Questions after Columbine

If you've been watching the news, you've by now seen the bombing/shooting incident at a Colorado high school (Columbine). My question for Shidoshi Hayes and other instructors is, what do you teach to help your students survive or increase their odds of survival in situations like this?

There are often many subtle warning signs that something bad is about to happen, and those signs can be picked up if we have enough experience recognizing them. We have exercises that require the young children to make decisions based on "gut feeling" after going through some lessons in fighting form.

A potential aggressor approaches and the children have to evaluate his/her voice, demeanor, posture in terms of what might come about - harmless talking, some form of threat, or direct physical violence. We do not always throw an attack; sometimes we let the kids walk away (as often happens in life). The point is that we do not just practice technique or kata.

We also practice for the possibility that nothing bad is going to happen and then build that decision-making into the training session. This is one way to prepare people (youth or adult) for sensing trouble before it is too late to get to safety.

- Stephen K. Hayes