I'm Travis Bader and this is The
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From the mind of Minolta.
It's been 12 days.
And in the last 12 days we've had what?
11 shootings?
11 shootings in outdoor environments and public
places throughout the, what we call the Lower
Mainland here for our friends outside
of British Columbia.
So I'm sitting down today with Paul Ballard,
Paul's a regular mainstay here on The
Silvercore Podcast.
And in a former life, he was a peace officer
for a local municipal police department.
Let's say major, municipal police
department.
Well, the largest one around here.
Yes.
And you did that for how long?
35 years just looking at my calendar yesterday.
It's been seven years since I retired.
And how's that feel?
And it's pretty hard to wipe this
grin off my face.
I saw that post as well.
And you brought up a very interesting point.
You said, you know, there's probably going
to be people out there that are interested in
some more information on basic urban awareness.
Yeah.
When we kind of pitched this back and forth,
uh, we were one of the things that struck me in
particular was a number of people when they're
being interviewed after something like this
happens, who will say, I can't believe it.
I didn't know what was going on.
In my neighbourhood, I can't believe
this happened.
And, and, and again, sort of what I consider
to be to the typical victim response and, you
know, people who lack preparedness for things,
they're either completely oblivious or they're in
a deep state of denial and that can put them
in a position where their reaction, uh, and
perhaps they would have not even found themselves
in those places.
If they get rid of that denial.
They make themselves a little more aware.
And, and that's the thoughts that we're going
with today, I thought.
Well, we were kind of spit balling back and
forth the best way to put this across.
And the more that we thought about it,
the more we realized that this is just not
a singular episode, this isn't just
one, one and done.
It's too big.
And so we thought about what if we break it
down, generally speaking, into a before, during
and after, event.
And that event could be anything it could
be you're sitting at the cactus club out
in Burnaby and you start hearing the pop,
pop, pop, like what happened a few days ago.
Or it could be that you're on public transit
and you find yourself in a situation where there's
an assault of individual.
It could be anything really.
And that's just, it, it, it really is.
Um, we're going to take it from law enforcement
or, or street survival training, uh, as it
was referred to in the past and try and talk
about it in terms that are applicable to what
isn't, an unarmed citizen likely in, in Canada.
Uh, there's not an opportunity for people
to be, you know, in that position where they would
be armed with a firearm to defend themselves.
So we're now going to be looking at ways to
first of all, avoid it.
Uh, secondly, if it does happen, how to
mitigate it, and if it does happen, how are you
going to get yourself right after the incident?
You know, you know, there's lots of
things that we talk about in survivor's
remorse and so on.
And we'll talk about that.
But I, I think, you know, the emphasis is there's
a before there's a during and there's an afterward
to any critical incident.
And that's what we're talking about.
Awareness of an incident becomes critical and
it's not just gunfire, it's not a targeted
hit on some criminal.
Uh, well, let's look back a few months
to what happened in North Vancouver.
You know, an individual armed with a knife just
starts to maniacally start slashing and
stabbing and, and happens in the end, you know,
and, and again, listening to people who were there.
Their words are, in my neighbourhood,
I can't believe it.
You know, I've never seen anything like that.
And that's the words of a person who really hadn't
thought things out.
Right?
So let's address that.
That's that's the, before the event, let's,
let's adjust a mindset.
So that we're ready for that.
When I took a look at all of this, really the,
before the event, that encompasses the majority
of what can really keep a person safe.
Correct.
All of this time, that's can be spent thinking
practically, thinking tactically, and putting
your head into a space of what, what if it
could happen to me?
Correct.
And, and that is that, you know, if you blindly
go ahead thinking that, you know, I've got out
of bed this morning and I'm going to go to bed
tonight without anything affecting my safety, my
health, um, the safety and the health of my
family or those people that are around me.
You're going to get into that position where
it's going to happen and you're not going
to, you're not going to be ready for it.
So before, it's all about having a plan and
one of the first and most important things
I believe in that plan is recognizing that
it's not necessarily going to happen, but it
very well could happen.
And if you're there and it is
happening, immediate recognition of it.
So again, the mind in denial, sound a gunfire.
Oh, fireworks.
Okay, why would there be fireworks going at seven
o'clock in a parking lot on a weekday night.
Right?
And those are the sort of things that you
have to, you know, stop trying to rationalize
with what your personal values are or your
inability to explain.
If it sounds like gunfire, it's gunfire.
If there's smoke coming from it, it's a fire.
If something's in their hand and people are
bleeding, it's a knife.
It's real, it's not like a movie, it's not,
you know, something that, that your, your
belief system doesn't want to accept.
You have to accept it.
So that's the first thing in, in when we
talk about before, accept that it could happen.
And when it does happen, you're recognizing
it for what it is.
So I find, quite often people will come up
and they'll release stories of something
that happened.
It might not be as spectacular as what's
been reported in the news lately, but
it was definitely something very, it was
a big event for them.
Traumatic.
Right.
Altering.
Right.
And the couple things that keep coming up
with these individuals, number one was like
what you were saying, never thought it
could happen to me.
They never mentally prepared.
And I know we're going to talk a little bit
about what that mental preparation looks like.
But the other thing that tends to come
up is, they didn't know how to respond.
They didn't know the legal framework that
they could work with and they didn't know
what they were actually allowed to do out
of fear of possible future repercussions.
And that can all be mitigated with a little
bit of pre-learning and a little bit of role
playing and understanding a few of the principles
that we're going to talk to talk about today.
Yes.
And we're going to talk about before,
so you need to think about that before.
So then when it does happen, it's not at a
cognitive level that you can respond, you're
going to do it through reflex because you've
practiced or, or have downloaded it to yourself
to, to know to do.
So again, we got to come back and you need to know
legally what can I do?
Practically what should I do?
What are my priorities, all of that has to
happen before something bad occurs in your
life, you know?
And so again, starting with it can happen.
So we've accepted that, but can we
predict exactly what it's going to be?
And that is the conundrum with a lot
of people in, in, in their acceptance of it
is, well how do I know?
How do I know it's going to be in a drive through,
how do I know it's going to be on a transit bus?
How do I know it's going to be in
front of a library?
Well, the deal is, you don't know.
But through a repetitive visualization or
scenarios, you, as you walk into the library
today, just go, Hey, if some guy came with
a knife at everybody in general, where's my
escape route from here.
How's the fastest way for me to exit the zone
that this guy is now occupying or dominating.
And you know, people think it's crazy and
it's not paranoia, but are you always looking?
Can I get between these planters that
are lined up, you know, into the walkway?
So we have the idea of the library, it's
a welcoming place.
You know, you're going to have a grand entrance,
there's probably going to be planters heading up
there, but is there space between the planters?
Am I going to have to get up onto a planter to
get away, to move beyond.
When I see something, if it's a knife,
what do I need to do?
Like what what's going to protect me from a
knife and distance of course, is that thing.
A knife is a contact weapon, it can be
deployed very quickly, it can be very devastating.
If somebody gets to you with that knife,
there's the problem.
But if you could get this table that we're sitting
at here between the knife wielder and ourselves,
that can certainly slow things down.
If you can get onto the other side of a car.
And even if you start doing a roundabout thing
until the, your attacker realizes that they
should come over the car, you've got a physical
barrier that's probably going to keep you alive.
And this is something to think about, well,
how does a knife work?
You know, what's, you know, what's the
effective distances of a knife and, and you
honestly don't have to read books on it.
You just, as a practical person, get somebody else
to get a wooden spoon in the kitchen and see how
fast they can touch you with the wooden spoon.
But now get in the kitchen, go to the
other side of the Island in your kitchen
and can they touch ya?
And, and how is the person reacting
with a wooden spoon?
These sort of little scenarios that could
be done in the home can all serve to
download and pattern your subconscious to be
ready for that moment.
And that's, that's the thing.
We, we need to look at it that way we
need to, you know, continually rehearse.
I'm driving down the street, I look over
and there's a guy with a handgun shooting
at somebody else.
What do I do?
I don't slow down to look at it better, I
immediately turn right and start to drive as far
away as I can, because that's not something I
need to be a part of.
And recognizing that telling that yourself,
I see a gun, I go.
Hmm.
I don't try and stop, get my cell phone out.
I go.
So why, why don't we take a look at, uh, the basic
colour code says some that's taught to a lot
of people on, and I've seen different studies on
the colour code system.
And some people talk about it being a tool for
situational awareness and other people talk about
it as a tool for, uh, making the decision to do
something, but whatever you want to use the
colour code system for, it gives a very quick and
easy, I find, visual that you can apply if you find
yourself in a situation.
Yeah.
And so, I mean, we look at the origins
of the colour coded system, which, you
know, the three colours go back to the US army
airborne forces in the second world war.
Um, I believe the, one of the greatest studies
of personal survival in any environment was,
uh, Colonel Jeff Cooper.
And he went on to make five colour-coded levels
and, and really go on to, uh, in a very descriptive
fashion of only Jeff Cooper could, um, say
what each one of those colour codes meant.
But, you know, we go from white, yellow,
orange, red, and black.
Right.
And when can we be in code white?
We'll basically as you've locked the doors to your
house and you've turned off the light and you
pull up the sheets to go to sleep, because
that really is the only time it's acceptable to
be completely unaware of your situation
because you're asleep.
They say white, the awareness
level of a victim.
Of a victim.
And realistically that's where the majority
of people operate on a day-to-day basis.
Problem.
Huge problem.
Headphones on phones, heads in their phones,
looking on the ground as they walk around,
not paying attention to their surroundings.
Making eye contact with other people
on the street.
Like that's a, that's a huge thing.
When, you know, studies of people that have
been victimized is, you know, the, you
know, tim timidity on their own part.
Like it's okay to look in somebody's eyes until
you look in their eyes and you realize, hey,
and pardon this term, that person's crazy,
I need to not make eye contact because
that's going to only exacerbate a situation
And that's, that's a tight rope.
Eye contact it's a tight rope, too much
eye contact that could be, you could
be perceived as.
A threat.
Asking, a threat.
So it's a matter you got to look at people's
faces though, to see, you know, what's coming next.
And looking at your phone, looking at your
feet, looking at your screen, none of that's
a good place to be in.
And we're, you know, all people will argue
and say, well, you know, this is the way
of the world today.
Well is 11 gunfire incidents with deaths
and injury in 12 days, you know, is that
a good way to live?
Yes, they're not your friend or my friend
is what we would, you know, air quotes, normal
people be, uh, these guys are gangsters.
They have a value system that does not exist in
our world, you know, their, their value of
life, their need to do these things in public.
We can't, we can't apply ourselves to
that and that that's a struggle as well.
Well, as of today, the papers are reporting
that at least in one of the incidences,
there was an innocent person that was injured.
Was injured.
Right.
So th and there might turn out to be more
Right.
You know, both of us are extremely familiar with
the use of firearms, in particular handguns.
None of these bad guys are going to the range
and training themselves to be the best shot
that they can be.
It's not like law enforcement where
their training is a heavy, heavy emphasis
on target awareness.
And what's between you around, beyond
your target.
And they're not talking about that.
They are dialed in often they're going to be
high to build up their courage and, and, you
know, so judgment and all these things are
going to be effected.
And it doesn't matter who you are, you take
those stress levels of going in to take a life.
Even if it is, you know, a person lacking in, in
values, perhaps, uh, you know, we don't need to
diagnose it, but likely a sociopath that's
willing to do that.
They're still going to be jacked and they're
not going to be paying attention to those sites.
And you know, it's getting as much out
of the end of that barrel as possible in
the direction of their intended target and then
getting out of there.
So we've got condition white,
essentially awareness level of a victim.
Then we go to orange where your.
Yellow.
Pardon me, I skipped a step here.
We go.
You were looking too far up on the sunrise.
I was.
Yeah.
From white to yellow and yellow, you're
casually aware.
Yeah, casually aware.
Yellow is how we should all live, at
all times, until we have a need to go to.
Then you're in the orange.
Right?
Orange brings you up to the next level
where, so something might be happening.
And for people to understand, you're
walking down the street, you're in yellow,
you're looking at people coming towards you.
You're checking vehicles out that are driving
down the street.
There's a car, you're approaching an
intersection, it's making a left turn and you
kind of casually glance to make sure that it's
completing its left turn and not under-steering
the turn and get them out the curb in front
of you and run you down on the sidewalk.
And I mean, that's the way you should be.
You should be, not, you know, oblivious to
all this stuff, right.
And again, it might be just an accident
that you could avoid by just being aware.
Hey, that car is not going to
make that corner.
It's coming onto the sidewalk.
So now, condition yellow.
Let's continue on.
Uh, we're just pulling into the,
you know, local, fast food drive through.
And now we realize there's cars ahead of us.
A couple of cars have pulled in behind
us and if something happens, how am I
getting out of there?
It will my car get up over the curb or
am I going to have to exit my vehicle?
If a shootout begins, you know, in this
situation, it's just casually look, make that
little bit of a plan.
You know, what, if something bad happens
in this situation, I'm going to go there.
And then if it were to occur, in another
drive through, in another city under a
completely different, you know, corporate
banner above you.
That little bit of rehearsal that code
yellow, you know, planning, thinking has
downloaded and your subconscious will draw
that up and you may be able to react properly.
And they call those heuristics.
Heuristics.
I'd never heard that one before, but.
So they say from experience.
Yeah.
And that could be an experience physical
experience you've been in or something you've
developed through mental role playing, you
develop these heuristics where you will sort
of subconsciously pull upon the positive,
desired result based on prior experience.
Right.
And then it didn't really happen, but in
your mind, it, because you played it through
in a, in a theatrical sense, it's there
and it's ready to go.
So now we're walking down the street and
we're going code yellow.
When we start to look ahead, there's
somebody approaching directly towards us.
He is mumbling to himself,
he's looking down, he's got his hands
jammed in his pockets.
You can see him turning and aggressively looking
at people ahead of you.
We now move from yellow to orange.
There is something that's out of the ordinary.
There is something that could potentially become
a threat to us, our family, to our wellbeing.
So, as a regular person, what are you going to do?
Well, how about start moving away from that
person's intended path.
Maybe it's going to require that you step
right off the sidewalk, uh, start walking in
the gutter a bit, or maybe it's time to
turn and jaywalk and go across the street.
You get across the street, the guy passes,
he continues on.
Now you go back to yellow and continue on
the rest of your day.
And I think, you know, when you really start
to become a practitioner of preparation or
a practitioner of true awareness, your
life continually hovers between
yellow and orange.
And it's recognizing once you move into that
orange state of mind where your focus is on
that perceived potential possible threat.
It's you can, you can really start to calm
yourself back down with the threat ceases
to exist, and you don't get into that
paranoid state or, or where you, you know,
start to get nervous.
Sure.
And you can't live and you can't enjoy it life
and all that, that, that really is part of
understanding how to move back and forth.
So if we're going to move past orange to
red, now the fights on, the situation change
was a bit differently.
Right?
And so you have, now let's go back
to our scenario.
We're seeing this guy approaching and you
can't move quick enough.
The distance is reduced you're in code orange,
you're paying attention, you're focused on them.
You're starting to think I've got to do something.
And suddenly a knife comes out of his pocket
and he starts to slash, and he's not slashing at
the person ahead of you.
He's not slashing at the person beside him.
He's coming straight for you.
And now you realize the threat is real
and it's imminent.
And I have to, without any, I guess the
word would best be compassion for anybody
else involved, I have to deal with it.
Now, if you're physically capable and prepared
and if trained, maybe you're going to try
and physically defend yourself from that knife.
But if you're 65 years old and you got two bad
knees and you know, you don't move that well,
maybe I need to put something between me and
that guy with the knife.
Maybe I have to clearly step well out of his way,
get a car, get on the other side of a car, do
something of that nature.
If I got to get out of there and there's people
in my way, here comes that compassion thing.
You know what, it's you first with your
family, because if anything happens to
you, you, you can't do anything for your family
or your loved ones.
So really I, that may be another thing
we need to put into priority you, your
family, your friends, other people around,
innocent bystanders are just a barrier to
your escape, or you're leaving that zone and
the bad guy himself.
There's no compassion for that person.
They've made their decision.
And if there's something that you have to do to
them, you have to do it.
And you have to do it in a ruthless fashion but.
With speed, with aggression.
With aggression.
And, and again, with no feeling, like there,
there cannot be anything but purpose, you know,
whatever fear you might've had to that
point, it turns into righteous indignation.
How dare you do this to my family?
How dare you do this to me?
And that will give you the focus
to deal with it.
But again, if you're not physically capable, and
that's the thing we're talking about here.
We're not talking a, an armed society or a place
where you can legally be armed here in Canada.
Unfortunately, that's the way things are.
And I don't think it's ever going to change.
So I don't think there's any government going
to come in here and say, you know what
we need to, we need to allow our citizens
to arm themselves.
That's not going to happen.
So now it's, you know, for you to be smart,
knowing that you have perfect rights to
defend yourself against, you know, injury.
You, you know, there's, there's that aspect of
it, but perhaps your greatest option is always
to get out of that, that zone, get away from it.
And again, it may mean pushing, uh, an
older person to the ground so that you
can get past them.
You know, when you look around and everybody's
standing with mouths agape, and eyes
like saucers, that's not your problem.
They are now a bit of a, well, they actually
are your problem if it's going to prevent
your escape, you have to worry about
nothing except going.
So it means pushing somebody down,
stepping over them.
They weren't here listening to what we're
talking about now.
And then the final part would be condition black.
Condition black.
And that's when you become overwhelmed by
whatever the situation is and that's kind
of the no return.
Well, the nice thing about condition black,
that I really like is a fact that if you
realize that you are now so overwhelmed by
the environment that you've frozen and
you're not making proper decisions, and you're
not downloading these heuristics that you had
before is you can say I'm in condition black, let's
deescalate into red and get myself in the fight.
Back in the fight, back or back into operation.
Right.
And I, and
I think that's the best thing about
conditioned black is just like, wait a minute.
I know I'm here now, let's get out.
Yeah.
There's other terms too, that a mental
fibrillation, when the heart goes into that
fluttering mode, and now your mind does
this stuff, you know, you got to shake it
off and get back in.
You know, I've been, um, fortunate or misfortunate
enough to be in a lot of situations where I
could look and watch people go into this
or another good one is tactical dithering.
Uh.
Ooh.
Uh.
And particularly for people that were in
charge of things, it probably shouldn't
have been in charge of it where now they get
overwhelmed and they are code black at that point,
they are it's over, um.
Right.
And pride.
Um, what's the other ones that are out there all,
you know, your feelings of self-worth often won't
let you admit uh, I've really messed this up.
Right.
Ego gets in the way.
Right, ego, your, you know, your eyes glaze
over to what's happened, my ego Meego and uh, you
got to get out of it.
And, and like I say, you don't need to worry what
other people think of you when you do this stuff.
You know, your, your images portrayed is
no longer important to anything other than
you and your family to fix whatever got
you to that point.
So, yeah, true enough.
Uh, learning to realize that it's out
of control and I must get control back.
And if you start finding yourself going
into code black, it might be because you
haven't spent time mentally role-playing
and developing these situations or these
heuristics that you can call upon
when you need to.
But the other interesting thing about this is.
If it can happen to you.
It can happen to the bad guys too.
And in fact, quite often it happens to
the bad guys before it happens to you because
they know what's going to happen and the
adrenaline's pumping in them and they're
functioning prefrontal cortex brain, which makes
all their decisions, isn't making decisions
in the proper format.
And you can use all of that to your advantage.
Well, you know, just drawing back on what
we've been able to watch on TV, and I guess,
you know, dash cameras and cell phones, as
I always say, I'm not standing around to
film any of this stuff, but I guess people
are willing to do it.
And, uh, I think it was at the vape
shop shooting.
You can watch on the security cameras of
the buildings, the guy approaching.
He's got a hoodie on, like everybody right
now has a mask on.
Perfect, this is like, this is like
the perfect scenario.
The COVID thing that we're, we're in the
middle of, for bad people to, you know, to, to
disguise themselves.
He starts and you can see his hand come out
of his kangaroo jacket or hoodie pocket.
And it looks, you know, clearly he's
got a black handgun, semiautomatic handgun,
one handed technique.
He's just point shooting, he's not
aiming that thing.
And he's white walking towards his
intended target.
You can see that part initially, the shooting
begins, then they show up another clip, which
is somebody passing, filming from a car.
I don't know whether it's a dash cam,
but I strongly think it's somebody filming
from the passenger seat of that car.
As soon as the shooting stops, bad
guy turns round and tries to book it.
Well, he steps off the curb, he takes a header
he's down and stumbling trying to get up.
Like I say, did he have, he probably did,
he knew he had to leave after the shooting, but
he really didn't have his, his plan together.
And that can be huge, huge problem for us.
When we're found in that guy's life at that
moment, he could take a hostage, he could
shoot somebody else just to get them out of
the way, he could try and hijack a vehicle.
Like even the people that were slowing down to film
that, put themselves at great risk, because if
all of a sudden the only thing he could think of
in that moment was to take you in your car.
Not good.
You get out of there.
You got wheels.
He's on foot, matt it, leave, drive away.
Don't wait around.
The other one too was when, uh, there was
the shooting in a.
Delta.
Delta, right on Scott road.
You could see.
After the shooting, the bad guy, again, funny
enough with a hoodie and a face mask on
running, jumping over, you know, a planter and
a car and everything.
And he's looking for his getaway vehicle.
And, you know, the wheel person will say, cause
we don't know if it was a man or woman, but
likely the wheel man, uh, was idling, moving
away, moving slowly, but just like all the
modern cars today, once the car starts to roll.
The doors lock.
Thats right.
And you can see him struggling
to get the door.
And finally, you know, after, uh, a very
noticeable delay, the door gets unlocked.
He gets in.
So where was the plan on the part of the
wheel man, I'm going to pick this guy up.
Why aren't I opening the door?
No, I'm not trying to tell these people, they
should plan any better than what they do know.
No.
But the important thing is to understand they
haven't planned beyond doing what they're
going to do, which could sincerely put you in
danger, know you are not a part of their plan.
You could be a barrier to their plan.
You could be just in the backdrop of the gunfire,
all these things.
So you need to think with soon as you
recognize that this is out of the ordinary.
When you're in code orange, you
recognize this is out of the ordinary.
This desires are not desires, requires my
complete attention.
And I need to immediately start to go through
the Rolodex, if this goes how far, what
am I going to do?
And that's having triggers,
mental triggers.
When you see something, how do you react when
you hear something, how do you react?
Let's go back.
I'm moved into code orange and I'm
looking at a situation that's evolving.
And I start to hear gunfire.
Hmm it's gunfire, whether I've ever heard
a real gun go off or not, if it sounds like
gunfire, I'm going to treat it like gunfire,
and I'm going to take the appropriate action.
I'm not going to hear popping noises
in a parking lot, on a weekday, in an
urban environment and think, oh, somebody is
letting off fire works.
Right.
And you know what?
Worst case scenario, maybe somebody was
letting off fireworks and you reacted as if it
was gunfire and people look and they laugh and
you feel like a fool, but you know what?
You reacted as you ought to.
Exactly.
And that is the part that's important.
Don't try and rely on a value system that
you want to believe that society is all
unicorns and rainbows, because it's not.
You know, often you hear to a, another,
you know, uh, sort of attitude or statement
that people make, you know, 16 year old shoots
and kills, you know, uh, victim on transit
bus and you go, I see that was a six, 16 year
old boy that did that?
Now you're applying a value system that, you
know, again, air quotes, normal people have.
You can't do that.
When I talked a lot about, you know, the
training that I did with, with recruits in service
officers, I talked a lot about what, you know, we
have grown up around, you know, you've had a parent
that, you know, wiped your face when you were
dirty, blew your nose, when you had a cold.
Made sure that you had a warm jacket on when you
went outside, uh, told you to be careful when
you cross the street.
As I said to a lot of recruits that I trained
as a field trainer, as an instructor in the
academy, I would say to them, you need to have
a hard look at those little kids that you see
in urban squalor, when that little fellows out
there in a diaper, on a tricycle, and it's only
like four degrees and he's barefoot in at six
o'clock in the morning and both barrels are
leaking snot and he's just happy, he's playing.
Um, how tough do you think he's going
to grow up to be?
Where do you think value systems are
when, you know, because unfortunately he
lives with, you know, a junkie mom, who's
more interested in getting a fix than she
is with feeding him.
And she kicks him out because she's got to
turn a trick and that's how that guy grows up.
Right.
And what's his value system?
You don't know until you've lived it, but it's
certainly not going to be as clean, pristine, noble
as yours is, you know?
So these are the things you've got to, you
know, you got to get out of that mindset.
There, there isn't, these people are not
living the way you do.
So another thing I've heard is Holy
Crow, how mentally taxing must that be.
If somebody comes from a condition of, or living
in condition white, where they're on their
phone as a take the transit, they got their
headphones in, they got their head down looking
for nickels as they walk from point a to point B.
And they're now being asked to be
cautiously alert.
They're not looking for nickels, trying
to avoid eye contact.
And for a lot of people, that's that's
the game is let's avoid eye contact and
they say, how mentally taxing must that be?
So a friend of mine he's been on the
podcast, British army.
I think he's one of the highest YouTube viewed
ones that we have.
And he's talking about his SAS selection.
And he says, you know, they taught us to look
for the absence of normal and for the individual
who's looking to change your life to be a
little bit more urban aware, I would say your
life for most people revolves around their
home and their work.
Family.
Right?
And, and maybe something, maybe they're in a
sporting activity or who knows, maybe
there's something else out there, but for
the majority, they're traveling from their
house to their work.
They're traveling from their house to a local
event or whatever it might be and you can
start to create a, you can scan and, and
create what is normal in this environment.
And once you start, it's kind of like driving a
car, you get behind the vehicle for the first
time and you're checking your mirror and you're
checking your speed.
And you're checking all around you.
Cause you're learning.
You're preparing by doing that because you're in
that heightened sense of, of taking it all in.
Then at some point, at some point, you're
no longer having to look at all that, but
you're driving and you're able to now
start seeing, okay, that vehicles crossing two
lanes and they could be hitting the sooner.
You're able to start looking for the absence
of what normal is.
So I develop.
And awareness of what normal is and so you
can start developing an awareness for what the
absence of normal is.
Absence of normal.
I like that.
And that is it.
When something's out of place, that's code
orange, something's out of place.
I need to give it a good, hard going over
here by looking, using all my other senses
to determine am I just being misled here?
Is it just out of normal?
Is it a threat?
If it's not a threat, take time to, you
know, drink it in, see what it is.
It might be entertaining.
And then once you're beyond it, back
to code yellow and raise, continue on.
Yeah.
And again, like you say, the stress of
going from somebody that goes, listen to them.
Like you, you, everybody knows somebody.
We were walking home from the mall and you
can't believe some guy, you know, some guy
did some guy exposed himself and, and they
can't get over it.
They just like it, it goes on and it dominates
conversation for a week in their life.
And they phone everybody in, they posted
on YouTube and or Facebook and Instagram.
And I, you know, I was just, well,
you know what?
People expose themselves every day.
So rather than, you know, taking this to, um, a
complete overwhelming of, of your day, do
you know, did you, did you report it properly?
Did you make notes, all these other things
and just say, you know, hey, the rest of you, I
learned my lesson today.
I had always thought that somebody could
expose themselves to me and it happened.
And what did I do?
I moved away.
I got, you know, a car between me and
this individual.
I, I stepped into a doorway.
I walked into a storekeeper and I said,
this guy is exposed and call the police or
whatever was required, you did the right thing.
It was an individual that was being
followed downtown.
Uh, she kept, she, you know, she put her
camera on her phone filming the guy.
I don't think she called the cops.
I don't think the police were involved until after
she had found some young fellows who were playing
basketball and said, this guy is, you know,
this creeps following me, they chased him off.
She put it on social media.
And I think it was actually picked off
a social media if I'm not, if I'm not correct
in this, I, you know, I, I fully accept
that, but there was no indication that she
directly contacted law enforcement as a result
of this guy stalking her.
So that's not an uncommon situation.
And we're going right back to what do I'm going
to do if this situation presents itself to me.
Right.
So that the, what would, would you do would be
mental role playing and what we do, and
that would probably be.
Bleed into the, during episode that we're
going to talk about.
Right.
But, but here's the thing I'm going
to call the cops.
I'm going to give them a clear description.
I'm going to include the time, the date, you
know, the, the street signs that are, you
know, the 100 block that I'm in, you know,
all of these things and
. Look for distinguishing features, look at a
height, skin color, something that would
be hard to hide.
As simple as which way is North, you know, is the
guy walking North, South, East, or West, you know?
And look for something like a scar or a tattoo,
or just one thing after you get the real
basics is they got a mask on, they got their
hood on, but you could probably see skin color,
probably get gender, probably get a height
out of all of that.
Can you see anything that's going to
be difficult for them to change it.
You can.
Right.
And now.
But this is some of the during.
The, well, this is, but again, that
mental rehearse.
So like, if I look at a person and I need to
phone the police, what are the police need
to know, description direction to travel
location, you know, and, and description always
includes particular description, you know,
distinguishing features.
I always kind of, again, you listen to the,
you know, police are looking for a 15 year
old, you know, male wearing a black hoodie.
Oh, gee, that's good.
It tells you nothing.
I'm sure everybody's gonna know that guy.
Right.
You know, but if you said that he had one
eye and you know, at, uh, uh, particular, you
know, other deformity or, or, you know.
Steely blue eyes.
Steely blue eyes, you know, and, you know,
or steely blue eye.
Sure.
And I don't mean to laugh and make light of it,
but, you know, we have to, we have to somehow
accept that this is a proper way to live, and
it's not going to put you into a state of paranoia.
So when I was younger and I'd go downtown
Vancouver, my dad would drive into three 12 main
street where the head office air for VPD was.
And situated in an area which a lot of
less than desirables around, we used to
always play this game.
Hawks and doves, right?
With your dad?
Yeah.
Nice.
So five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10.
And when I first go off and as a five-year-old
hawks and doves, so the hawks are going to be
the predators, the doves of the prey, right?
And I'd look and I'd think, well,
they must all be predators out here.
Cause look at how different they are living
than how I live, right?
But after a while you started seeing things
and you see, hold on a second, the way that,
that person's dress is different from how these
other people are dressed or they're a little
bit more put together, they've got their back
up against a wall.
Their eyes are up and they're looking,
similar to how I'm looking as well.
Oh, we just made eye contact.
Okay.
There's a, there's a bit of recognition here.
These other people they're looking at
the ground, they're shuffling around.
There doves, these guys over here, they're hawks.
And I say guys, because predominantly the men
are going to be the aggressors, right?
And I think playing that game just in
your day-to-day life, looking around, you'll
be surprised at how many people aren't
looking up and the ones who are looking up.
There's a reason they're either like you and
they're keeping their eyes open for possible
threats, or they are a threat and they're
looking for victims.
So I, I think when we look at the mental role,
playing, playing a game of hawks and doves can
be very beneficial.
The other thing I got out of that was the uniforms.
Everybody wears a uniform, police officers
wearing a uniform.
You'll run to a police officer, you'll see the
badge, you'll see the sharp dress uniform.
And you'll say, can you help me?
I need some help because you can see
exactly what that individual is all about.
The hawks will wear uniforms as well.
And you can start to spot that out.
The people who are a little bit more, uh,
certain gang affiliations will wear gang
affiliation uniforms, and you'll start to see that.
And what does the hawk do?
The hawk, you know, does certain behaviors,
you know, and, and the thing is if you were in
a situation and you go, geez, look at these, you
know, and obviously very young men are, you know,
basically teenagers and that guy's driving a BMW
X five, and this guy's got, you know, a, a six
inch lift on a brand new, you know, three
quarter ton diesel truck.
And this guy is driving a, you know, a fancy
blackout window SUV.
That's absolutely less than a year old.
Does that look right?
Okay.
So that's the absence of normal.
That's not normal.
I mean, you know, if the kid's driving a nice
car, that's got an end sign in the back that
maybe takes it back to normal, but these guys,
you know, or are in these vehicles that doesn't
fit, you know, um, what we used to say a lot with
the recruits is one of these things is not like
the other one, you know?
And, and that's what you've gotta be
able to compare it.
Yes.
Young guys have a perfect, young girls,
have a perfect right to get a driver's
license and be out there operating dad's car or
mom's car or whatever.
But, you know, typically dad is not
letting the kid drive, you know, $110,000
Lexus, you know, SUV.
That's got, you know, blinged out wheels
and things like that.
It just doesn't make sense for a 17 year old
to be operating that.
And, you know, you just got to pay attention
to things like that.
So in that game of Hawks and doves, the
other thing that I started picking up was
basic body language.
And seeing how people, like little things
where a person's feet are pointed in a
conversation, you go to a party, you're talking to
other people, a person's talking to you, but
their feet are pointed over at the pretty
girl next to ya, right?
Right.
You know where their attention
actually is, right.
Uh, or maybe their torso is more pointed, but
they're looking over.
Picking up little things about how people's body
language I, and there's some good books on it.
How to read a person like a book was the old one.
Alan Pease.
I remember he's read a few, he's written
a few books on it.
I would highly recommend if anyone listening
wants to learn a little bit about body language,
he's a good author.
But the interesting thing that I found on
the, both the uniform and the body language.
Was to look introspectively.
What uniform are you wearing?
And what body language are you giving off?
Are you giving off the body language
of a victim?
Are you dressed like a victim?
And that's why like for the police, your
very first, your very first step on the
use of force model is officer presence, right?
Well, it, it is, uh, you know, as far as well, and
in many cases, just the right kind of presence
puts things down.
It and people say, how does presence
do anything?
It's like drive down the road and see a
police car that doesn't even have its lights
on parked on the side.
Do you think you're going to see a reaction from
everybody else driving?
Right.
And that's what we used to always say too, is,
you know, if you put a, a marked car out,
you get, you know, you get compliance.
If you put a covert or an unmarked vehicle out,
you catch the offender.
So, you know, in a lot of cases, what
do you want to do?
Prevent, or arrest.
And, and, and that is, that is kind of,
they like, people are even saying now, like,
you know, the police need to do something.
The police need to do something.
Um, and you know, in a lot of cases, you
know, if we were to put marked vehicles on these
targets, who absolutely, they are known, they are
known to law enforcement.
Uh, they are, they're known, uh, to the
people that matter.
But now everybody's kind of holding back thinking,
wow, we might violate their, their rights.
There could be a court challenge, it's this
one's gone, you know, our particular situation
right now without getting political, I'm going
to get off topic here.
I got to get back.
But yeah, that presence could change things.
Your presence can change things.
Are you walking upright?
Right.
You know, do you look like you've got shoes on
that you could, you know, run with or fight with,
you know, a pair of heavy work boots on anything
like that might be the presence that is going to
keep you out of things.
But if you are, you know, not dressed
appropriately for the area that you find
yourself in, and you're not paying attention,
you're flagging yourself as, as a, as a dove,
as you'd like to say.
Sure.
And, and talking about the area that you find
yourself in, there are certain cues that you
can start picking up.
So Gavin de Becker wrote a book called
the gift of fear.
And aside from it being a very good promotional
piece for Gavin de Becker and his agency.
Most of these things are.
He did a fantastic job at that, but the
underlying message in there was essentially
trust your gut, right?
Trust your gut instinct.
And he would talk about women's intuition and
men have a gut instinct, and quite often.
Men, particularly young capable men will
try and rationalize.
Why am I feeling afraid in this moment?
This doesn't make sense, I'm a tough
guy, I can take care of myself and they start
rationalizing their way through and, and a big
underlying thing on that was trust your gut and
respond accordingly.
And there's different things that we can
take into account when we're making
those gut decisions.
And whether that gut decision is right or
wrong in the end, if we err on the side
of caution, always a better, but you're
talking about being in the wrong side of town.
Well, take a look at your environment.
Are there indicators in your environment that
perhaps you might be, you should be on a higher
level of alertness.
Do you see graffiti?
Do you see drug paraphernalia
kicking around?
Do you see, uh, evidence of impoverished people?
Because when there's less money, the desire
for money is going to be more in the desire
for quick money is going to be higher.
The thing we have to say, we're talking
about awareness in, in an urban environment.
And that doesn't just mean from these you
know, what, what brings us to light is a series
of violent incidents that are, you know,
put the public into outrage every single day.
You need to be in an aware situation in so
many of these, these places from leaving
the parking lot where you park your car to
get to your office.
Although everybody's working from home now
because of the COVID.
Right.
We may be just projecting into the future when
things get back to a more normal state of
affairs, but you know, you take the bus, you're
taking the bus to go to a doctor's office you've
never been to, and you can certainly see that
the buses now descending into, you know, a little
bit less than, you know, Tawny neighbourhood you
know, so it's now time to start moving up your
levels of awareness.
Maybe you're going to go, you know, almost orange
coming off the bus till you have a good, hard
luck and checked out the 15 people that you're
about to encounter.
And then you can take it back down to your,
your yellow and just, you know, so it's funny.
Hey, I was yellow, I was orange.
It was, you know, Oh, I must've gone orange
five times today, you know, which is an
indicator that you're doing the right thing.
If you don't have to go red, you're good.
You really are.
And if you can get back into yellow and, and
it's a relaxed state of awareness, it's not
a, it's not a state of hypervigilance, which is
what all this stuff comes back to was the young
soldiers who were waiting for D-Day or waiting
for, you know, a big airdrop or whatever, you
know, and we're talking 17, 18 year old boys.
Okay.
Let's use the value system that we know my
son when he was 17 years old is now got you know,
a, uh, a full field pack on a parachute on his
back, a steel helmet.
And they're about to kick him out of an airplane.
Oh, but not today.
We're not going up, you know, and everybody
relaxed go back to bed or, you know, get
a, get a sandwich, but stay ready.
And, and these guys were in complete states of,
you know, mental turmoil and, and being upset and,
and somebody recognized, well, we need to gage
this out because these guys are, they haven't
even seen combat yet and they're burnt out.
And this is the origins of this.
So it's perfect for people.
With what we would say, a normal value system has
existed all their life.
And you know what?
We're so good with our kids.
Don't talk to a stranger, you know, be careful
of dogs, strange dogs.
We do all this up.
And yet the same parent who might say that is
walking down, you know, an unknown street in an
unknown neighbourhood and somebody says, Hey, can
you help me find my keys?
Or could you step over here?
And, and you know, Oh, that's a
beautiful necklace that you're wearing.
May I see that?
And you know, are you kidding me?
Nobody that I've never met in a strange
neighbourhood is going to come into my personal
space and touch my necklace, you know,
yet people do and they, and they go, Oh my God.
And when I walked away that wasn't a necklace
it was wearing and you know, this sort of stuff
like, are you kidding me?
No, but that's the way I think, cause that's
my value system, but that's only come from, I
don't know 40 something years now that I've
more than that, that I've lived this way.
My dad and I always liked to throw my dad's
story into things.
My dad played in a pipe band for the shrine,
and there was always the shrine circus.
That's a real thing that kids will miss or the
way the old time circuses with the lions and tigers
and they're in the house.
But they used to like march out into the arena.
The pipe band would be out there and of
course the big ticket items would be the
lions and tigers.
And my old man used to watch guys trying
to get close to the lions and the tigers.
Now they were probably pretty tame or as
tame as those things could be, but those
lions and tigers knew how to get even.
And one of them was to turn around and mark you.
Sure.
You know what I mean?
Like a tom cat.
And it was one of those things.
My dad just remember that, and there we are up
at the Okanagan game farm standing there, looking
at the tiger in the cage.
And you know, you got 10, 12 feet between the
barrier and the cage that the animals in.
And, uh, of course he's going, we should
stand back now.
Cause he's seeing the behaviours in that
tiger that he knew and sure enough, the
tiger delivered on demand and you know,
other peoples, Oh yes.
And I even remembered this was how do I
say it was nine years old, we were in the,
the zoo in Honolulu.
And there was this huge silver back gorilla
sitting there and the poor thing behind bars,
just, you know, with a total state of dejection
on his face and people, you know, trying to get
them to do something and, you know, you just knew
and, and that's just, ah, we should move back.
And he had, uh, he had good senses about stuff,
uh, and faster than you could blink an eye that
gorillas scooped up a handful of excrement
and through the bars, these people that had
been taunting him.
And then he threw himself up at the bars,
powerful, powerful, you know, beast and
started shaking the bars.
But that was his, I was just entertainment.
Yes.
And to my dad's credit though, he
kind of recognized, you know, he was just
that kind of a guy.
He was thinking, you know, first of all,
he loved animals and he couldn't bear
the thought of, you know, caging them or
anything else like that.
But he knew so.
Just another dad's story.
Well, you brought up a couple of really
interesting points.
Uh, one was the woman walking in being
harassed, being stocked.
So I remember at a young age, people would
be like, why, why are you walking so fast,
Travis it's cause you got long legs.
I can't keep up.
Well, it's not cause I got long legs, I
specifically walk faster so that my
normal is, other people around me are
generally walking slower.
And I don't have to think about them if they're
matching my speed or exceeding my speed.
All of a sudden they come up on the radar and I
have to think about them.
So little, little tricks, like, uh, watching, who's
matching your speed.
Uh, maybe as you're walking downtown and
you're looking in store windows, don't look in
the window, look at the reflection, the window
to check your six, watch who's behind you.
But also look, I had like, actually look ahead
and plan your escape route, or maybe there's
something up ahead that I don't want to be meeting
five feet from me.
I can avoid a hundred yards away.
And yeah, and, and everything you pass,
you know, not only as an escape route forward, but
maybe for your retreat, what did I pass that, you
know, could have helped me out in this situation?
Was there a garbage can I could have, you
know, rolled in front of somebody or pushed
away or got behind or a car that was back there.
I'm now on a strip, uh, you know, pavement,
uh, is beside me on the edge of the sidewalk.
Whereas there was a car that was only
about 30 yards back.
Maybe, you know, if I get to that, I can just, it's
all about time to, right.
You know, when any of these situations, if you
can get distance from whatever the situation
is, you get time to think more and figure
it out and get away.
But, you know, distance and time and, and
avoiding the threat without getting into
so many of the real specifics of actual
physical conflict of coming together, you
know, we're, we're talking average Joe
stuff here, not martial artists, not armed
citizens stuff, you know.
And we're not advocating anybody at
this point should try and arm themselves
illegally at all.
You know, that that's, that is such a high
degree of training is required to be
efficient at that.
And that's not where we're going with this.
It's it's to develop an awareness.
And in most cases we'll keep you free
of ever having to, to, to come touching.
Right.
You know, you know, and the kind of touching
which, you know, would mean a physical fight
or trying to, or trying to, to stop, you know,
getting stabbed or beaten or anything like
that, you know, and.
There's so much of it as common sense,
you know, like where are you at what time?
Like, I can't believe this happened to me.
We can't believe this happened.
It was three o'clock in the morning and you
were drunk out of your mind and by yourself,
and then you walked, you know, instead of
walking towards transit, you thought, Oh, I'll
just walk over here and, you know, get a pizza
from some skid row place where they sell pizza.
So now again, how many times did I hear that
while I was working, too many times, but
again, people have the belief, they maybe have
a right to, well, I have a right to be there.
You sure do.
Yep.
Absolutely.
And I'm not here to tell you that, you know, Oh,
I am, you know, What have I looked like a
liberal, and I'm not going to tell you that
you can do anything, but if you're smart,
you shouldn't do that.
Friend of mine talks about a, uh, an old poem.
I think it was called the stop sign or
the stop light or something like that.
And he says his way was right, his will was
strong, but he's just as dead as if he were wrong.
You had the light, it was green.
You have the right to be there, but maybe you
should look around and make the proper decision.
If there's a mack truck coming down and
it's going to blow the light and hit ya just
cause you're right.
Sure, dead right.
Yeah, dead right.
Yeah.
My mum used to her poem was here, lies
the body of Mr.
Gray.
He died defending his right of way and just as
dead as if he were wrong.
So I forget the other parts of it,
but yeah, it's true.
And yeah, go where you want whenever you want.
So what are you prepared to deal with what could
potentially be there?
And certain things are of greater
potential than others.
I think most people have heard run, hide
fight, and those are the three words
that are thrown out.
If there's an active shooter,
run, hide, fight.
Yeah.
But keeping that run, hide, fight mentality,
obviously, if you're able to run, if you're
able to get your butt out of dodge that
trumps everything else, get yourself out of
danger in order to do that, run, hide, fight,
run, hide, fight.
Keep that in your head.
And you do your mental role playing, if I put
myself in this position, will I be able to run?
If I go into this building, do I know
where the exits are?
Do I position myself as I'm having lunch in a
way where I can watch people as they come in or
come out and I can have a quick and easy egress.
And if you keep that run, hide, fight,
you start eliminating the possibility that
you have to hide.
Fight.
Yeah.
Um, you brought up another one, which was
a person talking to you on the street and
they talk about the rule of one plus one.
There's one bad guy.
There's probably two there's, you're searching
a person, you find one weapon, you'll
probably find two.
If someone stops to talk to you, you have
to really question why, and immediately who
were they working with?
Who could be around, right.
Just because you hear the bang over here
doesn't mean that's the only threat.
So putting yourself in a position, tactically
positioning yourself.
If you're talking to somebody on the street,
if you made that decision to engage and actually
talk to them, tactically positioning yourself if
you're eating lunch, if you're at the office,
just being aware of your surroundings,
you and I were at a, at a, a restaurant
there at a shot show.
And another fellow, we noticed people
kept walking.
He said, what is your situational awareness?
My God.
That's right.
Yeah.
We were sitting there.
Everybody's just kept banging into him.
I go what's with this guy, like, why don't you
just take a couple of steps back, put your,
you know, stand by, uh, a, uh, uh, uh, support
column in the, in the place that we were at
or something like that.
But everybody was bumping him into, into him.
Yeah.
It is a funny thing like that, you know,
course some people purely by their physical
stature, very few things are going to happen.
And, you know, and, and it's easy to say,
like, you know, I've, since I was 14, I've
been over six feet, tall, people are not
actually sizing me up.
I'm not a woman, that is one of the things
that scares me more than anything else is I, you
know, I want the women in my life, my family to,
you know, and always to be on their, their game.
And, you know, unfortunately my
wife is very sharp.
She's, you know, you'd be tangling with, uh,
your weight and wild cats with that one, but
that's the thing, you know, and she's not,
she has no problems, you know, just blowing people
off who are trying to distract her and things.
She's, she's good with that.
She's focused.
She walks fast, you know, she has a purpose
and everything else.
She walks our dogs.
I'm disabled right now until I get
my knee fixed.
So she walks our dogs.
Non-urban environment, but she's aware she's
got her air horn.
She's got her bear spray, you know, she's
got her communications, she's got a whistle,
all those things.
And it all goes on our little back or waist belt
thing when she goes out there and every time.
So she's now bought into her awareness in a
non-urban environment, in the outdoors.
And so many people will buy into that
so much more easily.
And I find there's almost no threat
in the outdoors.
We teach bear awareness.
We've both been a part of that developing
programs for people because it could happen.
Sure.
With a lot of people, they believe it's
bound to happen.
And that's all that occupies them every time.
And they're not seeing that glacier and they're
not seeing that waterfall and they're not smelling
the air because they think everything is going
to be a bear attack.
So going back to this urban awareness, nobody's
thinking about the bear attack they're
thinking about, Oh yeah.
You know, I want to go to this restaurant and
they don't pay attention to where this restaurant
is located, where they parked their car, how
are they going to get back to their car?
When you get to your car, have you, you know,
you remotely started.
I love that, I love, you know, the vehicles
that remotely starts.
So the cars up the lights are on and that
could be a distraction that could help you out.
All of a sudden this car starts up while
somebody thinks they're cornering you in the
dark and they now think there might be a witness.
It's a great thing to have lights on engine
running, as you get there, don't unlock
it until you get right to it though.
That's a good tip.
You know, like leave the thing locked until
the very last second, you know, don't take
that program out of your car, where as soon
as you unlock the pass or the driver's side,
the passenger also unlocks, you know, you
make that decision.
Right.
You know, you can push the button twice on your
fob or you get in and flip the, you know, the
switch that on the inside of the door, those, those
things are important.
And these are all it's not, if it, or when
it's happening, these are all things that you
should be prepared to do before and how to live
your life, you know.
Now as you're walking down the street or you're
at the, at the subway or at the, uh, the sky
train or the bus station, and you're assessing
what could be possibly out of the ordinary.
You see somebody sitting there and they're not on
their phone, particularly a younger person.
That's not ordinary because they're up in
the alert and they're looking around.
There's probably a reason for that, mark
that in your head and watch them take a look
at the face, take a look at their hands, because
if they're going to do something, it's going
to be with their hands.
If they're going to hold a weapon, that's going
to be with their hands and then watch a face
again and try and go through that constant
OODA loop, the observe, orient, decide and act
and keep going over.
As you look at people face and face what's.
Is there a threat there?
Uh, I think that would be something that would
help people in their decision-making in
their branching scenario here, as well as we're
talking a lot about mental conditioning.
Physical conditioning, is massive being
able to just have the cardiovascular skill
or strength, sorry.
The cardiovascular strength to survive an
encounter is something that should be on
people's minds in the pre section as well.
And it'll help the mental role playing too.
Yeah.
And that's right.
I mean, you know, you have plenty of
options in that regard.
Sometimes physicality is going to prevent
that, that's just.
Sure.
You know, a disability, uh, and infirmity,
anything like that, you know, poor vision.
But you brought up a really good point there.
And you talked about communication device
and out walk in the dogs with some bear
spray or some dog spray.
Now having OC, Oleoresin Capsicum for people
that's not allowed.
Thats illegal.
That's illegal.
Mind you having it for dogs or predatory animals
is perfectly legal.
And I mean, that's the thing.
We are not a society.
Canadians, we are not a society where, you
know, we can tell people that you have the right
to stand your ground.
Um, though it can be interpreted in law.
It's always better to run away and fight
another day than to try and do that.
So I always say the idea of standing your
ground only comes when there's no other option.
And, and you know, the, the, the, as you say,
the, the run hide or fight, boy running, man
best, but no one where you're going to run and,
and run it into a store, uh, run to, you know,
what appears to be, um, and like you said, you
talk about uniforms, but virtually any uniform,
like official uniform is better than nothing else.
So there's security guards and, and, uh,
a garbage truck, you know, the uniform that
the city of whatever you're in engineering
truckers there that guy's got communication
probably is going to have a cell phone or
a radio in that truck.
But he's also, he's at work, he's there,
he's not going to, you know, he's going
to be a, a person you can go to, you know?
And so the run run to something and it's not
just, you know, run away from the threat to
something that's going to benefit you in the end.
The hide, you know, I wanted to say that
because when you brought that hide up, hide, hide,
what am I hiding from hiding, from being seen,
hiding from gunfire.
Like, you know, that's an important thing to
think about, right?
And you know, is the guy who got a shoulder
firearm because the penetrative effect
of rifle rounds is much greater.
So hiding means, you know, some serious
ballistic protection, a big truck,
anything like that.
It's at a handgun.
The threat is slightly less ballistically, but
you know what, if they're shooting low, it, the
bullets will ricochet underneath the car.
So if you going to hide behind a car high
behind the wheel, high behind the engine block,
the front of the car, those sorts of things
are really important.
You know, it's not just hide.
Hiding might be better than doing
nothing, always.
But now talk about, well, if I could to duck
behind that vehicle, or if I got a choice
of two that are equal distance away, maybe I'm
going to pick that, you know, the big wheel on
the one ton truck there to get down behind it
and hold that position.
Right.
You know?
And then if I got to hide, cause that's all
I got, I now got to go back to the run thing.
So leaving my position, if it means running
across wide open ground, that's not good.
So you're differentiating between cover
and concealment.
Concealment.
Yes.
You know, and just like, you know, hide and
seek hiding or hiding to get protection.
Right.
So people who are listening, if you're
hiding and they can't see you, that'd
be concealment, you're concealed.
They can't see you.
Right.
Whereas cover is something that'd be
much more preferable.
And as you're saying, Paul has got ballistic
stopping capabilities.
So the, the forces that are, you know,
at work here, they're the professionals
who are training.
And we, we have now recognized that the
active shooter scenario is a real thing.
Uh, in a mall, in a school, in a church
we've seen it all.
And you know, we've seen it, you know, not just
in the United States, but we've seen it in Canada.
We've seen it in Europe.
And so one of the things we talk about
the hide is quiet.
Hmm, we tell kids, uh, an active shooter happens.
Tell everybody, get, you know, out of the way of
any window, you know, in the door, looking into
the room, get down on the floor and everybody
shut up, shut the phones off, you know, turn the
lights, you know, down all, at well, don't shut
the phones off, but you know, you don't want.
That ringer off.
Shut the ringer off.
You don't want the light from the
screen, reflecting back into your face
to give you a way so.
And your loved ones, the second they hear that
there's something going on at your location.
Everyone's going to be phoning your
phone right away.
Hide.
So I, fighting, quite often.
So I've, I used to do a fair bit of martial arts.
I would do Muay Thai and Arnis and Jujitsu
and a few others.
And people would say, hey, what's the best
martial or that I just want to learn
something so I can have some self defense.
I can protect myself and, uh, time and time again.
I tell them what's way better than any
martial art is basic physical conditioning
and your urban awareness or situational
situational awareness.
You don't find yourself in that situation.
That is way better, but if you have to do
something, boxing's great because it's great
for the cardio and it teaches you to take a hit
and realize that you're not made out of glass.
Right.
That's an important thing, too.
Sure.
You know, if you, if it does, you know, you've
got to think about this in this before
scenario, you must think about this now.
If you get shot, stabbed, punched really hard and
you know that you've been shot, punched or
stabbed, you're okay.
Cause you're, you're, you're still aware.
So that doesn't mean anything other than I
got to continue on to get away from this or
make it stop or whatever.
And that's, that's a huge thing because you know,
I've watched people.
I should say police officers who get one
punch and they're out of the fight.
Right?
The nose starts to bleed.
They turn and roll away and you
think, oh my gosh.
And I've seen other, you know, there are pure
heroics where somebody has got a broken finger,
broken wrist, broken arm, they continue the fight,
you know, and, and that's just, you know, the, how
strong the mind can be.
But the mind only gets strong from considering
what could happen and developing that, you
know, that that will to live that will to,
to get through it.
So all of that, even though we talk about the
will, you know, should be part of when it's
happening training the mind to have that will.
Right.
Always thinking about, um, always thinking
about what's important to you beforehand, you
know, people go, when it happened, my, my life
flashed before my eyes.
And what were you thinking?
Well, I don't have a will and how's my
family going to get by.
I had a fight with my loved one and I didn't
kiss them goodbye.
You know, all these things can
have a negative detractor on people.
Now much more in people that are in law
enforcement or, you know, in, in the military,
where you know, where we are putting them
directly into harms.
Right.
It's not an if situation, it's just a win-win
situation with them.
So it's incredibly important even for
us, if it is that if situation, if we're just,
you know, the citizenry that we have your ducks
in, in order, if you're leaving to go to work and
you've had a huge fight with your, your other,
you know, and you, you just say, look we gotta
stop fighting right now because I'm going off,
you know, I'm going to be gone for a day or
something like that.
We'll resume when I get back, I really
look forward to that, but we'll resume then.
But for now, if you still have feelings for that
person at that point, if it's not a total
loss, tell 'em you got feelings for them, make
sure you get that off.
Cause you know, having that popping your
head at the wrong moment is not good.
And I've, and I have had the opportunity
to talk to people who said, you know what?
I started thinking about what I hadn't done when
I was about to die.
And I had to actually stop thinking about
that to get back into the fight.
And, uh, it was funny.
We always talk about, you know, the man
who saw the elephant.
So in the early 18 hundreds, not many people
had seen the elephant.
Right.
But when people started to travel
specifically to hunt, in Africa or at actually
traveled as explorers.
And they would come back to, you know,
modern Europe in those days, modern or
modern North America.
Everybody wanted to hear about what it was like
to see the elephant.
And when you find somebody that's been
in a true life or death situation, before you
get into one, you want to listen to what the
man or the woman who saw the elephant has to
say, everybody has a, Oh, you know, they want
to say, did you know, what did you think of
when you were seeing the elephant and listen to
what the person says.
And I just put it, like, I have heard people ask
me, um, you know, Or ask others who had been in a
life or death situation, did you think about, you
know, did you leave the coffee pot on at home
or something like this?
And these are things that are typically
put into the mind by an, what I would
call a non-combatant.
And there are non-combatants out there
years and years ago, there was a book written,
uh, by, uh, Wambaugh, uh, who did a lot of,
you know, police style novels based many of it
around the LAPD, but one of his true novels or
not true novels, one of his, uh, historically
correct books was called The Onion Field
in the late sixties.
A couple of detectives robbery detectives
were taken hostage.
Uh, they were taken out.
One was murdered in an under onion field, the
other one survived.
Hmm.
From that situation, they developed a whole
series of, you know, post critical event, you
know, ideas and one of the things was they said
was, you know, we had to tell people what it
might be like to go to through a critical event.
And people were saying, you know, don't worry,
after the critical event, you might become
a bed wetter or a kleptomaniac or, you
know, you're going to have marital problems.
And they were telling him, police officers
in particular, it's not unusual if you get into,
you know, a on-duty shooting to leave the
job within two years because of the stresses
and everything else.
And this went on for the longest time.
And I still remember as a baby cop, listening to
the Academy instructor, talk about that stuff.
And because I was fully embracing the
concept of lethal force training, I started to
listen other people.
And what I say is, don't think that,
because that's a self fulfilling prophecy.
If you think that you get into something beforehand
and you start to say, Oh my God, if this happens
to me, I'm finished.
I'm going to become impotent, my, my marriage
will end all these it's it's going to happen.
Hmm.
One of the things you need to do and tell
yourself, well, I, maybe I'm going to spoil it.
You know, I, I don't want it.
I've got to talk about after.
Sure.
How you should feel if you are, you know,
applying everything that we're, we're
leading up to here.
No, that sounds good.
But, uh, what a man thinks he will do.
Right.
Essentially.
And so you want to program yourself with
all these right inputs.
Exactly.
And if you're being programmed by a
non-combatant, somebody who doesn't have the
grounding to, to put themselves forward
for all this stuff, I mean, I'll tell you
when we start talking about during, I've got
some examples, personal examples that I can
offer up that rings.
So true to one that combat and told me
what I might experience going through, but
let's go back, listen to the people who
have done stuff and have been successful.
And what were the things they do?
You have interviewed people who have
survived, bear attacks, what did they do?
They became resourceful.
Now, you know, there was the guy that pulled
out that little pocket knife, which was not a
flip open knife he had to, and that was it.
But he remembered that he had a knife, he knew that
he had to do something, he got the knife
out and that was it.
You know why he did that?
He did that because of a story that was
written, I think it was in Gary Shelton's book.
Talk, one of the bear attack books and there,
I believe it was a indigenous fellow,
who was attacked by a bear and used his buck
knife that he had and stabbed the bear and
kept stabbing the bear until he was able to
escape from the bear and crawl himself out
some far distance away.
And this guy who was in a bear attack Colin
Dowler, he said, I remembered that story
cause I remembered that as his heuristic,
there is action reaction and result.
And he says, if I can only get my knife out
and I'll just stab the bear in the neck as
many times as I can, until it lets me go.
And he says, I remember being so upset when
I stuck it in his neck and I was only
able to get one stab in before it really
started thrashing me.
And he says, but I said, one thing, the
only thing I said the entire time that this
bear attack happened.
And he says, I look back on it and I'd like to
think that I talked to the bear ahead of time,
like go away, bear.
He says, I don't know if I did, but I do know
that the second I stuck that knife and I saw a
russ of blood come out.
He says, now you're bleeding too bear.
And that stuck with him, that pre mental
programming is.
Got him to that point.
Is what he says, saved his life.
And then the fact that this other
fellow in the story.
The guy couldn't see his face was all mauled and
he crawled out for miles.
Well, Colin gets up on his bicycle, falls down.
He's only got one good leg and he's got, you
can see his internal organs through his back
apparently, gets back up on the bike again.
And he says, I better not fall off again
because I don't know if I'll be able to
get back up again.
And he rode that bike, I think it was seven
miles that he rode with his one good foot kind
of pushing and peddling based on the fact that he
downloaded in his head, that you could do that.
Just like you said, okay, you're shot or you're
stabbed, man that sucks.
But you know what?
I realize it, and I'm not dead.
Right.
So that means I can keep going.
Right.
Not giving up.
And, and, and that's the thing, you know, like,
know ahead of time, I'm not going to give up
if I'm conscious and aware, I'm still in it.
And still in it, again, we're not talking about
the fighting side of it, but the getting away
from, and getting on to return back to, you know,
your, your normal life, what it, what it was.
And one of the other things, when people
say, Oh, if it happens to you once, it's never
going to happen again, don't ever say that
one, trust me on that.
Um, but, uh, yeah, getting back to this
so much of what we can download to get us ready
for things is important.
And I mean, you know, the lost art of reading other
people's experiences and you know, now in
a, in a very, um, light state of code yellow,
you know, when you're on your next opportunity
to get out somewhere where it's quiet and you
really are, you know, pretty much devoid of any
threats to really study a book that somebody
else has talked about who's survived these.
You know, it's funny because again, I
remember, uh, listening to a lot of people saying
how many times things have happened to them.
And that's the other thing too, is not only
you prepare a head, but did you learn
from the time before?
Right.
You know, and they say the best predictor
of future performance is past performance.
Right.
Take a look at past performance, use that to
develop your heuristics as you move forward.
And that's, what's going to do it.
So, yeah, we, uh, you know, it's very
important and we talk about before and let's,
first of all, you know, just a bit of a recap
will it happen for sure?
No, but it, it could.
Accept that it could ,don't deny don't,
uh, don't walk into it oblivious.
Tell yourself, you know, right now that,
uh, if something out of the ordinary
happens, I'm going to pay attention to it.
So I'm going to keep myself in a state of, we
could even say curiosity, you know, be curious,
but be out there in it.
And that yellow state of relaxed awareness is, is
going to keep you above you know, your sight
lines high, you're going to be above the sidewalk.
You're looking ahead.
You're taking in what's there and
you can, it also be entertained by that too.
There's this, you know, you've always got to
look at that side of it, but getting completely
involved in whatever's going on on your phone,
you now need to go indoor somewhere, put
your back against a wall, or, you know, make
sure that you've got somebody with you to
watch what's going on.
Like that, that might be a consideration
now, but for, you know, three people to huddle
together with their heads, touching, bent
over their phones, man.
Fuck good is that doin.You know, you,
you, you wouldn't see quail doing that.
I'll tell ya.
So anyways, that, that state of yellow
ready to go to orange when need be, because.
Hey, something doesn't look right here.
Something I like the absence of ordinary
has now a cap has now occurred that something
doesn't look right with a vehicle, the,
the way our vehicles driving somebody slowing
down to look at you.
Somebody's walking faster to catch up with
you or appears to be.
And that's the thing, what does
it appear to be?
And in a state of orange, you're going
to go, okay, this appears, Oh, alright.
Oh no, he's just speeding up cause he wants to
talk to his friend because that person now
turns around and you know, there's obvious
signs of a greeting and that's legit.
And now you're back to yellow and back to your
thing, knowing when to go code red, that the
fight is, is no longer imminent it's now on.
And then the behaviours that you need to
display at that point should all be thought
about before you go into code red, right?
That's now that's, that's in that
relaxed state of mind.
That's, you know, in the time before I, I, I
lay me down to sleep is, you know, a great time
to download the stuff to your subconscious.
You're very receptive at that time.
You think you're tired, but you know, the number
of people will tell you how they cram when
they study, before you go to sleep and it, and
it comes back to them, you know, it's good.
And that's, that's the whole idea of this.
The time for NIC cognition is not in the
middle of the fight.
Your cognitive mind is going to
be gone, you know.
It's going to be reactive.
That's right.
And if you're not trained, you're, you're,
you know, it's not there.
If you're trained, you know, and if you're
classically trained in whatever discipline
it is, be it martial arts firearms or
anything else, you do so many things in
a reactionary way.
Um, Or I hate to use the word instinctive, cause
it's not, but you use it from a, at a subconscious
level, but you use it efficiently through
repetition and training that is there, that you
actually do get some cognitive powers, you
know, to help you out.
You will be stronger in that.
You're not gonna just, you know, I
mean, I watched an individual, uh, who
got into Muay Thai and that individual police
officer was worried about making themselves
better for the streets and everything else.
And then they started doing it, loved it, uh,
was having fun doing Muay Thai was confidence level
was way up decided by, uh, the instructor said,
you know, would you like to fight a match, like
a legit, you know, full contact match and pads
and everything on it?
Yeah.
Let's go for, it.
Took two punches in the face and went into
complete, you know, automaton mode and all
those skills stopped.
Windmilling now was going in, you know,
screaming, trying to bite everything until they.
What did Mike Tyson say?
Yeah, everyone's got a plan till they get
punched in the face.
They get punched in the face and that's what
happened, but, you know, That individual learned
to gather themselves from it and would later
be better for it, you know, but that's just it.
Okay.
So a whole ton of notes.
I think we should be looking at
wrapping them up.
Okay.
The there's going to be things that we didn't
touch on and maybe people listening or watching to
this would like to add their own experiences
or things that they've seen that works for them.
One thing I would encourage is when
we're developing our heuristics,
when we're doing our scene assessments,
use all your senses.
Yes.
If you look at the person and you see they're
obviously they got the cauliflower ears and
it looks like they've taken a few hits before.
They're not going to shy away from a fight.
If you can smell alcohol on breath, right.
Well, okay, they might not act in the same way
that sober person would.
If you can hear certain things happening.
And my buddy would say, he says, you know,
weird thing was, um, the dogs didn't bark
for the Taliban, right.
And he says, I don't know if it's, the
locals knew that an attack was happening
and they'd bring their dogs in, but there is
an absence of normal, the dogs wouldn't bark.
So he was bringing in all the different senses.
And after a while, it's just something
that will allow you to write almost everything
off except for what is the absence of normal.
Right.
I agree.
Why is that light out?
Why is, you know, Oh, I just think it's so
many things when you do that, but stuff
we pay attention to.
Well, why don't we call it there?
There's a ton of stuff we didn't touch on,
but this should be a good primer for others
too, to build upon.
And they might have certain questions that
we'll put into the during, cause that's
going to be, that'll be an interesting one.
And I know Paul you've caught a
lot for that one.
Stay tuned.