Author: Erik Kondo

When it Comes to the Rules, Social Classes Matter – Erik Kondo

The human world is based around rules. For society, these rules come in the form of laws and regulations governing peoples’ behavior. For individuals, these rules are based on how we want others to behave toward us. And also a set of personal guidelines on how we should behave toward others.

Society’s rules come with a description of what constitutes the rule along with instructions on how the rule is to be enforced when violated. On the other hand, our personal set of behavioral rules are unclear. They are more or less based on our feelings. How these rules are communicated and enforced depends a lot upon the particular circumstances we find ourselves in. As a practical matter, for most of us, how we deal with our own rules is made up on the spot. We wing it. We play it by ear.

When it comes to society’s rules, we expect them to be enforced in a manner that is independent of gender, race, religion, social class, etc. We expect the rules to be fair to everyone regardless of “who” they are. But when it comes to our own rules, it is the exact opposite. Most of the time, we decide how we will enforce our own rules based on how we feel about the violator. And how we feel about someone is usually tied into their gender, race, religion, social class, etc. In fact, we deal with our own rules in the exact opposite manner that we expect society to handle its rules.

Most of our rules revolve around our personal sense of fairness and respect. We are very conscious of how other people treat us. We expect to be treated fairly and respectfully. When this doesn’t happen, we feel we have been violated. We now desire to enforce the violation. To what degree the violation is enforced depends upon to what degree we feel we have been violated and/or disrespected.
The problem is, that depending upon who we are dealing with, the very same event, can be perceived differently. People in more respected social classes are given more leeway than those in lower social classes. Lower social classes usually contain minorities, the poor, the less educated, people with disabilities, etc. Depending upon the situation, women can be in a lower class. Sometimes, they are in a higher class. Attractive people are usually placed in a higher class. Unattractive people are usually placed in a lower class. There can also be class distinction along tribal lines, where anyone outside the tribe is placed into a lower class.

When someone in a higher class commits a violation against someone in a lower class, the violation is seen as less severe. It is more likely that the violation will be perceived as unintended or a mis-understanding. The associated enforcement and punishment will be less. On the other hand, when someone in a lower class commits a violation against someone in a higher class, it is seen as a great injustice. It is less likely to be perceived as a mistake. It is more likely to be perceived as a deliberate violation deserving harsh punishment.

To put it plainly, people in higher classes get away with a lot more than those in lower classes. They are more lightly punished. Many are also quick to perceive themselves as being “disrespected” by someone in a lower class. Many of them are quick to be disrespectful of those in lower classes, but don’t notice their own transgressions.

When it comes to dealing with interpersonal conflicts, people in higher classes are usually able to “get away” with a lot more than those in lower classes. What works for them doesn’t necessarily work for everybody. Lower classes are more likely to receive a backlash from their personal enforcement actions. Particularly, if a lower class person is trying to enforce a violation from a higher class person.
Therefore, it is important to keep in mind that if you find yourself getting instruction on conflict management strategies and tactics, social classes matter.

If the instructor is in a higher class, what works for him or her may not work for you. He or she may be able to do and say things that are perceived differently than if you did or said the exact same thing. Sometimes, an action from one person may be perceived as appropriate enforcement and create the desired effect. But this very same action, from another person, may be perceived as Over-Enforcement and bring about an unwanted backlash.

When it comes to effective conflict management, it is critical to take into consideration the dynamics of social classes between the involved parties when assessing what type of response to make.

Safety and Respect, Swords and Guns – Kasey Kleckeisen

The etiquette for handling, and passing off a firearm is very similar to that of handling and passing off a sword. The customs are put in place to ensure no one ever becomes complacent with the weapons of their trade. To show that you can be trusted in the field, and to show loyalty and respect. The more violent the culture, the more important it is to be polite. If a violation of conduct either actual or only perceived can have severe repercussions up to and including death, then strict rules of etiquette are needed.

Regardless of time, culture, or region the etiquette of warrior cultures shared a common core. They may have had differing rules, but the rules themselves served a common purpose. Safety, Trust, and Respect. Safe handling / presentation of a weapon shows you can be trusted and shows respect for your peers and your superiors. Being disrespectful / untrustworthy is hazardous to your safety.

Rules and customs are put in place to ensure safety and to demonstrate respect, both for the weapon and the peers you would fight with.

Safety
Those that use weapons, who are surrounded by them on a regular basis, are more likely to become complacent around weapons.

If you have a weapon on you all the time it becomes common place. This has pros and cons. You become used to it, it isn’t weird any more. You actually feel weird without a weapon. Your spouse doesn’t bug you about it anymore. You don’t have to argue about why you need a weapon every time you leave the house. It becomes no big deal. However because it is no big deal you run the risk of forgetting the weapon always presents potential lethality. When you are complacent with weapons bad things happen.

Complacency can have fatal consequences. As a reminder of this many fire arms training days for the SWAT team started with a power point presentation of Law Enforcement Officers that were killed with a firearm in training the previous few years. Either at their own hands, or by another Officer. The list grew every year. Rules are put in place to prevent, and mitigate complacency. These rules become customs.

You can find these ideas with any weapons, but let’s look at the rules for handling modern firearms and how that compares to etiquette handling a Japanese sword. Different cultures, but the same job, using the same ideas. All weapons are treated as if they are live. In the case of the sword, bokken (wooden training sword) and shinken (live sword) are treated the same. (I’m just going to use common language if you want to know specific Japanese terms there are plenty of sources available). The tip and the edge are always kept away from your peers. When kneeling the sword is placed on your left side slightly behind your knee, point back, edge towards you. (All the dangerous parts pointed in a safe direction). When you bow in, your left hand (non dominant – there were no left handed Samurai*) is used to place the sword in front of you. Edge pointed towards you. (Showing you are not a threat)

Left hand is also used to place sword through belt (Obi) to secure in place. Once secured the left hand remains on the hilt with the thumb over the guard, acting as a safety. Even if not secured through a belt, or with a wooden sword that has no guard, the left hand remains on the hilt with the thumb over the guard (real or imagined), acting as a safety. When you pass a sword, or hand your sword to someone your left hand with thumb over guard is used to remove the sword from your belt. Once the end clears your belt it is placed in your right hand making sure the edge is pointed at you. You bow and extend the sword. This is an act of trust because they will receive the hilt with their right hand. (If they want to use this sword against you, you are pretty boned). The person receiving the sword shows respect by turning the sword over placing the hilt in his right hand putting the edge towards him.

*in a homogeneous society like Japan natural left hand students were conditioned to be right handed. This doesn’t mean that they didn’t also use their left or become ambidextrous.

*reference Gaku Homma’s “The Structure of Aikido – Kenjutsu Taijutsu relations”
In the case of firearms all weapons, training, unloaded, or loaded are treated as live, loaded weapons. All loading and unloading is done at the firing line, weapons pointed down range. (All the dangerous parts pointed in a safe direction). If you run dry you will conduct a tactical reload. Keeping the weapon pointed down range at all times. (All the dangerous parts pointed in a safe direction). If you have a malfunction you will conduct an immediate action drill (fix the malfunction and get back in the fight). Keeping the weapon pointed down range at all times. (All the dangerous parts pointed in a safe direction). If the malfunction cannot be fixed with an immediate action drill, keep your weapon pointed down range. Alert a range Officer. The line will be made cold and training will cease until the weapon is made safe.

To make the line cold, all shooters remove their magazine and lock the slide or bolt back. Holding the weapon in their non dominant hand they show that there is no magazine and that there is no bullet in the chamber to the person to their right, the person to their left, and to the Range Officer. The weapon is then holstered or slung. Then the line is cold and it is safe to go down range. Similar process when handing off a gun, a shooter will remove the magazine and lock the slide or bolt back. Holding the weapon in their non dominant hand they show that there is no magazine and that there is no bullet in the chamber to the person that is taking the weapon from them. Usually a more senior Officer, or someone more qualified to fix a malfunction. After the recipient has seen the weapon is safe the passer hands the weapon to them grip first, muzzle down. (Showing you are not a threat)

Different rules for different weapons but the ideas are the same. Point the dangerous parts somewhere safe. Show you are not a threat.

Clearly there is a reason for all of this. If a shot is fired intentionally or otherwise you want the bullet to go down range. Where it is built to take bullets, not into a wall, floor, or ceiling, and sure as hell not into yourself or a fellow Officer. If you stumble with a sword you want the worst thing to happen to be embarrassment. You don’t want to be maimed or worse hurt your peers.

Lasering is a term that refers to where your muzzle is pointing. As if a laser is attached to it. Lasering your buddy is when you cross him / her with your muzzle. It is a good way to kill your partner.

So, rules are put in place to prevent, and mitigate complacency. When you must cross your partner’s path, you Sul your weapon. Sul generally means you place the muzzle down, the weapon is pressed tight into your chest. Sul is Portuguese for south, the phrase is a remnant of U.S. Special Forces training South Americans. Other agencies / teams practice pointing the muzzle up, like an 80’s detective drama on TV because it fits better with their tactics. They may have differing rules, but the rules themselves serve a common purpose. Don’t point your gun at your buddy. Don’t present as a threat to your peers.

With a sword, at times training will be interrupted for your partner to receive instruction. Like the Sul with a fire arm there are acceptable positions to show safety, and that you are not a threat. They include turning your hands over so that your right hand is crossed over your left, and near your left hip. Tip back edge down. Or in your right hand edge up (backwards) tip to the front, but pointed away from your partner and the Instructor.

Rules become customs
Your primitive lizard brain understands rhythm and ritual. Doing this has not gotten me killed. It is a proven survival tactic. I must continue doing this. Rules become customs. Customs become ingrained neurological patterns. Safety and respect become hard wired. Sound like bull shit? Don’t believe me? Any one reading this that has trained in a Japanese martial art where you bow off and on the mat, and bow to your partner to begin training with them knows better. They have undoubtedly bowed into or out of a room outside of the Dojo for no reason, say when entering their bedroom. Or have bowed to someone outside the Dojo, seemingly for no reason.

Customs become ingrained neurological patterns. So it makes sense to have customs that ingrain safe handling of weapons. Violation of custom has severe repercussions. Up to and including death. In all warrior cultures, especially after the rules have been taught, mishandling a weapon is going to get your ass kicked. Anyone reading this ever hand a loaded weapon to a superior? Or lean on a training sword like it was a cane? If so, I’m sure at the very least you got an ass chewing in front of everyone else. Educational beat down for you, and using you to educate everyone else that this behavior is unacceptable. Maybe it was physical punishment, drop and give me 50 pushups. Or social pressure, everyone else drop and give me 50 pushups while dip shit here counts them off for you. Be sure to thank him for this when you are done. Maybe you got smacked in the head? If the infraction was severe enough you may have even been removed from the organization.

Why is a violation of custom treated harshly? Trust.
Trust is twofold. The first if I can’t trust you to be safe under controlled training environment, how can I trust you to be safe in the field? How can I trust you to have my back? How can we maintain the public’s faith in us to come and handle dangerous situations if we can’t handle our own weapons safely?

So you have to earn that trust back. You have to pay a price. Kiss kiss bang bang. You get knocked down a peg, but you make up, you are allowed to continue to be part of that “tribe”.

The second, this one is older and I feel more deeply seated. If you violate the custom and you are not learning from the repercussions, that only leaves a few options. You are too god damned dumb to be part of this organization, you have no respect for the organization, or you are betraying this organization. Look at the customs. I am close to you with a lethal weapon. I show not only safety, but loyalty by handling that weapon in such a way that I couldn’t possibly hurt you with it.

I feel this is older because spies and assassins infiltrating the organization is not something I have ever had to deal with. Seems like a remnant of the past. But there are plenty of incidents recently in the middle east of enemy combatants disguised as local police or coalition forces. I also feel this is older because the reaction to betrayal has always been a higher level of violence. Every culture still has a death penalty for treason.

Some of the best knife defense training I have ever received is following a simple set of rules. (If you have ever trained with Marc MacYoung these should be familiar).

  1. Don’t join a violent criminal organization. I would add any organization that routinely uses violence criminal or otherwise
  2. Most of you reading this have already failed 1. So if you have failed 1, then do not betray said previously mentioned violent organization
  3. Don’t cheat on your significant other
  4. Don’t fornicate with someone else’s
  • You follow these simple rules and you are very unlikely to ever have to face someone trying to kill you with a knife.
  • You are unlikely to face the type and level of violence betrayal inspires in humans.
  • If someone is violating the customs of a warrior culture they will be removed. One way or the other.

The more violent the culture, the more important it is to be polite.
Being polite isn’t weak, in warrior cultures it serves a common purpose.
Regardless of time, culture, or region it shows you understand the weapons of the trade. That you can be trusted in the field, and demonstrates loyalty and respect to your crew.

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Kasey Keckeisen is an experienced Police Officer, SWAT team leader, and SWAT training coordinator. Kasey Keckeisen is the United States Midwest Regional Director for the Edo Machi-Kata Taiho Jutsu organization, and the Minnesota State Director for One-On-One Control Tactics.

Keckeisen holds 6th degree black belts in Judo, Jujitsu, and Aikido and a black belt in Taiho Jutsu Keckeisen is also recognized as a Shihan by the International Shin Budo Association. He is also a catch wrestling and bareknuckle boxing enthusiast, and a terrific dancer.

Keckeisen, along with Marc MacYoung and Rory Miller is a founding member of Violence Dynamics

Keckeisen runs Judo Minnesota, an organization that provides free training to Law Enforcement and Military, and provides opportunities for youth to have positive experiences with Law Enforcement through martial arts training.

 

Rules Rule – Garry Smith

As a species we have evolved into the most rule governed of creatures. The other night my wife brought a couple of books home from work to check something for a case she had in court the next day, they were about 4 inches thick and heavily bound, Wilkinson’s Road Traffic Offences, 2 volumes full of complicated laws and this is just for traffic offences. I dread to think how vast a library is needed to house all the laws that govern life in the UK or any other nation for that matter. Then there is a whole industry that has grown around creating, maintaining and enforcing these laws.

All these laws have to be created and there are tens of thousands of civil servants, consultants, specialists in a cornucopia of industries and trades, academics and researchers too. Just think how many jobs are dependent on enforcing the laws, security personal, law enforcement officers, probation officers, solicitors, judges, prison officers. For all these people crime creates work, without lawbreakers what would we do.

Here we are talking about the the constitutional, civil and criminal laws that constitute the legal system in complex societies. These are rarely fixed but continually evolving as society evolves. A few years ago we knew little of drones, now drones are everywhere from the battlefield to the local park and so we need new laws to define how they can be used, who by, where and within what parameters. Then these new laws will need enforcing, we, I talk about the UK, have millions of articles of law on the statute books already, new laws are being introduced at a rate faster than we can get rid of old or out of date ones. There are so many laws they cannot be policed, it is impossible to police them all but we keep on thinking up new ones.

People break laws on an almost daily basis, look around, bet you see someone driving whilst using a phone, smoking in a company vehicle, parking illegally, using drugs illegally, I could go on. All around us crime is happening and nobody is doing anything about it. Most people will agree that for complex societies to function we need to have a legal framework, but most people will only obey the laws they want to obey and will ignore the ones they choose to because the odds of getting caught are slim.

Rules are not laws but also regulate behaviour, rules provide for a regularity of behaviour. Rules are social instructions that provide a framework for acceptable behaviours in social life, they are complex and evolving like laws but rather than imposed and enforced externally they are learned through the process of socialisation and internalised. In a narrower sense rule following is the production of a regularity in a person. They can choose to do other than follow the rule, they can exercise free will, but generally conformity is the easier route.

As a species we just love rules, our love of rules evolved with homo sapiens as they evolved biologically and culturally. Our early ancestors in all their primitive glory would have roamed the African savannah in small groups similar to troops of modern baboons, in simple societies simple rules will suffice, but throughout the millions of years of evolution our relationships with one another and with our world brought about many changes, some small but some vast and as bigger and more complex societies developed so did the need for more and more rules.

There are billions of interactions between billions of individuals every minute let alone everyday, rules and laws regulate these interactions on different levels, none of us even know how many rules we know or how they arose. Listening to the radio as I was ‘working’ earlier there was a guy on talking about etiquette, apparently you should keep three sets of bedding for each bed in the house, one in use, one ready for use and usually one in the wash…… Sounds good but we have 3 double beds and one single, that’s a lot of bedding.

Socialisation into the primitive world of early hominids would have most likely been like the socialisation of modern apes, very different to the socialisation of humans today process today.

I have been thinking a lot about this lately whilst watching our little dog Bertie. He is a cute little fellah but when we first got him when he was 8 months old, he used to shit and pee in the kitchen at night, he often stole socks and pants and chewed them, slippers were not safe with him around nor was toilet paper and an annoying habit of disappearing for ages whilst on walks.

So we gradually had to educate him on what we expected as appropriate behaviour, well it is not rocket science, we used the carrot and stick method, rewards with lots of praise when he did good, stern voice when he did bad. Fast forward a year later he is brilliant on walks, still running around sniffing everywhere but keeps an eye on where we are, we wake to a nice clean kitchen, he barks at us if he wants to go in the garden, rarely chews anything and he loves to play ball and he sits and waits next to his food until we give permission for him to eat. He is even cuter than before and he will tease to get attention. Whilst I work he curls up and sleeps in his bed.

Using the right tactics worked with Bertie, he cannot read because he is a dog, but he learned the rules. Tone of and volume of voice, gestures and facial expressions are associated with desired behaviour and the dog learns through repetition as he likes the praise and the treats and dislikes it when he is told off and ignored. As I said its not rocket science, a dog is a pack animal, Bertie just wants to be with the pack and has now found his place in it. He has been socialised.

He has internalised the simple set of codes necessary for him to be part of our society, he now understands, albeit in a simple fashion, the rules of the house. He knows life is good when he sticks to them and to all intents and purposes he has internalised the rules. We often do not need to command now as he knows by our behaviour what is about to happen and adapts his behaviour to suit. He predicts what is about to happen and the behaviours he has learned kick in.

Bertie is a primitive being living in a simple society. His socialisation emphasised the carrot over the stick, the process was probably a little more brutal for our ancestors millions of years ago. However subtle the process of socialisation it is a process of enforcement, it is where we begin to regulate behaviour be it in dogs or people.

Socialisation, often called acculturation, is the process where the culture of a society is transmitted to its children. This begins at from birth and teaches individuals to conform with the demands of social life and to inculcate the rules of their society. Primary socialisation takes place during childhood and largely within the family, whatever form that takes, and as the child is exposed to outsiders, the media, formal education, peers they begin to experience secondary socialisation into the wider world.

We sapiens exist in social groups and networks, we are social animals, we need to learn how to belong to and be accepted into social groups and networks and socialisation is the process that facilitates this. Where the process fails we end up with asocial people and the most obvious examples are feral children. “A feral child (also called wild child) is a human child who has lived isolated from human contact from a very young age, and has little or no experience of human care, behaviour, or, crucially, of human language. Some feral children have been confined by people (usually their own parents. Feral children are sometimes the subjects of folklore and legends, typically portrayed as having been raised by animals.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child

Here the exception proves the rule as having been denied socialisation they have been denied any reference to how humans behave and hence lack any social skills, feral children are rare but the examples I have read about make Bertie look like a sophisticated being.

Socialisation is the soft side of enforcement but it is an incredibly powerful force. Powerful but not completely controlling, if it were we would not be able to rebel against social norms and rules but we do. We would not be able to break laws but we do. It is all to do with the rigidity, or lack of, that drives the process of socialisation.

We are not taught how to socialise our young, we just do, so within a society that has become complex and many social variables exist so will the process of socialisation vary too. Think about the society you live in and the many cultures and sub-cultures that co-exist within it. Social reproduction is necessary for the longevity of a culture but cultural harmony is a myth that occasionally erupts into hate between different sub-cultures but that is for another day.

For now we need to understand the subtlety of enforcement through socialisation as it is far more cost effective for there to be a policemen inside our own heads than one on every street corner.

In order to navigate our way through social life successfully we move in and out of multiple roles a day, each role will be performed in a different setting with its own hierarchy and rules, to do this the human mind has evolved into a super computer capable of millions of independent thoughts, programs and simulations that it runs constantly. The ability to imagine different actions and outcomes and predict possible futures is a skill our species excels at. We know the rules, we can choose to break them, whether we do will depend on the chances of somebodies ability to enforce the rules, social sanctions like not being respected are a problem but being deprived of our liberty and even life can be on the table.

Variety is said to be the spice of life but beware the danger of externalising your set of laws and rules out to the rest of the world, what is sacred to your tribe may be profane to another tribe. We may share a common ancestor but we do not share common cultural practices, customs or beliefs. Human and social evolution have intertwined over millions of years, and over those millions of years we remained little more than intelligent animals, with the agricultural, industrial and technological revolutions there came massive cultural advances and the small bands that may have occasionally clashed over resources in the African savannah became capable of warfare on an industrial scale and beyond.

The veneer of social sophistication hides the deeply ingrained human ability to use violence as a tool. Despite all the violence is bad messages we are given throughout childhood and beyond we still see how those in power legitimise a monopoly of the use of violence in the name of social order and we acquiesce. Think of this the next time you step onto the mat, think of this the next time you feel anger when some driver carves you up, think of this too. Society is a social construct, much of it has no objective reality, it exists only in our minds, a little like the matrix, but if you are told repeatedly that what are abstract ideas and thoughts are objectively real you will come to believe it. That is the power of the process of socialisation in ensuring that the process of social reproduction is supported and enforced.

Take a minute, think about it. You think about that all you like.

Post Disaster Violence Lessons From Recent History – ‘Selco’ Begovic and Toby Cowern

Let me tell you briefly about me. My name is Selco and I am from the Balkans region, and as some of you may know it was hell here during a civil war from 1992-95. For One whole year I lived and survived in a city WITHOUT: electricity, fuel, running water, real food distribution, or distribution of any goods, or any kind of organized law or government.

The city was surrounded for One year and in that city actually it was a true ‘Shit Hit The Fan’ situation. We were all thrown into this with no preparation, and found often our allies were our enemies from one day to the next…

Violence is something that people like to talk about, give theories and opinions, but at the same time few of us experience the real ‘deep’ face of violence, being trapped in a prolonged a deteriorating situation.

You may have experienced bar fights, or home invasions maybe, shooting somewhere and similar, and those events can be life changing situations for sure (or life taking) but I am talking here about violence so large scale and long lasting that it brings something like a ‘new way of living’, overwhelming violence that demands a complete change of mindset.

I often hear, and I often agree, that violence cannot solve anything, and that violence only brings more violence, but when you are faced with a man who wants to kill you, you are going to have to probably kill him in order to survive.
I hope that, in this moment, you will not care for philosophy, humanity or ethics, and that you just going do what you have to do, and survive. Later you will cope with other things, it is how things work.

As I get older I realize more and more that violence is wrong thing, but in the same time I also realize that I have to be more and more ready and capable to do violence when the time comes.

It is paradox maybe, but again it is how things works, I do not like that, but it is what it is.

Violence and you
It is way too big topic even to try to explain it in one article, but some things I must try to show you here.

There is a man, let’s say we are talking about you here. An average citizen, a law abiding person, and suddenly you are going to be thrown into a (prolonged) situation where you are going be forced to watch and use exceptional levels of violence.

Do you think that you are going to be able to „operate“ in those conditions with the mindset you had from the time where you were average law abiding citizen?
No of course not, you will have to jump into the another mindset in order to survive.

Let’s call it survival mode.
In survival mode you’ll have to not to forget what it was like for you in ‘normal’ times, but you will have to push those memories aside, in order to operate in different mode – survival mode.

In real life situation that means for example that you ll maybe have to ignore panic, fear, smell, noises in the middle of an attack and do your steps in order to survive.

Maybe you’ll have to ignore the screaming dying kid next to you, maybe you’ll have to ignore your pride and run, or simply maybe you’ll have to ignore your „normal“ mindset and you going to have to kill the attacker from behind.
There is list of priorities in normal life, and there is list of priorities in survival mode.

Let just say that you using your different faces and „small“ mindset during your normal life and everyday business with different people around you.
Just like that, when faced with violence you’ll have to use different mindset, different face. Or another you.

Violence and experience
There is a strange way of thinking here for me, but since I have live through the time when huge number of people did not die from old age, rather from violence, I have experience in this subject. So here are few thoughts.

Experiencing violence over a prolonged period of time does not make you superman, actually in some way make you crippled man, man with many problems, psychological and physical.

But if I put myself in way of thinking that I am in better position now then people who died next to me, or in front of me. You may call me a winner or survivor but many days that ‘title’ sounds very hollow.

Am I lucky man-yes, am I happy man – no.
But we are not talking in terms of quality of life, we are talking in terms of surviving or not.

Ethics, psychology and everything else here are matter for couple of books to be written, and even then you are not going say anything new, it is like that from beginning of the mankind. What is more important about having experience in violence is that you simply KNOW how things are working there. In lot of things you simply know what you can expect. You know what chaos is, best way of dealing with it, you know what it takes to do things.

Preparing for violence
Again nothing like real life experience, when you experience something like real violence you keep that in yourself for the rest of your life. What is best next to that? – other people’s real life experience.
So is it make sense to read about other folks real life experience?
Of course, read a lot about that.

Training (physical) yourself is great thing. You’ll train to get yourself into the state that you are (physically) ready for hard tasks. So of course it makes sense to do that.

But training yourself mentally can be a hard thing.
You actually can only guess how it is going to be, how it is going to affect you.
I can tell you that it is hard, chaotic, I can describe you a situation, but can I bring you the feeling of terror in your gut when you feel that you are going to shit yourself? Can I give you smell of fear, smell of decaying body? Can I give you feeling when you realize that „they“ are coming for you?

No of course I cannot. You can read stories and real life experiences and based on that you are going to „build“ your possible mindset for violence situation.
You are going to build your „survival mindset“.

But there is a catch there. If you build it too firm, too strong, and then there is SHTF and everything that you imagined doesn’t fit the given situation or scenario and you are still pursuing and acting in the way that you imagine dealing with it you are going to have serious problems.

The situation will not adapt to your mindset; the situation will kill you if you are sticking too firm to your plan when it is not working.
You simply have to adapt.

It goes for many situation, if your plan and mindset says you are defending your home until you die, you are going to die probably.
Whenever I heard people saying „I’ll do that when SHTF „ or „I’ll do this when SHTF“ I feel sorry for them.
When SHTF you will adapt, and change your given plan accordingly to situation.
It is same with violence.
Violence is a tool that you going to use according to the situation. It is a tool, not a toy.

Now to finish with a final thought. It can sound, from what I have written, that a SHTF situation is like a Mad Max movie. Everyone running around killing, hurting doing things with no consequences. In fact, this fantasy of a world ‘Without Rule of Law’ (WROL) is a big discussion in some circles.

For sure regular ‘law’ has gone. There are no ‘authorities’ or courts as we know them to deter or punish, BUT, during a SHTF situation you will find….
It is (especially in the beginning) like everything is possible, law is gone, you could go outside and see people looting stores, groups organizing (by street, or other facts like same job in company for example) trying to either defend part of the town, or bring more chaos just for fun, sometimes you could not say what, both could bring violence and death to you. Over time the ‘violence’ becomes more organized and ‘structured’ to start to achieve certain specific goals (although there is always ‘chaos’ as well).

After some time you look at violence you encounter in two ways. Violence happening outside your group, or inside your group (It is quite certain you will need to be in some sort of ‘group’ to stand any chance of surviving).

Outside your Group, you just wish to be very ‘small’, invisible after some time, not pay attention to anyone doing violence to others, because, quite simply you are still alive, and want to stay that way. In terms of “I am still alive, I do not care what they doing to that person, and how bad it is (your will and judging of good and bad is broken, you just care for your own life) it is like you care only for yourself while you are watching how others get killed, no matter that you feel that it is going to come to you in the end (violence) you just care for yourself.
Leaders of the “bad” group (gang) have best chances to stay leader if members fear him, so in fact he is most dangerous, vicious, sick bastard, nothing like a “reasonable” man. (Competition is huge in SHTF) Instilling discipline (through fear) and enforcing ‘your’ rules are paramount to holding your position as leader.
Various groups were interacting with the outside world and each other through fighting, exchange information, trading goods etc, but every group were more or less closed world, with trust only for those inside the group.

Forming of a group was quick mostly, because nobody expected this situation was going to happen, and so were not prepared, but very quickly were literally ‘fighting for survival’. Any problems were solved “on the way” (bad members, not skilled, not obeying etc.) Sometimes through discussion and agreement, but always with the threat of violence as an option.

To finish, and to educate, as opposed to shock you. Many folks cannot think to clear about the level of violence I am describing being involved in. Maybe you think SHTF is just like ‘Black Friday Shopping’ but every day. So let me just give examples of the how far the world I lived in descended from ‘normal’. Remember this was a regular city, in a nice country, in Europe, less than 25 years ago…
-People who never used violence before, doing some ‘hard’ violence: normal people, dads and mums, killing folks in order to save their families.
-Certain groups of people who looks like they are just waited for the SHTF so they can go out (“crawl beneath some rock”) so they can fulfill their own fantasies about being kings of the town, imprisoning people, raping women, torturing folks in the weirdest ways…

-Strange groups organizing in whatever the cause they choose name it, again only to gain power in order to have more resources (sometimes simply “gangs” of 50 people, sometimes whole militias of thousands people) through terror over other people or group of people.

-Irrational hate towards “other” (whoever “other” could (or might) be (other religion, group, street, town, nation) because it is very easy to manipulate groups of people through hate and fear (from and towards “others”), if someone manipulate you that your kid is hungry because “others”, he can do a lot with you.

Real life examples I saw:
-People being burned alive inside their homes (And people ‘enjoying’ watching this)
-Private prisons were made where you could go and torture other folks for fun, or rape women as a “reward”
-Kids over 13 or 14 years of age were simply “counted” as grown up people, and killed as enemy
-Humiliation of people on all different ways in order to break their will, for example forcing prisoners to have sex between same family (like father and daughter and similar)
-Violence was everyday thing, you could go outside and get shot not because you were ‘enemy’, but only because sniper on other side want to test his rifle

Politeness (Or: Before you throw him out the window…) – Marc MacYoung

You’re going to get some homework with this article. But you’ll be a better communicator for it. If nothing else, it will help you articulate why you did what you did when being polite didn’t work.

Forbes Magazine ran a web article, ” 21 Ways To Leave A Never-Ending Conversation Without Being Rude.”

It’s a pretty good article. Being as it’s business, the assumption is you don’t want to be rude. It gives nice socially acceptable — and polite — exit strategies to get away from folks who — if we’re being charitable — just don’t know when to shut up. If we’re not being charitable, they’re time/energy vampires. If we’re being practical, they could be something worse.

Part of what you’re going to learn here is how to get this last type to reveal themselves but using manners, politeness and social rules of conduct. From there a different set of tactics is required. Up to and including having to throw them out a window. And no. I’m not joking.

Establishing two data points and two subpoints before we move on.

DP#1: Some years ago Rory started teaching his “levels of violence.’ It goes: Nice people manipulator, assertive, aggressive, assaultive and homicidal. Well technically it’s a visual that starts at the bottom and works up:

Murderous
Assaultive
Aggressive
Assertive
Manipulative
Nice.

I really like this model because it so clearly shows several important dynamics. The visual helps track how ‘nice’ falls to ‘manipulative,’ manipulative falls to assertive, assertive folds against aggressive, etc.. You can see how folks aren’t too fond of going too high up the ladder. There’s also a lot of stuff that’s involved about how we’re comfortable with one level, and while we may go up one, in actuality, we spend most of our time lower — but often threaten we’ll bump it up if we have to (e.g., we use the threat of assault [aggression] WAY more than we actually strike). Still another is the model helps clarify how far away we are from actual physical danger.

DP#2: Much of what we do is scripted behavior. These are ‘short cuts,’ formulaic, cued behaviors and responses to common situations. Scripts are a big part of our lives and behaviors. When cued we respond, mostly by route, but with variations. “Excuse me. Could you pass the salt?” “Certainly” “Thank you.” “You’re welcome.”

The example I just used is what Rory and I call a “microscript.” These short, almost ritualistic, exchanges are very strongly tied to etiquette. They are also a weird blend of conscious, subconscious and unconscious mental processing. As such, break them at your own peril. At the same time, watch for people breaking them — as these breeches are the source of a great deal of our emotional discomfort and anger.

You have to know those data points for the subpoints to make sense.

Subpoint A: We rely on people 1) picking up the cues to prompt desired behaviors and 2) their cooperation with these scripts. This saves us from having to be assertive and the risk being turned down (Go to Youtube and type in “RSA Animate, Language as a window into human nature.” I warned you, homework.) This allows us to stay on the lower levels and avoid violence and conflict.

Subpoint B: Nice people have trouble with manipulators because they exploit the ‘rules of balance’ inherent in scripts. While we all use social scripts to our advantages, manipulators abuse the give-and-take nature of social scripts. What should be an equal ‘economy’ is tilted in the manipulator’s favor by the manipulator’s exploiting the taking aspects of scripts. They use the inherent compassion, cooperation, humanistic ideals and the standards of being ‘nice’ to take more than their share. For example, the ‘friend’ [or coworker] who is always asking you for favors, but isn’t there when you need one.

Now that we’ve laid these foundations we can turn our attention to the person who just won’t let you bow out. We’ll use this as an introduction to a bigger topic. That person is taking too much of your time. But we’re not at how to handle them yet. What we’ve covered thus far is critical for distinguishing between different motivations. Assessing that, tells us how to handle them.

Fact of life time: There are a lot of socially inept people out there. People who –short of you sending up a bright red balloon — will miss subtle social cues. The whys are many but most of them aren’t coming from malice. (Keep that in mind because you handle them differently than the malicious.) Still others you just have to flat out tell them what you want. It doesn’t matter how uncomfortable you are with being direct, with certain people you have to be. Again this often isn’t out of malice, it’s more how they are wired or were raised. With both kinds, you don’t want to go nuclear on them. Or even if you do, don’t. They don’t deserve your unbridled fury — and if you do, then the asshole in the situation isn’t the other person.

The need for the Forbes article is it addresses these people. It’s for when you’re sincerely trying to be a nice person and he/she just isn’t getting the hint. The suggested strategies send up a balloon that is so big that even a socially myopic person will see. Another added benefit of the Forbes article is it helps you learn ways to obviously — but politely — boost the signal. That’s the other side of the coin. It may not be that the other person is socially inept. It could be you aren’t communicating clear enough. So for either dealing with the socially unaware person or you not signaling loud enough, the Forbes article is useful to turn up the volume of “Time to let me go.”

I will point to another benefit of learning different ways to say “I have to leave.” That’s it is a step in learning how to be assertive. Remember, that step past manipulative? Yeah, it’s a small step because a lot of polite exit strategies are little white lies, but hey… you’re further along than you were before. Oh BTW, Terry, ‘assertive’ is scary to nice people, it can require aversion therapy and inoculation to work up to being direct. (And in case you, the reader, are wondering about that weird sentence … Terry Trahan asked, “What’s the matter with just being direct?” I didn’t get a chance to answer him when he asked that very good question. So now you, the reader, get to hear the answer too.) Learning other ways you have more than just one strategy — which is a good thing.

A common question I hear is “But what if polite doesn’t work?” Well, the Forbes article is step one in fixing that. Sending up that red balloon is not rude. It’s making sure the signal is clear. However, step two is where we break free from the Forbes article. But the direction we break is influenced by data point #1.

Another thing I hear is nice people waffling about acting to put an end to unacceptable behavior. This often in the form of, “What if I’m wrong?”

Which hey, if you’re talking about defenestration (throwing someone out a window), worrying about making a bad call makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is when the same person is asking both questions. Don’t they get that the two points work together?

If polite don’t work, then we know this isn’t normal. If clear-but-polite doesn’t work it’s a moved onto step three. A step that clearly puts us into the Levels. It’s time to mentally shift gears because it’s no longer innocent. The person has just announced that he’s putting something he wants over and above social protocol as well as your wants and needs. Is defenestration on the table yet? Well no. But it just walked into the room. Why? Because he has made a conscious decision to ignore protocol and put his wants before everyone else’s.

Recap, there’s lots and lots of levels, stages, tactics and strategies you can use between polite and defenestration. The more adept at these levels you are, the less likely you are to make a mistake. See someone who is just socially unaware will let you go when they see the big red balloon of “I gotta go.” Red balloon goes up, is seen, behavior changes and situation is over. Alright what does that tell us? Well, you just needed to be more overt. Overt doesn’t mean rude. Although many of the “what if…” types don’t know that, it’s true.

What’s important is watch for the person who sees the overt signal and ignores it. This is a form of what is called “Discounting no.” It’s both a game changer and a not-to-be-ignored signal. When you set an obvious verbal boundary and someone just blows through it as if it’s fog, they’ve just told you in no uncertain terms that they’re up to something.

But — before you throw someone out the window — you might want to try giving being polite another shot. Make the message very clear. (Kind of like tying a flashing light to that red balloon.) This does five things. One it confirms that being polite didn’t work. Two, it removes doubt that this is accidental or unwitting behavior on his part. Three, it gives you a “Well, I tried” permission to act. Four is if you have to explain your actions later you can truthfully say you tried being polite –repeatedly — and you changed tactics only because polite didn’t work. (As you will be called on the mat for any use of force, it helps if you can explain how you went through “ask, tell and order” before you went hands on) Five it blows any and all pretext that this situation was kosher. This may look like two, but it’s not. While most manipulators will back off when facing assertive, other folks will try to bump it to aggressive. While this is usually a face saving retreat (‘Elvis has left the building’ style), it can also reveal that their intentions were hostile all along. Yes, it’s scary, but it’s a need to know. What a lot of nice people don’t realize is even if it gets emotionally unpleasant, emotionally unpleasant ‘fixes’ are a lot easier than things getting to defenestration. So let’s look at these easier fixes.

The reason why it’s called ‘discounting no’ — is when someone wants something, you say ‘no,’ and they keep on pestering you for it. You know this routine. You might have done it as a kid. “Mom can I have a candy bar?” “No” “Why can’t I have a candy bar?” (Reason given.) “But I want a candy bar!”

From that childhood example we can see several things. One is the general dynamic. Two, the deliberate ignoring of a clearly communicated ‘no’ answer. Three the predictable strategies — especially the faux-request for “why.” This is followed by rejection of the reasons (as in they aren’t good enough). Four is the continued pressing for selfish reasons. (Hint, the counter is “Asked, answered, subject closed.”) Five is escalation.

At best discounting no is selfish, at worst it’s dangerous. (It’s a common tactic before physical violence.) From moment the ‘discounting no’ becomes clear, your goal has changed. Now, you’re oriented on stopping whatever he’s up to — using whatever means necessary. To figure out how to do that, we need to go back to scripts.

Scripted behavior allows for millions of us to live in close proximity. There are all kinds of rules for different levels of intimacy and relationships. You behave differently to a stranger than you do a family member. That’s the first set of filters to spot when something is off. Is this person asking too much or angling for something beyond the type of relationship you to have? Let’s pick one, say — distance. We allow people we are involved with to get closer to us than strangers. No brainer right? Well, actually way more complicated than you thought. For example greater stranger distance is the rule. While there are certain exceptions — those exceptions have very strict protocols and etiquette. Think of in a crowded elevator or a waitress. Your spouse standing close is no problem. But a stranger crowding you can be a manipulation to get you to move. Start watching to see how many of these unwritten rules you can identify and when someone should keep a distance. Why should you do this? So you can better understand this next point.

Scripts can also be looked at as a lazy man’s version of boundaries. Boundaries are established and maintained by the script. (Think of elevator scripts, what you say and where you stand are predictable.) These scripts have become automatic habits to the point we often assume that’s all we have to do. When they don’t work, we get flustered. Another way of looking at scripts is microwave dinners. Prepackaged, just pop them in, push a few buttons and there you have it. The problem with microwave dinners is you don’t learn how to cook. So if the microwave breaks down, you’re at a loss.

Someone who discounts ‘no’ is trying to short out your microwave. A lot of the time he’s relying on you not being able — much less willing — to do something about it. If people (who he can short them out) are lucky, he’s just going to act like a snotty kid and do what he wants. A lot of times, it can be a way worse. But it usually won’t start out that bad. As the saying goes, “Great storms are preceded by a small breeze.” Before these people really get going, they’ll test to see if you know how to stand up for yourself. How do they do this? With the small stuff.
The problem is, that test looks exactly the same as someone who is just socially unaware. That’s why you float the red balloon and see what happens. If the person is socially unaware you — without being rude — extract yourself. But if you see him look at the balloon, and keep on coming, then he’s tipped his hand.
Now you understand why assessing intent is so important.

When he tips his hand, you don’t have to be polite anymore either — well let me rephrase that. You don’t have to be rude either, but from that moment on you aren’t relying on manners, scripts and social conventions to do all the work of enforcing your boundaries. You’re going to have to take a more active part. And if that means throwing his ass out a third story window … well, that’s what it’s going to take.

But usually they’ll back off long before that — as long as you can communicate you know what’s going on. Let’s keep this at the lower end of the scale. By clearly communicating it’s time for you to go, you have moved up the scale from a nice person to an assertive person. Now the manipulator is in a fix. This leaves him no other choice than to try to either plead or tip his hand. Plead with you to stay (which hey, “you got fifteen seconds to finish”) or drop the pretense that his goals aren’t selfish and manipulative. If he gets angry, that’s fine too. Like I said it’s usually an Elvis has left the building retreat. “Oh I was assertive and you’re responding by becoming aggressive. Well thank you for telling me what’s the appropriate response.” Which believe it or not is not becoming aggressive, but cranking up the assertive. You can still be polite, but he’s using social scripts against you, so you don’t have to abide by them either.

Why? People often win by not just moving up a level, but pretending that they’re willing to go to the next one. Thing is, they’re usually not. This bluff is how they intimidate people. They’re good at bluffing. They get what they want through aggression because you’re scared they’ll become assaultive. But the never had any intent of taking that far. They only win because you chicken out. And you need to know something, they’re good at spotting when others are bluffing too. So if you get all excited and huff and puffy, he knows you’re bluffing. But if you’re calmly shifting gears to match him, that’s where you run into the paradox.
That is that often the willingness to use violence means you don’t have to. Someone who is polite and has no other tools is easily run over. Someone who is afraid of using violence sucks at convincing people he’s not afraid. The unwillingness to use force is what both the bluffer and the assaultive person is looking for. That is the person it is safe to aggress on, including physically attacking.

But the person who shrugs and shifts gears to whatever level this person wants to play at… well, leave that one alone. It’s not safe to mess with that one. You’d be amazed how effective being polite while calmly figuring the trajectory to the window can be at deterring escalation. In other words, instead of worrying about “What if the strategies don’t work?” think of a strategy not working as telling you it’s time to shift gears. “Okay, tried that, didn’t work. Next.” Once you get the hang of this approach, you’d be amazed at how fast trouble takes one look at you and moves onto the next target.

Outlaw Motorcycle Club Interview – Garry Smith

This interview is with an officer in a small European OMC (Outlaw Motorcycle Club) and is one of the few full-patched female members of any club. Many details have been changed to protect the identities of everyone involved. You can assume that all names, dates and places have been either omitted or changed.

CRGI– Your club lives largely outside the law. How do you handle things like theft and breaking contracts, the kind of thing that most citizens would bring to the law?

MC– The story I want to tell started in 2013. We got two new prospects in autumn and they started to run their one year probation. In spring 2014 we made a party for our guests. Out treasurer asked the prospect R. to pay his club fees but he told him he hadn’t enough money. Some hours later R. came and handed 50 Euros to the treasurer saying his wife had given the money to him. Late at night the treasurer counted the amount in the register and 50 Euros had been missing. He suspected R. immediately but I told him that there must have happened a mistake because nobody has stolen money from the MC as long as I’m a member. I also told him that there was no evidence and everybody behind the counter could have taken the money. R. paid his fees on time later on and behaved normal.

CRGI– Many citizens have the idea that an OMC is vicious and quick to take things into their own hands. Wasn’t this enough evidence to do something about it? Why was it so important to you to be sure?

MC– Of course we’re capable of doing things quick and vicious if needed. We also don’t call the cops, we’re solving our “problems” on our own. The main principles in our MC are faith and honesty. I’ll have to trust on my bros in every situation. Whether in riding, fighting or having problems. And they trust in me 100% too.
Blaming somebody having broken the most important rules is a severe matter. Of course for the defendant but also for the accuser. Blaming on somebody without having enough evidence could be dangerous and can drop back on the accuser when turned out to be wrong. Blaming with enough evidences will cause an action by the members. And this action almost includes a kind of punishment, depending on the seriousness of the offense. The range is wide. Starting with harsh words from the president to being beaten, severely wounded and kicked off of the MC.

MC– Later, R put a 1% patch on his vest and though we explained him the meaning of that special sign he insisted of wearing it because he felt like an “onepercenter” and would act in the same way.

CRGI– What’s the significance of a 1%er tab?

MC- Wearing a 1% in my country means that the biker is following his own rules and the rules of his MC. He really doesn’t care about rules or laws from state, police etc. The biker decides what he wants to do and gives a shit on law and order. His rules and the rules of the MC always come first.
CRGI- Was R allowed to award himself that patch? Is there a usual protocol and did he violate it? When a prospect insists on something over the objections of patched members, what is going on? Is there a normal corrective response?
MC-We’re having our MC statutes of course. But these don’t include the wearing of that patch. Everyone is free to design his vest as he wants to. Of course he has to take the responsibility for every patch or badge.

Insisting of wearing this 1% patch would cause the patched members watching him being beaten if he would be involved in a fight. They only would stand around and say “Come on and fight. Finally you’re stating that you’re a 1%er and we told you enough about it.” Did he insist on other things the patched members told him and he won’t obey he would be punished or kicked off from the MC. There are different varieties of punishment and some are really humbling.
It starts at the lowest level with a harsh speech from a member, then of the president. The next stage would be to stitch a loud pink and broad ribbon all over the backpatch. The ribbon includes the inscription “Club punishment”. And the punished had to wear it and show himself in public with it for a determined time. The worst punishment (except from being beaten and kicked off) would be to be forced to cut down the backpatch and walk around with nothing or get back the probationary backpatch which would even be very humiliating for every full member.

CRGI– What happened next?

MC– The summer party was celebrated and the treasurer kept a wary eye on R. but he didn’t see anything suspicious. The autumnal party also passed by without any problems. Meanwhile the treasurer had placed a small register with some cash float behind the counter, in case of visitors who would buy some drinks. He took the “big” register we use for the parties home. Four days later R. had to open the clubhouse two hours earlier to light the fireplace. When the other members arrived he told them that he found the entrance door unlocked. But he had checked the whole clubhouse and nothing would be missing. The other members checked the clubhouse too and somebody found out that the small register was missing. The two guys who locked up the clubhouse after the party couldn’t explain how they could forget to check the door before leaving. They felt bad about that for months. Somebody suspected a former member having a second key and we changed the lock and all keys.

Then we voted for full membership of R. (acceptance of every member is needed to become a full member) and I refused because I didn’t trust R. I couldn’t explain, it was my gut instincts which told me to refuse. Even the president was the same opinion. We discussed a long time and at last the other members persuaded us to say yes. The president told R. that the acceptance was by a hair and that R. would have to show his loyalty.

CRGI- The other members were not suspicious at all?

MC– As I told you, the main principle is faith. And this had never happened before. Some of our members are true friends for more than twenty years. In an “inner circle” we spoke about possible suspects but there was not one single evidence suspecting other members. The two guys accused by R. to having forgotten to lock the door felt uncertain and had self-doubts for weeks.
In a meeting I looked daggers at our youngest patched member while talking about the thieving. Just to test his reaction. Later he told me that he was scared to death that we would suspect him without having done anything wrong. Everybody of us felt really bad that time, and sad of course. Being duped by a person you normally would commit your life, freedom and health hurts.

CRGI– What happened next?

MC– The last spring party was a success and our treasurer went around with a donation can. We got this from a last wish foundation for cancer suffering children and the guests put a lot of money into the can. The next meeting I mentioned in passing that the can was pretty full and ready to be passed to the foundation. I did this with a special intention because I knew that R. has big financial problems that time and had to leave his home because he stole electricity with an illegal mounted cable from his landlord.

CRGI– Biker clubs do charity and outreach work in the US as well. It’s a little off our main subject, but would you like to talk about it?

MC– Other MCs organize toy runs, blood donations, round-trips in sidecars for disabled people etc. We’re doing some charity by collecting donations but we’re also trying to treat people in the same way as we want to be treated. That means eg; helping if there was any accident, bullying or harassment of helpless people. We butt in, we don’t look the other way.

CRGI– Back to the story of R.

MC– One week later R. was in the clubhouse before the other members arrived. He seemed to be very nervous and was leaving as soon as possible. Later that evening I routinely checked the counter area with the club cellphone, the music computer and the donation can, which was missing. We immediately called every absent member (except R.) but nobody knew where the can could be. We also searched the whole clubhouse but the can was lost.
Before I left I placed the new bought small register in a special way and memorized the exact position. Gut instincts again, ok.

We started to think and discuss the thefts without telling R. because after collecting any possible fact and summing up there could be only one offender: R. And suddenly R. started to ask suspicious questions during the next week like “when will be the initiation of my backpatch to confirm my membership” etc. He always watches his opponent very exactly like looking for any hint of knowing something. But nobody told him a single word.

The next meeting I told the bros that we would find the register without any money and I was right. It was moved to another position and 30 Euros were missing. Unnecessary to say that R. had different excuses not to come to the meetings after the can was missing.

The president was so upset that he promised to beat this asshole close to death, rip all his clothes and force him to walk naked through the streets while his vest would burn on our campfire together with his bike. He also promised to drive to R.’s new home, took the pump gun with him, threaten and/or shoot R. and look for the can. (I have to mention that in my country you can’t own a pump gun or other firearms legally, except you’re a hunter, shooter in a club, personal security etc. with a proven license. But MC members always get and own what they need to defend their home and their MC.) Our president is a true “one percenter” who’s living on his own terms and so we had some problems to persuade him not to kill R. We’re having some peaceful members which didn’t agree and argued a lot.

CRGI– To your knowledge, how common is it for an OMC in your country to kill one of their own members? Would it ever be a decision of the entire club? Or would one member act on his own? Or would the senior leadership make the call?

MC- If done it mostly happens in the very big MCs here. It’s not happening every day but the number is increasing since many members with migration background have entered the big MCs and they’re defecting from the rules of the “old school members”. As far as I know the senior leadership usually makes the call and one or more member are executing. He/they also would take the blame if being arrested. There’s no exact knowledge of the background because nobody talks about it. In our MC the prez would decide and execute on his own if necessary. There’s no doubt.

CRGI– Interesting. Go on.

MC-I was at the president’s home in the garden because he asked me for some help and I’m very skilled at gardening. He was still in rage as suddenly R. and his wife arrived and came to the backyard. R. handed out his backpatch, obviously expecting the return of the 75 Euro pawn he had to pay when he got it. But he wasn’t able to tell his intentions because the president hit his head with the fist immediately and smashed him to the next wall. He moved that fast without any sign that R. was totally surprised. The president is 1,95 meters tall and 175 kilograms, R. is 1,70 meters and 95 kilograms. R. started screaming “stop, what are you doing” while the president continued to hit his head again and again with one fist while using the other hand to fix R. at the wall. R. didn’t fight back, he only crooked and tried to protect his head. (1%??? Phhh!)

His wife tried to interact, I intervened and pushed her away. I still had my (nearly closed and locked) clippers in my hand when I did that and scratched her forearm from wrist to elbow with the blade because she tried to beat me. No deep cut but skin was missing and some blood coming. I stood in front of her and said I would severely hurt her if she would try to barge in again. She stepped backwards and didn’t move any more. Meanwhile the president was still beating R. yelling, “you’ve stolen from your brothers, confess”. R. denied, screaming. The president stopped beating, grabbed R.’s throat and started choking him, asking again:” you’ve stolen, confess”. R. denied twice again his face changing into purple red, blue, tongue coming out. With his last breath he whispered “yes” and the president opened his hands. Then R. stood in front of us, gasping for air, sobbing and confessing all the thefts, explaining that they had no food, no diapers for the child etc. I think he got a concussion too because he hold his head and started to be cross-eyed. Not my problem and no pity.

The president told him to appear to the next meeting and bring 300 Euros with him. He also reassured that R. wouldn’t harmed if he would appear and bring the money. Otherwise the former brothers would make a private visit with all possible conclusions. He also told R. not to do anything stupid concerning every member or the MC e.g. telling stories to the police etc. otherwise “We know your name, your address and your family. And the forest out there is large, dark and contains a lot of lonely and deep holes!”

At last his wife told her friend that I attacked her with the clippers and that R. was forced to confess. But nothing else happened. Some days ago R. appeared with two independent companions from a Christian MC on the meeting (he was too afraid to come alone) still with nice blue marks around his throat and in the face and handed 300 euro to the MC. The president told the members not to touch R. because he had given his word and he would beat everyone like R. who wouldn’t comply with. The members obeyed. He forbid R. to set one foot into our area and also prohibited being a member in every MC. Otherwise he would draw the consequences and his new backpatch would be ripped (and possibly a little more).

R. is still out in bad standing and as far as I know he will never appear at the MC scene again. He knows well enough what will happen if he would do. I also know what will happen if some of my brothers would meet him random. I informed the local MCs about R., put it on our website and placed an extra ad in the biker magazine. So R. is banned. If he’s clever he and his wife will stay where they are and not say one word about the incident. If not I’m pretty sure that our MC will make a visit.

THE HAZARDS OF VOLUNTARY DOMESTICATION, PART. 1 – Mark Hatmaker

“We were wild animals for seven million years. We learned a lot of lessons. We should be careful not to lose them.”-Lee Child

Let’s keep that quote in mind as we compare a couple of definitions, the first—
Domesticated or Domestication, (from the Latin domesticus: “of the home”) is the cultivating or taming of a population of organisms in order to accentuate traits that are desirable to the cultivator or tamer.

For today’s lesson it is important that we hew closely to the scientific definition of this word. Merely finding a baby squirrel and keeping it as a pet is not by strict definition “domesticating” that animal, you are merely acculturating it to abnormal surroundings and there is a high probability that this “taming” will not survive sexual maturity. This is a lesson hard learned by chimpanzee and big cat owners, often what begins as an exercise in cuteness ends in the animal being what it is-wild. By the way, never the animal’s fault, it is merely being what it is-a wild animal.

Domestication by strict definition is a process of thousands of years or hundreds of bred-for generations to render a species more docile or yielding to human wishes.

A poetic but stark definition of domestication is the bred-for breaking of a species’ spirit over time to make us, the owner, happy.
The second word to be defined is Civilization.
We are not using the word in the broad sense of the combined progress and adaptation of social man to his environment, but rather, again, in a clinical sense. Man is not a domesticated animal in the strict sense of the word, as he was not purposely bred for tameness, as we have done with wolves to give us cute puppies, or predatory big cats that we have bred to be lazy window-sill nappers.
Man has never been subject to this strict purposeful breeding program so we are not domesticated, but voluntarily choose to be tame, or civilized. In this definition to be civilized is to voluntarily assume the mantle of a domesticated animal.

Man, in theory, can do what a dog or cat cannot do, we can revert to our wild state by choice. Yes, dogs can attack and cats can claw but no one will mistake their attempts at “wildness” for that of their ancestors. Man, on the other hand, can be just as wild as his primitive forebears as in essence he still walks around with the same body and the same brain that walked the savanna millions of years ago.

The same can’t be said for the Pekinese or Siamese at your feet begging for treats.
That bit of “Yeah, I’m a bad-ass caveman but I choose to be civilized and go all primal when I need to” may make some of us feel pretty fine indeed.
But is the choice of civilizing ourselves just a few shades off from domestication?
Just how quickly can we lose our primal abilities?

Let’s look outside our own species for a moment to another species, a highly intelligent one at that. Let’s see what happens when we remove it from the wild, attempt to tame it, and then do an about-face and attempt to free it back into the wild.

The below is from dolphin trainer Tom Foster’s account of trying to re-wild two wild dolphin, Tom and Misha, to prepare them for their release. [The following is from the excellent article “Born to Be Wild” by Tim Zimmerman in National Geographic 6/2015, pages 68-69.]

[Keep in mind the following account regards two wild animals that were born in the wild, captured and kept in captivity for a few years. These animals were not born in captivity.]

“…Foster didn’t see how he could restore Tom and Misha to the Olympic level of fitness they would need to survive in the ocean if he didn’t put them through a regimen of fast swims, jumps, and tail walks that would build muscle and stamina. ‘The only way is to train them so you can untrain them, he says.”
‘High-energy workouts require calories, so the first job was to overcome Tom and Misha’s picky eating habits and reacquaint them with the fish they would likely encounter in the Aegean, such as mullet, anchovies, and sardines. The strategy was to offer them a local fish species. If they ate it, they were rewarded with mackerel, a fish they developed a taste for in captivity. To mimic the unpredictability of food in the wild, Foster varied the amount and frequency of their meals. ‘When you bring them into captivity, everything from feeding to shows is very structured,’ he says. They develop a built-in clock and can tell exactly when they are going to get fed. We have to turn that around, because we know that in the wild they will eat more one day than another.’”

Now, I’m sure you’re way ahead of me by this point. A wild species that got fat and lazy due to a lack of exercise, regular meals, and finicky eating habits. Hmm? Sounds like we’re talking about…who?

OK, back to Tom and Misha two “civilized” dolphins, a creature of high intelligence with a remarkable cranial capacity (just like another species we know.)

“Foster also wanted to wake up their highly capable dolphin brains. He dropped into the pen things they may not have seen for years, like an octopus or a jellyfish or a crab. He cut holes along the length of a PVC tube, stuffed it full of dead fish, and then plunked it into the water. Tom and Misha had to figure out how to manipulate the tube so that the fish would pop out of the holes. ‘In captivity we train the animals not to think on their own, to shut down their brains and to do what we ask them to do,’ Foster explains. ‘What we are trying to do when we release them into the wild is get them off autopilot and thinking again.’”
Hmm? Brains on autopilot. Atrophied ability to think for themselves without predictable structure. We are talking about dolphins, right?

Allow me to call our attention again to Foster’s comment on how to “civilize” a wild animal: “In captivity we train the animals not to think on their own, to shut down their brains and to do what we ask them to do.”

So, to be clear it is absolutely possible to take a wild animal, even one as hyper-intelligent as a dolphin and to atrophy its physical and mental prowess with as little as a few years of captivity.

No, this is not domestication, not in any sense of the word…but the level of training required to wean a wild animal off of its civilization and to make it fit to be wild again is indeed food for thought.

A few years of civilization atrophied these animals’ natural abilities. What might a lifetime of civilization do? Generations?

Does voluntary civilization, and generations of it at that as opposed to one generation of catch and capture, compound the atrophy problem?
To be clear, this essay is not an anti-civilization and all its attendant benefits screed. No, instead it is intended as food for thought to an audience of individuals who consider honing self-protection skills, survival ability, self-reliance, independent thinking, and overall fitness as valuable.

With that intention in mind I ask us to pause and reflect to what extent have we ourselves possibly chosen voluntary domestication? And at what costs?
A key question at this point might be, is there a biological mechanism that points to us being able to lose physical and cognitive abilities in a remarkably short amount of time? A biological driver that once atrophied actually reduces our ability to even think about regarding some of these long lost abilities?
Without such a concrete mechanism this discussion is just philosophical piffle, or just another opinion piece.

So, is there such a biological driver?
It turns out there is. And this also comes from animal studies and we just may not like the animal that most resembles us in our current state.

We’ll cover that in Part 2. The Mechanism of Civilizing a Wild Animal.
Until then, have a second read of that quote:

“We were wild animals for seven million years. We learned a lot of lessons. We should be careful not to lose them.”-Lee Child

Fighting is Chaos, Learning Shouldn’t Be – Jeff Burger

Maybe I’m a little O.C.D. but I find it very frustrating to see classes or video instruction where the material is just all over the place in topic and or skill level.
My favorite teachers are the ones who organize the material into a logical progression and I strive to do that in my own teaching and training.

There is a temptation for the student to want to learn advanced techniques, the flashy stuff, something recently pulled off in a MMA match or maybe just something new to break the boredom.

Instructors can be tempted too, maybe to show off, prove they are better than the school across town. In some cases, they think it helps with retention.
You shouldn’t worry about Berimbolo Rolls and Flying Armbars when you can’t escape basic positions.
You shouldn’t be worried about spin kicks, trapping and long combinations until your basics are solid.
Can these techniques work? Sure, but they are low opportunity, high risk techniques.

“Don’t fear the man who practices 10,000 techniques, fear the man who practices one technique 10,000 times.”

It irks me to see people drill something just a few times and stop as if they know it enough.

Never be satisfied with how good your basics are, I’m happy to just work my jab for an hour.
There are four levels of competency.

1. Unconscious incompetence – you don’t know even it exist.
2. Conscious incompetence – you know of it but can not do it.
3. Conscious competence – you can do it but have to think about it.
4. Unconscious competence – the skill is hardwired into you.

“You got to know your ABCs to spell SMASH.” CJB

How to organize learning and teaching.

  • Follow the data and statistics of the given arena. Is it street, a weapon, combat sport (boxing, wrestling, BJJ, Muay Thai … ) ?
  • What are the most common attacks ? What are the easiest, effective, multi-purpose tools ?
  • Organize those individual techniques into topics and prioritize them. (hand attacks, hand defense, leg attack, leg defense, clinch, takedowns, takedown defense …)

For example, in our Ju Jitsu program first thing we teach is something I call “Ju Jitsu Houdini” escapes from positions.

There is a standing holds version (bear hugs, head locks, full nelson … ) and a ground holds version (mount, side control, rear mount….).

My belief is first priority in the ground game is survival, to escape the positions, to free yourself to run, fight, get back on your feet or launch your own ground attack.

Being a good escape artist helps your offense because if the attack fails you are confident you can get out of trouble. Then build your offense armbars, armlocks, chokes, leg locks.

Next, learn to escape those attacks, then to counter their defense, each skill learned is the next priority to learn how to counter.

Climbing out of Hell
Another way I prioritize the material is by starting from the worst case scenario.
When I teach clinch defense for example I start from the opponent has double neck tie, your posture is broken and the knee hits you.
If that didn’t finish you off, learn how to use it for your own counter offense.
Take that theory and apply it to punches, kicks ….
Few things are better for your confidence and your safety then being able to survive worst case scenarios.

Here is a video clip of “Climbing out of Hell (clinch )”.
https://www.facebook.com/333833153339690/videos/vb.333833153339690/936273399762326/?type=2&theater

The Matrix of Discretionary Power – Rory Miller

In modern Western society, we have delegated the enforcement of social rules to a profession. Controlling behavior is no longer the province of a hereditary caste, or the duty of tribal elders or shaman. We have the police.

Individual police officers decide who will be be pulled over for a traffic infraction and who will not; which crimes will be investigated and which will not. Who, in a dispute, will be believed and who will not. This is discretionary power, the power of personal decision. It is and always has been one aspect of rules enforcement, for that matter an aspect of every human interaction. But when wielded by police, discretion can be a hot-button issue.

On a fundamental ethical level, to enforce only the rules one personally agrees with would be the essence of corruption. We all personally approve of and disapprove of different laws. Some see anti-smoking laws as assaults on personal freedom, others as affirmation of public health…and often the exact same people have the exact opposite attitudes depending on whether tobacco or cannabis are the smokable under discussion. When an officer signs on for the job, he or she signs on to enforce the law, not a personal worldview.

But this cannot be an absolute, either. Because at the other extreme we have the Nuremberg Trials and “I was only following orders.”

On the scale between personal corruption and corruption as the mindless enforcer for the state, we have officer discretion.

But discretion happens in the real world— a world of media and voters and interest groups and complicated, emotional, messy human interaction. Discretion happens in a matrix of human interaction, the perceived and written duties of the job, policy, law, moral conviction and, sometimes, survival stress.

First and foremost, citizens say that they want a fair and impartial police service. In practice, people want the opposite. In actual interactions with police, almost universally, citizens want understanding, compassionate and forgiving officers judging them, and by-the-book robots dealing with others. Don’t believe me? How many times have you hoped the police would ticket someone who you thought was driving poorly? And how many times, when you were pulled over, did you think your excuses should be honored?

People fear the police. They are individuals that theoretically have the power of the state behind them. They have belts full of weapons and access to more. In every state’s quest to have a monopoly on violence, the police are the visible representations of that.

Conversely, the police, in the WEIRD* world are controlled by politicians, by the media and in the end, by the citizens. They live and work, especially in the era of the 24-hour news cycle and social media, under a quickly-shifting and seemingly arbitrary standard of right or wrong behavior.

In the interaction between citizens and police there is another factor that flies in the face of our ideals. We can recognize that every dispute, every interaction between two people is different. We have a much harder time accepting that the people coming to solve those disputes, the officers, are not equal. Not every officer understands psychology to the same degree. They can’t all be expected to be fluent in all languages spoken in their district. Some are great shots, some poor. Some are cool under a crisis, some panic. No two officers are the same and thus expecting “fair and equal treatment” is both a practical and physical impossibility.

This is probably the crux of the issue with officer discretion. Absolute lack of discretion is a totalitarian nightmare, where any child who takes a candy bar from a grocery store is branded for life. Total discretion will have officers enforcing their beliefs, not the laws. And there is no happy medium. No place where one can say, “Discretion for X but not for Y” without bad outcomes.

Example: One jurisdiction removed discretion in domestic violence cases. They wrote a “mandatory arrest” law such that, if a domestic violence complaint is made, somebody must go to jail. The people who drafted the law feared that an officer would decide a domestic violence call wasn’t a big deal and would let the abuser stay and the abuser would kill the victim. Fair enough.

But local burglars started calling in domestic violence complaints: “Sounds like there’s a big fight going on at 3643 Sinclair St. Sounds pretty bad.”

The police would arrive and even though all the residents said nothing had happened, and there was no physical evidence of any crime, the officers were required by law to bring someone to jail. One of the very confused people would be taken to jail. The other would leave trying to get enough cash for bail money. And the house would be left conveniently vacant for the burglars who called in the complaint.

Completely aside from the fact that many criminals are masters at manipulating even the best-intentioned rules, have you ever known micro-management to improve human interaction? Writing policy may remove the prejudices and failings of the officer in the field, but only substitutes the prejudices and failings of a bureaucrat who isn’t even present to see, hear and smell that moment.

I see no satisfactory policy answer. Maximizing the discretion of officers allows the people at the scene to make the best possible choice for all concerned. It also, however, clears the way for the stupid, the vain, the power hungry and the cruel to act with a free hand. To remove discretion entirely would require a good policy for every possible situation— an impossible thing to either write or to memorize.

To complicate matters even more, we cannot define a good decision. In the matrix of human interaction, most call those decisions “good” from which they or someone they identify with benefits. When riots broke out after the grand jury decision in Ferguson we saw United States citizens rioting against their own civil rights.

A vocal enough group with vested interests can create a media storm that retroactively turns a good decision into a bad decision. Perfect officer discretion requires not only good judgment and good information, but also the ability to see the future.

The best option, so far, is to recruit the best men and women available, train them to the ultimate degree, have them apprentice with older officers of proven judgment…

That is the ideal, but there are about 900,000 sworn officers in the US alone. Do we have a million perfect people, eager to apply for a thankless, high-stress job? Training is expensive, and an easy thing to cut from the annual budget. New officers apprentice under older officers, and those older officers are people, some good, some bad, some wise, some completely burned out.

To sum up:
The problems with discretion:
Discretion will be misused in some cases
Will be a lightning rod for people who want to call things misuse
Not all officers will have equivalent judgment or skill
The socratic ideal of “fair and equal” is impossible
Officers will be manipulated (but they can learn)

The problems with removing discretion:
Striving for a socratic ideal becomes heartless in the particular
It is inflexible
People will be punished for using judgment
It is reactive to misplaced public pressure— black swans wind up driving policy
Bad people are very good at manipulating systems, and systems are slow to adapt
*Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic

Boundary-Setting and Safety Rules – Kathy Jackson

As instructors, we are in a position of authority over our students. For a variety of reasons, this isn’t always a comfortable place to be, but it’s an unavoidable reality of keeping students safe in groups as they learn to work with deadly or potentially deadly skills.

That authority is voluntary, limited, and temporary.
It is voluntary because our students choose to enroll in our classes. The students who end up in our classes get there because they have made a choice to do that. They have lots of other things they could have done this evening or this weekend, but they chose to rearrange their time to spend it with us. They have lots of other things they could do with their money, but they chose to buy a class from us. We have to treat them with the same respect a shopkeeper would give a customer, because that’s what they are—customers.

Our authority is limited. We can tell them what to do for the duration of the class, in the space or on the range we control. But we don’t have even a tiny bit of authority to tell them what to do outside of class. Unless we do a good job selling our safety procedures and defensive techniques, our students won’t take our ideas home with them no matter how much they paid us to share them. We have to be good salespeople to help our students get the most out of our classes.
Our authority lasts exactly as long as the class lasts. It is temporary. As soon as the class is over, the tables turn. When our students are done with class, they will go home and hop on the internet to tell other potential students about us. At that point, they will have all the power they need to make or break us as instructors. If we provided solid information in a safe and enjoyable format, we’ll be in good shape. If we didn’t, we won’t.

Responsibility and Authority
You may wonder why I began an article about boundary setting and safety rules by talking about our authority as instructors. There is an important reason for that: when we step up to teach students how to use potentially deadly skills, their safety while they learn becomes our responsibility. When we teach students how to use firearms, the shooting range is our range for the entire duration of the class. When we teach in a dojo, the safety of everyone on the mat is our responsibility. That is what being an instructor of defensive arts really means. It means it is our obligation to make sure things go right during class, and it is our responsibility when things go wrong. As leaders and teachers, we absolutely have a responsibility to keep our people safe.

Responsibility and authority go hand in hand. They cannot be separated. We have a serious responsibility to each one of our students, and the only way we can meet that responsibility is to properly use the authority that comes with it.
Exercising authority is not easy for many of us. It does not always come naturally, and it’s even more difficult when our students are also our friends and our peers. These are adults we’re talking about, not overgrown children, and we must always treat them with respect.

Nevertheless, when someone signs up to learn how to defend themselves, they absolutely expect their instructors to provide a safe environment. They want and need us to keep them safe from the actions of other students while they learn. When we use our authority to keep our students safe, we are doing exactly what they have paid us to do for them.

For me, one big key is that many students do not already know how to stay safe inside our specialized learning environments. They may not know how they’re supposed to act on the mat. They may not know edged weapon etiquette. After a lifetime of watching flashy but utterly unsafe gunhandling on the television screen, they almost certainly do not yet have good habits built into their behavior around guns. This means that – big surprise here! – teaching students how to stay safe will be a big part of our jobs. We are not simply enforcers. We’re instructors.
Even those who do already know the rules really appreciate it when we take time to make sure everyone is on board with the same protocols. It creates a much more comfortable learning environment for everyone.

Firearms Safety
Setting boundaries at the outset of a firearms class involves little more than stating the safety rules clearly enough that every student understands them. And yet it’s surprising how easy it is to muff this simple step. We shortchange students by rushing through the safety brief, or by reciting rules without paying much attention to meaning. When we just go through the motions rather than treating it as the serious core of the issue that it is, we prime students to disregard the safety boundaries we’re trying to set.

Here are the universal safety rules understood and used by most defensive handgunners:

  • All guns are always loaded. Even if they are not, treat them as if they are.
  • Never point the gun at anything you are not willing to destroy.
  • Keep your finger off the trigger until the sights are on target and you have made the decision to shoot.
  • Be sure of your target and what’s beyond.

Although many people happily argue for minor variations of these rules, or criticize some specific part of the wording, these core concepts remain the most widely-accepted safety protocols in the firearms community. Deceptively simple at first glance, they contain a hidden world of application that students should understand and take home with them as words to live by. Good instructors help students understand how to apply these rules in a variety of settings.

Beyond these universal rules that apply everywhere and all the time, every range has some rules unique to that facility. Some of these are simple management tools, such as a rule about who can pick up brass and when they can do it. Some provide an added layer of safety in group settings, such as a raised flag that signals when shooters are downrange adjusting targets. Others allow individual shooters to more easily follow the universal rules within that environment; for example, setting aside one particular well-contained area for live gunhandling.

We have class-specific rules for similar reasons:

  • Easier crowd management,
  • Reducing group-specific dangers, and
  • Helping each student more easily follow the universal safety rules inside the class setting.

We need specific rules for class because when we spend time working with firearms in a group of people, we encounter some dangers that we wouldn’t run into if we were alone on the range doing our own thing.

For example, having a lot of people firing at once tends to increase the risk of hot brass landing where it shouldn’t. There are also physical reactions to stressors in class: hot or cold weather, fatigue, dehydration. And, of course, some dangers are increased simply because people work harder at looking cool when other people are around. Class specific rules address these challenges that we encounter within the context of the class setting.

Setting Boundaries – the Safety Brief
As a retired Marine officer once told me, “The usual problem in a safety briefing is, if you don’t explain your reasons, your recruits think you’re stupid – or worse, they think you think they are stupid.” Unlike many other types of boundary-setting, explaining the reasons for the boundaries of our safety protocol tends to reduce student resistance to following them.

Safety briefs work best when all students are present. While we might be casual about students missing other parts of the program, our responsibility to the students means we need to assure that every person knows the rules. For easier time management, we might begin class with less-critical introductory material and go over safety rules after that. This assures that latecomers do not miss the briefing or delay the class while we wait for them to arrive. If we have students who need to step away from the group for any reason, we can ask them not to do so during the safety briefing.

By doing this, we make sure that everyone in class has heard the rules themselves and that each person knows that every other person has heard the rules. This helps set student expectations, and helps reduce nervous fears among newcomers. It also puts us as instructors in a stronger legal position if anything goes wrong during class. There’s little sense in setting a boundary that the intended recipients don’t catch.

Enforcement
But what should we do when students violate the safety protocols? How can we help students respect the boundaries we’ve set?

As one of my mentors, Marty Hayes, was going through law school, he and I would often talk about the things he was learning and how his new knowledge influenced his decisions at his firearms school. Those discussions had a deep impact on the choices I’ve made as I’ve been teaching under my own banner. Probably the biggest effect has been a sharp reduction in how willing I am to let an unsafe student continue on the line after a repeated verbal warning. As a result, I’ve developed a simple set of procedures that help me be sure I’m not shortchanging the other students – the ones who paid for and expect to learn in a safe environment.

To more easily show how this works, let’s look at a common, and usually inadvertent, rule violation: the student has allowed their gun to point at anything other than the target and its safe backstop. This happens more often than untrained people would expect, and it’s a non-trivial concern. Although it doesn’t always mean another person ends up directly in front of the muzzle, it certainly can mean that. In any case, it’s a behavior that we must correct immediately if our class safety rules have any meaning.

We start enforcement early, before any other person could be in the line of fire. This means we notice what the students are noticing, and draw their attention back to where they are pointing the gun whenever they lose track. Crucially, students must develop the habit of constant muzzle awareness. Helping them develop that habit will often preclude the need to correct them later, and certainly helps maintain student safety throughout the day.

Important Note! The sequence below begins with the assumption that the student has simply allowed the muzzle to drift, but has not pointed the gun directly at anyone else. If they did directly point the gun at another student or an instructor, even if they did not mean to do so, we go straight to step three.

Inadvertent offense / Step One
Verbal intervention: “Muzzle!”
Physical intervention: Grab and control muzzle direction if student is within reach.
Instruction: “Please keep the gun pointed at the berm. [Explain how to do whatever task they were doing while keeping the muzzle pointed at the berm.] Do you understand?”
Observation: For at least the next few drills, stand in a place where it’s easier to physically intervene if needed.

Repeated offense / Step Two
Verbal and physical intervention.
Gather information: “Do you understand what just happened?” (LISTEN to the answer.)
Verbal warning: “[Name], I like you and don’t want you to get hurt or to hurt anyone else. So if this happens again, you will have to sit down during the next drill. Do you understand?”
Inadvertent offense with immediate danger OR Repeated offense after warning /

Step Three
Verbal and physical intervention.
Unload gun and verify that it is unloaded.
Gather information: “Do you understand what just happened?” (LISTEN to the answer!)
Issue first consequence: “Okay. [Name], because I like you and don’t want you to get hurt or to hurt anyone else, I need you to sit down and think about what you just did for a few minutes. Take a break, get a drink of water, get yourself back together. You can rejoin the class in [15 minutes, 30 minutes, after the next drill].”
If appropriate, add: “I know you’re upset.” Acknowledge the sting without erasing it.
Repeated or willful offense with immediate danger / Step Four
Verbal and physical intervention.
Unload gun and verify that it is unloaded.
Gather information: “Do you understand what just happened?” (LISTEN to the answer!)
Issue final consequence: “Okay. Because I like you and don’t want you to get hurt or to hurt anyone else, you’re off the line for the day.”
If appropriate, add: “… but you’re welcome to stay and watch the rest of the class.” If they are not welcome to stay and watch the remainder of the class, call a class break so that you can supervise them as they pack up their things. Never allow them to pack and leave without supervision.

Discussion Points
None of this is pleasant, but it can be done in a pleasant way. It’s best to stay calm and professional throughout, even if the sequence ultimately ends with dismissing the student from the class.

Always unload the student’s gun and be sure it is unloaded before you start issuing consequences. This definitely reduces the pucker factor in cases where the student does not take the consequence in stride.

Working as a line coach, I once had to throw a really nice, really sweet old lady off the line. It’s easier when they’re jerks. She wasn’t. She was a good person doing the best she could. But I’d been standing with my hand two inches from her gun hand for nearly an hour, and during that time I’d had to redirect the muzzle every single time she came off target because she just wasn’t aware of what she was doing with it. Talking did not fix it, nor did my repeated physical intervention. She just wasn’t able to absorb the lesson in the time we had available.

That’s the key, by the way. If you get as far as step one with anyone, then for at least the next little while, you should stand next to them with your hands poised to immediately intervene. Physically step in as soon as it’s needed and stay there as long as needed. When you see a trainwreck coming from someone who inadvertently violates a safety protocol, simply don’t let them get to the next step, and especially not to step three. Failure to stay on top of early indications is likely to result in someone getting a gun pointed at them … or worse.

Because I had taken such complete control of this woman’s actions while she was handling the gun, at no point did the muzzle actually cross another student, but the students on both sides of her were very uncomfortable with what was happening. She was also taking 100% of my attention, which is inherently unsafe even when other coaches also have eyes on the line. Having her put her gun down felt like giving up, but we’d reached the end of what we could do within the limits of the class and the resources we had available. And that was it. She had to simply watch the rest of the drills without shooting.

Although setting and enforcing boundaries isn’t always fun, it’s an important part of the job we do as self-defense instructors. When we set the boundaries clearly and enforce them early, we can help our students stay safe while we teach them how to protect themselves from danger.