At various intervals, defensive tactics instructor, Tony Blauer, founder of Blauer Tactical Systems and creator of the S.P.E.A.R. System, will share responses to questions he frequently receives from the field. If you have a question for Tony, please feel free to contact him via e-mail at tony@blauertactical.com.
Q:
Dear Tony,
I’m a well-trained, in-shape, 6-ft. 4-in., 250-lbs. officer confident in my
ability to stand my ground and protect myself in one-on-one confrontations.
I’m not as confident in my ability to protect myself in a multiple-offender
attack, though. I encounter a lot of violent gangs of various kinds and
realize that I could be attacked by more than one subject at any given
point. I’m interested in finding out more about your psychological tactics
for remaining calm when being attacked by multiple people.
Thanks.
A
Hi,
Thanks for the e-mail. We have a maxim, “Never let the math beat you.” If you can fight one guy, you can fight two. You just fight one guy two times. Easier said than done, but the reality is you need to break down the fight into manageable segments. This mindset impacts and assists at the fear management level.
Next: stay calm. Another cliché....
For now, meditate on this: “Remaining calm” is a relative thing in our system. The term “relative calm” results when you’ve done you’re homework (scenario-specific evaluation, probable attacks within that context, pre-contact cues and subsequent interception approaches from verbal to physical and post-incident reactions including first aid, etc.).
In other words, fear of the unknown is what eats us up. Do the homework and you get fear of the known. That is you train within that paradigm and you get to understand that chaos and with it comes clarity, but it’s all relative (hence the term).
Remaining calm in the face of danger requires instantaneous intuition or specialized training. If you wait for it, you better be lucky. If you train for it, you can at least impose your will and wisdom on any scenario. As the expression goes: “I’d rather be lucky than good.” The better you get, the “luckier” you get.
As for personal fear management tips and strategies, we have several articles on fear online now as well as three audios (CD or cassette) that cover a ton of this foundational information. I’d invest in that as a start because mind-set training is an on-going art and having CDs you can play anywhere or anytime you want is a good thing.
The rest of the research falls under personal and professional threat assessment. It’s pretty simple; you just need to be realistic about it. If you have some keen officers who recognize the same issues you do (some departments do not entertain progressive training methods), you have a perfect vehicle to start scenario specific training. I recommend that everyone interested in personal or professional security take steps to explore scenario replications. On judgment day, you’ll be in a scenario!
“Stress inoculating” yourself and your team before a real confrontation is also critical to successful choices. Developing those vital pre-contact cues that could spell the difference between battle through maneuver vs. attrition is a smart investment.
When you’re ready, we have a package on scenario-based training, including the formula to dissect it and create what we refer to as Ballistic Micro fights, so you can replicate the Murphy moment in your fights over and over again thus creating tactical stamina, endurance and insight. The culmination of this sort of training is, of course, ‘presence,’ and that’s the first thing your opponent will pick up on.
Hope this helps.
Best of luck,
Tony Blauer
Blauer Tactical Systems
