Most of us don’t think about self-defense until it’s too late, perhaps assuming we will be able to muddle through a defense of ourselves if the need ever arose—or perhaps believing self-defense is impossible without years of intricate drills and many hours of physical training. The truth, however, is that anyone, regardless of age, size, or background, can learn to improve their safety, avoid or de-escalate threatening situations, or even escape a conflict altogether.

Understanding and Applying Self-Defense Strategies is a comprehensive introduction to self-defense, and will change the way you look at the world and think about yourself. Taught by acclaimed self-defense instructor, Krav Maga expert, and psychotherapist Dr. Tammy Yard-McCracken, these 24 interactive lessons will give you an arsenal of physical and mental strategies to prepare you to defend yourself and your loved ones.

Traditional martial arts are about mastering techniques and demonstrating specific moves. It can take years of practice to become a master of Kung Fu or Tae Kwon Do, but self-defense is different. In fact, people with years of martial arts training often freeze in a real-world defense situation because they haven’t prepared their mind for conflicts where rules don’t apply and the quickest, most adaptable, and most determined person often has the upper hand.

At its most basic, self-defense is about understanding violence and using skills to stay safe in a variety of situations. Elements of good self-defense include:

Getting to know the strengths and weaknesses of the body, or the “meat puzzle”;

Putting yourself inside the mind of potential predators—and how to avoid them;

Picking up nonverbal cues to what a potential threat may be thinking;

Taking note of “natural lines of drift,” exit points, and other environmental opportunities at your disposal;

De-escalating situations before they rise to the level of violence; and

Using any means necessary to defeat the threat and get away.

Dr. Yard-McCracken uses four fundamentals of learning to change the way you act and think: play (having fun), teaching (conveying information), training (practicing moves), and operant conditioning (getting yourself “tactical ready”). As you will learn in Understanding and Applying Self-Defense Strategies, you don’t need years of practice to solve the “meat puzzle.” Thanks to Dr. Yard-McCracken’s guidance, whether you go through these lessons by yourself or with a partner, you will come away empowered with new skills and self-awareness.

Wake Up the Human Animal Within

As members of civilized society, we live most of our lives in terms of the social contract. We try hard to respect rules of civility, decency, fairness, and politeness. But deep within us as human beings lies another self: an apex predator at the top of the food chain. True, we’re not capable of speeding across a savannah to sink our teeth into a hapless gazelle, but we have cunning and reason and creativity. And it is these skills that will help us defend ourselves in a conflict.

Dr. Yard-McCracken guides you into waking up the animal within us—thinking differently, like a predator, so that you will be able to recognize dangerous situations for what they are and do what is necessary to escape a conflict. This process starts with yourself, by getting to know your body and how it responds to stressful situations. Through an abundance of physical exercises, activities, demonstrations, and more, Dr. Yard-McCracken teaches you about your body and how to engage it in a conflict. Among other things, you will learn about:

Tactical breathing

Fighting stances

Kicks and punches, including using knees and elbows

Joint locks

On-the-ground grappling

Non-traditional fighting maneuvers

Find out how to build a kinetic chain, or use momentum to build power. Explore the relationship between bone structure and impact. Learn about “golden moves,” the ideal actions that worsen your opponent’s position and cause the most damage while improving your own position and minimizing damage to yourself.

Beyond the physical, however, mental preparation is equally important. Our body has a natural Survival Stress Response, or SSR, and when the SSR kicks in, the “you” in the midst of a conflict is not the “you” that is going about your everyday life. A flood of hormones will cloud your thinking. Primal “monkey” and “lizard” brain impulses try to take over. And, worst of all, you may get caught in the freeze phase of your freeze-fight-flight response.

Dr. Yard-McCracken helps you understand the process of violence and your body’s physical and mental response to danger so that if you are ever in a threatening situation, you can remain level-headed, quick, agile, and smart.

Become a Better Observer of People around You

Self-defense is also about understanding the world around you—both the threat you are facing and the environment where the conflict takes place. Much of this course, therefore, teaches you how to widen your “affordances” so that you see beyond the surface and look at the world through a different lens. Learn to observe the people you encounter in new ways. Where is the center of balance for the person in front of you? What are this person’s weak lines and vulnerabilities? How would you defeat them if they attacked you?

Dr. Yard-McCracken takes you inside the mind of the predators out there. Asocial predators may want something from you, such as your money, or they may simply enjoy the process of doing harm. By going inside the mind of such people, you’ll learn to understand their motivations, which will in turn help you spot threats while there is still time to escape. Meanwhile, social predators have their own motivations—including tribal pack behavior, the emotions surrounding betrayal and vengeance, and more.

Once you know how predators think, you can become much better at spotting potential threats in the world: Learn to evaluate locations such as bars, empty corridors, elevators, parking lots. You’ll learn how to spot situations that are escalating—raised voices, threatening language, and a variety of nonverbal communications—and how to stay in control of a situation so that you can escape these threats or be ready for the confrontation to come.

Make the Most of Your Environment

Getting yourself tactical ready and learning to read potential threats are two important pillars for self-defense. The third pillar is the environment. Avoiding a late-night bar full of angry drunks or an unlit parking lot may be common sense, but what about the elevator ride up to your hotel room? Or the short walk from a parking lot to a townhouse?

Sometimes higher-risk locations can’t be avoided, so self-defense is about knowing where you are and what tools you have at your disposal. For example, military professionals talk about “natural lines of drift”—the most likely paths a person might take to get from A to B. What are the natural lines of drift between you and the exit? If someone is after you, which path are they most likely to take?

If a conflict can’t be avoided, waking up the inner animal means the fight doesn’t have to be fair, and it probably shouldn’t be. The social contract may condition you to be polite, but staying alive and safe means doing what you have to. Look around: What objects can you use as weapons? Can anything be used to stab? Anything that can cause blunt-force trauma? What can you use to get away?

When you complete this course, you will not walk through the world the same way. You will notice other people and their behavior, you will be more aware of your environment, and you will recognize your own body’s strengths and limitations. Ultimately, this course is about empowerment. Self-defense training is not simply about seeing a world full of threats, but about becoming self-aware, and becoming a harder target. Understanding and Applying Self-Defense Strategies will prepare you to face whatever is out there—and to live a fuller, more confident life.