This concept can make the biggest difference to your self-defence abilities right now. You don’t really need any training for it – you only need to understand and then make a decision to use it. Unfortunately, this concept is largely ignored by people who fall victim to attacks.

Let me tell you a story from my own life to illustrate what I mean. 

Although I grew up in Germany for the most part, I went to school in Sydney for 3 years from when I was 8 till 11. During that time my dad often worked nightshift. One night my brother and I both couldn’t sleep and we accompanied my dad to his work. It was about 2 am in the morning and we made our way on foot from Darlinghurst to his work in Surry Hills over the main road Oxford Street and some other backstreets. 

As we were walking down one particular backstreet, now close to my father’s work, a man walked towards us carrying a plastic bag. I remember him to be maybe 25 years old, medium height and pretty skinny. As soon as he passed us and was now behind us, my dad said to my brother Peter: “Turn around! See what he’s doing.” Peter did that and responded “He turned around again. He’s following us now.” 

Note that he was still at some distance, wasn’t running towards us or threatening us. He was just walking. Maybe he had forgotten something at home.

My dad immediately pulled out his little Swiss Army Knife, opened it up, turned around and held it up high in the air for the man to see. The man instantly turned back around and paced off.

What do you think about my father’s actions? What about my father holding up the knife? Nothing had really happened after all. 

However, the story is not quite finished. A few days later my brother and I got up in the morning to go to school and my dad, as always, was already up preparing our breakfast while listening to the radio. My father was quite worked up as there was breaking news on the radio. There had been 5 stabbings overnight in Kings Cross, Sydney’s red light district, not far from where we lived in Darlinghurst. The last stabbing resulted in a fatality. A description was given of the suspect and my father was convinced it was the man we encountered just a few days earlier. It did not take long for the man to be caught and my father was right, it was him indeed. 

What do you think of my father’s actions now? It’s quite possible that we prevented being assaulted or even killed. 

I’m not suggesting that you should pull out a knife in a similar situation. What I am suggesting, nevertheless, is that you take some kind of action. That action could be very different, it could be confronting the man in a different way, running away, screaming for help, ringing someone’s doorbell, going somewhere safe or otherwise – that all depends on the situation and who you are. But too many people take no action at all. Inaction is the worst thing you can do. That is really when things can escalate and ultimately get harder and harder to deal with. 

It is almost certain that the 5 people who were stabbed also had some kind of feeling that something was wrong before they were stabbed, it is usually the case. But they either took action too late or not at all. 

Think about how much easier it would be to deal with such a situation like my father did (or run away, scream for help etc) then to wait until the guy is standing right in front of you (or even worse, behind you) with a knife in his hand ready to stab you. But many people are too worried that their actions will insult someone, upset or even provoke them. Yet, inaction has never scared an aggressor away. And neither does action provoke someone to aggression who is not already aggressive. 

The most underrated tool to keep yourself safe is your intuition (hunches, gut feelings, suspicion, hesitation, fear etc.). It works. It’s inbuilt, reliable and automatic.

Use it.