Defend Yourself 101

The Gift of Fear: summing up the strategies used by criminals and con men…

Con men use social skills to get close to and manipulate their victims.  They are better at doing this than most people are at seeing through them.
Gavin de Becker wrote an amazing book called: "The Gift Of Fear." In it he identifies 6 strategies that criminals use which can be identified and used to boomerang back on them, whether they are after you wallet or your life.
 
Reading this is no substitute to reading the book. I wrote this to encourage folks to get it and read it diligently.
 
1.   Forced Teaming - the false “WE” partnership. De Becker gives many examples of what this looks like but it boils down to phrases and attitude that imply that two strangers (one of which is you) have a lot in common and are sharing a moment, getting closer and trusting each other as it were.
 
Defence - Don’t buy in; make it clear you are not partners and never will be. Who invited him into your life anyway? Raise your voice, be firm, be rude if you want.
 
2.  Charm and Niceness - Charm is what someone does, not what they are. Sincere charm is one social skill that all con men and a lot of street criminals share, but it is fake. They do not mean it and it is very hard to resist. 
 
Defence - If someone is being nice out of the blue, ask, “Why is he being so nice?” Explicitly rebuff his approach with no ambiguous terms.  “Go away! Leave me alone!” You may even be rude. If he really is nice, he will listen.
 

Con men use social skills to get close to and manipulate their victims.  They are better at doing this than most people are at seeing through them. Gavin de Becker wrote an amazing book called: "The Gift Of Fear."

In it he identifies 6 strategies that criminals use which can be identified and used to boomerang back on them, whether they are after you wallet or your life.

Reading this is no substitute to reading the book. I wrote this to encourage folks to get it and read it diligently.

1.   Forced Teaming - the false “WE” partnership. De Becker gives many examples of what this looks like but it boils down to phrases and attitude that imply that two strangers (one of which is you) have a lot in common and are sharing a moment, getting closer and trusting each other as it were.

Defence - Don’t buy in; make it clear you are not partners and never will be. Who invited him into your life anyway? Raise your voice, be firm, be rude if you want.

2.  Charm and Niceness - Charm is what someone does, not what they are. Sincere charm is one social skill that all con men and a lot of street criminals share, but it is fake. They do not mean it and it is very hard to resist. 

Defence - If someone is being nice out of the blue, ask, “Why is he being so nice?” Explicitly rebuff his approach with no ambiguous terms.  “Go away! Leave me alone!” You may even be rude. If he really is nice, he will listen.

ShawTV came out and shot 1.5 hours of video and cut it down to this.

I’ll let it speak for itself though some parts I like and some I don’t.

I wish I could have been involved in the editing…  :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttji_047nPg

Naked senior foils B.C. home invasion
Canwest News Service
Published: Tuesday, August 12, 2008

http://tinyurl.com/5flh8k

PORT ALBERNI, B.C. :

A Port Alberni, B.C., senior aborted a home invasion on Sunday by wrestling a 12-gauge shotgun away from a female suspect and fending off her male accomplice, police say.

A friend, Dianna Gordon of No Nonsense Self Defense, culled this article from the New York Times.

I don’t know how long the link will be active but hey, so far so good.

New York Times
http://tinyurl.com/449qnq

Personal Health

Fit, Not Frail: Exercise as a Tonic for Aging
by Jane E. Brody, published: June 24, 2008

Fact: Every hour of every day, 330 Americans turn
60.

Fact: By 2030, one in five Americans will be older
than 65.

Fact: The number of people over 100 doubles every
decade.

Fact: As they age, people lose muscle mass and
strength, flexibility and bone.

Fact: The resulting frailty leads to a loss of
mobility and independence.

"I know how they were feeling," he said. "It’s like you wish you could have done more."


Six Minutes of horror as Turlock father beats, kills his son; by Julia Prodis Sulek and Ken McLaughlin Mercury News

Why are we being treated as irresponsible children who can’t be trusted not to burn the house down if the parents leave for a minute?

I just found the CanadaCarry Forum.

I liked this commentary.

It speaks for itself.

See also:

More Misconceptions about Canadian Law and Self Defence:    Are U.S. self defence laws more lenient than our Canadian laws?

March 15, 2008 4:12 AM EDT

Santa Fe N.M. (AP)
(Information from: The Santa Fe New Mexican,
http://www.sfnewmexican.com)

Great-grandmother 1, would-be robber 0.

Bernie Garcia at first thought the young man who approached her asking for money while she gassed up her car seemed like a sweet guy.

One of the Seven Survival Signals that can predict violent behaviour as discussed by Gavin De Becker in The Gift of Fear, is charm or niceness

This is a violence success story. I have posted most of the story in italics and interspersed it with my comments. I chose this story to highlight the fact that you need not just give up and die when faced with overwhelming violence and your favourite talisman of self protection is suddenly not available.


Woman fights off knife attack in Deer Park
http://tinyurl.com/3lxfp8
BY EMERSON CLARRIDGE

This is a guest article by my good buddy Alain Burrese. You will find a link to his site over to the right but this link will go to his blog, which is informative and interesting.

Recently I came across an article by Gary Mauser of SFU, called Armed Self Defense: The Canadian Case. I perused the article and browsed his web site  exposing the fallacies of (Canadian) gun control rhetoric and supposed success. I even got 8 out of 10 correct on his Gun Quiz - missing a date and a total number.

Like the rest of the clips on my site, this clip is a mere introduction to the topic of escaping from a strong wrist grab.

aka: What Teens know about Bullies that Parents have Forgotten.

ALL responses to a bully are painful.

The best you can do is to choose the type of pain that you hate the least…you can’t avoid pain completely. The pain is either physical or emotional and bullies are practiced masters of causing this pain to others…

Guest essay by  ‘Grand Mama Duck,’ aka: Michael Johnson, our very own Silhouette! (with editing helps from Toma).

"I want to thank the members of the Animal List for helping me devise these categories and ranges. A special thanks to the moderators of the list, Marc "Animal" MacYoung and Diana Gordon." ~ GMD

by Jaime Buckley.

Although we have never met, Jaime, creator of the Wanted: Hero stories, has immortalised some of my friends and I in his graphic novel.

It is just too cool!

What if you sent out your man, errr, dwarf, (Or is he a cigar smoking elf?), to get the prophesied Hero to save the world from total destruction at the hands of evil and he brought back THE WRONG MAN!?  

This little effort demos some of the Raising Canes exercises that you can do to warm-up before practising your cane fighting self defense. It contains:

        • Wim Demeer’s stick exercises for the                             shoulders, back and arms
        • some simple cane fighting footwork drills called zoning
        • some cane fighting shadow boxing,

then it ends with me being viciously attacked by Joe so that I have to defend myself with my cane very rigorously. At 5:45 I do some  cane twirling dexterity exercises you should check out.  :)

Elbow strikes are very useful for in close fighting.

The concept of “shearing” I got from Bob Orlando, a fine gentleman and martial arts instructor in Denver CO.

Practise hitting things with your elbow from as many directions as you can think of and from any position.  Without actually hitting stuff, you will not get a useful feel for this very strong technique.

Random Violence Survival Skills covers:
    •    Survival doesn’t mean Fighting!
    •    Awareness Skills
    •    People Skills
    •    Physical Skills for Evasion
    •    Physical Skills for Fighting
    •    Fighting when Surrounded
    •    Fighting on the Ground