Martial artists often speak of having a defensive mindset; that your brain is your best defensive tool for keeping you out of trouble.
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Being aware of your surroundings helps you identify dangers and possibly avoiding those dangers. Similarly, being distracted, and unprepared is far more likely to attract predators. Awareness of what is around you is where your self-defense begins. This awareness of potential danger is something you must train and cultivate.
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The self-defense mindset at its core, is the fundamental belief that you are worth defending. It is a mindset that gives you the conviction to push back when someone is overly aggressive.
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Mindset, likely the most important element of self-defense, with appropriate mental conditioning, allows competence, rather than just chance, to increase the probability of survival.
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A defensive mindset should be always maintained. In practice, we should be mindful of threats in our environment during every waking moment. However, there are very few people who remain this vigilant.
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Your intuition is amazingly accurate. Your gut feeling simply represents a different level of your brain monitoring and evaluating your surroundings. When something seems wrong, your brain tries to get your attention. Unfortunately, too often, those “feelings” are ignored.
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If the ideal scenario is avoiding a problem, then good situational awareness is your first line of defense.
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Awareness is hugely important in self-protection. It should be our first thought. Awareness is the capability to observe your surroundings and clearly identify potential threats. Maintaining a healthy level of vigilance means being grounded without being paranoid by a sense of constant fear. It means being capable of identifying threats, and then taking steps to avoid them, or if necessary, confront them.
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If you cannot avoid the situation, then distance is key. Those who are familiar with the martial arts know that distance management is key to winning fights. It’s also key to self-defense. Managing the distance of your attacker means keeping them either more than arm-lengths away, or so close that they cannot effectively build momentum to effectively strike.
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And part of creating this distance is using verbal assertiveness. It is also a necessary component of the self-defense mindset because it allows you to demand that space and to create that distance.
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When you have no choice but to confront an assailant, then preemptive tactics are things that you can use when you recognize a legitimate threat and know that an attack is imminent. Incapacitating an assailant before they attack you, or at least put them on the defensive, giving you time to better prepare yourself for escape.
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Having the correct mindset is a state of preparedness and awareness that will help you identify threats and respond to them. Self-defense is not just a set of physical skills you may or may not need; it is a philosophy for confident and prepared people. 👊🥋
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