Personal Safety

I was in the city of Emeryville today, which is about 10 or 15 minutes away from the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland in which I live. I was in a busy shopping district with restaurants, hotels, and plenty of businesses. It was a regular 'ol commercial district for middle-class types such as myself who need their Target-bought consumer goods. Anyway, the point is it was hella busy and there was plenty of people. Well, I was waiting to turn left at the light and I happened to look to my left and witnessed a man acting strange near a truck. Then I heard a soft "crash". The man then looked around quickly. I realized he was breaking into the truck in broad daylight. He reached inside for something I couldn't see. Another man in a small civic-type car was waiting. After doing the deed, the car drove off. I tried to follow it with my eyes, but by the time the light turned green, the car was already gone. Curious, I drove to the scene of the crime. It was in the parking lot of a fairly populated restaurant. I saw that they had actually broken into two vehicles, windows smashed. The vehicles themselves were towards the edge of the lot, so it was away from the main entrances, but the lot was highly visible from the street. I'm pretty sure I was not the only one to witness that. It's crazy that in less than a month, I've already been the target of an attempted mugging and now I've actually seen a "crime" in progress. Seeing that obviously got me thinking about a lot of things. What would I have done had I actually been close enough to do something? I feel like, in a case like that I would've just memorized the license plate of the car and its make/model, mentally photographed the individuals involved, and then called 911 to report it. What would I have done had I unintentionally walked up on the individuals while in the process of their deed? I'm not even sure. What would be safe to do? The author Rory Miller says that the first line of self-defense is "avoidance". To not be there in the first place is your best bet at being safe. That means of course not parking in dark areas or on lonely side-streets or in areas where you know there might be trouble (among other things). So, in a case like that where I'm witnessing a crime-in-progress, what do I do? I honestly don't think yelling at the person(s) would do any good. I might agitate the situation into something worse than it needs to be. Again, I think I would have just recorded what was going on and then reported it. I know how much it sucks to come out and find your car broken into. It's happened to me at least 4 times. Replacing a window sucks and it's financially inconvenient. And there is a feeling of being "violated". On a more serious level, witnessing a crime like that (while being petty and materialistic) makes me think about what I would do if I witnessed something far more serious (an attempted rape, or someone getting shot or about to get shot). In the above case, it's only the car that's in trouble. In the latter case, it's the person's life in trouble. Rory Miller warns us to work out our "ethics" before you find yourself in a "self-defense" situation. You won't have time to figure out what to do when it's happening. Again, as I've mentioned in the previous posts, I think it's highly critical that karate get back to what's real and that a dojo becomes about teaching real-life skill and not comic book violence. Imagine a class or a school in 'personal safety'. Yes, you would be learning a cultural art form and martial art, but you'd also discuss and practice various scenarios pertaining to personal safety. I mean, I think you could literally be certified in something like that if there was a course in it. And imagine how helpful that could be for young people and older people alike. High school kids who walk outside their door in fear that they might get jumped on the way home. Working men and women who clutch at their belongings as they go to the laundromat or walk briskly down the sidewalk from the bus-stop. I think at its heart, Okinawan karate can once again be about producing the self-confidence needed to not walk out into the world in fear. I was thinking how easy it was for my mind to start worrying about my personal safety here in Oakland, considering I've seen this twice now in only a few weeks. Easy to become fearful and suspicious and over-protective. I think it's important to incorporate into this "personal safety" training the understanding that your personal items (wallet, cash, card, watch, shoes, etc) are not nearly as valuable as your life. This is a "spiritual" understanding because it transcends the attachment to the physical world and its physical things that we assign value to. This imagined class or course or school doesn't teach you how to hold onto your shit while you fight for your life to defend your personal effects. It teaches you to let go of attachment to these things and to protect your life if need be. I mean, yes I know what it feels like to get pissed off cause some fool wants to take away your money. It's like, "that's not fair." And of course, it's not. The "threat" or the "predator" is not playing by your personal standards or your rules. He/she doesn't give a fuck about what your momma taught you about treating people with respect. It may not be fair but it's because your ego is holding onto those things and those ideas. This to me is partially what it means to incorporate a "spiritual philosophy" in training (letting go of attachment to form). And funny enough, most dojo will advertise this to some degree. But I have not yet come across a martial pedagogy that actually produces individuals who embody "kisshu fushin" (Demon's hand, Saint's heart). Plus, I don't actually think you can "produce" a martial artist like that. I think, honestly speaking, some people are more inclined to this kind of embodiment than others. In our industrial/business model society we get the impression that these things can be stamped into people. But if you read about the pre-industrial environment that karate developed in, the master would not be teaching anybody off the street. The student population would be extremely small, maybe one or two or three. What does that say? To me that implies that the master would be evaluating your character before they taught you anything, especially something as brutal as karate. In our world today, character is not determined by your behavior or your actions. It's determined by numbers. For example, I just got approved for a rental here in Oakland. How did they determine if I was suitable or not to live there? My credit score. Now, having bad credit might say something about the person's personal money decisions, but honestly, numbers cannot determine your character. Who knows why that person has a bad score? I'm privileged in my own middle-class upbringing to have had the financial security to be able to avoid having bad credit, but hell, I could be an abusive, drug-dealing, psychotic maniac at the same time (more on that "abusive" part later). The point of all this off-topic rambling is to say that we need a pedagogical model of teaching karate that corresponds to and is informed by the reality in which this art grew (violence). Without the input of that information from reality, the art becomes what it is today...comic book. It's literally little more than Orientalized physical fitness with just a hint of violence or at least the pretense of it. And what the hell good does that do anybody? It's the same thing with these public schools and why kids drop-out. They ain't learnin' nothin' that is applicable to their lives beyond math, reading, and writing. Peoples lives are at stake and you're giving them a squirt gun to defend themselves. WTF? Again, the point of all this ramble is just to say that I would like to see a school/dojo/class that actually can certify the student in something real (like a degree in Personal Safety). As Bruce Lee once said, your belt doesn't matter much except to hold your pants up. What actually matters is if you can actually fight or if you can actually defend yourself from attack (depending on what your specific martial art specializes in). And, in the case of personal safety, not only concentrating on the "fight" but on the other areas of personal safety/self-defense that authors like Rory Miller have highlighted for us (such as knowledge of self-defense law, your personal ethics, the psychological effect of violence, etc). That's some real shit that needs to seen today, I believe. I could get down with facilitating a class like that.

Elbow SMASH!
- Hiji Até