Staying Safe for Today's Woman

Recognize and Avoid Predators

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“Staying Safe for Today’s Woman” (eBook or paperback) is now available on Amazon all over the world, lulu.com, Apple Books app, Kobo, Walmart, Bookshop.org (US), KYOBO, fnac, Saxo, Liberias Gandhi, OrellFussli, and Everand as well as in select libraries and schools. [Amazon and lulu carry both formats; most other outlets carry one or the other.] Stop by ScottLewisWrites.com.

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Not Self-Defense. Self-Protection.

Thinking defense is fine for sports, but hazardous to your well-being.

Staying Safe for Today’s Woman: Recognize and Avoid Predators shows you how to be proactive instead of reactive so you can stay ahead of predators. You will also learn how to make a predator think twice about you and move on. This is not self-defense. It’s self-protection.

To avoid becoming a victim, you have to be one step ahead of predators. Their strategies and tactics rely on getting you to react to them. If you find yourself reacting instead of proactively acting, you have already become their victim.

The skills you'll learn from Staying Safe for Today’s Woman can help you discern whether an approaching person has intent to do you harm, so you can be confident (tactically and legally) in your proactive decision to avoid, de-escalate, flee, give up your valuables, or as a last resort prepare to fight.

You will learn:

Common predator tactics and how not to fall prey to them

Our Five Step Plan to help you recognize and escape threatening encounters before they turn violent. 

How to deal with your body’s unhelpful reactions during a stressful situation. 

How to be less vulnerable to online hackers and stalkers. 

The all-important knowledge (but not fighting skills) that our Athena Women Self Protection Training students gain. 

You deserve better than settling for a couple of hours of hitting a striking target (that doesn’t hit back) in a "self defense class" that you'll soon forget. Gain confidence from real-world knowledge of how predators prey and how to avoid them.

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"Awareness will save you more than any technique I could ever show" --Guro Ron Balicki, Martial Arts Research Systems

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Regrets, Part 3

We’ve already discussed two common statements made by victims of violence:

“Why would someone I’ve never even met, much less offended, inflict such sadistic violence on me?”

“I knew there was something wrong with this guy...” And now, for the third thing heard in the ER:

“...but I didn’t want to offend anyone.”

Predators know how to prey. Part of that is knowing what you’re going to say or do before you do when they are setting you up for their attack. They may just approach you, violating your “bubble” and outright attack you. Or they may engage you in dialog to distract you from evaluating what they’re doing. They’ll ask you for help, knowing that we all like to help. They know you’re uncomfortable but they know they can keep you distracted and talking until they’re ready to launch their attack. Because normal people are uncomfortable being rude.

So here’s a new rule for you: RUDE is the new SAFE. Obviously your safety trumps other’s feelings--especially someone who’s wasting your time and making you feel uneasy. When your gut feeling is screaming at you to escape your situation, then LEAVE NOW. Just leave safely. This may mean simply walking away while keeping an eye on the potential Threat. It may mean joining a nearby group of strangers who are would-be witnesses, or stepping inside a business or getting in your car and driving away.

Your decision can make the difference between wishing you’d offended the mugger and being glad you did.

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Regrets, Part Two

Following up on comments (see below for Regrets, Part One) frequently made by victims of violent assaults, another common statement is, “I KNEW there was something wrong with this guy...”

That’s what we call “gut feeling”. Honor your gut feeling or instinct when it is telling you something’s amiss. It is your subconscious mind metaphorically poking an elbow into the ribs of your conscious mind. We all know that sense—we leave our home with the feeling we’ve forgotten something and half way to our destination we finally sort out what it is we left behind. In the case of an uneasy feeling about a person, it could be that your subconscious mind has noticed something out of place that your conscious mind hasn’t yet recognized. Often this is because your conscious mind is distracted. If the person you’re uneasy about is a predator, he (or she) is likely deliberately distracting you. Predators often use distraction to surprise and overwhelm their victims. That distraction is usually getting the victim engaged in dialog. When you’re paying attention to language you are not paying attention to what the predator is doing.

We have two levels of attention: margin of attention for doing simple tasks such as chewing; our focus of attention works more complex tasks. Our focus of attention is a single channel processor—it literally can only work one task or problem at a time. Trying to hold a conversation while doing arithmetic is a good demonstration of this truth. When we think we are multi-tasking, we are actually rapidly shifting our focus of attention between the tasks (and doing neither as well if we stayed focused on only one). Predators and magicians use distraction to surprise us.

If you find yourself thinking there’s something not right about a person or situation, get away immediately. Then thank your subconscious mind. What if you’re wrong and he wasn’t a Threat? No harm: you do not have to right, you just have to be safe.

Stay tuned for Regrets, Part Three.

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REGRETS, Part 1.

Victims of violent crimes commonly make certain statements when talking to police afterward. We’ll look at these comments one at a time.

Why would someone I’ve never even met—much less offended—want to hurt me this badly? If he’d demanded my wallet, I’d have given it to him.

The issue is, not surprisingly, that you’re talking about a sociopath if not a psychopath. These people are NOT “just like me”. You are just a resource to be harvested. Stop and ponder that.

If the attacker was an unarmed robber, he struck the victim with intent to knock out or at least disable the victim enough that the person can’t resist and cause a commotion that might attract law enforcement or witnesses. Usually, time is the attacker’s enemy; he aims to complete the robbery and flee in mere seconds. Believing everyone is “just like me” helps us interact with civilized people, but it can be deadly when dealing with predators. Evaluate each person and situation individually (more on how to do that in another post). Never assume. Complacency kills.

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“It’s about you being one step ahead of your attacker. That’s the most important thing; I can’t stress it enough.” —Nick Drossos of Code Red Defense (TM).

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