In the previous blog we discussed about Choosing our Arena, Our Battlefield, in this blog we will talk about training. There aren't any official training academies around, but unofficial ones exist. You can only get entry in them if you have referrals. However, there are drawbacks to joining such academies. Police keep an eye out for all such academies and there is a good chance that you are being surveilled once you enter these academies, there are undercover agents there too.

During my training phase, after completing fitness training I wanted to learn some offensive skills so I found out about an academy, when I was going to the academy the first day, guess what happened? There was a raid. The police and SWAT teams swarmed the academy, resulting in the arrest of everyone involved in unlawful activities. Now, most of them are under surveillance. Surveillance spells the end of a vigilante's career.

I am not sure from where the Police gets so much money to track the vigilantes. I mean we are doing their jobs for them and yet they see us as their enemies.

Anyway, training, right. There are a lot of things you can learn on your own, the internet is the great equaliser. Many offensive techniques I learned were simply adaptations of defensive techniques from YouTube videos.

You can engage in hand-to-hand combat or utilise weapons. However, weapons are traceable. If you want an un-trackable weapon then you gotta make one yourself. Pepper spray can be effective in many situations. In other situations, well, lets say if the person is holding a gun, if you spray pepper then the person might panic and just start shooting everywhere. You don't want that. You want to take out the criminal with your first move. Remember, prolonging the struggle reduces your options, exhausts your strategies, and energy.

If you're already physically fit, much of your training is complete. You can repurpose a lot of things to weapons, like a stick, a baseball bat, cricket bat, stumps, dumbbells, etc. There are a lot of tricks to handle a person, most of the time it is just to talk dirty. I mean not in a sexual way, I mean trash talk. There can be two polarising outcomes to this trick, either the criminal gives up and runs away or the criminal becomes mad as hell and pounces on you. You gotta take the risk given the situation. Keep one hand distance from any criminal who is bigger in size than you, use your brains not your brawn at those times. Most criminals lack intelligence; outsmarting them is key.

If criminals weren't dumb then they could have participated in the formal economy and contributed to the GDP and rampant unmitigated capitalism, but they aren't therefore, dum dums.

Once I encountered a person who was trying to steal a purse from a woman, so I rushed over there, and just said "How dare you treat a woman like this? Leave her alone, haven't your mother taught you any manners" and the criminal broke down. He started crying and told me his life story. I treated him to lunch, gave him some motivation, today he works as a cashier at some big furniture store. You can try to have some empathy, but I'll generally avoid it as the streets are brutal.

Dum Dums.

So summarising things, get fit - 10km run, 100 pushups, 100 crunches everyday. Learn offensive fighting techniques - you can also fight dirty, nobody really cares about man-to-man ethics here. Repurpose some common life instrument into a weapon. Be smart and be the first to strike. Keep the fight short, strike first, strike hard.

Only the last pointer remains now, I'll discuss it in the next blog, till then stay tuned and never give up on your dreams. Be the change you want to see in the world.

Links:

Blog 3: https://musings.peculiarvivek.com/how-to-vigilantism-second-last-pointer
Blog 2: https://musings.peculiarvivek.com/how-to-vigilantism-next-few-pointers
Blog 1: https://musings.peculiarvivek.com/how-to-vigilantism-easing-your-way-into-the-job
Blog 0: https://musings.peculiarvivek.com/your-daily-guide-to-vigilantism-strategies-for-taking-action