General
Everyone has a plan until they get hit
Jun
Everyone has a plan until they get hit
Hope everyone is surviving life during this horrible covid time. Just shopping and going about my daily business I see so many more people have become more stressed than normal. Less patient and tolerant of each other because of having to stay in, wearing masks in public, queueing and or keeping distance. Peoples jobs now are not so secure or other stresses like having to home school their children and a lot of other things related to covid.This has given rise to an alarming number of assaults and violent confrontations.
It is now more then ever important that you keep your guard up. All your martial arts training should be coming into play. Any serious physical assault will normally have a precursor, this could be shouting, posturing, poking fingers at your chest, pushing, bumping chests and many more things besides. It is so vitally important that you are aware of people around you who are not behaving in a natural way. I cannot believe that so many people are so unaware of the space that they occupy and of the spaces that they are going into, they normally have their heads down and glued to their mobile phone.
My son loves walking and he is always out and about but he always has his earphones in and like so many young kids (he’s 27 still a kid to me) he is glued to his phone screen. I always have heated discussions with him about telling him to keep aware at all times. He rebukes me by saying that I am paranoid and he does not want to live his life like that. I reinforce my actions by saying your whole life can change in an instant. The incident comes to mind of the man in the park who stabbed to death two sisters who were just there enjoying the sunshine. His reason for doing this was he had to kill them so he would win the lottery!!! My heartfelt condolences goes out to the sisters family a tragedy that should not have happened.
Yes your whole life can change because of one incident. Can you stop someone who is hell bent on killing someone? That is honestly a question that has so many variables, I would hope that people who are trained in martial arts would be more aware of their surroundings and able to take the necessary steps to protect themselves. Although being street smart is not taught in the dojo so much as the focus is mainly on techniques and getting grades but it should be a larger part included in our training.
Now I am not saying that you should be thinking and be ready for a mass murderer who will jump out at you every time you go to the supermarket or am I?
Everyone has a plan until they get hit but the key is to see the signs and take the appropriate action before it changes your life!
Keep well everyone until next time.
GM Angelo