Physical skills are only part of the skills that you need for self defense. You must have cognitive skills too.  One of the most important cognitive skills you can cultivate for self defense is situational awareness. What is Situational Awareness? Simply put, situational awareness is knowing what is happening around you.  It is knowing your environment and what events are occurring nearby.  In terms of self defense, situational awareness includes knowing what is happening, and knowing what, if anything, you should do about it. To do this, you must derive meaning from the circumstances in which you find yourself. Situational awareness is your perception of the environment and nearby events together with your assessment of how your actions will affect your immediate and near f...

How to Spot an Attack Before it Comes With a little informed awareness, you can see the future   We need physical techniques to prevail over our attackers, but it may even be more important to have informed awareness skills to perceive a threat before an assault even begins. You need to understand how the offense works. You need to know the typical methods a violent criminal uses in preparing for an assault. You also need to be able to read the behavioral and physiological cues that manifest in any individual who is planning to attack you. Knowing these things will improve your situational awareness and allow you to make a plan of action before the attack comes.   The Criminal Approach   There is a process most criminals go through prior to assaulting their victims. If you r...

How to be Mentally Ready for a Violent Attack You can’t just hope you will be ready, you have to train your mind to be ready. One of the keys to successful performance of a self defense technique is repetition, but you can practice a technique a million times, and it will never work if you do not recognize when to apply it.  Your 10,000 hours hitting a target, sparring with a training partner, or pulling a trigger will fail to be enough.  You can have all the physical skills you need, but if you are not aware of your surroundings and mentally ready to act or react, they will not be accessible in time. If you hope to successfully respond to a threat, you must be aware of your surroundings. You need to know what is around you, who is around you and what they are doing.  This i...