Prepare. Prevent. Protect.

(The 1st of a Series)

One of the most difficult things about teaching self-defense is helping a student create a balance of physical and mental boundaries. In order to rationalize boundaries, we need to have some type of “fear” catalyst for what lies “beyond the boundary”. Simultaneously, we need to have some type of “love” catalyst for what lies “within the boundary”. Given that boundaries can often lead to a discussion of extremes, it’s important to maintain a sense of perspective when trying to discover a “safe space” in an otherwise “dangerous world”.

For those of us who are currently living in the United States, we’re enjoying one of the safest times in human history. It’s taken homo sapiens approximately 200,000 years to get to this level of safety, but nevertheless, we’re here. So why do we even talk about danger in the first place? If we’re enjoying one of the safest times in history, then why do we even need a “safe space”?

We speak as if mankind has been evolving for over 200,000 years simply because time has passed, but in reality, we haven’t. Meanwhile, our ever changing environment has always kept mankind on its toes. Now that mankind has mostly mitigated the environment’s ability to destroy humanity en masse from weather patterns, waterfalls, cliffs, viruses and parasites, I’d say the larger danger to mankind has always been, well, mankind.

Mankind has been doing each other in over tribalism, other ‘isms’, territory and resources forever. Mankind has been doing each other in willingly and to a large scale when you look at examples of the well known Aztec sacrifices to the lesser known Hawaiian, Celt or Chinese sacrifices. All in the name of a higher purpose.

Violence, or the threat of violence, is exhibited the moment a child experiences the boundaries set forth by their parents. When an adult, which is a large looming figure to the eyes of a child, utters something they do not understand, they comply out of fear, not logic.

Sure we can minimize the overt perception of fear, but that’s purely an intellectual exercise. Meaning, we simply replaced fear of being ‘eaten’ by an animal with fear of being ‘eaten’ by poverty, illness, etc. I once heard someone say, “We’ve traded constant “fear” for constant “anxiety”.

Managing these two extremes takes self-discipline and prioritization, which is what I teach my students when I discuss the concept of “changing thresholds”. When we’re in a home, school or office, our fear of physical danger is reduced greatly, but our sense of anxiety to be productive members of society is increased. Sometimes the two will merge and reconfigure into some sort of hybrid – like running late to an appointment or realizing that we still have 30 questions left to answer and only 5 minutes left to answer them.

It should seem obvious now that we cannot create “safe spaces”. But, we can create safer conditions in a dangerous world. In order to do that, we have to build up the self-discipline that is needed to prioritize our anxieties and fears along with our love and passion for life. Once we establish a stable formula for ourselves, we can then begin to concentrically widen our sense of safety, much like a child explores and conquers their own “dangerous world”.