It's all in your head...

Last night after coming home from training, I sat down in front of the TV to eat dinner. My wife and housemate were watching the show "Lie to me". In this particular episode the main character (the human lie detector guy) was viewing a picture of a person which would then change briefly to a different emotional expression, before returning to the original facial expression. A new character, a younger Hispanic lady is introduced as wanting to join his team. He turns to her, indicated the video screen with the faces he has been studying and asks her "what do you see?". Well at this stage I pipe up "fear" narrowly beating the TV character's dialogue. The next photo flashes, I pipe up in unison with the character "anger", right again. Lastly I pre-empt the character with "sadness"...Three for three.

Now my wife is not surprised, but my housemate says something along the lines of "how did you know that, all I saw was a flash". The answer is that the software being used is a late model version of Ekman's Micro Expression Training Tool, used in law enforcement and 'hush-hush' governmental groups to help in training officers and operators to recognise what someone is feeling. Often this is done to gauge someones emotional response to a particular question or statement.

To the uninitiated this appears to be some sort of magical power, when in fact it is just very specific knowledge of which facial muscles are activated when someone feels a particular emotion. The difficulty is that these micro-expressions flash by in about a fifth of a second. However it is a skill which can be trained and developed to a high level.

The reason I was able to call the emotions featured on the TV show easily, is that I have used the METT tool over a number of years as a training exercise to enhance my awareness skills.

Bruce Lee once said that too much time is devoted in martial arts training to technical skill development at the expense of the overall physical conditioning of the participant. Well I believe that too much time is spent in learning responses to acts of violence at the expense of training the participants awareness and avoidance skills.

Ask yourself when you last spent time training your senses to perceive aggressive body language, micro-expressions or the deceptive language patterns attackers use to stop you noticing they are about to attack you. Well when was it?

If physical conditioning was the under-rated aspect in the 60's and 70's when Bruce Lee was around, then the mental aspects of combat are the neglected aspects of today's martial arts and self defense scene. After all a lot of folks go to the gym and work out, but how many of you spend time training in the brain gym????

Note: Some pioneers have addressed these areas, people such as Geoff Thompson, Paul (my current Ninjutsu and Street Edge instructor) and some of the other reality based self defense pioneers who have worked in security or law enforcement roles.

The difficulty lies in developing a mental training regime for self preservation. For this reason I have been developing a state of the art training system called "Code Black Protective Systems". This system applies the principles of Emergency Management to personal threat situations. The name 'Code Black' is a reference to the colour code used in Australian Standards relating to Emergency Response practices dealing with Personal Threat, Armed Robbery, Civil Disorder and Illegal Occupancy. Rather than creating another defensive tactics program, I have taken a holistic approach to the problem of personal threat situations.

Most defensive tactics and self defense programs pay lip service to training awareness but spend most of their time looking at responses to violence. In Emergency Management Systems Theory, response is only one of four essential areas. The Emergency Management Cycle consists of Prevention (Mitigation), Preparation, Response and Recovery. I have never seen anyone address ALL of these four areas when teaching or discussing defensive tactics.

Prevention is determined by one's ability to avoid situations that expose you to violence. As such areas that are covered here are awareness building skills, criminal modus operandi, ambush theory, crime statistics (including who, what, where, when, why and how attacks happen), body language, psycho-physical responses, gait analysis, counter surveillance and escape and evasion training. These areas are covered in some circles (intelligence operations, law enforcement and military) but have not been tuned to the needs of the citizen attempting to survive in an urban environment.

Preparation is the actual training of awareness and response. It is the development of a 'game plan', of strategy, of physical and mental skills.

Response is the implementation of the skills developed through the preparation phase of training. This will include paradigms which address ambush fighting, verbal confrontation leading to violence, multiple opponent and weapons attacks. This is the area of emergency management that most self defense and defensive tactics deal with. As such Code Black doesn't re-invent the wheel, rather it acts as a overlay on existing programs to enhance their effectiveness. Code Black provides a context into which the systems fit and addresses the time before violence occurs and the time afterward also.

This brings us to the Recovery phase of emergency management. Recovery, as the name suggests, is how we deal with the aftermath of violent confrontation. It includes First Aid measures, legal implications and processes related to the incident you have just survived, increased security demands should the assailant seek retribution or should you be required to testify against them. It also provides strategies for emotional and physical trauma recovery. Another essential point is ensuring your life can go on. If injured and unable to work, how will you provide for your family? What if the scumbag who attacks you, then tries to ruin your life by suing you, what will you do then? These are all crucial aspects of the recovery phase of the Code Black program.

Most of these areas are never covered by even the best of traditional programs, however this doesn't mean they are not essential, just neglected.

You may win the fight and lose the battle if you don't plan ahead. Self protection in the modern world means a lot more than devastating martial arts skills...