Lauren Bouhnik

Situational awareness is the ability to perceive, interpret, and anticipate environmental changes to preserve options before danger appears. It’s a crucial skill, as it operates before physical engagement, when choices are most abundant. Awareness is not paranoia. The goal is not constant vigilance, but to remain engaged with the environment to be able to notice if something is wrong. Recognition Every place has a specific baseline – things that are ‘normal’ to that environment: How people...

The goal of self-defense and safety is to preserve life, health, autonomy, and safety, not to punish, dominate, or seek revenge. Being safe might require different approaches or strategies depending on the proximity of the perceived threat; Think of this as a spectrum: Prevention: prevent being targeted in the first place. Evasion: create barriers between you and the threat. De-escalation: make the threat change their mind. Fight: your last resort. Flip-the-switch, incapacitate quickly, and...