One of the most common comments I hear after teaching self-defence courses is people complaining that they are now more paranoid than they were before. Having had their rose-tinted glasses of ignorance removed they have been forced to acknowledge that numerous, preventable violent situations happen everyday. Most neophytes to the ideas of self defence choose to focus on the numerous part of that sentence rather than preventable.

Having been an evangelist of the self-protection works of both Geoff Thompson and Peter Consterdine I have adopted some of the information presented by both of them in their books on the subject. For example, the system of colour coding your condition of awareness as devised by US firearms instructor, Cooper. Similar to commentary driving, as used by the police and advanced drivers to develop conscious awareness of your surroundings, the colour system encompasses five states or conditions. White — completely oblivious to your immediate environment and the actions of those around you; Yellow — base level awareness, observing your surroundings and allowing yourself chance to assess risk and threat; Orange — Conscious focussing and assessment of an emergent threat, point of evasive response; Red — Fear based on perceived threat, the point at which you have a full adrenaline based fight-or-flight response; Black — panic, completely counterproductive state based on your inability to comprehend and handle the situation.

This system gives a powerful set of tools for developing your level of awareness and ability to make conscious choices based on your perception of a situation. This is also its greatest weakness, many people do not understand what is happening in enough detail to be able to make accurate predictions as to the behaviour of others and the risk that a situation poses. This again causes the spectre of paranoia to raise its head, people worry that they will begin to see everyone as muggers instead of passers-by.

This is an extremely valid concern, brought on largely by most people’s nagging feeling that they would have little or no idea how to handle a violent confrontation. The martial arts community as a whole buys into these techniques based on a knowledge that they can, if necessary, handle themselves should the situation require it but when they are taught on to the layman (or more commonly woman) they are often questioned as being actionable but not supportable.

The subject of worry then comes into play, many people confuse worry, apprehension and fear, the difference between these is vital to being effective at applying judgement to the perceived threat of danger. In his book ‘The Gift of Fear’, Gavin de Becker defines worry as ‘the fear we manufacture’. To worry is to choose to consider the negative possibilities concerned with one of the following:

1. Something that isn’t happening now, you tend to worry about things you imagine rather than things you sense;
2. Things you have no control over, you might get struck by lightning if you head out the door but the chances of it happening or you being able to predict it happening are infinitesimal;
3. Things you can change but for one reason or another choose not to. If you are worrying about the danger in any given situation (e.g. Getting attacked in a dark alley) then you should change the situation (leave the alley);

As an example of these ideas - if you are stood at the edge of a cliff, don’t suffer vertigo, there is no wind and no one else is near you then you have little reason to be afraid. If you are worrying about the possibility of falling off then it is a sure sign that you haven’t and your imagination is throwing up negative possibilities. You might worry about the cliff crumbling and pitching you over the edge but unless there is evidence of this happening (warning signs, visible erosion) then it is another case of ‘What if…?’ If you worry about going dizzy and falling off then the simple cure is to step back and stop looking over the edge. If, however, there is a gust of wind then you will become afraid that it will take you off the edge, likewise if you spot someone running towards you this too will trigger a fear response because you a reacting to a real danger rather than an imagined one.

Fear itself is a powerful, useful and, most importantly, unconscious tool. Linked strongly to intuition it will advise you of danger that you may not have consciously spotted. The problem with fear is that people tend to spend so much time worrying about possibilities they imagine that they do no recognise fear when it does hit them. If you are scared of every group of young men you come across then how do you differentiate between a group that is passing you by and a group that is going to attack? Worrying unnecessarily will impede your ability to make accurate risk predictions when you really need to because you will be too preoccupied with risks that don’t exist, other than in your head.

This brings us back to the colour coding system, the purpose of this system is to make you aware of your environment and other people within it. Initially this must be done on a conscious level, you are learning a new skill after all. When you have become practiced at observing, collating and assessing the information you see, hear, smell and feel then you must stop doing this consciously. To keep too focussed on each individual thing will bring about the ‘What if…?’ questions discussed earlier and these will encourage worrying and paranoia. Once you are comfortable with the system then allow it to become part of your unconscious repertoire, this will enable your fear response to be triggered only when needed. This is the key to getting the most out of awareness techniques, trusting your unconscious, listening to your intuition but ensuring they you are making decisions based on suitable information. This approach will allow you, or anyone else, to apply these awareness drills without becoming consumed by the need to jump at shadows.

by Kaliphil

26 January 2002