Self Protection

In Mushin Karate, the school of thought is that Self Protection is broken down into two main areas:

Personal Security (90%)

Self Defence (10%)

Personal Security is 90% of what self protection is all about, this is knowing which areas are dangerous, who looks as though they are the people who are considered a danger. In effect Personal Security is all about AWARENESS. What we mean by awareness is awareness of your environment, situations, individuals etc. As an example, you would be very foolish to walk down an alleyway in the middle of the night in an area that you are not familiar with as (1) you do not know the area (2) you do not know what is down there, there might be a gang of people/muggers etc. So awareness is a key aspect of your own Personal Security.

Self Defence is a relatively small part of Self Protection, these are the skills that you will need in order to effectively defend yourself when all other avenues have been exhausted. These should be easy and effective to complete as the stress load that would be placed on the individual in combat would be severe if unprepared for.

The process of Personal Security starts with a definition and even though this relates to the Close Protection world, it is relevant to every walk of life:-

"The object of personal security is to reduce the risk of kidnap, assassination or criminal act by the application of certain principles and procedures to normal daily life".

Let us distinguish first between Principles and Procedures. The first, Principles , are, if you like, the overriding, guiding rules and we can reduce these to just three:-

1. That the individual is responsible for his or her own security - in other words we cannot look to others to be ultimately responsible for our own personal safety.
2. That security measures must be commensurate with the threat - simply this implies that too much in the way of security procedures will be as ineffective as too little security, as it will be unsustainable in the long term.
3. That Constant Awareness is the cornerstone of good personal security.

Procedures , on the other hand are the structured, routine do's and don'ts we should apply to normal daily life, such as vehicle security drills or the vast range of procedures for office security.

Threat Pyramid

Isosceles Triangle:

Threat Avoidance

Threat Evaluation

Threat Assessment

Avoidance of threat may mean tackling it head on i.e. fight or flight or, better still, don't be there in the first place - flight. To be able to achieve a successful conclusion to either means that prior to action we must have gone through a period of cognition (thought process) in assessing the situation and concluding it is threatening. This means a process has taken place during which we have assessed or evaluated something we have taken in and that something is information. Threat Avoidance can then be achieved if we have assessed and evaluated that there may be danger and if possible we then have the choice of fleeing. This leads us onto the FIGHT or FLIGHT process.

FIGHT or FLIGHT

In 1932 a psychologist named Cannon introduced the world to two now familiar terms when used in an emergency context, FIGHT or FLIGHT. Cannon was, in fact, researching the body's response to stress, shock and high emotion - all conditions we may experience in combat. He was interested particularly in the role and processes of what we call 'emergency hormones'. At very stressful times the body's endocrine system and parasympathetic nervous system take over and we are put on an 'auto-pilot' system by our body's reaction and often over-reaction to events.

Someone said "shock is the fastest route to fear". What we need to understand is that when we are in a frightening and shocking, high stress environment, we often place blame on our inability to act promptly or correctly on fear and associated emotions. This is wrong, fear is simply the stressor, the button pushed, which instigates the body's chemical and neurological reactions. There's also a third option to consider and that's FREEZE. If we are taken by surprise then our ability to function properly can be removed, take for example someone a friend catching you by surprise whilst out walking. If they grab you, chances are is that you ll freeze for a split second and its this split second that can cause all the damage. Therefore, being taken by surprise and the time you took to adjust to the shock of the attack and realised what was happening, it was too late. So few people understand the nature of the problem, preferring to labour on solutions based on physical skills which, consistently, fail to work and do not stand the test of the attack. It is not that the skills being taught are inappropriate or ineffective, it is simply that the attack is over before the victim gets to use his skills.

Colour Codes

The colour code works up from Condition White, which is switched off, to Yellow which we can link with awareness e.g. walking in an unknown area at night, Orange which corresponds to the assessment level e.g. staring in a nightclub, gestures at your person, fist clenching, verbal threats etc and Condition Red which is the trigger which moves us to action (Fight or Flight) at the avoidance level e.g. fight kicks off or an opportunity to flee.