Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.”
This quote reinforces a key aspect to self defense training: your mindset and belief in yourself can largely determine your success or failure. If you believe you can achieve something, you are more likely to put in the effort and succeed; conversely, if you believe you can’t, you are more likely to give up at first resistance and fail. In other words, a defender’s mindset is as important in surviving a violent encounter as the techniques learned in the studio/dojo.
Indeed, a defender must train to develop a warrior’s mindset whereby they believe they will be the victor regardless of the circumstances.
The first step in developing the warrior’s mindset in self defense, is to immediately look at an attacker not as some imposing figure that can hurt you, but rather as a collection of targets that you, the defender, will strike.
What does this mental shift do?
It converts your mindset from that of prey to that of a predator. As your mind shifts to an offensive point of view, fear is replaced with focus and your body becomes active rather than reactive. And since action usually beats reaction, this shift in mindset enables the defender to hit first. As the US military teaches their soldiers, “ the first one to 100 wins.”
At Krav Maga Personal Safety, we ensure that our students don’t just learn the technical aspects of defending themselves, we also emphasize the mental and emotional shift required to execute the best tactics available. Ultimately, it’s not just your ability to recall a technique that will save you in a violent moment, it’s also your mental and emotional commitment to execute what you learned that ensures you’re able to engage confidently.
