NAILING DOWN INTENT
In isolating what makes violence effective, you can clearly see that debilitating injury is key. It changes everything in your favor and converts that awful, scary man into an injured man, helpless to keep you from causing further harm. Cause injury is the result of penetration (body weight in motion) and rotation (the complete follow-through) through […]
FORGET FIGHTING. DELIVER AN INJURY.
To be invincible in hand-to-hand combat and be able to deliver an injury, you need to have at least a passable fluency in all the various forms it can take: Boxing. Kick boxing. Ground fighting. Stick fighting. Knife defense. Gun disarms. I have no doubt I’m missing some here. Once you get all those covered, […]
VIOLENCE STARTS AND ENDS WITH YOU
Over the years, we’ve tried many different ways to talk about “the attitude” you have to have to enter into violence and violent conflict. Most recently, we’ve talked about “intent” and “cause-state.” In the former. you have to want to do it, and in the latter, we give you all the reasons why you want […]
SELF DEFENSE IS A SHAM • PART 1
When you think of what self defense is, what do you see? I see nothing. Okay, maybe that’s a little too harsh, too fast… If I try really hard to cut through the ambiguous fog of those phrases, I can almost see someone getting attacked, desperately trying to get away, maybe getting backed into a […]
PRACTICING SELF DEFENSE: CAN BIGGER-STRONGER-FASTER MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
The answer depends on who’s doing the injuring and who’s getting injured while practicing self defense… Bigger, faster, and stronger are great attributes to have, if you know what to do with them: If you have more mass, you can hit harder. If you have more strength, you can hang on nice and tight for […]
SELF DEFENSE IS A SHAM • PART 2
Self defense training means many things: It is the moral imperative we use to draw a line between predatory and “civilized” use of force: “I will only fire in self defense.” It is the legal rule we use to judge whether or not that use of force is a crime: “The defendant claims to have acted […]
SELF DEFENSE MOVES: KNOW HOW TO BREAK A NECK
“Why would anyone ever need to know that?” Usually the question comes as a shocked response, a condemnation for what it is we train. Through experience, I’ve found that the easy answer (“Well, wouldn’t you want to know how to do it if that’s exactly what you needed to survive?”) fails, weirdly, as the initial question […]
MULTIPLE ATTACKERS SELF DEFENSE: PART ONE
Multiple attackers self defense presents a number of unique problems that you must address in order to survive and win. Our friend, Will, for example: The five guys in the car made it clear to Will that they wanted to do more than just “kick his ass.” He knew that if everyone got a piece […]
ITS A MAN’S WORLD… OR WHY I HATE TRAINING WOMEN
Training women in self protection is hard. Not because of anything they themselves do. Women are far more receptive to the message than men and “get it” much more quickly. The problem lies with the men they must train with and the ignorance and prejudices those men bring to the process. Women are precisely as […]