Awareness: A Partially Understood Tenet of Personal Security

Today it is hard to go to a self defence seminar without hearing about the importance of being aware. Yet when we actually get to the topic of being aware it is often either delivered as part of a five minute disclaimer that also contains details on the legalities of self defence and the importance of not going around picking fights.

Some instructors who do choose to go into detail seem to mistake paranoia for awareness. They promote an unhealthy (not to mention unrealistic) attitude of constantly being on red alert. Such teachers, of either ilk, end up producing students who have little deep appreciation of the soft skills that should be the foundation of realistic training. Awareness is the second of Clubb Chimera Martial Arts' five tenets. This is defined as being switched onto the here and now. The way a student conducts his or herself in the gym as they should do in life is with an alert attentiveness, a desire not to waste time but to live every second of their life. In immediate self defence terms there are some excellent sources for the study of awareness, especially when we come directly to the subject of the pre-fight. A student's whole training path for self defence can be seen as a line that goes through three stages. The stages are pre-fight, in-fight and post-fight. At the pre-fight stage topics might include behavioural science, psychology, criminology and pre-incident indicator studies. The pre-incident indicators, sometimes known as PINs, can be divided into two categories: deception and aggression. Deception PINs are best described by the threat management expert Gavin De Becker. His book, "The Gift of Fear," is an excellent manual on the soft skills of self defence instruction. I quote him a lot in my courses, seminars, handouts and in my book for children's self defence, so I have no desire to repeat it all here.

Suffice to say that De Becker's PINs are the signals a potential attacker inadvertently gives out. It is a lesson in identifying manipulation and those of you who have been involved in sales or on the uncomfortable end of a persistent salesperson will recognise several of the tactics such as refusing to acknowledge the word "No". Aggressive precursors to a violent confrontation are addressed thoroughly through the works of Geoff Thompson. Thompson's book "Dead or Alive" probably gives the most comprehensive account of the behaviours shown by an aggressive attacker.

They include various examples of the effects of adrenaline on the body and link in with Thompson's specialist knowledge on the connection between verbalisation and physical assault - for example the use of monosyllabic words as precursors to an attack. This is when an attacker breaks his conversation down to short words such as "Yeah!" "And!" and "C'mon then!" often punctuated with swear words. This occurs because the brain of the attacker is no longer operating on a conversational level but is preparing for violence. Peter Consterdine's "Streetwise" and "Travel Safe" give some of the most in-depth security information a civilian needs to know coupled with the same type of no-nonsense functional approach to close quarter combat covered by Geoff Thompson. Environmental awareness is crucial if we are really to be switched onto the here and now. This means being aware of what type of neighbourhood, town, city or country you might be entering. On a more general note, perhaps the most commonly cited awareness method is the Jeff Cooper Colour Code. This code, created by American pistol defence expert, Jeff Cooper, designates different levels of awareness. Code white is the unaware state, code yellow is aware but relaxed, code orange is awareness of a possible threat and code red is awareness of a threat. If we are in code white then the chances are we will go straight to code red when a crisis occurs. An alert person should live most of their life in code yellow. If what De Becker says about our intuition is correct, we can be in code yellow even when we sleep. The OODA loop, an acronym for Observe, Orient, Decide and Act, handles the whole transition from codes yellow to red. Mo Teague reduced the loop, created by fighter pilot Col. John Boyd, to Recognise, Read and Respond (or "The Three R's"). You need to be switched on, in code yellow, in order to recognise the potential threat in the first instance. In code orange you read and decide whether it is a threat in order to respond appropriately. If it is a threat then obviously we need to go to code red. As I previously mentioned, it is important to remain switched on at all times. When you at the in-fight stage it can be very hard to remain in a heightened state of awareness. Your body will be immersed in trying to handle an immediate and confirmed physical threat. You will be completely focused on a very small number of objectives and will be relying tremendously on your conditioned muscle memory to deliver the right physical responses.

Adrenaline can give you tunnel vision, which is fine if you are dealing with one simple specific demand, however, a physical crisis can often be complex and can involve more than one person. Multiple attacker pressure drills are great for revealing a person's sense of in-fight awareness. This can really be tested when you have more than one person defending, such as a bodyguard-type scenario. Returning to the OODA Loop and the Three R's, post-fight awareness teaches us to follow the cycle back to the non-physical side of things. Once you are out of a physical situation you need to return to being in code orange, checking for further threats thoroughly before reverting back to a comfortable code yellow. Again, this can be difficult as you still be feeling the effects of adrenaline. I

n his book "On Combat" Lt. Dave Grossman remarked on how soldiers often slept better than policemen. This was because the average soldier was exposed to physical situations for longer periods of time, be it through training or actual action, and had little surplus adrenaline at the end of a day. Yet police had comparatively less physically demanding days, even on days when they did face extremely violent and stressful situations. The result is the body had a huge build up of adrenaline not fully put to a functional use. Therefore police officers often suffered more stress and more sleepless nights.

There are ways to channel the surplus adrenaline and physical activity is perhaps one of the best. However, when you are suffering from it straight after a situation it is more a case of acknowledging it and breathing steadily. You must remain consciously in control, which is a topic best addressed in detail in my article on the fourth CCMA tenet, "Discipline". In addition to adrenaline we also have the soothing effects of endorphins, sometimes thought of as the body's "natural drug". Endorphins are released during times of excitement and have a calming effect. Many people experience an "endorphin rush" when we feel a crisis is over or a threat has passed. Often the de-stressing effects of the endorphins lead to the person involved to drop their guard.

Interestingly Geoff Thompson's "Adrenaline Map" and his most famous book "Watch My Back" refer to something called "The Double Tap." He is addressing the dangers that can occur during the aftermath of a physical confrontation. Thompson quotes the old samurai adage "When the battle is over, tighten your helmet straps" to illustrate this point along with examples both he and his contemporaries experienced when they went from one problem almost immediately into an unanticipated secondary one. Criminal history has a particularly significant example. When Dusseldorf was being terrorized by the "vampire" serial murderer, Peter Kurten, a visitor to the city, Maria Budlick, was accosted by a stranger. However, before things could really get out of hand another man stepped into the fray and prompted the stranger to flee. Budlick was relieved and gratefully accepted her rescuer's offer to take her back to his house for a drink and a meal to get over her ordeal.

The man introduced himself as Peter Kurten. His offer had not been very different than the original man, but Budlick's guard was now down and she automatically trusted this new stranger. Luckily Budlick survived the ordeal, a very rare example of Kurten allowing a victim to live, and it was her experience that resulted in the killer's eventual arrest and execution. Awareness of your body's reactions to adrenaline and endorphins, knowledge of human behaviour and an understanding of the right state of awareness to live in all lead us to self-awareness. This is the most neglected aspect of awareness.

The paranoid self defence instructor, the egocentric macho black belt and the wannabe guru are typical examples of martial artists without a sense of self-awareness. Paranoia is about listening to your negative imagination as opposed to your instincts. An overconfident demeanour, as discussed in my "Respect" article, can actually create situations that would never have materialized with a more relaxed but alert attitude.

As for the guru, well he's as safe as the thin protective film of his proverbial bubble will allow. All three examples are similar in that they are not living objectively in the here and now, but are victims of their own fears or fantasies. They are not only visibly vulnerable, but can also be a danger to others. Paranoia spreads like panic and influences others to act irrationally causing danger both to the paranoid and to innocent victims they perceive as threats. Machismo can easily translate into bullying, as the desperate alpha male feels a need to assert his dominance. The guru, as can be seen in numerous examples of cults, is heavily into manipulation and creating dependency in students that should be learning how to empower themselves. In conclusion, being aware is the practice of living in the present. It promotes an objective state of mind but also internal sensitivity.

Review of "Risk"

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