Surviving Violent Encounters – Developing Situational Awareness
Hey guys, what is going on Chris Sajnog here, retired Navy Seal and founder of the SEAL training system. In this post, I want to teach you the ABCs of surviving violent encounters. Now let’s go ahead and get started.
Alright, I’ll tell you first off, it involves much more than just protecting yourself from that violent encounter because the best thing you can possibly do is, prevent that violent encounter from ever even happening.
So what are the ABCs? Well, the ABCs stand for awareness, building your defenses, and calming the threat.
#1 Developing Situational AWARENESS
Alright, so first up, let’s talk about developing situational awareness. I’m sure you know that being situationally aware is one of the best things that you can do to prevent a violent encounter from happening. So how do you build awareness?
Well, the number one way that I know how to build your situational awareness, is to meditate. Meditation teaches your brain to clear out all the clutter. It teaches you to do is clear out the thoughts that aren’t really important at that moment in time.
So when you’re meditating, you’re going to have thoughts that come into your mind, like, “Oh, what do I need to do right now? Oh, I’m wasting my time, am I meditating, right?” Those are all fine. Everybody has thoughts when they meditate.
Meditation teaches you to acknowledge those thoughts. So then when it comes to a violent encounter, your awareness, your ability to be aware, is going to be so much more enhanced. This is because now, obviously, there are going to be lots of other things going on around you. But because you’ve trained your mind so well through meditation, you are aware of that one thing, that is most important for you to focus on right then and there to protect yourself and your family.
Another great way that I found is doing trail running. While running, your mind is going to start picking up on things that you don’t see when you’re on a treadmill. So just get outside and move, go for a run. And you will improve your situational awareness just by that alone.
#2 BUILD Your Personal Defenses
Alright, next up in these ABCs of surviving violent encounters, the B is to build your personal defenses. These could be physical defenses. Such as putting an alarm on your house, putting lights up around your house, digging a moat, and putting that around your house, whatever it is. So build yourself up and be strong. So you can protect yourself or your family if you need to.
The other thing is spatial defenses. So learning what spaces are like. You’ve got your personal space around you. So very few people should be that close to you. Then you’ve got your personal protection bubble, which is around you. You should know what’s going on around you at all times.
The last thing is building up your mental defenses. You need to build up your mental toughness. You do that through training and through fighting through adversity. You’re training and you’re getting better. As you get better, you get more confident as you get more confident you get better at what you’re doing. So you’re more competent in it, and you’ve got this confidence competent loop that you’ve got going on.
The last thing you need to do is tell yourself that you are going to be able to protect yourself and your family. This is because we are the stories that we tell ourselves. So make sure that you’re telling yourself, “I do have what it takes to protect me and my family.”
#3 CALM Down the Situation
Alright, and then the last one here, the C in the ABCs is to calm down the situation, because think about this, the best way to win a fight is to not have a fight at all. That’s what I want for you. I don’t want to just sit here and teach you how to shoot a gun or use martial arts to protect yourself.
That should be the very last step.
What I want you to do is try to calm down the threat, however you can, that’s going to be the best way for you to protect yourself and your family.
Alright, so that is it for today. Remember the ABCs of surviving violent encounters, and that is developing your situational awareness, building up your defenses, and then being able to calm down in any situation. Make sure you use those, practice those, and until next time, keep paving your path to perfection.
