Victim selection

Hi Nick. Do you teach much stuff about how to avoid getting into a scrap in the first place? Do you have a simple "model" that explains the underlying principles behind what you teach? (If you do teach it)

Thanks in advance

Ric.

p.s I really wanted to ask Steve Morris this, but I dont have a clip.

By the way the comment about the clip was a joke! And not in any way barbed towards anyone. And I am genuinely interested in what your response to my question will be..

For years I always taught what to do once the fight was on.

Later, after going through a bunch of executive protection/body guard courses I began to wonder why we in the martial arts world didn't devote as much time to keeping out of trouble in the first place, like the EP guys did.

The mantra in that world is avoid trouble at all costs and, if you ever need to shoot your way out of something, strictly speaking you fooked up.

I began to look around for anyone teaching that but there was a dearth of it to be honest. It's only recently that the guys in the RBSD world have devoted any sort of study to it and I've been incorporating that with what I learned in the field of close protection into what I teach now.

It's been answered before but most conflicts can be broken down into the same few steps. The acronym we use for it is SIVA.

S stands for Selection: You've been singled out because of the way you dress, your accent, the fact you're the bouncer, his girl said you were hot, wrong place, wrong time or, as is often the case with sexual predators, you are what he's looking for i.e. blond with blue eyes between 20 and 25.

I stands for ISOLATION: Doesn't always happen but this is what we talk about with never leave crime scene A for crime scene B. A sexual predator who's gone to the mall to choose someone that fits his profile will follow her out to the parking lot away from the safety of numbers. In an assault the crew doing the job may shoot out street lights, pick an area where there are no cameras etc.

V is for VERBAL: This is oft times called "the interview" and again, is hugely prevalent in the case of rapists going after victims to ascertain whether or not they're going to be submissive.

A is for the ATTACK: This bit is where all the fighting be it karate, judo, boxing, or whatever is done.

(Some people talk about INTENT being part of it but, while I can control whether or not I'm likely to be selected, be careful when I'm leaving the safety of numbers, scripts for dealing with the verbal portion of the program and techniques for the fight itself, I'm buggered if I've ever been able to come up with a way to control the bad guys wanting to rape someone.)

As you can see by the above 75% of the realm of self protection is about avoidance and dealing with the shite before it ever gets to the fighting stage which is where body guards focus there attention.

We lower the clients profile, we vary his routes, we change cars, we use decoys, we harden the target etc to avoid being chosen. We're extra careful when the client leaves the house or work because we know 80% of attacks are against the client in his vehicle and so on. We do threat analysis to determine who the bad guys are and what is their modus operandi et al.

What I call "self protection" as opposed to self defense is the incorporation of all of those methods used by CP teams into our training, and, while I always believe you need to know how to fight, there's a very strong argument for "if you do the SIV part well you'll probably never need to worry about the A" The Greyson/Stein study touched on a lot of this as well.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell...hope the answer helped.

Nick

PS: Am putting the final touches on the re-write of my book which deals with this stuff at length. I'll let you know when it gets to print.

Hi Nick,

Thanks for that - all good stuff. I just re-read my question and realised I worded it really badly. In particular I was interested in whether you have a model for dealing with the Verbal - the interview, or whatever you want to call it.

I remember reading some Peyton Quinn stuff which I really liked on this. He said if I remember correctly
-Be firm (Have boundaries)
BUT
-Dont insult, challenge or threaten.

Do you have anything similar?

There's tons of it Ric. Here's the problem though, it's not a one size fits all. Sometimes you have to be firm and establish boundaries without insulting etc. Other times it requires you to scream like a banshee and insult the fook out of them. It's often times a judgement call that requires experience as to know who to go off on and who to be just firm with. Other times it doesn't work at all, no matter what you say, you're going to end up fighting them.

Look at hostage negotiators for instance. One guy here in Charlotte has a great track record but in instance he was dealing with a basket case and just told the hard boys to get on with it. (funny story for another time)

Richard Dimitri has some good stuff on it, as does Southnarc. Verbal Judo (the book) has another take on it and Quinn has some as you've already seen.

The only advice I could really offer is don't blindly follow one doctrine.

Nick

Yes thanks Nick. I think the hostage example is a very good illustration of your point.

I also think you are right that a lot of it relies on experience causing you to make the right call - One problem with some instructors approach I think is that they dont make that point. They will try and teach "I do this, you do it too", whereas there is only one thing that builds experience. Experience!

Ric,

I nearly agree with you It's true that experience builds experience, no question. But, you can benefit from someone else's experience non?

As long as, and you made the point, he doesn't try and tell you it's the only way that works.

If we didn't learn from others who've gone before us we'd be going back to zero over and over and never progressing.

I've said it over on Geoff's before...I stand firmly on the shoulders of giants and benefited in a million ways from their experience.

You take theirs, mix it in with your own findings (which may vary a tad in something physical due to different morphologies etc) and away you go.

Nick

I absolutely agree that you can benefit immensely from someone elses experience.

Of course, there needs to also be training. You could teach 2000 hours of lectures on say, "how to get out of a headlock", but it can never match training where actually getting out of headlocks is built in. (Which would happen hand in hand with the experience of the instructor being dispensed).

I think it is possible also to practice verbal skills in much the same way.

However the thing that I think requires the real experience to get good at it is making the judgement call of WHICH method to use with a given person. In training they will have been training against someone who is effectively acting and thereore may have predetermined their responses in a way that makes the training unrealistic. (I realise that some "agressors" will do this also in real life - but by no means all). If the training partner themselves does not have the relevant experience from somewhere, and they are likely to be very different emotionally from a "street baddie" (as they are disciplined enough to train!) the acting will be bad.

Do you think Im right?

Yep,

Hock and I have talked about this at length...getting good actors is so damned hard...good ones are worth their weight in gold.

I think that was one of the strengths of Zen Do Kai was almost all the guys were bouncers, and many had done time for assault and juvenile stuff...a lot of them were scarier than the guys you ran into on the door.

Nick

I'm curious Nick roughly how many times over the years that people have attacked or tried to attack you, and perhaps how thay've gone about it??

If I was a d/head looking for a fight, all things being equal, I'd look for someone about a foot shorter and 30kgs lighter than you. Perhaps it depends on your motivation. A bloke might be out to show his mates how big a scalp he can conquer??

Something that really worries me is the number of young girls jogging/walking along in their tight, skimpy sweat gear while they're in thier own world listening to the MP3 player! The danger of just being bowled over by a car that they are unaware of is bad enough, but a d/head attacker has got it made! Hope that's something that you stress to females in your training.

What the...

Actually it's more common than you might think for several reasons...

1. In my capacity as the authority figure i.e. cop, MP, bouncer etc they're going at what the uniform represents and not the individual.

2. A lot of time there's alcohol involved which means reason and sanity has gone out the window. (why he hear the term "Beer Muscles" so much)

3. A lot of fights begin over perceived trangressions while driving and, sitting in my car, you have no idea how big I am.

Once in Oz I was out with a mate called Dennis who is about 1 1/2 inches taller than me and about 2 stone heavier. His Mad Max Ford was in for repairs so we went to class in his wife's Mini Cooper S. Fights on the road side used to be dead common in Oz...not sure how it is now, and sure enough, some dickhead cut us off and motioned for us to pull over. You should have seen the look on his face when both of us stepped out of the mini...priceless.

4. Yes, sometimes you're picked because you are the biggest...though why anyone would do that is beyond me...I'm like you, I'd rather fight wimps. As Hock says "May all your enemies be untrained drunken midgets" or words to that effect.

Nick

I can imagine that the majority of people would shit a brick at the thought of fighting you Nick.

I honestly believe that people in general are cowards, and 99% of the population will only do what they think they are sure they can get away with.

I can't see any sober dickhead looking at you and thinking, "Sorted! I'll 'ave some of that."

It's one reason why smaller guys like my often are accused of having a chip on the shoulder. It's true arsehats come in all shapes and sizes, but if you are smaller I DO think that people generally will take, or try to take, more liberties. So a smaller guy who is aggressive or defensive can be understandable.

I'm not condoning people of any size who go out and cause trouble.

I think that being selected as a victim also has a great deal to do with how you present yourself. If you are confident you have less chance of attracting trouble. Also, just not placing yourself in harms way due to ego.

Nick,do you think that even you avoid the mayority of situations because of your size you also have to deal with the more dangerous ones?
I have a friend who is 6 foot 6 and he has only the biggest guys trying their luck weapons and multiples because they know that's the only way they can get him.

Nick said:
“Fights on the roadside used to be dead common in Oz…not sure how it is now?”

In answer Nick:
Road rage is alive and well over here, sadly! But you wouldn’t get out of your car these days unless you packed a wheel-brace, baseball bat, knife or all of the above. The days of a ‘fair’ stoush out the back of the pub, followed by a beer and a laugh, are ancient history. It seems that as the world gets smaller, the global village and all that, we inherit the best and the worst from all other parts. The number of stabbings outside Oz nightclubs and in the streets increases daily. I don’t want to play the racial card here, so I’ll leave it at that.

oh come on man! Just say it!!!

Leprechuans.

The pissant little fookers come over from the Emerald Isle, all pissed up obviously, and start kicking off just like they did back in the Old Country.

Can I get a 'Hell Yeah!???"

BN,

I don't know mate...it's not that I've often I see them sober...usually they're full of suds and are, as a result, convinced they're invincible.

Other times, in the road rage shite, they'll usually have mates or are tooled up so they figure it's fair.

Spaniard, no le se amigo. Creo que non. Though I'm sure on the rare occasions they've come back for a 2nd go they've usually been better prepared. I try and treat every fight, no matter how seemingly easy, as dangerous.

I read an article a long time ago, and Hock has another on his site recently, about the dangers of the ten year mark. It seems there's a disproportionate amount of old pros killed once they hit that level because they now think they know it all and take things for granted.

In a test done on nurses being put through their paces, the brand new ones had their "patient" (a robot) die on them because they got flustered, and the veterans with over ten years experience lost their patients as well because they'd leave out simple steps figuring it was beneath them.

I've always remembered that study and try not to get to complacent. What did they tell me when I got my pilot's licence? "there are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots."

What The...I figured it would end up that way...it was going in that direction right before I left. What a shame. It's why I took Inosanto's point to home, when he said "Eighty percent of the world's population fights with knives as a part of their culture."

Nick

PS: Hell Yeah.

Exactly,

Most dickheads need the following to fight you:

1)Beer/drugs for "courage"

2)Mates backing them up

3)Weapons

4)Ignorance as to what they are dealing with ie: only seeing your head in a car.

5) All of the above, or a heady mix of some.

I am sure that none of the arsehats I have ever met in my life would have the gonads to fight you one on one straight with no substances in their system.

I am obviously not "dissing" you Nick for being big. Obviously you still need to be an excellent fighter, and to have bottle. So I am not saying "oh it's easy for you, you are a big guy."

I am stressing that most yobs are cowards who merely fancy themselves "hardmen." A really tough person wouldn't pick his mark is my point.

Just a thought about victim selection. If someone has approached you and started getting verbally aggressive.I don't think shouting and screaming and the whole "madman" approach is that useful.

If you're not careful you can just come across as hysterical . I think it also depends on what you look like. A big galoot won't be intimidated by an eight stone weakling shouting and screaming at him. Not if he is really a predator (I mean a human predator,not one of those creatures in the movies).

I think cool, clam, and collected is more intimidating in general. Also, if you don't show anything, you are far harder to read (obviously). I think it's one way of maintaining the upper hand.

I don't believe that dyed in the wool yobs are easily put off by shouting and swearing anyway. For a civilised person it is shocking, unpleasant, or frightening. But for people like this, it is often how they have been socialised to communiate with the world. So lacing your speech with lots of "fucks" is just everyday conversation to them. They won't blanch and think oh no I just picked the wrong target.

It could happen, but I reckon that it's rare that a nice civilised person can "out rough" a rough person.

I think cool and unruffled is the best way to go if possible.