In January 2021 I attended a seminar, Active Shooter, at the Makoto Martial Arts school in Pennsylvania. It was taught by my teacher, Sifu Keith Mazza, owner of the Traditional Wing Chun Academy and Controlled Confrontation Solutions in Mt. Laurel, NJ, who trains and consults civilians and professionals in safety and security, including the armed forces.
Among other things, we watched a short movie of a simulated attack of one shooter in an administration building. Based on this scenario, Sifu went over the basic universal instructions for survival:
- RUN – if you know where the exit is, run. If possible, encourage others to run, but keep yourself moving towards the exit. You must not stop. Once you are safe (outside of shooting range) call for help.
- HIDE – if you do not know the path of escape, or you cannot run, hide. Turn off your phone (it can reveal your hiding spot to the shooter.)
- If you cannot run and there is nowhere to hide, you must FIGHT. Find hard or sharp objects that will help you hurt the attacker and cause him to let go of the weapon – e.g., a chair with legs pointing out, a fire extinguisher, or smaller objects , such as a mug, a vase, or decorative metal objects.
After we discussed a specific situation – a conference room in which there was no hiding spot and where the fight was inevitable – one of the attendees, apparently an instructor of the martial arts, looked at me and my friend Heidi and said:
“If you ever happen to be in the situation in which you are forced to fight, never rely on others, no matter how you may, as a group, jazz yourselves up, thinking that others in your group will be more aggressive or faster to respond. YOU must be the animal that is saving its own life, and you can only HOPE that others will fight like animals. But never ever rely on anybody else when it comes to your life!”
This piece of wisdom was haunting me for days resulting in writing to ease my mind.
Published in Slovak language Časopis Rodná Cesta.
