How much time is your safety worth?

Concealed carry weapons class in Nevada takes about 10 hours. 

Hunter’s safety class is 6 to 8 hours. 

For Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training, 17.5 hours

Law enforcement have to have 480 hours of training at the academy.

Safety, the practice and implementation of it, is an issue to be taken seriously. It takes time to cover, comprehend and understand the material, it is truly a myriad if vital information.

Yet, when it comes to personal defense people want to learn it all in just 2 hours. “Two hours to the ultimate self defense move!” 

There is no ultimate move. 

No “just” and no “always” solutions. 

As in ‘just’ knee them in the groin and they’ll ‘always’ double over in pain.

Critical elements of self defense cannot be covered in a 2 hour time frame. Just as other  ‘safety’ courses take a day or longer, so would a quality personal defense education course. 

The dimensions of personal safety is vast. A woman’s perspective is different than a man’s, and none of it has cookie-cutter solutions. What may have worked for one incident probably won’t work for the next. When it comes to violence, denial is not the best option, yet it is the one that most often applied. 

Anyone who teaches ‘self’ defense, needs to understand how important accurate and factual information. An instructor who is aware of the depth involved with defending, will illuminate students about all the profound aspects of defending. This cannot be done in two hours. 

So, when it comes to time frame, preparing to defend yourself involves much more than physical moves. Just like the requirements to carry a concealed weapon involves more than just putting bullets in the gun and pulling the trigger.

It is an important educational process, because of the choices made have deadly force possibilities. 

What is your goal? Is it to  practice a couple of times a week and, learn cool stuff and become confident and adroit in physical skills? Indeed, these are productive qualities to strive for, being physically fit is an advantage.

If you goal is to understand the emotional, ethical, and legal implications of having to use physical force in defense of your life, all while you are in pain, shock and terrified, then there is much more to your education than block, punch, and kick. 

How much time, is your safety worth?

Self Defense: More Than Fighting

Self defense involves much more than just being physically skilled at fighting. Self defense is not fighting. It involves awareness, threat assessment, verbal assertion, de-escalation and the physical skills are only a small aspect of personal defense. In fact, there have been people with no training, who have successfully defended themselves. Personal defense, finding oneself in a defensive situation, also involves psychological, physiological and legal aspects. A good self defense program will educate about these vitally important areas.

Violence is more involved than the impressions we have embedded in our minds. Through media and other means, it is often thought that violence is merely the physical attack whether by surprise, or not. But our personal safety is much more than physical.

In applying self defense skills, one must understand that it doesn’t mean going from feeling alarmed to immediately implementing physical force. This does not mean a feeling of insult, humiliation, shame or anger makes physical force justifiable. It means knowing of immediate danger of grave bodily harm. Harm as in death or dismemberment, not a broken nail or broken pride.

Personal safety is an issue females think of often. Experiences may have conditioned them to be vigilant in assessing environment and situation. No matter how vigilant, one must be prepared, and self defense training should give the tools and skills for that preparation. There are many great programs with a common goal of providing accurate, practical, valuable skills and information.

One of the most important tools we have for our safety is intuition. Often ignored, it is our greatest ally. It communicates to us in a myriad of ways. If we disregard it, efforts are stepped up to try to get our attention. Learning to listen is essential. Gavin de Becker’s book The Gift of Fear is a remarkable resource to learn more about intuition and learning to listen.

Subtle Warrior Self Defense provides mobile, on-site personal safety education. In our dedication to educate, upcoming blogs will cover the various aspects of self defense. So be sure to check back to learn more!
© Lisa Abbott, Subtle Warrior Self Defense, LLC 2009