TRANSCRIPT
Over the last few years, I’ve watched quite a few videos about self-defense. How to defend yourself if somebody attacks you, what to do if you’re in a fight, how to end a fight quickly. A lot of these are by martial arts experts. Now, one of the things I’ve noticed is at the very beginning of a lot of their videos, they put in a caveat that says the number one rule for martial arts is to avoid a fight if you can. If you can figure out how to not get in one, that’s the best way to deal with a conflict.
Now, then usually what they do after putting in that ten-second caveat is to go on to describe what to do if you are in a fight. But how do you avoid a fight? I think it really is an art. There really is an art to it, and it’s part of the martial arts.
Well, the first thing I think, the number one rule for me in avoiding fights, is to check my ego. To not have a big ego. And I think a lot of people who end up in fights, whether they realize it or not, get emotionally threatened when there’s some sort of conflict. When someone is threatening them, when somebody wants to fight them, their little child, their hurt little child, the part of them that’s been so wounded and so attacked, gets emotionally threatened. They feel like they’re gonna lose their emotional sense of themselves.
So when there are ways that they might avoid a fight, they don’t take those ways because they want to prove themselves. They want to maybe act out some of their ancient hurts. They want to get even with the people that hurt them once upon a time. And so really, their little hurt child gets involved through their big adult body, and really horrible things can happen both to the other person and to them.
So how do we check our ego? How do we avoid getting our little hurt child triggered? Well, the first thing is to do our preparation. And the best way we can do our preparation is the long-term project of healing our childhood wounds, of healing the little wounded child that we once were. And we all, in different ways, have been wounded. We’ve all been belittled and put down, and maybe even a lot of us have had physically bad things happen to us.
So how do we heal that? That’s the whole self-therapy process. That’s the process of mourning and grieving, of finding out what was done to us, of reclaiming ourself through growing up and becoming emotionally mature adults. But that’s more of the long-term preparation for helping us work ourselves, work out our issues so we don’t have a chip on our shoulder. So that when someone does threaten us, it’s not our moment to act out all our rage.
But in that moment, what can we do? Well, one thing for me is if somebody is, let’s say, taunting me, trying to in some way bully me into getting angry so that I’ll get into a fight with them, well, not take it personally. Just let it roll off my shoulders. If they’re saying mean things to me, ignore them and definitely not taunt them back.
One thing that’s been very, very key for me, and unlike some of the things I did as a kid, is if somebody insults me, don’t insult them back. Don’t take the bait. Don’t use curse words. Don’t raise my voice. If they say something making fun of how I look or how I walk or something about how I’m dressing, don’t return that. Basically, if they throw some mud on me, don’t throw mud back on them.
And sometimes people really go around looking for fights by throwing basically emotionally or psychologically or verbally throwing mud onto people. I actually talked to a guy a few years ago who said he and his friends would go out at night, and they would, as a group, look for guys or maybe even a group of guys that they knew they could beat up. And they would verbally taunt them and get these guys angry. And they would use the smallest guy in the group to taunt this person, to taunt this person, saying mean things about him, to make fun of him, pick on him, and maybe even touch him a little bit. So that, and then as soon as the guy would start to fight back, then they would, as a group, beat him up.
Well, I was thinking, my God, all the more reason to know how to avoid fights.
Another thing for me is actually, it’s a strange thing, but don’t carry weapons. I know a lot of people can find a comfort in carrying a weapon, especially in this day and age in the United States at least. At least where in a lot of places you can legally carry a gun. But for me, that’s something I really, really want to avoid. I grew up in the countryside. I grew up actually with a shotgun and a rifle starting when I was 16. I did a lot of hunting. I know what it’s like to carry a gun. I know what it’s like to have the power of a gun.
Well, for me, I realized it did something psychological to me. And what it was is I was an insecure little boy. I was an insecure teenager. And having that gun took away a lot of my insecurities. Suddenly, I realized basically unless someone else had a better gun than I did or was a better shot than I was, there’s no way anybody could beat me, especially if they didn’t have a gun. And that was an incredibly empowering feeling for the little insecure side of me.
But what it also did is it put me in a position where it was a lot harder to back down. And also, I had a lot less reason to back down because I was less likely to lose. But the other thing that’s really key for me is having a weapon, especially a gun, put my mind in the position where I was more hyper-vigilant. I was ready to fight. I like had this tool that was so dangerous that something made me almost want to fight more. And at some point, I sold my guns because I figured this out. Or else I don’t want to fight. I don’t like having these violent weapons, and I actually felt a lot safer after that.
But there’s one specific story that I have that actually really drove this home in a slightly different way. I started hitchhiking 26 years ago when I was 20 years old, and I started hitchhiking in Wyoming, actually in Yellowstone National Park. And my first day hitchhiking, it’s a strange thing. My first day I’ve hitchhiked, I don’t know, 15, 20 countries, 25 countries now. The only time this ever happened for that first day hitchhiking, I found a big hunting knife on the side of the road. Why it was there, I have no idea. But I took it as a sign, and I put it inside of my pants. I stored it in my pants because I thought, God, if I’m in a hitchhike, how much better if I have a big weapon that I can fight back with?
So I ended up hitchhiking for like two days with a giant hunting knife inside of my pants. Well, what happened was two days later, I was in the town of Jackson Hole, and I met another hitchhiker. And he was probably twice my age, and he was a tough guy. He was a big strong guy, shorter than I was, but he was very muscular and he was carrying a stick. And I thought, oh, I’ll ask him about hitchhiking. So I asked him a million questions about hitchhiking and the philosophy of hitchhiking. And then I showed him my weapon, and I said, what do you think of this? Do you think it’s a good idea that I hitchhiked with this knife?
And I think deep down part of me knew that it wasn’t a good idea that I was hitchhiking with a knife. And I think a big part of the reason was is because I noticed when I would get in cars with people, even people who were nice, who were offering me no threat, and actually up to that point, I’d never had anyone threaten me when I was hitchhiking, I noticed I kept thinking about the knife in my pants. And I kept thinking about how am I gonna pull it out if they say something to me, if they start doing something threatening to me?
If they pull a gun on me and they do something crazy, how am I gonna pull it out? Am I gonna pull out my left hand, my right hand, depending on where I’m sitting in the car? Am I gonna turn this way? Am I gonna put it at them? What am I gonna hold it back?
So I asked him about it, and the guy said to me, “I told lies. What do you think? It’s a good idea that I carry this knife?” And he said, “Let me ask you this.” And I said, “What?” He goes, “Are you good with a knife?” And I said, “I don’t know. I guess though. I mean, I have quick reflexes, and I’m fairly strong, and I’ve got long arms.” He goes, “No, no, no. Are you good with a knife? Do you know how to use a knife? You really, I mean, have you fought with a knife before?” And I said, “No. I mean, I know how to whittle, and I can throw a knife so it sticks in a tree, but I really have never fought with a knife.”
I don’t—he goes, “I don’t think you should be carrying that knife.” And I said, “Maybe I actually am good with a knife. I don’t know.” He goes, “I don’t think you are.” I said, “Well, I don’t know.” And then I go, “Well, defensively, I don’t think I do know how to fight with a knife. Probably better than most.” He goes, “You think you’re good with a knife? He goes, ‘Come at me with that knife.'” And I said, “Uh, I don’t want to.” “Don’t want to because you won’t hurt me.” He goes, “Come at me. Try. Try.”
So I was like, really? He goes, “You’re not gonna get me, trust me. Just try.” So I was about six feet away from him. I started walking toward him, and I put my hand out, and boom! He stuck that stick out because he was carrying a stick, and it was about maybe that long. And the next thing, another knife went flying. He knocked it right out of my hand—a perfect shot. And I said, “Oh my God!” Because you know what? He goes, “You don’t have no idea how to use that knife because if I wanted, I could have broken your hand, I would have broken your knee, and I would have cracked you upside the head.”
He goes, “But you want my real advice to you?” And I said, “Yeah.” Because you know what? Because I can tell I’ve been talking to you for 10 minutes. Because you have a nice way about you. You have a gentle way about you. You’ve got a good ability to talk. He said, “You’re a smart guy.” He goes, “You know what? I think your best weapon is your ability to talk and your kindness.” He goes, “I would use that. That’s your real ability to use self-defense because somebody like you, you’re probably going to get yourself into more trouble if you do fight back.”
Now another thing that has made me more comfortable is, especially if I’m traveling in places that are dangerous or I’m just walking out alone at night in a place where I don’t feel safe, is be prepared. And one of the ways that I’m be prepared is I don’t carry expensive stuff. I don’t like to go into dangerous places carrying a lot of money. Now sometimes that has been unavoidable. Sometimes I’ve been walking through a city, perhaps at night, where I had all my stuff with me, and I had, let’s say, a few hundred dollars, which just someone could be a lot of money.
Now one thing I would do is hide it. I would wear like a money belt inside of my clothes where someone couldn’t easily get at it. But what I would do is I would have my wallet. I would have some form of identification that wasn’t important to me so I could lose it, like my library card or something like that, and make sure I had enough money in there so if I did get robbed, that somebody’s not going to be unhappy. I didn’t want someone to rob me and only get two dollars off me. So maybe I would carry like thirty dollars in my wallet so if someone did try to rob me, I wouldn’t be put in a position where I felt I had to fight for my money. I could just give them my wallet and say, “Take it.” And they could take it.
And I had that happen a couple of times where people did start bothering me, and I was very glad that I had like some external decoy, some sort of wallet with very little money in it that I could have given to them had it come down to that. Now actually, it never did come down to that. I never got robbed, but I know it gave me a lot more confidence to know that I wasn’t put in a position where I was going to really have to fight for my valuables.
And another thing for me is I like when I’m out, especially if I’m in summer, that I know is not gonna be that safe or I’m gonna be out at night or in a place where there’s not very many people. I like to wear running shoes because I always know that if all else fails and someone really tries to get at me, I can always run away. And I’ve done it before. I’ve been chased a few times where I felt like, “Oh my God! These people really actually do want to beat me up or rob me.” And sometimes it’s more than one person, and I’ve just taken off and run.
And part of that is that I don’t have any pride when it comes to avoiding a fight. If I can run away, I win. Now what’s the proof that this works for me? Because I’ve seen a lot of those martial arts videos where these guys show all the different ways that they can kill someone in 10 seconds, breaking their nose and all these things. And you look at these guys, and they’re super muscular, and they’re super tough, and just the way that they look. And sometimes their videos for what they show they can do is the proof that it works.
Well, what’s the proof that my way works? The proof for me is I haven’t been beaten up in a long, long time. I’ve never broken a bone. I’ve never gotten robbed. And 46 years old, still here to tell the story.