Many survivors of violent attacks have one thing in common; they knew something was wrong, even before it actually happened. There was an early signal that they failed to act on.

We are all born with this gift. Some people call it your gut feeling, others call it intuition. It is the ability to know something without knowing why.

It is one thing to have this ability but another to actually trust it and act upon it. Don’t just hear the signals that are being picked up but listen to them and take the necessary action. Use that feeling as an excuse to at least assess your environment and take the necessary precautions or evasive actions.

The action you take could be different each time. Maybe simply avoiding an area, taking a different route, going back or getting a weapon ready to protect yourself with. Every situation is different, so making your own quick assessment is necessary.

One of the biggest enemies of personal safety is denial. So many people think that horrific attacks only happen to other people and could not possibly happen to them. These are the type of people that make an ideal target. I would certainly urge you to learn the easy way and not the hard way. Listen to people and do your own research as this will certainly help you to minimize the chances of becoming a victim.

Your gut feeling is a survival instinct that we all have. You should not suppress this feeling but trust it and act on it. If you chose to ignore it then you are quite possible ignoring danger. We’re not talking about being paranoid about every possible danger out there but if a situation feels strange, something is not quite right for some unknown reason, then quickly assess the situation and take whatever action is required.

Listen to yourself and then tell yourself to do the right thing!

There is a fantastic book available, it is written by Gavin De Becker and is called “The Gift of Fear”, it covers fear and intuition in great detail. I very highly recommend that you get yourself a copy and give it a good read.

Over the next few articles, I will be covering many other areas. The first article will cover the need to have the belief in yourself that you can be effective in Self Defense regardless of your size and strength.  all of these other areas are such an important part of Self Defense too so do not ignore them.

By Malcolm Bale - 2nd Degree Black Belt in Jiu-Jitsu

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