You don’t know what you don’t know...

Something that I’ve learned over the years is that “you don’t know what you don’t know.” In other words, there are things that we are certain of, things we know we are unsure or clueless of, and then there the things that we don’t even realize that we are unaware of. It’s like Mom’s secret recipe. You’re pretty sure you’ve got it down, and you set out to make those incredible cookies that you remember from your childhood, only to realize that they are nothing like what you remember. It wouldn’t be until you called Mom and found out that you were missing an ingredient, and you had the measurements written down incorrectly.

The same can be said about the many people who are simply unaware of the dangers of having no proper training under their belt. Some of us grew up needing to fight, and because of that​, believe that we have things handled, should the time come. My question to you is, what if it’s Mike Tyson in his prime? Do you know what to do then? What about Marcelo Garcia? Do you know what to do then? Now, this isn’t to challenge anyone’s abilities, because I’m sure that someone reading this has an “off the hip” response for me (pun totally intended). What I am trying to challenge is your view on preparedness.

The truth is that no one should walk around without training in 4 fundamental skill sets:

1. De-escalation - one’s ability to ease tension, particularly during confrontational situations.
2. Striking - one’s ability to use their body as a blunt force weapon safely, rendering little harm to themselves, while causing as much damage to their opponent as possible.
3. Grappling - one’s ability to handle extremely close range threats, where the use of blunt force is difficult.
4. Weapons - one’s ability to not only use conventional weapons, such as knives, sticks, guns, etc. but also improvised weapons based on one’s environment.

All of these things and more are possible to train, but you’ll never get better at any of them, if you don’t take the time to train it.

​You don’t know what you don’t know.