Awareness, De-escalation, Physically Defending

Awareness

Awareness is defending yourself by avoiding danger altogether by thinking ahead, or making good decisions. Examples include parking in a well-lit area, not wearing music headphones while jogging (so you can use your sense of hearing to pay attention to your surroundings), or looking under your car/in the backseat before entering to ensure there is no one waiting for you.

Due to its non-physical nature, awareness is emphasized heavily in women's self defense classes where it is assumed that the attacker will probably be larger and stronger than the victim.

Awareness: http://tinyurl.com/mah5w

De-escalation

De-escalation is the use of voice, tone, and body language to calm a potentially violent situation before violence actually ensues.

De-escalation: http://tinyurl.com/mah5w

Physically Defending

****LEARN TO TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS****
If you choose to run away from your attacker, be careful to make sure to run to a safe place, where other people are that can possibly help you.

****If you do run your attacker will be behind you and you will not see what and where they are****

****There is the possibility of your attacker being able to out run you****

Men and women have different socializations. A man expects a man to stand up to them, and an assailant will use this to talk the man into a fight. Men who choose to attack women are cowards but dangerous. A man does not expect a woman to stand up to them, and a male assailant will often back down when she does.http://tinyurl.com/mah5w

Environment

Always be aware of your environment. Make sure that you don't have any distractions.

The other day I was watching a woman walking near the local University. She had an ipod in her ear, and a cell phone on her other ear. She was looking down while walking also.

One of the higher locations of occurrence of attacks for women are universities, hospitals, and malls.

This woman had too many distractions while walking at a high concurrence location. What advice would I give this woman or any woman walking on a university? 1) don't walk alone during lite hours---when there aren't many people around, 2) never wear an ipod, you can't hear what's going around you. 3) keep your cell phone away unless you are in immediate danger, again it takes your attention from the environment. 4) look up while you are walking. Walk with self confidence, even if you have to pretent you have cofidence. Look at every one in the eye when walking past them and say hello casially. By looking at the person you will be able to identify them. Would be attackers are looking for victims---victims aren't people who walk with cofidence. By saying hello you have also made yourself human in the other persons eyes--the would be attacker doesn't look at their victims as humans but as prey.

Trust Your Inner Voice

Have you ever felt weird around a person and didn't understand why? I would suggest that you listen to that feeling---it has never led me astray when I have listened. When I haven't listened to it, I've gotten into situations that were not pleasant.

If you feel odd about going a certain way home, listen to that inner voice, choose a different way.

If you feel like some one is following you listen to your inner voice and go to the nearest police station---make sure you do not go home. If you go home, you will be leading your stalker to where you live.

If you don't feel good about going to an event, even if all your friends are going to be there, listen to your inner voice, and don't go.

If you have a feeling of distrust toward a person, listen to your inner voice and stay away from them, and don't share information with them.

If you get into an elevator and a person in the elevator makes you feel "yucky"---listen to your inner voice. Get off the elevator at the next stop, make sure they know you are aware of them, don't get on the elevator...etc.

Protecting Your Teen

On Dr. Phil the other day the topic was Sexting. Sexting is sending nude pictures via text message (using cell phones).

This topic is not just on Dr. Phil unfortunately, it's becoming a common practice among teens, 20% of teens polled in a national survey.

Besides loosing a persons reputation the teens that participate in this are also facing felony charges for being involved in child porn and being registered as a sex offender---which will never come off of their records.

Some articles written about this topic
CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/15/national/main4723161.shtml

ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/WorldNews/story?id=6456834&page=1

NBC News
http://www.nbc15online.com/mostpopular/story/What-Parents-Need-to-Know-about-Sexting/f-O-_XPiYkyUioJbN3q0ng.cspx

Fox 31 News (video)
http://www.mysouthwestga.com/news/video.aspx?id=272281

Pyramid of Personal Safety

The way to march a thousand miles
and still win the battle, is make
the other side march it.

There is no reason to live in fear of crime and violence. There is however reason to take reasonable precautions. And in doing so, you will have deterred most criminals from choosing you as their victim.

The reason is simple, there are thousands of people around who are easier and safer targets. The harder you make it for the criminal to victimize you, the more likely he is to go ply his trade elsewhere. You won't have stopped the criminal from being a criminal, but you will have stopped him from choosing you as a victim.

With this in mind, personal safety can be viewed as a pyramid. Each level not only increases your safety, but builds upon the level under it to create a cohesive and consistent whole.

To use the pyramid correctly start from the bottom and work your way up, all of these steps are in this blog.

To read the entire article go to the following link
http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/pyramid.html

Physical self-defense

the last ditch effort. If it gets to this point through all the other levels, it has been forced here. You are justified to do what it takes to stop him. While some people choose not to participate in use of force in order to defend themselves, others have no such qualms. Either choice carries responsibilities. Physical self-defenseis not about fighting, it’s about not being hurt by violence. Nor is it about being fearless. It is not necessarily studying the martial arts nor buying a gun, it is doing what you have to do to keep from being hurt, raped, robbed or killed. And then dealing with the authorities and psychological cost afterwards

Knowing that personal safety involves all these things, we want you to think about the quote at the top of this page. The one about making your enemy march the thousand miles. In essence, the pyramid of personal safety makes it so someone else has to do all kinds of work to climb that pyramid in order to attack you. Not only is that climb difficult (and therefore makes it easier to attack someone else), but it gives you all the warning in the world to mentally prepare yourself for what you need to do in order to stay safe. The best way to stay safe is to convince the enemy that it's too much trouble to march a thousand miles and then to risk a battle he's likely to lose.

To read the entire article to go the following link
http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/pyramid.html

Verbal boundary enforcement

communication. It is letting a would-be assailant know that you are aware of what is occurring and that you are committed to doing whatever it takes to protect yourself.

This is not threatening nor blustering; it is a clear cut message for him to "get off mah land." And that failure to do so will have unpleasant results. This is being assertive, not aggressive. You are doing what it takes to get him out of your boundaries, not chasing him down the street. Before you vocalize: Know how far you are willing to go

To read the entire article to go the following link
http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/pyramid.html