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Speech was given at Gulf Breeze Toastmasters in June 2018.
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I was recently in Colorado for training in being a Krav Maga Instructor. It was a very challenging physically, emotionally, and physically, as well as mentally. Once in a while we would have a classroom like session and discuss different things such as principles and one that stuck out to me was the idea of the Timeline of defense to an attack.
The first stage in the timeline is can you AVOID. If you are walking out of the mall and there are a couple of suspicious characters hanging out near your car, you can just avoid and walk back in the mall and wait.
The next stage is lets use the same scenario, you don’t think they are all that suspicious and you walk closer and they begin moving quickly towards you. You can use PREVENTION and yell loudly for help and use a defensive kick.
Lets now say with the same scenario, you see suspicious characters near your car, you ignore it (fail), you walk towards them, they move quickly towards you and you don’t yell (fail), you don’t kick them (fail) they are close in so now what you punch, hammerfist, palm heel strike and yell, right! Ok so you don’t do that then, you failed to avoid, you failed to prevent, you failed to fight, the person now has you in a choke hold or has their hands over your mouth. You must REACT immediately. Next is the ground, next is ultimate failure, you are injured severely, in some way possibly even death.
The closer you got to zero on the timeline it meant that you had failed to act or did not recognize the need to act sooner than later.
As I watched this I thought about the correlation between what was being talked about and in Project Management what we refer to as Risk Management.
As a PMP, a certified Project Management Professional, part of coming up with a good plan is determining risk and how will you manage through risk.
The first rule of managing risk is:
AVOIDANCE - if you can avoid the risk then by all means be evasive.
SHARE or Mitigate - In self defense we yelled for help to call for assistance. In business, we can try and find others to help absorb the impact of risk.
ACCEPT - If you can avoid or mitigate the risk you have to accept it you have to now prepare for what comes next. A hurricane is coming, I can not avoid it, I can’t share it, I have to accept that fact, now what! In Self Defense, we call this part Decision and Reflexive Action. We decide to take action and our first movement is reflexive in nature.
Once we accept we CONTROL the Risk. We do this using a loop called PLAN-DO-CHECK-ACT which is recursive in hailing the risk. We make a plan, we do it, we check how we do it (does it work) then we act (make changes if needed) if changes are needed repeat back to Plan.
In self defense we call this the OODA loop. In invented by an Air Force Pilot to increase pilot responses by being more efficient. OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, and ACT. So we have observed we are in a bad spot we have begun a reflexive action and now using our techniques are slightly modifying it to a defensive action, we are deciding, then we are defending with action.
Now let’s talk about LIFE.
Life comes at you with lots of problems. It is in its very nature that this happens. It is because we have let small problems grow into larger problems, it is because of errors in decision, it is because of things out of our control completely due to nature. But we can easily look at problems much in the same way as we do Risk Management and in the same way as the Defense timeline. In both case we are protecting ourselves against life’s adversities.
First when we see a problem in the distance. We can defend against that problem by Avoiding it completely. We can make a choice that will steer us in another direction. I think this person is not good for me, I’ll end the relationship. Maybe I’ll not have that next beer before I drive home. Typically intuition is the best defense to avoid failure.
Next we know the problem is coming so we safeguard ourselves ahead of time. We are preventing a assured negative outcome by planning ahead. We buy insurance, we put the shudders up over the windows before the hurricane hits land. This is the time where we have avoided procrastination in order to not fail in life.
Next we know we have a problem it’s going to hit us, what do we do. Maybe we share, call for help, we see if perhaps others can share that burden or can take that burden from you. When I was a young man I worked in the field for several months with this old guy who was about to retire. And he was an amazingly hard worker more than people half his age. But I remember when we were particularly stuck on something and spending a lot of time trying to figure it out. He called the support center who said they would dial in and fix the issue for him. His exact words, “Great, a problem passed on is a problem solved!” And he thought not another thing about it. Very wise man.
Next on the timeline is when you have to face it yourself, we have failed at identifying the problem to this point or we have neglected any previous action. Avoiding the problem is no longer an option. At this point, you either accept the ramifications or you deal directly head on. This unfortunately at this point is a reflexive action, we look for less intricate ways to solve a problem and look for quick and dirty resolutions. I just got a speeding ticket. I’m just going to pay it and be done with it. Could have been avoided, but it wasn’t…now you either use your gift of charm with the officer or just like me with little charm, just pay the ticket.
Finally, we hit what we call in Defense, the ground game. It’s never good to fight on the ground. Some martial arts teach you this only, this is great but in Defense, we want to take care of things long before this happens. But sometimes, sneak attacks happen or you have failed failed failed failed to do a defense and now you are in Survival Mode.
What do you do! You fight, you kick, you bite, you do whatever it takes to survive in order to get away. Life is no different than that. Sometimes we are hit with a pile of bricks out of nowhere. The only way to get through it is to just keep fighting. Keep your head above water and don’t give up! No matter what, don’t give up! Scratch, crawl, beg, borrow, steal, just survive.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow we learn from our failures of today and we face problems a bit wiser and with a bit more avoidance and with prevention. Imi Lichtenfield has a quote and it’s the tagline of all Krav Maga, its, “So that one may walk in peace.” It’s that we are aware of this timeline and know how to protect ourselves is what this refers to. So to all of you in regards to life’s problems, may you have the foresight to avoid and prevent your problems, and may you also walk in peace.
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