The Yellow Zone

If you read the comment from my last post, notice the reference to the "yellow zone." Now for myself, I'm not too familiar with the yellow zone concept but it seems to be something of keeping yourself aware of your surroundings.

If that's the case - it's definitely interesting. I mean, I don't really train how to keep yourself aware. There are standard practices (eg checking corners, avoiding isolated pathways like alleyways, creating distance from the stranger down the street) but its very difficult to apply when enjoying a downtown stroll with the girlfriend. How do you train for this? Is it even worth it? I mean if an attacker is gonna attack me at a blindspot then there is no way to prevent that is there? Or maybe the prevention is in the yellow zone training...

Until then

I'm Back

Hi folks! It's been a while, hasn't it? I've been out of town for the last bit and with no computer access (believe it or not). In any event, I'm back at this...

Last night, I was strolling down Granville St with my girlfriend around 1am. Normal evening, nothing out of the ordinary. We walked passed the Granville Street skytrain station and all of a sudden I hear some shuffling of feet that's just a little TOO close for comfort. I feel something poke against the back of my neck and this guy's voice saying "give me all your money".

No joke folks.

For whatever reason, all I did was shoot my hand out as I turned to face the "gunman", resulting in a lap sao kind of move and quickly shot my free hand to his elbow to control him forcing him towards the nearest wall.

The guy's like "YAM!" ....turns out it was a friend of mine.

A couple things I realized from this instance.

• If this was for real, I would've been shot.
• If this was for real, the attacker would've been able to land a good shot before I even knew it since my back was facing him.
• I didn't think otherwise to stop, put my hands up or any other response.

Is this a result of WT training? Is this a result of stupidity? or maybe just an adrenaline shot. How should it have been handled?

Until then.