Threat – Menace; Indication or warning of probable trouble; Give an ominous indication of; impeding evil or mischief.
Challenge – A call or summon to engage; A call to battle; A call to fight; To summon to a contest of skill; To take exception to; Call in question; To halt and demand identification; To disqualify.
When threatened by something or someone that is a clear menace to one’s survival, humans have a natural instinct to Fight or Flight. If the situation prevents a person from de-fusing or running away from the danger, then the choiceless choice is to fight. But is there a way to perceive the danger before you are left with the choice to fight? Yes!
What does a gazelle do when they sniff, see, or hear a lion coming toward them? They run of course. When the gazelle senses danger is near it doesn’t hang around to see if it’s senses were correct. It doesn’t shew the feeling away as if it’s just being silly, and it doesn’t think that maybe that lion just wants a drink of water from the same watering hole!
We have been given this same warning system. We call it intuition, a “gut feeling,” or a “sixth sense.” Our natural warning system is there to let us know something is wrong, out of the ordinary, and/or danger is imminent. I would venture to say that almost every one of you would raise your hand when asked, “How many of you have ever felt that and ignored it?” In the Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker he states, “Intuition is always right in at least two important ways; It is always in response to something. It always has your best interest at heart”
What do you do when…
You’re running late for work and now you’re delayed even more while waiting for the elevator and when the door finally opens there is a man in there that gives you a creepy feeling?
You’re walking to the ATM and you notice a man step out from the side of the building and start to follow you from a distance.
You’re walking to your car and you notice someone standing near your car.
You’re on a jogging trail and something inside of you alerts you to a man sitting on the park bench up ahead. Maybe he keeps watching you, maybe he’s acting funny, maybe he’s just sitting there but you don’t have a good feeling.
Let me ask you this… What would it cost you to heed your warning system? What would it cost you to ignore it?
One of your strongest tools in self-defense is listening to your body’s natural protective mechanism. In a Be Your Own Bodyguard™ class we spend time talking about your body’s natural protective mechanisms and how to utilize them to equip you with the tools to protect yourself and/or those around you. Tools such as: Awareness, Instinct, Intuition and Intelligence. They are much like the radar defense system on a warship that alerts the crew to impending danger from other ships, submarines and warplanes when they are far off and allows the ship to move out of the danger zone before it can be attacked. The best defense is to avoid the danger completely.
In order for this defense system to be effective, it must be active which also means that it is imperative to always maintain situational awareness. We cannot have our heads down, be looking at our cellphones, be lost in thought or jamming out to music in our earbuds and hope to be aware of anything. This is all too often the case today. We discuss possible risky behaviors that put us at risk of attack so you don’t deactivate your natural defense system.
The human race of course is faced with threats and challenges all the time. However, in the case of threats to one’s physical well-being; we are living in an era where good, sound street-level self defense is now a necessary skill. It is also a skill that lends itself to many other areas of life. For more information about Kim Maloy and the Be Your Own Bodyguard class please go to www.triunedefense.net or email Kim at k.maloy@triunedefense.net