In Defence of Oneself

Life is beautiful.

You wake up in the warmth of a comfortable bed.

You get up on your feet without a thought, and you head to your fancy kettle. With the tap of a latch your water is boiled, and your exotic Kenyan coffee brew is prepared.  Eventually, you jump in your car, and with a turn of the ignition the engine fires, and you’re off. Things work. They could be worse.

When you look outside of your own reality, you see that life isn’t as utopic for others as it is for you. Click a few times on your smartphone and see how big, and bad this world can be. One glimpse of the news is all it takes to realise that hateful, painful things go down, regularly.

Your actions are governed by a moral code that has evolved since before birth, and with every passing moment of your days. Your memories and your moods will dictate how you interact with this world.

“All human actions are motivated at their deepest level by two emotions—fear or love. In truth there are only two emotions—only two words in the language of the soul…. Fear wraps our bodies in clothing, love allows us to stand naked. Fear clings to and clutches all that we have, love gives all that we have away. Fear holds close, love holds dear. Fear grasps, love lets go. Fear rankles, love soothes. Fear attacks, love amends.”

Love exists all around us. Fear does too. People are beautiful, loving souls. People are also hateful, nasty, and dangerous.

You can rest on your laurels and trust that bad, drunk, crazy, mean, people will never cross your path. But I’ve learned to assume that respect for others isn’t always a shared quality.

You can do your best to avoid a situation but sometimes things find you. And when they do, who knows how far these people may be willing to go? They sure don’t. That’s part of the problem.

You can run. You can hide. Either way, self defence is more real than you think.

Avoidance Works – Until it Doesn’t

So far you’ve been good at avoiding violence for much of your life. There have been a few nervous situations here and there, but for the most part you do a good job of avoiding danger.

This happens to be the underlying rule in all of Gracie Jiu Jitsu too. You look to avoid a physical confrontation at all costs because it’s not pretty or fun when it happens.

Problems arise with this strategy when you cannot avoid a situation, and you have no back up plan. 80% of sexual assaults are committed by people known and trusted by the victims like friends and family. No matter how aware and alert you try to be, sometimes you just don’t see things coming.

No Action is Still Action

What you pay attention to pays dividends in learning. When you train yourself not to act in the face of adversity you choose to be a victim instead.

Being a victim isn’t an unfortunate event, but a mindset when working with your environment. When you’re a victim you are at the peril of others’ actions. This could manifest into a physical confrontation, it could be in the form of bullying at work, and it

This is why Higher Jiu Jitsu is focused on providing the most effective methods of self defence via Gracie Jiu Jitsu.

Self defence doesn’t need to be a fear mongering campaign. Rather it is a highly enjoyable pursuit of life long skills to protect yourself and your family in every day life. You will learn how to defend yourself against all types of people, and in different situations.

Do Something

http://www.urbanfitandfearless.com/2016/08/martial-artists-interpersonal-violence.html