Always Go Toward Safety, Not Away From Danger.

 

From the MCU movie Black Widow.

This scene in the MCU movie Black Widow is a great example of the principle: Always Go Toward Safety, Not Away From Danger.

 

What’s the difference?

 

Your mindset determines what you are likely to see. When your mindset is “seek safety” you’re more likely to find safety than if your focus is “get away from that danger.” You could pass up safe harbor because you're not looking for safety, you're looking to get away from the danger Also, if you’re focused on getting away from that specific dangerous thing then you could accidentally find yourself in different kind of danger, you might go from the proverbial frying pan into the fire.

 

Let me give you an example of seeking safety from a real-life friend of mine who used to work for an intelligence agency. 

 

She had finished her shopping and was walking to her car. She noticed a man sitting in a car was staring her which made her feel uncomfortable. She got into her car, and he started driving toward her. She quickly pulled out of her parking space, and he followed. She did a couple of fast evasive driving maneuvers and then pulled out onto the street only to get stopped at the stoplight. She didn’t see him behind her or anywhere else, but she wasn’t sure she had succeeded in losing him.

 

So, she looked for a safe place to go.

 

She found a bank. It wasn’t her bank, but it was still safe harbor because banks have lots of security cameras plus they have employees who are very well trained in hitting the panic button.

 

The light turned green, and she headed straight to the bank. She sat in her car in front of the bank for a few minutes until she felt she had indeed lost the guy and she felt comfortable  continuing with her day.

 

Another place that has a high probability of being safe is a restaurant or a bar, especially the types of places where people tend to go on first dates. Most restaurants and bars have procedures in place for when a date goes dangerously bad, and most staff look out for the well-being of their guests. If you go in seeking help, you’re highly likely to receive it.

 

I have a friend who used to be a flight instructor who would ask his students, “If the engine quit right now, where would you land?” I think this is fairly for flight instructors to do.

 

Once in the middle of a flying lesson his engine did actually quit and he had to make an emergency landing on a freeway, taking over for his student. He did an amazing job of landing safely because he had practiced it for years, since he himself was a student. 

 

Here’s a Situational Awareness exercise: While you’re out and about, every now and then ask yourself if there was an emergency where would you go for help?

 

Don’t necessarily imagine something bad happening to you, imagine that you witness a medical emergency and you wish to help. Obviously, you would call 911, but where would you go to get a First Aid kit to lend assistance before the first responders arrive? What sorts of businesses are likely to have first aid kits easily accessible?

 

Hint: Restaurants, again. Kitchen staff frequently get cut and burned, and guests can have medical emergencies. There’s a good chance someone on duty has their CPR and First Aid certifications up to date.

 

What other sorts of business?

Also, it's a good idea to get your own CPR and First Aid training up to date and keep a First Aid kit in your car.

 

Life Protection: Get into the habit of looking for safety.

Life Enhancement: Tacti-cool games are fun.

 

Happy training!

 

~Amy.

Our Themes for January 2023

Our themes for January 2023 are New Beginnings and Situational Awareness.

 

New Beginnings mainly because Eric and I are relaunching Street Shield Self-Defense. I posted about it yesterday.

 

Situational Awareness because I’m developing the link between it and Mindfulness as good Mental Health Hygiene.

 

But this post is about restarting again and again. And there seems to be a lot of people restarting right now.

 

If in the New Year you are thinking about making changes in your life, I would like to suggest that rather than thinking about changing who you are, instead you should think about becoming more of who you know should be and less of who “they” want you to be. Shed the things that are no longer serving you.

Become your preferred version of yourself.

 

Be bold and stay safe,

 

~Amy.

 

Comeback Blog Post

 

Written by Amy.

 

We’re back!

I don’t want this blog to be all about me, I want it to be about the self-defense things that Eric and want to teach, but I feel I need to write something quickly about where we’ve been for the past year.

About a year ago, my husband, Chad, and I had to close the restaurant that we owned and operated. As the restaurant was winding down, we started ramping up Street Shield’s social media. I had planned on going from the restaurant straight into creating a new career teaching women’s self-defense and also as a Life Coach helping people who are recovering from violence create new lives for themselves.

 

Then disaster struck. About a month after we closed the doors to our restaurant, I suffered a ruptured disk in my neck. Complicating things, I had a black belt test in karate coming up. I spent much of the last year dealing with the pain, rehabbing the injury (I didn’t need surgery whew!), and preparing for my test.

 

Training for black belt test while rehabbing a ruptured disk seems crazy! Fortunately for me, the things I needed to do to rehab the injury were the same things I needed to do to prepare for my test: rehab weightlifting and resistance band training, kata/forms, and even sparring after my spinal specialist gave us the go ahead to resume sparring again. 

With a lot of dedication and hard work I did it! Many thanks and much gratitude to Eric who is also my Sensei and saw me through the process and threw an amazing test for me. I feel thoroughly tested, and it was one of the best afternoon's of my life.

 

And now I’m ready to teach.

 

Eric teaches the physical skills and I teach the “soft” skills, also known as “alpha” skills because they are the first set of skills that you use to keep yourself safe such as Situational Awareness and Boundary Setting and Enforcement. We only teach the physical skills in-person, but the soft/alpha skills can be taught online.

 

One very important thing I learned throughout my ordeal is how to use Situational Awareness skills as Mindfulness Meditation for good Mental Health Hygiene. Situational Awareness is basically really good Mindfulness, and Mindfulness is useful in treating things like Depression and Anxiety. This “Mental Heath Hygiene”, not a replacement for therapy. An analogy I like to make is it’s like brushing your teeth to improve your dental health, but there are times in which you might need to see a professional for example if you need a filling then you go see a dentist. Likewise, things like Mindfulness are things you can do for your mental health, but there are times when you might need to see a professional.

 

 

 

In September Eric and I gave a presentation at Dress For Success where I talked about Self-Defense is good Mental Health Hygiene and Eric gave a physical skills demonstration, and we received some really great feedback. So, this is what I’m going to concentrate my teaching on. And then soon we can start teaching in person again.

 

Be bold and stay safe.

~Amy.

 

National Inspire Your Heart with Art Day

 Happy National Inspire Your Heart with Art Day!

I (Amy) spotted this bit of graffiti at Agate Beach, Oregon while on vacation with my husband and our friends. They are published authors, and so they stopped to analyze this.

It says "your PERFECT" and of course "you're" is misspelled. Was that done on purpose to make the point that the reader is both imperfect and perfect? "your" is lower case, "PERFECT" is all caps. Again, was that done on purpose to make the point? And then someone cleverly scrawled, "No I'm not." The "No" is so faded that it's barely visible, but the "I'm not" is more readily seen. I should have taken a photo of them analyzing this because it was quite a moment, but I didn't think of it because I'm not perfect.

What does this have to do with self-defense?

First, I keep emphasizing that the first step to self-defense is believing that you're worth defending. If you don't believe that your own life and your own well-being are worth defending then nothing else matters. Put in more positive terms: you must believe that YOU are worth defending in order for anything else to matter.

Secondly, Situational Awareness is fun! Situational Awareness is not looking for bad-guys behind every bush rather it's being generally aware of your surrounds, and when you're aware of your surroundings then you're going notice cool things like this bit of graffiti.

I wrote a brief primer on Situational Awareness here:

https://streetshieldselfdefense.blogspot.com/2021/03/a-brief-primer-on-situational-awareness.html

Go out and spot something cool and beautiful today. Go out and Inspire Your Heart with Art.

Be bold and stay safe,

Posted by Amy.

New Beginnings

The pandemic has not been kind to me. One of my frustrations is that I haven't been able to teach women’s self-defense and I haven’t been able to able to write. Let me catch you up on what’s been going on and then I’ll be ready to get to work again.

 

My husband, Chad, and I have owned a restaurant. Pre-pandemic I was a mild-mannered restaurateur by day and a martial artist and women’s self-defense instructor by night. Owning and operating a restaurant during a pandemic is extremely difficult, bordering on impossible. Training in the martial arts during a pandemic before vaccines were available was difficult, and I want to give special thanks to Eric, my partner in Street Shield Self-Defense, for helping me continue training in our Okinawan martial art system by encouraging me to create a garage dojo and also by training with me via video. Trying to teach women’s self-defense while also owning and operating a restaurant during a pandemic proved to be too much for me. Eventually Chad and I had to close our restaurant and we’re now building new lives for ourselves. My new life will be focused on martial arts and teaching women’s self-defense which are my passions.

 

However, I also had some joys in 2021 that I would like to share:

Chad and I went on vacation with friends to Oregon and Washington state.

After Eric and I were vaccinated we resumed trained in person.

I traveled to Minneapolis for the 500Rising Instructional Foundations in Women’s Self-Defense course for the second year in a row.

In November I started posting again on our Street Shield Self-Defense Facebook and Instagram pages. Each month has a theme.

November’s theme was Boundaries. With the holidays coming up, maintaining Boundaries with family can be important.

December was Self-Care. It’s easy to become so caught up in holiday activities and creating special holiday experiences for everyone that we need to remember to take care of our ownselves. What does this have to do with self-defense? The first step to self-defense is understanding that you're worth defending, and that starts with caring for your ownself. 

January’s theme is New Beginnings. This ties in with the New Year and  resolutions, plus I had planned on resuming blogging this month and here we are with my New Beginning! What does this have to do with self-defense? The best thing you can do for your own self-protection is becoming your preferred version of yourself, because the happier you are with yourself the harder target you are. This is true whether we're talking about potential Threats who are strangers, acquaintances, or people close to you such as intimate partners. Therefore becoming your preferred version of yourself is one of the the most important things you can do to keep yourself safer. This why I say, "Self-Defense is Life Enhancement. The things we do to keep ourselves safer also make our lives better on a daily basis."

February’s theme will be Relationships. Tying in with Valentine’s Day. 8 out of 10 rapists are known by their victims, usually an acquaintance or an intimate partner. This makes managing relationships very important for personal safety.

March will be Strategy and Planning. Many people don't succeed in keeping their New Year’s resolutions because for them the dead of winter should be a time of rest, for those people Springtime makes more sense for starting major life changes. Therefore March is a good month for strategizing and planning whether you're taking specific steps for your personal safety or becoming your preferred version of yourself.

April will be Renewal. This ties-in to spring, and implementing those March plans.

And that’s as far as we’ve gotten. We'll decide themes for May and the following months later.

Eric and I hope to teach in-person classes again some time in the Spring, it mostly depends on me and what’s going on in my life as I’m rebuilding it. In the meantime, we have this blog and other social media. 

Please join us on this journey.

 

Stay safe and be bold.

 ~Amy.