Any physical confrontation goes through 3 main stages; pre-conflict, the conflict itself, post-conflict. The stages can themselves be cut down to different stages and areas.
Breathing, pre-contact clues, awareness, stress, flinching, PTSD and so on, each having influence in the different stages, and some of them are more primarily fixed in certain stages.
Therefor conflicts are not just something that happens. Events up to the conflict, decisions made, past references are all a part of the conflict, building up to the result of the conflict. Some of these things you can take responsibility over, while others are out of your reach. Know and change a bad guys decision or past references isn’t something you can take responsibility over, but your own actions and how they influence your choices and possibilities today is something you can start doing now.
You can look at what you can do in the pre-conflict stage; which could be starting learning about conflicts, the conflict itself ; which could be learning to defend yourself and the post-conflict; which could be learning how to handle the impact of a confrontation.
