I encourage my students to train mentally with little imagination exercises they can  do when they’re out and about. When you go to a place that isn’t your home look for the exits, look for improvised weapons. When in the presence of other people, gauge their distance and imagine how you might react if they were to suddenly attack you. Look at everybody’s hands. Above all, always be aware of your environment.

Last night, during class, one of my students told me that she had been doing these exercises all the time. Great. Then she asked me a really good question, “isn’t it a little bit paranoid?”

My answer to that, as you could guess, is no.

To me, paranoia is about unjustified fear. In contrast, we work these drills in part to instill a sense of confidence. We aim to remove fear. Imagining a threat is around every corner is paranoia. Asking yourself what you’d do in the event there was a threat around a corner is mental exercise. One is healthy, and the other is not.

Paranoia is particularly a problem if it interferes with your normal life. You may be safer locked in your basement all day – but that’s not healthy. Preparation might point out some changes to your routine which would make you safer, but shouldn’t have you cowering in bunker for the rest of your life.

I live in a really safe neighborhood and have been mocked for locking my doors and owning an alarm. Then somebody tried to break into my house. Locking my doors and turning an alarm on and off are not disruptive in any way to my enjoyment of life. In fact, those two things give me a peace of mind that help me enjoy life better.

I was talking with a woman in Boston where I suggested that women probably shouldn’t jog alone at night on the Esplanade. About 5 women had been attacked and sexually assaulted at gunpoint doing just that. She was indignant, “Well, I fell that women should be able to go any where they want.” Absolutley, I agree with that statement. And I should be able to walk into the roughest neighborhood in the country with $100 bills falling out of my pocket and expect no problems either – but that’s just not realistic. It’s simply about recognizing an existing danger and making better choices.

Sticking your head in the sand and pretending that nobody and nothing would ever harm you is as unrealistic as paranoia, and it’s probably more dangerous.

To me, the two aspects of what we refer to as paranoia (in a non-clinical sense) are unreasonable belief of danger and unreasonable fear of danger. In my classes, we try to inject as much reason as possible. We discuss recent crimes, local crime rates, the differences between TV crime and reality. Nearly all of my students have reported a greater sense of confidence which I equate to less fear. We do not teach paranoia here.

In fact, my new school slogan might be “preparation, not paranoia ™.”

You’re lazy.

The truth is, we’re all lazy. But some of us earn black belts while others don’t. Most people who try out a martial art quit after the first week or two. Why is that?

My teacher always said, “the hardest part of training is getting in the car”. It’s often been said that of those who start training in karate, less than 1 in 100 will ever attain black belt. Less than 1 in 100 of those will ever stay long enough to get a second degree black belt.

Why the high drop-out rate?

Like many people, I was drawn to martial arts as a boy by watching martial arts movies. I dreamed of having superhuman powers. Then, I started taking karate and realized – holy crap this is hard work! You don’t take a month of classes and become Chuck Norris. Oh yeah … did we forget to mention there are a lot of push-ups and sit-ups involved?

One of the first factors that cause people to drop out is the school not meeting expectations. Some money-oriented schools have caught on to this and have created fast-track black belt programs, leadership academies, and watered down promotion requirements to keep students from quitting. Unfortunately this is missing the point completely.

The next issue is one of habit. Like I said, humans are lazy. We are habit building machines. In order not to think too hard, every day we tie the same shoe first, we lead off with the same leg when we start walking, and we loop our belt in the same direction. This is actually a good thing most of the time. As habit machines, we don’t have to dedicate much thought to daily minutia. Unfortunately, habits are hard to break, and new habits take time to develop.

Training regularly has to become a more important habit than catching your favorite TV show, or going to bed at a certain time, or going out with friends. It takes three weeks to a month to build a new habit – this is why I think most people quit a martial art in the first month.

Another factor is simply enjoyment. Some people enjoy martial arts training and others don’t. that is why it is really important to find a school you like – bacsue that is going to be key to your success. Do you think Seth Wescott ever says, “dang, I can’t believe I have to go jump on that snowboard again”? I doubt it.

For me, I found training that I resonated with – that I really enjoyed. I trained myself to enjoy even the tedious repetition of basics. I know there are some schools out there where you can get a black belt in 18 months, but not with me. It took me the better part of 9 years to get a black belt in ketsugo jujutsu, and I earned it. If I didn’t love what I was doing, there would be no way I would have lasted that long.

The final factor is priority. The two biggest complaints I hear with training revolve around time and money. Both are ridiculous. If you want to train, you’ll find both the time and the money. You may have to sacrifice some things. You may have to work out a deal with the instructor or school.

I see a lot of people who complain about money but who have large flat-screen TVs with expensive cable plans, the newest cell-phones, a newer car. In this economy, some people really are struggling to make ends meet. Most instructors will understand this and put you on a sliding scale or let you do work around the dojo to help defray costs.

The following is a cute animated video which displays the mentality I’ve seen around this.

I have a working theory (and feel free to disagree vigorously) that every social ill, every war, crime, genocide, etc. can be, in some way, linked back to a single root cause and that is poor self esteem. Fundamentally, human beings are hard wired to be social creatures. We survived, while Neanderthals died out, in part because of our ability to hunt together. In order to survive, we had to seem valuable to a group in order for them to include us in the hunt, or to share the mammoth-meat they brought back.

In this light, poor self-esteem (not regarding ourselves as worthy or valuable) is a threat to our perceived ability to survive – even at an unconscious level. I believe that, except for an immediate threat to our survival, there is nothing that is more primal in our nature.

A natural extension of self-esteem is the esteem gained by borrowing group identity. In order to survive, we also had to belong to groups that had superior hunting and gathering ability. If we didn’t feel good about the group we belonged to, again there would be a threat to our very survival. This is a really fundamental idea as it can go a long way to explaining things like racism, sports rivalry, religious war, political party rivalry, etc. These things make much less sense in modern times where competition for survival is not as much of a driving factor.

So, what happens when people have a very low self-esteem? I believe that the unconscious and the body perceives this low self worth as a persistent threat. A ongoing stressor, such as this can lead to increased metabolic dysfunction by the constant release of stress hormones such as cortisol. This can lead to chronic systemic inflammation and many health disorders.

Psychologically, I believe, poor self esteem can contribute to disorders like depression. However, poor self-esteem may also cause people to act out in socially destructive ways. If you constantly felt an underlying threat to your survival, would you be more or less likely to commit a crime? Would you feel better about your religion if you felt it was the one true religion better than all others? Would you seek addictive mind-altering substances, or food, or sex, or gambling to escape the feelings of threat? You might do almost anything to mitigate the pressure you feel to survive, join a gang, start a revolution, etc.

Imagine how things might have turned out if Hitler hadn’t been rejected from art school.

Here’s an exercise you can do to bolster self-confidence:

Every single day, think about the following question for at least five minutes: What do the people who love me love about me?

Write down every answer that comes up and review them regularly.

Here’s my recipe for developing mental toughness. And no I haven’t been able to complete this myself … yet.

1. Walk into a quiet, unoccupied room and turn the lights off.
2. Sit down and close your eyes.
3. Do not move any part of your body – except for allowing the normal breathing mechanism to function
4. In your head, SLOWLY count to 5000 (if you count at a 1 second pace your time will be around 1 1/2 hours)
5. If you stray in your thinking or move at all, start the count over.

A few years ago, a rather well known individual in the community confronted me publicly about a wrong that he thought I had done to him. He got in my face both figuratively and literally. I was taken aback at first, as I really was unaware of the situation, and definitely did not do anything intentionally to infringe on this person’s trust. I shut my mouth and listened to everything he had to say. I repressed the urge to jump in and tell him how wrong I thought he was at the time, or to deflect his anger.

Here’s a free conflict resolution tip: No angry person likes to be told that their anger is invalid.

When he stopped and was waiting for my reply, I did the thing that he least expected. I agreed with him. I said something like the following:

“Wow, I understand why you’re so angry. I don’t disagree with a single thing you’ve just said. For my part, I am not going to make any excuses – I don’t believe there is such a thing as a good excuse. I do think there’s been a misunderstanding and let me explain what I think happened.”

Within a few minutes of quiet conversation, he had calmed down, and we parted as friends.

What if I had sat there and laid a bunch of excuses on this person, what would have happened? I don’t have a crystal ball, but I’m guessing I would have pissed him off even worse than when he began. Why? Because excuses are bullshit.

What is an excuse? Think about when you were in school and you had to ask your teacher to be excused from the classroom to use the bathroom. When she is excusing you, she is (temporarily) relieving you of your responsibility for being in the classroom. This is an important concept, burn it into your brain.

When you make excuses for yourself, you are asking yourself and others to relieve you from your responsibilities. Doesn’t that, in fact, make you irresponsible. If you’re not going to be responsible for yourself, then are you really and adult?

Excuses are lies. They are lies we tell ourselves and others to feel better.

The biggest bullshit way we use excuses is to make ourselves and others feel better about our priorities. Example: I have friends who are consistently late for everything. I told one of them, “You owe me $160,000 for all of the time I have wasted over the years waiting for you.” They are always full of excuses, the traffic was bad, someone called me as I was going out the door, etc. If you are consistently 1/2 hour late, you learn from that and leave 1/2 hour earlier, or you just admit to yourself and others that respecting their time is not a priority for you.

People use excuses to make them feel better about their lives. I can’t be successful because …. fill in the blank. No, your priority is maintaining your comfort zone, and being successful at anything involves risks.

When people give me excuses about success I frequently invoke Oprah Winfrey. Oprah, an African American woman, grew up poor, in the South, and was sexually abused for much of her childhood. Today she may be the wealthiest and most influential woman on the planet. J.K. Rowling (writer of the Harry Potter series) was a homeless single mother, and today is wealthier than the Queen of England and has inspired new generations with a love of reading. I’ve had the privilege of meeting a man with no arms who is a rifle and archery instructor.

Whatever your excuses are – they are lies that suck. When I say “suck” I mean it – they suck the life and potential out of you.

The following video has been making the rounds on Facebook. I think everybody should watch it every day until you work it into the core of your mind.

Many martial arts schools today focus on belt-rank as an end goal. They have black-belt clubs, accelerated black-belt training, etc. That’s fine, and I’m sure most give good instruction. I take issue with the view that a black belt – or any rank should be an end-goal. The myth that the black belt makes you a master is strengthened.

It’s been said that, of those who start martial arts training, 1 in 100 will stick long enough to gain a 1st degree black belt. Of those, 1 in 100 will stick long enough to get their second degree. This means that out of every 10,000 people starting out on what’s meant to be a life’s journey, at least 9,999 quit along the way. I know many who get their black belt and then never walk into the dojo again – what a waste.

I am of the strong opinion that we, at least here in the U.S. Overemphasize rank and external accomplishment – or at least the symbols of those accomplishments. Don’t get me wrong, I am proud of achieving my rank in my chosen martial art, but not because I get to wear a black belt to show off to people. I am proud because I stuck with my chosen art for over 14 years, trained hard, and learned a lot. Getting my first dan a number of years ago didn’t mean I was the master of anything.

Today, I see a ton of martial arts teachers with 10th degree black belts giving themselves huge fanciful titles like professor, doctor, great grandmaster etc. It leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. To me, it’s the focus on the external, the rank, the title that is just crazy. Being called superhuman power master 33rd degree doesn’t mean you’re a good martial artist, or a good teacher. What makes people good martial artists and good teachers is very simple: be a good martial artist and a good teacher.

I’m not saying that all titles are bogus. Certainly some are meant to convey organizational structure or teacher licensing. In this case, there may be a quality control measure.

However, we live in the land of marketing. We are a jaded society and we need proof of credibility. Many teachers look for certificates, titles, etc. to prove  they are the most awesome martial arts super-humans on the planet. The truth is, sometimes they are. The flip-side to that truth is that sometimes they are not. Having been around the block a few times, seeing 9000 patches on a uniform combined with a belt with 47 stripes and a list of titles tends to set off my BS detector.

The term “black-belt” is now used to market just about everything else as well. I am reminded six sigma business training which awards actual black belts. Stuff like this takes away more meaning.

My sensei told me the following, and I’m sure he got it from someone wise as well: “black belt means that you are starting to learn.” Wrapping a piece of black silk around your waist does not turn you into Yoda or mean that you are going to be Donald Trump in the boardroom. It means that you have gotten good enough that you’re no longer an idiot and the real learning can begin.

When does that learning stop? When you exhale your last breath. Then, depending on your belief system, you get to carry on in the next life.

In the Western world, the practice of alchemy has a long history as predecessor to modern chemistry (it’s where we get the name), school shrouded in mystery, and practice persecuted as pseudoscience or blasphemy by the powers that be. Outwardly, alchemists main goal was to produce the philosopher’s stone, a substance rumored to be able to transmute lead to gold and to bestow eternal life. Inwardly, alchemy blended spirituality and science perfectly as alchemists sought knowledge of the workings of the material, mental, and spiritual worlds.

I refer to the philosophy of our system as martial alchemy because outwardly, we seek to transform gross body movements into efficient martial gold. Inwardly, we use the physical practice of martial arts as a bridge to spiritual and mental perfection.

From time to time, people get hinky when we mention the word “spiritual” because they frequently equate spirituality with religion. that’s fine but, as a rule, we stay clear of religion – everyone is entitled to their own and we do not ever preach religion. We might borrow examples from religious doctrines as a teaching tool, but our students are expected to come to their own truths about these things.

Training the spirit in martial arts, to us, means becoming acquainted with and integrating the  invisible parts of ourselves while becoming intimately more aware of our place in the universe. Spirit training, to us, builds a form of mental and emotional resilience or toughness where we can roll with the punches the universe sends us and take greater control of our own destiny. It involves accepting and working with the hidden parts of ourselves (often called the shadow). Spirit training also involves training the will or “fighting spirit”

Our training is integrated, so that training the body trains the mind and the spirit. I am reminded of my early training, sometimes doing the same set of footwork for hours on end. This accomplished several things. First, it imprinted the symbols of the foot movements into my unconscious brain, they became a part of me as new, more efficient neural pathways were developed. Second it required me to work through the enemies of boredom and fatigue. Every time the mind said quit, I would smile and tell myself I was loving the work.

This type of training builds mental toughness, something which is perfectly handy for for a professional warrior or someone who sits in a cubicle all day. Done correctly, the training will also make you smarter by creating newer and stronger neural-connections in the brain.

The philosopher’s stone in martial alchemy is the training.

Making a decision is a powerful mental process. In fact the word “decision” is a nominalization, the turning of a process verb into a noun. A decision is static – set in stone, unlike the process of deciding. This is an important distinction. When you decide something, you draw the proverbial line in the sand. You set a direction in stone. A decision will guide your actions in way stronger than beliefs or thoughts, because decisions will also dictate your thoughts and beliefs. And, yes, we can use this to our advantage.

Making a decision is a powerful tool. Like all tools, you can use it to build the house of your dreams, or you can misuse it and wind up cutting off your arm. Be careful what you decide. A decision is a mental lens which will help focus your thought process and lead you to appropriate action.

Here is a simple example: let’s say that you have decided to have Chinese food for dinner. What are the thoughts you will have? You will probably think about what dishes you may order, whether to take out or eat at the restaurant etc. You will probably not think about ordering a hamburger. What actions will you take? You might call and order, or drive to your favorite Chinese place. You will most likely not go to the drive through at McDonalds. This is quite a simplistic example, and may seem silly, but it illustrates a key point. Decision informs your actions mostly unconsciously while eliminating the actions that you don’t see as supporting your decision.

Contrast making a decision to considering something, or taking something into account, or thinking about something. These are important processes, but have none of the power of making a decision. If you are thinking about getting Chinese for dinner, that is very different from having made a decision to get Chinese for dinner right? When somebody says, “I’ll think about it,” that carries a very namby-pamby energy doesn’t it?

Now, how do we use this in the context of self-defense? We can decide, in advance what we will do if faced with certain threats. For example, I have decided that if the lives of my family are threatened I am going to attack the threat like a scalded spider-monkey on crack. I know enough not to pre-think what techniques, or weapons, or strategies to use – I simply know that I am going to fight with every once of ferocity I can muster and make the person or persons regret it. I have also decided that if someone points a weapon at me and tries to get me into a vehicle with them, I am going to run like hell.

I have heard stories from women who escaped rapists by deciding that the rapist would have rape them over their dead bodies – literally. At this point the women brought the fight to the rapist and escaped. I am not saying that this is a decision anyone must make or should make. You have to ask yourself if it came down to it – how hard are you willing to fight?

You can and should make new decisions when more or better data becomes available. If you drove to your favorite Chinese restaurant and it had burned down, you would have to make another decision. You should not be afraid to make new decisions if better ones present themselves. My sensei, Peter Freedman, taught me to, “never become a prisoner to your weapon.” It’s useful to think of the word weapon here loosely. When used for self defense your mind is a weapon. Never become a prisoner to your decisions, or you’ll find yourself sitting in  a burned-out Chinese restaurant wondering when the waiter is going to take your order.

In life, I have found that very few people are good at making decisions due to fear of failure. They shy away from making decisions because their self esteem is so caught up in never failing at anything. Instead of making decisions you get people saying things like, “I’d like to try that … someday.” They never move beyond their comfort zone. Let me tell you that I once tripled my yearly income within a couple of short weeks merely by making a decision to move outside my comfort zone. I am not special, I merely decided a change was in order.

Like unused muscles, your decision making faculty can be brought back to life through exercise. Not ready to squat 500 pound decisions? No problem, start small. Decide, as quickly as possible, what to wear tomorrow.

I challenge you right now to decide to be happy. That’s it, merely decide that you are going to be happy. Now, if you have truly decided to be happy one of two things will happen. 1. You will take small actions to change the things you are unhappy about, or 2. You will also make the decision to be happy no matter what is going on. I prefer the latter, and it doesn’t preclude you from changing things at all. Since I prefer not to deal with negative, grumpy, try to bring everyone else down types of people, I hope you’ll accept my challenge.

One thing I have learned about really successful people is that they make  informed decisions very quickly. I remember watching a show that had interviews with the friends and family members of young successful pop stars. Every single one of then said basically the same thing – that these pop stars were 100% focused on becoming successful musicians. They made a decision very early in life and it guided their actions 100%. Were there setbacks and “failures” along the way? You bet. Heck, Donald Trump’s casino declared bankruptcy – but the guy is still rich and famous.

Make a small decision right now, I don’t care what it is – decide what you are going to have for lunch. Do you feel how powerful that is. Think about what other empowering decisions you can make right now.

It’s been said that the hardest part of martial arts training is getting into the car. I have seen this first hand when 11 people tell me they are coming to train and 2 show up. I don’t take it personally when people tell me they were “busy” or there was “traffic” or whatever. I know it really isn’t about all that – it’s difficult to drag your butt to training sometimes, particularly when you haven’t developed the mental toughness to push past a hard day at work and train anyway.

To get good at martial arts you also need to train solo. There is something about working on the mental and physical aspects of martial arts alone which pushes things around in your brain and makes them stick. You do not get good in class, class is the catalyst that starts the reaction – you get good in solo practice and reflection.

I want to offer up my couch potato plan for getting good at your martial art – even if you think you don’t have time.

The first part of the plan is to make an enjoyable game out of finding hidden time. One thing I suggest is to do some kind of training during TV commercials. If you watch 1 hour of network television a day (and most people watch more), you’ll have at least 20 minutes of training time. You could exercise during that time, practice a kata, throw some punches, whatever.

Like I said, make finding time an enjoyable game – even a couple of minutes here and there really add up.

Another TV related training method which helps reaction time is to do a technique (such as throwing a punch) while watching a show – as quickly as possible each time the scene or camera angle changes on the show. This is a good way to train the perception without a partner.

The next suggestion is to utilize waiting time, and I have two ways to do this. 1. Carry around a martial arts related book with you whenever you think you might have wait time and read. 2. Practice your techniques, or kata, or whatever in your mind without moving. Suggestion #2 will get you good incredibly fast.

When I lived in Boston I would frequently take the subway or a bus. While sitting there, I would  mentally go over foot movements, angles, drills, etc. It really helped me to improve. The mind has a hard time differentiating between vividly imagined practice and real practice. I probably got an extra 5 hours of practice a week in just doing this.

My next suggestion is to find sneaky ways to train. Make all of your movements martial movements without giving away what you are doing. For example, I use tai-sabaki (body shifting) movements to walk around obstacles. I am aware of how I open and close doors and do it in a way that could be translated into a strike or a throw. Doing this will help internalize your movements and burn them into muscle memory. Again – make a game out of it – be creative.

Next is walking around training. When walking around amongst other people mentally note their distance. Notice how you feel as they get closer or move farther away. What are they doing with their hands. If they are standing, do they have good balance or poor balance. Are there any bulges in their clothing that may be weapons. If they had bad intentions, how would they have to move to attack. Do this without staring at anybody. Train yourself to use peripheral vision and short non-threatening glances.

Finally is mental scenario training. Whenever you go anywhere – including changing rooms in your house, scan the room. Look for exits and notice if there are any obstacles there. What in the room could be used as cover or as an improvised weapon? What would you do if armed people came in intent on doing you harm. While you do this pay attention to your breathing and heart-rate. Keep your breathing slow and through the nose.

The important thing is to make these things as enjoyable as possible. If you do, it will be easier to continue doing them.

The other day I posted a statistic to my facebook profile – that 70% of adult males carry edged tools, such as knives, on a day to day basis in the U.S. A couple of people called me on the statistic; I have no problem with that. I do have statistics and research methods training from graduate school, so I think I can shed some light here. Let’s look at the use and misuse of statistics in self defense.

First the 70% statistic may or may not be accurate. I got it from a trusted source, and when I asked him for his source – he had legitimately lost his notes – but pointed me in to a couple of places where it may have come from. I’m still looking. That number includes blades carried for work purposes, multi-tools, and pocket knives. It seems like a reasonable number in my experience. A recent Gallup poll said that 11% of Americans responded that they carried knives for self defense, and that number was higher among men than women.

I was using the statistic the way statistics are often used – to convince people to take action. That action was to get some training in how to handle edged weapon assault. Attacks with edged weapons are fairly frequent in the U.S. and that includes the use of swords and machetes. Knives are very common. Let’s be clear that I am not selling training at this point, and am not using that statistic to scare people for my own personal gain. The real question about the value of the number is this – would following the interpretation of the statistic and getting some training be a good thing? I believe it would.

There are two potentially big issues with the use of statistics: 1. bad data, and 2. flawed interpretation.

Bad data can mean that the statistic is totally false – that  the resulting data is just made up. This is frequently the case, and I’ll talk about a pervasive lie about self defense in a minute.

With statistics generated from studies or surveys, errors in data can creep in from sampling or how questions are posed. There are mathematical formulas that tell researchers how large a random sample  of a population they must survey or test before their results cannot be attributed merely to chance. If you interview one guy in the United States and that guy happens to be Charles Manson – your data set isn’t going to represent the attitudes of the general population very well. The issue here is getting a truly random sample. Political polls aren’t random, they only poll people who are willing to answer polls – not necessarily those who may vote.

The other issue comes from the way questions are asked in surveys and polls. Look at these two questions: 1. Do you carry a knife? and 2. Do you ever carry edged tools for work or for other reasons including box cutters, knives, multi-tools, or the like? – People are likely to answer those two questions differently. People may be more likely to lie when there is a social stigma attached to the question. I’m aware of a survey done about butter consumption where rephrasing a question swung the results by around 15%.

In my opinion, one of the most commonly held misconceptions in self defense or martial arts is that all fights wind up on the ground, or 95%, or 80% or whatever number you’ve heard. Any number you hear in this regard is most likely completely made up (in other words – crap). This number has been actively promoted by people selling ground fighting systems. It sounds very authoritative, logical, and gives you something actionable to do.

There are only two studies that I am aware of. One study conducted by the LAPD before they designed their newest defensive tactics curriculum showed that in around 60% of hands-on use of force incidents, both the officer and suspect wound up on the ground. This is not only far less than 90%, but if you interpret use of force as an officer trying to take a suspect to the ground to facilitate cuffing – this sheds even more light.

Another study analyzed “street fight” videos uploaded to Youtube – which is not an analysis of all street fights – merely of the ones uploaded to Youtube. The results of this study showed that far less than 50% of fights analyzed wound up with both opponents on the ground. It also showed that the first person to go to the ground nearly always fared worse. Regardless, the term “street fight” does not imply self defense to me – just unsanctioned mutual combat.

So, let’s weigh the statistic on the scale of more good than harm. If you were to believe that all fights (100%) wound up on the ground, and so that you only learned ground fighting for self defense would that be a good thing or a bad thing?  If the statistic is wrong, and you faced an opponent who knew how to keep off the ground, or multiple opponents, or someone with a weapon – that could be a very very bad thing.

So let’s say that we have a rigorously controlled study with good data, and we generate some statistics from that, what could go wrong? Well, even more insidious is the misinterpretation, or deliberately false interpretation of what the data represents. Misuse of statistics in this way is rampant in media and politics..

I once read an article on a newspaper’s web site that had the headline, “study shows that people who own guns are more likely to be murdered.” Really? No. The paper quoted a study that showed that the rate of gun ownership was higher in areas with a high murder rate. To even approach this interpretation, the study would have had to compare gun ownership amongst murder victims – it did not. Just as easily it could have been interpreted as people living in high crime areas feel the need to arm themselves for self-protection, but this would also be false as the study didn’t look at motivation for gun ownership.

So what is a good way to look at statistics?

Let’s take a statistic about sexual assault among college-aged women in the U.S. In some studies it is shown that there is alcohol consumption by either the assaulted or the criminal or both in 70% of reported cases of sexual assault. Without getting into the validity of the statistic, could we safely assume that it’s a good idea for young women to be careful both about their own alcohol consumption as well as being cautious about others around them who are consuming alcohol? Seems pretty reasonable. Could we assume that women who don’t drink have nothing to be concerned about? No, absolutlely not.

Universally, police and self defense experts warn people never to let a criminal take you to a second crime scene. After an abduction, the chances of an abductee surviving drop to almost zero. I do not believe this is in any way an urban myth and I believe the advice to be sound. We don’t know how many of the people who go missing every year are abducted, or how many survive that abduction. From the crimes we know about over time – this advice stands up.

Look to statistics in self defense with an air of skepticism, and think about the consequences of their interpretation.