Street violence is a fact of life in these modern times but some people are more susceptible to it than others. I firmly believe that if you encounter a lot of street violence in your life then in some sense you are attracting it through your own mentality. The vast majority of people who have suffered violence at the hands of some thug or thugs have been innocent victims, but only in the sense that they didn’t necessarily provoke the violence. Victims of violence however, are just that- victims – and therein lies the problem. If you have a victim mentality then you will encounter more street violence than someone who does not have such a mentality. In fact if you do think like a victim then you had better do something to change that, otherwise your life will forever be characterised by both inner and outer torture.
Taking up martial arts is a good way to quash the victim mentality but there is also a process of preliminary self defense that you can learn and that will help you no end in avoiding any kind of violence for the rest of your life.
I have come up with what I like to call the three A’s as a way to explain the process. In short, the three A’s are: attitude, awareness, action. Three simple steps that will give you the tools you need to help you avoid any future confrontations out on the street. Lets take a look at the three A’s in detail and see how you can apply them to your life.
Attitude
The correct attitude is the single biggest attribute you must possess in order to keep yourself out of needless trouble. To put it simply, you can’t think like a victim. If you think like a victim it will show in your body language and body language is all important in the street environment.
If you are to avoid trouble then you cannot walk down the street with your head down and your shoulders slumped with hands dug deep into your pockets. You cannot look timid in any way. Someone looking for a fight will most often go for the person who looks the least threatening, the person who isn’t going to fight back. Thugs prey on the weak and the timid. If you are the type of person whose body language screams victim then you will find yourself getting picked on a lot. Thugs are very good at sizing up potential prey to have some fun with. Do you really want to be some thug’s plaything that gets discarded afterwards and left in a bloody mess? Of course you don’t. So how can you stop this from happening?
The surest way is to change the message you give out when you walk down the street. You have to change your way of thinking and acting. For a start you have to stop feeling like a victim and refuse to be intimidated by anyone, no what matter what size they are or how many of them there are. But how do you do this, how do you essentially make a stand against such people?
Well firstly, you simply change the way you think about yourself. You have to start developing your confidence. If you do martial arts then you should really be taking a lot of confidence from your training. You know a bit about how to handle yourself, so this should be enough to boost your confidence and change your victim mentality.
The biggest change the martial arts had on me was the way it changed how I thought about myself and what way I presented myself to the world. I gained enough inner-strength from the training to allow me to walk down the street and put out the vibe that I won’t be messed with.
You should do the same. Decide right now that you will never be messed with by anyone again because no one would dare due to your skills, and if they do, then God help them. This is the way you have to think. This doesn’t mean you have to walk down the street like the Terminator, eye-balling every one around and daring them to have a go if they are hard enough. What I am talking about is more subtle than that. I’m asking you to cultivate a state of mind that will eventually build into a quiet confidence as opposed to any kind of arrogance or even, God forbid thuggishness. You have to give of just enough of a vibe so that predators will quickly dismiss you as being unsuitable prey. In other wards they will pass you by because you won’t fit the victim profile.
This change in attitude will do wonders for you in the long run. You’ll feel safer within yourself because you will know that you are no longer a victim and you are not anyone’s idea of easy prey. Carry yourself with your head held high and give of the quiet confidence we just talked about and you won’t go far wrong.
Awareness
You can be as confident and as self-assured as you can be but it’s no good if you are going to keep walking into trouble all the time. A good sense of awareness is therefore vital to you avoiding any potential violent altercations.
I would describe awareness as having the ability to spot any potentially dangerous situations. This means you have to be streetwise as much as possible. Walking alone in areas that have a reputation for violence is a good example of not being fully aware. If you were aware of the dangers involved in walking down dodgy streets then you probably wouldn’t do so, and even if you did, you would at least be privy to the possibility that you might be in danger.
Make it your business to have some working knowledge of the places that you frequent. Leave yourself open to the possibility that you could run into trouble. That way, if the worst does happen, then at least it won’t come as a complete shock. Believe me, any violent altercation is shocking enough without coming totally from left-field. If a part of you is ready to deal with something like that you stand a much better chance of actually surviving it, a lot more than you would if you were not expecting it.
A note of caution here. There is a fine line between awareness and full-blown paranoia. It is important that you realise this. Your level of awareness has to be low enough that it is almost unconscious and high enough that you are totally aware of your surroundings. It’s all about balance. If you dwell on the fact that you might run into trouble then there is a better than average chance that you will eventually do just that. This is because we tend to attract the things we think about the most. Eventually you will literally see trouble around every corner. Such an outlook is not good for your mental well-being as you will be in a constant state of tension, walking around like a coiled spring all the time.
Allow your awareness to become subconscious so that it is always there, turned on, but not so conscious that you can’t think of anything else. After a while you will get good at sizing up people and situations. You will be able to quickly and accurately assess the threat level in any situation.
Your intuition will guide you in this respect if you let it. Your intuition will let you know what awareness level you have to be at at any particular time. It rises and falls accordingly. It will remain low when you are walking down the street, rise as a drunk guy with an angry look on his face comes towards you, lowers when he passes by, rises again when you realise someone is walking behind you, lowers again when you turn round and realise it is just an old lady. And so forth.
Don’t forget common sense here as well. Don’t be stupid enough to venture into known trouble spots. Don’t hang around clubs or bars after closing unless you like drunken brawling. Avoid needlessly antagonising people. Common sense. Get some, it’s great, it’s free and it saves you lots of trouble.
So be aware, but don’t be a paranoid wreck. Just be naturally aware.
Action
Your awareness level is through the roof. There is definitely going to be trouble, there’s no getting away from it. What are you going to do?
Having awareness is nothing without the ability to act on it quickly and decisively. If you’re not going to make some kind of proactive response to the situation you find yourself in then you may as well have not even noticed the situation in the first place. All your carefully cultivated awareness will have been for nothing.
Obviously the type of action you take will depend on the situation. If you suddenly happen upon a gang of thugs hanging round a street corner then your action can be as simple as crossing the road to avoid them or just strolling past them confidently, giving of the vibe that you are not what they are looking for.
On the other hand you may find yourself being provoked into a fight, in which case do you do your best to calm the situation and walk away or do you attack the other guy/s first before you get hit yourself? The type of action you take could have far-reaching consequences so you should always try to make the right decision, as hard as this is to do when you are under such extreme pressure.
For more advice on dealing with such pressure I suggest you read Why Every Dojo Should Have a Bouncer and also Why You Should Be a One Hit Wonder, two recent posts of mine that you may find useful in helping you deal with such violent altercations and the mental pressure that comes along with them.
So that’s how not to be a victim and avoid street violence. Incorporate the three A’s into your every day life. Let them empower you and feel the benefits of a safer, calmer existence.
