S.I.V.A. Cont

Sorry for the break in transmission...I was just in Florida teaching a two day seminar on target hardening and awareness and avoidance strategies for a group of personal development coaches et al.

The last letter in S.I.V.A. simply stands for "assault" or "attack." If the criminal has chosen you, isolated you and then determined by process of the interview that you are suitable prey the attack will come next.

Typically, in an all out criminal assault such as a rape, a mugging etc, this attack will be in the form of an ambush. In other words, his dialogue during the interview process will be innocuous and designed to put you off guard and the attack will come out of the blue.

In a bar scenario when some drunken clown has singled you out to pick on (and gone through the same steps as above) the verbal portion of the program may go on for some time (with some tit for tat exchange happening) before the assault begins which then becomes the "brewing" form of assault or one in which you had some inkling it was coming.

The purpose of learning S.I.V.A. is that it teaches you to avoid being selected in the first place by lowering your profile, or changing it (more on that at some time in the future); it alerts you to the fact you might be being followed anytime you leave the safety of numbers and to use some counter surveillance measures to detect that happening; and, to recognize seemingly innocuous conversation by a stranger may be the precursor to an attack and to be on your guard.

If you can do that you can change the intended assault from an ambush to one that is brewing by recognizing the signals in advance and, as has been mentioned before, a brewing situation is a lot easier to get out of than an ambush.

Surprise or Tea?

Years ago while on a club door some of the other bouncers and I were discussing all the different sorts of fights there were...multiple assailants, armed assailants, multiple armed assailants and so on.

One of the older hands, a boxer called Mel said "nope, there's only two types and that's slow build or ambush" Many years later I heard it described as a "brewing situation" or "flash."

Brewing of course refers to a slow build up of tension. A good example would be the guy that bumps into someone early in the night and now the two get into a staring competition and various gestures. As the night wears on the staring and gestures become more demonstrative and soon insults are being hurled with threats of "lets take it outside then"

The ambush or flash fight on the other hand comes without warning. I'm aware of a friend of one of my students who was standing at an ATM and turned just in time to notice the lump of wood coming down on his skull. He awoke later with some woman, hanging out a car window while she withdrew her cash, looking down on him with disdain, assuming he was some sort of a bum.

There's no excuse for getting in the former. Self protection is all about avoidance so, if a situation like that is developing, remove yourself from the scene and defuse it. Nobody ever died from being insulted walking away from a potentially violent situation. Plenty have died hanging round trying to fight in them though.

The ambush is another kettle of fish and that's best avoided by judicious use of awareness.

Nick