Avert-RAT (A-RAT): Avoid, Escape, and Evade

Avert-RAT teaches the best fight there is: the one you never have. Most violence can be avoided by people who know how to stay off a predator’s radar, read their surroundings, and move before the threat closes in. When avoiding it isn’t possible, you learn to escape, or to evade by staying hidden until the threat passes. Escape and evasion take opposite instincts, so A-RAT trains them separately: one rewards speed and movement, the other stillness and patience. Avert-RAT follows the 90% solution: a small set of decisions and movements that keep you out of the fight in the first place.

What You’ll Learn

• Avoidance: blending in, staying off a predator’s radar, and choosing where and when you go.
• Reading the environment: assessing controlled and uncontrolled spaces, public and private, for threats, exits, and options.
• Positioning and distance: keeping space between you and a developing threat, and setting boundaries before anyone closes in.
• Escape: moving away from the threat fast, choosing your route, and getting yourself and others out.
• Evasion (lockdown): staying out of the threat’s line of sight and line of fire when you can’t get out.
• Cover, concealment, and distance: knowing what stops bullets, what only hides you, and how to use both.
• Avert or Engage: recognizing when averting is no longer possible, and it’s time to talk, fight, or shoot.

Who Should Attend

Anyone who wants to stay safe in public places, workplaces, schools, places of worship, and while traveling: civilians, families, educators, healthcare and front-line workers, security staff, and law enforcement officers. This is not a fighting class. It is about getting home safely without having to fight at all.

What to Bring

A notebook and pen. Live students should wear comfortable clothes and athletic shoes for escape and evasion drills.