Page 128 - Pat O'Keeffe Combat Kick Boxing

Combat Kick Boxing

with the myriad distractions of modern-day life, we have distanced ourselves
from our primitive defences. Primitive in that they were our first protection, not
our worst.
If we were to live in the wilderness once again, we would find our five senses
becoming more acute and our sensory awareness becoming fine-tuned. If they
did not respond in this way we would be killed and eaten very quickly.

Summary
If we take on board the lessons of Chapter One – Awareness and this chapter,
Environment, we may well avoid having to defend ourselves at all. Tuning in is
not easy, but in any circumstances where you begin to feel uneasy, trust it! Change
your route, switch on, look, act and sound confident.
Finally, a case where the so-called higher brain overruled instinct and I learnt a
valuable lesson.
Many years ago I attended a kick boxing tournament in a potentially dangerous
area of London which had been the scene of serious riots not long before. To give
you some idea of how the area was viewed, both the local police and fire stations
had – and still do have – heavy and highly visible security precautions.
Being a serving fire-fighter, I parked in the fire station yard and walked to the
leisure centre where the kick boxing was taking place. The kick boxing finished
late so instead of taking the longer route back via the main road I told myself that
there was nothing to fear except shadows and an overactive imagination. So I
took the shortest route, which was along a pitch-dark thoroughfare strewn with
rubble.
I was alone, escape options were few and anyone lying in wait could have heard me
coming a long way off. It was the perfect ambush site. This dawned on me about halfway
down the thoroughfare, which was perhaps two hundred and fifty yards long. I started to
switch on and had every sense screaming for information. Sweat broke out on my forehead
and I cursed my stupidity.
In the event nothing happened, but my actions were plain stupid. For the sake
of a few minutes extra travelling time I broke every safety rule there is. People
have done less and been killed. I almost deserved to be attacked.
The first law of survival is avoiding the avoidable.

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