Self-Defense Tip #2: situational awareness

Content Warning: This post deals with topics related to violence and personal safety.

Dr. Conklin is back with a second tip regarding situational awareness.

Transcript:

Hi, everyone. My name is Dr. Annalijin Conklin. I am here today because I have been doing martial arts since the age of eight and have 25 years of active practice experience. So I’d really like to use this opportunity to share some safety tips that will hopefully be beneficial to you.

So the second tip that I’d like to share with you is around situational awareness, ‘cause really that’s one of the key attributes of being a martial artist, but also it’s a key attribute that’s really important for women’s self defense and maintaining safety.

And so what does situational awareness mean? It means, really, having a 360-degree view of your surroundings wherever you are. Whatever room that you’re in, you know exactly where the entrances are, where the exits are, where do people come and go from, and how close are you to that exit if you were to need to escape. So the way I may put this in practice, for example, is if I’m going to a restaurant and I’m being seated, I usually ask to be seated in a corner far away from the main entrance. And the reason for the corner is that it means I’ve got walls behind me, and there’s an unlikelihood of someone coming from behind me to attack or to cause harm. So, that’s one way that you can kind of implement that idea and that strategy. But it’s also about when you’re walking down the road, as I mentioned in the last tip, kind of where you are and where other things may be relative to you. So always having a bit of a scan that you’re doing every so often, even just that motion of scanning your environment can itself be a deterrent to someone who might be thinking that you might be vulnerable and would attack on the basis of that opportunity. When you remove that opportunity, you very much lower your risks of being unsafe and being attacked.