The Bad Guy Pyramid

The Bad Guy Pyramid

Are you good enough?

Are you effective enough?

Are you efficient enough?

Are you good enough?

Your answer should always be – no, but I’m working on it.

I work from a basic premise that there is a Bad Guy Pyramid. At the bottom of the pyramid are those that do bad things but lack any skill in violence. At the top of the pyramid are the 3% of the really dangerous violent people. (Don’t have the source of the percentage.) As we train we move up the pyramid in who we could protect ourselves from (given proper awareness etc.).

Here is the thing, let’s take a person who has successfully defended themselves a number of times, is he good enough? He was good enough for the skill level of the bad guys he has had to deal with BUT what was their skill level?

Where were they on the Bad Guy Pyramid? If they were half way, is he good enough? Should he still look at new options for defending himself?

My answer is – of course.

We don’t know where we are working up the bad Guy Pyramid. The best course is to assume we are not far enough. We can never be far enough.

To give an example some may relate to we can look at MMA fighters who are champions in their league and then get to move on to the UFC and all of a sudden they are no longer champions they start to lose (sometimes badly). They moved to a level of the MMA fighter pyramid that was higher than their level and they can either choose to train more and move up or continue to lose and fade away.

Luckily for them they have rules and a referee to ensure the lesson of where they are isn’t their last. In self defence, they don’t exist and only luck and circumstance means we survive to train harder.

So, for myself there is never “good enough” it doesn’t matter how successful I might be, I am not good enough. The old saying that there is always someone out there who is better rings in my ears. And let’s face it we are not always 100% so is 80% good enough?

You see where I am going right?

Okay, what you did in that situation worked – absolutely fantastic and it was the right thing at that time against that bad guy – but what about next time? What if the next guy is higher on the Bad Guy Pyramid and that move is nothing for him to deal with?

The simple thing is to constantly look at new and other things and then test them.

I don’t understand coming to a seminar and doing what you have always done? What was the point of coming to the seminar? Seminars expand what we know. Now, clearly watching YOUTUBE and other video sources shows us that some seminar content may be not the best, or horrible and at times an outright joke but only going and doing what is being taught at the seminar will give you that information.

So, try new things, but I am not saying you must blindly accept what is presented.

It doesn’t mean every seminar you go to will change you. I always remember my friend Rick Bottomley’s response in a management seminar when asked what he was going to change about how he managed the moment he got back to his desk – “Nothing,” he replied. This pissed off some people until he explained:

“Listen, you’ve said some interesting things here, but I’ve been a manager for years and very successful at it so to change what I am doing because of a few hours of training is wrong. I am going to take everything from here back with me and I am going to look it over and examine it and I will try it out and see if indeed it is better than what I have successfully done and if I find it is THEN I will change. But to think I should change what I am doing without testing and examination is wrong.”

So go to seminars, leave your training at the door before you go in, soak up everything, pick up your training as you leave, take the new information back into your framework and test it out and if it is better or some parts are then change and move up that Bad Guy Pyramid.

Just my opinion.