Every time you are involved in violence, it is a crapshoot whether or not you will be injured, crippled or killed. You can do everything “right” and still get injured. If you cannot calmly and rationally accept this reality, then you have no business being in this arena.

Violence is extremely mutable. Those mutations occur from situation to situation and second to second depending on circumstances. As such, attempting to micromanage and have exact pre-planned responses to every possible scenario is unrealistic. Such an attitude hinders mental flexibility and inhibits the responder’s ability to adapt to changing circumstances. This inability increases the danger to the would be responder.

Let us further state, there is NO guaranteed, never-fail, ultimate method to keep from getting hurt. And anybody who tells you otherwise is lying to you — usually in order to get your money.

There are many instructors of so-called combat systems, reality based self-defense programs or deadly esoteric martial arts styles that will take your money in exchange for teaching you their ‘guaranteed system.’

The reason these con men exist is because there are people — who burdened with an over-active imagination — are trying to find a way to never lose. This obsession of theirs leaves them vulnerable to the lies and nonsense of the BS artists who claim they can make you invincible.

The raw truth is that when it comes to losing at violence, everyone gets their turn. Nobody always wins. When that happens, you have to pay the price. You need to know this going in. If you are afraid to take a beating then don’t try to stand up and fight, run away.

While that may stick in your craw, it is a far safer strategy. Violence is dangerous because it mutates so fast. Things change in the blink of an eye. But this is not chaos, nor is it random. It is:

a) the OODA loop (see later) being executed at high speed — by everyone involved
b) factors/conditions that existed previously, but were unknown to you
c) physics and results vs. what you intended (or hoped) would happen

These can be summed up as decisions, surprise and unintended consequences. All change what is happening. And they all occur really, really fast in violence. While violence may look chaotic and random, if it were slowed down, these points would be easier to identify and see the results.

In order to best navigate through violence one must have the ability to adapt, improvise and overcome — and do it quickly. Your plans and actions need to change as fast as the circumstances. And even then you run the risk of not being able to adapt fast enough. This is why there are no guaranteed ways to always ‘win’ or remain unscathed when it comes to violence. There is no system that cover every possible mutation or requirement.

However, there is a particular mindset; people who are both obsessed with the image of violence and a desire to micromanage it, who keep the hucksters of ‘guaranteed fighting systems’ rolling in money. No matter what is presented to them, such people’s fertile imagination always finds a bigger, badder boogey man and weakness with the information. It never occurs to them how often their fantasies of violence defy the laws of physics, common sense, odds, chances and disregards how violent people behave.

All they can see is their fear and their obsession with winning and not getting hurt.

We have a name for these people.
It is a name based on the question they are always chattering.
We call them “What-If- Monkeys.”