Decision Trees

A lot of people have an, “It’ll be alright on the night”, approach to personal safety and self-defense, believing that when put under pressure, they’ll rise to the occasion and develop on the spot, an effective plan/strategy for dealing with the situation. They may convince themselves that this is in fact how they work best, and it’s only when they’re in the worst position possible that they are truly creative e.g. that they’ll come up with a clever phrase or line, which will diffuse and de-escalate an aggressive confrontation, which is about to get physical. Unfortunately, where violence is concerned this is the opposite; people fall apart, rather than getting it together. Making effective decisions when under stress and duress is extremely difficult, and this is why it’s important to have pre-built decision trees that we can use to guide and direct us.

The first question I always ask, and that sits at the top of my decision tree is, “Is this a premeditated act of aggression or a spontaneous one?” Premeditated acts of violence, are those that predatory individuals plan and prepare for, whilst spontaneous ones are those that occur because of something you have done, or are perceived to have done – the person has become aggressive as a result of your actions/behaviors. An example of a premeditated act of aggression would be a mugging/robbery, where a mugger acquires a weapon, chooses a location and selects a victim etc. In this example there are two planned steps that precede victim selection, and indicate premeditation. If you spill a drink over somebody, or cut them off in traffic, and as a result they become aggressive towards you, you are dealing with a spontaneous act of violence. The big difference, from a practical perspective, is that premeditated acts of violence have goals attached to them, whereas spontaneous acts don’t e.g. a mugger will know what they want out of a situation, whereas a person who has had a drink spilt over them won’t.

In premeditated acts of aggression, where there are goals and outcomes defined/expected, you have a choice: you can acquiesce, or you can fight. If you refuse to hand over your wallet to an armed robber, you should be prepared to fight, if you don’t willingly leave a location with an abductor you should expect your aggressor to use physical violence in order to gain acquiescence. If you consider these two examples, you can see that the predatory individuals want two different things; the mugger wants your resources, your abductor wants you – this then forms the next level of the decision tree, “Does your aggressor want your resources, or do they want you?” If it’s your resources, you should acquiesce e.g. a mugger is leaving the location with your wallet, the variable is whether you get cut or shot, etc. If however, the predator wants you, or to do something to you – such as sexually assault you – you should fight. It is worth pointing out that these directions are meant as heuristics (rules of thumb) to guide you, rather than as absolutes. At the end of the day, it is the situation that determines the solution e.g. if five armed assailants with AK-47’s invade your home, and attempt to take you hostage for ransom, it may be better to acquiesce in that moment than to fight, etc.

Below this level of the decision tree, exists another: after acquiescing to your assailant’s demands, do they stay or go? A mugger, once they have your possessions, should be looking to exit the location as quickly as possible. If they don’t go, they have stopped following the “script” that a mugger should be working to, and should no longer be considered as a predator who is after your resources, but as one who is looking to do something to you. This means that it is time to fight. Fortunately, in most cases, after handing over your wallet and/or possessions, a mugger will leave. Their only reason to stay would be if they had a secondary motive, such as sexually assaulting you, or stabbing/shooting you, as part of a gang blooding, etc.

If it’s not a premeditated incident, but a spontaneous one, then your aggressor is highly unlikely to have any goals; they are aggressive and potentially violent because they feel they are justified to be so, and because they are unable to see/perceive any non-violent alternatives. It is not the purpose of this blog article to detail the de-escalation process and how this works (if you search kravmagablog.com for “de-escalation” you will find articles on this), however it largely involves asking the person open-ended questions that will cause them to come up with satisfactory solutions to the situation. One of the reasons that the process involves asking questions, is to ascertain how emotional the person is, and if they are still able to use reason to assess their situation. If they’re not able to process your questions, then de-escalation will not be possible. The next level in the decision tree, if the situation is a spontaneous one is, “Are they able to coherently respond to your question(s)?” If they are then de-escalation is likely to work, and should be attempted, if not, then there is one final step left which may avert a physical confrontation.

There are two fear emotions we are born with: fast movement, and loud noise. Both stimulate our flinch and startle reflexes, and can cause an emotional reset. If you have spilt a drink over a person, and have been unsuccessful in trying to communicate to them, flicking your fingers quickly towards their eyes (not making contact), and shouting, “Stay Back!”, as you move away from them, may force an emotional reset in them, waking them up from their aggressive fog. Even if it doesn’t, they now have to make a conscious decision to approach/move towards you – which at least gives you more time to act and respond with your own pre-emptive attack. If they make a movement towards you after you’ve done this, they are, from a legal perspective, committing an assault.

 Having a simple hierarchical decision tree, whose splits/divisions are based on the other person’s actions and responses, helps us to act decisively, rather than get caught in a deliberation loop. There may well be other ways to respond, that would be applicable in very specific situations e.g. somebody might be able to use humor to de-escalate a situation, etc. However, it is good to have a universal decision tree that can be used in all situations to initially guide us, and discover the “exceptions” as we work through it. Being able to think quickly and efficiently under stress and duress, requires a level of pre-planning and decision trees help us do this.