Author: Erik Kondo

The Importance of Awareness in Self Defence – Darren Norton

What if it was possible that all Violent people looked the same as each other?
If that was true, and we knew what it was that gave them away, would that reduce the chances of ever falling victim to their attacks?

Absolutely!

But in reality Muggers, Rapists and other violent criminals rarely look any different than normal people.

However! There is good news; violent criminals can be recognised by their behaviour.

If you are aware of your environment, you will be able to recognise a problem as it unfolds and stay one step ahead of a potentially bad situation. That is the importance of Situational Awareness.

Communication is Predominantly Non Verbal

when we communicate; we show our intent in three ways. 7% of your ability to interpret that intent is based on our words, 38% through our tone of voice, and 55% is projected through our body language.

So why is this important you ask yourself!

Well a large aspect of Self Defence involves the communication process. Human predators don’t just jump on the first person that walks by. There is always an evaluation process or what is known as the interview that occurs where they deliberately or unconsciously assess the “victim potential” of a target.

In carrying out the victim evaluation or Interview, they will project their intentions by watching, following and even testing you as a potential victim. Their body language may show signs of nervousness, intoxication, looking around for witnesses, perhaps indicators of accomplices or even a concealed weapon.  If you know the relevant cues to watch for, you can spot the intent before an assault happens.

Situational Awareness is the ability to read people and situations and anticipate the probability of violence before it happens. Through knowledge and awareness you will know what to look for and disciplining yourself to pay attention to what is happening around you.
Awareness is not about being fearful or paranoid. On the contrary, it should be reassuring and build confidence. 

Awareness is a relaxed state of alertness that can be strengthened and improved with practice. It is the ability to perceive, to feel, or to be conscious of events, objects, thoughts, emotions, or sensory patterns. In this level of consciousness, sense data can be confirmed by an observer without necessarily implying understanding. More broadly, it is the state or quality of being aware of something. In biological psychology, awareness is defined as a human’s or an animal’s perception and cognitive reaction to a condition or event.

You don’t have to go through life constantly scanning every shadow and corner, but the level of awareness should be appropriate to the circumstances you are in.
Some circumstances call for a greater degree of vigilance than others. Obviously, you would want to be more aware when walking alone to your car at night than out with friends in broad daylight.

What is Successful Self Defence?

The importance of awareness has a lot to do with how you define success in Self Defence.  That definition determines the strategies you implement to achieve it.

Many people confuse the ability to defend themselves with their ability to fight. Physical skills are important but those skills are only a small piece of the puzzle.

Broken down it equates to 60% Psychological – 25% Emotional and only 15% Physical.

If your idea of successful Self Defence is fighting off an attacker then your solution will be directed at learning physical techniques only, but you would be missing the point.
Success in Self Defence is not just about winning the fight (although that is important if it gets to the physical) but more importantly avoiding or defusing it.  The ultimate success in self-defence is when nothing happens!
If that’s not possible, consider this general rule of thumb:

 If you can’t prevent it, then avoid it. If you can’t avoid it, defuse it. If you can’t defuse it, escape. If you can’t escape, then fight. If you do have to fight your way out of a bad situation, it should be as a last resort, not your first.
The sooner you recognise a potential threat, the more options you have to respond to it.

Imagine a time line spanning between the time a predator first forms the intent to commit a violent crime and the moment he begins to carry it out.
The time it takes you to detect, recognize and respond, determines your options and how successful your actions are likely to be. The sooner you act the more flexible and deliberate you can be in avoiding, escaping or responding to the situation.

Awareness strategies focus primarily on the pre incident phase of the encounter; to the cues and signals you can detect and recognise that will allow you to anticipate the event before it occurs.

Let us, for a minute imagine this scenario.

You plan to drive from home to your friend’s house which is miles away.  At the beginning of your journey, you have a variety of options available to you on how you are going to go get there.  You can choose from a variety of routes and make provisions for unexpected car trouble, delays and detours.  You have options.
The closer you get to your friends house, the more limited you are with your options and the flexibility of your travel plans.  On the threshold of arriving you only have two options, they are pull up and stop or don’t.

Self Defence is like that.  The sooner you detect and recognise a situation unfolding, the more options you have to respond to it.  The longer those cues go undetected, the more limited you are about what you can do to influence the situation in your favour.  If your first recognition of an assault is the physical attack, then you’re dangerously limited to reacting.

Tribalism – Garry Smith

There are may definitions of what constitutes tribalism out there and I chose the Cambridge Dictionaries Online one for its simplicity and clarity. I needed something workable, not overcomplicated, as a lens to look at the martial arts/self defence world through So here is the definition from CDO.

1 The state of existing as a tribe, or a very strong feeling of loyalty to your tribe.

2 A very strong feeling of loyalty to a political or social group, so that you support them whatever they do.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/tribalism

Recently I have had a few long chats with fellow school owners in other pats of the UK about the extent of tribalism that seems endemic in the industry. They, like I, continually try to stay away from getting sucked into it. The strap line of this magazine, truth not tribalism, guides my thinking. I know of many people who are involved in disputes and feuds with other practitioners on all sorts of issues, very public ones too and they all too often degenerate into ya boo name calling. Friends join in, tribes form, the othering starts and off we go.

Just look at America tearing itself apart as righteous indignation fuelled by emotions that  ignites conflict between Republican and Democrat, and we are still in the primaries. In the UK we have a referendum soon on our membership of the EU and it will get messy here too soon. No surprises here, as explained in ‘The Righteous Mind’, (Heidt 2012), we find it hard to get along with ‘others’ who think differently than us because our minds are designed to be moral. Not only that, we are hard-wired to be moralistic, judgemental and self-righteous, we are right, you are wrong. It is a carry over from the millions of years of living in tribes, starting with small family groups of hominids, and growing into larger and larger groups over millennia.

In his book Sapiens, (Harari 2011/14), argues it is the innate and uniquely human ability to create imagined realities that then manifest themselves in norms and values that underpins our tendency towards tribalism. Nothing is real, not in the sense that all aspects of all societies are social constructs. As societies and cultures evolved overtime even peoples living in similar ecological conditions  created very different imagined realities that manifested themselves in different norms and values.

Take this alongside our biological evolution as sapiens spread throughout the world, staying one species, but through a mixture of natural selection, mutation and adaptation we gradually grew to look different too, we then had ‘races’ adding to the mix, lets throw in class and gender or it will just get too big. The  combination of biological and cultural evolution is much debated in anthropology but if we stay with the general view that each fed off the other it helps us see how throughout the growth of human populations, however they were socially organised, hunter gatherers, agricultural, industrial and post industrial, we have remained tribal. We still have our shamans, totems and talismen today they just take on different forms, so it should not surprise us that we find it easy to form tribal views with the accompanying feelings of loyalty and belonging whatever the tribe does.

If we fast forward today as societies fragment into ever smaller social groups we see a resurgence, I would argue, in tribalism. The great isms of the last century caused the loss of hundreds of millions of lives as people rallied to their totems and fought for the rights that their tribe supported, all imagined realities.

In with fascism, communism and capitalism we can include the ‘great’ religions and when one overlays the other it becomes an intricate ideological web. We are all there somewhere in that web, I have a joke I share with my Catholic friends, I remind them that whilst I am an atheist, I am a protestant atheist. My background, my past, my experiences are influenced by my past including the choices I have made influencing the choices I have to make. The culture I grew up in, that I have inculcated, plays its part through the strength of attachment each of us feels through our shared values and norms. Of course the shared subscription to our imagined realities, invisible to most people is what makes this possible, these are incredibly powerful forces.

This meme from the internet links what we do with one imagined reality, I use this one as most of my heritage is more than likely Anglo Saxon, any other would do along with the whatever selective creation myth we may or not subscribe to.

wyro

I wrote in January’s CM about the interaction of past,present and future. They are inextricably linked and our awareness of who we are, where we are going, who with, why etc. will develop if we acknowledge this. A web of fate is as good a description as any other for now.

Most people do not like the above as it is too abstract a thought, the world does not just exist of subjective meaning devoid of objective reality. Of course there are objective realities, I sit on a chair at a desk typing on a laptop inside a house, I can see and feel them, they are real objects and I am surrounded by tens of thousands of other objects, they are real. Well this is no problem for us, objective realities are related to imagined realities. It reminds me of my studies in sociology when we looked at Marx’s base v superstructure model.

 

structure

Marx was interested in the interaction between the base and superstructure in order to analyse the structure of a given society and the social structures that proliferate from that structure.

“Superstructure, quite simply and expansively, refers to all other aspects of society. It includes culture, ideology (world views, ideas, values, and beliefs), norms and expectations, identities that people inhabit, social institutions (education, religion, media, family, among others), the political structure, and the state (the political apparatus that governs society). Marx argued that the superstructure grows out of the base, and reflects the interests of the ruling class that controls the base. As such, it justifies how the base operates, and the power of the ruling class.

From a sociological standpoint, it’s important to recognize that neither the base nor the superstructure are naturally occurring, nor are they static.

They are both social creations (created by people in a society), and both are the accumulation of social processes and interactions between people that are constantly playing out, shifting, and evolving.”

http://sociology.about.com/od/Key-Theoretical-Concepts/fl/Base-and-Superstructure.htm

I use it simply to demonstrate the complex relationships that do exist but I err towards the dominance of thought over matter, I think Marx got it partly right, I think the evidence that has emerged since he constructed his model would expand what he was claiming and whatever the structure, human thought was the root not the thinking and ideology of one class..

That the base and superstructure influence  one another is accepted but the origins of ideas in primitive societies, beginning with the emergence of animism, but before that with the emergence of consciousness itself is not part of the model. Vast improvements in scientific methods, the codification of the human genome and other recent rapid advances have brought biological explanations for human behaviour back to the fore.

As the genus Homo experienced significant changes in brain size, architecture, as our environment changed and different forms of social organisations and diet change they all combined to accelerate the process of evolution to eventually produce, via natural selection “a new kind of animal. It transformed into an animal who sets arbitrary standards of behaviour on what is considered to be right and wrong.” (Leakey 1994). Sapiens.

It has been a long journey of discovery to get us to this point but my meanderings above are necessary to help me get a handle on the behaviour of my peers. What causes, grown men, mostly, to indulge in spiteful name calling, in public via social media for instance? My system is better than your system, my style better than yours, your rank meaningless whilst my lineage is pure…..

People fight over the value of awards ceremonies, politics abound and in the end the sum result is we are all the lesser for it happening.

The best thing is most of those involved adhere to warrior codes that are better than those of their foes, they claim to be rising above the argument whilst sinking deeper into the mire, they gather sycophant supporters who all reassure one another they are all wonderful people whilst but the other side are not. It is tribalism writ large.

Yes we all see obvious fakes, the proponents of empty force for instance, the con merchants. We see people with numerous dan grades, some they earned others awarded by mates, or worse still bought. We all know this happens. Does it stop us doing what we do?

The answer should be no, the answer should be well actually it makes me redouble my efforts to become the best I can so that I can better help others become better than me. Getting bogged down in tribalism, sticking to the tribal view whatever the tribe does, is a destructive process. It is a downhill struggle as rather than concentrating on what you are doing, possibly within your own tribe, interacting with others and seeking knew knowledge, you sink into the trap of defining yourself by what your enemy does not do rather than what you do.

The focus shifts from developing a clear and coherent training experience underpinned with principles based teaching, to a we are better that them offer. Your tribe members will support you, like you on FB, cheer you to the echo but this has no value outside your tribe. Emotions get triggered all the way through this and as I see the feuds develop, and sometimes spread, you can see emotions fanning the flames, Just like the fire triangle with heat, fuel, oxygen on 3 sides, replace this with emotion, social media and tribalism and you can smell conflict in the air before you see the flames.

Everything you are arguing about has no objective reality they are ideas. They are ideas that have originated in our unique ability to create imagined realities, your imagined realities are based on your past and your present and an infinite number of potential variables including the  long evolutionary journey of your ancestors and all their thoughts, experiences and choices made. When tribalism dominates the mindset of a social group, whatever the group does then we have a form of group-think and individuals get lost  and the process controls the tribe instead of the other way round.

I will say for the record tribes are cool, I belong to many and some overlap. I have tried to show that this need to belong is so deeply rooted in us that it is practically undeniable.

But tribalism is a problem, in my opinion, tribes exist only by comparison to other tribes who are different. If what you do is all fine and dandy and the best there can be, then those different tribes out there must be getting something wrong. Ignore them, it will have no baring on what you do, better still, talk to them and if you can share some things do so, if not part in peace. If you do see yourself as a warrior, I do not for the record, if you claim to have a code of conduct, I do not for the record, then follow it. Try not to become a massive cockwomble in public because your emotions pour out all over social media and expose your tribalism.

 

 

 

 

 

Youth – Jeffrey Johnson

Before getting too deep into this second part on crisis intervention with youth, I want to remind the reader that this is far from an exhaustive treatment of things to know. I’m sure one point I make here could easily be dedicated to a full chapter in a book on the subject. This is really basic, and I would encourage anyone reading this to study for themselves and, more importantly, align themselves with the nearest veteran staff member working in your program/unit/facility/school. The perspective of a veteran staff with a rep for doing good work is invaluable and more often than not the ideal example to follow.

Read this scenario. This is a textbook example of how a crisis might start in your setting.

“Danny, can you take a seat?”

“NOPE.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t fuckin talk to me.”

“Ok, but you can’t stand in the middle of the classroom while I teach math.”
“FUCK this CLASS.” (Pushes books off of your desk)

I want you to re-read that and really imagine it. I want you to note how the situation made you feel and what you thought. This is what will inform your decisions, and your decisions can make this easier or way more difficult. I want you to think about whether you imagined “Danny” as white, black, latino, Asian, or any other background. I want you to note whether or not you imagined this young person as big or small, athletic, skinny, or fat. I need you to consider all of this because your expectations will alter your choices.

I also want you to note whether you took it personal. If you take it personal, you will not be effective.

To be truly effective you have to have a lot of background knowledge. I said in part one that you should already know the objectives and guidelines of the organization you work for, what the rules and expectations of the classroom/unit are, what the enforceable consequences are and what qualifies in your organization as aggressive behavior. You should know the case history of the young person if that is possible. You should have some familiarity with family and community issues. The more you know, the better chance you have at making decisions that don’t blow up in your face. Even knowing how the weather might be affecting your clients is valuable. Our clients got restless around winter and the holiday season. The times that are stressful for the rest of us can impact youth with emotional problems much more significantly.

In a public school, a teenager sweeping the books off of a teacher’s desk in a threatening manner would be a huge deal. It was a huge deal in the schools I worked in, but for us, detention, suspension, and expulsion were not options. We had to deal with  these situations and attempt long-term strategies to change the behaviors so that this young person might become a functional adult. In the program I worked in, we were also authorized to use physical restraint-a “last resort” decision that sometimes was the only option when things went south badly.

Time and Space

If you are too angry to be rational, do you want to have conversation with a manager at work that is always enforcing rules and checking up on you to make sure you are doing your job? The answer is obvious.  These clients often have a difficult time trusting adults because the adults have failed them. In some cases, adults have severely abused them physically, sexually, or through neglect. They have been made promises that have ended up broken. They have learned that authority figures like teachers, case managers, police officers, magistrates and judges are only present to crack down on them.

Giving a young person time to calm down (note: do not EVER use the phrase “calm down.” It comes off as condescending and only makes people more aggravated) and space away from you or others can start to de-escalate the situation. There must be boundaries to this, however. For example the young person can stay in THIS room with me and one other staff member. When he calms down enough, we’ll ask if he wants some water just to feel out how he is responding. We issue directions only with the goal in mind of helping the young person to get calm and collected. If there is no need to touch him, DO NOT touch him. If talking to him about your expectations will agitate him, don’t. Just have the plan in mind. But be ready to change the plan if necessary. Holding on to a plan concretely can cause some problems.

In the above situation, I might start with asking “Danny” if he would please just leave the room so that the rest of the clients could have math class. Obviously, this doesn’t always work, especially if you haven’t caught on to the problem in time (there are a lot of distractions in a classroom). Next I might have other staff escort the remaining clients out of the space to take away the audience. If the client doesn’t want a major situation, then he will stay in the classroom alone. If he makes a move for the door (which you and at least one other staff member should be standing at, ready, anyway), then obviously you have to physically intervene (remember to ask yourself if this is allowable in your organization. Don’t put yourself in a bad legal situation or in the unemployment line because you didn’t think things through.) He may amp up as soon as I start making directions, and depending on what he is doing we may have to move in and limit his space. We need to send a message that this isn’t ok and we won’t stand for it, but we’re not just moving right into using force. And if he starts getting physical, then your restraint training will be necessary. Be keenly aware of the rules for this and the physical safety of the client and others around you.

I hope you are noticing how many different twists and turns this all takes. That’s why I say not to be bound to the plan. Being aware of multiple strategies, multiple possibilities, not taking it personally and keeping safety as the number one objective is all crucial. Otherwise, you are making your job impossible and creating dangerous circumstances for yourself and everyone working with you, as well as the clients you are serving.

Physical Intervention

There is a range of physical interventions that are appropriate for dealing with these kinds of situations. As I said before, if touching the client isn’t absolutely necessary, don’t. If you do touch him, then be ready to get really physical really fast. You are probably dealing with a trauma survivor. It’s possible that touch can trigger a traumatic  reenactment and push the client even further into aggressiveness and irrationality.

But you have boundaries and a right to protect them, for sure. It should ideally start with a verbal command and an assertion of what you feel your boundary is. The client should be made clear what he is allowed to do.

“Danny, you have this whole room to use if you need, but I can’t let you in my space. You need to back up.” If the client is amped up, pacing, you are likely standing at this point anyway. If you are, you may want to position yourself in a way that makes it easier to respond to whatever happens next. You may want to take a step back with one foot, leaving one side of your body more forward than the other (my right side is dominant, but I always step back with the right as a habit of martial arts training. I feel more comfortable with my strong side “chambered,” even though I don’t intend to use any strikes at all). I don’t raise my hands to chest level unless the client is close, so if I can I keep my arms extended with my hands no higher than my belt-line. High hands can signal a desire to fight, or make an excuse for the client to become more aggressive. Stepping back as opposed to stepping forward implies that I don’t want a conflict, but I’m wary of what is happening and readying myself.

If the client has gotten too close, I may use my left forearm and open palm against his chest with a firm command “You need to get out of my space right now.” I don’t mention the restraint. That’s a challenge that leads to more physical aggression. I don’t have to make eye contact with him to see him. I may keep my eyes trained on his chest or at the wall or floor keeping him tracked in my peripheral vision. Meeting eyes is a challenge as well. Being mindful of all the non-verbal communication is really important, because you can set yourself up for an unnecessary altercation by looking through to the back of a client’s head because he just called you a bitch.

Often when we become frustrated we take in a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh. It’s just this kind of breathing we should practice in times of calm and use as soon as situations begin to get stressful. We’ll be more likely to maintain level-headedness despite the dump of adrenaline, which often leads to a dry mouth, spaghetti noodle knees, a shaky voice and even shakier hands. At least that’s what happens to me. These symptoms can be frustrating for someone used to that adrenaline dumb since they appear to be signs of fear. Looking fearful can be a button that an aggressive person uses to push and manipulate you. Breathing can still help to keep you rational enough not to make major errors in your tactical thinking. You will likely be getting called every name imaginable, threatened, and eventually even assaulted, and you can’t afford to let upset be the major motivating factor in how your intervention plays out.

In the program I worked for, we were trained in TCI-Therapeutic Crisis Intervention, which has it’s own approved restraint techniques. Make sure you know well what is trained in your program and do your best not to deviate from that training. I am often asked if I used my martial arts training in this kind of work. Aside from being physically more fit and acclimated to physical aggression, I always answer, emphatically, “no.” Obviously striking is 100% unacceptable. Joint locks could lead to major injuries, and throws on a concrete floor could kill a client. I think I reacted quickly because of the training I received, and could change what I was doing relatively easily in response to whatever the need was, but knowing how to hurt people was only useful in helping me know what NOT to do at work. Sensitivity training was useful though, because you could tell what someone was intending to do based on how they moved against you. It’s important to know the difference between an attempt to scratch an itch and an attempt to grab a handful of skin from your abdominal region.  

I won’t advise anymore on physical intervention because your organization will have it’s own rules regulating the use of physical intervention. Know them, follow them, and do what you can (within reason) to prevent needing to use them. But when you have to use them, don’t be hesitant. That can lead to injury for you or the client and make the situation more explosive.

Debriefing

In the aftermath of a physical intervention it’s important to debrief with a client, peers, and supervisors to review what worked, what didn’t work, and what everyone can do differently in the future to prevent the need for a physical intervention. The debrief with the client is separate from the one with coworkers, even if all of your co workers were present during the crisis and the debrief with the client.

Debriefing with the client might look like this:

“Ok Danny, can you tell me what happened?”

“I was mad about what Steven said to me in the bathroom so when I came to math I wanted to fight someone.”

“Ok. What did Steven say to you that made you want to fight?” (This statement reflects that I heard what he has already said)

“He said I looked gay in the shirt I’m wearing.”

“Oh…that really bothered you, huh?”

“Nah, not really, but when I tried to leave the bathroom he touched my arm and I told him don’t do no shit like that.”
“Do you think you handled this the best way you could have?”

“No.”
“What could you have done differently?”

“Asked you to let me sit in the hall until I calmed down.”
“Do you feel comfortable telling me what’s going on before we have a problem?”

“Yes.”

“Can we try that next time?”

“Yes.”
“Ok. Now you know this situation was serious. You will have to deal with the consequences of what happened. I don’t want to hold this against you for long though, but we have to be fair.”
“I know.”
“Ok. So in the future what can you do?”

“Tell you what’s going on and ask to leave the classroom til I calm down.”

That is really oversimplified, but essentially what a debrief with the client looks like. It is to ensure that all parties are on the same page, understanding what is expected going forward and united towards the same goals. It certainly doesn’t always go smoothly and depends a lot on rapport between client and staff.

Debriefing with colleagues looks similar. What happened? What can we do differently? How can we prevent this? Who else can help? What is our plan for tomorrow when Danny and Steven see each other? What other staff members need to be informed so they can be prepared as well? Are you okay? How can we help you next time? This is also a good time to own up to mistakes. This builds trust with colleagues and lets them know you are invested in what they are trying to accomplish with their clients.

Again, this is too brief to really do justice to the topic, but I think it provides the reader with a good place to start. Again, genuine care for the job and the clients, being aware of your organization’s  expectations, rules and policies, knowing when to talk, when to shut up, when to give space or limit it, and the appropriate physical interventions is all key to success working with young people who are severely emotionally disturbed.

The Green Zone, Red Zone, Grey Zone, and Blue Zone – Do You Train only for the Green Zone? – Erik Kondo

Four Zones

When most people think of martial arts based self-defense, they think of an athletic and skilled martial artist beating up an attacker. And most effective martial arts training does in fact, teach you how to win a fight. When you are in the process of winning, you are aggressive, confident, and performing well. You are damaging your opponent and he or she is not damaging you. You are in a strong position and your opponent is in a weak position. Whether you dispatch your opponent with karate, jujitsu, MMA or some other style, it doesn’t really matter. Assuming you have reasonable skill, whatever techniques you apply, they will most likely do the job. You are in the Green Zone.

When you are in the Green Zone, you are performing at your optimum.  As long as you can stay in the Green Zone, you are likely to defeat or successfully disengage from your opponent. The problem is that in a true self-defense situation, your attacker doesn’t want to let you fight back in the Green Zone. He or she wants you to be the Red Zone. The Red Zone is where you are in the process of losing. You are being overwhelmed. You are fearful or frozen. You are unsure of how to respond. You are a psychological and physiological mess. You are taking damage and not damaging your assailant. You are in a weak position and he or she is in a strong position. You are NOT performing at an optimum level.

Most traditional martial arts training doesn’t teach you how to deal with the Red Zone. It teaches you how to fight when you are in the Green Zone. Realistic physical self-defense requires that you know how to get out of the Red Zone and into the Green Zone before it’s too late.

Prior to a physical conflict, you are in the Gray Zone. From the Gray Zone it is a quick transition to either losing in the Red Zone or winning in the Green Zone. Your assailant’s goal is to get you into the Red Zone as quickly and as easily as possible. He doesn’t want to risk having to deal with you in the Green Zone. Therefore, he uses tactics such as an ambush, deception, a weapon(s), superior numbers, etc. to overwhelm you. He uses the Golden Attack (See Rory Miller’s Golden Move). The goal of the Golden Attack is use overwhelming violence to:

  1. Damage you.
  2. Prevent damage to him.
  3. Worsen your position.
  4. Improve his position.

Once you are put into the Red Zone, you may never get out and apply your Green Zone skills. And that is exactly what your attacker intends to happen.

Conversely, if you find yourself starting off in the Green Zone, most likely it is because you are illegally fighting and not in a self-defense situation. In this case, dispatching your opponent with your martial arts skills may land you in jail or in civil court.

Some martial arts instructors have circumvented the reality of the Red Zone by advocating the use of a Pre-emptive Strike against the Bad Guy. In this case, it is you that launches the first attack. You initiate the transition from the Grey Zone into the Green Zone. For simplicity and ease of teaching, the instructor ignored/justifies the legal aspects of the Pre-emptive Strike with the use of Bad Guy labeling (opponent is a known murderer/rapist/etc.) But as a practical matter, you now are the one that has used the Golden Attack. And more than likely, you will need to articulate why you did what you did, to the police and possibly a judge and jury.

What happens after a violent incident is the Blue Zone. It is here that you will have to explain your actions to society as to why your response was legal self-defense. In order to do so, you need to know how the law applies to your situation. You need to articulate the reasoning for your actions beyond only stating that “you were afraid for your life”.

Golden Feed vs. Golden Attack

It is typical for martial arts techniques to be demonstrated and taught in response to a simulated “attack”. This attack is really a Golden Feed disguised as a Golden Attack. It is a Golden Feed when:

  • You are mentally and physically prepared to respond.
  • You are literally waiting for the “attack” to happen, which then acts as the trigger for your prepared response.
  • The “attack” doesn’t damage you, prevent damage to your opponent, weaken your position, strengthen your opponent’s position
  • You are not concerned with the negative consequences of your response, which means you have full conviction that your response is the “right” thing to do.
  • Your opponent’s attack was singular in nature. For example, he only tries to punch or grab you but then does nothing else. As a result, you are able to respond with multiple movements to his one movement.

To summarize, your opponent’s “attack” is actually a setup for you to launch your own Golden Attack. To the uninformed, it may look as if you are training from the Red Zone, but you are actually in the Green Zone.

Situational Awareness is only part of the Grey Zone

Most traditional self-defense instruction talks frequently about the importance of situational awareness. The basic premise is that by being aware of your surroundings you can avoid being assaulted and ending up in the Red Zone. The other aspect is that by demonstrating that you are an aware person, you can deter potential attackers. These are two important aspects of the Grey Zone, but there are more. Situational awareness is only a subset of the Grey Zone.

The Grey Zone is the series of events that occur before a potential or actual assault. Maybe you are assaulted, or maybe you are not. The Grey Zone is a place of uncertainty.

You might be aware of an impending threat, but that doesn’t mean you know how to deal with that particular threat. Or possibly, you are mentally aware of your surroundings, yet you don’t “see” the threat developing because you don’t recognize it as such. Realizing that you have problem doesn’t mean you know exactly what the problem is, or that you have the knowledge and means to fix it.

In the Grey Zone, your emotional Monkey Brain may influence you to act in a manner that you intellectually know is contrary to your best interests, but you do it anyway. Dealing with the Grey Zone requires not only situational awareness, but knowledge of criminal behavior, violence dynamics, environmental knowledge, understanding your own abilities and limitations, and above all good judgement and critical thinking.

No matter how proficient you are at fighting in the Green Zone, unless you have learned to avoid or survive the Red Zone, navigate the Grey Zone, and mitigate the Blue Zone, your self-defense training is deficient.

Clint Overland on the Red Zone

“I like being other people’s Red Zone. I start where most people have to build up to.

Say that you have made promises to either do something. Pay a debt or deliver a product at a certain price for a certain amount and you decided to welch on your word. And maybe you have the balls to back it up, and the ones you lied to don’t have the strength to discipline you for your indiscretions. But they have the money. That’s where a hard crew comes in. We enforce their will by starting at the Red Zone.

Now you as the Welcher may be a total bad ass. A walking Martial arts legend. Death on Two legs.

I am going to know this because I have researched you. This helps me formulate my plan of action. My crew and I will do it on you when you are least expecting it. First we, pepper spray you in the face, and then taze you while you’re screaming. Next, while you’re down, two of us take hammers to your legs and arms. Removing the threat to us. This is why pros work in Red Zones. Your best option is too stay out of them.”

Terry Trahan on the Red Zone

“The Red Zone is a paradox. You don’t want to be there by accident. But, it is the place you want to push your opponent to be as soon as physical conflict becomes your tool to end the situation.

Once that switch has been flipped, everything you do should have two purposes;

1) make sure you go home, and 2) overwhelm your opponent in order to end it quickly.

If you are being pre-emptive, you don’t initiate violence until everything is lined up in your favor: position, weapons, allies, whatever you have to tip the odds your way, and throw your opponent into his Red Zone.

If all of your situational and environmental awareness has failed, and you are in a reactive mode, you must force your attacker into his Red Zone as quickly as you can. Aggression, forward drive, environmental control and savageness until you can make your exit.

By overwhelming him, you put yourself in control, and keep him spiraling and falling into his Red Zone.”

 

Spring Cleaning – Toby Cowern

As the snow melts, light draws out for longer each day and Winter gives way to Spring I now begin the process of packing away all my ‘extreme winter gear’ and breaking out the boxes of ‘summer stuff’.

All well and good Toby, you say, but what does this have to do with Conflict?

Well, one of the routines I have through the year is periodic inspection and maintenance of my equipment. A lot of my professional equipment I am literally entrusting my life to, so keeping it in good condition and working order is essential.

One of the things I find consistently when running (Survival) courses is a lot of people’s fundamental lack of knowledge or understanding when it comes to equipment maintenance, ESPECIALLY with regards to edged tools, although this sadly, very often extends to firearms and other items as well. A staggering number of people will own multiple knives etc but have very little idea on how to effectively sharpen and otherwise maintain them….!

With this short article I would encourage you all, instructors and students alike to make this month one where you focus on:

  • a) Inspecting the equipment you routinely carry to make sure it is in good order.
  • b) Thoroughly clean and maintain your equipment.
  • c) Encourage someone else to also do so…!

School owners, consider ending a class this week by encouraging or inspecting your student’s knives etc they may be carrying and make sure they are in good order and condition… You *may* be surprised at the results…

Clint Overland mentioned in the March issue of Conflict Manager that ‘Complacency Is a Killer’. I agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment and firmly extend that to the realm of failing to maintain your equipment correctly…

Marc MacYoung tells a story from when he was in high school where someone slashed him hard across the forearm, but their knife was so blunt it had no effect!

This gives a stark example of the very real consequences of not maintaining your equipment. So make a little time this month for a ‘Spring Clean’ of your essential gear!

For any questions or advice on ways to best maintain equipment, just post a thread on our Conflict Manager FB page, and our team of experts will be happy to help you.

Selling Fear – Amanda Kruse

Recently I had a conversation with a friend about the fact that I quit teaching self defense for money (well, in reality, there was never much money involved). My friend, who also has years of  martial arts experience, felt sorry for my “failed” business and encouraged me to try again. He thought if I really pushed to market my teen/female workshops more aggressively I would get more interest.

Let’s look at the “failed” business issue first. I actually don’t look at the end of my self defense business as a failure. The entire experience gave me unmatched personal growth opportunities. The business idea forced me out of my comfort zone (public speaking), provided me with a wealth of knowledge on business and self defense and allowed me to meet and learn from some pretty amazing people* to boot. No regrets here.

As for my friend’s suggestion of using better marketing strategies, well, he’s right. I probably could have done better with the marketing. A bit of an ethical dilemma arises for me on that issue though. Read on.

My workshops consisted of a significant amount of information on prevention and prediction, with actual physical self-defense “techniques” as secondary content. When people think about self-defense, they think of that proverbial stranger that jumps out of the bushes and attacks innocent passers by. Yet, my workshops did not focus on this type of violence to a great extent. The core composition of my workshops focused on the areas that posed the greatest risk of harm to the teens and women attending. In fact, boundary setting was a central theme, along with prediction of relationship violence and ways to avoid situations that could lead to acquaintance rape.

Ultimately, prevention and prediction do not sell as well as so-called knockout self-defense moves that will presumably end the attack on the spot. I say presumably because, as those of us studying self-defense know, you can have some amazing “techniques”, but there is no way to know if you can/will use them successfully when faced with real life violence. Unfortunately, the general public is misinformed on frequency and types of violence and, therefore, tend to erroneously believe that those knockout techniques are exactly what they need for self-protection.    

I marketed my workshops according to the main content, spotlighting use of prevention and prediction to avoid violent situations in the first place, with some self-defense techniques sprinkled in. The decision was made to terminate the business when it became apparent to me that, in order to have an audience that feels self-defense is worth their time and money, I would have to sell fear.

Selling fear was exactly what my friend was suggesting would help with interest in my workshops. He isn’t the first person to encourage me to do this. In fact, I was told early on that I should watch the local news for stories of females, particularly female college students, that have been assaulted. When these stories came out, I was advised to contact the media in an attempt to get a short interview on how I can teach others the self-defense moves that would end an assault such as the one being reported.

In the time since I ended my self-defense business, I have learned a bit about marketing through my pursuit of other business ideas. One of the most important points I’ve taken away from this is, in order to draw in your target audience/market, you have to use the same words they use when talking about your “product”.  If we extrapolate this out and view self-defense as a product, when people talk about self-defense, their words are:

“I think it’s useful for others, but I…

…live in a safe neighborhood”

…don’t feel unsafe in my life”

…know a martial art”

…carry a weapon”

…don’t have the time”

…don’t have the money”

Overall, the message is that people just don’t think self-defense is an urgent need that they want to take the time and money to pursue. In order to get them to think differently, one would have to make them believe that they are, more likely than not, in danger of being assaulted at some point in the near future. Thus, you have to sell them fear.

Selling fear works. News programs sell fear to gain an audience; the more extreme the story, the more people are likely to watch and keep watching, particularly if they believe it may affect their own lives. Politicians are experts at selling fear to gain support. Instead of a focus on solving problems, they prey on people’s fears and insecurities by making extreme, shocking comments to draw attention to those insecurities. Selling fear is a marketing tactic that works like a charm.

So therein lies my ethical issue with selling fear to get better attendance at my workshops. Statistics show a drop in violent crime over the past 20 plus years. Females are much more likely to become victims of interpersonal violence rather than random violent crime. This is not the stuff that sells a self-defense workshop.

Selling fear is dishonest. Anyone can use statistics to claim their position, or their product, is the one that will stop the source of the fear, whatever that fear may be. The marketing of fear adds to paranoia and misinformation.

Does all of this mean I don’t believe in self-defense and will not teach any more? Absolutely not. I believe the information in my self-defense workshops is immensely important and I continue to educate myself on all aspects related to the topic. I still love providing the workshops to engaged groups that seek me out and want the information, though I do it strictly on a volunteer basis. I will teach what I believe is important and right, not what sells.

*Erik Kondo of CRGI was one of the people that I am grateful to have met on my journey. He took time out of his busy life to guide and educate me on the many layers of self-defense, allowing me to pass on the best information to others. Many thanks, Erik.

How to Deal with a Found Gun – Kathy Jackson

One morning, I opened my computer to find an all-too-common type of news article. The story reported that a law enforcement officer had left her firearm in a public restroom, where it had been found by a 5-year-old child.

Cue the gnashing of teeth and wailing – but first, hear the rest. The child who found the gun was not harmed, nor did she put anyone else in danger. That’s because the little girl’s parents had taught her what to do in case she ever ran across a gun. “We make [our children] understand, bad things can happen when you play with it like a toy, because it’s not a toy,” the mother said.

The little girl stopped when she saw the gun. She did not touch it. She left the area immediately, and she told an adult what she had seen. Textbook success!

Here’s the kicker: the person to whom the gun belonged had already left the restaurant. And the little girl quite rightly trusted the other adults around her – gun owners or not – to know what to do about the gun she found in a public place.

Do you?

Before we dismiss this question as irrelevant (“That never happens!”), let’s explore the possible ways that a firearm may end up in the hands of a non gun owner. By looking at some of the causes and possible settings, it will be somewhat easier to explore ways to solve the problem with a minimum of fuss or danger to others.

In addition to the possibility of finding a gun in a public restroom – which happens far, far more often than it should – people have found guns in city parks, in used and rental cars, in newly-purchased homes, and in hotel rooms.

Embarrassingly, many of these forgotten guns come from law enforcement officers, but not all do. That’s not surprising, given that nearly 50% of American households legally own at least one firearm. There’s some reason to believe there may be many more gun-owning households than that, given the number of otherwise honest people who would happily lie to an anonymous pollster. And of course this statistic does not include illegal and hidden guns.

So a few rules to remember.

First, don’t panic. Guns do not “go off” by themselves. As long as no one is touching the gun, it is really nothing to worry about. It is just an object. It may be a scary object, but it is only an object. It cannot do anything dangerous on its own. You don’t have to hurry to find a solution, because the gun will simply sit there while you carefully consider what to do. It won’t suddenly jump up and run off to commit mayhem if you take too long. You have time to think.

Think about your options. If no one else can enter the area, you may want to simply leave the gun right where it is. Leaving the gun alone is probably the best choice you can make in nearly all circumstances.

However, simply leaving the gun alone is not a good choice if you must leave in order to report what you found and there is no way to lock the room behind you when you leave. It’s not a safe choice if there are people around who know even less about firearms than you do, and who can’t be trusted to leave the gun alone. And it is especially not safe if there are children around who may be fascinated by the sight of an unsecured firearm.

So if you are unable to call help from where you are, and also unable to safely leave the gun where it is when you leave to get more-knowledgeable help, you may need to take the gun with you or move it to a more secure location. Carefully think through your choices before you act.

If the gun doesn’t need to be moved, don’t touch it. A gun found in a hotel room can simply be left in the hotel room, safely behind a locked door, as you march to the front desk to report your find. In a private home, you might lock the room where you found the gun while you decide what to do.

Public restrooms are more problematic, since you may not be able to lock others out of the room when you leave. Of course, there’s always the cell phone option: stay right where you are and leave the gun untouched as you pick up the cell phone to report what you found. If you have no cell service but do have a friend with you, you can ask your friend to alert others while you stay with the gun to be sure nobody touches it or picks it up.

If you absolutely must move the gun, follow these rules.

  • Assume the gun is loaded and ready to fire. Never assume that a found gun isn’t loaded. It probably is. Treat it respectfully and with appropriate caution.
  • Move slowly. You’re not in a hurry. You have time to think and to move carefully. The gun won’t do anything on its own and there’s no big rush. Take all the time you need. Pay attention to what you are doing with your hands at all times.
  • Never touch the trigger. The trigger makes the gun fire. You don’t want the gun to fire. So keep your fingers – all of them! – away from the trigger. Avoid touching the trigger guard area, too. The trigger guard (the loop of metal that goes underneath the trigger) is there to help you avoid touching the trigger, like a wire fence to keep you from falling into the lion’s cage. It’s best if you avoid leaning against that fence! So when you pick the gun up, put your index finger above the trigger guard, far away from the trigger and instead touching the upper part of the gun (the frame) if you can.
  • Pick it up by the handle. It might be tempting to pick it up with just two reluctant fingers to hold at arm’s length, as if it were a stinky, soiled diaper that you did not want to touch. But that’s not a safe way to move a gun. If you absolutely must pick it up, pick it up by the handle so you can control it securely. Then keep it pointed away from yourself at all times.
  • Point the gun at the ground, not at the sky and not just straight ahead. In most cases, the ground will be your safest bet, at least as long as your toes aren’t in the way. Avoid doing the “Charlie’s Angels” pose with it pointing at the sky. Don’t let it dangle loosely from your hand where it might inadvertently point at your knees or feet. Instead, deliberately keep it pointed about the ground about two feet in front of you. That way, if you do accidentally touch the trigger, the bullet will not hit your feet, and it will not bounce back up at you.
  • Put it down gently. Avoid dropping it or throwing it down. Just set it down carefully with the barrel pointed away from you.
  • Never handle the gun more than you need to in order to put it in a safe location. Avoid dithering with the gun in your hand. Simply move it from the unsafe place to the safer one, then put it down and leave it alone.
  • One more rule, and this one’s very important: If someone else is already handling the gun in ways you consider unsafe, leave the area. Do not argue with the person or try to tell them what to do. Do not stick around to see whether they improve. Do not walk past them to retrieve your belongings. Just get your precious and irreplaceable body out of the area as quietly and as quickly as you are able.
  • Although it’s unlikely you’ll ever come across a gun that doesn’t belong to you, it’s not impossible. With just a little forethought and some basic knowledge of firearms safety, you can stay safe and help keep others safe. Think about it now so you’ll know what to do then.
  • References:

News article: http://meredith.worldnow.com/story/30253058/parents-speak-out-after-young-girl-finds-sbi-agents-firearm-in-public-restroom

NRA “Eddie Eagle” Safety Materials: http://eddieeagle.nra.org/program-resources/program-materials

 

How Bad is your Bullshitsu Infection? – Jamie Clubb

“The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.” – Christopher Hitchens

I am currently in the process of editing, researching, writing and re-writing a multi-volume book entitled “Bullshitsu and the Fight to Make Martial Arts Work”. It is a project that I started around 2005 as an examination of the legacy of the R.B.S.D. (Reality-Based Self-Defence) movement, but has since evolved into a critical overview of martial arts subculture in general. My initial belief was that self-defence teachers were the modernist antidote to what had gone wrong in the combat arts. This left me with a huge scope of study, but I underestimated my task.

I expected to find charlatan instructors who had either been corrupted by commercialism or were hopelessly deluded by their own mythology. However, what I discovered was that critical thinking is a cold and hard tool of reasoning that has no loyalty to style, teacher, tradition, testimony or anecdote. It isn’t impressed by an individual’s level of experience or where they have taught. What I found was something that did not filter out a bunch of villains and nutcases, but a condition that permeated every part of martial arts subculture including the R.B.S.D. movement. Even when I deconstructed the most notorious controversial figures in the martial arts world, I often found uncomfortable reflections.

A lack of overall regulation, the persistence of tribalism and a general under-appreciation of the scientific method has allowed something comparable to a social virus to mutate and break down walls of logical reasoning in many a hardened fighter or reasoned teacher. I called it Bullshitsu, primarily because it made a mildly offensive title for my book, but also because it was a good martial art portmanteau equivalent for what many sceptics have used to loosely bracket all sorts of nonsense and magical thinking in society.

My sales blurb to one side, below are a selection of some reoccurring questions that I have found that help to identify the existence of Bullshitsu in one’s training, learning and teaching.

What do you know about your system’s history?

Even a modern system has its roots in something and will be modelled on the experience of an individual that has then been taught by someone else. As techniques and concepts are passed from teacher to teacher, changes are invariably made. Many martial artists rightfully argue that they are continuing a living tradition that they can prove has an unbroken lineage stretching back for generations. Others are trying to reproduce a system that died long ago, sometimes as an immersive historical investigation. In both instances a type of irrational thought that psychologist Bruce Hood calls “essentialism” often takes place. Nothing, not even physical objects, can age without some form of change taking place. This isn’t to discredit individuals who try to preserve a tradition or resurrect one, but to acknowledge the inevitability of constant change influenced by a wide variety of forces.

A third group, which operate alone or as part of the other two, are those who believe in and/or propagate martial arts mythology. These are individuals who put their faith in the word of teachers who have no evidence to back up the roots of their art. Many martial arts have attached their origins to unprovable lineages, sometimes stretching back to pseudohistories about the Japanese Ninja, the Korean Hwarang, the Chinese Shaolin Monks, the European Knights Templar, the Russian Kossaks and many more besides. Ethnocentric ideas of hyperdiffusionism have put forward many creation myths where one country is seen as the root for all martial arts learning. Russia, Greece, India and China all have persistent martial arts creation myths. Despite the fact that any culture with access to wood has independently developed a hunting bow seems to escape this mind-set.

Understanding what the evidence tells us about a system’s roots and its evolution helps prevent us from operating off a false premise.  

Have you ever properly questioned your teacher?

Many martial arts operate in a tribal hierarcical subculture. The person at the top is the seat of all knowledge and so it goes through his most senior instructors the various instructors under them. It is a top down system of control. If the chief instructor changes his mind on something, which virtually all of them do to some degree, the entire martial art he heads changes with him or splits off in protest. If he dies then his named successor takes on the mantle and so on. Other instructors do have a say on matters, especially if they suddenly prove themselves to be successful, but the changes are often subtle. There isn’t usually an established or respected line of feedback coming up through the ranks that will have a regular impact on the head instructor. Meanwhile, in an even more tightly controlled environment, within the classroom the student works to please the instructor (or a grading panel) more than improving their actual education in the martial art.  

Pretty much every system of martial art in the world is somehow the result of direct or indirect cross-training. Tribal protectiveness led to many associations and clubs to ban their students and instructors from training elsewhere. We live in supposedly more open times, where cross-training programmes have become more common. However, what has happened now is that it is often the club that controls the cross-training, providing experiences in other arts to retain their students’ interest. Even systems that pride themselves on progressive and open-minded cross-training tend to stick to the same predictable martial arts systems.

Having a teacher who is above being questioned can lead to all sorts of problems. I have seen combat sports teachers and even world champions buying into pseudoscientific remedies and endorsing self-help ideals that have no basis in actual proven application.  Likewise, I have seen both traditional and modern martial arts teachers use their authority to endorse both sides of the political spectrum. What’s worse is the way such politics get integrated into the actual teaching.

Encouraging critical thinking as part of a teaching process is not about being ridiculously liberal in a class and allowing argumentative timewasters to nit-pick at an instructor. Argument for the sake of argument is just pseudoscepticism, which can be as damaging as unthinking credulity. However, encouraging an environment where students can investigate, question and feedback is progressive and makes martial arts more in line with science than a belief system.

Do you have any sacred cows?

Martial arts are full of concepts that have come to distinguish individual styles. It’s easy to see it in the traditional martial arts. Some stick rigidly to linear principles of movement, others throw their lot in exclusively with circular movements, there are those who focus everything off the centre-line principle and some have compulsory set forms; then there those who place their belief in the existence of esoteric energy. Finally we have the various philosophies – religious and otherwise – that have become welded on and intertwined with the teaching of martial arts.

Modernist martial artists might scoff at such adherence to certain structures or belief systems, but they would be wrong in thinking this was something restricted to traditionalists. The R.B.S.D. world has accumulated its own stockpile of concepts that are often referenced as if they were holy sacraments of knowledge and wisdom. They are often linked to the mid-20th century luminaries of the USA. From the military we have Colonel John Boyd’s O.O.D.A. Loop, Sergeant Dennis Tueller’s Drill and Lt. Colonel Jeff Cooper’s Colour Code. From psychology we have Hick’s Law created by William Edmund Hick and Ray Hyman and Guthrie’s Law theorised by Edwin R. Guthrie.

How often are these theories held up to scrutiny? How often are they questioned or properly tested within martial arts/self-defence lessons? Yet all have been readily questioned outside of the R.B.S.D. subculture with mixed conclusions. Times move on, a society moves on and so does science. Critical thinking martial arts are not dismissive of established principles, but they don’t accept panaceas and are wary of certainty in the context of teaching.

Perhaps your sacred cows lie in people. All the great martial arts pioneers had their faults and often questionable belief systems. Accepting them as fallible human beings and understanding what influenced their decisions allows you to take more responsibility for your training. We can honour a person’s work without having to slavishly defend all their idiosyncrasies, quirks and ideals. We can even separate art from artist in some instances. However, believing in total inerrancy of a leader – even if that inerrancy is focused on the area of their expertise – promotes cult-like thinking and prohibits rational progression.     

Do you practise pious fraud?

I have an entire article/chapter dedicated to something I have come to call “Jessop Thinking” in the martial arts world. It is named after the main antagonist, Colonel Jessop, in Aaron Sorkin’s famous military courtroom drama, “A Few Good Men”. The part was memorably played in the movie adaptation by Jack Nicholson. Jessop’s notorious “You can’t handle the truth” rant in court, which ultimately leads to his undoing, is based on his self-righteous belief in practising pious fraud. He thinks that his huge responsibilities heading the Marine Corps at Guantanamo Bay permit him to lie as he sees fit. Martial arts teachers often have the same arrogant assertion. They will tell stories about things they don’t necessarily believe to be true, as if they were true, in order to help keep a student’s dedication. Whichever way you look at it, the matter is a violation of trust. This problem combines the false premise issue that occurs when a martial art gets mythologised with having information controlled by teachers who are seen to be above criticism.

Do you rely on appeal arguments?

The martial arts subculture is riddled by appeal arguments. Appeals to authority ensure the cult-like subservience to the top down process, including total veneration of a style’s founder, living or dead. Appeals to tradition or antiquity enforce the “time-tested” myth. The survival of a system can be down to the influence of its practitioners or their ability to adapt it to the changing mood of the time, rather than the value of what is being taught. Appeals to novelty enforce the idea that just because something is modern it is also somehow better. New doesn’t automatically mean progressive. This brings us onto appeals to popularity, which is very common in the martial arts world. Like any other human being, martial artists are susceptible to trends and get caught up in them without engaging critical thinking. The popularity of a martial art, regardless of whether it is being picked up by law enforcement or the military, is usually down to its marketing rather than any a measurement of its effectiveness or efficiency.   

How tribal is your martial arts club and community?

This brings us onto something I call “Stylism”. Humans are naturally tribal. We operate in groups and as those groups grow they often fracture. Groups are bound by codes and practices. These same principles apply to martial arts subculture. Whether one group is trying to protect their business or their emotional investment, they often view other similar groups as being inferior. Martial arts “Stylism” is a complex subject and happens in many ways, but the following provides a rough view.

At the most microcosmic level there are those that see their club or particular branch of a style to be above anything else. We have seen this type of tribalism occur within many famous martial arts institutions and even within actual families. Then we move onto those who view their particular art to be superior to all others, the previous group often hold this view as well. Next we get an ethnocentric or nationalistic view, where everything outside of their chosen art’s birthplace is viewed as inferior or derivative. Finally there is the big three-way divide in martial arts between Traditional Martial Arts, R.B.S.D and Traditional Martial Arts. The distinctions are fair even if all three overlap. It can be respectively seen as a battle between traditionalism/classicism, modernism and postmodernism.

“Stylism”, when it is properly examined, hinders progression. It smacks of essentialism in that martial artists are forced to view their arts, systems and methods as tangible properties. There is a lot we all can learn if we become aware of our prejudices and the prejudices put upon us by our training culture. This self-awareness allows us to remove intangible obstructions and better research our training.      

When did you last make a mistake (and admitted making it)?

Humility is a common theme in martial arts. The western martial arts world endorsed it through their distorted romanticisms about chivalric knights. The eastern martial arts world pushed it through their melding of religion and philosophy at the turn of the 20th century. However, if you listen to the autobiography of most martial arts teachers you won’t hear much personal humbleness, unless it is the story about how they had nothing and made their way to the top. What you will hear is the incredible life story of someone who has always been right. He will have had his hardships and problems – perhaps a target of bullying and suffered from a disability of some description – but you will rarely hear about when he was wrong. Instead you will get a smug figure of authority who casts himself as an icon of wisdom in various anecdotal stories.

Such self-belief fits in with the Tony Robbins empowerment guru model observed by investigative reporter Steve Salerno. Empowerment gurus automatically believe they can advise on anything in life and they are self-appointed experts regardless of whether they have the specific knowledge, experience and education on any given subject. With the advent of social media, we have seen martial artists regularly using their position of authority in martial arts to preach on a wide variety of subjects – including politics – as if these subjects were mere extensions of their job role. Without apparently doing much impartial research they propagate to their martial arts flock conspiracy theories, urban legends, pseudoscience, pseudohistory, sensationalist journalism, quack remedies and their own personal politics. In so doing they are continuing a martial arts tradition that goes back to the turn of the 20th century, where we find the roots of Bullshitsu in nationalism, pre-scientific beliefs and the proliferation of pulp fiction.  

The average martial arts teacher obeys his tribal instincts and asserts an alpha position, exerting little discipline over his ego in this process. He will certainly tell you about humility, but don’t expect to hear about how he totally messed up a technique today or his second thoughts about a certain martial arts concept he has been teaching for the past 20 years. And so this model is copied by his students when they become instructors.

Cognitive dissonance is not something the average martial artist takes into account. Yet it is something we often see in the subculture of martial arts. When uncomfortable realities about a martial art – be it history, theory, science or practice – hit home, the typical response is for the devoted martial artist to go into denial, make excuses or fall back on what psychologist Carol Tavris calls “the engine of cognitive dissonance”, self-justification. What they don’t often do is learn, especially if this information has come from outside of their respective tribe. However, a teacher who acknowledges their mistakes is more likely to be able to relate and connect to their students. They have the best chance of being able to move forward with training and to gain more productive results.

 

My critical thinking journey into martial arts subculture is covered in my upcoming multi-volume book, “Bullshitsu and the Fight to Make Martial Arts Work”.

The Killer – Clint Overland

I want to talk to you today about a quite killer, one so stealthy and smooth it could teach tricks to a ninja on sneaky ways to slip up on the target and take them out. It is called complacency and it kills more people every year than car crashes. Where does this killer come from? Is it a virus that spreads through contact? Is it a STD that you catch from a mat rat that doesn’t bathe properly? No, what it is a lifestyle choice that is transmitted through being too damn comfortable in your lifestyle.

You have become a victim of your own safety and security. The everyday sameness of your life have become so humdrum you have let your guard down and the patterns and rhythms have become your cracked glass walls of normalcy. One of the great things about make your living by pissing people off is that you grow accustomed to people trying to get back at you. Not taking the same route home, watching everything around you and staying on edge every time you walk out the door. The few times I have been hurt are the times I let my guard down. They all stemmed from altercations that occurred in a different location and I in my grand stupidity let complacency lead me into taking an ass whipping. So don’t go getting all butt hurt and mad because I am throwing rocks at you while living in a glass house. I am writing to you from experience and trying to impart some wisdom. My goal is to shake you up a bit and make you look at what you are doing and examine it to find the flaws and correct them, and hopefully find mine as well.

We all fall into habits and patterns, it’s a simple truth, and one that honestly no one can be blamed for. It’s easy to do. Get up at the same time every day, go to work, come home, day in day out. Patterns become habits and good or bad they become the norm. I know that since I retired from the violence trades and went to work in a normal job, (if working in a county jail is normal) I found how easy that kind of lifestyle can become. You do the same thing at the gym, train with the same guys at the dojo, eating the same thing day in day out and next thing you know you are in a situation that surprises you. You expect a person to act or respond in one way and they do something so completely off the wall that your mind can’t comprehend whats happening and you are up to your eyeballs in a cluster-fuck.

I see this a lot of times with police officers and security people. They become complacent in their on duty time. They respond to the same families home time and time again and they get so used to the script that they never see the 12 year old kid with the shotgun till it is too late. There have been several incidents earlier this year where an officer was shot sitting in his patrol car doing reports. They may have been sitting in the same spot time and time again to do this and it came back to haunt them. I am not condemning these officers but the truth is they became complacent behind the authority of the badge and it added to their deaths. The world has changed dramatically folks and it will never be the same.

Look at your life with a magnifying glass. Where have you let yourself become a self-victim of your own patterns and habits? Is it in the places that you feel most secure and safe? Is it at the dojo or training studio? Is it at work with nothing really exciting has happened for the past few months and it is all hum drum and day to day? These are the places that you need to try and break that patterns that you have fallen into. Get with your training partners, training officers, and your family time and throw monkey wrenches into your day to day machine.

My ex-wife would get madder than a baptized cat when I would run fire drills in the middle of the night. Till we smelled smoke one night while we were asleep. We got the kids and ourselves out of the house in less than a minute. It was a grass fire across the road thank God, but she then saw the benefits of not staying complacent. If you’re a police officer what are you doing to keep from becoming complacent in your day to day procedures, are you just going through the motions and falling in the same trap that leads to you no going home. Have you security personal slipped into the pattern of walking the fence or patrolling your property the same way every night. Going through the motions of checking everything at the same time and same pattern, making yourself into an easy target. This is the kind of complacency that become the killer in your life.

Look at your training at the dojo or hall that you attend. What can you do to break up the monotony of your training? Do you run the same drills the same way every time you? Are you doing any outside work in different climates and on different ground surfaces? Are you using ambush tactics as part of your work training program? These are simple fixes and just take a small effort and dark since of humor to change the entire pattern. See how many of your fellow coworkers can and would be willing to play a game of pepper ball tag? Follow off duty personal to the houses and tag their cars with modeling clay and if they don’t find it by the time they get to work they owe you a beer. Its things like this that help you change your perspective and make you realize just how dangerous living the same way every day is dangerous.

One game I play with the few guys I teach is called knock out. We put on pads, headgear and boxing gloves. It’s an action/reaction game or drill. I stand within arm’s reach of the student and if I can punch them in the face before they can block me they owe me 25 pushups or burpees. No, I do not try and knock them out for real but I am trying to teach them that distance equals time and time equals safety. We also train a version of tag. We each get small post it notes with the word stab on them. At any time if you can ghost up on a partner and tag him with the post it note without him stopping you, they owe you a beer. These are again just simple thing to do to help and break the habits you may have developed over a period of time.

Remember there are graveyards full of people who weren’t paranoid enough.

Street Enforcement of Rules – Terry Trahan

It is a common misconception that, in a street or criminal subculture, there are no rules. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every successful culture and organization must have rules, both unspoken and implicit. Without them, it becomes a free for all, and the effects of this free for all would limit the ability of the cultures to operate and survive. Some of the effects these rules try to avoid are police involvement, collateral damage to civilians, harm to those in the group, and distracting power struggles both within and between differing groups.

The main difference between ‘regular’ cultural rules and the various street cultures is enforcement and understanding. Especially to some involved, there is not always a clear understanding of why certain rules exist. Because of this, there is usually some friction between established members and newer members of the group, until either an explanation is given, or more often, the rule is ignored, and an enforcement action is implemented.

One of the most sacred rules is to not screw over or cheat your own kind. Otherwise known as ‘don’t shit where you sleep’.

The reason for this is many. When you can’t trust the system, trust in your group is more important than usual. Also, it limits interpersonal conflict in the group, which takes time and resources from the important things the group is involved in. When this rule is broken, enforcement/punishment is handled within the group, and is fairly quick, and usually brutal in its execution. The usual is a beatdown or public humiliation of some sort. But, depending on the seriousness of the infraction, and the rank or position of the individual cheated, it can be creative, and much longer lasting.

An example. There was once a young man brought into a group, and allowed to stay with them in an apartment instead of on the street. This young man decided to rob the apartment renters jewelry to feed his drug habit. In these cultures, someone who provides shelter, food, mentorship, and care is pretty high on the list. This was a major violation of the groups rules, and demanded big punishment. The initial punishment administered was a series of beat downs, done randomly. Wherever he went, people, seemingly out of the blue would assault him. Not feloniously, to where police would get involved, but often enough that he never healed from the prior beating. But, this was only the beginning, as the rule he broke was a major one, it needed to be enforced, and an example made to show others why you do not violate this rule. Punishment was decided on, and parties were contacted to get the enforcement action in gear.

What was decided on was this. Since drugs were the driving factor in the “crime”, the major dealers in the downtown area agreed to cut him off. He could not get his fix in the downtown area any longer. For an addict without reliable transportation, this is a living nightmare. You must go further and further away from your base to acquire your drugs, which takes time and money. it also makes you go into ‘enemy’ territory,and deal with dealers who are not your contacts, that will not hesitate to jack you. This lasted until the young man moved on to another state, but his reputation will follow him, and he is marked in that particular circle.

It is important to point out that these cultures are not limited to a specific city or state, contacts exist and word spreads. And sometimes, punishment will be administered in a different city if the person runs, thinking distance will keep him safe.

There was a gutter punk at one time that was fairly respected, pulled his weight and contributed to his tribe, taking care of younger members and the like. Until his addiction took control. He became predatory among his own group, strong arming and bullying in order to up his supply. Another example of crapping in his nest. Unfortunately, he targeted an affiliate of the group, not a member, which is a fairly respected position, and usually off limits to this kind of thing. In the process of trying to strong arm this affiliate, he broke her arm. Knowing this was a major violation of all rules, and would bring a lot of heat, he chose to leave town, boarding a Greyhound bus.

Unfortunately for him, he was watched, and his destination was passed on to the interested parties. Calls were made, favors exchanged, and when the gutter punk in question stepped off the bus three states away, he was beaten and hospitalized as he was leaving the bus station. There was an above average viciousness to his punishment for two reasons, one was for who he injured, based on who she knew, and second, for leaving like a coward and not facing group justice. A message had to be sent that running would not protect you, and the arm of the group reached far.

Sometimes rules exist with multiple groups, to ensure the safety and protection of a wide range of people. Certain drugs and dealers are not allowed in an area, for example, in order to limit the damage. Bath Salts were one of these drugs, due to the danger they presented to users.

Enter a multiple rules violation situation, which shows how serious, widespread, and important these rules are across the different groups in a given area.
First rule, no Bath Salts in the downtown area, second rule, no sexual assault, third rule, don’t lie to your own, fourth rule, take care of your people. In the summer of 2014, one person violated all these rules, and brought punishment not just on himself, but on his entire group for his actions, as sometimes punishment is group instead of individually distributed due to the nature of the offense.

In a nutshell, a street level dealer got in a shipment of Bath Salts. He got high, decided to kidnap a street girl, rape her, forcibly get her high on the Salts repeatedly, and beat her. This street girl was with another man at the time. When he let her go, she was in a catatonic state, and has to this day not recovered her sanity, and nobody knows how many doses of Salts the dealer forced on her. This was one of the most heartbreaking things to have occurred on the streets of this particular city, as the girl was fairly popular, her man was working to get them off the street, and it looked as if they would escape the ‘life’.

So, needless to say, the reaction was swift and very violent. In one night, there were a series of felony and aggravated assaults along the corridor this group operated from. Not just beatings, I’m talking serious assaults doing grievous injury to the receivers. Anyone affiliated with this dealer was the target, as well as other dealers known to or bragged about having Salts for sale. Oddly enough, there was no interference from outside groups or even the police during this night. Rarely, various groups understand the need for looking the other way in order to accomplish a greater good. As long as the parameters of the hunt were obeyed, another example of rules enforcement, business could be taken care of.

It was understood that there were limited targets and time frame, and it was not a free for all. As far as the main target, he was located, taken to a different location, and nobody would comment further. This was one of the more extreme enforcement actions I have witnessed, but it shows multiple things. What some of the rules are, how people are valued in this culture, how much enforcement is left to these groups, and how cooperation can exist between even normal enemies to accomplish a goal.

Ok, now let us leave the street culture and go to another place that civilians think rules don’t apply to them at best, or don’t exist at worst… the topless bar! Yay, let’s go get drunk or high, oogle young women, let our inhibitions go, and nothing bad will happen, there will be no repercussions…

In a word, bullshit. The reason for bouncers and security staff are to enforce the rules of the establishment. As in the street and criminal subcultures, some of these rules are implicit and some are unspoken, but should be obvious to anyone with an above room temperature IQ.

A rule as simple as don’t go in the dancers locker room. Seems pretty obvious, but a surprising number of men thinks it applies to everyone but themselves, and this has caused me more fights than almost anything else in this setting. Another rule repeatedly violated is the do not touch the girls rule. Not only do most of the girls find you creepy and old, therefore not wanting you to touch them, it is actually illegal for the bar to allow this to go on. It can lead to prostitution and pandering charges, and ultimately close the bar down, and yet…

Now, most violations of these rules are handled by you being ejected from the establishment. If it was a bad violation, you may be 86’d permanently.
But there are some rules that will be enforced with an extra dose of violence when they are broken.

One of these rules is to not mess with the staff. Bartenders, wait staff and DJ’s are the lifeblood of a strip club. Dancers come and go, and sometimes come back, and are the face of the establishment, but the support staff makes the business run, keeps the party going, and brings in the money. Interfering with their ability to do their jobs, threatening them, or actually assaulting them are a good way of discovering pain and injury that you never would have thought of on your own. Another big no-no is to target vehicles in the bars parking lot for theft or breaking in. This leads to customers not feeling safe and welcome, which dries up the money flow. If you are caught doing this, there will be no quarter given, and you will learn that the bouncers know which angles and areas the security cameras do not cover…

Notice how most of the rules for a bar in general, and especially a topless bar are geared around money coming in. How serious would you be about enforcing your ability to make money and provide for your family. Now, imagine the ferocity a group of people will bring to that, it would not be a good thing to interfere with. In this world, it is all about protecting the resources. This is simple to understand, but is manifested in different ways. The established dealer in the bar will have a degree of protection from the staff, in order to keep a calm and quiet proceeding to the business being handled. Regulars will be afforded more respect and have more influence than off the street customers, as they are members of the ‘family’, and are part of the resource train.

Another thing that I found surprising was the number of ‘normal’ people that don’t understand the importance of manners and proper etiquette in underground cultures. These manners all exist to grease the interactions between various and opposing factions and people, too make things easier, and avoid needless conflict. Violation of these simple manners will be addressed very quickly in order to stop any unwanted attention and to keep worse violence from happening. Trust me, you don’t want to be the one that the example is made of as to why these rules exist.

If you must go to, or happen to find yourself in one of these areas, stay calm, don’t panic, and generally just stay quiet. Everyone there knows you are not a regular, or inhabitant of said culture, and will treat you accordingly. You may take some guff or verbal challenges, but in general, physical violence will only come if you really screw the pooch. The surest way to guarantee you will have enforcement brought to you is by insisting on the rules from your home or culture be dominant in your new surroundings. This is a particular form of arrogance brought mostly by young men, and oddly enough, middle class visitors to an area. For real, folks, don’t be that guy. Your safety is in your hands, and is very simple to affect, behave yourself, don’t be an ass, and be quick to apologize or explain if called on the carpet for making a mistake.