Pre-incident indicators of violent, civilian events

[doitlive]

Mac,

I would like to discuss pre-incident indicators of violent, civilian events in order to identify factors that differentiate potentially violent events that are unlikely to escalate to severe levels from events that quickly evolve into critical, life or death encounters. Experience and familiarity with violence play a huge role in correctly differentiating these two scenarios and early recognition of a life or death situation will greatly increase one's probability of survival. The problem is that civilians, unlike LEOs or deployed military, do not get much exposure to violence and are therefore prone to over or under react to potential dangers.

I've read Gavin De Becker's book, "Gift of Fear," and he does a good job addressing this topic, but your background is different from his and I'm sure we would all benefit from hearing your thoughts on obvious red flags that would get your attention during a potentially violent situation.

Thank you for contributing to this forum and for everything you've done throughout your years of service to the USA.

[Mac1]

Hunt it, kill it, eat it! This idiom starts a chapter in a new book that I am writing and addresses your question to some degree. This particular chapter will discuss regaining one's intuitive nature. In each of lives a primal side. A set of survival skills passed down from a million years ago.

Each of us continuously takes in millions of pieces of information every day, the great majority of which are processed unconsciously. Some people take in this information primarily through their five senses—what they see, hear, touch, taste, or smell. Others take in information through their sixth sense, focusing not on what is, but rather on what could be.
Each of us has the ability to use both Sensing and Intuition, and all of us do use both every day.

Intuition is a gift that we humans are born with. We can exercise this function and make it stronger, like we do with our muscles. Intuition ‘works' when we put our five other senses aside. Intuition is our sixth sense, but is often stifled by our culture's over dependence on the five senses of the material world. When we tap into our intuition, decisions that seemed difficult to make suddenly gain more clarity.

Now days, we are so connected that we are disconnected. Our situational awareness is nearly non-existent. We are fat dumb and happy button pushers. Comfortable, flaccid and complacent. Society is trying to coerce us into being subservient to political correctness and we are subliminally manipulated into believing certain things or to follow the status quo.

Being eternally vigilant can be exhausting. Being prepared to save your life, the life of your loved ones, or your team mate will require work. Sweat equity. We expect our kids to look both ways before crossing the street but we won't look behind us while at an ATM because we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Boo Hoo! We often relinquish our intuitive nature and will do this at the cost of our own safety.
Intuitiveness is a gift and a primal instinct that we cannot afford to relinquish. Mitigate having to ask "How did I get here?" A little situational awareness goes a long way.

Try to see things full spectrum. Perform a focal shift in your everyday life. Look around. Slow down before you park and take a look at the other vehicles in your proximity. It is OK. You were born to do this. A successful assault happens with surprise, speed, and violence of action. We can mitigate the surprise by being tuned in or situationally aware.

If we take the element of surprise away from a predator, he will fear reprisal and will forgo the attack because of this trepidation of compromise.

It is simple tactics. Action versus reaction. If you are aware, you are acting. If you are switched off and have no situational awareness, you are one step behind and will at some point in time, fall into a predator's web.

[doitlive]

Thanks Mac,

I’ve been working on raising my situational awareness, but still lose focus on my general environment when I’m distracted by specific tasks. I need to raise the constant baseline awareness.

Do you have an opinion on Gladwell’s book “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking;” does it apply to combat or self defense?

Thanks again for answering my question, I appreciate it. Good luck with the new book.

[Mac1]

You know, I’ve read all of Gladwell’s stuff and I can’t seem to find a reason to jump on the band wagon. He is the master of stating the obvious in esoteric fashion.
IMO, John Medina’s ‘Brain Rules’ does a much better job at explaining how the brain functions in its primal state.

[Moose-Knuckle]

Mr. McNamara, thank you for your insight and your contribution to this site.

Could you go into your book a little bit; title, subject matter, and release date?


Hunt it, kill it, eat it! This idiom starts a chapter in a new book that I am writing and addresses your question to some degree. This particular chapter will discuss regaining one's intuitive nature. In each of lives a primal side. A set of survival skills passed down from a million years ago.

Each of us continuously takes in millions of pieces of information every day, the great majority of which are processed unconsciously. Some people take in this information primarily through their five senses—what they see, hear, touch, taste, or smell. Others take in information through their sixth sense, focusing not on what is, but rather on what could be.
Each of us has the ability to use both Sensing and Intuition, and all of us do use both every day.

Intuition is a gift that we humans are born with. We can exercise this function and make it stronger, like we do with our muscles. Intuition ‘works' when we put our five other senses aside. Intuition is our sixth sense, but is often stifled by our culture's over dependence on the five senses of the material world. When we tap into our intuition, decisions that seemed difficult to make suddenly gain more clarity.

Now days, we are so connected that we are disconnected. Our situational awareness is nearly non-existent. We are fat dumb and happy button pushers. Comfortable, flaccid and complacent. Society is trying to coerce us into being subservient to political correctness and we are subliminally manipulated into believing certain things or to follow the status quo.

Being eternally vigilant can be exhausting. Being prepared to save your life, the life of your loved ones, or your team mate will require work. Sweat equity. We expect our kids to look both ways before crossing the street but we won't look behind us while at an ATM because we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Boo Hoo! We often relinquish our intuitive nature and will do this at the cost of our own safety.
Intuitiveness is a gift and a primal instinct that we cannot afford to relinquish. Mitigate having to ask "How did I get here?" A little situational awareness goes a long way.

Try to see things full spectrum. Perform a focal shift in your everyday life. Look around. Slow down before you park and take a look at the other vehicles in your proximity. It is OK. You were born to do this. A successful assault happens with surprise, speed, and violence of action. We can mitigate the surprise by being tuned in or situationally aware.

If we take the element of surprise away from a predator, he will fear reprisal and will forgo the attack because of this trepidation of compromise.

It is simple tactics. Action versus reaction. If you are aware, you are acting. If you are switched off and have no situational awareness, you are one step behind and will at some point in time, fall into a predator's web.

[Pax]

SouthNarc has a good writeup on this as well, in case you havent read it yet.

http://www.safeism.com/pdfs/SNContacts.pdf

[Pax]

I believe his point about situational awareness could be stressed to good effect. Threats can come out of nowhere, but it is good to notice if you, say, piss off a douche at a bar, music venue, etc., and he and his buddies "go out for a smoke" when you get the check. Stuff like that will save your ass.

And whenever talking about mindset, I feel it is necessary to reiterate the point that aggression is imperative to success in combatives of any type. The smaller, less trained, poorly-equipped, aggressively dominant man will often succeed where the larger, well-trained, well-equipped, submissive man will fail. Hardware vs. software, all that.