Keeping Safe Onsite – Part Two

Building on some of the fundamentals discussed in my first post on July 12, now we are going to discuss following intuition, and more importantly why people do not listen to it – along with talking about ways to predict violence.

I think we all know what intuition is; it’s the feeling in the pit of our stomach, it’s the common sense that we have, it’s the automatic feeling we get about someone, something, or some place – as soon as we see it.  It is something that happens automatically thus making it the single greatest self-defense mechanism we have because we don’t have to try for this to happen.  The rub comes when we don’t listen to it, and there are many reasons we don’t listen to it.

One reason is because as a society we have generally deemed rude behavior as a socially undesirable trait.  Attackers know this so they will play off this social construct to their advantage.  I was told this story by a woman about how she and her husband were walking into a hospital from a parking garage with a stranger walking behind them.  They had to travel a series of air walks and eventually come upon an elevator bank. Throughout the series of air walks, this stranger stayed behind them walking at exactly the same pace, except for when they were getting close to the elevators to go up.  At that point he sped past them to open the elevator door and hold it open until the couple got inside.  At this point the woman’s intuition told her not to get in, so she meandered around hoping the stranger would give up and let the elevator door close.  As seconds turned into minutes and the stranger kept the door open, the woman’s husband whispered into her ear, “let’s get on the elevator, we don’t want to be rude.”  The husband wanted to get on the elevator out of fear of being rude, effectively giving into the social construct that says being rude is inappropriate and undesirable.  The stranger was – either intentionally or unintentionally – manipulating the couple with the social construct of being rude as an undesirable trait.  To bring conclusion to the story, they did not get on and eventually the stranger let the door close and he went up.

Who knows what would have happened if they got on, but it falls under the “why take the chance” category.  This type of scenario could happen just as easily on-site as it could in your personal life, so being aware and understanding this concept on-site and at home is vitally important.

This is one of a few reasons why people don’t listen to their intuition.  Knowing why people don’t listen to their intuition and understanding how attackers use this  to exploit and manipulate can help you act appropriately if you ever find yourself in a situation like this.

The time to make a high-stakes prediction about someone’s future actions is not when you are in the middle of an attack or self-defense situation.   The time to make that prediction is before the situation even occurs.  Life has taught lessons on human prediction, but understanding how it relates to self-defense will help us hone those skills.  Every single one of us can make predictions on human behavior and we do it every time we get behind the wheel – every day we predict if the car next to us will let us into their lane or the flow of traffic; If the car that is approaching the yellow light will stop or try and run it; or how a friend will handle the bad news we are about to give them.

We use environmental context clues from our surroundings to make these predictions. The same context clues are what we use when we are trying to predict potential and future violent behavior.  Does the individual or attendee approaching me look escalated or angry (i.e. red face, fidgety, furrowed brow, demonstrative body language, etc.) – keeping in mind it is sometimes irrelevant if the person is angry at us, escalated individuals will sometimes release their anger on innocent people just because, “they happened to be standing there”.  Does the attacker look panicky or do they have a calm demeanor as they are probing you for information or sticking you up for your wallet?  A panicky demeanor in someone usually makes them unpredictable and unpredictability makes people dangerous.

Is someone using words like, “Gimme all your money” – or are they saying “I have to get the money in your wallet or all is lost and my life is over” or “I have to get into this session for my CEU’s or my boss will fire me and that would devastate me”.  The difference?  The second and third scenarios portray someone who is more desperate and desperate people are also dangerous – so listen to the words they are using.  These are just a few examples of awareness of a person’s presentation and knowing what to look for to help you predict the likelihood of someone becoming violent or dangerous.

I have barely scratched the surface on this topic and there are many more ways in which to keep safe while traveling or on an everyday basis.  The conversations we could have on this are virtually limitless and I look forward to discussing this with everyone.  I hope that this short introduction to how violence occurs (plus a few simple avoidance tactics) helps you think about your own safety and things you can do to increase your chances of remaining safe while traveling.  Please let me know if you have any questions or if you have any stories you would like to share for the common good.  I look forward to hearing from you all!

Tim La Fleur