A State of Mind

Self-Defense…A State of Mind

The police can’t do it, the government can’t do it, your neighbor or your spouse can’t. The key word in self-defense is SELF. Only you can protect yourself. I’m not talking about the physical techniques that allow you to get away from or fight back against an assailant. I’m referring to how you feel, think, and react mentally to threats against your safety.

Even though the Police’s motto is “To Protect and Serve”, they can’t really. A full time bodyguard “might”, if they went everywhere with you 100% of the time. As a part time police officer, there has been only one time in 4 years of police work that we were in the right place at the right time to stop an assault and even then the assailant had already hurt the victim. Most of the time all the police can do is take a report and go look for the perpetrator “after the fact”.

Knowing what to do after you get into a dangerous situation is great as long as you are built like “The Rock”, or have had years of martial arts training. But having a mind set that will help keep you out of these situations is even better.

You must understand that you and you alone are ultimately responsible for your safety. That means learning how to stay out of situations, learning what to do if you should ever get into one but most of all be willing to do whatever is necessary to protect yourself.

In many of my self defense classes, I had people say “Oh, I could never do that to someone” or “that’s too much trouble to do all of that”. These are the ones who had better hope that the police are going by their house just as an assailant is breaking in.