The Vital Pyramid is a concept of self defense and combatives originally conceived by John “Lofty” Wiseman, a former member of the British Special Forces.
The four components of the Vital Pyramid include Mindset, Tactics, Skills and Kit.
Mindset
Most instructors in combatives will tell you that success in any combative situation is 90% mental and 10% skill. In order to survive a life threatening assault, an individual MUST have the willingness to WIN, and not just survive.
As Lee Morrison of Urban Combatives says, if your mentality is simply to survive an assault, and then you don’t, then you’ve not only lost, but you’re dead.
Therefore, during any life threatening assault, you must have the mentality of win at all costs.
Mindset is therefore the foundation of the Vital Pyramid. Without the proper mindset, no matter how skilled you may be, you may not prevail if your opponent is willing to do anything at all to destroy you.
Mindset also includes walking about in public alert and aware. If you are alert to your surroundings, you will have a better opportunity to avoid unwanted altercations altogether.
Tactics
Tactics are the daily gameplan you should employ. In the Self Defense Company system, our game plan is referred to as AWARE. This stands for Alert, Watch, Assess, React, Execute.
Whenever we leave our homes, it’s time to switch on our antenna and become alert to our surroundings. If something unusual or suspicious catches our eye, we watch and observe that activity.
We then assess whether or not the person or activity is a threat to us, and we then react by considering an appropriate course of action. Once we’ve developed our plan of action, we execute.
For example, if we are walking down the street and we notice an individual hanging out who appears to be quite observant themselves, potentially looking for prey, we may simply react by considering it best to cross the street and walk away from the individual, and then do just that.
Skills
Our skillset is effectively our toolbox of physical skills that will allow us to prevail during an altercation. These can include both soft skills that allow us to avoid, or de-escalate a situation, and our hard skills, or fighting skills.
Soft skills involve our ability to spot potential danger when we are out and about. Hard skills are what we need to escape a violent altercation. Hard skills are typically the primary focus at any martial arts school or self defense training school.
Kit
Last of all is our kit. Many people focus on this alone, as our kit can include weapons. Your kit can also include the clothing you wear when you are out in public. For instance, if someone attacks you with a knife, your clothing may offer some protention.
Kit can also include any equipment you train with, such as heavy bags, focus mitts, strength training equipment, etc. Anything that helps you become more able to defend yourself is part of your kit, or toolbox.
However, if you don’t have the proper mindset, a good tactical plan, or enough skill to deploy a weapon effectively, then your kit will be worthless.
Final Thoughts
As I mentioned above, your Mindset is what will ultimately determine your overall ability to survive a deadly altercation, or to avoid one altogether.
Unfortunately, most martial arts training focuses on developing your hard skills and working with different weapons. Without the proper mindset, you’ll never be able to deploy those skills effectively.
For instance, if you freeze up during an altercation, you may wind up dead. This is why any Navy SEAL will tell you that they don’t rise up to the occasion when fighting an enemy…they simply fall back to their training.
Therefore, it is vital that you develop the proper mindset in order to improve your probability of survival during any altercation.
Below is part of a lecture I found on Youtube that discusses the Vital Pyramid in a bit more detail.
