Since 2010, my school has been running a free women’s self-defense program that has an emphasis on self-protection i.e., teaching women how to predict, prevent and avoid violence not because it’s their responsibility to have to deal with violence, including sexual violence and rape, but because all of the odds concerning violence are stacked heavily against them. Whilst I agree with the sentiment, that men should just stop raping women, I’ve worked in this industry, and with survivors, long enou...(Click Here To Read The Article)
When I first moved to the US, I was approached by a club owner, who was looking to improve his security team’s skills in control and restraint. His club had been involved in several recent lawsuits with patrons who had been thrown out, claiming excessive use of force. From my personal experience, these cases often don’t actually involve excessive force but individuals who felt embarrassed, humiliated and powerless at being removed from a club by security. When I first started working door securi...(Click Here To Read The Article)
click here to read) I talked about suspicions and abnormalities, and that things which might appear out of place don't necessarily indicate a threat and/or the presence of harmful intent etc. In this article I want to look at the relationship between when a suspicion indicates a threat/danger exists, and when it doesn't. For the sake of this article, it's worth quickly re-iterating what should cause us to be suspicious , whether that's a person, a place, or an object etc. This means we have to ...(Click Here To Read The Article)
When it comes to personal safety and security it’s very easy to believe that we know what something is, but we try to articulate it, we find that we lack a clear definition, which is where having the correct and appropriate terminology can be extremely helpful. One of the terms/definitions where this becomes apparent is that of “risk”, a term which is often equated with “likelihood”, though it is somewhat more complex, and the two are not synonymous. It is not my intention to discuss risk in thi...(Click Here To Read The Article)
Glasgow has a strong Italian community. I’ve travelled, spent time in Italy, and I still believe that some of the best Italian food I’ve had, is in Glasgow (and I don’t believe it’s purely down to having an “unsophisticated palette”). Italian food is direct and extremely simple, like Krav Maga. I introduce this idea at an early stage, in the hope that you bear with me on analogies and comparisons etc., and the idea that we can look at a seemingly “unrelated” area and learn something from taking ...(Click Here To Read The Article)
There are always members of our society who claim that everything is getting worse. It’s a play that politicians make, regardless of what the statistics say. It’s also one that we are prone to believe. The simplest explanation of this is our evolutionary past i.e., paying attention to threats/danger (bad things) was more important for our survival than focusing on positives e.g., consider two of our ancestors walking through a forest, one focusing on the beautiful flowers and birdsong, whilst th...(Click Here To Read The Article)
Barro Colorado Island (BCI) sits in the middle of the Panama Canal and has been a biological reserve since 1923, continuously monitored by resident biologists for almost 90 years. The island was created/formed when the Chagres River was damned in order to create Gatun Lake, which is part of the Panama Canal. It was an island with no apex-predator, with various species of monkeys and sloths, living their lives without having to consider safety. Animals who largely lived without fear. This changed...(Click Here To Read The Article)
On my first Krav Maga instructor course with the IKMF (International Krav Maga Federation), one of the instructors basically said – metaphorically not practically – that one of the “goals” of Krav Maga was to reduce every solution to attacks and threats to one technique i.e., people would only have to know and practice one thing in order to defend themselves against everything. The point, as an idea, is valid, but practically “impossible”. However, ceteris paribus (all things being equal) it is ...(Click Here To Read The Article)
Imagine you walk into work tomorrow and nobody acknowledges you. Nobody says hello, or asks you how you’re feeling, or what you did last night etc. During meetings nobody asks you what your thoughts or opinions are, and when you leave for the day, nobody even notices you’ve gone. If this just lasted a day, you’d probably get over the awkwardness you felt, however if it lasted for a week, it would likely be upsetting, and if it happened for months or years, it is likely that it would change both ...(Click Here To Read The Article)
This article may at first seem more relevant to public planners than individual homeowners etc., as the research and findings came from that arena, however much of what was learnt/discovered can be applied to private properties. The idea of “defensible spaces” originated with the architect and urban planner, Oscar Newman. Newman developed his theory primarily through the comparative study of various public housing projects in New York City; in particular through his analysis of the Pruitt-Igoe c...(Click Here To Read The Article)