DISENGAGE THE ATTACK, PT 2 – Teja Van Wicklen

Look Out! Behind You!

Sadly, we don’t have eyes in the backs of our heads, which is why it’s a good idea to try and avoid zoning out during certain daily activities. When we keep our heads moving our peripheral vision does its job. Zoning out is necessary, but moments should be chosen. It can’t hurt any of us to be a bit more present at times.

When practicing any form of self defense be sure to avail yourself of your peripheral vision. Tunnel vision blinds you to the accomplice. If you always assume there will be more than one, you will never be surprised. The guy in front of you or in your line of site or talking to you is not always your biggest problem. Criminals often work in tandem, so assume there are at least two, if not three.

The hard part, of course is remembering to move your head while you are diving out of the way of the car that is bearing down on you.

Humans are pack animals so thinking in these terms can only help you on many levels. Adverse family and office conditions can also be disarmed through awareness of group dynamics.

(For in depth analyses of Group Dynamics the best information I know of can be found on the ConflictResearchGroupIntl.com site, Marc MacYoung’s blog at NoNonsenseSelfDefense.com and in Rory Miller’s book Conflict Communications.)

The Weapons Complication

Another good assumption to make is that at least one weapon will be involved in any planned attack. Hopefully it is yours. That said, it is better for you to choose where you get cut than for your attacker to choose. Those are the hard facts. If you have to make a run for it or commit to an attack, the back of your hand or your body is better than the front.

Weapons Tracking

If a weapon is involved and it is moving (and you can’t simply avoid it or run), track the movement from your attacker’s shoulder to his elbow rather than fixating on the hand. It is a matter of physics that the hand will be much faster than the shoulder and therefore more difficult to track. Stay to his side rather than his center and try to stop the shoulder and elbow, damage the limb, yank the arm to make him release the weapon, slam the weapon arm into a wall or the floor, etc.

Shoot The Gap

There are ways to escape from a group of people if you find yourself at the center, and it involves something called Shooting The Gap. You find the weakest gap in the group, usually around hip level between the two guys paying the least attention, make yourself as small as possible, often by turning to the side, and dive through the hole with all of your speed and weight behind you.

The element of surprise is always a useful and important tool. If you can look like you aren’t about to make your escape you will fair better.

Run To Safety, Not Just Away From Danger

Once out, keep going. The hard part is to make intelligent choices under the influence of an adrenaline rush. At the very least, try not to avoid the truck and drive into the lake.

Avoid Center Mass

Try to avoid the center of your attacker’s body. His center is where he is strongest. It is where he can most easily grab you or harm you. If at all possible, stay to his side or his back. The side of the neck, base of the skull, kidneys, even back and side of the knee are better places to be and to attack than the front of the body, as a general rule.

Attack Position

In self defense classes the majority of practice takes place standing face-to-face, whereas in reality this is only one of many possible positions. Face-to-face attacks usually occur between people who are challenging each other in some way, as in a barroom brawl or a dispute, a good old fashioned mugging, or what is known in reference to gangs as an Educational Beat Down (EBD) in which a lesson is enforced. EBDs can also occur in Domestic Violence situations as in a husband (or wife) over-enforcing a house rule or demanding respect. Sometimes date rape occurs face-to-face but not always standing up, which is again how most practice is done. Since Face-to-Face attacks constitute only a portion of criminal confrontations your self defense class may be leaving out some important scenarios.

Women tend to be physically attacked in the following ways as well, according to police reports: grabbed from behind to be moved to a more private location, pushed to the ground or hit first as a warning.

(We are discussing physical positioning in this section. Remember that coercion is one of the most insidious ways to gain compliance. A criminal who threatens extreme violence against you or someone you love or threatens to expose something you have done may induce you to tie yourself up without his needing to lift a finger.)

There is no way to construct an exact replica of the type of emergency that might occur, so we are always dealing in approximations. Practicing one or even three positions over and over is counterproductive. To begin, what we need is to understand the tangled, frenetic and ever-changing nature of an attack situation and to choose a few options that can be performed from virtually any position.

DISENGAGE THE ATTACK, PT I – Teja Van Wicklen

“Decide to be your own bodyguard.”
~ Lori Harman Gervasi, from her book Fight Like A Girl and Win

Since we can’t count on the cavalry riding in or on our attacker’s ineptitude for our survival, we need a plan, preferably one that is tailored to us. The only way to do this, is to learn what options we have for stopping a person or people who are willing to cheat, and who probably outclass us in strength and fight experience, and piece together our own best strategy. But the plan begins with how well we know ourselves, our situation and our reactions.

I write for regular people and families, so what follows is not for martial arts competitions or face-to-face encounters, necessarily. It is a break down of what average people might want to know about physical fights, including the mental aspects.

At least some of what I am about to lay out here should be common information for most people of a certain age. The fact that it isn’t, is a testament to how cut off we have become from our own ability to protect ourselves from bodily harm. Girls most of all should grow up knowing some of this stuff. Most boys know how to throw, and run by the age of eight. By ten many have a basic understanding of fighting. Young human children, like other predators, play-fight constantly, or, at least, they want to. Games like dodge ball, red-rover and tag are meant to exercise and exorcise the primordial need children have to explore their physical world and test the boundaries of their own strengths. These days animals are more likely to need those skills than we are most of the time, but contact and physicality are still necessary and healthy. They teach appropriate distance and contact, boundary setting and consequences much better than stern faces and finger pointing ever can.

“Social Animals build bonds by playing together,
testing their strengths and limits, and in doing so, they learn trust.”
~ from the TV Show, Nature: Odd Couples

One of the best ways for kids to learn about physical self protection is through their parents. That means we need to learn about it so we can direct our kids towards a healthy and realistic approach to the physical exploration of violence, danger and safety. I am not by any means encouraging you to share all the information in this multi-part article with your kids. But if you have a big-picture view, it follows that you will make a better guide.

Some amount of play fighting as kids or martial arts and self defense training as adults is crucial and empowering. Preparing for life-threatening emergencies wakes up a part of our brain we rarely use, sharpens thought processes and prepares us for all manners of adversity. The thing about violence is, it is somehow a microcosm for everything we do. It is so much a part of our world that understanding it slows time and allows us to see things we didn’t know were there. A person who understands violence is at liberty to strategize and make bold choices in life. Exploring these landscapes will help make you more effective in any situation that requires you to make split second decisions with lasting ramifications.

So here you are. Someone you may or may not know has targeted you. Or, more precisely, he (remember that he can mean she or the dreaded they) came up with a plan to do something or get something (Intent); he then tested you to see if you would make it easy or hard (Interview); he invited you to a party, waited for you outside your office or lured you to his car (Position); now you’re at ground zero and the Attack is imminent. Let’s make the stakes high – severe bodily harm or death. We want to make an impression on our brain so this information sticks.

Here are some ideas that have been percolating for a while:

The Grand Dilemma

You may very well have to use deadly force to get away from an attack due to strength, leverage and weight discrepancies between you and your attacker or attackers. You are certainly going to have to use every ounce of smarts you are in possession of. And just to make it worse, your maximum force and smarts may not even be enough. He may not be bigger or stronger – he may be a she – but she may have a weapon, be in the throws of a psychotic break or drug induced euphoria, or all of the above. Each set of circumstances is different. There is no one size fits all solution to self defense no matter what anyone tells you. A kick will not always work, neither will pepper spray.

To complicate things further, there are things you can only do legally under threat of death or severe injury, but if you wait to find out what his plan is it can easily be too late. To do or not to do. To kill or maim or to die. These are the decisions we, in a civilized society have to juggle. This is the grand dilemma–what you have to do to survive versus what is legal. To add insult to injury you will probably have a miniscule amount of time to make an educated decision that impacts the rest of your life.

The more information you have and the more decisions you have made ahead of time, the better your position will when you have no time to think. At least, in theory based on books and accounts by people who have been through some serious shit.

Willing and Able

Someone has chosen to hurt you because you are at a disadvantage. You are smaller, weaker, distracted, too nice, have a baby with you, are wearing clothing or shoes you can’t move in. He is, in short, fighting very dirty. He is picking you because he knows he can beat you. Whether or not he turns out to be right may well depend on just how dirty you are WILLING to fight and just how dirty you are ABLE to fight.

Check in with yourself about the following three points:

What do you have to live for? Who do you have to live for? How important are you to yourself and to others? Are you important enough to yourself? And the similar question: If you were in a life or death situation, what could you think of that would give you the strength to do the impossible? A person. A goal. Something else.

What specific lengths would you be willing to go to to survive? Could you kill someone if they were willing to kill you and you knew it in your soul? Could you damage someone irreparably? Poke out an eye? Would you sacrifice a limb to save your child? To what lengths do you think you are willing to go to survive?

Fighting, contrary to Hollywood movies, is very messy stuff. There are bodily fluids, gore and overwhelming emotions that weigh you down and clog your head with black goo. When we see our own blood, or any blood, we freeze in fear, afraid to do anything in case the next thing might be even worse.

It’s alright not to be sure. There isn’t even any data on whether exploring the ugly stuff will really help you in the event of an emergency. But there is a lot of conjecture by military and law enforcement experts that it helps greatly to have some understanding of these preliminary issues to avoid freezing and doing nothing in the event of a catastrophic emergency. And doing nothing in an emergency situation is almost always universally considered the worst thing to do.

If you ever have to make a life or death decision regarding yourself or someone you love, give yourself permission to do whatever you need to do to survive. Make your peace with it now so you don’t stop and question yourself when every second counts.

You may or may not be capable of brutality, but you may need to consider it and give yourself permission to do whatever it takes to protect yourself and your children. Fighting for them means fighting for yourself even when they aren’t with you. You need to give it everything you’ve got unless you want them to have to endure a knock on the door by the police at 3AM to tell them Mommy isn’t coming home tonight, in fact she’s never coming home again. Unless you want your husband or mother, or grown kids to have to identify your body, you’re going to need to fight with everything you have, and not give up, no matter how much blood you see. Besides, the blood might be his.

If you look to the animal kingdom you will find plenty of instances of tiny animals scaring away or fighting off larger predators with Attitude and Determination. These are two things you will need in spades. The more of it you have, the more the other guy’s resolve will falter. And you want him busy second-guessing his choice, because it will help take the wind out of his sails, turn the tables and give you the upper hand. You may need a trigger for this. Think about it now. Your trigger may be the thought of your kids and this guy daring to try and take you away from them. It may be the pure rage of absolute indignation and incredulity. It could be hearing the music from Rocky in your head. It’s all good.

Kathy Jackson teaches women to understand and handle guns. Kathy has six children. She knows that we often protect others with more ferocity than we protect ourselves and she begins her workshops by making eye contact with each woman individually and telling her directly and in no uncertain terms, “You do not need permission from anyone else. You do not have to have someone else to protect or stay alive for. Your life is worth protecting with everything you’ve got. Your life is worth protecting. Period” She makes eye contact with each woman individually and repeats this mantra, because she knows women need to embody it.

Never Go Anywhere Without Your Kitten – Teja Van Wicklen

I saw a clip on Facebook a few months back called Kitten Therapy. Self-proclaimed stressed-out people were invited to remove their shoes and experience a guided meditation in a large transparent room in the middle of a busy square. These unsuspecting victims donned headphones, closed their eyes and listened to the sounds of purring kittens…. When asked to open their eyes they found, one by one, a slew of rowdy grey and white kittens squeezing into the meditation space through a series of kitten-sized panels. Sudden relaxation and joy ensued like a chemical experiment gone right–take stressed humans, add kittens, stir.

Too bad the thought of conflict management techniques, self defense knowledge and intrapersonal skills don’t have the same effect. Self defense just isn’t fuzzy enough.

But, there just might be another kind of stress-relieving kitten that doesn’t require emptying cat litter.

Ten or so years ago when I had my son I found I was often foggy and forgetful from sleep deprivation. I began carrying a small assortment of necessary items to help me offset and placate my anxious mommy-brain. More recently I began calling this assortment of approximately ten things a Ten-Kit or KitTen (I’m pushing the metaphor, I know).

My KitTen is about the size of a woman’s make up kit or a pencil case and it holds what I consider to be my most urgent daily items. Which is to say, mostly first aid stuff (says the EMT and Mom) with a few other helpful nuggets thrown in for good measure.

As a Conflict Manager Magazine reader (or contributor) the concept of preparation is already an integral part of your lexicon. So what is your EDC (Every Day Carry)? How much time did you spend figuring it out? How many websites did you consult? How often do you check your supplies? Every conflict manager needs an EDC. If you haven’t thought about this yet, some suggestions follow.

As an instructor of Protective Offense and an EMT, but especially as the mother of a nine-year-old, there are some contingencies that are really more like eventualities – cuts, stomach aches, headaches, hunger fits, splinters, etc. It’s amazing how quickly the fun of a vacation or even a movie ends when a kid is uncomfortable! But what about being locked out of your car or house? What happens when you forget your wallet or get lost?

These kits can become overwhelming, so we need to keep them paired down to the bare minimum. To each her own, so modify where needed.

Begin by making a list of the people in your family and especially any unusual or critical medications they take. Now add any other special items you already consider a necessity (besides wallet and keys). Finally, think about the kinds of situations you have encountered over the last few years and the things you wished you’d had.

If you live in the country, on a boat or in the Australian Outback, your list will be different than someone who lives in the desert or the city.

What follows is a list of the top ten average-day items I (almost) never (let’s be really honest here) leave the house without, and a few extra things I sometimes bring along or substitute or that you might like to have for your family.

Start with a makeup or pencil-sized bag you can fit in your purse or everyday carry bag. My “purse” is a small backpack, my KitTen is a small square-ish Le Sports Sac thingy (no I don’t get a kickback). If you can find a fuzzy makeup case you’ve really maximized the kitten metaphor. Now you can get down to business.

Here’s what I carry:

Pointy tweezers are good for many things besides splinters. Ticks and beestings are one example. Flat household tweezers are not what you want. A fine point makes your KitTen tweezers useful for more things like ticks and beestings.

Miscellaneous-sized Bandages – Water-proof ones are good to have around as well, especially if you’re at the pool or beach! These are the things you will need to refill most often if you have kids. Throw in one or two gauze pads for good measure.

A Small role of first aid adhesive tape and/or duct tape can be used for many things, including fixing shoes. Tape is indispensable for creating make-shift splints for small body parts like fingers. You can remove the cardboard holder and wrap the tape tightly around something smaller, like your finger, so it takes up less space.

Safety-pins are great for making a sling for a broken arm out of just about any kind of material. They are also great for keeping important things attached to you in case you need your hands free and for fixing clothes among other things. Bring a few of different sizes. You can save space in your KitTen by attaching them to the zipper.

Alcohol pads and/or alcohol gel sanitizer (avoid Triclosan, which is an Endocrine disruptor and generally nasty chemical. There is some evidence that effects children’s learning and enhances allergies). What you want is the ability to disinfect almost anything, wherever you are. There has been a kickback of late against hand sanitizers. At home use simple soap, but sometimes you don’t have that luxury.

A mini multi-tool is absolutely indispensable. Get one preferably with scissors and pliers, and both a flat head and phillips screwdriver. Victorinox or Leatherman-type tools are available everywhere, including Amazon. Cheap ones can’t always be counted on, the joints and screws can break when you need them most. Get something with some sort of reliable guarantee.

Medications. Pack 1 or 2 of each pill or individual packet, more of what your family uses most. Try to find small packs and mini size ointment and cream containers or buy small containers, clean them well and fill them. You might also want to have a medicine cup or spoon if necessary.

Aspirin and non-aspirin pain relievers (you may not want to give children and teens aspirin. There may also be issues for young children with Tylenol)
Antibiotic ointment
1% Hydrocortisone Cream
Over-the-counter oral antihistamine, such as diphenhydramine (still the gold-standard for allergy emergencies)
Anti-diarrhea medication
2 antacid tablets
Activated charcoal (only if instructed by your poison control center 1-800-222-1222)
any prescribed medications that don’t need refrigeration, including drugs to treat known allergies, such as an Albuterol inhaler or epinephrine auto-injector, insulin, etc.

Petroleum Jelly (Vaseline) – It’s not organic and it’s not good for your skin, but it can keep the bad things out in a pinch and it lasts forever. PJ protects skin from sun and cold weather chapping, lubricates just about anything and is flammable – so it will help you start a fire if you’re freezing to death. It can even act as a makeshift bandage to slow minor bleeding. You can buy tiny jars or tins, and fill them yourself.

LED Flashlight, a small headlamp, or both. Flashlights are indispensable. Until you need one, you have no idea how important they are. If you have room, bring a few extra batteries for whatever flashlight you have. If it’s a small disposable one, check it often or carry an extra. Extras don’t have to go in your KitTen, they can attach to keys and zippers.

Secret Stash of Cash, an extra credit card or both. $20 should do.

Here are some suggestions of extra or substitute items I have found helpful:

I like to have an extra car and/or house key either in my KitTen, bag or stashed in a (really smart) hiding place (not in the plant by the door!).

Feminine pads and/or Tampons. If you are a woman between 11 and 55 you never know when having an emergency supply of these might come in handy. It’s also nice if you are with friends and are able to come to the rescue. As it turns out pads and tampons also work for heavily bleeding wounds, liquid spills and as tinder for making a fire! But that’s another post.

Medical consent forms are helpful if anyone in your family has specific medical
needs. These forms can be loaded on to a flash drive, labeled and kept in your kit or printed in a small font, folded and enclosed tightly in a zip-lock bag and taped shut to keep it safe from water.

Medical history cards for each family member, with blood type (you can print these very small and laminate them so they don’t have to be folded and bagged), are a very good idea. Keep them in your kit or your wallet. Or you can have your blood type and allergies tattooed on your body like one person I know.

Emergency phone numbers, including contact information for your family doctor and pediatrician, local emergency services, emergency road service providers and the regional poison control center can also be laminated and kept in your KitTen or wallet.

Simple First-aid instruction manual – you can also have a first aid app on your phone.

Quick Clot is an emergency clotting agent for major bleeding (including arterial) that needs attention sooner than traffic may allow. Some CPR training facilities and gun ranges offer classes on how to use it though it’s pretty cut and dried. Pun intended.

A Mini Sewing Kit with 2 needles a small amount of thread and fishing line can be helpful for fixing clothing, suturing emergencies, fishing and making traps – although you’d have to learn how to do these things. But I love every day tools that cover more than just the one most likely scenario.

Water-proof Matches, a torch-lighter (works in wind) or a flint and steel. Seems silly but fire is such a crucial thing to have access to. If you’re trapped in a snow drift over night in your car, the ability to make a fire could save your life. And the spare tampon and Vaseline you have in your KitTen will serve perfectly as tinder. Toby Cowern taught me that!

2 Non-lubricated Condoms – Not what you’re thinking (although you never know). For carrying water in an emergency, because they take up no space. Even just to flush a wound. I’ve heard you can even boil water in them if you have to. I haven’t tried this, but apparently the water keeps the rubber from melting. Get confirmation before counting on it. The details are pretty specific.

A couple of rain poncho packets. They take up no space and keeps you and your kids dry in a downpour.

Heat blanket packet. You never know when you or your kids might get really cold. I’m told these work, though I have never had the occasion to use one. They come in a tight, flat pack. You may have seen them or been the recipient of one after a Marathon.

Mini Sharpie and/or Pencil for taking and leaving notes and making directional signs on trees and rocks if necessary.

Snack/Water: Whether in your purse, bag, car or KitTen, you should always have some sort of snack with you–a bar, some nuts and raisins. Never get caught without food or water, especially if you have kids, or low blood sugar. Waiting on line for a movie can become a crisis without this stuff. If you are off the beaten path or plan to be, I highly recommend having a few water purification tablets. They take up no space wrapped in a small amount of aluminum foil. You have to have a container and you must wait around a half hour before drinking. A water purification straw like the LifeStraw, filters dirty water from a puddle in an emergency and takes up a fraction of the space of other water filters. It is still too large for your KitTen though and is more likely to live in your car.

(Picture: Notice the mini pill case. This works for me because I get to choose what I put in it. Or you may prefer the tiny one-use packets you can buy in bulk.)

Give Your Kit a Regular Checkup and Other Suggestions

This is your everyday kit. Take care of it. Replace items, check expirations on prescriptions at least. I’m not so worried about expirations on OTC stuff. They tend to work fine decades after they expire, or so says my Father-In-Law, the Professor of Biochemistry and Immunology, and a few articles I’ve read. But make sure crucial drugs like nitroglycerine or epi-pens are up to date. Don’t take my word for it. Always do your own research, but you probably don’t need to throw away your five-year-old aspirin. Donate the extra five bucks to charity or put it in a jar.

Consider taking a first-aid course through the American Red Cross. Contact your local chapter for classes. Find a buddy and make it an event.

Prepare children for medical emergencies in age-appropriate ways. The American Red Cross offers a number of helpful resources, including classes designed to help children understand and use first-aid techniques.

I’ll Never Get Around To It:

If you need someone to build you a KitTen, contact us at Teja@ConflictResearchGroup.com. We can collaborate on it. It will cost about $150 to $200 for quality products, depending on the items you select (we’ll send you a PayPal invoice). We agree on the price before any work gets done.

If you DIY it, expect to spend about $75 at the very least, depending on the quality of products, especially the MultiTool and Headlamp if you include them, and you should.
Make one for yourself and others in your family. They make cool, thoughtful, personal gifts.

I’m actually more of a dog person myself, but who can resist a KitTen.

The Zombie-Hunter’s Diet Guide, Part II – Teja VanWicklen

Supplements

“Be the kind of person who takes supplements, then save your money.”

Michael Pollan

Many studies show most supplements are not well-absorbed, and people who take them already tend to eat well. If you do take supplements, try the food-based version. You will have to take three or four pills to get the same amount of the vitamin, but your body will actually recognize it as food. As we age, supplements can help since we lose the ability to absorb nutrients. Read up and consult the true experts. I recommend PrecisionNutrition.com for pragmatic, well-researched and entertaining articles.

If you are female, you probably need more of the following nutrients than you are consuming, look them up: Omega 3, vitamin D, Calcium, Magnesium, B complex. If you have anxiety related issues, depression, PMS or PTSD, there are a number of other well-documented supplements to look into like Rhodiola, Phosphetidal Serine (PS) and L-theanine.

When we don’t get enough magnesium, vitamin D, or omega 3s, we are more likely to get pissed off, lost, yell at our kids, start arguments and forget important things. Of course if you eat a lot of high quality veggies, you won’t need very many supplements, if any.

Here are some specifics:

Omega 3 and beneficial Fatty Acids

Omega 3 is the queen bee of mental and cognitive health, especially if you have anxiety, PTSD or sleep issues. Find a good, clean Omega 3 supplement. Add small, wild caught fish, flax, hemp and chia seeds to your diet. You can sprinkle hemp hearts or chia seeds on almost anything, even icecream, they are nature’s sprinkles. Eat grass-fed butter and meats, nuts and cold pressed oils.

Beneficial fats reduce anxiety by calming your sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for your fight or flight response. When this system becomes overactive, no amount of therapy will help you feel better. Lack of important fatty acids causes depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, memory malfunctions and a number of other issues we often erroneously consider solely emotional or psychological.

There are many studies on Omega 3s and there doesn’t seem to be much of a downside. There has been evidence of people affected by bipolar disorder cutting medications drastically and experiencing improved lifestyles through high doses of Omega 3s. Which begs the question, are we emotionally ill or malnourished. Another study found violent outbreaks among inmates were reduced by up to thirty percent when the inmates took high doses of Omega 3s. Perhaps if everyone took Omega 3’s, we wouldn’t need this magazine.

Watch out for Omega 6s and even 9s, we tend to get too many of those and they can counter crucial Omega 3s.

Get the sugar out

Get sugar and synthetic sweeteners out of your diet as much as possible. Sugar feeds fat and cancer cells. Some chemical sweeteners are actually banned in Europe for causing symptoms that mimic multiple sclerosis. Some of them stimulate areas of the brain that increase appetite, so they make you fatter even though there are fewer calories. Try coconut sugar, dates, lucuma, raw honey and maple syrup. There are so many more options than there used to be. If you are often wired and over-reactive, or you are diabetic or close to it, you want a sweetener that doesn’t affect blood sugar and has almost no calories, try Stevia, Erythritol or Monk Fruit. Use one for a week to get use it and move on until you find one you are happy with. Tastebuds can change and regrow in one to two weeks.

Macronutrients

Different body types need different amounts of protein and it can take some trial and error to figure it out for yourself. In my experience as a personal trainer, most women don’t get enough protein. It just isn’t a priority. Both in literature and studies I’ve read, women especially who increased their intake of clean protein gained strength and lost weight with more ease. And they reported sleeping better, feeling sharper and having fewer cravings for sweets.

The science suggests taking in a minimum of 1 gram of clean protein for every 2 pounds of body weight if you are sedentary. So, if you weigh 140 lbs, you need a minimum of 70 grams per day, if you’re 110, you need 55. This is actually low. If you enjoy exercise, especially the weight bearing kind, you need more, all the way up to 1 gram per pound if you run often or engage in sports regularly.

By clean protein I mean protein from the best possible source. Organic, local, grass-fed meats and wild-caught fish aside, you can get your protein from Greek Yogurt (always organic please, since dairy is not to be trifled with), tempeh, eggs and mixed foods that create full chain proteins through combination. Ultimately look for at least 25 to 30 percent of your caloric intake to be protein regardless of grams.

Watch the ratio of carbohydrate to protein. For some people bean and seed carbs don’t affect health (or weight), for others it will. There is more carbohydrate in these foods than protein, so keep track of what you are eating and see what happens over weeks and months. A diet high in carbohydrates seems to adversely affect sleep, mental acuity and general health for many people. The theory is that we did not evolve to eat these things and our digestive systems are still figuring them out.

In general, worry less about calories and more about what is in your calories. A calorie of celery carbohydrate is not equal to a calorie of sugar carbohydrate. And a lean or regularly exercised body uses calories differently.

Caffeine, Alcohol, Grains and Dairy

There is a big difference in how people respond to caffeine, alcohol, grains and dairy, though there are plenty of other low-level allergens. If we have been consuming them most of our lives, we don’t really know which of our common issues may be food related.

Caffeine does wonders for some, and is disastrous for others. It has been documented to augment energy, but it can also have adverse effects on mood and behavior. Caffeine is a powerful and unregulated drug and you should be aware of the effect it has on you.

We often think of alcohol as a relaxant when it is really a stimulant of sorts. The high sugar content revs the system and often causes anxiety. Alcohol is a regular bedtime go-to, but sometimes it makes us toss and turn rather than relax.

Try nixing any of these common foods for at least week or two to see what happens. Detoxing from regular caffeine intake is almost guaranteed to give you a headache until you get it out of your system, so have the aspirin ready just in case. Try going to half decaf and then full and then no coffee at all for a bit. Become British, try some tea for a while – caf, then decaf or herbal.

Reintroduction of any potential allergen makes it pretty obvious whether or not there is an issue. With caffeine you may get a headache when you start up again, or you may just feel wired in a bad way. With other things like gluten and dairy, you may find you have unwanted digestive issues after eating.

The Take Away

Our bodies perform some alchemy every day, but there is a limit. We take in garbage and expect gold medals. We think we are healthy while we are young, but really our bodies are simply better able to mask the results of poor dietary choices. It all catches up with us somewhere between our late thirties and late forties. It’s simple science. If you put garbage in, you get garbage out.

Try keeping a food diary for a week or more. There are lots of apps for this purpose. You might be surprised at what you find out about your eating habits. Keeping track makes it easier to spot both effective and ineffective eating and will help you replicate the effective habits. Log or write down what you eat and how you feel at the end of the days and weeks.

If you observe a few of these rules you are likely to wake up rested on less sleep, have fewer muscle aches and pains, raise your energy level, stop yelling at your kids so much, have better sex, get into fewer arguments, remember names and regulate your menstrual cycle (if you have one).

In my experience, nutrition can make an enormous difference in quality of life, so it is an easy place to start, probably easier to do than say, finding a therapist or even getting into a regular exercise habit. Nutrition is a great place to start de-stressing and getting mentally and physically healthy and ready to combat zombies.

Suggested Reading

Food Rules by Michael Pollan is one of my favorite books. It is very short. You can just read the chapter headings if you like and get lots out of it. It is the most concise, easy to read, book on eating healthy ever written. Just keeping it on your counter will make you healthier. If you have the inclination to delve further into nutrition, read The Omnivore’s dilemma also by Pollan. At one point the author creates an entire meal from foraged resources just to see if he can. Great stuff.

If you are female, look into The Hormone Cure and the Hormone Reset Diet by Dr. Sara Gottfried, a Harvard educated gynecologist who has dedicated herself to helping women overcome, brainfog, anxiety, depression, mood swings and sleep and weight disorders stemming from hormone imbalances. It’s about time.

Murray Carpenter wrote a book called Caffeinated: How Our Daily Habit Helps, Hurts and Hooks Us, if want to learn more about the caffeine in your life.

Check out www.PrecisionNutrition.com for everything nutrition related.

The Zombie-Hunter’s Diet Guide, Part I – Teja VanWicklen

In martial arts and self defense we make the mistake of looking outside ourselves for the keys to protecting our loved ones. We look for physical techniques and even weaponry more often than we go inside for answers. We study boxing matches and look for the magic bullet. What would prevail, boxing or judo? What will build the best body, cardio or kettlebells? In an actual self defense confrontation, attitude may be our number one mental tool and it is in jeopardy when we are over-stimulated and malnourished.

What on earth is an article on nutrition doing in a magazine about managing conflict? Because, through an overabundance of entertainment and processed foods we have created an epidemic of bad behavior, the symptoms of which are major attention and focus deficits, adrenal fatigue, pathological frustration, anger and road rage and even depression and mental illness.

In Sayoc Kali, a Filipino tribal art I studied for ten years, health and life management skills were considered the first order of business. There is an old saying I never forget, though I can’t find whom it is attributed to. It goes something like this, “When daily things are out of order, life is like trying to build a lasting structure on sand.” The brain is the window through which we survey and respond to the world. Is your window clear, foggy or even warped or broken?

When we think of food, most of us think of carbohydrates, fat and protein – the macronutrients (at least when we aren’t thinking of the trifecta of sugar, salt and fat). We rarely think of micronutrients, the little puzzle pieces that plug the holes and do more than siimply satisfy hunger. Micronutrients feed the brain. One could go so far as to say that in many ways micronutrients create attitude.

A few years back, comedian Lewis Black said, “For all we study about health, we know nothing. Is milk good or bad? … I rest my case.” Food quality is a big deal right now. A hamburger isn’t a hamburger anymore and broccoli isn’t even broccoli. How is it grown? Cooked? How far has it traveled?

In 2006 Investigative Journalist and Author Michael Pollan, ushered in the slow food movement of quality over quantity with his books The Omnivores Dilemma and Food Rules, An Eaters Manual.  Pollan dedicated his book to his Mom, “who always knew butter was better than margarine.” We now have access to the most pragmatic and effective eating science and ideology in history, which, according to Pollan, though encouraging, isn’t saying much, “Nutrition science… is today approximately where surgery was in the year 1650-very promising…but are you ready to let them operate on you?” He suggests we eat a varied diet of real food. His simple mantra is, “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” We have all heard the buzz, but only a handful of us are willing to tackle ensconced cultural attitudes and a life of carefully cultivated taste buds.

When I competed in Taekwondo tournaments, I consumed tons of whole grain pasta, bagels and bananas thinking I was being healthy. I look back now and wonder how many injuries, headaches and sleepless nights I could have avoided if I had been eating the way I do now. How many wins did I forfeit while my body struggled to build a structure on sand?

Ask yourself a few questions to see if you may be lacking in some common nutrients:

Do you regularly experience lapses of short term memory? Do names escape you? Do you forget what you came into a room to do?

  1. Do you often feel overwhelmed or tired? Even if you have spent a reasonable amount of time in bed? You may even feel physically tired but mentally wired.
  2. Have you suffered from depression or lack of motivation without a clear reason? Does your mood seem out of sync with actual circumstances, or do you worry too much about things you can’t control?
  3. Do you get every cold that comes to town?
  4. Is your hair is thinning even though it doesn’t run in the family?
  5. Are you are exercising and eating less but not losing weight?
  6. Do you have trouble getting through the night without waking up fifty times?
  7. Do you snap easily when people get on your nerves?
  8. Is your energy level chronically low? Libido?
  9. Do you have issues with healing from injury or with chronic inflammation like tendonitis?

Nutrition may or may not be behind these uncomfortable and life-diminishing things. There is only one way to find out. Here is the short and sweet of nutrition (without the sweet).

The Green Stuff

My biggest revelation of late has been in challenging myself to eat a minimum of a pound of vegetables per day. It was tough in the beginning, but it has become a craving. Now I generally eat at least three different veggies at every meal. The change has been nothing short of miraculous – generally clarity, stress resilience, less joint pain and many fewer colds. We all know it is better to look good than to feel good – at 48 my skin was drying out, now I don’t even need moisturizer and it has become easy to maintain my ideal weight.

The more veggies you eat the less you eat of other things, so stuffing yourself with veggies is also a great way to lose weight. I love asparagus. Grate lemon or even orange zest over it after steaming. Artichokes with a little butter and salt for dipping are my popcorn. A handful of frozen spinach in almost any shake leaves no veggie flavor and just a bit of texture. My son likes my “oreo” shakes. The spinach helps add the texture.

Eat wild foods if you can get them

There are often more nutrients in the weeds in your yard than in the produce you buy at the store. In short, ten thousand years ago we ate food grown in rich soil and pick wild berries fresh from the bush. We ate small amounts of nutrient-dense foods instead of large amounts of nutrient poor foods. We are literally starving to death and overfed at the same time. This is a brand new problem. Two meals that appear exactly the same and may even taste the same can be vastly different nutritionally. Where did it come from? how long has it been sitting around on a truck or in a warehouse? If it was once an animal, what did it eat? If it is a plant, what was the soil like and was it heavily sprayed? Antioxidants are a plant’s way of fighting off disease and pests. Chemically sprayed plants actually lose their ability to protect themselves. As a result they lose their nutritional kick. It is now possible to buy oranges with virtually no vitamin c in them. Just writing that sentence gives me scurvy.

Many weeds are excellent additions to a salad or even a shake – chickweed, clover, dandelions, lambs quarters and purslane have a higher nutrient density than virtually all of the salad you are paying good money for. Just make sure the dogs haven’t been there first and of course, wash it all thoroughly, even if it’s organic. Organic produce is sprayed with often very toxic and less regulated pesticides. Nothing is sacred.

(TO BE CONTINUED NEXT MONTH….)

 

The Self Defense Continuum, Part IV – Teja Van Wicklen

Normal vs. Abnormal Behavior

The next step is to be able to identify types of behavior to avoid. To do this, we first have to recognize the things we already know, but don’t know we know. That is, we need to recognize Normal Behavior. For the sake of self defense Normal means not harmful or potentially dangerous. Spastic dancing or other attention getting behavior is quite normal in New York City where I grew up. You know what normal behavior looks like for a time and place, you just may or may not be able to articulate it. You may get an odd feeling when something isn’t normal, and that’s a start, but while you’re pausing to assess that feeling and whether or not to act on it, he’s getting into position.

Since it’s impossible to articulate all abnormal behavior, let’s clarify what normal behavior looks and feels like, so that when you see something that isn’t it, you recognize why. Pick a place and ask yourself what is normal behavior for that place. Imagine you are at your child’s soccer meet. What is normal behavior for a soccer field? Envision it. What is happening? Are planes landing? People on soccer fields mostly play soccer and spectate. A bunch of people may be using their phones to take pictures or tell family members who couldn’t make it what is going on. The kids who aren’t playing will be running or climbing on the bleachers.

What would be odd in this environment? What would bring your hackles up? What would look out of place? Would a lone older man standing separate from the crowd but intently watching the kids cause you to look closer? He might be a grandparent. Would a guy loitering around the parking lot just outside the field looking nervous and chain smoking make you watch more carefully?

It is very important that we not judge people but rather tune into our awareness. There is a fine line. Observe and take action if necessary, do not react to first impressions. All we are doing is taking something that normally hangs out at a low level of consciousness and moving it up for a moment into the spotlight so we can give it a name.

This simple thought process can work in many situations. Once you know the difference between, “normal” and “abnormal” you can also begin to articulate the difference between flirting and probing or asking and manipulating or between your boss calling you out for a reasonable short coming and his stepping over the bounds to something more personal or devious like coercion.

The 15 Foot Rule

Especially if you are in a Fringe Area or vulnerable position, you need to keep your distance from anyone even vaguely suspicious. Distance is your best friend. Do you want the lion next you or on the other side of the river?

Marc MacYoung recommends not letting him get within 5 feet of you. For man-on-man violence with slightly different cues and intentions that may be sufficient. I highly recommend women use the 15 feet rule.

According to law enforcement statistics, a criminal can close 20 feet in a second and a half on average at top speed. 15 feet gives you approximately one second if he lunges, but a second is a long time if you are already aware there might be danger. It is not enough time if you are clueless, but it is difficult to speak to someone further away, so 15 feet seems like the most reasonable distance to work with and reasonable is often the best we can hope for.

In practice here is what it would look like: A man employs the Positioning strategy known as Closing. He walks toward you, appearing to be in a rush, pointing at his watch. He says or implies, “It’s broken, do you have the time?” You are a woman alone in an underground parking facility (Fringe Area) and this makes you uncomfortable, though you aren’t sure why, other than the fact that you are a woman alone in an underground parking facility, which is enough. You have also caught the “it’s broken” and registered it as possibly a bit too much pre-thought information for the moment; too much information can mean lying and you have made a note of it. You employ the Progressive Fence by putting your hands up to show discomfort (Visual Fence). You have set a boundary. You can say, “Stop, talk to me from there,” (Verbal Fence)

Now, he might pretend he doesn’t speak the language, although you know that everyone reads distress language and stop signals pretty much the same way. He might pretend not to notice. How will he do this? Any way that will work! He might pretend he’s looking at his phone and doesn’t see you. He might pretend he needs help and that gives him the right to disregard your hands. You are aware that he is continuing to close distance. In some cases, a potential criminal might look past you as if planning to walk by, yet you can tell he’s focused on you even though he’s not looking at you. Maybe it’s because you look exceptional this morning, maybe not. Is he just one of those people acutely unaware of personal space? Do you want to stick around to find out?

This is what fifteen feet can do for you. It gives you time to calculate.

Whatever this particular potential criminal does, you now have several cues to work with. Cue number one, you’re in a fringe area and anyone who understands the most elementary thing about human interaction understands that you don’t stroll up to woman in a deserted area under any circumstances. Cue number two, he ignores your body language and boundaries. Cue number three, he ignores your words. This alone labels him as a predator unless he is completely clueless, drunk, desperate or otherwise impaired. Either way, no need to stick around. If he is really in need of help he can tell you from a distance. If he is so desperate that he needs to get that close, remember that a drowning person will drown you as well.

In the unlikely instance that you are confronted by a master criminal pretending to be old, infirm or blind, you will just need to use all we have discussed and be a good interpreter of human behavior. What if he breaks into a run and comes at you from fifteen feet or less. It comes down to your awareness, knowledge of exits, and your reaction time. There are lots of ugly possibilities. Luckily most of them are very rare. He will probably walk right by as if you weren’t there. Most people are not after you. If he is a predator, your awareness alone might informed him that you aren’t his girl.

In general if someone ignores your boundaries, get out. Get in your car, lock the door and drive. What you don’t want to do is stand there thinking to yourself that you’re probably just exaggerating or you don’t want to be impolite. Denial is common in unfamiliar situations. The remedy for denial is to heed your instincts and cues.

Let’s for a moment assume you are imagining things. Let’s assume that the guy walking toward you in the dim and deserted garage just doesn’t notice you. He also won’t notice you’re not there.

Fear of social embarrassment is a survival instinct. Not that long ago if you weren’t part of a hunter/gatherer group, you wouldn’t last long. If your group ostracized you, you starved, died of illness or were eaten by wild animals. So fear of public speaking goes back a ways. No one wants to act crazy or be labeled crazy, but there are times to disregard or override this fear. Remember the person walking toward you is someone you don’t know and are unlikely to ever see again. Do you really care if he goes home and tells his wife this crazy lady ran from him in the parking lot for no reason. She may even be likely to ask him if he got too close to you and enlighten him. And you’ll never know. Give yourself permission to act stupid if this sort of thing ever happens. Seriously. Do it. Say it out loud, “I am allowed to run away, slam my door or whatever I feel is necessary, if I feel in the least bit threatened. It doesn’t matter what I look like when I do it. I am not that person, this action does not define me. I am only doing the right thing at that moment by heeding my instincts and my training.” If it helps, pretend you’re late for something.

This may seem like a lot to remember – only you already know it. Just practice articulating behavior, context and intuition silently in your head and you will begin to create a consciousness around it. Once you create that consciousness, it will be relatively easy to pick out the cues of Intent, Interview and Positioning.

Non-Violent Disruption

Now that you know what Positioning looks like and how to articulate it, how do you Disrupt him before he gets into Position?

Obviously in real life rather than a classroom violence can get you into trouble even if you are in the right. It’s only your opinion after all. If you are female against a male you have a better chance of convincing people you were the one in danger, but let’s agree that if you can get away without leaving your fingerprints on the murder weapon it is preferable.

At the Positioning stage, talking is unlikely to help. He has already Interviewed you and determined you have what he wants. Some people recommend vomiting or acting crazy, but I have yet to meet anyone who can vomit on command and crazy people are attacked and raped all the time. In face, mentally ill and handicapped people are groups at high risk of abuse. If you have complete conviction, there may be situations in which you can Disrupt by bluffing. You might look over the criminals shoulder, yell police, or say something about that being the third unmarked car in that last few minutes. It is possible that some version of this might do the trick, but you had better be an excellent actor even under duress. If it works, he was probably either still interviewing you or he wasn’t highly motivated.

Running

Let’s discuss the art of the quick getaway. Once you realize you are in danger, you want to act quickly. One of the best strategies is to get out of the situation. Move. Make like a tree and leave. It’s pretty hard to get into trouble if you’re not there. If your chosen strategy is running, practice it. I don’t mean train for the Olympics or run a marathon, I mean practice sprinting. See how quickly you can take off. Practice against someone else, preferably someone bigger than you are, with bigger muscles and longer legs. Running away is a completely legitimate and honorable self defense technique! But you need to know how good you are. Running may not be your thing. If it isn’t, don’t count on it working for you in a pinch. Adrenaline doesn’t always make you super fast or super strong, sometimes it makes your legs weak and wobbly.

Noise

Screaming can get attention if you are in an area where screaming gets attention. There are places where people ignore car alarms, cities usually. If you are at a ballgame no one may notice. A good blood-curdling scream might create an opening for escape by jarring your assailant. But you must have an escape plan since screaming alone won’t necessarily cause him to end his plan to harm you, it might even cause him to harm you faster.

Another option is a sort of bark that off-balances him – a big loud guttural sound. You want to engage his flinch response. While he is recovering from the jamming of his signals, you should be running away, closing and locking the door, jumping out the window, whatever. This is more easily accomplished by men with deeper voices. I myself have not garnered anything but a kind of stare, whereas Rory Miller once demonstrated his barbaric yalp, which had the desired effect on my flinch response.

If you have a whistle use that, but if I were reaching into my bag for something and I thought I was in danger, it wouldn’t be a whistle.

All bets are off in practice. I wouldn’t count on a strategy like making noise if I had other options. Certainly use noise in addition to other things. But we are talking about non-violent options that might save us from having to fight our way out of a life-threatening situation and there aren’t many of them. If you don’t have an escape plan, all of this noise is of course contingent on whether or not there is anyone helpful around you to hear it.

Next, we Disengage the Attack….

The Self Defense Continuum Part III – Teja Van Wicklen

Disrupt His Position

“Never let the enemy pick the battle site.” ~ General Patton

In past issues of The Conflict Manager we covered the beginning concepts of The Self Defense Continuum. We discussed what it is to Decide to Spot Criminal Intent and how to Deter at the Interview Stage. The next phase of the Continuum is the Positioning Stage which is a particularly volatile point in a criminal transaction. Every step we take in the Continuum removes opportunities for us to detect criminal intent and extract ourselves from the situation.

In the Positioning Stage a criminal puts himself and/or you in place for a successful attack. I should say criminal or criminals, because, remember these guys sometimes work together. The idea that there is safety in numbers goes both ways.

To take a step back, the Interview can take place over the phone, by watching only or up close and personal. An Interview which takes place face-to-face or even in the same room may put a shady character in Position already, unless the room happens to be a police station or is in some other way unsuitable. A criminal with Intent who is in already in Position after a successful Interview will Attack unless something pretty significant changes that makes it unsafe for him to attack you. Because of this, somewhere between the Interview and Positioning Stages, will be the last available moment that allows you the space to avoid violence rather than extract yourself from it. Avoidance is to walk away, extrication is to have to exert more energy and undertake more risk. Positioning is the dividing point between Before and During on the Self Defense Continuum. This is why we need to carefully choose who we get into the car with and what the circumstances are. It may be the last choice we make in the Positioning stage. The next stage is quite a bit messier.

We are specifically discussing physical attacks, but this information translates to other types of crime as well. Online the Positioning stage might involve a predator asking progressively more personal questions or sharing something that makes you in turn more open to sharing. He is working you into a Position in which he can successfully ask you to share something extremely personal or even for a live meeting. Again, he or they will use whatever works. Marc MacYoung, who created the 5 Stages, says that a predator, doesn’t usually want to fight, he wants to confuse and overwhelm his victim. This goes for both online and in person situations. A criminal doesn’t want you to have the opportunity to fight back (or shut down communications) at all. He wants to overwhelm you with charm, force or whatever works best for his purposes, leaving you no time or inclination to reason.

A discussion of predatory positioning would not be complete without a mention of Fringe Areas. I am not implying that Fringe Areas are the only places Positioning happens but they do constitute a large portion of the places violence occurs.

A Fringe area is a place on the periphery or on the way to and from somewhere else, hallways, stairways, shortcuts, elevators, alleys, parking lots, garages, etc. Anyplace something can happen and no one can hear you or get to you in time is a Fringe Area. Home can be a fringe area for victims of Domestic Violence or during a home invasion. The inside of a house is secluded and private, the way we like it when we shower and sleep. Criminals like privacy too.

Fringe Areas can also be temporary or transient. An office building might only be on the fringe after hours. A bathroom at a club is a common Fringe Area when the music is too loud or everyone too stoned to hear you or do anything. The back of a bus is on the Fringe if everyone is up front or the driver is distracted by a car accident. The closed room of a house during a party is another common Fringe Area.

Criminals are intimately familiar with these places and we are not. They are like fish looking up at bugs on the surface of the water. You can see them there, but only if you practice noticing.

5 Positioning Strategies by Marc MacYoung

What does it look like when a person or group Positions for an Attack? Marc MacYoung came up with Five Positioning Strategies to watch for. These are the most common documented strategies criminals use to get close to you.

Closing

The first strategy, called Closing, as in closing distance, is virtually identical to the Regular Interview we discussed in the previous installment of the Self Defense Continuum. Again, you can see how closely related the Interview and Positioning stages can be. In Closing, as in the Regular Interview, a potential criminal approaches you in need of something like a light or directions.

Obviously, not everyone asking for directions is after you, but at the moment you feel your intuition whispering in your ear and a stranger happens to be either close or getting there, you can at the very least, choose not to be distracted. Your natural alerts should of course be augmented if you are alone, in a Fringe Area, pregnant, in charge of young or disabled people, lost, it is dark or any one of the other environmental or situational arrangements that causes a measure of vulnerability.

We have ways of reading body language and intent. A person who really needs directions does not “feel” the same as a person who doesn’t but who is approaching you on that pretext. There are subtleties of eye movement, peripheral attention, expression and determination that can be read if we are aware of our own and other people’s cues. This is why it is so crucial to the practice of self defense that we learn to articulate our instincts and apprehensions.

Cornering or Trapping

The next Positioning Strategy is called Cornering or Trapping. The potential criminal approaches you from a direction that traps you between him and a large object, like a wall. This usually means he is blocking an exit as well. He has thought this out while you were shopping.

For obvious reasons you want to be especially savvy about this strategy, which requires general awareness of where you are and where any and all exits are. An accomplice might be waiting behind one of the doors. Know where all the exits are, not just one.

Surprise

The Surprise strategy is that ‘holy crap!’ moment of the movie where the guy appears in the back seat of the car or the closet. You don’t see him until it’s too late.

Notice covered and concealment. Avoid the hiding spots or keep your distance, especially when you are alone. Don’t walk too close to parked cars or doorways, walk down the middle of the sidewalk.

Pincer

The next positioning strategy is known as Pincer. We know that criminals sometimes work in teams or gangs and Pincer is an effective strategy when they do.

Pincer takes several forms:

  • Two or more people suddenly split up as they approach you. You may have see this when kids split up to harass or bully another kid. It is highly disconcerting to engage several people at once, one of whom is behind you.
  • One thug engages you from the front using the first positioning strategy we called Closing, and the other blindsides you or grabs your bag.
  • Two guys face each other across a narrow walkway so you have to walk in between them.

Surrounding

Finally there is Surrounding, which Marc tells us is most common with three or more thugs. You walk through or along a group of guys and suddenly you are in the middle. They may hang out in a sort of line, as in leaning against a wall, so the front guy can wait for you while the last follows behind as you pass. Sometimes they swarm quickly, but often they drift around you. They are hedging their bets in case they have chosen the wrong person. They may also be trying to look nonchalant, that is, not suspicious to anyone who might be watching.

 

WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT WOMEN’S SELF DEFENSE COULD HURT YOU, Part II – Teja Van Wicklen

In business, we find our niche first and then create the product around that niche. In architecture, we build the building for what it has to do and the people who have to live or work in the structure. We don’t build a hospital the same way we build an apartment building or a library. The very specific issues women face mean that, to increase our leverage, strength and skill in protecting ourselves, to reach the heights we need to reach to be safe in the world as it is now and to excel, women don’t just need a taller ladder than men do, we need wings.

Here are some things that are wrong with women’s self defense in general:

 

  • Martial arts – the origin of self-defense – has been created by men out of ancient war arts often involving often antiquated weapons and/or horseback, and handed down mostly unchanged over generations. Many so called self-defense styles have failed to evolve with the times. Self defense has been retrofitted in an effort to suit the needs of modern women, but really it was built for something entirely different.
  • Modern self-defense classes tend to spend a majority of time training for fair fights.
  • When a man attacks a woman, it is rarely a fair fight. Fighting fair can put you at a fatal disadvantage. When Instructors do discuss or attempt to recreate unfair attacks, a number of things go wrong. They either spend a very small percentage of overall time on the complex issues, oversimplify the dangers, or extrapolate from their own situation and training and come up with answers based on the false premise of man-on-man violence or matched size violence.
  • Instructors also tend to focus on altercations between people who are facing one another, rather than one blind-siding the other or using charm or the element of surprise to get into position for a crime.
  • Today’s self-defense is often disconnected from everyday realities, like kids, strollers, overwork, physical handicaps, lack-of-sleep, age, illness, arthritis, depression, distraction, travel, traffic, pregnancy. Life! For reasons such as insurance premiums and convenience, self-defense is almost always practiced by people in comfortable clothing on smooth floors. No obstacles, no furniture, no cars, wind, rain or darkness. All of these things must be part of your consciousness or it will be like learning to drive by playing a video game.
  • Due to the popularity of stunt-heavy Hollywood movies and sports martial arts, we often see a lot of cool, creative moves I call Finesse Techniques that are more acrobatic than practical. These techniques might work for someone somewhere under very particular circumstances, but a self defense technique you depend on to save your life should be like a good doctor – reliable as much of the time as possible.
  • Self-defense is often unhealthy for our bodies, which is in direct conflict with safety, since bad health and injury put us statistically more at risk than most other things.
  • Martial arts and self-defense classes are often more about following a leader than expanding our own minds. And what could be safer than seeing and understanding more? If you ever find yourself in a martial arts class – or a relationship of any kind – where you are discouraged from thinking and asking questions, don’t just get annoyed, get out.
  • Most people think kicking and punching is the main aspect of self defense. In general, modern self-defense is primarily concerned with the moment of the attack and neglects the Before and After. It leaves out all the things we can do that will diminish our presence on the criminal radar and neglects the aftermath, where stress can affect us adversely and cause us to make things worse. Self defense is more about good decision-making under stress than any other single idea or physical technique.
  • Self defense is about empowerment. That’s a big word these days. We all want to feel empowered to be who we want to be and to take the world by storm. But HOW we do it is important and rarely addressed. Blind or reckless empowerment can get you in trouble if you think it means being assertive out of context. Not that plenty of people aren’t better off for having learned a few moves, but I think we can do a lot better. We love to hear about the grandma who fought off an attacker who tried to take her purse, but the fact is there are hundreds of other versions of this story that went badly.

 

New Women’s Self Defense should…

  • …have aspects of martial arts, but also psychology, sociology, health and fitness, among other things.
  • … include the study of trickery, goal oriented and criminal behavior.
    • … cover attacks the way they are most often perpetrated against women or whomever the class is meant to address. Men, women and children are attacked in different ways, under different circumstances.
    • …be based in reality. It should take into account the kids, strollers physical handicaps and other craziness life is made up of.
    • … be simple to perform and to remember. When your mind and body are under extreme stress they respond very differently than they do in a class under controlled circumstances. Time both slows down and speeds up. You freeze, you fail to hear someone right next to you calling your name, you drop things involuntarily. You’re unlikely to be able to remember, let alone execute, a series of intricate movements, even with years of practice.
    • …involve strengthening muscles and improving coordination and range of motion so our bodies get stronger and work better. What point is self defense if you are your own worst enemy, daily grinding yourself into dust.
    • … encourage us to think for ourselves and to question everything. An instructor should be a guide and a roll model, not a disciplinarian. A roll model should NEVER discourage us from forming ideas about our own protection.
    • …cover the Before, During and After of a crime event or emergency, rather than just the During.
    • …instill a healthy form of empowerment so you can be a big dog in spite of your size. You shouldn’t feel you need to bark right away. You want the space and peace of mind to sit back, watch and evaluate before making your decision. This is the essence of true empowerment. Self-defense should be a place women can draw strength from.
    • …include knowledge, tools and games women can pass on to their children, for obvious reasons. Imagine a daughter who won’t give a good-looking but predatory guy a second look, or who won’t allow peer-pressure to cause her to drink or have sex when she doesn’t want to, or who will never accept a drink she didn’t see the bartender mix. Imagine a son who has the decision-making skills not to do a favor for a friend that might get him into trouble. Or a son who stands up for his female friends even if it might cause him to lose face with his peers – a son who sets standards rather than following dysfunctional ideals of manhood.
    • …give us the means to practice daily in our heads or in small moments since we cant always get to a regular class. In other words self defense training should be scenario-based so it isn’t dependent solely on practicing physical techniques but on mental prowess and an understanding of situations, danger and how emergencies form. We need to cultivate the ability to extrapolate and learn from the mini dangers we experience every day.
    • …be about anxiety mitigation since worry and anxiety make us more susceptible to crime. Self-defense needs to help us name our worries and fears, put them into context and then remove the unproductive ones from our daily plate. This also makes real dangers easier to identify when the worry noise isn’t so loud.
    • …put Preparation in an exulted position as part of a daily routine. Preparation for the day, contingency plans, CPR training, etc. can all be made part of basic knowledge and life training.
    • If the highest goal of self-defense is to learn to protect yourself and your family from

    violent crime and the threat of death or severe bodily harm, then clearly it should train and utilize mental skills above all else, since avoidance is always preferable to survival and healing after the fact. Staying out of trouble first, getting out of trouble only if the first fails.

    Protective Offense, The New Self Defense

    Let’s take this concept of self defense even further and give it a new name. “Self defense” is how you describe to the judge why you hit him with the baseball bat. Let’s reserve it for legal matters. The “self” in self defense leaves out others we are responsible for and the word “defense” is too reactionary. What we want is something inclusive of the people who need us that is both more proactive and more powerful.

    Protective Offense is the term I’ve been using for about ten years now-Offense with the emphasis on “Off”. When I hear Protective Offense, I think offense for the purpose of self-defense, “Offense” as in Chess or football, seeing and thinking a few moves ahead, projecting your desired outcome and being able to map a course and make changes on the fly, being aware of patterns.

    When I did TaeKwonDo, in my teens and twenties, I attracted more than one drunken doofus. As it turned out, what I really needed then wasn’t a stronger side kick, but a brain. Actually, what I needed was for the guy not to be bothering me at all, but that goes more to a discussion of effecting culture. Looking back, the guy who came at me in a club when I was 19 and wouldn’t let go, was pushy, not dangerous, and by kicking him I could have escalated the situation to something physical when I would have done better by keeping my emotions at bay, smiling, telling him I needed to go to the bathroom, and then disappearing. After I pointed him out to the bouncer.

    My good friend Karim Hajee like to say, “Trouble doesn’t happen to us, it happens because of us.

    If strength were the only important resource we would all be out of luck. The bigger, stronger person would always win. And that isn’t the case. Things like instinct, determination, will to live and resourcefulness play a huge part in survival. In the wild, smaller animals scare off and outsmart larger, stronger ones all the time. Dealing with crap is part of life and dealing with it physically is not usually the best way. Since women are rarely stronger than men it’s a good thing we have lots of other resources to draw on. We need to get back in touch with those skills and hone them. Civilization supplies us with HGTV and heated seats, but an unfortunate side effect is that we put way too much responsibility on others for our safety and decision-making. Police, lawyers and doctors can all do their jobs better if we do our part.

WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT WOMEN’S SELF DEFENSE COULD HURT YOU, PART I – By Teja Van Wicklen

Let’s admit it, women’s self defense is old and tired, it can’t take care of itself, let alone anyone else. What ails it? A dependence on ancient techniques? A blind spot in society? A disconnect between teacher and student? Reluctance to go back to the drawing board?  Or all of the above and more.

Two thousand years ago women’s empowerment, self-actualization and freedom of movement weren’t high on the agenda. That doesn’t explain why we are still stuck. Why aren’t female instructors doing more? And why isn’t there more of a demand? Many women are still guilty of thinking that self defense is the same as kickboxing, or that if the police would just do their job, we wouldn’t need all this crazy violent self defense talk and we could just live our lives.

With a modern overhaul women’s self defense could be a grand tool of autonomy. With kids learning from their parents, or early on in school, we could see a drastic decrease in violence against women, epidemic the world over. If we thought of self defense as a series of mental and physical tools that directly addressed the realities of crime today, we might see things change for the better.

I see a class where, through roll play, women, mothers and daughters learn the simple tells and tricks of emotionally unstable people and hardened criminals, so they can identify behavior before it becomes a problem. Students would learn that a man who insists on helping and won’t give in is disregarding their authority and that any self-respecting person responds to the word “no”. Girls would know the many ploys a criminal might use to begin a conversation, get her to share a ride, or borrow her cell so he can call himself and capture her number for a rainy day. A freshman letting loose her first weeks in college would know that no matter how good-looking a man is he may still be a predator and that although he says he knows her friend he may just be a good listener. A woman would know how to fight like a pitbull using every object in reach as a weapon should anyone ever pull a knife and try to coerce her into a car. She would know the statistics are loud and clear that once she’s in that car she’s going to a place of the criminal’s choosing and there’s very likely no coming back.

Unfortunately those who really need self defense training aren’t getting it. Women only look for answers once they’ve been attacked and need to regain a sense of autonomy as part of the healing process. Or they go to a kickboxing class for exercise and a quick infusion of empowerment. For the record, kickboxing isn’t self defense. Kicking in the air is nothing at all like kicking a man who’s fighting back. Most guys barely notice it when I kick them and I have 30 years of training and break six inches of pine with my side kick.

The study of physical movements without an understanding of context, can be dangerous. False empowerment can cause us to jump into situations we aren’t ready to handle, and a lack of understanding about the before, during and after of an emergency, can mean we get in too deep before realizing we had other options. There is so much more women can do to protect themselves and their loved ones than kick and punch. We need a four-dimensional view of self defense – the mental, emotional, temporal and then finally, pointed physical options as a last resort.

Many instructors will talk about self-defense being ninety percent mental, but that’s not what you get in class. That’s because learning to listen to your own brain whizzing away and cultivating the self awareness the enables you to fix things about yourself that get you into trouble, are much more time consuming and complex than any physical technique could ever be. And because this kind of thinking is difficult to teach, it isn’t being taught. Some of this kind of knowledge is available in sports and military endeavors – a team mentality, watching each other’s backs, understanding aggression, quick decision making in which injury or death is at stake. As such, mostly men have had access to it.

There are an infinite number of possible crime scenarios. No number of physical techniques will answer all the variations. Chess players know there are more combinations of chess pieces on a board than atoms in the universe. Crime is an ever-changing game of strategy that requires constant adaptation. And, life is even more complex. We have to learn to think, to see and to make quick, constructive decisions sometimes under intense pressure.

Women are not only smaller and weaker than their attackers, they are conditioned to react to asocial behavior, like threats, with social behavior, like kindness or self deprecation. A woman might be pregnant or responsible for multiple children. Gangs and fraternities work in teams against unsuspecting and weaker individuals. For all of these reasons women’s self defense can’t just be a different version of men’s self defense, it needs to be a different species.

 

 

Mental Models – Teja Van Wicklen

Wherever You Go, There You Are:

Mental Models and Emergency Management Skills

You are walking down a familiar block. You have lived in this area all your life, the buildings, lampposts and trees are as familiar as the inside of your house. You turn a corner and there is an immense park where your house and your friend’s houses used to be. You were only gone for twenty minutes so this reality isn’t possible. It’s like someone erased your world and put something else here. You stare, close your eyes, open them, try to reconcile the discrepancy. Your brain hangs in the space between what should be and what is. Then you start to panic….

In Deep Survival, Laurence Gonzales talks about Mental Models, an important element in understanding why some people, trained or not, survive emergencies while others don’t. Mental Models are short cuts the brain creates–maps of people, places and things we count on so we can make other more urgent decisions like, whether to cross the street against the light. Early in the book Gonzales talks about how mental models work, “You scour the house looking for your copy of Moby Dick and you remember it being a red paper back book but you don’t know where you left it. When you search, you don’t examine every item in the house, that would be tedious…”  He explains that your mental model of the red paper back allows you to screen out everything else, but that if you are wrong and it’s a blue hardcover, you may not find it even if the title is right in front of you. In other words, we get into trouble when our internal and external worlds don’t match. We say we are lost or confused when what we see or hear doesn’t make sense.  Gonzales argues that being lost is more a state of mind than a state of being. If you are at home wherever you are, you are never lost. The feeling of being lost creates anxiety and hinders both instinct and logical thought. Anxiety gives rise to panic and in an emergency, panic is often the last thing we feel. Being truly lost can feel a lot like suffocating. Substitute the absence of comfort and safety for being lost and you can see this discussion reverberating across many different types of circumstances. Think the end of a long and deeply ingrained relationship or the sudden loss of a child. It seems that older adults who adapt better to the loss of loved ones are documented as living longer. Of course there are lots of variables in these studies, but they make sense. If we spend too much time holding on to what used to be or grasping desperately for the comfort of the familiar, we have less energy to expend adapting to our new and urgent reality.

Quicker recognition and recovery from emotional shock in emergencies large and small may be an emergency management skill we can cultivate during the course of daily life. As with most issues, the first step is to recognize the problem-then to learn to arrest it’s forward momentum and redirect our energies. Easier said then done. Again, action follows recognition. Remember Colonel John Boyd’s OODA loop: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.

Lots of things contribute to survival in tough situations–widely varying and appropriate experience, self-awareness, physical fortitude, humility, determination and will to live. But if you refuse to accept the situation that presently assails you, all your training and worldly experience may be for naught. This may at least partly explain the many instances in which the most unlikely people survive things like plane crashes where lifelong pilots and survival experts fail. Some people are just born with an empty cup and the ability to start from zero with few expectations.

In general, we don’t necessarily train to adapt to a great discrepancy between the multitude of things that are most likely to be and the thing that goes vastly wrong. The emotional space we have not mapped and are not in tuned with is vast and can exert a powerful effect on how much of our knowledge we are able tap into. Gonzales talks about a firefighter lost in the woods who doesn’t make a fire because he knows it’s forbidden in the park. He might have been found earlier if he had thought to break the rules. Sometimes the answers are right in front of our faces but our mental models blind us.

In martial arts, survival training, rock climbing, long distance swimming, indeed any extreme endeavor, we can only train for what we think will happen. And, there are many emergencies that can only be partially recreated for training purposes. The military is probably the most experienced in this capacity. Even so, we can’t effectively simulate a rape without it actually being rape. We can’t effectively simulate starvation for the same reason. We are consistently wrong in thinking we are training for the scenario that will occur in the future. Only part of our experience will apply. Adaptation to the unfamiliar is something to keep constantly in mind. The worst thing you can do is assume you are ready for anything. You are, in effect, creating a static mindset that will be your downfall. The more set you are in your overall sense of yourself and the world, the harsher it is when those two things fail you.

The stages of being physically or emotionally lost are apparently virtually identical to the Kubler-Ross stages of grief–denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Gonzales explains, “The research suggests five general stages in the process a person goes through when lost…. first you deny that you’re disoriented and press on with growing urgency, attempting to make your mental map fit what you see. In the next stage the urgency blossoms into a full-scale survival emergency. Clear thought becomes impossible and action becomes frantic, unproductive, even dangerous. In the third stage, usually following injury or exhaustion, you form a strategy for finding some place that matches your mental map. It is a misguided strategy for there is no such place now. You are lost. In the forth stage, you deteriorate both rationally and emotionally as the strategy fails to resolve the conflict. In the final stage as you run out of options and energy you must become resigned to your plight. Like it or not, you must make a new mental map of where you are. You must become Robinson Crusoe or you will die. To survive you must find yourself. Then it won’t matter where you are.”