Is it really that “easy” to utilize a fence projecting a “Look, bro, I don´t want to fight” message and simply de-escalate potential violence. I often question this – deeply. Don´t get me wrong, giving off a message of non-violence for onlookers, potential witnesses, and the 3rd-party interveners is an invaluable element that could come into play in the aftermath. AND, tactically speaking, having hands innocuously half-way to the target, creating depth-perception problems for potential attack or counterattack, and active hands where ballistic and non-telegraphed make a strike out of motion that much more difficult to defend are all golden. But that is often not what I hear the explanation presented giving off. The above in the previous sentence are the “for what” the thing is done. The aftermath elements the “why.” And is it really so easy? I mean, you´ve already been singled out by someone as an easy or desired target, is “I don´t want any trouble” messaging even a good idea all the time when inevitably if it´s gotten to the point where you´ve already found it?

In my experience here, if someone has picked you as a potential target and already approached you on it, the “I´m just minding my own business, bro…” messaging has generally already passed. You´re already “in the mix” at that point. For me – personally, me, and my experience – projecting a “I don´t want this but I AM ready for it should you choose to persist” is far more invaluable. So, what´s the difference. Well, nuance. Curved, prepared, forward-leaning torso. Staggered feet. Looking through the roots-of-the-eyes. Intensity on face. Calm, intentioned scanning of the area without turning the head. Circling or altered angles. Dictating and dominating your space and subliminally enforcing entry into that space. Shifts that make covert weapon-deployment achievable without drawing attention and escalating response. Low growling or feral vocalizations. These are all little intricacies that I rarely hear mentioned when discussing “fences” or “frames” and there´s simply a lot more to this than “just a posture.” There are psychic, subliminal, corporal micro-messages that are given off to subtly deter a potential predator into assuming you´re anything but a very hard-target and one that will “up the cost or price paid .”

I so often see videos of the fence that make it so simple as to be stupid and unbelievable. Understand the dynamics of how violence begins. If you´re projecting a passive reaction, note too that you are behind the proverbial 8-ball to sell your will to disengage. And in most videos, I see the “victim” back-peddling, with straight body, verbalizing weak or non-convincing commands, and psychically giving-off target-messaging. To sell what it is you´re claiming to peddle, you will inevitably be reacting second, the timing-ratio, space, and initiation will be in the control of your opponent, and, well, adrenaline and stress-physiology will have time to build to a crescendo in the anticipatory phase – especially if you don´t buy your own bullshit. Predators, at least here, can smell that. They know when you´re feigning submission, and when you´re projecting it non-consciously.

It so often seems we still universally believe in the “stupid criminal” (assume they´re more experienced and clear on these events than we are), one that capitulates almost instantaneously (they are most often resource predators with resource needed quite clear), and that they´re inferior with violence (they´re out there daily doing just what we only train for). Something to think on long and hard.