Why Traditional Self-Defense is Misunderstood: The Key to Real Safety
No, self-defense is not what you think it is—at least not if you think like most people. How could it be about ninja moves that are too hard to learn and remember? How is that supposed to work for the average person? Or does self-defense only work for the fit and talented, those willing to train endlessly for a situation they hope to never experience? Does that make any sense to you?
No. Self-defense is about learning basic life skills that everyone should have, not because it’s so dangerous out there, but because you should know how to keep yourself safe. It’s just like learning how to communicate effectively, take care of your mental health, manage your finances, and look after your physical well-being. Unfortunately, these skills must be proactively sought because they aren’t taught in any school system I know of, and most parents struggle to pass them on effectively.
Self-defense is not hard—it’s just misunderstood. If you rely on fighting techniques to protect yourself from a “random attack,” then yes, it can be very difficult, because you would have to train endlessly to prepare for an endless number of potential attacks. And you’d have to keep training for the rest of your life just to stay “prepared.” Seriously?!
This is the conventional model of self-defense. And it makes no sense at all if you think about it for more than five minutes! Yet, somehow, this model has prevailed over decades. Admittedly, I didn’t think about it for more than five minutes myself, even though I taught self-defense for over 20 years. It took me about 10 years to realize that something was wrong with what I was teaching—meaning that what people needed wasn’t what I was giving them. Don’t get me wrong, the techniques I was teaching were good, and I’m sure that’s the case for many self-defense instructors. But what’s the use if people need to train endlessly to master them, only to forget them if they aren’t practiced repeatedly? How is that effective self-defense? It’s not!
What’s often missed when thinking about self-defense is the actual purpose of it. What is the real goal? People have just assumed that self-defense must be about fighting techniques because you’re trying to fend off an attack. Fair enough. I was in the same boat for a long time. However, when you think about it a bit more closely, you’ll realize that an attack is only the symptom of a larger problem. If you’re solving the problem with fighting techniques, you’re only addressing the symptoms, not the cause. But if you deal with the cause, you wouldn’t need to worry about the symptom because it wouldn’t appear, or at least it would be extremely unlikely.
Fighting techniques would be a solution if we were in a war zone, where everyone would be at risk at all times. But that’s just not the case for most of us. When you hear a statistic like “25% of people fall victim to violence,” that absolutely does not mean that’s your chance of becoming a victim! This is not a lottery. This is not random! Your chances depend on who you are! It depends on how you deal with people, your level of confidence, and your assertiveness. Since we are not in a war zone, you can almost completely remove yourself from the “potential victim” zone just by the way you interact with others.
Predators are looking for victims. But you can act in a way that ensures you’re never viewed as one by anyone. When you look at it this way, you never have to worry about “self-defense.” All you need to do is be yourself and express yourself! Really! Because when you do, predators will look elsewhere for victims, because that’s exactly what they want and need.
Does that make sense?