Personal Defense Preparedness - Vulnerability

Here's another important video from the Personal Defense Network. We know that training can have a lot of different forms and there's a lot of different important things to train. Studying and learning is a big part of training, as far as I'm concerned. When most people come here to the Memorial Shooting Center, they wanna go to the range, they wanna go to the scenario area. They might expect to be in a classroom watching a PowerPoint or a video of something that happened.

But they're probably not going to spend a lot of time sitting on the couch talking to a physician about anatomy and mobility. One of the other things they probably don't want to think a lot about is vulnerabilities. You know, we always wanna try to talk about strengths, and how do we become stronger, and how do we become tougher, and how can I best accentuate my own natural strengths. But vulnerabilities, and understanding them, are an incredibly important part of preparing to be safe, and then remaining safe in the fight. And understanding those vulnerabilities also gives us the opportunity to capitalize on them with our enemies.

That's correct, Rob. When training, it's really important to work on your weaknesses. And, when we speak of weaknesses and vulnerabilities, I use those pretty much interchangeably. Because the way humans are designed, they're thinking animals. And so the command and control of the system is an absolute critical piece of the of the fight to be able to have the way it's supposed to be.

Being able to get inside the person's mind is real important. And, that's true throughout generations, and has been demonstrated well. But the command and control of human weapon system is very important to be developed. One of the other vulnerabilities is vision. And when an organism, or a human, or or an animal doesn't have the vision, they're not able to to integrate with their environment well.

And so being able to practice utilizing peripheral vision has been shown to help performance. Likewise, airway and breathing is really important. You'll hear people talk about being in conflict and what they focus on is breathing. And, in point of fact, what that really does is it settles the person down, settles the command and control, and it also oxygenates them in order to be able to take care of the threat. Rapid breathing increases the outflow of carbon dioxide and messes, or changes, the whole variability of the human weapon system.

It doesn't oxygenate the musculature the way it needs to. And, the neuroendocrine response, the hormone response to that occurs with changes in excitement, shift that. And, one of the ways to make that not be a vulnerability is to stay calm through the command and control. And that is demonstrated by control of breathing and focus on breathing. Likewise, many people will think that...

So we moved from command and control in the brain, to vision, then to airway. One of the things we talked about last segment was mobility. The ability to, we are vulnerable at our knees. And so it is very, very important to be able to develop that musculature that will protect the knees, and to be able to maintain our vulnerability. The real-world of a conflict, or of a fight, doesn't necessarily occur in a ring, or in a cage with a referee.

And I know you emphasize that in your training. It occurs with hard, inanimate objects. And to be able to manipulate yourself and move yourself around those objects is absolutely critical. And so humans are vulnerable with regard to their mobility. Another thing I would I would point out is that not infrequently, it's taught that a kick to the crotch will totally stop all fights.

It does one, two things. It either stops the fight, or it changes the fight in such a dynamic way that it ramps up the fight very, very quickly. And the same thing goes with tools and utilization, as flashlights. Using a flashlight, just putting a light on somebody, doesn't stop the fight. And it's the same kind of thing.

Although it may be perceived as a vulnerability, it's not necessarily a vulnerability. Yeah. Understanding that when we attack a weak area, we cause pain, we cause distraction, it may or may not end the fight. And there's a difference between a disability and a distraction. And there's a difference between causing pain that really causes people to refocus their attack mode, and causing pain that actually just agitates, ramps people up.

And that's an important part of understanding there's a difference, but there's a link between the physiological and the psychological side of this. Let's get back into the command and control center. Uh-huh. So we know that humans are thinking animals. We talked about that as a vulnerability.

What's one way that we can, first, strengthen our ability to overcome that weakness of having our command and control center distracted? And then, maybe what's one way we can think about disrupting the command and control center of our enemy? Well, one way that we can accentuate our command and control center is to practice, and is to train, and is to put ourselves through those situations mentally with visualization. Or actually make it our practice to check the parking lot before we walk out to the vehicle. To know where our keys are, so that we're not focused on looking for our keys while we're standing in a dark parking lot next to our vehicle.

That's preparation. So that preparation makes a big difference. Likewise, a way that we can use that against our adversary is brought about by an example that occurred in our community just recently, where a 12 year with a knife had at least 10 police officers at bay, until one police officer walked up to the child, and pointed at him and said, "Put that down." And once someone actually told him to just put that down in command and authoritative way, he did so. But until that point, no one had had engaged his command and control. And, so, this team member on our team got in his command and control, and solved the whole problem by telling him to put it down, but also communicating that with his hands.

So getting inside the command and control center of our combatant. Now, we certainly can't count on someone dropping the gun because we say, "Drop the gun." But giving that command, being assertive, and getting inside that normal behavioral response to a command, could help us. It's critical. And of course the Warrior Expert Theory tells us that the more frequently and realistically we practice, the more likely we are to be able to respond efficiently. And that's that training, and preparation, and visualization that you talked about.

Let's talk about our vision. We talked about that as another vulnerability. And you talked a lot about peripheral vision. You talked about the idea of being able to train to use our peripheral vision. Now, I've been doing reading recently on the idea of constant partial attention syndrome.

The idea that we can train and learn to use our peripheral vision more, if we're doing things that require multiple attentions at one time. Driving and texting. Working on the computer while talking to a family member. All the things that we're really not supposed to do. It turns out that we have clinical proof now that the brain adapts to that, and enhances our ability to actually use the peripheral vision in those circumstances.

It's true. One of the things is that we underestimate our human weapon system. We underestimate its capability, and we underestimate its adaptability. In reality, our ability to research these things, it lags far behind our observation. And we can, as we develop those neurological pathways that give us practical rewards, our system is designed to become good at that.

Regardless of what it is. Whether it's collecting fruit and trying to feed our families, or, whether it's text messaging and driving, trying to feed our families. Absolutely. You know, the brain is amazingly adaptable. Your neuroplasticity, overcoming disabilities, overcoming loss of limbs, things like that.

Those things, we've seen them intuitively demonstrated all the time. But the ability to clinically say this is why it happens is still a developing science. So, it's great to have you here to sort of verify that the things we've felt like are right, actually are right. And in some cases that makes them right. Trust your intuition is something we've said for decades and centuries.

And the idea is that if you do something intuitively well, there's a reason for it. That's correct. And, and what happens with us, is as we begin to develop those over time, we pass those behavioral traits on to our children. And to the people, and also, to the people around us. So, those behavioral traits that are effective for us are picked up on, at some level, by those that we interact with.

Especially through training situations like this. And, I know that's a big part of Direct Action Medical Network's mission, is training and passing this information on. That's true. We spend quite a bit of time talking to people about making themselves better fighters using biomechanics, and using the physiology, and providing a basis for that information. Okay.

Let's talk about the physiology, next, of the airway. Now you talked about breathing. And there's a lot of different methods out there. You know, three, breathe in, hold it for three seconds, breathe out. You know, take three seconds to come in, three seconds to go out.

There's different patterns I've heard. Do you have a recommended breathing pattern that people should practice, or visualize, or maybe even use in those high level simulations, so that they're more likely to use them in the actual critical incident? I think probably the best thing to say about that is that they should be aware of it, but not try to control it. And, in their awareness of it, and their understanding of the principle of how it's utilized, is the most helpful aspect of it. You'll see people that get very very tense and they'll hold their breath.

And then they'll go through a bunch of motions. And, while they're doing that, the muscles are using the oxygen that they've held. And now, they have to replenish that oxygen by breathing faster. And it throws all their tempo in fight, and it throws everything off. And, I think that's the guidance I would say.

And an elite fighter, a person who wants to really move forward in his capability, is someone who is aware of it, but is not constrained by methodology. That's great. It's great advice. So be aware of your breathing. Know that you have to keep breathing.

And that you should breathe deeply as opposed to shallowly. Would that be? Yeah, I think it would, I think it would be best to say to breathe naturally. Naturally. And to let, naturally, that's going to enhance that fight.

Great. And of course, that's going to be more efficient because it relies on our natural efforts. What about breaking down the airway of our enemy? How do we get inside of their head? Get inside of their airway?

Get inside of their control of their breathing, if possible? Yeah, I think the, once again, the place to start with that as command and control. But at the same time, the neck is an incredibly vulnerable aspect of humans. And the way it's designed, and the way it's put together, is the musculature is around the neck to not only to support the head, but to protect the airway. And the trachea is most vulnerable in that cervical part.

And, being able to dominate that in choke holds, as demonstrated by UFC and MMA fights, those type of things, and kinking that airway is going to restrict it. Likewise, when we think of airway, we tend to think about the trachea. But recently an operator held a person and basically made them pass out just by constricting his chest. And so, being able to expand is another part of the airway that people don't necessarily think about. Sure.

And so, being able to control that in an individual can certainly affect their command and control, ultimately. Sure. And we see that in the natural world with with the activity of a constricting snake compressing that chest cavity. And then of course, in wrestling. We've known for a long time, if we can just so much as have our weight rest down on the chest of that person who's beneath us, they have to work a lot harder than we do just to get that oxygen in the body.

That's correct. Excellent. So understanding vulnerabilities, both so that you can strengthen them, learn how to avoid the weaknesses that are inherent in the human weapon system, and, for you to take advantage of those vulnerabilities to break down the person who's trying to hurt you or your family, are all important parts of understanding your preparation for self-defense. Check out more videos just like this one at the Personal Defense Network.