Mouth

One of the best pieced of SD advice I have ever heard of is "keep your mouth shut." I remember most of the trouble I ended up in both as to fighting and other non-physical conflicts is my mouth. Usually, what came out was of the nature that it antagonized and inflamed the already hot situation.

Every bit of training and eduction I have encountered there was always a reference to what someone said to another. When you couple that with ignorance or a sense of self-entitlement along with ego and pride you have plenty of fuel that has fumes that ignite at the slightest spark or in this case provocation.

I have found these last few weeks just how important that is by the study of the book, The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense. One very important part of MA training is "awareness" and that means learning and attaining the knowledge so when things like this appear it triggers a light.

I can say that my normal mouth in my personal family relationship was very, very bad. It apparently is one of those things we all have to one level or another that is totally oblivious to our consciousness.

So, SD to me means learning to keep my mouth shut. It also means when it comes time to use deescalation I must be aware of many things so what does come out of my mouth has no hidden meaning or implications to the other person which could trigger more escalation to violent actions.