| By :
William Gabriel
There is no such thing as a safe place anymore: with home invasions on the rise and muggings in public places becoming more commonplace as well, it seems like self defense training is becoming an absolute necessity. The police aren't able to prevent violent crime; they can only respond once it has occurred. (Ask any bouncer how often the police have arrived on-scene and the fight is still going...it's almost never.) It's up to you to be able to protect yourself, and that means finding the best self defense training you can find. Self defense doesn't always mean hurting someone that's trying to hurt you. Often, the best defense is avoiding dangerous situations and diffusing violence before it becomes focused on you. But when physicality becomes unavoidable, self defense training helps you to end it with a minimum of hospital visits. Different schools of thought, from martial arts to military-style close combat to street fighting, treat self defense training in very different ways. Some rely on physical strength and speed, some on anatomical understanding and applied science, and others on inner strength and force of will. That said, there are a few qualities that separate a true self defense training system from a sport or a physical fitness regime. Awareness - Any attempt to secure yourself from danger starts with being aware of where the danger comes from and what threats it's likely to bring with it. Avoidance - Knowing what the threats are, simply not being there is the best possible way of defending yourself. Attitude - But if the danger finds you anyway, you have to be able to face it without letting fear or empathy paralyze you. Ability - Without actual ability to perform the techniques you've learned, all that attitude won't do squat. Adaptability - Even Sun Tzu said it -- "The best battle plan does not survive first contact with the enemy." You must be able to adapt to changing circumstances, varying threats, and unforseen complications, period. Many self defense training courses focus only on Ability, and they leave you to your own devices to figure out the rest. A great self-defense course will start with basic social awareness, and teach escape, de-escalation, assertiveness, and visualization techniques alongside the physical techniques. Speaking of the physical techniques, a small side note about them: if your self defense course doesn't include sparring, include it yourself. There really isn't anything that will teach you what it feels like to get attacked more effectively than getting attacked. You will rapidly get a lesson in which of your techniques are likely to be useful in a real-life situation as well. Many times, a technique that looks highly effective in a constructed class environment is nearly useless in the mind-numbingly fast world of real combat. Self defense might end with the body in the worst of circumstances -- but it always starts with the mind, and any good self defense training course will show it.
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