I wrote about a few good books a while ago that focused on self-defense and reaction. Rory Miller, in his book Meditations on Violence, had a good suggestion that I’d like to present to our community. We train physically in self-defense and fighting and aggression, but what about our mental training? One key element in the mental preparation is knowing when. At what point to you decide to engage physically? At what point do you decide that the “Hey man, calm down” isn’t working, or giving someone your keys and wallet isn’t enough?
One thing to do now, when you are in a safe place and can think about it, is to make a list of what scenarios might happen in which you will fight or intervene. Now, I’m not talking about the mugger who just wants your cell phone and wallet and will walk away when he gets those. In those situations, hand over what they want and hope they walk away. But what happens if they don’t just walk away?
Here is my list:
- When I feel my life is being threatened (yes, this is broad and can be very individual and interpreted in several ways)
- When a mugger wants to move me to a different place
- When a loved one is being threatened
- When I see a child is being threatened
Please feel free to add yours in the comments.
that list seems perfect to me. would it not be self-deffense to be rational and reasonable and even have some universal righteousness on your side? i thought about all the things that would raise my hackles–’cause they exist! and they raise involuntarily and usher in the fight or flight mechanism and it’s awesome and super animalistic…i was mightily impressed, which is probably silly– and they’re all on your list. but what do you do if you’re just stuck following your judgement? what if you don’t particularly trust your own judgement?