For the benefit of my psychotic-loner readers (you know who you are -- take a bow!), I present this handy-dandy guide to recognizing Secret Service agents. (Because, um, everybody likes to be recognized?)
Ordinarily they're not too hard to make out. They're the guys with sunglasses (to cut down on glare), and earpieces, talking into their sleeves. But there are other clues. Look at the positioning of the agent's hands in the photo above:
I personally believe the most likely foundation of this stance is Japanese Aikido. Which also has a similar "stance" sometimes called the natural position. It is best understood as a position of relaxed readiness. In the case of bodyguards it allows a ready position primed for action that is non-threatening to an uninitiated observer. It also signals an initiated observer that these individuals are adequately trained and ready for action
More on Aikido here.
With his hands in that position, he's ideally placed to parry a knife thrust or grab a gunman's arm and force it down and away, with the full force of his upper body behind it. It doesn't hurt that most would-be assassins (at least of the American variety) are, in addition to being psychotic loners, seriously scrawny psychotic loners (Note: research The Assassin's Diet for potential best-seller.).
And he won't have to delay him for long, just hold him up long enough for his fellow agents to react.
At which point the gunman is going to get an idea what it feels like to be an uninvited tackling dummy at the Dallas Cowboys' training camp.
More discussion and photos here.
Via grow-a-brain