THREE MENTAL KEYS
TO WINNING A CONFRONTATION
By Ken Good
Article Source
Perception: Recognizing and prioritizing key indicators within your sphere.
Situational Awareness: The ability to collect, collate and store data in a fluid, dynamic and stressful environment, and to retrieve that data as needed to accurately predict future events in a compressed time frame.
Being In The Moment: Totally tuned to the present, disassociating yourself from any thoughts of mistake found in the past, free from any fears of the future. This state of mind is the fertile ground for powerful and unique solutions.
It really doesn't matter that you can consistently present your weapon from a position of carry and fire multiple well aimed shots from your wonder gun into the A-zone in 1.25 seconds. If you never perceive the attack, you won't respond. To paraphrase the great philosopher Forrest Gump, "Dead is as dead does."
At peak function, anything in the environment that can become a weapon is an extension of your will. Your opponent may have carried your weapon to the fight for you! I have frequently disarmed opponents who never saw me coming during force-on-force training. Why didn't they see me coming? A variety of reasons that all boil down to one of three failures: not perceiving a dynamic situation clearly, not having situational awareness or not being in the moment.
On the defensive side of the coin, a perceptive, listening mind frequently allows you to position yourself completely out of harm's way before many attacks can fully develop. Typically, attacks develop noticeably over time. Tuned awareness correctly positions you mentally and physically, effectively eliminating many speed advantages opponents are counting on.
If you must engage, do everything possible to make the opponent be concerned about what you are going to do, not the reverse. I call this "continuity of pressure."
Sphere Of Influence
Few sane human beings desire to be dominated by outside events, forces and unknowns. By choosing to arm yourself, you've obviously faced this reality and are determined to direct and control the environmental variables during a confrontation.
The extent to which you can adapt to and direct the course of a conflict within an ever-changing volume of space is what I term your "sphere of influence." Perceiving, understanding and influencing this space is critical if you wish to neutralize a wide variety of attacks. True tacticians are ever mindful of critical indicators, perceiving things that others cannot see.
How do you successfully manage all the dynamic factors contained in your space and ultimately expand your sphere of influence? Grab a more potent weapon, right?
Wrong. Over-reliance and over-emphasis on specific hardware or some predefined technique have spelled the end for many. Successful management begins and ends not with selection, but deep within the confines of the mind, the inner person.
Body Language In A Fight
Your body language is a conduit that transmits information to your opponent. Your posture and movements have a tremendous effect positively or negatively in terms of the final outcome.
Put pressure on your threat by adopting a relatively calm, positively determined posture that displays that you are efficiently adapting and that you plan to prevail, period. If your posture ends up collapsing toward a fetal position, it only invites further encroachment.
Now is the time to expand your sphere of influence; do not collapse it. You are not just surviving here. You are absolutely committed to dominate, and your resolve will be revealed in all your movements.
Further expand your sphere of influence by the confident manner in which you present your weapon. Under duress, a weapon should be deployed as effortlessly as you reach for your keys, with no conscious thought in terms of function and employment. This is not the time to review basic function and presentation procedures.
Your powerful subconscious mind must be free to operate as designed. It should not be cluttered with the static of the conscious mind.
How can you effectively meld your weapon and your mind into a seamless whole? Be committed to effective weapons training. Couple this with an ongoing effort to enhance your perception skills by constantly striving to evaluate the reality around you.
Several notable studies have shown that the "walking dead," those walking in a non-erect, scanning posture, are the preferred victims of society's predators.
Manufacturer, caliber, magazine capacity and accuracy should be subservient to the directed mind, not the other way around. If you don't constantly train, don't expect results. You see, the only free lunch is the one your friends enjoy after your funeral.
