-proof escape and scene from Moliere is now complete.

I’m sure we’ve all seen countless demonstrations of “if you do this, I’d do this to you.” Uh-huh, sure you would.

Yes, drills have their place to teach us a vocabulary, but often the rookie (and unfortunately some beyond that stage) behave as Mr. Jour and believes that the drill is the real thing- the map is not the territory.

The best drills make no predictions further than 2-3 tactical responses in, and even these are “best guesses.” Long-form drills, even if front-loaded with wise choices, become less wise as they continue.

Let’s look to meteorology for a lesson in why that might be the case.

Despite the horrible reputation and abundant bad jokes about weather prediction, in the short term meteorological predictions are quite accurate. Predictions in all other arenas (politics, war outcomes, fashion trends, the next “big thing”) these fail left and right. The weather predictions seeming more wrong than they are simply the result of the fact that they predict every day and when they do get it wrong we are reminded of it by the extraordinariness of the wrongness-the rained out picnic, for example. No one is taken to task for saying Johnny Depp’s next movie will be a big hit, as a theatrical bomb does not rain on our plans.

To see just how extraordinarily right weather predictions can be, keep screen shots of 2-3 day forecasts over the next two weeks and at the end of that period you’ll find that if you go back and compare the 2-3 day out predictions with what did occur you just may gain some new respect for the profession.

But in that same two weeks of keeping screen shots do the same thing for the 10-day forecast and see how often the 9th and 10th days were on target. Not so much, as a matter of fact a careful look at the screenshots will reveal that the extended forecast is constantly changing as new data comes in (and wisely so). In essence, the 10-day is eye-candy, where the real science is in the 2-3 day forecast being re-calibrated each and every day.

In short, the shorter the term the more accurate the prediction, and the longer the term the more entropy in the system. (Make of that what you will with 20, 50, and 100 year term climate forecasts).

We would be far wiser if we constructed drills as meteorologists do, that is looking at all the real world data, making our best scientific guesses from there, and assume that we only might be right, not definitely right, and that’s only in maybe the first move, two, to three after if we’re lucky, and then re-calibrate and start the next short forecast.

We all become a bit un-cultured when like Mr. Jour we assume the drill is reality.

The Never Complain Dictum – Mark Hatmaker

In the world of street-response to potential violent conflict one often encounters the word “de-escalation.” I want to define that term, not to insult intelligence but to make sure we’re on the same page about a tactic I find of nominal value as it applies to the everyday citizen. De-escalation is, in short, a micro-version of hostage negotiation. I keep you talking with this or that bargaining chip or appeasement patter in hope of you not engaging in violence (or any more violence).

Now, law enforcement and security professionals (LE here on out) have a serious need for de-escalation tactics and strategies as LE, by the very definition of their job, must deal with the violent or potentially violent. Their professional contract, their sense of duty says that the LE professional must deal with what is in front of them and not walk away. Whereas, we the non-LE citizen do not have that professional onus to stand pat and work our way through a potentially dangerous situation with some possibly dubious advice. (We’ll get to why I regard de-escalation advice being of dubious merit for the citizen in a bit).

First, we would be wise to think of confrontation in the physical realm and the non-physical in the exact same way, with the exact same response continuum. That is, as non-LE professionals we have no duty or burden to respond to or restrain an offender. At the first sign of trouble if the exits are clear we would be wise to exercise the most important F of the Fight or Flight dichotomy and choose Flight. Training/Drilling/Accepting a de-escalation strategy is choosing to prolong a confrontation by default-when phrased that way, does prolonging contact with the violent or potentially violent seem wise? If assault looms imminent, you should get out of Dodge. If it’s too late to get out of Dodge when the violence is upon us, we should respond only long enough to create our flight opportunity. It is not our job to “see it through to the end” as, again, that is not our job as non-LE citizens. To move laterally into de-escalation where a simple exit is available is less than wise. It may feel “cowardly” in some circumstances and not as easy as our combative simian natures will allow, but it is wiser than engaging in wordplay with another simian in an agitated state.

[In regard to cowardly vs. “knightly honor” I can do no better de-bunk of this notion than the masterful distinction between honor and responsibility delivered in Schopenhauer’s “The Wisdom of Life.” In short, not everything is “fightin’ words.”]

Let’s look at how well de-escalation works in non-violent scenarios for a moment. I want you to picture the “ambush” seat on a cable news show. That is the seat or guest spot reserved for the partisan enemy; the guest spot where a single representative is supposed to stand-in for all of the “other side” while a bombastic anchor or table of the “enemy” goes to town on you.

For this example, picture a conservative guest on an MSNBC show and a liberal guest on a Fox News show. There should be something here for you no matter where you are on the political spectrum. Now, how often have you seen the “ambush” guest use de-escalation/appeasement/justification conversational tactics and win? The answer is never, if/when it happens that will be front page news: “Noted [Insert Conservative or Liberal of choice] says, “You’re absolutely right.”

Let’s take another example home. If you are already familiar with de-escalation ask yourself how often you use it in a debate/argument with your spouse/boss/co-worker (insert your personal arguer of choice)? How often do you really, really keep your eyes on the appeasement prize? If we are honest with ourselves, we often (before we move to resolution) realize “Hmm, am I actually a wee bit of the problem here? If so, why do I keep on opening my big mouth?” Appeasement/de-escalation doesn’t happen because, we simians dig in on contentious matters, we seldom shift our opinions in the heat of the moment-we must calm before (if even then) we can see the other point of view. In short, we’re an aggressive species whether that aggression is violence, threat of violence, finger pointing political argument, or passive-aggressive gossip.

Now keep in mind these examples where we don’t exercise our de-escalation skills occur with no threat of violence. Imagine how much more heated a scenario we are talking about when we suggest “How about some de-escalation talk?” If we don’t see it manifest in less-threatening situations (i.e., we don’t drill it in daily life) what makes us think we will be calm and cool enough to utilize it and utilize it well when it hits the fan?

OK, let’s pretend you see my “If it doesn’t manifest in low-stress situations it ain’t gonna rear its head in high-stress” point. Is there something that we can do in its stead, something that gets closer to the true intent of the Flight F, and also actually allows us to drill in day-to-day scenarios to get the gist of the thing down? Yeah, I think so.

I’m going to reference a strategy used by comic/magician Penn Jillette of the Penn & Teller duo. It’s called “Never Complain.” He uses it in a cost-to-benefit, return-on-investment (ROI,) don’t waste your time in matters of free market choice. We’ll explore how he intends it being used and then we’ll add some “You can complain here” allowances, and then move it to the world of potential violence.

Penn means for the “never complain” axiom to apply to low-key disagreements in everyday life. For example, poor service in a restaurant-there is often a strong inclination to make your dissatisfaction known (I was formerly that guy). But let’s ponder the strategy of letting it be known you were not served how you expected to be served. In essence we are telling the server or the manager “Go back into the past and fix what has already occurred,” “Here’s how I would run your business/do your job,” or at most we complain in hopes of “getting something” for being the squeaky wheel which allows you the privilege to return to the environment that you did not enjoy and potentially risk a bit of extra-ingredient comeuppance introduced into your meal.

The “Never Complain” dictum states that instead of putting the time in, raising your own “fighting ire” you consider the poor service or meal as market information, you simply move on and try different establishments. In most matters domestic we have plenty of choices, plenty of outlets where we will be offered good meals, good service, good prices, what have you. I wager that this strategy will be tough for some of us out there where the urge to stick to your guns and “go to the top because nobody treats me this way” will be hard to overcome.

Enjoy your victory, enjoy your fight.

For others who are piqued by the strategy and might be asking yourselves, “but what if money is involved?” Well, then sure you may have a reason to fight that fight, but only if the amount in question will warrant the time and effort involved. For example, if upon arriving home from a department store you discover that you have been shortchanged a hundred bucks, you might wanna drive back out. If the amount is $1.75, you might want to ponder the gas and lost time and do some math.

The “never complain” strategy once fully embraced frees up a lot of time if you are a “get your due” sort. It also allows you to find businesses, environments, and folks that dovetail with your tastes better than trying to re-make the world into your own personal whim. It also supplies real world training for conflict management-in that in situations that do not warrant your time and attention you simply walk away. That’s mighty freeing, and perversely satisfying to see the person who wanted to argue over a parking space not sure how to process your shrug and walk on to the next good thing in your life.

“Never complain” in small matters trains us in flight from trivia in a way that bargaining, negotiating, and “winning” with poor service-providers never does.

“Never complain” also allows us to get our nervous systems, our egos a little used to the practice of “If it ain’t worth it, and I’ve got options I’m taking a hike.” I wager that this trivial real-world practice may serve us better than hypothetical classroom encounters where we all behave as if we’re amateur hostage negotiators.

In short: Treat violence like a fire-get low, get out, and leave it to the firefighters.