This is another blog post on the Violence Dynamics -Boston seminar I recently attended. ( ( BUY MY BOOKS!!!)
Randy King is a self defense and martial arts instructor based in Alberta, Canada. He gave a presentation at the Violence Dynamics Seminar in Boston on May 19, 2018 on Threat Assessment and Pre-Attack Cues. The event consisted of a lecture presentation followed by an exercise. I found the exercise particularly interesting and will comment on it later. I did not get much chance to speak with Randy during the day I was there. As mentioned, he'd gone out the night before and was very tired. Throughout much of the day, he avoided the program, didn't step on the match to demonstrate or teach, and at one point, he was sleeping in the back room instead of participating.
Here are the lecture notes. They are difficult to read. One option is to copy the photo, paste it somewhere, and then zoom on it and blow it up in size to see what you can read.
The intent of the lecture was to teach people how to assess a suspicious person and get a better sense of whether or not that person was about to attack them. This is an important skill that is often neglected in self defense training. It is my belief that one value of self defense training should be the ability and increased confidence to explore the world and visit new venues and environments safely. I've had more than one martial arts instructor advocate that students accept the notion that we can all be attacked any moment of any day (which is kind of sort of true but statistically not very likely) instead of taking the time to think about or learn why, when, and how people become violent and the best ways to detect and respond to situations where it is most likely to happen. I mentioned Rory Miller's books before. His books, Meditation on Violence and The Logic of Violence, are both excellent introductions to this subject.
King's talk was quite good and he is a good presenter.
After the talk, there was an exercise. Students were paired off and we were supposed to practice what to do when someone accosted us on the street. This was a very popular exercise and the people in attendance seemed to like it a lot.
On the other hand, I had some problems with it. (Yeah, yeah, this is me. Always a critic.)
OK, as stated people were paired off and instructed to stand close to each other and interact with each other in order to practice, if I understand correctly, how not to let people get too close and then get sucked into an interaction. This may be an over-simplification but that was how I perceived it. (and I was there.)
It's actually not difficult to avoid contact with street people and other unwanted people if you are willing to be a little rude, but not too rude as being "too rude" and confrontational is one way to provoke an unwanted response. The key is to avoid enough interaction so that breaking off interaction becomes personal and thus warrants, allows (in the mind of the other participant), or encourages a "personal response" from the other party.
So, to illustrate what I mean, I am now going to talk about my encounter a month or two ago with Bill Murray, yes, Bill Murray, the famous actor and comedian, when we walked past each other in downtown Schenectady.(Want more examples? Examples not featuring celebrities but real Schenectadians? They're coming in part two of this piece.)
First, I left work about 4:30 and passed through Proctor's Theater, a beautiful theater in downtown Schenectady, and noticed a sign a little like the photo below.
It said there was an upcoming show called "Bill Murray, Jan Vogler and Friends." It did not give the time or date or any other details on the show, something that left me a bit confused and wondering what the whole thing was about.
But, whatever, I figured, and passed through the theater, went downtown, looked for a good place to sit and read for a bit, and in a little under an hour returned passing again through the Proctor's Arcade entrance to take a short cut to where I had parked my car.
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I did, of course, consider turning and chasing after him, just to say something like "Hey, hey, are you Bill Murray?" but that would have been pretty stupid. Instead I walked ahead, letting him go in the opposite direction, and when I saw a Proctor's employee, I asked "When's the Bill Murray show?" and they said "In about two and a half hours." And I said "Oh my goodness! Was that him who went outside just now?" and one of the ushers assured me it was.
Now, on one hand, I would have loved to have the chance with Bill Murray.
But on the other hand, would Bill Murray really have liked to chat with me?
Of course, he would have, at least if I'd said the right things and we'd had time and relaxed. I am a wonderful person. On the other hand, at that moment I had no idea what I would have said. Probably the phrase "Are you Bill Murray?" would have been said three times, along with "Garsh, you're great!" A mention of watching Saturday Night Live years ago, perhaps a question as to why he and Lucy Liu reportedly did not get along on the set of Charlie's Angels (I always was a fan of her too, but I can't imagine Bill Murray would enjoy this question from a stranger), and if I'd been truly clever perhaps throw in a reference to some obscure film that he'd seemed to be enjoying himself that no one had seen ever, perhaps that one with him and RZA of Wu Tang clan in the coffee shop chatting away. (That last one, by the way, took me an hour to think of. My suspicion is that if you wish to chat with a celebrity ask them about works they enjoyed that few people have seen.)
Anyway, bottom line is that a conversation on the streets of Schenectady between me and Bill Murray, with me having no opportunity to prepare, would have been a lot more interesting and exciting for me, than it would have been for Bill Murray. And that's why Bill Murray did what he did. Avoid eye contact, avoid making a connection or presenting the appearance of a connection, and keep on walking until he was out of distance.
And that's kind of what this exercise DID NOT do. Yeah, it began with eye contact, a connection, and no chance to walk away.
Which are the three things you want to do when accosted on the street by people you don't wish to interact with.
So the three things that Bill Murray did to avoid getting accosted by strange street people in Schenectady, and how he avoided an unwanted interaction and conversation with a strange street person downtown in our city (Even if that strange street person was me.)
1. Avoid unnecessary eye contact. Don't be rude, don't get locked into a straight ahead thing, look around, notice people, but don't focus on them long enough to really get locked into any forced interaction.
2. Avoid creating an unnecessary inter-personal connection.
3. Keep on walking.
Next time -- More on Dealing with Street People
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