The Combatives Mindset – Tactical Self Defense Training

A while back I wrote about the Vital Pyramid, which described a particular concept relating to combatives training.  This concept discusses the tools necessary to prepare yourself in the event of an unwanted criminal assault.

The base of the pyramid is “Mindset.”  You need a certain mindset in order to deal with a criminal situation.  The other three levels of the pyramid include, from bottom to top, tactics, skills and kit.  I will get into those down the road.

In that previous post, I touched briefly each of these levels.  With these post, I want to focus on Mindset.

As I mentioned in that previous post, your mindset during a fight must be to win at all costs.  This is a bit different than what many people teach, which is to survive.

If your goal is to survive, and you lose, you are dead.

Therefore, your goal has to be different.  You have to do what is necessary to win.

Lately, I’ve watched a number of self-defense related videos involving cane training.  Training with a cane is something I will be covering soon.

The issue I’ve had with most of these videos is that the instructors effectively avoid teaching the level 10 threat mindset.  A level 10 threat means your life is in danger.

When your life is in danger, winning that fight means you may have to take the life of your assailant.

Yet, most of these videos avoid that idea almost as if it is taboo.

Let me tell you something.  If someone comes at you with a knife, or even just threatens you with a knife, that is a level 10 threat, and you must deal with it appropriately.

If your mindset is to simply injure that person to get them to stop the assault, you are fighting at a disadvantage.

Therefore, if I have a cane handy and I am being threatened or attacked by someone with a knife, I am not going to worry about whether I hit them in the head.

The fact is, the quickest way to end an assault is to knock out the assailant.

If that assailant has a weapon, I don’t want to be within range of that weapon.  A cane provides me with a distance advantage over a knife, but it may not last very long.

With that in mind, if I see a knife, I will not hesitate to do what I need to knock out the assailant.  That means I will be going for the head… simple.

Vital Pyramid Mindset – Training

However, this is not the end of the mindset discussion when it comes to the Vital Pyramid.

Your mindset must include preparation.

Preparation includes developing your sense of awareness, so you can become more street smart and identify risky situations in order to avoid them.

Preparation includes improving your conditioning.

Since I started training in martial arts years ago, and encountered a number of different instructors from different arts, I noticed quite a few that were significantly out of shape.

My own sifu was not among them, thankfully, but plenty in my art did not take their fitness very seriously.

Among the top combatives instructors I follow, this is not the case.  They take their conditioning very seriously.

Why?  Because they understand that when you are faced with an actual threat, it could be your conditioning that saves you.

An actual assault will put you under severe stress.  You’ll get a massive dump of adrenaline, and you may lose some fine motor skills.  You will also likely lose the ability to think clearly.

As a result, you’ll rely upon gross motor skills…skills that involve the big muscle groups.  Use of these big muscle groups takes up more energy.  Therefore, if an assault is prolonged, and you are out of shape, you will run out of gas quickly.

In addition to improved street smarts and conditioning, you’ve got to develop your skill set.

It can get boring as hell hitting a heavy bag or a dummy hundreds of times each day, but it is that effort that will allow you to develop your skills to the point where they become second nature.

Some of my friends are able to carry, since they live in another state.  But, I would argue that their attitudes rely a bit too much on being able to carry.

They certainly don’t train with their weapon everyday, and most don’t train in other skills.

If they are unable to access their weapon quickly, and deploy it with skill in a variety of situations (beyond going to the shooting range), then what good is it?

Everyday Carry

Speaking of everyday carry, I personally live in the state of Maryland.  Maryland makes it extremely difficult to obtain a concealed carry permit to carry a firearm.

Of course, our criminals don’t pay much attention to those laws.  And that puts law abiding citizens at an enormous disadvantage.

With that in mind, you need to do some serious thinking about what you are willing to carry on a daily basis.

Pepper spray and personal alarms should be on everyone’s list.  However, these will only be of use if you’ve identified an assailant before they’ve closed distance.

A cane is my new found go to carry item (I’ve recently ordered my custom cane from Cane Masters.  Check them out!).  A cane is perfectly legal to carry anywhere, and can come in handy when dealing with a number if different types of assault.

If you are in the unfortunate situation of finding yourself dealing with a close quarters assault, then a knife would be a weapon you’d want to be able to access.

Smaller sized individuals and women may also want to look into carrying items capable of dealing a heavy blow.  Black jacks and saps come to mind.

Some of these may not be legal to carry in your jurisdiction, so you may also want to consider a way to improvise a weapon.  A padlock and a sock may be items to keep in your purse.

Just understand that if lock is already in the sock, it is effectively a weapon.  Therefore, you’ll need to train in getting it put together quickly, or perhaps wrapping the lock in a scarf or other cloth item.

These are just some items to consider.  But, again, if you don’t train in their use, they won’t be much good to you when you need them.

Final Thoughts – Mindset

As you can see, there is quite a bit that goes into developing the mindset necessary to dealing with a criminal assault.

In the world we live in now, the odds of becoming involved in such a situation are as high as I’ve seen them in my lifetime.

Now is the time to get started in learning how to better protect yourself and your loved ones, if you haven’t already.  The first step is to develop the appropriate mindset.

Thanks for reading!