Every day there are at least 100 victims of violent crimes throughout the U.S. Each year there are over 1,000 violent crimes committed in each region of the United States of America.
These crimes range from armed robbery, aggravated assault, murder and forcible rape. These statistics are based on information compiled from the U.S. department of justice. These are only the crimes that are reported. It is a known fact that many violent crimes are never reported, and many of these crimes are committed by repeat offenders. In many cases these statistics are results of alack of education on the part of the victims. Although its not quite fair to say the ignorance of the victims brought about a warranted attack; it should be noted that many of these cases could have been avoided with the proper education or training.
Part of being educated or trained is being aware and understanding the context of the situation around you. If you look in the dictionary for the definition of "awareness", it will read "awareness is the act of being aware". The dictionary doesn't quite complete the definition in the context that it should be understood in. Awareness, is also a knowledge of the situation around you. Being aware alone isn't quite enough to save you in a dire situation. You also need an understanding in the context of the situation. In many cases that ability to analyze and under stand the situation around you comes natural. However, there are those who do not naturally analyze or question the world around them. These cases need training.
Many people do not follow their natural senses, they don't listen to or read the signs around them. There are many cases, when if somebody listened to their gut feeling they could have avoided that "not so good" situation. When we were born we all come equipped with natural survival senses. However, throughout time with good upbringing and proper grooming; we tend to desensitize our own natural security system. Hundreds and even thousands of years ago man needed natural survival instincts in order to hunt food and protect himself from natural and man made dangers. With the society that we have become over hundreds of years; life has become easier with less obvious threats in our paths. In a world where everything we want or need is at the touch of a phone or keyboard we have very little use of our own natural senses. That is not to say that these senses are out of touch or out of reach. Like you as a person these senses just need grooming and training in order to grow and flourish.
The first part to understand is that this world is not a friendly place. That doesn't mean that you should walk the earth a paranoid freak; that just means that you need to learn and understand the nature of the world. The world, weather you live in the city or the country, the desert or jungle, is a wilderness. In the wilderness, survival is the rule of thumb and a way of life. In the wilderness there are predators and prey, wolf and sheep per say. The wolf will never attack another wolf, unless it's a matter of life or death or self defense. In general wolves always attack sheep. This is because the sheep are defenseless and weak. The sheep are an easy meal. Sheep spend all day grazing and wandering fields, completely unaware. The perfect victim. How many times have you gone out shopping and you notice other consumers wandering aimlessly, mindlessly in and out of the stores never knowing what goes on around them. The next time you go shopping take notice. Most people are so into their own lives they are oblivious to everything going on around them. For a criminal this is the sight of opportunity.
The Ideal victim would be found in an isolated area with limited visibility. They would be alone and walk around with their heads cocked down towards the ground not knowing what's going on around them. Preferably the victim would be elderly and frail or young and female. In each case the victim would be weak and defenseless. They would give off the impression of unawareness, observed from afar. The example; just given are the traits and characteristics of an ideal victim for a criminal or common thug. On the opposite end of the perspective; a common criminal wouldn't think of attacking someone more alert and able in appearance. The things that the common criminal or thugs stray away from are just the opposite of what was just explained. Someone who is more alert, with their head on a swivel, always cognizant of what's happening around them. The person who walks around confident and proud and gives the appearance "Don't mess with me". Location is a key. Most bad guys aren't going to attack someone in broad daylight in a heavily populated area. Bad guys definitely don't want to mess around with someone who is healthy and fit looking, or anyone who looks like they might give a tough fight. In many situations its first impressions that separate those who are victims and those who are not.
In many violent crimes the aggressor is someone the victim is familiar with or knows. The victim is often not only a victim of the violent crime but a victim of stalking as well. It is not the victim's fault it's just most people do not know when they are the prey for a violent predator or stalker. They are not educated or trained on the what or how to do's. Many times when a victim is being stalked they minimize the situation, by telling themselves, "I'm just being harassed." or "He's harmless". This minimization allows one thing to lead to another, until the escalation leads to a disaster. Sometimes the disaster is a final one. In many cases, the signs were ignored; resulting in serious injury to the victim or death. Then there are the cases where the victim has seen the signs and done everything that could be expected to do, up to the point where there is a physical confrontation between the victim and predator. In many of these cases the victim was not trained in self-protection measures. Then there are the few cases where the victim has done everything they could to protect themselves. In these cases death is rare. That is due to the sheep and wolf analogy. The victim posed a difficult meal. The wolf is forced to move on because the victim caused too much undue attention; or they fought hard enough or efficiently enough to make the attacker think twice and double back.
In any case, it's clear that training and awareness is what separates those who are victims and those who are not. In the cases where there were victims, it was "too late for help" In cases where there were not victims, security measures were applied and what could have happened didn't. Then there are the cases where that never happened, because the "would be" victim was situation ally aware and they knew how to apply proper security measures. You have to ask yourself, what are you going to do when it's too late. Are you going to be a victim or are you going to avoid the situation altogether?
Andrew Curtiss is an Army veteran of 11 years. He is author of Combat Application Techniques: Principles Of Destruction (book on Knife and Hand to Hand Combat). Andrew is the former 1995 American Independent Karate Association Men's black belt champion in Kata, Sparring and Weapons. Andrew holds a 2nd degree black belt in Tae Kwan Do and Shurite Kenpo Karate. He is a former kickboxer and current professional Mixed Martial Arts fighter. Andrew has been instructing Women's Self Protection clinics for 15 years.
His Websites:
http://www.unarmedcombat.zoomshare.com
http://www.freeselfdefense.zoomshare.com
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