Daily Mindset for Protecting Yourself

[Medic!]

I am an internet yahoo/commando.

 

[Joe13]

I am an internet yahoo/commando.

Add 20lbs of gut and swap that real dog out for a 20lb lap dog and it would be hard to tell us apart.

Good on you man for staying in shape! I am down 60lbs from all the weight I gained a few years ago after a couple of injuries and a knee surgery.

Now I am just working on bulking back up and building my stamina to where I was 6 years ago. It is happening nowhere near as fast as it did in my 20's LoL!!!


We should all be in your condition.

Now where are those Oreos....

 

[Sgt Nambu]

".........think the best of people." Wow, strange concept! I have no problem thinking the worst is absolutely probable with people! I don't find it a bothersome way to live, when I meet someone I'm polite and not menacing.

BUT I WATCH EVERYONE, LIKE A HAWK, ALWAYS!

PS: I'm with the "little smile" folks! It's always worked very well for me.

 

[mkwerx]

Agreed.

And aren't we all internet yahoo's that are all 6'2", 240lbs of pure muscle and brawn? What do I have to be afraid of out there

I'm more like 6'4" and 290lbs of mostly fat and bone with some muscle wrapped around a "high capacity plastic and steel pez dispenser" with a good bit of unarmed combatives training here. I wouldn't say I look terribly intimidating, I don't have a deep baritone voice, but especially when I shave my head and grow the goatee out - I can look intimidating if I need to.

I'm not a fan of the cliche of "smile but have a plan to kill everyone you meet" - 99% of people I meet pose no threat, they're just typically good people living their lives doing their thing. The other 1% are dirtbags - these are the ones you should worry about. If you don't live completely oblivious to what's going on around you, your gut will tell you who the threats are most of the time well before your other senses pick it up. The ones you won't get - they're probably professional killers or criminals, psychopaths who have that ability to exude calm normalcy right up to the point they're jamming a knife to the hilt into your kidney or shooting you in the back of the head or something. Even the biggest, baddest alphas in the animal kingdom screw up at some point, and they are far better at reacting to instinctual clues and in tune to their environment than we are.

Listen to your gut - it will do it's damnest to keep you alive. Look around. We can't live in condition red - you'll give yourself a heart attack or a stroke in no time. We shouldn't be in condition white outside the home though either - if you're in public, you're at risk for something pretty much all the time - doesn't mean disaster looms around every corner, but when you're jammed into a situation around other people - that puts you into proximity of predators, plus the risk of accidents or acts of god that can cause harm to you goes up too. Look around. Take in your surroundings. Listen to your instincts!

 

[Caveman Jim]

Whether I'm alone or with the wife I constantly have my head on a swivel and one time she asked if I am getting a good look (at a female most times) and my typical answer is yea but she is a possible target for the 3 guys following her so let's keep going this way for a while.
I had a situation happen a few months before I enlisted in the Army that taught me to never be totaly complacent in public and I have worked in some very shady areas and am still alive and kicking.

 

[40calruler]

Agreed.

Confident eye contact from me is generally in addition to me smiling and/or saying "Hello", "Good Morning" or a "Pardon Me" if I have to walk by a bit close or take a step to the side to create a bit of distance.

I was not refering to "hard target" as a mean one necessarily - though it has worked for me well there too.

And aren't we all internet yahoo's that are all 6'2", 240lbs of pure muscle and brawn? What do I have to be afraid of out there

I might be close in the height but 240 is a pipe dream. I eat like a horse and stick between 180-190. Still big enough that the average guy does not look at me as a simple task. More about being polite but also being confident and continuing eye contact.
I cannot help but put on the "eastwood" stare when some little 5'5" thug is trying to stare me down. Guess I just have a bit of a temper. It is MUCH better than it used to be now that I just stare rather than say "is there a problem" to all those little chumps.

 

[DuneHopper]

I was trained to be on alert , and even when I am relaxing I am on alert. I never react to any situation I respond and sometime that will freak people out in emergencies and I am all chill like nothing even occurs. My only regret about training is there is no middle ground, the object is eliminated by means required its how it works here, in my head there is avoiding the threat or ending it no middle ground.
I trust no one, period other then close family and have lived a long life not trusting most people I meet, complacency in my mind will get me killed so I live it accordingly.
I am pleasant an likeable to most all people, most would have no idea what is under the calm exterior.
At 6 "4" and 240 I don't worry much even with my middle age my jobs have kept me pretty fit.

 

[Member 5605]

Went out yesterday and had coffee and chatted for a couple hours with a good friend of mine at a local Starbucks (his favorite coffe house I didn't get anything)

This friend is a Salem LEO.

I got to thinking about how whenever I see him off duty he isn't armed and he never is really. Though there is always one thing he does have with him when he is out in public.

He carries with him a 170lb malamute/wolf mix.

That alone is enough to deter an evil intention person.

Preparedness doesn't always mean a knife or firearm.

 

[No_Regerts]

I believe in training with stress inoculation so you can learn from how you react to things. You learn that being paranoid and being overly anticipatory can actually slow you down. The more you work under stress, the quicker you are to identify a threat.

Personal space is important and you can never have too much. Don't be afraid to be rude about it and make yourself clear. I've seen way too many officers allow people into their personal space for the sake of being polite. Sometimes it just takes a show of a palm and a "that's close enough" to let people know. If you establish a boundary and someone continues to advance, you have already begun to build justification for what happens next. It also gets your mind going to what happens next instead of trying to rev up when it's too late.

Preparation and practice will help you stay alert without being paranoid. Think of a rattlesnake. It is will give you every opportunity to know it's going to bite.

 

[mkwerx]

Here's a good vid from Travis Haley talking about the combat mindset and relating one of his own experiences where his lapse in situational awareness, a situation where he'd let himself get too lax, almost got him killed by a man shoving an AK into his face while he was overseas.

 

[John Gault]

Regarding the above video what I heard was someone explain how he went into someone else's home to confiscate personal property that some asswipe politician had determined was illegal and shot his bubblegum dead in his home because it was his job. We have lots of people like that here who will come into your home and take your property or your life with pleasure... Can you imagine how many of the people on this forum would comply with a 1 gun per home policy especially in a wartime setting.....

 

[mkwerx]

Regarding the above video what I heard was someone explain how he went into someone else's home to confiscate personal property that some asswipe politician had determined was illegal and shot his bubblegum dead in his home because it was his job. We have lots of people like that here who will come into your home and take your property or your life with pleasure... Can you imagine how many of the people on this forum would comply with a 1 gun per home policy especially in a wartime setting.....

This took place in Iraq during the war, while Haley was in the USMC. The weapons he was confiscating were being sold to insurgents - insurgents using those weapons to kill US service members, as well as Iraqi citizens who didn't share the same religious sect or political beliefs of said insurgents. Doesn't matter if you agreed with the war or not - American lives were being lost because of arms dealers like the one Haley had to kill, supplying insurgents and terrorists with weapons. These are largely the same jackals that have destabilized and taken over Iraq and Syria - and who just used mustard gas against Peshmurga fighters. If you're not of their religious sect - it doesn't matter if you're Muslim or not, they will kill you. They will kidnap your women and children, torture them, rape them, then behead them.

We can derail the thread further and argue if Iraq was better off with the US coming in and taking out Saddam or if we should've let that maniac remain in power but that'll just get the thread locked. The point of the video was about being aware of what's going on around you and being prepared to react to the situation, and the importance of not letting yourself become too complacent and blindsided by an obvious threat.