Hi! I'm Evan, 26. I'm pretty new to Reddit. I've been boxing off and on since I was around 15. I've worked for 3 years as a psych tech, 1 as a hospital security guard, and 4 years now as a teacher.
I want to give a basic, quick intro to verbal judo and what you need to understand as someone protecting yourself. First, the most important thing you need to understand is it IS NOT your responsibility to stick around to care for someone else unless you are in a line of work that puts that as your responsibility, or you are the parent. Get the fuck out of dodge if someone is violently escalating, don't stick around, let the professionals deal with it. Besides that, here we go.
Step 1: Understand crisis phases The phases of crisis are as follows: Baseline, trigger, lower escalation, higher escalation, crisis, deescalation, stabilization, and drain. Commonly, we see aggressive behavior in lower escalation through crisis phase. This is what I'll focus on.
Lower escalation phase is characterized by "speaking louder" through behavior or words. They are heating up, and this is when a situation has the potential to become violent.
Higher escalation phase is characterized by increased vulgarity, slower more deliberate physical movements, and a higher severity of behaviors found in lower escalation.
Crisis phase is characterized by maximum vulgarity, or physical aggression towards self or others if pushed. This is the "peak" of the iceburg, the most visible displays of emotion (usually, almost always fear)
Step 2: Reacting to each phase correctly as a person being aggressed upon verbally
Escalation phases- When the person is not physically violent
Be as calm as you can. Keep your hands above your belly, show your palms, don't slouch, and use open body language. Don't argue with the person. Ask open-ended questions (that are not "yes-or-no" and don't start with "why"). In the lower escalation phase, focus your questions around the situation. ("What's going on?). In the higher levels of escalation, focus questions around unrelated topics. ("What's your favorite team?") It's also extremely helpful to use a persons name when asking questions. ("John, what's your favorite team?")
Crisis phase - When the person is not physically violent
Listen more, talk less. Normally, you should keep in mind that you have 2 ears, 2 eyes, and 1 mouth and should use them proportionately. Now, you should use your mouth even less. Communicate sympathy, and continue using open body language. Avoid fighting words, avoid fighting tone, and avoid fighting stance.
Step 3: Reacting to physical violence against you or a person your defending
Until now, the goal has been to appear relaxed and calm. You've also exhausted all of your ability to leave assuming your not someone with the responsibility to stick around. This is when you want to bring your confident should-distance-apart equal stance more into a combat stance, and think of your open palms more as striking weapons.
This is when we move away from deescalation and more towards ask-tell-make. For a person who is rumbling or about to do an aggressive thing, you want to first politely ask them to do a seperate specific thing. ("Please put that down" or "Please stop")
If the aggressive action is very imminent, 2 polite "asks" didn't work, or the threat level is high, you want to move into "tell". This is a demamd/command. Your voice should be projected as if you were throwing a punch, you don't "tap" them with your voice, you direct your voice as if you want it to pass through them. Loud, firmly, and clearly say what you want.
"JOHN, PUT THAT DOWN"
Use 1 command idea, but don't say the same words more than 3 times. Also, don't contradict or change your command idea. It's ok to change "PUT THAT DOWN" to "DROP IT", but not "PUT THAT DOWN" to "GET BACK" unless you have waited around 20 seconds between commands.
When a hands on confrontation is imminent, it's important to indicate that you don't want to fight.
If the person deescalates, follows commands, or stops being physically aggressive fall back to using tactics for step 2
Step 4: Reacting to physical violence Follow whatever martial arts or restraint system system you believe in / are trained in, but don't stop communicating. Continue giving commands "ie BACK UP" and escape whenever possible.
Submitted February 19, 2019 at 04:32PM by eph801 http://bit.ly/2ScynD9
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