The Paralysis of Fear

News Flash:

A man rams his van into his estranged wife’s car, drags her through the broken windshield and threatens to kill her. Luckily quick response from untrained campus officials prevented a possible homicide. Think this happens only in the big city? This happened only miles from my rural NY home.
When this incident occured I had already been in communications with the school’s staff and had presented a plan to teach a self-defense for the general public. Considering how quickly things could have gone bad I offered to put on a free class for the staff. How do you think this was received? You guessed, they didn’t even respond to my offer. The class for the public was also scuttled because it involved the use of rubber training knives. Liability concerns you know.
A few years ago I worked at a large research facility that runs shifts 24-7. The facility is quite remote and not patrolled. Some of the women approached me about putting on a self-defense class because they were nervous walking through the large empty parking lots late at night and early in the morning. I took this idea to my supervisor and it moved slowly up the ladder. It was immediately nixed by a rather officious female executive. She was afraid too. She was afraid that "a self-defense class would send the wrong message." She said that employees might get the idea there was something to be afraid of. Somehow she overlooked the fact that her employees were already afraid.
At one time we taught free classes to the local high school girls gym classes, janitors, bus drivers, and teachers. This went over quite well but a change in principals put an end to the program. Ironically only a few months after we gave our last class an estranged husband took his wife (a bus driver) hostage at knife point. Some of the bus drivers who were present during the hostage taking said, "We wished we could remember what you said to do."
Many people live daily with fear, moving furtively from home to work to stores. Always with the smell of fear on them. They refuse to make eye contact. When greeted with a smile and a hello they shrink back, turn away, and maintain a surly silence. Young people are wary as hens with a fox around, maybe rightfully so. If they aren’t taught fear by their parents they learn it from TV where the media feeds them with tales of rape, torture, and murder. And this is the prime time shows, not the news channels. Just try to get some of these kids to train in self-defense. If they aren’t regaled with colored belts on a regular basis they quit. Martial Arts teachers are afraid to teach serious defense moves because it might be too brutal and the parents will pull their kids out of class. A student might get hurt, and the lawyers will swoop in like carrion crows.
How do we break this pervasive paralysis of fear? I do not know because every attempt I have made to teach awareness, avoidance, escape, or self-defense has been met with fear. Administrators are afraid it will look bad, police chiefs are afraid their officer might be considered too aggressive if it is found out that they are training how to use weapons. (God forbid we should provide our police with any weapons training other than the use of firearms.) People wake up, criminals use weapons. They like to hurt people and they have nothing holding them back except the fear of being hurt themselves. Thanks to our confused court system many people are afraid to defend themselves. "What if I am attacked and I accidentally hurt or kill my attacker, won’t I go to prison?" "I’d rather be killed than spend my life behind bars." These are real plaints voiced by martial artists for God’s sake. We are afraid of Muslims, Terrorists, Talibani, Jihadists, Muggers, Murders, Car Jackers, the police, the IRS, wiretaps, zealous homeland security curmudgeons, the TSA, and on the list goes. What is worse, is we are afraid to look people straight in the eye or stand up for ourselves. How long will be remain afraid, victims in waiting, ripe for the picking?
If anyone out there in this wilderness we call Western Civilization wants to learn how to use a knife in the defense of their life or the lives of their loved ones, please contact me. We’ll have some fun and learn a thing or two together.