'Operation Safe Summer:' How your body language could be sending predators the wrong signal

SEATTLE -- Body language is one the most powerful ways we communicate unintentionally with bad guys. “It has nothing to do with the way you’re dressed, it has nothing to do with if you’re attractive or not, how big you are, anything like that it’s pure body movement,” explains Greg Hamilton, co-owner of Insights training. He adds, “There’s been many studies on body language where they film people who were unaware they were being filmed so they couldn’t affect their own behavior and then they showed those films to predators in prison and said ‘who would you pick or who you wouldn’t pick’. Hamilton says that how we walk is key to our overall protection, explaining, “ Victims will be inwardly focused, they’ll be downwardly focused. They’re down with their chin and offset where you usually can only see part of their face or their eyes. He says all too often we are on our cell phones, distracted or just unaware of our surroundings. This sends signals to criminals looking for easy prey. We should have stopped a person from picking us from 20, 30, 50, even 100 feet away just by the way we walk. “Stand up straight. It’s that simple” Hamilton says. “ Standup straight and hold your chin up.”

But let’s say our body language was poor that day and we have someone approaching that gives us a bad feeling. What do we do then? “An assertive person also lets people know when they violate boundaries. So if someone is making an approach on you from absolutely no reason on the street, ‘hey what are you doing?’ ‘hey, can I help you?’ whatever it is, you should be assertive, you should preempt them,” Hamilton says. Strike first so to speak and knock the bad guy off his game. Hamilton explains, “And you do that from 10-15 feet away, you don’t wait until they’re right in your face. But if someone got close to you, I would just tell them ‘no thank you.’ I would start with a simple no thank you then if they got any more aggressive or kept coming at all, then I would give them a more aggressive ‘no.’ Acting quickly and decisively is crucial. “In mental conditioning we have to be aware first, because if you’re not aware, you can’t do anything. But you also have to be decisive because if you’re not decisive awareness was for nothing.” The key is to first be aware, then prepare and ready to act if needed. Hamilton adds, “Crime is exactly the same. If you don’t believe crime happens then when it happens to you, you’re going to be completely caught off guard.”