Author: Erik Kondo

Never Go Anywhere Without Your Kitten – Teja Van Wicklen

I saw a clip on Facebook a few months back called Kitten Therapy. Self-proclaimed stressed-out people were invited to remove their shoes and experience a guided meditation in a large transparent room in the middle of a busy square. These unsuspecting victims donned headphones, closed their eyes and listened to the sounds of purring kittens…. When asked to open their eyes they found, one by one, a slew of rowdy grey and white kittens squeezing into the meditation space through a series of kitten-sized panels. Sudden relaxation and joy ensued like a chemical experiment gone right–take stressed humans, add kittens, stir.

Too bad the thought of conflict management techniques, self defense knowledge and intrapersonal skills don’t have the same effect. Self defense just isn’t fuzzy enough.

But, there just might be another kind of stress-relieving kitten that doesn’t require emptying cat litter.

Ten or so years ago when I had my son I found I was often foggy and forgetful from sleep deprivation. I began carrying a small assortment of necessary items to help me offset and placate my anxious mommy-brain. More recently I began calling this assortment of approximately ten things a Ten-Kit or KitTen (I’m pushing the metaphor, I know).

My KitTen is about the size of a woman’s make up kit or a pencil case and it holds what I consider to be my most urgent daily items. Which is to say, mostly first aid stuff (says the EMT and Mom) with a few other helpful nuggets thrown in for good measure.

As a Conflict Manager Magazine reader (or contributor) the concept of preparation is already an integral part of your lexicon. So what is your EDC (Every Day Carry)? How much time did you spend figuring it out? How many websites did you consult? How often do you check your supplies? Every conflict manager needs an EDC. If you haven’t thought about this yet, some suggestions follow.

As an instructor of Protective Offense and an EMT, but especially as the mother of a nine-year-old, there are some contingencies that are really more like eventualities – cuts, stomach aches, headaches, hunger fits, splinters, etc. It’s amazing how quickly the fun of a vacation or even a movie ends when a kid is uncomfortable! But what about being locked out of your car or house? What happens when you forget your wallet or get lost?

These kits can become overwhelming, so we need to keep them paired down to the bare minimum. To each her own, so modify where needed.

Begin by making a list of the people in your family and especially any unusual or critical medications they take. Now add any other special items you already consider a necessity (besides wallet and keys). Finally, think about the kinds of situations you have encountered over the last few years and the things you wished you’d had.

If you live in the country, on a boat or in the Australian Outback, your list will be different than someone who lives in the desert or the city.

What follows is a list of the top ten average-day items I (almost) never (let’s be really honest here) leave the house without, and a few extra things I sometimes bring along or substitute or that you might like to have for your family.

Start with a makeup or pencil-sized bag you can fit in your purse or everyday carry bag. My “purse” is a small backpack, my KitTen is a small square-ish Le Sports Sac thingy (no I don’t get a kickback). If you can find a fuzzy makeup case you’ve really maximized the kitten metaphor. Now you can get down to business.

Here’s what I carry:

Pointy tweezers are good for many things besides splinters. Ticks and beestings are one example. Flat household tweezers are not what you want. A fine point makes your KitTen tweezers useful for more things like ticks and beestings.

Miscellaneous-sized Bandages – Water-proof ones are good to have around as well, especially if you’re at the pool or beach! These are the things you will need to refill most often if you have kids. Throw in one or two gauze pads for good measure.

A Small role of first aid adhesive tape and/or duct tape can be used for many things, including fixing shoes. Tape is indispensable for creating make-shift splints for small body parts like fingers. You can remove the cardboard holder and wrap the tape tightly around something smaller, like your finger, so it takes up less space.

Safety-pins are great for making a sling for a broken arm out of just about any kind of material. They are also great for keeping important things attached to you in case you need your hands free and for fixing clothes among other things. Bring a few of different sizes. You can save space in your KitTen by attaching them to the zipper.

Alcohol pads and/or alcohol gel sanitizer (avoid Triclosan, which is an Endocrine disruptor and generally nasty chemical. There is some evidence that effects children’s learning and enhances allergies). What you want is the ability to disinfect almost anything, wherever you are. There has been a kickback of late against hand sanitizers. At home use simple soap, but sometimes you don’t have that luxury.

A mini multi-tool is absolutely indispensable. Get one preferably with scissors and pliers, and both a flat head and phillips screwdriver. Victorinox or Leatherman-type tools are available everywhere, including Amazon. Cheap ones can’t always be counted on, the joints and screws can break when you need them most. Get something with some sort of reliable guarantee.

Medications. Pack 1 or 2 of each pill or individual packet, more of what your family uses most. Try to find small packs and mini size ointment and cream containers or buy small containers, clean them well and fill them. You might also want to have a medicine cup or spoon if necessary.

Aspirin and non-aspirin pain relievers (you may not want to give children and teens aspirin. There may also be issues for young children with Tylenol)
Antibiotic ointment
1% Hydrocortisone Cream
Over-the-counter oral antihistamine, such as diphenhydramine (still the gold-standard for allergy emergencies)
Anti-diarrhea medication
2 antacid tablets
Activated charcoal (only if instructed by your poison control center 1-800-222-1222)
any prescribed medications that don’t need refrigeration, including drugs to treat known allergies, such as an Albuterol inhaler or epinephrine auto-injector, insulin, etc.

Petroleum Jelly (Vaseline) – It’s not organic and it’s not good for your skin, but it can keep the bad things out in a pinch and it lasts forever. PJ protects skin from sun and cold weather chapping, lubricates just about anything and is flammable – so it will help you start a fire if you’re freezing to death. It can even act as a makeshift bandage to slow minor bleeding. You can buy tiny jars or tins, and fill them yourself.

LED Flashlight, a small headlamp, or both. Flashlights are indispensable. Until you need one, you have no idea how important they are. If you have room, bring a few extra batteries for whatever flashlight you have. If it’s a small disposable one, check it often or carry an extra. Extras don’t have to go in your KitTen, they can attach to keys and zippers.

Secret Stash of Cash, an extra credit card or both. $20 should do.

Here are some suggestions of extra or substitute items I have found helpful:

I like to have an extra car and/or house key either in my KitTen, bag or stashed in a (really smart) hiding place (not in the plant by the door!).

Feminine pads and/or Tampons. If you are a woman between 11 and 55 you never know when having an emergency supply of these might come in handy. It’s also nice if you are with friends and are able to come to the rescue. As it turns out pads and tampons also work for heavily bleeding wounds, liquid spills and as tinder for making a fire! But that’s another post.

Medical consent forms are helpful if anyone in your family has specific medical
needs. These forms can be loaded on to a flash drive, labeled and kept in your kit or printed in a small font, folded and enclosed tightly in a zip-lock bag and taped shut to keep it safe from water.

Medical history cards for each family member, with blood type (you can print these very small and laminate them so they don’t have to be folded and bagged), are a very good idea. Keep them in your kit or your wallet. Or you can have your blood type and allergies tattooed on your body like one person I know.

Emergency phone numbers, including contact information for your family doctor and pediatrician, local emergency services, emergency road service providers and the regional poison control center can also be laminated and kept in your KitTen or wallet.

Simple First-aid instruction manual – you can also have a first aid app on your phone.

Quick Clot is an emergency clotting agent for major bleeding (including arterial) that needs attention sooner than traffic may allow. Some CPR training facilities and gun ranges offer classes on how to use it though it’s pretty cut and dried. Pun intended.

A Mini Sewing Kit with 2 needles a small amount of thread and fishing line can be helpful for fixing clothing, suturing emergencies, fishing and making traps – although you’d have to learn how to do these things. But I love every day tools that cover more than just the one most likely scenario.

Water-proof Matches, a torch-lighter (works in wind) or a flint and steel. Seems silly but fire is such a crucial thing to have access to. If you’re trapped in a snow drift over night in your car, the ability to make a fire could save your life. And the spare tampon and Vaseline you have in your KitTen will serve perfectly as tinder. Toby Cowern taught me that!

2 Non-lubricated Condoms – Not what you’re thinking (although you never know). For carrying water in an emergency, because they take up no space. Even just to flush a wound. I’ve heard you can even boil water in them if you have to. I haven’t tried this, but apparently the water keeps the rubber from melting. Get confirmation before counting on it. The details are pretty specific.

A couple of rain poncho packets. They take up no space and keeps you and your kids dry in a downpour.

Heat blanket packet. You never know when you or your kids might get really cold. I’m told these work, though I have never had the occasion to use one. They come in a tight, flat pack. You may have seen them or been the recipient of one after a Marathon.

Mini Sharpie and/or Pencil for taking and leaving notes and making directional signs on trees and rocks if necessary.

Snack/Water: Whether in your purse, bag, car or KitTen, you should always have some sort of snack with you–a bar, some nuts and raisins. Never get caught without food or water, especially if you have kids, or low blood sugar. Waiting on line for a movie can become a crisis without this stuff. If you are off the beaten path or plan to be, I highly recommend having a few water purification tablets. They take up no space wrapped in a small amount of aluminum foil. You have to have a container and you must wait around a half hour before drinking. A water purification straw like the LifeStraw, filters dirty water from a puddle in an emergency and takes up a fraction of the space of other water filters. It is still too large for your KitTen though and is more likely to live in your car.

(Picture: Notice the mini pill case. This works for me because I get to choose what I put in it. Or you may prefer the tiny one-use packets you can buy in bulk.)

Give Your Kit a Regular Checkup and Other Suggestions

This is your everyday kit. Take care of it. Replace items, check expirations on prescriptions at least. I’m not so worried about expirations on OTC stuff. They tend to work fine decades after they expire, or so says my Father-In-Law, the Professor of Biochemistry and Immunology, and a few articles I’ve read. But make sure crucial drugs like nitroglycerine or epi-pens are up to date. Don’t take my word for it. Always do your own research, but you probably don’t need to throw away your five-year-old aspirin. Donate the extra five bucks to charity or put it in a jar.

Consider taking a first-aid course through the American Red Cross. Contact your local chapter for classes. Find a buddy and make it an event.

Prepare children for medical emergencies in age-appropriate ways. The American Red Cross offers a number of helpful resources, including classes designed to help children understand and use first-aid techniques.

I’ll Never Get Around To It:

If you need someone to build you a KitTen, contact us at Teja@ConflictResearchGroup.com. We can collaborate on it. It will cost about $150 to $200 for quality products, depending on the items you select (we’ll send you a PayPal invoice). We agree on the price before any work gets done.

If you DIY it, expect to spend about $75 at the very least, depending on the quality of products, especially the MultiTool and Headlamp if you include them, and you should.
Make one for yourself and others in your family. They make cool, thoughtful, personal gifts.

I’m actually more of a dog person myself, but who can resist a KitTen.

Jungles, Tigers and Dragons – Garry Smith

Certification is not the answer, credible certification is the answer. The MA/SD world, to say nothing of all our affiliated fields, firearms, survival, you name it, abound with training opportunities complete with certificates. If you choose carefully you can soon wallpaper your whole house with them. You can sign up to more certificate baring course than you can shake a stick at, just think of how your portfolio will grow, your customers and potential customers will swoon to see just how qualified you are. Or will they?

Well there are different schools of thought on this of course and I will nail my colours to the mast early on here, for me its quality not quantity that counts. Personally I look at the validity of the awarding body not how many tigers or dragons are on the certificate. Certificates of attendance or of no value to me unless they count towards ticking off Continued Professional Learning hours and even these do not signify that any learning has occurred, just that you filled some space for some time.

I once attended a course where strict conditions were laid down regarding qualifying. Pre course reading was required, every person must deliver a presentation and perform to a certain standard. Many did not achieve the set standards, some fell embarrassingly short, everyone passed, some had no presentation and ad libbed very badly, they all qualified as instructors. I felt sold short having put a lot of effort in and felt that the qualification, and the very nice certificate, were not worth having despite the course being good in every other aspect.

I have taught for years in Further and Higher Education, I have marked thousands of essays by pre university and undergraduate students. We had standards, the had to be adhered to and if you did not meet them you failed, end of, and yes I failed people. Of course I gave them the constructive criticism to help them address the failings and resubmit but if an essay failed to meet the mark I failed it, not the student. Having said that one student submitted after the deadline, despite numerous reminders, the essay he submitted was completely plagiarised, I went through it with him and he went from absolute denial to admitting it via many gradual changes. I failed it, he never went to university, sad but if you draw a line in the sand you have to keep the right side of it.

So for all the subjectivity involved in marking academic papers and it is inevitably there, criteria exist and they have to be applied to all. So it should be in any system of certification but as we know, the unregulated nature of the martial arts world together with its many factions, styles and politics makes this virtually impossible. If I wanted to I could qualify as an instructor online with no end of organisations as long as the cheque does not bounce. I can take courses without verifying who I am or where I am and print off the certificate afterwards, I am reduced to being a url and a visa payment.

To be honest even the Sport England coaching course I completed with a recognised governing body lacked any academic rigour, I together with colleagues submitted short essays, never received a mark and not a word of feedback, none, but we passed. A vindictive person would see the course as a money making scam, especially when you have to re-take the same qualification every three years? Really, Good job I do not have to retake my degree every three years. I put a lot of work into that course, then for the test we were all left in the same room with no invigilator to happily discuss our answers, not cheating, we would not do that.

You see in the MA/SD world there is a complete absence of anything approaching a goldstandard, it is a jungle out there and whilst there are undoubtedly some great courses there is a lot of utter rubbish too. Often we cannot see the trees in the jungle so dense is the growth. The cult of personality is strong here too and often that is what sells, reputations, however hard won, together with black belts, regardless of the number of dan grades, do not a teacher make. Here is the killer though, of those who can teach, how many can design a curriculum that provides a coherent learning package, how many understand the need for and value of academic rigour? Well, anyone have any answers?

Well I do, sort of, or at least I am working towards one with people I trust. There is a need for a generic instructors training programme with teaching and learning at the core. Style, system and politically neutral, accredited as a programme of work based continues professional development and with a rigorous quality assurance system completely integrated throughout the course. This programme should be based on work based learning and include time limited online examinations, ongoing specialist tutor support and have a credit system that is equivalent to certificate, diploma and degree level study. This may be too much for some but a series of vocational qualifications from entry level to masters degree level can provide accompanying units and the step ladder onto the main programme.

This would necessitate bringing together academics and violence professionals in a collaborative partnership so that we can cover all the bases. This is a teaching qualification open to all regardless of rank and association. It is a stand alone qualification intended to professionalise standards, its value lies in the fact that it is externally accredited by a leading university that specialises in teaching and learning, the certificate, is far from a wall hanging and has international currency.

CRGI has the network of violence professionals and then some, we have the link with the faculty of teaching and learning, talks are at a very early stage but there is focus on building a model that is robust and attractive. The best thing is this is a student centred model with an incredible knowledge-base already established, we are already piloting leaning packages in bite size chunks. Also we are not in uncharted territory, I certainly have been here before and the university in question has similar programmes already being used for major organisations so the model exists.

The question is a simple one, is the industry we are in ready to grow up, to evolve and step clear of the jungle. Will people be able to resist the pull of the tiger and dragon infested wall hangers and the accompanying cult of personality? Well they are not mutually exclusive but if I were looking to create my unique selling point that distinguished me from all those who pass a belt, however skilled they are, the are not qualified as teachers and that is what we do, we teach and our students learn and the vast majority of people out there, with the very best of intentions, are winging it.

It is time we made some changes.

Intervening with Youth – Jeffrey Johnson

Crisis Intervention with youth is far too vast a topic to do justice to in a short article. There are too many anecdotes, too many rules and laws to remember, too many configurations of teams in so many diverse programs and schools that do this kind of work to really cover it all adequately here. Instead, I will try to give a rough overview of the topic to give the reader a decent framework to begin operating from as he or she approaches this kind of work.

You Must Care

This is hard, often thankless work that most people don’t get fairly compensated for. If you signed up to work with young people who have major emotional and behavioral issues, you have an important job that can be highly stressful at times, and highly rewarding at other times. You will hear, see, and experience things most people have no frame of reference for understanding. You will meet people who have been through a lot of really horrible traumatic circumstances, and who may have committed horrible acts themselves. You have to care about the young people you work with, and you have to put your pride aside and make sure that the right thing happens every time. And you have to accept that the right thing doesn’t always happen every time.

When you are threatened, or even assaulted (being spat on or kicked for example), you have to remember that you have a job to do and people to keep safe. Taking it personal and not learning to cope with stress and emotions will lead to making mistakes, and a split second bad decision can lead to people being injured, property being destroyed, and you being handed your walking papers. Or worse. Lawsuits and jail time are not out of the realm of possibility. If you have become vindictive, careless, or are lying to cover your ass, you are making huge mistakes that can be costly.

My best piece of advice is to align yourself with whomever is a veteran of the program you work in who is ready and willing to show you by example the best way to do the work. I was blessed to be around a lot of people who knew very well how to do their job and I had a lot of support from coworkers and administrators.

Know Your Environment

You need to understand where you work. When you are part of a team you have backup, a closed in environment, and hopefully some consistent plans and strategies for preventing aggressive outbursts and dealing with unsafe situations as they come. You also have state and federal laws (HIPAA is an example), company policies and ethics, and the professional culture of your setting. Are you in a hospital setting? Partial-hospitalization? A behavior unit of a public or private school? A detention facility? You need to understand the setting and the options and limits you have when confronted with crisis. Otherwise, what you do could prove disastrous for you professionally and physically, and may have consequences for your co-workers and the young people you are responsible for.

Next you have to know the physical layout of the place you work in. You need to know where youth are allowed to go, where they aren’t allowed to go, where they like to hide or where stolen items might be stored, etc. You need to know what doors are kept locked at all times, where utility closets are and what is in them, and you need to be aware that objects that are available to be used as weapons may be. In my experience, the vast majority of occasions where a chair was grabbed or a stapler was held it was just a threat, but there have been times where the improvised weapon was used. Keep scissors in drawers if they are not being used, and be mindful of who is using whatever implement to participate in whatever activity.

Know Your Team

This makes or breaks everything. A good team always assumes that a solution is possible, that there is always room to improve, and that supporting each other is absolutely crucial. A good team consists of people who will put quality of work before any ego or recognition, and are always ready to help whenever possible. A good team builds rapport with each other proactively, getting to know each other and probably considers each other to be friends as well as work colleagues. They will listen to and protect each other, and will verbalize regularly that they are available to help in any way possible. Anything less means that “the inmates will run the asylum.” And if that happens, your job will become nearly impossible.

Synergy with team mates means we can communicate with non-verbals, we can predict each others’ intentions and actions, and we can monitor each other and step in and switch-out with someone to make a bad situation calm down. A lack of synergy means that we make decisions that undermine each others’ authority, and can show clients that we are not a unified front. Once that happens, there will be some who exploit the gaps in our cohesion. The manipulators are the ones that exploit these holes the most, and that creates more disunity within a team.

Team building exercises, retreats (we used to have a program wide camping in-service), and simply meeting after work for food and shenanigans can help a team build rapport. Joke, smile, and laugh whenever there is time for it.

Know Your Clients

Your setting may call them clients, consumers, students, or whatever term is most appropriate. In any case, knowing as much as you can about them is very helpful. New intakes are especially tricky if you have never read any of their information, and you have to be ready to deal with a client that behaves in a way that is totally inconsistent with what has been reported. Sometimes the previous staff who worked with a client, or their parent or guardian, has such a bad relationship that all they write is negative, and the client turns out to be genuinely good hearted, polite, and desiring to make positive changes. Other times someone will have completely omitted that the client has a history of sexual predation, a key piece of information that can completely change how he/she is monitored. I had teaching partners who had worked with adolescent sex offenders and were able to spot problem behaviors that were invisible to me at first. I heeded the warnings. It pays to listen even if you don’t always see what someone else is seeing. It probably protected some vulnerable clients.

For small children, crisis episodes tend to be high frequency, low intensity. This means that you may have to deal with lots of instances of verbal and physical aggression, but due to the size of the client, it presents a relatively low amount of danger (Danger is still danger. A 6 year old can still stab me with a pair of scissors). In adolescents, crisis episodes tend to be low frequency, high intensity. This means that the instances of verbal and physical aggression are low compared to very young clients, but are typically much more dangerous and volatile. These kinds of situations are the ones that may result in police intervention and can have a lot of spill-over into and from the community (i.e. gang related issues, neighborhood conflicts, etc.). This is a range of averages, and not any kind of perfect predictor of behavior in an individual young person. Read the files, talk to parents or guardians, and familiarize yourself with different behavioral profiles. A sexual predator has a certain list of personality traits and behaviors to look for. So does a neglected child or one who was beaten severely by an adult. No 2 clients are exactly the same, but you will see variations on themes if you stay with this kind of work long enough.

To understand the type of client that ends up in a program that deals with severe behaviors, whether this is a unit within a school or a residential facility or a youth detention facility, one has to have some background on the causes of the behaviors. The clients I worked with typically had a brutal trauma history, lived in economically depressed areas, and experienced marginalization due to cultural and racial factors.

As a result, the world in their experience was a small place where yelling, cursing, and aggression are cultural capital, and not being able to communicate with at least the threat of violence could and would lead to being bullied, jumped, robbed, and otherwise ridiculed. When we professionals are coming from very different environments than this, it can be difficult to understand the clients we serve. And understanding is key in helping them.

Cultural capital is a big deal. Most of my clients came from inner-city Cleveland, and most were African American. I came from the suburbs and was at least 7 years older than most of them when I started. I had to listen and observe them a lot to get a handle on the slang they used, the body language that told me that a fight was on (pulling up pants was an indicator that a fight-or at least grandstanding like tough guys-was about to happen), or what type of intoxicant they might have used before coming to school that day (this can be key, because what they used may have had some serious physical effects as well as mental.

An assumed increase in blood pressure and heart-rate due to drug use can change how we approach a physically aggressive person. A physical restraint could have dire consequences if a heart is already abnormally pounding out of a client’s chest). You have to piece together a puzzle sometimes. On client looks quizzically at his peer while another laughs at him. Another asks “you gone of that lean, ain’t you?” The client in question seems amped up. Is he high? What is our protocol when we suspect drug use in a client?

As you can start to see, lots of different kinds of knowledge and pieces of the puzzle begin to come together and overlap each other, and you have to gather all of this info in a short amount of time and already have in mind the policies and procedures for handling situations legally and ethically, all the while doing your best to keep everyone as safe as possible.

Other things to be aware of…has the client had neighborhood issues? Domestic abuse issues? A history of sexual or physical abuse? How stable is the current home environment? Has the client and his/her family had to move recently or frequently? Are there siblings or other family members living with the client? Are there any intellectual delays? Is the client currently medicated? What medicines is he/she on? What are the medicines for? And on and on…

Self-Defense “Moves”: The Good, Bad and the Ugly – Erik Kondo

Popular movies such as Miss Congeniality have given the idea of self-defense “Moves” popular appeal, particularly among women. In the case of the movie, the Hollywood “Moves” targeted S.I.N.G. (Solar Plexus, Instep, Nose, Groin). Generally speaking, men are more interesting in learning how to “fight”, while women are more interested in learning self-defense “Moves” to repel sexual assault.

I am going to focus on the Good, Bad, and Ugly of instructing self-defense “Moves” for women.

The BAD of Some Self-Defense Moves

  • If you are using a self-defense Move, then you are being attacked. Knowing Moves don’t help you prevent from being attacked in the first place.
  • Moves assume that the victim will actually “fight back” as opposed to being frozen in fear.
  • Learned Moves are subject to the Forgetting Curve meaning that most of what is “learned” will soon be forgotten anyway in an exponential manner.
    Knowing how to do a Move, doesn’t mean you know when to do the Move and when not to do it.
  • The implication of an instructed Move is that it is better than an instinctive response. Therefore, the Move is intended to replace instinctive actions. According to research, 80% of women who actively resist in some manner are successful in stopping the assault. For the instructed Move to be reliable and worthwhile, it needs to have an even higher success rate than instinctive actions.
    Learning a Move, doesn’t mean you know what to do if the Move fails to work as intended.
  • The instruction of Moves tends to lead students to believe that there is a single right way and many wrong ways to act as opposed to better and worse ways of responding.

The UGLY of Some Self-Defense Moves

  • Learning these Moves, gives you false confidence, and makes you think you can do things that you really can’t. This false confidence encourages a tendency for you to put yourself in risky situations that you might have otherwise avoided.
  • These Moves place you in more vulnerable position if the Move fails.
  • Instruction of these “killer” Moves promote the misleading impression that all assaults come from strangers and are life and death situations.
  • These Moves when used without judgement are likely to escalate situations as opposed to de-escalating or providing the opportunity to escape.

The GOOD of Some Self-Defense Moves

  • Good self-defense Moves are not really Moves at all. They are effective responses in certain situations.
  • Good Responses are modifications of instinctive actions that you are likely to do anyway.
  • Good Responses are taught to beginners through the use of conditioning as opposed to rote instruction.
  • Good Responses are taught to beginners in manner that is more about the experience of the instruction and less about what is actually learned. Experiences tend to be remembered while instruction is not.
  • Good Responses have a higher probability of making the situation better and a lower probability of making the situation worse.
  • Good Responses encourage “breaking the freeze”.
  • Instruction of Good Responses “gives permission” to act and break out of socially conditioned scripts and reactions.
  • Good Responses encourage critical and dynamic thinking.
  • Good Responses take into consideration a person’s potential emotional, psychological and physiological state.
  • Good Responses incorporate ethical and legal considerations.
  • Good Responses can deal with both of the scenarios described below:

In the following two scenarios, the factors are the exact opposite which is an illustration of how much variability is involved in assaults.

SCENARIO #1:

  1. The assailant is a stranger. (creepy guy, dangerous serial predator)
  2. He attacks from an ambush. (surprise attack)
  3. The attack occurs in a public place. (parking lot, public park, sidewalk, etc.)
  4. The attacker forces victim into secluded area. (dark alley, behind a bush)
  5. The attacker uses a weapon and/or high physical force. (knife, gun, hard strikes, strangles, etc.)
  6. The victim fights back unsuccessfully. (flails, kicks, screams, etc.)
  7. The victim reports the crime to the police. (right after the attack)

SCENARIO #2:

  1. The assailant is known to the victim. (friend, date, boyfriend, acquaintance, family member, co-worker, boss, etc.)
  2. There is a buildup to the assault. (interview, boundary testing, etc.)
  3. The assault happens in private area. (apartment, dorm room, private vehicle, etc.)
  4. The victim went voluntarily to the assault location. (wanted to go, was manipulated into going)
  5. The assailant doesn’t use a weapon, uses coercion or minimal force.
  6. The victim doesn’t fight back. (frozen in fear, incapacitated by drugs/alcohol, didn’t want to make the assailant angry, unwilling because of existing relationship)
  7. The victim doesn’t report the crime to the police. (doesn’t tell anybody, or only after a long period of time)

The notion of Self-defense “Moves” is ingrained in the public and in many self-defense instructors. Since it is unlikely that this thinking will disappear any time soon, effective “Moves” should focus on the GOOD and avoid the BAD and UGLY.

Self-Defense And The Art Of Motorcycling – Randy LaHaie

Riding a motorcycle has been used as a metaphor for all kinds of things: philosophy, living in the moment, dealing with fear, freedom, independence and the list goes on. In this post I’ll list my top ten guidelines for safe motorcycling and draw the comparison to how those same principles can be applied to self-defense.

Whether you ride a motorcycle, used to ride, plan to ride or think that any one who rides is “bat shit crazy,” these pointers are intended to make you think. Principles are principles… Its how you apply them that determines whether they are useful to your particular situation and goals.

I’ve ridden motorcycles and studied self-defense all of my life. Over the years, I couldn’t help but notice that the concepts and strategies needed to anticipate and deal with interpersonal violence parallel those needed to avoid wipeouts and collisions.

Let’s see if you agree.

1. Adopt A Proactive Mindset

Motorcycling: Riding a motorcycle is a blast! That being said, if you’re going to ride, you need to acknowledge that motorcycling can also be a dangerous way to travel.

Riding a motorcycle is an enjoyable, exhilarating activity. But it’s not without risk. People who ride need to balance their desire to live life to the fullest with taking responsibility to deal wit threats and hazards along the way.

Self-Defense: The statistical probability of being mugged, robbed or the target of a violent crime is low. It’s easy to adopt an “it-will-never-happen-to-me attitude,” and go on about your life in a state of ignorance and complacency.

Self-Defense starts with the decision to accept full responsibility for your personal safety and to implement thinking and behaviors to allow you to do that. The key is to adopt safety-related “habits” that become second nature.

2. Master Your Technical Skills

Motorcycling: A proactive biker is always working on his or her riding skills. The operative skills of the bike should be practiced and improved deliberately and continuously. Braking, cornering, and collision avoidance don’t improve automatically just by collecting clicks on the odometer.

Don’t rely on that long-forgotten motorcycle safety course (if you took one) to teach you all you need to know to ride safe and respond to emergencies. You need to continue learning and practice to improve your riding skills.

Self-Defense: How proficient are your self-defense skills? Are they something that you practice on a regular basis, or are you relying on the fact that you “used to” take martial arts or self-defense classes?

Do you assume not only that you’ll know what to do in a volatile situation but also that your actions will be effective? How often do you practice your combative skills?

Skills and conditioning are NOT permanent. They erode unless you invest time and effort on an ongoing basis. If you’re serious about self-defense, training should be a part of your lifestyle.

4. Constantly Scan Your Environment

Motorcycling: Riding a motorcycle “connects” you to your environment. Straddling “a motor on two wheels,” and riding it at a high rate of speed, exposed to the elements, only inches off the pavement is a visceral experience. You’d BETTER be tapped into what you’re doing and what’s going on ahead, behind and beside you.

Obstacles on the road, potholes, patches of sand, gravel and ice are a constant. The chance of an animal, a pedestrian or another vehicle crossing your path is to be expected. You need to balance your enjoyment of the ride with a continuous assessment of your environment for potential hazards.

Self-Defense: In self-defense training the term “always be aware of your surroundings,” is so overused that it becomes a redundant cliché. As legitimate as that advice is, you will constantly catch yourself being distracted, pre-occupied and often oblivious to what’s going on around you.

I’m not suggesting that you adopt a state of fear and paranoia, but rather a calm and alert attitude and the cultivation of “awareness,” which I define as:

Knowing what to look for.
Disciplining yourself to actively scan and pay attention.
Matching the degree of your attentiveness to your current situation.

The quicker and more consistently you’re able spot a potential problem, the more options you have to deal with it and the more successful you are likely to be.
5. Dress For Success

Motorcycling: Ever seen some goofball on a sport bike riding in shorts, a muscle shirt and flip-flops? He was probably the one weaving in and out of traffic, showing off and going faster than he should be. Here’s a tip: Don’t be that guy!

A responsible biker is deliberate about what he or she wears while riding. A biker’s wardrobe is intended to protect her from a spill or collision and to shelter her from the elements (heat, cold, rain, sunburn, dehydration). She anticipates the inherent hazards of the road and dresses accordingly.

Self-Defense: What you wear in a self-defense context is also important in two ways: response capability and victim selection.

Does your clothing allow you enough traction and freedom of movement to fight or flee from a violent encounter? Dressed the way you are, can you move, kick, strike or run effectively even if the ground is slippery or uneven?

Does your clothing draw attention to you or make you stand out in a crowd? Could what you are wearing make you look out-of-place, wealthy or like a tourist? These types of signals can attract predators.

6. DON’T Mind Your Own Business

Motorcycling: Bikers have to accept the fact that they can be the most responsible, proficient and safety-conscious drivers on the road and STILL be at risk of a catastrophic event. It’s not all about you.

Roads, streets and highways are proliferated by tailgaters, impatient speeders, distracted drivers, drunks, reckless jerks and generally bad drivers. You’re going to have to take that into account.

You’ll have to be constantly on the lookout for “the other guy.” Watch for cues and patterns of careless behavior and do what you can to steer clear.

Self-Defense: You can go through life minding your own business, living a responsible and considerate existence and STILL end up on the receiving end of a predatory, threatening or violent situation.

At the risk of sounding dramatic, criminals, drunks, bullies and more recently, extremist nut jobs are out there. Learn to recognize the cues and behavior patterns associated with these characters and be prepared.

7. Expect The Expected

Motorcycling: A safe rider knows the most common hazards. For the most part, the most likely threats are predictable. If you know what they are and make an effort to look for them, you’ll be way ahead of the game.

An approaching vehicle turning in front of you, a motorist racing to beat the red light, travelling in the blind spot of a driver about to change lanes… these are some of the situations that happen on a regular basis. Watch for them.

If you do your homework, the potential threats are NOT endless. They can be boiled down to a handful of common, reoccurring events.

Self-Defense: There are also patterns and recognizable behaviors associated with criminal, predatory and violent incidents. Some of the obvious ones include: someone following or watching you from a distance, someone trying to distract you by asking for the time or for change while invading your personal space, someone looking around while approaching you… just to name a few.

Statistically, some things are much more likely to happen than others. Know what they are, watch for them and you’ll be able to predict behavior.

8. Steer Clear Of The Beer

Motorcycling: Many people envision motorcycling and guzzling “frosty fermented beverages,” to go hand-in-hand. I’m not about to get all preachy on this point. I enjoy a couple cocktails as much as the next guy. But you’ve got to be smart about it.

It’s a no brainer that having too much to drink and driving a motorcycle is a recipe for disaster… and yet people still do it. Too much booze in your system will impair your coordination, reduce your awareness, lower your inhibitions and mess up your decisions.

If you’re going to drink, save it until you park your bike for the night and fill your boots… preferably in the company of trusted friends and in a safe place.

Also keep in mind even if you don’t drink, OTHER people’s drinking can cause you all kinds of grief. Many bikers avoid riding at times when the bars are closing and there’s more likely to be drunks on the road.

Self-Defense: I don’t have to tell you how often booze is involved in volatile, aggressive and violent situations. If you’re the kind of person who likes to go out in public and get “polluted” on a regular basis, the chances of you becoming a victim increase dramatically.

When booze is involved, you need to be aware not only of your own consumption, but you also need to consider those around you who are drinking. Even if you don’t drink yourself, being around people who are pounding back the brewskies increases the odds of a confrontation.

To ignore the booze factor in your self-defense game plan is a big mistake.

9. Ego Kills!

Motorcycling: Far too often ego is a source of bad behavior and catastrophic errors in judgment. An “ego gone wild,” on a motorcycle can spell disaster: showing off, driving beyond your capabilities or the conditions, or “battling” with other drivers for space on the road are just a few examples.

If you’re going to ride, leave your ego in the garage. Be humble and use common sense. Wear your safety equipment, control your speed and drive responsibly. It’ll go a long way towards years of crash-free riding.

Self-Defense: In a self-defense context, ego is your enemy. Far too often, people are killed or seriously injured fighting over something that’s not worth fighting for. Feeling that you have something to prove, refusing to back down or acting like a tough guy can have dire consequences.

As a retired police officer, I can’t begin to tell you about all of the tragedy and heartache that I’ve seen as a result of someone’s misdirected sense of pride clouding their ability to make intelligent and mature decisions.

Regardless of how “combatively capable” you are, you’ll save yourself a ton of physical, emotional and legal headaches if you can set your ego aside and deescalate or disengage from a confrontation.

There’s an old saying in law enforcement, “Nobody ever wins a fight. The loser goes to the hospital, the winner goes to jail.”

10. Enjoy The Journey

Motorcycling: This is another one of those over-used clichés that people throw around in relation to just about everything. In the case of motorcycling however, it’s literally what you should do.

Travelling IN a vehicle, usually involves wanting to get to your intended destination as quickly and efficiently as possible. (“Are we there yet?”)

On a bike, the focus is NOT as much on getting there as it is about enjoying the ride. Bikers will take their time and go miles out of their way to enjoy a more scenic route, a historical site or a stretch of twisty roads.

More times than not, you’ll head towards one destination and end up changing course because of time, weather, circumstances or maybe just because you changed your mind and decided to go somewhere else. That’s just the way it works.

Self-Defense: This is a great analogy for your martial arts, combative fitness or self-defense training. Too many people rush to learn new skills, get in shape or earn that next belt. They risk burnout, injuries and a loss of interest by chasing quick fixes, short cuts and easy results. (which for the record, don’t exist)

Training is about enjoying the process and letting results come as a natural byproduct of repeated actions taken over and over again with seemingly little or no immediate benefit. Over time however, those “insignificant” actions add up to significant, life-altering results.

There is no “finish line,” where health and safety are concerned. Training should be seen as an ongoing, never-ending, life-long process. Enjoy the ride!

Conclusion:

So there you have it… my top ten riding tips and how they apply to self-defense. I hope this post got you thinking. If you have any questions, opinions or feedback, please feel free to fire me an email at Randy@ToughenUp.com or you can reach me through my blog at http://www.ToughenUpBlog.com .

Bio: Randy LaHaie has taught thousands of people over the course 40+ years as a self-defense, combative fitness and confrontation management instructor and consultant. He’s a retired policeman with experience as a patrol officer, detective, SWAT team member, shift supervisor and full time defensive tactics and use-of-force trainer. He’s a court declared expert witness and subject matter expert in various aspects of dealing with volatile, violent and dangerous situations. Randy shares his knowledge and opinions on the “Toughen Up Self-Defense Blog,” at www.ToughenUpBlog.com .

Running a Hard Crew – Mr Brassy McKnuckles

Ok kiddies gather round and listen to the words of your elders and probably betters simply because we survived our own stupidity. So you want to run a crew of hard men and make a living in
the violence trades. Well kids this take work determination and rules to make it successful and if you listen to me I will try and make the path a little easier for you.

You have probably heard the old saying keep your friend close and your enemies closer well that is the damn truth. Do not build a large group of people that you don’t know. Stay small and stay tight, know each other and know who you can trust. Know their perks and their idiosyncrasies, learn who you can trust and who you cant. Remember Jesus only had twelve people in His crew and one of
them stabbed him in the back and sold him out to the Law.

Learn how to support your crew with only eighty percent of your pay. Now I know some of you that are reading this are now pissed that I would say such a thing and that shows just how stupid you are. Running a crew cost money and even if all the jobs are cash you are still going to need to pay your taxes and tithes. What are those you ask? Well it’s the money you spend on Lawyers, Bail bonds agent and the expense of a crew member going to the hospital or jail. Most people who get into the violence professions do not last long because they can not gather up the cash to pay a lawyer right
from the start. So they either sit in jail or go tits up because of the lack of preparation.

Ask around and find the absolute best criminal defense lawyer that you can afford, and put them on retainer, even if this means you do some work and you don’t have anything to show for it right at first. A good lawyer is worth their weight in gold if you get popped for something and are looking at pulling a 5 piece in jail. After you have paid him then talk to him, tell him what you are doing
for a living and instruct him that his job is to keep the majority of legal problems to a minimum.

Next find a bail bonds agent and develop a close personal relationship. Work out a prepaid bond agreement with them. Put the money up front with the agreement that they will post bond when and
where you need it and for any member of your crew. Have their and the lawyers numbers on speed dial plus have them memorized. This saves time in the long run and you will also love the since of security these two simple steps provide. These are just a few of the business cost that come with the territory and you will definitely need them. So now do you see why I am telling you to learn to live off of eighty percent instead of the one hundred percent you were planning too.

Now it is time to talk about work ethic. If you are going into business as a violence professional you had better damn well be professional. This means that you are there to do a job for money. Plain and simple. Not pussy, not drugs, not emotions or feelings, you work for MONEY! Too many guys get caught up in violence by proxy because some split tail wags her snatch under his nose and promises him that she will suck his dick so good that he will have to pull the bed sheet out his ass if he will do this one little favor for her. FUCK THAT! Pussy don’t pay the bills and damn sure don’t put money on your books if you are doing time. Or he gets caught up in drug abuse and cant think straight so he goes off and uses Stupid like Yoda uses the force then goes to the pen for ten. MONEY folks that’s why you’re in business. If you get paid to do a job then do that job to the best
of your ability, do not slack off because all you have to do is go and collect from a guy who owes a guy. Sloppy work equals sloppy results.

I have seen too many crews go down the drain in a short amount of time because of three things. Drugs, Pussy and Money. So do not let this happen to you. If you have a crew of 4 then all money gets split 4 ways even if not all of you are there. If two of you go on a smash and grab or a shoot and loot because the other two can’t make it for some reason, all four of you split the pay or the take. This stops hard feeling right from the start. Now I would never recommend that only
two of you go but shit happens and you need to be prepared for it. This is after you take the initial twenty percent out for taxes and tithes and put that in your war funds(lawyer fees, bail money ect.)

Here is another one of my pet peeves and it better damn sure become yours. Yes I am my brother’s keeper. Why because I need to make sure he isn’t fucking up in his personal life and bringing heat down into mine. If a guy is abusing drugs then it’s time to either get him some help or make him get out. He has become a liability. His actions will cause you nothing but headaches somewhere down the road. No I am not talking about recreational use or getting sped up for a job, but if he is an addict then he is a problem waiting to occur and get your ass thrown into jail. Same with pussy, if one of your guys keeps bringing drama mamas into your business then it’s time for him to choose whither it’s worth the ass beating that is coming from the rest of you for acting like a goddamn teenager. A solid woman behind you can make the world of difference but some old bar snatch that can’t keep her cock hole shut needs to be gone. Plus you need to make sure your lady is up to date on your business. Do not cheat on her, do not use or abuse her in any way she is the one that will have your back if you need it and be the one to come see your ass if you are doing time plus putting money on the books for you to make commissary. Also make sure she is able and willing to discipline another member’s lady if she is the one getting out of line and not keeping her mouth closed.

Now let us discuss professionalism. Pay your bills, don’t draw attention to yourself or your crew. Don’t waste a bunch of money being flashy and needlessly showing off. This is not a long time game and you will get tired of it sooner or later. Put money back to live off of if trouble arises and it will show up after a time. Pay back everyone you owe whether it is money or blood. If someone owes you money or burns you then make sure all debts are settled either way Green or Red it is all a commodity. When you go out don’t let your crew get out of line attention it is bad for business. If your crew can’t be seen to take care of themselves socially then it will reflect on them in business and that means a loss of revenue. Be polite to waitresses and bartenders, tip well this is a great source of intel that comes your way after your crew becomes known. Don’t get into bar fights with bouncers and damn sure don’t get into it with the police. If you get arrested shut your pie hole, be polite and wait to say a damn thing till your lawyer that you have employed shows up. You pay him to talk to the police because he speaks legalese. Most people get convicted because they just don’t know how to shut the fuck up.

Ok now you’re asking where do we go to make money. I always liked robbing dope dealers and pimps, mainly because the cash was there and they don’t go to the police. I also recommend that you talk to your lawyer and have him put the word out to his colleagues that he know someone that can handle business for a price. Also look at doing escort work for dope dealers and for you guys that are in places that marijuana is legal look at doing security work for the pot shops. Be creative there is a whole wide world of pussies out there that don’t have the balls to do what you can do, take advantage of them.

Optimist, Idealist, Pessimist, and The Fourth Kind – Ashtad Rutomji

Today I’m going to write a post based on my personal experience in life. No research material, no past cases of others, just my life, what I have lived through during my journey.

When I first started my training in Kyokushinkaikan Karate, I was this excited little 8 year old who was going to have this amazing experience, which I did, as time passed, the novelty wore off, as it does with everything and everyone, then I moved on to boxing and so on. The only thing that remained was my passion to train and learn more about different styles and systems and methods and principles, etc. then when I became a teen, my something else was added in my interest of learning, that was to know and understand the reality of violence, and I aggressively pursued that thirst for knowledge, I researched everything I could about that subject and I still do and find something new every time, well, sort of new anyway, I even had my own experiences with violence, but I don‘t talk about them much as they were far from something I want to brag about and in fact were quite traumatizing and brings up bad memories for me, I do use them as a learning example though.

That is what I lived through ‘on paper’ so to speak, whenever I’m asked of my history, that is what I tell everyone, but what I don’t ever mention are my struggles during the period of my training, my transition to what I do now and who I am today. I will share some of it here today for the first time, hoping it will help someone in someway. I’ll include only enough to get the point across, as I‘m not used to being very public with my personal life.

Here it goes, I started my training when I was 8 so most of my life has circled around my training, but that does not mean that the following can’t be applied in day-to-day life.

When I started training, I had this optimistic and idealistic concept of what Martial Arts training is and should be like, I was just a child living in a fantasy of wanting to be a “cool-ass” “superhero“. You see most people start out with that kind of thinking, regardless of age, not just with Martial Arts or fitness training, but with almost everything they do in life.

Now mind you, being optimistic is not a bad thing, but always being too much of an optimist, creates an idealistic mindset in which the individual always thinks that things will go a 100% according to their plans and nothing will ever go wrong, they feel like they’re untouchable and indestructible, everything is fine and nothing is or ever will be otherwise, an illusion which, when they face reality of things, comes crashing down on them. A thing that happened to me, when my bubble burst of what Martial Arts training and life beyond the comfortable world my mom created for me was supposed to be about. The lesson I learnt was so harsh that I almost quit my training…Almost, Lucky for me, more on than below.

After the harsh lesson that taught me that Martial Arts were not so you can become some super acrobatic badass who kills “bad guys”, no, they only exist in the movies, after my lesson, I was so in shock, I lost my optimist mindset and became a complete pessimist, a mindset, which I still sometimes lean towards, but not let it take me over.

Becoming a pessimist, I started viewing the world from a completely different perspective, I saw a world in which no good existed, only evil, only selfish people existed, everything was wrong and destructive, I found this world and society disgusting, including myself for being a part of it, I alienated most of my friends that I met during my travels and the ones I had in my hometown and messed some other things up quite bad too. Pessimism made me think that nothing good can ever happen to me and that there is no point to life, no point in living, it made me go numb, at one point I had no emotions at all. I was borderline suicidal, I wouldn’t socialize, I don‘t much now either, but this was way worse, I isolated myself from the world, I slowed down my training and my research, thinking it’s always the “same crap“, it almost stopped, without realizing that even from that “same crap“ I could learn something new, something I missed. I was borderline depressed.

But universe, being as generous as it is, gave me a second chance via a wake up call, it was subtle but was enough of a jolt for me to snap the hell out of it. My passion of what I do was reignited, that’s when it clicked, majority of my choices of my mindsets were based on being too extreme, I was always on either spectrum, being too much of an annoying optimist, which made me develop and idealistic thinking and then when the bubble burst, I jetted to the other side of the spectrum, landed on borderline depression and became a nightmarish pessimist. While all I had to do was practice what I always preach now, ie; being balanced. In this context, all I had to do was be a Realist. To see that there is no good or bad, but just what we make of things. Now the ‘good people’ and ‘bad people’ “debate” is something for another day and another article as it‘s a whole other topic, so I won’t go into much detail about it here.

The point that I’m trying to make here is, all I had to do was have a positive mindset, work hard, learn to love, love what I do and not let anything stand in my way to get what I want, at the same time not let my expectations get so high, that they’d always be out of my reach and if I do hit an obstacle, all I have to do is be strong and push through it.

As far as setting goals in my life goes, I learned that only when I reach the next level in my life, should I aim higher than I did for the last goal. Taking one baby step at a time to achieve what I want. I’m still on that journey, still setting realistic goals and doing my best to achieve them, then moving up a level when I do and I’ll continue to do so.

There will always be ups and downs in life, but it’s up to us to not let the downs get the best of us and let the ups take us as high as they can, then go higher than that and always keep moving forward in life by being smart with our decisions, hard work and persistence.

Set the goals you know you can achieve and then act on your plans.

Since the day I started being a realist and setting goals that I could achieve, I’ve gained more than I ever thought I could, I still have a long way to go no doubt, and even though there will be difficulties and obstacles, all I have to do is push through them or just be patient, take a little longer and get around them instead.

I know it’s easier said than done, and that’s where a realist mindset helps you. You anticipate the hardships and make plans that would get you through them, it helps you be prepared and not be brought down when you‘re faced with a problem that seems difficult and it probably is, but remember, it isn’t impossible to solve that problem either.

Finally, being a realist in life not only helps you solve problems, but it’s quite effective when it comes to ignoring the negativity that you don’t need or want in your life. It was a real helpful mindset for me to have when I had to overcome depression.

For example, if you have someone who is always insulting, discouraging and belittling you, having a realist mindset, you’d know that you can’t stop people from saying or doing things to you that you don’t want them to, I mean there are “ways” you can “stop” them, but some of those “ways” are considered quite illegal in the court of law, so…yeah! It’s better to just ignore and pity them instead.

The thing is, there will always be individuals like them and they will be virtually everywhere, they enjoy doing it or they simply hate you, and you can’t make someone like you, unless you brainwash and condition them to, from their birth, and even then, it might not work, so might as well just ignore them and surround yourself with those who do bring positivity in your life, not ‘yes men and women’ but those that genuinely do care and want you to be happy and successful in your life and would gladly share the joy of life itself with you. The rest, is up to you.

That’s it for this post. Be realistic, Be positive, Be happy, Thank you for reading and I wish you all success in achieving your goals.

Rules of Life – Toby Cowern

I had a great discussion recently that started out with ‘Murphys Laws of Combat’, but gradually moved to Individuals ‘rules of life’. A lot of people were involved in this discussion including CRGI’s very own Terry Trahan and Rory Miller, you can see their thoughts on this here.

For a long time, I have maintained only two ‘rules of life’ (that is concepts that should heavily influence all our thoughts and actions) but this discussion really encouraged me to grow my list to six, as I think on it, these have always been there but I had never penned them before. My six ‘rules’ are as follows. I’ll expand a little on each one:

  1. Be Polite
  2. Don’t be an asshole
  3. Make a plan, fly the plan, don’t fall in love with the plan.
  4. Definitions matter
  5. Be aware ‘rock bottom’ isn’t.
  6. Violence of action usually wins…

Be Polite

Not witty, engaging, entertaining, fascinated, shocked, pious, or committed to ‘educating people’, or any other way you may think I mean by ‘Polite’. Out and out, genuinely polite. It never ceases to amaze me how many people talk their own way, very quickly, right into conflict situations. Politeness not only (significantly) minimizes the chances of things not getting bad in the first place, it also gives you an exceptional advantage (especially in witness terms) if things do go bad.

Also, conflict aside, it’s just a good habit to have and brings nothing but positive rewards.

Don’t Be An Asshole

First I’ll point out, this goes hand in hand with point 1. But be aware, you can be polite and STILL be an asshole. I’m going with the wiki definition here:

“The word is… generally used to describe people who are viewed as stupid, incompetent, unpleasant, or detestable. It is most connotative… with a person who considers himself of much greater moral or social importance than everyone else.”

I should stress I see these rules as ‘total’ as in they should permeate all aspects of your day to day life. It is with interest I see people now actively managing very different personas between their ‘online profile’ and their ‘real world’ personality. Sadly, many, while trying to main some semblance of decency and humanity in their regular interactions, fall short massively in how they interact with people online.

Make a Plan, Fly the Plan, Don’t Fall in Love With the Plan

Anyone that knows me, knows I am quite the believer in causality and ‘Cosmic Coincidence’. That said opportunities will always need work to make things come to fruition and as liberating as living a life with no plans may seem, rarely will you achieve your goals without any. So, I am a BIG believer in planning, but planning alone counts for naught. Until a plan is implemented, NOTHING will ever be achieved. That said, plans are subject to change and ignoring a developing situation and blindly adhering to the plan is no idea either. ‘Falling in Love with the plan’ is exactly this, refusing to change, regardless of what the smart thing to do would be. This ties in heavily with the ‘adaptive mindset’ you see referenced here in CRGI often. Don’t be afraid to change, modify or even just walk away from a plan. How quickly you need to do this is very subjective to the circumstances you are in and the impact of the possible outcomes.

Definitions Matter

Here I am largely focusing on semantics. It’s one of the reasons, when I teach, I will often start with agreed or accepted definitions, or will provide my definition, (A nice example here) so we all, at least begin on the same page when addressing key concepts/considerations.

I have lost count of the times I have seen a situation descend into an altercation due to people arguing over a certain subject with one or both not applying the true or accepted definitions of words. This can be used as a deliberate tactic (Breaking rule 2 in the process), but more often than not it is actually a problem born of ignorance. It is for us individually to educate ourselves to the right standard so as to make compelling cases for our deeply held positions. Even more so for instructors who have the exceptional responsibility of passing on knowledge too others.

Descending arguments aside, this point, again, has profound impact on day to day life. Misapplication or misunderstanding of words affects business, relationships, friendships and much more.

Be Aware ‘Rock Bottom’ Isn’t

I have a twofold thought on this. One directly, linked to the above, is the (mis)understanding of ‘Rock Bottom’ which is heavily influenced by individual experience and biases. Failing to understand how bad a situation can get, not only inhibits the ability to empathise and/or sympathise (Profoundly impacting your ability to follow ‘rule one’) but also leaves you personally vulnerable. Kidding yourself by trying to cope in a bad situation with a ‘it can’t get any worse’ mentality is leaving you wide open to figuratively and literally being kicked (repeatedly) while you are down.

Secondly, I approach very much from the ‘preparedness’ mindset. If you can’t acknowledge or accept how truly bad situations can become, you have very little chance in successfully preparing to avoid or overcome them.

Violence Of Action Usually Wins

Take this as you will, as a tactic or as a warning, but it IS something to be very aware of. A tome has and still could be, written on the details of this, but in this brief article, addressing a short list, suffice to say whether you are being violent, or on the receiving end of the violence (This can be verbal as well as physical) whoever uses the most usually ‘wins’. Following my own rule, I’ll highlight, in accord with Rue Four, it’s important to define what a ‘win’ is. In this context it is the person acquiring or succeeding in gaining what they wanted from the altercation.

While the use of violence cannot ever be discussed in absolutes, that is why I say ‘usually wins’, as a concept this ‘rule’ is one we must acknowledge.

The ‘Rules of Life’ are a deeply personal thing and subject to influence not only in background and upbringing but also experience and aspiration. I do feel it’s good to periodically stop and assess what ‘rules’ you live by though, as often identifying these will show your chance of succeeding in your life goals. Feel free to head over to our ’Conflict Manager’ Face Book page and share your ‘Rules Of Life’ and why you follow them…?

The Ghosts of Christmas – Garry Smith

Scrooge, that wonderful character, skinflint, miser and sociopath, from ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens will no doubt have been on our screens in recent weeks. The book itself is excellent but I am an unashamed fan of Dickens. Scrooge was visited by three ghosts of Christmas past, present and future in order to teach him the error of his ways. The reason he has been on my mind, notwithstanding Christmas just passed is that the past, present and future have been much on my mind lately.

The past first. In December I received an email from a friend, Paul, offering me (and Bill Barrott) some books, he wanted them out of the way as he was clearing his mothers house after her death. We went round expecting a dozen or two books and were very surprised to be met by 24 boxes of books. Shocked more than surprised really. We are still cataloguing them to be fair when we can get together and it has been a really exciting experience. Paul wanted us to have them as he knew we would value them and he was right.

It is quite a collection and covers most of the martial arts spectrum and some great self defence books too. There is too much to look at, it is a library of the fighting arts, there are books there that I have failed to but on eBay, classic texts, some worth hundreds of pounds and multiple copies of some. However the value in monetary terms is secondary for me, holding in my hands some of these books is pleasure itself, one such text ‘Jiu Jitsu; A Manual of the Science’ by Captain Leopold McLaglan, (Undefeated Jiu Jitsu Champion of the world) is an absolute classic, and I would say is written around 1914. Pictures of Tommies fighting the nasty Hun or damn fine policemen dealing with roughs abound. I just love it.

There is also a 1931 edition of ‘Scientific Self Defence’ by W.E. Fairbairn, then Superintendent of the Shanghai Municipal Police, another absolute gem, better still as inside the front cover it is annotated with a list of regiments from 1939 to 1945 which we think this person trained and the towns and countries visited during this period, this book has travelled and been well used. This is not just a book it is a piece of social history,

I could go on and on about what we have inherited, 12 copies of the ‘Complete Kano Jiu Jitsu’!!! 18 copies of ‘The art of Ju Jitsu’ by Professor Yukio Tani!!! The thing is it is treasure, and we are its keepers now. These antiquated volumes with there incredible photographs are a resource that has value beyond money. For me they represent the history of what I do and even they do not reach back that far. The above mentioned Captain Leopold McLaglen talks of authentic sources quoting Ju Jitsu to have been in existence two centuries before the existence of Christ, well that is some time ago but these books are tangible, you can see, feel smell them. They are historical documents, they are the past.

The present is fleeting, ever changing, we are constantly running to keep up with an ever changing world. Some things stay largely the same though, I am thinking of my training, our training, it is a social activity after all. Immediately after writing this article the music goes on and the weights come out, that is me investing in me time. Later I will be training a class in self defence and combat fitness and tomorrow 2 classes of Ju Jitsu, I teach and train a lot. The link between past and present is unbroken. Recently I have been filming and photographing our syllabus, this is to provide a training aid for all my students. Jayne pulled one book out from the collection and showed how good the photographs were as illustrations of techniques we teach today, we will imitate this.

It seems like nothing is new, we are quite literally the current custodians of our arts. Ours is the responsibility to keep the tradition alive. Evolution means that things can and do morph, they change subtly over time but the central tenets remain the same, it is our responsibility to pass them on.

This is where the future comes in. My youngest daughter Frances is a first dan in Ju Jitsu, she has not trained for some time but her son is now at the start of his journey in Ju Jitsu. At our Ju Jitsu Christmas party here at Smith Towers, he could barely contain himself when he opened his present and found a pair of sparring/bag gloves, granddad had to go get the focus pads out and he certainly gave them a pounding. Jaynes son and Bills son and daughter are all training now for their black belts. They are the future and the present and future are inextricably linked every time we train with our juniors. Training anyone is a privilege training our young is an awesome one.

Indeed the past, present and future are inextricably linked in so many ways. Looking forwards and backwards helps us make sense of where we are now and who we are now. Identity is central to our sense of self, for many of us what we do, our job, our hobby whatever, helps us to form the sense of self we call identity. For myself, I had no idea when I walked into our dojo, where we still train, that I was taking such a major step, one that was literally life changing.

It seems I stepped into a form of time travel, not just for me either, it was like throwing a stone in a pond, once thrown you cannot stop the ripples moving outwards or the stone sinking to the bottom of the pond. So life goes on into another year, my grandchildren grow and the eldest trains with me now as did his mum, life is complete, but it is not. It is too early for that to be possible. As the past stretches back behind us the future stretches out in front. There are paths not yet discovered that we may or may not choose to walk down, I took the crazy decision to learn to ride a motorbike last year and passed my test and bought a bike, a Suzuki Bandit Streetfighter 1250cc no less, some bike!

So what lies ahead will be interesting to find out, as my Academy and CRGI grow my/our universe expands, new vistas appear daily, its a roller coaster life. I will take my 4th dan grading and Jayne her 3rd dan, hopefully our examiners will think us worthy of passing and your editors will make progress, many of our students will grade too, they will learn the ancient art and some of them will go on to train others, Jaynes son will become an instructor in the near future I am sure, he certainly has the potential.

Yes there are occasional uncertainties, problems along the way, sometimes huge obstacles appear but history teaches us one thing, there is no going back only looking, we need to keep going forward. When I teach fighting skills I maintain putting down effective suppressing fire and continuous forward movement, it is how I am, I know other tactics work better in certain situations but I suppose I am a take their ground and hold it kind of guy. So I leave you with a Happy New Year and a suggestion, take a look behind you, then take a look in front, what you see will help you make sense of where you are now. Do not end up like old Scrooge tormented in his bed, you choose what you do, no one else, the past, present and future are one not three.

Can We Tax or Legislate Away Intent? – Tim Boehlert

I found this quote on Tony Blauer’s FaceBook wall this morning, that ties in directly with some thoughts that I’d had yesterday after addressing another quote that I also found on FaceBook and that I was compelled to respond to.:
“I don’t believe in Violence
I don’t Worship Violence
I just Practice it
Because I know others Live through Destruction
And I want to be Prepared When Our Paths Cross.
People will vilify us, we know who we are though,
and why we do what we do!”
Unknown

With all of the nonsense that surrounds each active-shooter event, I feel I have to keep putting counter responses out there to defend my position and my thoughts on the subject – to try and push education on people that aren’t ‘getting it.’ I’m often correcting lies, countering anti-gun rhetoric, defending my views on violence, and explaining the realities from a more informed position.

Our world has changed. Very specifically here in America it has started to go off the rails. There are many signs to that end, and it is all driven by agendas, hidden or otherwise. In my opinion, the media has been the primary perpetrator in that it continues to push its political agendas about guns, gun laws and gun ownership. But, it’s now also pushing its anti-police agenda, hard and often. The events, although related through a common element – guns, have raised the level of fear, and in doing so, have also allowed and even encouraged stupidity and outright deceit.

The media is shaping a whole generation to push their agenda that will set us up for failure, and relieve us of our rights, the right to own and bear arms. Not everyone is buying into this, but the fight is on. The propaganda war is getting heated, and they seem to have more money and thus influence on their side.

This week the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre, was vilified as a terrorist on the front page of a major newspaper – alongside the images of several of the recent terrorists that were involved with mass-murders committed on U.S. soil. How has the media gone from responsible, professional reporting to pushing lies and deceit over the last 50 years?

This type of ‘reporting’ influences it’s readership, and is really nothing more than propaganda to push an agenda – outlaw guns and gun ownership. By using tragic events (read: highly emotionally charged) the media have over the last few years started a downward trend that seeks to strip Americans of their rights to bear firearms. Additionally they have gone after our law enforcement personnel – our Police agencies.

After a bank-robbery in Los Angeles, where the perpetrators wore full-body armor, and had prepared themselves with a lot of ammunition, automatic and semi-automatic weapons including long-guns, law enforcement assessed and evaluated the outcome and determined that they were outgunned, plain and simple. Two men were able to take on the Los Angeles Police Department and surrounding agencies and walk out of the bank and proceed to attempt to escape – even after thousands of rounds were expended to prevent them from doing so. Yes, they were outgunned, even though they had far superior numbers.

Since that time police agencies have geared up, trained up and prepared for events like that. Now with terrorism on our minds, the people have determined that maybe the police shouldn’t have access to militarized vehicles that the government kindly provided to them. Maybe ‘we’ should limit how much ammunition can be purchased, or the capacities of ammo magazines, and take back those vehicles that would protect our police – ‘we’ don’t want our police militarized!

I get some of that, but a lot of it makes my head spin. Understand that I am a lawful registered gun owner, but I don’t consider myself a gun nut at all. In fact, I seriously considered selling my firearm this year – after lawfully owning firearms for over 25 years! Recent events have convinced me otherwise. I am not overly pro-active, and don’t actively carry even though it’s within my right to do so when I’m off-duty. It makes me uncomfortable doing so – I have been swayed by public perception and opinion!

I allowed myself to be tempered by the opinions of others years ago when I was actively carrying. When some ‘friends’ found out, they’d go out of their way to draw attention to my weapon, or to the fact that I was armed. Not cool. Not cool at all. Instead of pushing back, I retired my sidearm to a closet. “Are you carrying?” “Got your gun on you tonight? in public, and in front of others to boot!

Well, times have changed, and the recent event in San Bernardino, California has gotten me to thinking once again. And I’m not alone. This week, the Sheriff of Ulster County, NY posted a ‘call to arms’ – he actually came out and asked gun owners to consider carrying their weapons in public. His rationale? If even one lawfully armed person is able to respond to an active-shooter before police can arrive, please do so.

http://www.recordonline.com/article/20151203/NEWS/151209783

Of course that raises a lot of red flags with the public! Suffice it to say that the floor is open, and the discussion is in full-swing! Others have followed suit.

I can see his point, and I can see the counter-points as well – it’s NOT easily solved.

I am not here to promote guns. I am here to promote smarter thinking though. Think about this for just a few minutes: would you allow a loved one to put themselves in harms way with no hope of survival? Well, you DO that every day. Someone you know, either directly or through your web of relationships will be THAT person: today, tomorrow if not next week, and very likely sometime this year. And you allow it to happen. Can you live with that? You have the ability to have your voice heard, the necessity to educate yourself further than what the media is providing you, and to change the outcome for many.

As the parent of a law enforcement officer, it’s hard to watch and not react. As one who is also responsible for the public-at-large, it’s mind-numbing how little security we can actually provide other than great customer service! We have almost no training, no real plan, and no pro-active stance. We are strictly in a reactive mode. That spells disaster If you ask me.

Why you may ask? There are many viewpoints. Consider this: guns make people uncomfortable, especially if it’s not in the holster of someone in uniform, but even then it makes you uncomfortable. Now consider this: how do you expect any of us to stop an armed assailant or multiple armed assailants without using equal or greater force?

Being responsible for the lives of thousands of people daily is becoming harder to do, and continuing to do the job is even harder to justify. My intent is to do whatever I am able to fulfill my commitment, but without the training, tools, and proper management structure and subsequent game-plans, you’re asking the impossible.

Let me share an incident in which I was placed just a few years ago. On our campus we had a possible active-shooter event. Someone had reported seeing a man outside one of our buildings, armed with what looked like a shotgun. Police were notified and responded. At least one officer was out on the grounds actively searching for the suspect – with his M5. The M5 is a tactical long-gun that our local PD was allocated for just-such events.

The campus was alerted via internal communications, we went into a very loose lockdown stance, and put a few of our officers out in harms way to actively search for this shooter. These men were not armed, nor trained to respond in this scenario, yet they did. I was asked to man a post in the area most likely for the shooter to target. I was ordered to sit in a lobby, near the front-door (mag locked), an all glass enclosure and instructed to watch four monitors that monitored the perimeter doors. Huh? Yeah, that was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. ‘You want me to sit in front of a glass wall, and let you know when he’s AT the door?’ ‘How long do you think I will last?’ This was not a good idea by a very long stretch!

Of course, I did as I was told – that was the only thing I could do, morally.

So having been through that type of situation once, I can imagine more possible outcomes, and have had time to think about the whole event. I haven’t been able to better prepare, but maybe only mentally.

We can all imagine being a hero, but it’s not that at all. To me it’s about shutting down the violence, because that’s my vocation. It’s my duty. It’s the morally right thing to do. And I’m not alone. We do what we do for you, for your families, your friends, your neighbors.

If we’re willing to save your life, shouldn’t you at least allow us the tools necessary to do that? The training? And with a lot more understanding from you?

Yesterday, [12/03/2015], someone posted this quote on social media:

“We stopped cigarette advertising to prevent smoking, raised the cost of a pack
and taxed them to the sky perhaps the same can be done for guns… “

My two cents: Taxing or changing pricing will do nothing – if they’re desperate and resourceful enough, they will find a way, like smokers did and do, to use your analogy. Laws change nothing as well, in my opinion – only those willing to abide by them will adhere to them. My recollection of post-9/11 events: box cutters weren’t legislated out of existence. My proof is that I confiscate many each week from those individuals that try to bring them into our facility.

It’s the INTENT and not the possession that is more of interest to me. Disarming US makes THEM more likely to use any means possible to do evil. I stand unarmed everyday to at least promote a vision of preparedness so that the public will feel a little more safe and at ease in a place that they SHOULD feel safe. Everyday I wonder – will it happen today? What will I do – with no training, no real support, no plan, and of course no ability to fight back that makes others feel comfortable. Guns makes people uncomfortable, but I see more knives everyday as a ‘norm’ – it’s part of our culture, and only recently has this become a social issue that raises alarm. The issue is too big for a few short ideas in a too-short forum such as this. u

Suffice it to say that I have to disagree based on my experience and knowledge. If we disarm ourselves, we surrender – which is what their goal has been since day one. Legislation will NOT change that. Propaganda – advertising or pre-legislation media blitzes are one and the same – selling an ideology for ‘our’ side. We’ve lost our morals, raised a generation of self-indulged children, and given EVERYONE the right to claim ‘I’m SPECIAL!” – without earning that and forget ever questioning that – that would be politically incorrect!

I see bad behavior every – single – day. Entitlement ‘to do whatever I want, because….’ we need to change THAT. No laws will change someone unwilling to adhere to them, to respect them. It’s only their desire to do harm that gives them power over us while the rest of us line up like sheep… and strip away our rights and abilities to fight back, to defend, to live freely.

That’s how I responded to this particular post.

“I don’t believe in Violence
I don’t Worship Violence
I just Practice it
Because I know others Live through Destruction
And I want to be Prepared When Our Paths Cross.
People will vilify us, we know who we are though, and why we do what we do!”

I do believe in violence – in the sense that it’s a real, and apparently a sustainable thing. I believe in it because I have taught myself to practice it, and to advance my understanding of it, to examine it as if it were a tangible object. Why you may ask? To me it is. It is like any other thing that we wish to study and understand. It’s always present. It’s always around us, and it always happens – every minute of the day. We don’t see or hear about all of it, nor even a great percentage of it, but it’s there, and it did happen.

When it does happen, and if it happens when and where I can affect an outcome, that is my job. That is my profession. Yes, it is a profession. And I do consider myself a professional whose specialty is violence. I am not alone.

I don’t worship violence. I don’t like it, and it makes me very uncomfortable thinking about it, let alone participating in it – willingly no less!

I do practice it.

I do consider myself a professional. It’s about acknowledging violence, and then addressing it. To address it means to study it, to then deploy it as a tool to overcome it, and then to learn from each and every use of force.

I reassess after each use of force, constantly questioning many aspects of what had occurred. Why? Did I respond professionally? Did I let emotion dictate the response? Was the response justifiable? Will I be able to defend my response? Do you see where I’m going with this?

In a nutshell, I am always more afraid of judgment and punishment for doing my job, than doing my job. I’m always more afraid of what others think than what I think. This world has changed us to the point that ‘politically-correctness’ has turned into the auto-correct for the millenniums. We attempt to fix things using man-made algorithms – i.e., if a gun was involved, it’s the GUN that is at fault, not the shooter. Does this make sense?

So, in my quest to be better at what I do, to understand more fully, and to explore alternatives, I have consumed untold dollars and hours trying to get my head around something as simple (complex?) as violence.

So what to do?

I’ve found myself a pool of like-minded people that GET what I’m trying to do, PRACTICE some of what I do, and EDUCATE others that do what we do – only better. And to do that, I had to embrace violence.

What have I found along the way? A whole lot of misunderstanding, untruths, vitriol and sadly separation from family and friends. No one wants to hear about what you do. Everyone seems to live in a fantasy world about the violence that occurs all around them daily as it if doesn’t exist if they pretend not to look, hear, see, smell it.

As an example, every day – without exception – someone will walk by my post and say ‘You’ve got a cushy job! Must be nice!’ You can’t make them understand what you actually do when ‘you’re sitting around’, that would only make them more uncomfortable. If you tell them that you’re actually the ‘spotter’ today, the guy who’s job it is to look for weapons, they’d pale. Weapons? Here? Really? ‘Yeah, I take knives away every shift, and only the one’s I can see.’

“…Because I know others Live through Destruction
And I want to be Prepared When Our Paths Cross.
People will vilify us, we know who we are though, and why we do what we do!”

I want to be prepared. I want to be there when I’m needed. I don’t want recognition, but I do expect understanding on a higher level than what we are currently subjected to by too many. We are vilified – because we do ‘stand on those walls so that you can sleep at night.’ We do know who we are, and why we do what we do. It’s for you – the complacent, and perhaps unthankful masses that judge us everyday because you don’t understand us, you haven’t done our job, and you don’t understand violence like we do.

We do what we do for you.

Violence occurs for many reasons. It’s been said that it is a form of communication – think about that. When you toss in emotion, it’s like napalm on and seeks to snuff out the logical arguments. It makes a communication a spectacular event! Now add beliefs. Belief is another incendiary component to communication. Combined with emotion you get a longer burn – before, during and after the fact. Maybe a hotter flame, but definitely a longer burn. Because, even after the event has passed, your brain is cranking out thoughts based on your beliefs.

What we are witnessing today, are poets. Disbursing emotion and belief as truths. Nothing could be further from it. You can’t tax or legislate away emotion or belief either.

To stop violence and violent acts, we need to be better at it than they.

See the media-circus for what it is – entertainment. Entertainment relies on two principle ingredients: emotion and belief. Enhance the first one and suspend the other one. We see it every newscast that comes out surrounding an event. You see and hear very little truth based on so few actual facts initially, and the race is on to get the story – at any cost, and screw the actual facts.

As I’m writing this CNN is showing reporters roaming freely around what should be a crime-scene. That’s how bad it’s gotten – the authorities are so afraid of being accused of a cover-up that they’re willing to compromise a crime scene of a mass-murder investigation ONE DAY after the event!