Perhaps you've already had the dream: at a park in daylight, with children, or a dark close-in space like an alley, or, the one I remember most vividly, a seedy gas station... regardless of the setting, they come for you. Many or just one, it doesn't matter; you take an eyeball, you break a leg, hell, you break a neck. You can feel it go, popping and cracking from tense to loose in your hands. You slam him down, bouncing his head--now facing the wrong way--off the pavement.

And he gets back up.

Or you dig the eyeball out and it makes no difference, he keeps on coming, keeps on doing what it is here's there for--to kill you.

You wake up in a cold sweat, heart racing. The dreamstuff sticks with you the next day, a residue of unease. Even on the mats, it's still there, nagging at you. That one question:

What if it just plain doesn't work?

The second-most common criticism we get after 'going slow' has to do with the reactions. People can't believe it's that easy--kick him in the groin and he just bends over? Part of the problem is that they don't see reactions like we're talking about in everyday life (admittedly a Good Thing) or in the ring (where career-ending and/or life-threatening injury is rare, by design). But you know what? We're going to take a different tack on this subject entirely.

Because, quite frankly, the reactions don't matter.

They are nothing more than an irritatingly distracting side-effect of what we're really here to do: Get. That. Injury. While the distraction may be yours, the irritation is all mine. I get irritated when people want to argue about the fact that gouging an eye is Good For You and Bad For Him. I get irritated when those who should know better put the reaction ahead of the injury, making 'getting a reaction' the final goal. It's never the goal.

When people worry about whether or not it will work, the 'it' they're worried about isn't injury--I think we can all agree that stomping on someone's throat isn't going to do them a lick of good--it's 'what if he doesn't move like you said he would?'

Well, if you ruptured his eyeball, or broke his knee backwards, or crushed his throat, who cares how he moves after that? He's blind. He can't stand. He can't breathe. Injury is doing it's job, reducing his operational ability. Pile enough of that on and he literally cannot harm you. This is why injury is not just the goal of violence, but really your sole focus. You can't afford to give a crap about the rules of engagement, or what he's up to, or defense, or 'getting ready.' None of those things matter when put up against the facts of injury.

Does this mean that the reactions are specious nonsense? Of course not. They're a physiological fact. They make a nice feedback mechanism to let you know when you've been successful at causing injury. But that's the end of it. They're nice to see--AS A SIDE EFFECT. If you shift your focus off of injury and start to worry about reactions--does it really work that way? Will I be able to 'get' them? Will he really move like that?--you're missing the point in the worst way possible. 'Reaction-centric' training is little better than slap-fighting, trying to tag the button to make the buzzer sound in a stimulus/response sort of way. Not to mention that the whole affair will be fraught with anxiety.

It's key to put the reactions--and the worry about whether or not 'it'll work'--in their proper place: as an epiphenomenal side effect of injury. Injury brings with it a whole host of desirable side effects, loss of function being chief among them. While it is possible to have injury without reaction, it is not possible to have injury without decrement of function. If for some crazy reason his nervous system is so out of kilter that he doesn't react to having his eyeball gouged out of his skull--laughing the whole time--no amount of extreme/exotic pharmacology is going to keep his eyesight intact. Or allow him to walk with a torn-out knee. Or breath through a crushed throat. Injury is, in the end, a process of mechanical reduction that transcends the wishes of the brain or nervous system.

If you can slam a door, stomp a soda can flat, and fall down, you can cause injury. All you ever have to do is get in there and do it. Whatever happens next, one thing is certain: whatever you broke won't work anymore.

And you really don't need anything else.

Labels: injury

The biggest problem with 'self-defense' is that it says nothing about what has to happen to the other guy. Or, to be blunt, it says nothing about what you have to do to the other guy. And that missing something is probably whatever it is that he wants to do to you.

Think about it this way: do you really think a serial killer is worried that someone will use 'self-defense' on him? Is 'self-defense' what he does to his victims? Not hardly. If anything, he's afraid of being stabbed in the neck, or shot in the head--if anything, he's afraid of what he knows works. And even then, the criminal sociopath doesn't spend much time worrying about someone doing it to him. He puts his focus where he knows he'll get the best result--he focuses on doing it to others, first. And that 'it' is violence.

In swimming, simply having the idea of 'not drowning' isn't enough. You need to know, mechanically, how to move yourself through the water. Likewise, you don't survive violence simply by seeking to thwart a negative outcome, to counter what the other guy is trying to do--you survive violence by hurting people. You win by crippling, maiming and killing. You win by using the tools and techniques of the killer against himself. You win by doing what works.

In the end, if you don't know how to hurt people, put them down and keep them there you don't know how to survive--and win--in the realm of violence. And you'll always be one neck-stab behind the guy who does.

Labels: self defense, self protection

This may sound obvious, but there a lot of things violence is not. It is not a particularly rough cage-match; it is not a bar fight where everyone's sharing beers ten minutes later; it's not getting your nose bloodied.

Many people would call those things violence, and under that banner find them repugnant, negative, and to be avoided. While the avoidance part is common sense (unless you're into those things, which is fine for you), none of these are violence as we define it. That's because we prefer to have a much more narrow definition: violence is what happens when someone sustains an injury.

So what's the bloody nose? The lacerated eyebrow? The egg-sized hematoma on the shin? Much like the lay public would call the previous situations 'violence', the medical community would classify those various tissue manglings as 'injury'. But that's not good enough for us--we need a narrow definition: injury is when an important anatomical feature can no longer do its job, resulting in a decrement of normal function. Something so important gets smashed that the man literally cannot go on.

Our narrow definition give us the following picture:

Violence is when people get broken such that they don't just quit, they quit working.

or

"It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye."

In the end, we have to ask: why bother? Nit-picking over such narrow definitions makes us look like jerks when discussing 'violence' or 'injury'--saying that most of what happens in the UFC is not violence (save the few unfortunate career-ending injuries) and most of what people think of as injury is not really (anything you can 'walk off' is just an inconvenience).

What does hewing to such a narrow definition do for you?

Two things that go hand-in-hand to make you scary-effective:

1. You know exactly what you're gunning for

and

2. You know whether you got it or not.

With a narrow definition, there's no wiggle room, no 'I sorta got it' like you're kinda pregnant. The narrow definition keeps things tight and binary--either you got it or you didn't. It keeps you from having to worry about an entire spectrum of goals or events--you just want one. Injury.

The narrow definition keeps you from screwing around with things like making people submit, tiring them out, besting them strength-to-strength. It keeps you from confusing these things with effective violence.

Best of all it keeps you from being surprised when the guy you thought you just dropped comes back at you.

A narrow definition of violence will save you wear & tear--and maybe even your life.

Labels: injury

People who teach fighting and self defense to government and military agents want you to believe you can't see what goes on 'behind closed doors' during these sessions.

Labels: lethal force self defense

One of the key features of the sociopath is that he sees everyone as essentially the same--a piece of meat to be butchered. Sociopaths look at everyone this way, regardless of personality, skill, or ability.

A big strong guy with a black belt looks the same to him as a sleeping little girl. The sociopath understands that both their skulls open the same way, their eyes yield to equal pressure, and they both die when their throats are cut.

The sociopath disregards the things that set them apart; he will not interface with their personalities, or the big strong guy's black belt-level skill, or his massive muscles. He will only concentrate on the things that they are both susceptible to.

In order to use violence successfully, in order to have an equal chance of survival, so must you. Don't get caught in the sucker's game of interfacing at higher levels, of showing respect for the person, his skills or physical power. Go straight for the meat.

The Four Levels of Interaction

As a person - social

This is trying to change behavior, mood, or motivation. This is where most people would like to keep the situation.

As a skill-set - anti-social

This is trying to out-wrestle him, or out-technique him in a 90 mph (144+ kph) chess game. This is a duel in which the most skilled practitioner will typically win. It is 'civilized violence' and seen as 'fighting fair.'

As an animal (via strength, speed, stamina) - anti-social

This is pitting your strength against his, trying to out-maneuver or outlast him, going blow for blow - this typically looks pretty brutal and ugly. A lot of struggle where the best specimen prevails. This is seen as brutish, desperate and decidedly 'uncivilized.'

As a piece of meat - asocial
This is regarding him as a physical object beholden to the natural laws of the universe. Paying no heed to the person, the skill, or the ability. This is seen as almost universally 'bad'--people who do this naturally are classified as 'evil' in a social setting. This is interfacing with him as a thing that can be broken down and rendered nonfunctional.

It's interesting to note that these four levels correspond to different ranges and comfort zones.

Interfacing with the person can be done from across the street, a distance from trouble where most people feel safe (they can always take off running if it gets out of hand).

Interfacing with his skill-set is almost always done at a pace away, with the contestants circling to get a feel for the other guy's skill level, feinting and parrying and otherwise dancing around. It’s all about giving yourself enough room to see what he's doing and try to counter it.

Interfacing with his physical abilities is done skin-to-skin, but that's as deep as it goes.

Interfacing with the frailties of the flesh is done beneath the skin--true injury is about disregarding the sanctity of the body and simply destroying it.

What-ifs, Buts and Maybes

The kinds of questions people ask during training can tell you a lot about where their head is at and at which level they're stuck on. The important thing to note is that none of their worries have any impact on injury whatsoever.

The 'Socialist'
The person who is uncomfortable with the whole idea of conflict will ask questions that dance around the issue from across the street, like, "How can I tell if he wants to hurt me?" and such.

The Duelist
People trained in martial arts usually get hung up on interfacing with his skill. They'll ask the most what-ifs, like, "What if he throws a spinning back kick?", "What if he counters my joint lock?" and "What if he's holding the knife like this?" They are also overly concerned with blocking--both in doing it and worrying about having it done to them.

The Animal
Untrained people who can come to terms with the idea of conflict usually end up fixated on physical attributes. For smaller, less athletic people it manifests as worry about how they'll fare against bigger, stronger, faster adversaries; big, strong folks have the opposite problem--they typically believe they cannot be defeated by 'lesser' beings.

Sociopaths & Butchers
Almost no one shows up comfortable with injury as a starting point.

Another interesting thing to note is that progressing through the levels is not linear. Socialists don't usually walk through the others to arrive at injury. They go one of two ways--either they dig in their heels and cram their heads into the sand and will never, ever cross the street, or they go straight from where they are to injury (though sometimes with a short stop-over at the animal level).

Duelists are another thing entirely. It is often very difficult to wean them off of the idea that they need to respect and/or thwart his skill before they can be effective. If they do move on, it's usually with a long stop-over at the animal level. His skill bothered them before; now they've transferred that worry to his physical abilities. Those who have taken the long walk from skill to animal to injury are typically the most evangelical about the whole process. (As opposed to those who went straight from social to injury. They usually don't see the whole experience as that big a deal.)

Animals are easier to nudge into interfacing directly with the meat of the matter. They're pretty close, conceptually, and they just need to be shown how to direct their efforts away from strong points and into the weak ones. (Instead of going strength-to-strength, go strength-to-eyeball.)

If you're reading this I'm going to assume that you don't have a problem with violence in a general sense, that you're not hung up on the social aspects from across the street.

So where are your hang ups? What are you stuck on? Are you worried about what he'll do if he's skilled? Or bigger-stronger-faster? Be honest with yourself. You're letting yourself down if you lie--you're not going to get any more effective that way.

If the idea of going after a trained Goliath makes you sweat (more than the usual, healthy amount, I mean) then you need buckle down and study up on injury. Seek out photos of sports injuries (for broken joints and twisted, nonfunctioning limbs). Autopsy reports from non-firearm killings--especially where the victim was beaten to death--are illuminating. Troll the internet for videos of prison fights and violent muggings.

Essentially, look for anything where the survivor is interacting with the other person as a piece of meat.

You'll be repulsed and comforted simultaneously.

Labels: combat sports, injury, mixed martial arts, MMA, self defense