Labels: competition, intent, Intimidation, San Diego Training

Here's an unfortunate video that underscores two of the cornerstones of TFT:

1) Understanding the difference between antisocial posturing (monkey politics) and asocial violence (killing), and

2) Making sure that if you're going to lay hands on someone you know how to put them down so they can't get back up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV3dLrukBM0

Of course, it also illustrates the fact that firearms come pre-packaged with all the requirements for striking -- a good whallop of kinetic energy and complete follow-through, just add vital target.

It's just another horrible, preventable example of what can happen when one person reads the situation as antisocial, a contest for pecking order, while the other is willing to cross all those lines and go straight for the kill.

This is why we spend so much time on those two topics -- how to effect that kill with your bare hands and understanding when it's appropriate vs. the 99.9% of the times it flat-out isn't.

In either case -- walking away or putting the other man down -- the life you save just might be your own.

Labels: competition, criminal violence, gun, lethal force self defense

Semantics can be a funny thing--reference the title, above: On the one hand, it could mean 'fighting on even though one is injured' or 'enduring in the face of adversity.' On the other hand it could mean 'using injury as a tool when fighting' or 'dirty pool.' Chances are you read it one way, and not the other; which way you read it, on autopilot, isn't up to me, the message-bearer. How you see it is something that happens entirely inside your own skull.

So, same words, two very different meanings. And no way for me to tell which way it's gone.

An essential problem we have in teaching and training violence is that most people have no real experience with the concept. (This is only a bad thing in the context of training. In the context of daily life, it's a good thing that the vast majority of people never experience violence to the degree we mean when we say the word... unlike, say, the population of Rwanda.) It is the never-ending job of the instructor to clue people in, give them physical examples to connect to the words, and to do our best to connect it to everyday experiences. (Like mentioning the 'funny bone' when we talk about nerve targets--nearly everyone's whacked their ulnar nerve hard enough to momentarily kill their hand.) Recently, however, it occurred to me that when speaking of the difference between sport and violence, martial arts and murder, competition and destruction, we've been coming from the wrong side of the argument.

While most people have not experienced life-changing violence, many have, at one time or another, experienced injury in sport. Whether as adults or children, we've all taken a hard hit, been knocked ass-over-tea-kettle, and/or had the wind knocked out of us. We've been contused, lacerated, pulled muscles, tweaked joints and taken a bump on the head that made us see stars. And we've all gotten back up, shook it off, walked it off, and pressed on and fought through for personal honor, for toughness, for the team, or maybe just because we didn't want to miss out on all the fun.

As nasty as some of those things may have felt, or seemed, or been they were not injuries as we must define them for violence--if you were able to push through and overcome the physical symptoms with force of will you were definitely hurt (perhaps even enough to make someone else quit) but you were not injured the way we mean it when we're talking violence.

If you've lived a full enough life to experience the above, you've probably had the misfortune of seeing the other side of it--people broken in such a way that no force of will, no matter how strong, can change the state they find themselves in. They're out cold, or flopping around incoherent, or screaming nonsensically; the match is stopped, the game is paused as medical personnel rush to the fallen's aid. They don't walk off the field triumphantly, they're carried to the hospital.

At a recent live training I recognized some 'sporting types' among the clients--people who were wearing gear associated with martial arts, full-contact and no-holds-barred-style competitions. It can be hard to make our case to such people--when I say 'violence' and 'injury' they nod like they know but it's very often a different picture they see in their head. They see the hard-won results they know can only be achieved in the ring through bigger-faster-stronger, and they are usually skeptical of injury as a show-stopper if only because of the number of times they themselves have 'fought through injury' and won the match in spite of their 'injuries.'

Instead of my usual competition vs. destruction rant I simply asked the question:

"How many of you have taken a hit, had the wind knocked out of you, seen stars, had something hurt like crazy in a game or match and yet you were able to fight through it, keep playing, continue to compete, etc.?"

Most people raised their hands. I was actually a little bit surprised by that. So far so good.

Then I asked:

"How many of you have seen someone go down in a match or game such that they couldn't get back up, the refs went crazy trying to stop the game so medical personnel could get to them, and they had to leave the field on a stretcher and go straight to the hospital?"

Fewer people raised their hands, but still a goodly amount.

"Okay," I said, "In violence, we're only ever interested in the second one."

And then I added, "Because, as you all know, you can shake off the first one, no problem."

I swear my third eye was blinded by all the psychic light bulbs going off. Everybody got it. Everybody. And I didn't even have to argue the point.

Best of all, the most hardcore of the competitors lost their skepticism and became acutely interested in getting to work.

Labels: combat sports, competition, fighting, injury, MMA, self defense

Invariably, we get questions along the lines of...

"Okay, I get all that violence stuff--but what if he's bigger/faster/stronger/(your favorite celebrity masher here)/has a knife/stick/gun/three guns?"

That's a great question.

Or it would be if that's what they really meant. More often than not people build a monster in their head around a single overarching fear...

And before I reveal what that fear is, let's take a look at some specifics:

When people look at a larger, stronger man what they're really registering is his potential ability to generate power. He could pick you up and throw you across the room, right? Heck, he could probably pick up and throw a Volkswagen.

What they ignore is that though he may have more human tissue than you, he's still made of meat. And meat can be butchered.

Fast and skilled fall into the same category -- the desire for a "duel."

This typically comes from people who are worried about "getting in."

This is particularly funny as I've never seen a prison murder where the participants had any difficulty "getting in" on each other; I'm sure this idea would make serial killers shrug as well.

In short, professionals who use violence in their day-to-day are conspicuously unconcerned with "getting in." And so should you be.

But what if he's armed?

Well, if I have a knife and he has a knife, I stab the knife, right? Of course not.

So why the hell does this make a difference if he has a tool and I'm using fists and boots? It just means you'll beat him to nonfunctional instead of shooting or stabbing him to nonfunctional.

Ah, but now we're getting to the super-secret fear that is hidden at the core of all these questions--these questions that are all saying:

"I'm afraid he has intent to do what I won't."

Everyone builds a better monster around the idea of superior intent. The bigger/faster/stronger smokescreen is just worry that he's turned up willing to deliver a serious beating that ends in a brutal curbing while you're just there to look the "hard boy" or have a manly slap-fight. You know, the kind where no one really gets hurt.

The tool, though, now that's different.

When he pulls out a labor-saving device whose sole purpose is to rend meat and break bones, well now he's showing superior intent--intent you're worried you can't match.

If you're just there to posture and look the part--if you're just there to duel and teach someone a lesson--then what the hell is he up to with that man-mangler? We all know the answer to that.

Everyone recognizes, on a visceral level, that the armed man is displaying intent they don't have.

And that's what everyone's afraid of. Superior intent!

All the sideways questions, all the building of better monsters is just dancing around this issue--"What if he's really here to kill me?"

I mean, really, this time?

The recognition that this just might be so, and you can't or won't match it, intent-wise, is the core fear that everyone harbors.

The dull toll of fear echoing in the "intent gap" is what I hear whenever anyone asks one of these questions.

They're not even consciously aware of it. They'll deny it when pressed.

My advice is to build your better monster--bigger, faster, stronger, meaner, armed in a dark alley. Add in a dash of rainy, moonless night. Pile it on.

And then... you need to become him.

-Chris Ranck-Buhr

Labels: competition, criminal violence, intent, self defense

Todays entry deals with the real goal behind Self-Defense.

This definitely is not what you'll read in most Self-Defense Books, see in Self-Defense Videos, or hear taught in Self-Defense Courses. But I think you'll agree this unquie perspective really makes the thought of dealing with violence much easier.

See what you think...

THE AWFUL TRUTH ABOUT VIOLENCE -- A MANIFESTO

For too long fallacies have held sway while common criminals exploit fear and ignorance; the simple facts that govern the effective use of violence as a survival tool are well known to them, and denied to the law-abiding, successfully socialized citizen.

Know, then, these simple facts and let your power increase:

Violence is available to everyone.

You are a predator born with stereo vision for hunting prey and teeth for ripping and tearing flesh. You are a member of the only species that makes an art of war. The average human body is an awesome engine of destruction, driven by the most dangerous thing in the known universe--a human brain. You are a survival engine, the descendant of winners; your ancestors didn't get you here by laying down and giving up. They made the losers do that. Violence is your birthright.

Violence works on everyone.

Superior physical ability, knowledge, experience and iron will are all trumped by the thumb in the eye. There is nothing anyone can do to make themselves immune to the laws of the physical universe. Bullets are not swayed by opinion or presence, they are maddeningly impartial.

Another way to state this, and the above, is: "Violence: anyone can do it and no one is immune."

These two facts, taken together, are simultaneously reassuring and terrifying. Reassuring in that you can get it done on anyone. Terrifying in that anyone can get it done on you.

We tell ourselves comforting lies to get over it ('if I do this-and-such a technique there's nothing he can do' and 'if I'm stronger/faster/meaner I'm better off'), but you're much better off accepting the reality of it: all you can ever really do is level the playing field.

Knowing how to use violence as a survival tool--and being willing to do so--puts you on nice, flat terrain, even and equal with the worst of humanity. You can see the people who still have their heads in the sand, asses up, and the predators who stalk among them taking advantage.

Before you knew how to grab the tool of violence in both fists and swing it hard and sure you were at a disadvantage. Now that disadvantage is gone, and in its place is the stone--cold truth--you're responsible for you, all alone. Either you can rely on yourself or you can't; either you'll get the job done or you won't.

You have a choice: you can be afraid, or you can be resolved.

Violence is biomechanical.

It is purely the interplay of physics and physiology. Magical thinking and psychic powers are trumped by the tire-iron to the head.

All violent acts are identical.

Regardless of the infinitude of circumstances leading up to the violent act, and the myriad of outcomes on the other side, the actual point of violence--where injury occurs--is always the same. The thumb in the eye, the boot in the groin, the bullet in the brain--they are all identical in that they are injuries.

Violence is about destruction, not competition.

The breaking of the human body, the shutdown of the human brain, these are the things that success in violence are made of.

Anything that takes the delivery of injury and tries to transmute it into a tit-for-tat exchange (his technique vs. my technique, defense, etc.) is missing the point, and will very likely get you killed.

To believe you are engaged in a competition is to plant your head in the sand. Violence is simply one person injuring another. The serial killer who just wants to murder will be undeterred by counters.

The one doing the violence tends to prevail.

Violence is one person injuring another person. This is the definition of the effective use of violence. While all violent acts have injury in common, they also share another trait: at the end, the person walking away is typically the one who did it.

The one getting the violence done to them tends to get injured.

Defense wounds are found on corpses. 'Nuff said.

It takes no training or physical conditioning to murder someone.

Serial killers are rarely impressive physical specimens. They tend not to lift weights or take kung-fu. They are, however, intimately familiar with the contents of this manifesto.

Violence is neither good nor evil.

It is a tool, and as such it takes on the moral color of the user--but only after the fact. Bludgeoning someone to death with a claw hammer can be murder in one instance and justified homicide in another--but in both cases someone bludgeoned someone else to death with a claw hammer. Knowing how doesn't make you a bad person.

The goal of violence is injury. Period.

This is last because it is most important--you will not forget it. Anything that advances this goal is useful to you; anything that ignores, postpones, or otherwise hinders this goal can get you killed.

After all is said and done, the only thing you need to remember is... INJURE HIM... NOW!

Labels: competition, injury, self defense, self protection

In a word, injury.

You can have the most wicked, lightning-fast technique on the planet, but if the end result isn't fight-ending injury, then it's little better than a parlor trick. That's not to say that technique, in and of itself, is 'bad'--a technique that gets that injury, repeatedly and reliably, is pure gold. You can bet your life on it.

The question is, how can you tell the difference? Easy. The crippling, fight-ending techniques are the ones that target a specific square-inch of vulnerable anatomy and then wreck it so it can't do it's job anymore. We're talking about the burst eye ball, the crushed throat, the blown-out knee. None of these things are going to be able to do the important job they're supposed to do--these injuries degrade the man's ability to function normally. As you shut him down you save your own life.

You can ask these questions about any given technique you know, or are shown:

• What specific square-inch of him does it effect?
  
  
• Is what's behind/inside that square-inch important for him to function normally?
  
  
• Does the technique wreck it such that it'll only recover with medical intervention?

If you're not sure about the first one, the other two are moot. If you can't answer the other two specifically, by way of physics and physiology, you probably shouldn't bet your life on that technique. I know I wouldn't.

Another interesting exercise you can do is seek out video of fight-ending injuries that happen in the ring--they're typically viewed as unfortunate and sickening 'accidents'. But we can learn an awful lot from them. Look at everything that happens up to the actual injury--techniques are flying, the competition is fierce--but no one is getting injured beyond those things that the resolute can 'walk off': lacerations, contusions, pain and other non-specific trauma. It's when the specific trauma occurs that things change dramatically--competition ends, the fight is called and medical aid rushes into the ring. Often, people walk around stunned and confused at what's transpired.

What's to be learned from this tragedy?

We can look at what was different when that specific injury occured. What set it apart (other than the result) from all the ferocity of the preceeding competition? You'll find, in general, it was bodyweight through a specific square-inch of important anatomy. And that anatomy gave out in a body-rending, mind-shattering injury, changing everything suddenly and irrevocably. It literally ended the fight.

This is where we have to start if we're talking about violence where your life is on the line. That fight-ending injury isn't where we're going, or what we're trying to do--it's where we start.

And if you're not starting there, you can't bet your life on it.

Chris Ranck-Buhr
Master Instructor
Target-Focus Training
http://www.targetfocustraining.com/

Labels: competition, injury, technique