First Defense: Anxiety and Instinct for Self Protection

by David, Jr. Hopkins Jr.

Overview

FINALIST — SELF HELP — Next Generation Indie Book Award 2016
FINALIST — SELF HELP — USA News Award 2015

We all have a built in weapon system that we rarely use, it’s called anxiety.

We are taught that anxiety is something to avoid. That emotional experiences such as fear, trepidation, or stress, are contrary to living a happy life. We are also told that in threatening situations, anxiety should be quelled. This is not true.

Realize that a key to success in a threatening situation is to use your anxiety to increase your sensory input with information vital to your survival.

Understand how to manipulate the anxiety of your aggressor, denying him critical information he will need for success.

Whether you are a college student, a martial artist, a parent, or a citizen, you will learn three constants that will help you stay safer and reduce your overall risk of being victimized by aggression.
• How your instincts are the key to making the right decisions for the toughest challenges.• Why your anxiety is the link between decision-making and instinct.• How to be completely in the moment, so your will can coordinate your anxieties and your instincts into a highly effective decision-making process.
David Hopkins brings together a unique mix of expertise from professions in psychology and psychotherapy, martial arts, security and anti-terror. He will provide a practical, proven and effective system for enhancing any martial arts or self-defense system. Whether facing potential or active threats, either real time or online, you will learn to protect yourself and your family more effectively. You will be given practical exercises for developing these skills and examples from my own experiences in close protection/security, anti-terror, and undercover work using this same system.

When you finish with this book, you will be more effective and more successful at facing a physical or mental enemy, no matter how large or small that may be.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594393426
Publisher:	Ymaa Publication Center
Publication date:	11/07/2015
Pages:	144
Sales rank:	441,371
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Dr. David Hopkins Jr., Ph.D. is a psychologist with 21 years of experience combining psychological principles relating to violence and psychotherapy with martial arts, self-defense, close protection, and in investigative work against terrorists and criminal elements, including organized crime. He has taught psychology relating to violence at universities in both the U.S. and overseas, and is Chief of the Israeli Krav Maga Association, Gidon System, in Germany, holds Black Belts in Judo and Ju-Jitsu. He also serves as a consultant to an international paramilitary and close protection team and is co-owner of Israeli School Security, a school security consulting and training firm. David Hopkins resides in Germany.

Editorial Reviews

This important work redefines the meaning of self-defense.
David Hopkins is a psychologist who has taught martial arts and worked as an investigator and bodyguard. His background is as unique and unusual as his book, First Defense. His key message is that “the process of using your instincts to harness the energy of anxiety through the will—and skillfully manipulate the enemy in a similar manner—is more than a technique. It is really a way of life.”
In a sound, thorough, and convincing manner, Hopkins explains the nature of anxiety and how to master it, the difference between fear and anxiety, how to depend on one’s instincts, and the importance of reacting nonphysically in a threatening situation. Based on his own experience, the author shares fascinating information about both nonphysical and physical reactions to information; he writes, for example, about noticing an enemy’s slightest movements before attacking. He also explores the fact that an opponent is just as concerned about staying alive, a factor which can be used to the victim’s psychological advantage.
While the author addresses the theoretical, he also offers sound advice for putting his recommended actions into practice. The simple exercises included in each chapter, accompanied by short worksheets that pose situations and questions, help crystallize the book’s content. In one exercise, for example, Hopkins encourages people to surreptitiously observe others in public, using instincts to sense the behavior of anyone who may be “potentially threatening.” This kind of sensitivity training that helps to create a higher self-awareness is what differentiates the book.
In addition to acting as a guide to modern day self-protection, First Defense contains sections on other contemporary issues. The discussion of PTSD, for example, is both authoritative and enlightened; Hopkins points out that soldiers need not have faced a direct life-threatening event to experience severe trauma, yet mental health workers will not diagnose PTSD unless such an event takes place. A chapter titled “Specific Issues Relating to Women and Children” sensitively addresses child abuse, threats from intimate partners, online threats to children, and how to train children to protect themselves.
Perhaps the most compelling quality of First Defense is the book’s focus on the psychological aspects of self-defense. Rather than concentrate on specific techniques of martial arts and hand-to-hand combat, which might be expected, the book concentrates on “learning to be present, to feel anxiety, and to think and act in different circumstances.” This is a refreshing approach that implies sound judgment is required before facing any adversity. First Defense sheds important new light on our understanding of, and attitude toward, self-protection.

Foreword Reviews, November 23, 2015 - Barry Silverstein