The Selection Math
Most attacks don't start with an attack. They start with a choice, someone deciding whether you're worth the cost. Interviews with convicted offenders show the same calculus again and again: what do I gain, how hard is it, will I get caught. Reward, effort, risk.
That leads to the founding rule of this course: you don't have to be un-attackable. You just have to be expensive. Nothing here makes you invulnerable; it raises the visible cost until the selection moves off you.
Reward
Effort
Risk
The evidence runs deeper than instinct. In a classic study, offenders watched film of ordinary people walking and rated how easy each would be to attack. Their ratings agreed, and what they were reading was movement: stride, arm swing, pace, purpose. The rating happens before anything else does.
What You Control
So walk like you're going somewhere. Head up, full stride, arms free. Not a performance of toughness; a body that reads as switched on. It's the whole configuration that reads, not any one trick.
Move with purpose
Head up, full stride, arms free. The configuration reads as costly; the pieces alone don't.
Raise visible cost
The same math guards property. In one survey of 400+ convicted burglars, most checked for an alarm first, and most moved on when they found one.
Own the math
You can't control who's looking. You control the math they see. Raise the cost, and the choice moves off you.
One honest boundary: none of this is a guarantee, and none of it means a person who was attacked "signaled" anything. It means selection has a mechanism, and the mechanism is one you can influence.