“They who must, do.”   

By Robert Agar-Hutton 27th Dec 2008.

The famous British military unit the Special Air Service (SAS) have the regimental motto “Who Dares, Wins.” So when I thought that I’d develop a motto for the Protectics Personal Safety System (PPSS) their motto was the seed for my “They who must, do”.

Now, I am quite clear in my mind that PPSS as a whole is not a martial art (‘martial’ meaning from or of war) although components of PPSS do come from martial arts. However it is understandable that it is often perceived simplistically as such and thus gets compared with other martial arts as well as modern ‘reality based’ self defence systems.

Now, it seems to me that there is another phrase that should be considered it’s “Those that can don’t need to and those that need to, can’t or don’t”. What do I mean by that? I will explain.

First however a disclaimer, if someone does martial arts ‘just for fun’ or for ‘health and exercise’ reasons or for ‘learning an art-form’ or any other reason that excludes using the physical skills that they are learning for a self defence purpose then they are excluded from the intent and meaning of this article.

However if you train with the intention that the physical skills that you learn should be able to aid you in a conflict situation then read on…

In my thirty-eight years of martial and defensive arts training I have become convinced of the truth of “Those that can don’t need to and those that need to, can’t or don’t” by which I mean, that most of the people I have trained with or know about who are rough, tough fighters well capable of taking care of themselves and of utilising the ‘deadly’ fighting skills that they have learned. Actually don’t need the training they have had. This is either because

a)    They never put themselves in harm’s way.

b)    They are so big and tough anyway that the training does little more than to (perhaps) refine their natural aggressive fighting ability.

You only need to look at some of the awesome fighters who have been produced over the years from many martial arts that are NOT combat orientated to see that it is the man and not the art in almost all cases.

Also look at the people who teach Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) or Reality Based Martial Arts or Combat Arts (Krav Maga, Systema, etc.) and you will see that most of them are active or ex-military or ex-police or just simply really tough people. Now don’t get me wrong, I have personally trained with many of those people and they are knowledgeable, interesting, friendly people and great fun to learn from. However that is not the point…

… What is the point? I suspect you are asking. Well I’m getting there. Let’s look at the second part of my quote “and those that need to, can’t or don’t.” You see the people who REALLY need personal defensive skills are those people who are physically weak and mentally uncertain of what to do in a conflict situation. By and large those people either train in martial arts that are simply not fit for purpose or they don’t train at all.

Most people who are innocent victims of ‘street’ violence have had no training in any defensive system. Note I say ‘innocent’, I acknowledge that between the ages of (approximately) 15 and 25 many young males (and some young females) will get involved in violence of one sort or another as part of the ‘coming of age’ process. Those aside, most people who get attacked, mugged or whatever, are simply victims of random violence.

Wait a minute, did I say ‘random violence’? There is virtually no such thing as ‘random violence’. Yes you MIGHT be unlucky and be somewhere where a crazed attacker with a gun starts shooting at everyone and everything but most violence occurs when an attacker SELECTS a potential victim and then proceeds to attack them for some REASON using a METHOD. Now let’s look at each of ‘Select’, ‘Reason’ and ‘Method’ in turn.

Now the above lists are far from exhaustive, but hopefully do serve to show that ‘random violence’ is rarely random.

Training in an appropriate personal safety system teaches how to avoid looking and acting like a victim and what to do if things start to go (or actually do go) wrong.

But…

The problem is that most people who need training keep coming up with reasons to not get trained and some of those reasons are valid. It is true that most martial and defensive arts training systems try and cater for people who are physically strong. Indeed some styles specialise in training in methods that would be dangerous to do if you were not young and fit. So not very good for the 46 year old mother of five who is out of shape but worried because purse snatching is rife in her local area. The first rule for a personal safety system has to be that it is SUITABLE FOR EVERYONE.

Now, don’t think for one moment that personal fitness is not important, it is. The fitter you are the more able you are to put up a spirited defence, the more able you are to recover from injury if you are attacked and yes, if you are attacked, you will probably be hurt. The trick is to be lots less hurt than your attacker intended!!! However from a training point of view there are two important considerations. Fitness should definitely NOT be a prerequisite of effective personal safety and that is a major difference between system such as PPSS and many others. Also fitness training should be tailored to the individual and gentle and progressive.

The biggest reason for potential victims not training is the ‘Ostrich Syndrome’ you may remember the myth that when an Ostrich is attacked it hides its head in the ground – the thinking being, if I can’t see my attacker, they can’t see me… Well there are many people who honestly believe that if they stay quiet, don’t go looking for trouble and stay out of ‘bad’ neighbourhoods then all will be well. Sadly that is not the case, there are no ‘good’ neighbourhoods, trouble can happen anywhere. You don’t need to go looking for trouble, trouble is quite clever enough to find you! And finally, staying quiet is often perceived by predators as ‘prey behaviour’. So if you are unlucky, the very things that some people think will protect them actually puts them at risk.

So let’s get back to the beginning… “Those who must, do.” When you realise that personal safety training is necessary then you know that you ‘must’ and the ‘doing’ becomes easy. Once you have started training your chances of being perceived as ‘prey’ reduce (dramatically in some cases) and if you are unfortunate enough to be in a conflict situation you will realise that it is a ‘must’ to protect yourself and you will know what to ‘do’.

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