Reading Situations as Self Defense

¶ … people attribute self-defense to using offensive tactics like physical fighting or using a weapon like a gun or a knife against attackers. However, there is much more to self-defense. A big part of self-defense is reading situations and understanding the proper moves so as to avoid problems before they begin rather than unwittingly creating a problem for one's self.

This brief essay will discuss examples of this in action and there will be an assessment of how one should generally act and how one should generally not act when it comes to certain situations. While avoiding problems and confrontations is not always possible, it is actually quite easy to mitigate or even avoid bad situations altogether so long as one pays attention and reacts accordingly.

Analysis The author of this report saw a viral web video within the last week that shows a man of decent stature (more on that in a minute) who was at the front counter of a convenience store. In walks another man with a pantyhose head piece so as to conceal his identity. He produces a weapon and shoves aside the man that is already at the counter. The man at the counter yields and backs up and away from the counter without a fight.

What the second man did not know is that the first man was an ex-Marine. Upon backing up, the second man turns his attention away from the first one and focuses on getting money from the man at the counter. The ex-Marine spends about a couple of seconds sizing up the robber and then springs into action. He wraps his arms around the robber from behind in a bear hug and then throws him to the ground. There are a couple of things to note about this.

The robber made a grave miscalculation by turning his attention away from the first man. Second, the Marine could have confronted the robber immediately but this could have endangered him. He rightly figured out that the man was a robber and since the robber was quite close to him and armed, he acquiesced and complied with the robber. Only after the robber disregards him does the Marine spring into action. The robber read the situation completely wrongly and the Marine did precisely the right thing.

This general premise and strategy can be applied to other situations when it comes to self-defense and self-safety. For example, there are many people that simply love to confront others that "challenge" them in certain ways. When it comes to some people, this could be as simple as eye contact at the wrong point or in a way that is "challenging." A good general self-defense tactic is to simply avoid stares that can come off as confronting and assertive.

This is due to the fact that in some cases, this can lead to someone egging one on for a fight or producing a weapon. At the same time, there always needs to be a "reading" of the situations that are at hand. For example, the Marine mentioned earlier in this report probably sniffed out something being wrong right away. However, he picked his spots and reacted at the right time. If he didn't have the confidence or training to actually intervene against the robber,.