Don't walk like a victim

Today’s post is on a very interesting topic, or at least I think so. Have you ever considered how your body language can make you more likely to be a victim of a violent crime? Often we hear about how it’s unwise to walk through dark alley at night to avoid being victimized. This is good advice, but it’s rare to hear that how we behave is a factor, not just where we choose to go. 

This post comes from an article in Psychology Today entitled, “Do You Walk Like a Victim? For Criminals, Stride Matters", which will be linked at the end. The article and supporting study contains a vast amount of psychological jargon and details on the study process, which may or may not be interesting to you. My goal today is to break down what was studied and give you practical training points to walk away with. 

In the study in question, researchers interviewed multiple violent offenders who had committed assault on strangers. Specifically, the offenders watched video clips of people walking, and were asked by researchers to identify people who they would consider “easy targets”, and those who they would choose to leave alone. 

The results of this interview process found consistent results that were based on the stride of the potential victims in the video. Researchers noted the following consistencies between easy and hard targets:

“The noted differences in gait included stride length (short or long, versus medium), weight shifting (up and down as opposed to lateral), lateral or contralateral movement, and placement of feet: lifted feet versus swung, resulting in a non-synchronous gait.”

Now, I don’t expect you to read these noted differences and try to modify your normal stride. My point, and the partial point of this article, is that the type of people that commit assault on strangers have a sense of who they think would be an easy target or not based on the victim’s body language. Therefore, we should be people who are always alert and aware of our surroundings, and that awareness and readiness will be subconsciously communicated in our body language. 

I’m not saying that you should always walk around feeling nervous and on edge, afraid that there’s a criminal behind every bush and around every corner. However when we are out in public, we should remain in condition “yellow” (to cite the Cooper color code), which essentially means being relaxed, but aware. 

If you are mentally aware of your surroundings and physically ready to defend yourself, those things will have an influence on how you walk. It’s not so much a conscious effort to change the way you walk, it’s a subconscious shift based on your state of mind. 

In my opinion, this article highlights the importance of self-defense training and situational awareness. Investing time and effort into improving these two areas will not only make you more ready to defend yourself in the case of an assault, but also decrease your vulnerability and likelihood to become a victim in the first place. 

Investing in concealed carry training and a firearm is one obvious way to increase your readiness to defend yourself. As is learning certain martial arts and self-defense systems. If you want more practical ways to increase your general situational awareness, check out our previous article on Practicing Situational Awareness. 

Questions? Comments? Feedback? Let me know at isaac@htlwarrior.com

The article in Psychology Today can be found at this link. 

Until next time,

Be a warrior...

Stand in the breach...

Hold the line...

Isaac C.