{"id":3163,"date":"2016-03-10T18:47:31","date_gmt":"2016-03-10T18:47:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fightfast.com\/blog\/?p=3163"},"modified":"2021-04-05T20:04:57","modified_gmt":"2021-04-05T20:04:57","slug":"shark-attacks-killer-tactics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/10\/shark-attacks-killer-tactics\/","title":{"rendered":"Shark Attacks & Killer Tactics"},"content":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s talk shark attacks for a few moments. Me, you, and the media love shark attacks. No, not because we wish any of the victims harm, but we do love the \u201cOh, my God\u201d<\/em> moments, the brief titillating fascination of pondering the fact that there are still a few beasts out there capable and willing to feast on us occasionally (beyond microbes and insects, that is).\n\nEach time we hear one of these shark attack reports, and that\u2019s pretty seldom (according to the mighty Wikipedia the US average is 16 per year with an approximate death every two years), either we ourselves, or someone we know says \u201cYou won\u2019t get me into the water.\u201d\n\nNow, looking at these numbers in no way diminishes the impact on the victims and\/or their families, not at all. But, I would like to point out to those who deciding not to enter the sea because \u201cthere are man-eating fish out there\u201d is not quite as wise at it may seem.\n\nCertainly, any of us who have stood on a crowded shore for merely a few days a year can do a little ad hoc<\/em> math and come to the conclusion that 16 per year out of all of this luscious meat hitting the water is pretty low odds.\n\nSharks would really need to step it up to be more of a statistical threat to any of us.\n\n30,000-40,000 deaths per year.\n\nThat\u2019s the last decade\u2019s average number of auto deaths in the United States per year.\n\nThis number has been trending downward and that\u2019s a great thing, which can be attributed more to better designed safety features than to better drivers, I\u2019m sure.\n\nWhat I do want to call your attention to with that 30,000-40,000 number is that dozens of fatal auto accidents are reported each and every day.\n\nNow, after hearing one of these daily reports of tragedy count the number of times that you, or someone you know responded to one of these reports with \u201cThere\u2019s no way you\u2019ll get me into a car again, no way.\u201d\n\nMy guess is never.\n\nWe risk our lives far more driving to the \u201cshark-infested\u201d beach than we do swimming those treacherous waters.\n\nSo what\u2019s going on here?\n\nWhy does the extremely unlikely prospect of a shark attack move so many of us to cautious behavior and what is far more likely to kill us is not sweated at all?\n\nWell, for one, we humans are extraordinarily bad at risk assessment.\n\nWe routinely underestimate true risks and thus text while driving, and vastly overestimate minuscule risks and miss out on some extra beach fun.\n\nThe second (and I think this is the largest part of the problem) is the extraordinarity bias.<\/strong> We hear of shark attacks so rarely that when we do it is dramatic and catches our eyes and ears.\n\nWhereas, with car crashes, our consciousness performs a bit of \u201cbeen there, done that\u201d unless the victims are people we know.\n\nNow what does all of this have to do with martial arts and combat sports?\n\nFirst, a quote from Musonius Rufus, one of the Four Horsemen of Roman Stoic Philosophy: \u201cThe strongest weapons and those most able to keep their user safe are the best, not those that attract attention because of their sheen.\u201d<\/em>\n\nMusonius is urging us towards practicality and pragmatic choices rather than the extraordinarity bias.\n\nAs we preach ad naseum<\/em> in our book \u201cThe Essentials,\u201d<\/strong> some weapons and tactics are better than others. And more often than not, our best weapons are the bread and butter tools of the trade.\n\nThe jab pays far more dividends than the spin kick, a solid no-frills double-leg is worth more than a high-flying hip throw, and a tight rear naked is worth all the omaplatas you can shake a missed-submission-stick at.\n\nYes, some outliers do score, but often when they do score we recall them because of their extraordinariness (our bias for the rare event). We forget to be just as impressed by the healthy number of jabs stuck in an opponent\u2019s face that closed an eye and shut down an effective offense.\n\nWe pay less attention to the simple but well-honed workaday leg kick that slows a fighters pace, but marvel at the spin kick that landed with the sole of the foot.\n\nWe must also not forget that it is often these memorable tactics that require the most sheen, that is, the most work to educate in the first place and even more work to maintain. Time and energy that could have well been spent making what already works well, work even better.\n\nSo, when it comes to assessing our arsenal and our tactics it might be wise to assess for sheen and ask ourselves is this tool a shark that bites seldom, or a car that crashes hard day in, day out?\n\nFor some simple, down to business self defense techniques click here.<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\n\nBy: Mark Hatmaker\nhttp:\/\/www.extremeselfprotection.com<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s talk shark attacks for a few moments. Me, you, and the media love shark attacks. No, not because we wish any of the victims harm, but we do love the \u201cOh, my God\u201d moments, the brief titillating fascination of pondering the fact that there are still a few beasts out there capable and willing Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3163"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12911,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3163\/revisions\/12911"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}