Mindset for self protection

A while back I wrote about the Vital Pyramid, which described a particular concept relating to combatives training.  This concept discusses the tools necessary to prepare yourself in the event of an unwanted criminal assault.

The base of the pyramid is “Mindset.”  You need a certain mindset in order to deal with a criminal situation.  The other three levels of the pyramid include, from bottom to top, tactics, skills and kit.  I will get into those down the road.

In that previous post, I touched briefly each of these levels.  With this post, I want to focus on Mindset.

As I mentioned in that previous post, your mindset during a fight must be to win at all costs.  This is a bit different than what many people teach, which is to survive.

If your goal is to survive, and you lose, you are dead.

Therefore, your goal has to be different.  You have to do what is necessary to win.

Over time, I’ve watched lots of self-defense related videos where the designated attacker has a knife.  The focus is almost always on disarming the assailant, rather than annihilating them.

An assailant with a deadly weapon ready to deploy on you is what we refer to as a level 10 threat.   A level 10 threat means your life is in danger.

When your life is in danger, winning that fight means you may have to take the life of your assailant.  If you don’t train for level 10, you are at a huge disadvantage.

Unfortunately, in most martial arts schools, you will never come close to training for level 10.

Prevailing in a level 10 altercation means winning at all costs, even if that means you take a life.  We must train for level 10, and hope we never face that situation.

Vital Pyramid Mindset – Training

However, this is not the end of the mindset discussion when it comes to the Vital Pyramid.

Your mindset must include preparation.

Preparation includes developing your sense of awareness, so you can become more street smart and identify risky situations in order to avoid them.

Preparation includes improving your conditioning.

Since I started training in martial arts years ago, and encountered a number of different instructors from different arts, I noticed quite a few that were significantly out of shape.

My own sifu was not among them, thankfully, but plenty in my art did not take their fitness very seriously.

Among the top combatives instructors I follow, this is not the case.  They take their conditioning very seriously.

Why?  Because they understand that when you are faced with an actual threat, it could be your conditioning that saves you.

An actual assault will put you under severe stress.  You’ll get a massive dump of adrenaline, and you may lose some fine motor skills.  You will also likely lose the ability to think clearly.

As a result, you’ll rely upon gross motor skills…skills that involve the big muscle groups.  Use of these big muscle groups takes up more energy.  Therefore, if an assault is prolonged, and you are out of shape, you will run out of gas quickly.

In addition to improved street smarts and conditioning, you’ve got to develop your skill set.

It can get boring as hell hitting a heavy bag or a dummy hundreds of times each day, but it is that effort that will allow you to develop your skills to the point where they become second nature.

If you carry a weapon, train with that weapon!  I conducted a little survey on social media recently and it’s clear that most people who own a firearm rarely train with it.

They’ll be next to useless if the situation ever called for it.

Everyday Carry

Speaking of everyday carry, I personally live in the state of Maryland.  Until a recent Supreme Court ruling, Maryland made it extremely difficult to obtain a concealed carry permit to carry a firearm.

Of course, our criminals don’t pay much attention to those laws.  And that puts law abiding citizens at an enormous disadvantage.

With that in mind, you need to do some serious thinking about what you are willing to carry on a daily basis.

Pepper spray and personal alarms should be on everyone’s list.  However, these will only be of use if you’ve identified an assailant before they’ve closed distance.

A cane is my new found go to carry item.  A cane is perfectly legal to carry anywhere, and can come in handy when dealing with a number if different types of assault.

If you are in the unfortunate situation of finding yourself dealing with a close quarters assault, then a knife would be a weapon you’d want to be able to access.

Smaller sized individuals and women may also want to look into carrying items capable of dealing a heavy blow.  Black jacks and saps come to mind.

Some of these may not be legal to carry in your jurisdiction, so you may also want to consider a way to improvise a weapon.  A padlock and a sock may be items to keep in your purse or backpack.

Just understand that if lock is already in the sock, it is effectively a weapon.  Therefore, you’ll need to train in getting it put together quickly, or perhaps wrapping the lock in a scarf or other cloth item.

These are just some items to consider.  But, again, if you don’t train in their use, they won’t be much good to you when you need them.

Final Thoughts – Mindset

As you can see, there is quite a bit that goes into developing the mindset necessary to dealing with a criminal assault.

In the world we live in now, the odds of becoming involved in such a situation are as high as I’ve seen them in my lifetime.

Now is the time to get started in learning how to better protect yourself and your loved ones, if you haven’t already.  The first step is to develop the appropriate mindset.

Thanks for reading!