Personal Safety in Boston

Effective personal safety training involves the prediction, prevention and avoidance of violence, something which is sometimes referred to as self-protection. Self-Protection differs from self-defense in that it is proactive rather than reactive e.g., effective situational awareness is something that is enacted before a person is targeted for violence whereas self-defense is a response/reaction that somebody does when they are attacked/assaulted etc. Few people naturally have good/effective situational awareness; a person may have a good level of genuine awareness, however if they don’t know what pre-violence indicators look like they will not be able to spot and/or confirm when a person(s) has harmful intent towards them or has selected them for victimization. This is knowledge that needs to be taught, along with developing the skills to identify violence long before it occurs.

Violence occurs along two timelines. The aggressor has a timeline as does the individual they target. The aggressor’s timeline involves five phases, with distinct actions and behaviors that they have to go through before physically interacting with the person they’ve targeted with violence or the threat of violence. When a person is taught to recognize these, it is possible for them to identify a predatory individual who has harmful intent towards them and step off their own timeline, to avoid having to deal with somebody verbally/physically. This can be helped by understanding how their fear system picks up on danger/threats, and how their body responds as they experience danger; this includes psychological and emotional-control. Often people will stay in a state of denial, when their body is clearly telling them that the potential danger they are experiencing is real. Boston criminologist Gershon Ben was interviewed by NPR/WBUR concerning this. You can listen to the interview by clicking here.

One of the great things about personal-safety/self-protection training is that it is much easier to learn and employ than physical self-defense training. This is because it is cerebral and concerns concepts and heuristics that can be easily remembered and employed rather than having to learn self-defense techniques and develop physical skills; something which needs to constantly be practiced as these are perishable skills. Most of the corporate training we provide in Boston concerns personal safety training, which also includes training in de-escalation. The short video below demonstrates the ways in which we categorize violence, and our approach to providing solutions and training in how to identify, prevent and avoid violence.

Even when physical self-defense solutions are required it is usually effective personal-safety/self-protection skills which allow techniques to work e.g., if you understand the situation you are in, and that it might require a physical solution, due to your self-protection knowledge and skills, you stand a much better chance of dealing with the incident than if you are caught completely by surprise. When physical solutions to violent situations are required, these solutions need to be simple, easily recalled under stress and duress, and work with the body’s natural and instinctive responses when attacked rather than artificial movements that have to be learnt. This is why when it comes to physical self-defense being required, we use/teach Krav Maga. To learn more about this system of fighting, and how our personal safety training in Boston is incorporated into it click here. If you are interested in any seminars, we are running concerning personal-safety please click here.

If you are interested in bringing effective and proven personal-safety/self-protection training into your organization, group or enterprise you can read more about our approach by clicking here and/or by contacting us concerning your training requirements by clicking here.