The trilogy concludes as Leeds Krav Maga instructor Mike shares his final first-hand account of being mugged.

“this man kept one hand in his pocket the whole time”

Mike

I have been mugged 3 times in my life. Only once in my adult life but I thought I would share all of my experiences, in separate blogs, plus what I learnt from them and also add in a little of what I know now through my training and experience as a little food for thought..

Leeds Krav Maga Mugged pt 3. June 2005 – 19 years old, mugged in Barbados

My first holiday outside of Europe was a learning experience, if you’ve ever been to Barbados I’m sure you’ll agree its an amazing beautiful place and the people are fantastic, but it is not Europe. It is a totally different place and it should be treated as such when you are there.

On our third night in Barbados, my girlfriend (now wife) and I were bored of staying at the local bar and decided to venture out to look for a place to eat and have some drinks. In our naïve youth we did what you would do in any mainland Europe tourist destination, we ventured into the town centre (which we had visited in the daytime) to find a place to enjoy the evening.

Leeds Krav Maga: Mistake 1

Bridgetown during the evening is a very different place to the daytime, it was extremely intimidating, there were no other tourists in sight and my girlfriend and I stuck out like sore thumbs mistake #1

 Leeds Krav Maga : Mistake 2

Whilst looking for our way back to the bus stop we found ourselves on a very quiet street (mistake #2) and were approached by a man who asked us for some spare change. I believe myself to be a good reader of people this man kept one hand in his pocket the whole time and the way this man asked us, as well as his general behaviour and demeanour led me to believe that he was going to ask us in a lot more of an unfriendly way if we didn’t give him something. I stepped in between him and my Girlfriend and handed him the equivalent of around £3 in change, which he was happy with. We immediately turned back and walked out the way we had came, back to the crowds.

You’ll notice that with each successive story there have been less and less mistakes, I believe I’ve been extremely fortunate to been in 3 muggings and not to have been hurt, but you can clearly see that the experiences have taught me lessons. I am now 11 years mugging free and I believe it is down to mistake #1 below which, if you’ve read the whole heart pounding trilogy, you can probably guess is:

Leeds Krav Maga : Mistake #1 & #2 – BE AWARE OF YOUR BLOODY SURROUNDINGS!! Here both in terms of paying attention and in doing some pre-holiday reading on Barbados, this could have been avoided by simply not going into the town centre or by not walking aimlessly down a quiet street waving a “Vulnerable tourist” sign around my neck.

At least in this mugging this was the only mistake, but as previously mentioned, cutting this mistake out of your life will help you to avoid many of the potential dangerous situations you could be involved in. Learning a self defence system such as Krav Maga is fantastic but it is a last resort. Use your head, your eyes and your gut instincts and avoid having to defend yourself!

If you think Mike and Leeds Krav Maga can help you in any way, please get in touch!