Operational Security

In dangerous places around the world, the people that live in these regions know well the term "operational security." This is simply the act of conducting your tasks with the knowledge that danger exists, and acting accordingly. To use an extreme example, military personnel living oversees often find the surrounding areas to be potentially dangerous. Even the simple act of driving to work in the morning can be fraught with perils. If the enemy is nearby, they may intend to kill this individual, kidnap him, or a nefarious combination thereof. They may plant a bomb on the individual's car, set up a roadblock, a carjack, an ambush, etc. The vulnerability of the individual depends on his predictability. If he drives to work the same way every morning, at the same time, then it is a trivial matter for the enemy to set up their attack. Operational security means that this person must 1) leave at different times, 2) check his car's undercarriage for bombs, 3) vary his route to work, and 4) know where to go or who to call when things get nasty. This may sound extreme to you, but it is absolutely what has to happen. There have been numerous cases where military personnel failed to follow operational security practices, used a predicable pattern, and were killed.

Is it safe?

As a normal civilian (potentially, plenty of active-duty practice MA), the dangers a martial artist faces are not so daunting, at least in likelihood of incident. The chances of someone planting a bomb under your car is probably pretty remote, but the chances of getting into a confrontation or being the victim of a robbery or assault are high enough to be a concern. Like the military personnel, the martial artist can use a little thinking and operational security to drastically improve his or her chances of avoiding the need to use martial arts.

If you are concerned about your safety, which is a reasonable position to have, you need to have a clear definition in your mind of the level of threat wherever you are. Know what could happen. Think it through. The knee-jerk reaction is to instantly condemn anyone performing such a continuous calculation as paranoid. This just isn't true, as people perform this kind of calculation all the time without realizing it. Standing in the middle of a four lane highway is highly dangerous, while standing in the middle of a dirt road a hundred miles from a city is probably not. You wouldn't have to assume the pose of the Thinker, musing silently to yourself about the relative dangers between a few hundred cars screaming toward you at seventy miles per hour versus a single farm tractor moving at barely five miles an hour to make a decision. The reason is simply because you know the dangers that each pose. Cars are fast, and tractors aren't. You can move out of the way of something moving five miles an hour, but seventy is a bit more difficult. Just like with common sense, you have the facts that allow you to come to an obvious conclusion.

Avoiding danger before it explodes is by far the safest course of action. This list is just a beginning of the kinds of things you can do to make yourself safer by thinking a bit beforehand (just like "Don't walk into the middle of a four lane highway." is the best way to keep yourself from getting run over.).

1. Don't advertise that you're a martial artist. Why do people need to know you practice martial arts? Close friends and family sure, but why tell complete strangers? The only real advantage here is that it will intimidate someone. Sure, that may work, but a lot of people would also like to say they "beat up" a martial artist. If you do intimidate your opponent, you may just make him think twice long enough to bring friends with him. Outnumbered, your chances just went down. You may also make your opponent think they have to use trickery and underhandedness to win. This may or may not work, but because you advertised your skill, you gave your opponent the warning they needed to try something underhanded, which you now need to potentially counter. The first time your opponent should know you study martial arts should be about a second or two after you have just neutralized him. Likewise, if an important person like the President of the United States is going to go somewhere potentially dangerous, the first time anyone should realize they are going there is when they are there. By the time the bad guys get the news, the target has already left. This is the art of knowing what not to say.
2. Don't advertise that you're ready to fight. If someone comes in at you with ill intent, falling back into a fighting stance with your guards up is probably not the wisest thing to do. First, you have just advertised to your opponent that you're ready to fight. If that's what they wanted, then it's on. Worse, you have just advertised to everyone who may also be around that you're ready to fight. From a legal standpoint, if there are witnesses that say your hands were up in fists before your opponents, the real instigator of the fight is now difficult to pinpoint. On the other hand, be ready to fight. Having your hands up, palms out, in front of you is a very disarming "let's not fight" posture. However, it's also a closed fist away from breaking your opponent's nose (not that I'm advocating anything here, just a possibility, that's all.) As in all self-defense situations, this is not an absolute. There may be times when intimidation is the best way to avoid fighting, but it should be carefully utilized. It can be interpreted the wrong way by bystanders, who could be used in a civil lawsuit against you, even if you protected yourself.
3. Think like a criminal. First, why would someone steel in the first place? For most, it is easier than doing it the hard way. So, criminals are probably lazy. They don't want to work for their living. What this means for you is that a criminal will always take the easiest target they can. A heavily muscled man walking down a street with a military uniform and a green beret is much less likely to be mugged than a weaker looking man in a business suit. It doesn't take massive muscles to decrease your chances, though. There are other signs of vulnerability. The most obvious is a lack of confidence. If you walk with your head down and your shoulders slumped, then you are a target, because you're telling everyone that you are scared or just aren't paying attention. Criminals look for this type of behavior. Don't act arrogant, but if you act confident, then at least you've minimized some of the risk. Criminals don't generally want to steal from someone who could harm them, and they want to take you by surprise. If you're constantly aware of your surroundings, you will minimize the risk even further. While you can't completely guarantee safety, you can make the likelihood of a problem much smaller.
4. You do not have to prove yourself. This should go without saying, but like a Navy SEAL once said, if you train all day, everyday for years to play football, then some day you actually want to play the game. With Martial Arts, this is asking for trouble. In almost every situation, you should attempt to resolve it without violence. This is, of course, within reason. You'll probably know when violence is your only option, but there will be a lot of situations when you're not sure. There is no way to determine where the line is. You'll have to decide that for yourself. However, if you are not in imminent danger, but perhaps just potentially, you may want to ask yourself if snapping your opponent's wrist may be the only way to defuse the situation. Talking your way out is the best solution, but there are others. In some situations, you could simply run away. A certain segment of martial artists recoil at such a thought, but if your opponent is fat but well muscled, and you are fit (since you regularly attend class) and have the room, why not just run? And running doesn't always mean dashing away at top speed. A hasty withdraw may be just as valid. However, if you are tempted to see how good you are, you might overlook obvious ways to end the fight. No fighter is unbeatable no matter how well practiced, and every fight is a risk, especially if there are unknown variables, such as the number of your opponent's friends. Even if you win, you could face a lawsuit, and you might be worse off than if your opponent had actually beaten you. And while we're talking about winning, we should be careful about what we mean by winning. In self-defense, winning is defending yourself and others, even if that brute is the other. Never think about winning and loosing like some MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) fighting match. There is no belt waiting for the winner, there is no prize money, and the judges (legal ones) were not there to watch the fight. The best way to win a fight is not to fight at all, and although you may have to, it is your responsibility to make sure that all options were considered.
5. Know what to do in case of a problem. For example, what do you do if you think you're being followed? What do you do if you think someone has been watching you? None of this is important until it happens to you, and you only need to look as far as the news to realize that these kinds of things do happen. Without getting into a laundry lists of to-dos, some forethought can help. Public places are always safer than back-alleys. Why? Because few people would try anything in a public place. An attempted kidnapping in the middle of a mall would not go well, as there would be people who would try to help, and lots of people to identify the assailants. Masked gunmen taking over public places are common in movies, but not in real life (at least in the United States). Most kidnappings happen in remote, non-public areas. If you have to walk through a dark parking lot, keep in mind the shortest path to the nearest public area. If you don't think there's anyplace particularly safe, then call the authorities. Just think it through beforehand. Generally, if you do this just once, it will be an automatic thing in the future.
6. If you feel uneasy, there is probably a good reason. The mind is a complex thing, having evolved over hundreds of millions of years. To ensure the survival of the next generation, the instincts of the current generation need to be fairly up to par. This means that any animal (of which we are one) that is alive today is here because it's ancestors have adapted survival instincts that lend themselves to, obviously enough, staying alive. Nature is a very unforgiving place, and the signs of danger are sometimes very subtle. You are not always consciously aware of every piece of information your body is sending to your mind. You can concentrate on only a few or one at a time, and if your attention is elsewhere, your conscious mind is just ignoring the rest. That doesn't mean the signals aren't getting processed, though. Something like the sound of footsteps, just on the threshold of detection by your subconscious mind, can sound the alert. This kind of reaction was critical for our ancestors. A great example of this is the "twitch." Say you are standing in front of someone with your wrist extended, and their task is to grab your wrist while yours is to pull it away should they try, avoiding the grab. If your partner were to "twich" (suddenly tense their muscles) as they try to grab your wrist, the chances are you would be able to pull your wrist away more often than not. On the other hand, if your partner uses smooth and continuous techniques (not slow, just smooth), your chances will be drastically reduced. Theoretically, you would think the twitch was faster, but it stands less of chance of succeeding. This kind of a response comes from being potential prey in the wild. When predators attack, the sudden application of force is usually how it happens, and we have been conditioned through evolution to respond very quickly to it. Likewise, sudden, twitchy movements around a horse will provoke a similar uneasiness (or worse, so don't try it). Bottom line? Listen to your instincts. They have much more experience than you do.
7. Don't be predicable. Routine is the intimate friend of those preparing for nefarious deeds. It isn't just the military officer varying his time of departure and route to work everyday. If there is a burglar canvassing the neighborhood, he or she is probably watching for signs that indicate the occupants are not home. While some burglaries occur when the occupants are home, it is vastly easier to steal when no one is there. Why would they take the chance? You might have a weapon. You might be a martial artist. You might have dogs (another thing they watch for. Barking dogs are usually easy to ignore, but most of us know when a dog is barking at something more tangible.). The simplest act of leaving on different lights when you go out at night could have a huge impact on how a criminal views your house as a prospect.