Excerpt

Let’s first look at what happens during a confrontation between two people. There takes place what can be called the ‘Progression of Aggression’. You’ve all seen this, in places ranging from bars to minor traffic altercations. Two guys (it’s nearly always guys: women seem to have more sense!), both of whom are convinced they are in the right, begin to argue. First, there’s an exchange of words, which gradually grow more heated and obscene.

As the volume of words increases, one of the guys may push the other. This is returned by a somewhat harder shove. A punch is thrown, and if nobody intervenes, or if common sense does not prevail, the two will be rolling around on the ground, wrestling and punching.

Finally, either a victor emerges, or both sides, realizing they are making a mountain out of a molehill, and idiots of themselves, stop fighting. Grudging apologies are made and the two parties agree to disagree.

An armed encounter is totally different. There’s no ‘Progression of Aggression’ here. A man with a gun suddenly confronts you, and the gun is aimed at you. You have almost no time to react. What does the attacker want? Is the motive simple robbery, or rape in the case of a woman, or is he a crazy person who wants to kill somebody, and that somebody just happens to be you?

Although many crime victims have claimed that their attacker ‘appeared out of nowhere’, this is simply not the case: he was not beamed down from another galaxy, and the Invisible Man is a fictional character! What really happened was that the victim was totally unaware of what was going on around him. The bad guy wasn’t invisible; he was there all the time. The crime victim was walking along the street; engrossed in his or her own little world, and simply didn’t spot the gang-tattooed, unshaven hoodlum leaning against a wall picking his teeth with a Bowie knife.

Modern society seems to becoming more and more withdrawn. People tend to avoid eye contact with others, in case this is construed as being ‘threatening’. Cell phones are notorious for making people totally unaware of what’s going on around them. You’ve seen it yourself; drivers traveling down the road, steering with one hand while they hold a cell phone with the other, totally engrossed in a conversation, and totally unaware of what’s happening on the road.

Most armed attacks that you may face today will have several features in common: They will be unexpected. They will be very brief, and they’ll take place at very close range.

• Attacks will be sudden and violent, because most people don’t pay too much attention to their immediate surroundings, even though their attacker may have been visible for some time before the attack.
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• Attacks will be very brief, because the usual object of an attack is robbery, and the attacker is anxious to grab your money and valuables and run.
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• Attacks will take place at very close range for the simple reason that it’s very difficult to commit a street robbery using a sniper rifle and a loudhailer from 200 yards away! The attacker has to be very close to you in order to get your money.
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An example of how suddenly attacks can happen occurred in London, a number of years ago. It was Christmas in the City of London, the financial center, and a friend of mine was having a drink in a very crowded bar. He was busy trying to attract the barman’s attention, when someone (we never did find out who) had for some reason, decided to smash a pint glass in his face. No one could give a description of the attacker, and he was never caught. My friend was taken to the emergency room, where his face received some forty-odd stitches. For months afterwards, his face resembled a badly-stitched football, and he still carries the scars of the attack.

Attacks may also be made for other reasons, such as revenge, a desire to commit murder, or to commit a sexual assault. In some cases, what may start out as a simple street robbery can turn into a serious assault. This is because the excitement and feeling of power over his victim can arouse the attacker into either a murderous rage or a sex attack.

In reality, it has to be pointed out that a defense against this type of sudden attack is not going to prove successful unless you are very lucky, or if you have committed yourself to some serious training in self-defense.

The late Jeff Cooper, a retired USMC lieutenant colonel, formulated a simple system based on color codes that we use today. There are four levels of consciousness (mental awareness), which are given below, together with their corresponding color codes, White, Yellow, Orange, and Red. You should be in Condition Yellow at all times - read the book to learn more!

You should practice being in Condition Yellow; a state of heightened awareness. This is not some obscure yoga technique: it’s simply the art of knowing what is going on around you at all times.