We all want to protect ourselves, the people we love and our things. Maybe you lock the doors of your house when you leave. Or you lock your car when you park. Or maybe you just brush your teeth at night. Or maybe your level of concern runs deeper and you feel it necessary to buy a gun or build a safe room in your house. Regardless, the urge to protect is one of our four primal instincts and is something we experience every day of our lives in one way or another.

Solutions to personal and community safety are vast and all of us have ideas about how much and exactly what is necessary. In general these solutions rise and fall depending upon the amount of perceived risk in our environment.

In the late 1930’s as the prospect of another European war became clear the British government saw the need to increase the degree of vigilance in its citizens but there were still many questions regarding what and how much was necessary. The government decided that volunteer local wardens should be put in place to help organize public safety in the event of enemy attack. The idea being that not everyone would readily understand the necessity of turning your lights out at night or where to take shelter in the event of a bombing attack.

At first these wardens were hated. They were perceived as a nuisance and particularly so as Britain moved into the pre-war period known as the “bore” war when for months after their declaration of war not much happened in terms of personal risk related to an attack. It was only many months later after the blitz had begun that many Britons began to perceive the wardens with some form of gratitude for their help in shuttling people to shelters and working to keep them as safe as they could in the face of an onslaught.

Only after the blitz was over was it really clear that the type of practiced personal and community safety methods imposed by the wardens on the people of Britain much to their annoyance, discomfort and disruption of their personal lives had significantly impacted their safety and contributed to thousand of people avoiding injury or death during the bombing raids.

Understanding and implementing the right state of vigilance in our lives is an ongoing concern and involves being able to observe and understand the level of various threats and learning how to sustain some degree of attention on this aspect of our lives over time. In short, it is a skillset that can only be obtained through regular focused practice and study.

Karate practice, done skillfully and mindfully, is an excellent way to work on sustaining a vigilant mindset. This does not mean that if you study karate you will be indestructible or omniscient in terms of being able to perceive all threats. But it does offer the possibility of regularly placing you in the mindset of someone prepared to defend yourself and conditioning the biological systems within ourselves to stay sharp and be there to assist us in self preservation. The kind of regular practice we do in karate does 2 things, 1) it teaches you to shift your field of focus to perceived threats on demand and 2) builds confidence in your ability to do this when it is needed. These are both invaluable tools in a self defense context and well worth devoting hours of time each week to sustaining.

So, instead of waiting and wondering if it is something you really need, why not start training today?

Because it may turn out to be the most important thing you ever did.