Author: Erik Kondo

Principles-Based Teaching, Part I – Rory Miller

 

Part One Laying the Foundation

Managing conflict can be approached as a huge and complex field. You can find books of techniques, lists of indicators to watch for. You can fill your mind with endless datum and detail. This approach, whether in a verbal communication class or a martial arts class, is common. It is also, in my opinion, largely ineffective. It is teaching and memorizing trivia so that one can give the impression of understanding. This gives the student reams of knowledge and completely bypasses understanding. This approach is the downfall of much of the technique-based training in the martial arts, producing people that can throw a visually perfect punch, but can’t fight. Useless to the student, but the teacher has nice clear lesson plans and infinite detail to correct.

Conflict management can also be ignored: “It’s a natural part of your life, something you see every day. You don’t need to be taught this.” This approach leads to improvement only through trial and error, and error can be expensive in conflict. It doesn’t even require a teacher, and I have seen it used as an excuse not to teach critical skills to rookies.

And conflict can be deliberately mismanaged and mistaught: “I don’t need to learn how to manage conflict! Everyone else just has to learn to be nice to me.” Which is not just an expression of pure selfish ego, but designed to keep anyone who takes that stance as helpless and dependent as possible.

All three of these approaches are easy to teach. I mean that the process is easy for the teacher. They are not good ways to develop complex skills in the students.

Principles-based teaching is more challenging for the instructor. The instructor can’t get away with just parroting what he or she was taught. It requires a depth of understanding.

“You must turn your toe out at 45 degrees in this technique,” is sufficient for technique-based instruction. The foot position is part of the technique, defines whether the technique is correct or not. The teacher and student can both see it. The teacher can grade it, and if it is taught consistently, the foot position will be part of the system far into the future. A tiny bit of information is all that is necessary, and no real thought whatsoever.

You must turn your toe out at 45 degrees either has a mechanical advantage or it doesn’t, simple as that. There is a simple law of physics or physiology that makes that foot position important (in that position/time/situation) or there isn’t. And if there is, that 45 degrees will be completely wrong in a different situation.

Technique based: “You must turn your toe out at 45 degrees in this technique.”

Principles based: “Generally, you want to keep your knees bending over your toes to keep your knees from getting injured.”

Learning your principles is getting into the “why” of things. Why do techniques work or fail? What are the physics of techniques in general?

The “why” leads to the “how.” Once you understand the principles and start learning how to apply them in action, the “whats” (the techniques) flow from that. They don’t need to be taught, because they can be automatically derived.

That may seem counter-intuitive, and it would be if the training methods of rote training were applied. More on methods later.

You need a few things to get skilled at this way of teaching:

  • You need to understand the principles of your system inside and out
  • You need to understand the goal of your training
  • You need to have a way to gauge (I did not say measure) progress towards that goal
  • You need to know your audience/students
  • You need a thorough understanding of how humans learn complex skills
  • And you need humility, because your students will get good, maybe better than you, very quickly

After outlining this teaching method to a very successful school owner in another country I got one of the best compliments of my life. “I see what you’re doing, but you couldn’t keep a school running that way. The students will get too good too fast. There’s no way to make a living at it.” Cool. But I don’t think he meant it as a compliment.

Understanding principles will come in a later article. If you want homework, though, here it is: Sit down and derive a list of the principles critical to your system.

How do I define a principle? Principles are the underlying things that make techniques work. It’s a principle if it applies to striking, grappling and weapons and there are no exceptions. Leverage, for example, is critical to all three and good leverage is always superior to poor leverage. Now, I went with my hand-to-hand core there, but you can pick anything– business, gardening, negotiations, auto mechanics– and there will be a solid core of principles.

Understand the goal of your training. This one blends with gauging, knowing your audience and humility. Quite simply, many people are not teaching what they think they are teaching. They intend to teach self-protection but put hours into how to win a one-on-one sparring match against a friend in a controlled environment.

Gauging your training. People like measurability. “That which gets measured gets improved.” But in certain fields, measurability has almost no correlation with applied ability. The arrest and control techniques taught at police academies are often complex, multi-step locks. Very easy to grade the students in class, almost impossible to apply in real life. In high school or college, were the people getting A’s in English or Communications the ones getting dates?

For physical skills, and particularly self-defense, there is no way to measure. The only applicable measurement would be whether someone survived, and the possible range of dangers makes survival in one situation likely irrelevant to the next. You can’t truly measure it, but you can and should develop ways to gauge progress and to see what progress is needed. Conflict management is an open-ended skill. Neither you nor your students will ever get to the end point where you know it all.

You need to know your audience/students. In my mind, the biggest division between martial arts and self-protection is that in MA I am teaching subject matter, and in SP I am teaching students.

Each student is different. They all have different abilities, strengths, talents, resources and weaknesses. They will be targeted for very different types of conflict. Further, they will each have different learning styles.

Understand teaching. Most of what we know or what we think we know about teaching comes from our own experience as students in schools, primarily grammar school and high school. Those were places of regimentation, top-down training, with huge power disparities between the instructor and student. Measurability trumped applicability. And everything was aimed at teaching children, not adults.

It would be hard to design a worse model for teaching assertiveness or conflict management. You can’t teach people to be strong while demanding that they obey.

Principles-based teaching has to be applied with principles of teaching. And principles of learning.

Humility. In conflict training, the instructor’s ego is probably the student’s most dangerous enemy. The instructor will be trusted, will be seen to have the answers. If the instructor needs or desires a sycophantic relationship, it will be toxic to the student. If the instructor is too prideful to acknowledge what he doesn’t know and makes shit up to answer questions, he actively endangers his students. All of teaching is about creating students who will be better than you. If you can’t emotionally handle not being the best, you have no business teaching.

This is the end of Part One, laying the foundation. I’m going to make a suggestion. If you can get a copy, watch my video “JointLocks” available from YMAA.com, Amazon and, I believe as an app. It’s not really about the locks. My stealth purpose for shooting that video was to get a solid example of the principles-based approach in front of people. Locks have a reputation for being difficult. The method we show in the video has gotten untrained rookie cops improvising locks under stress in one hour of training. If you get a chance, watch the video, but for the training method, not just the locks.— Rory

 

Two Keys To Communication – Alain Burrese

I have a unique background in that I’ve dealt with conflict on numerous fronts, and in different capacities. As a former member of the U.S. Army and a student of martial arts and physical self-defense for over 30 years, I’ve dealt with conflict on a physical level. Working various bodyguard and security positions throughout the years provided experiences in dealing with conflict on a different front. And as an attorney and mediator, I’ve both represented clients in disputes and acted as a neutral to assists parties in resolving their conflict before turning the authority over to a judge or jury. One unifying constant in all forms of conflict is that the communication between the opposing parties directly influences how the situation will be resolved and where the conflict will go next. In every mediation, and in all of my communication skills workshops, I teach these two simples keys to effective communication. Because, as I like to say, we are always communicating, but we are not always effectively communicating. We must listen to understand, and communicate to be understood.

Listening to Understand

The first of the two most important skills regarding communication is listening to understand.  When people express themselves, they want to be heard.  FBI negotiator Gary Noesner has stated, “Listening is the cheapest concession we can ever make.”  I agree with him one hundred percent. Listening is crucial for the mediator and anyone who wants to resolve conflict.  But it’s not enough to just listen, or pretend to listen, that’s because people also want to be understood.  Therefore, you must listen to understand.  Sometimes people don’t even understand themselves, but want those listening to understand.  This is why this is the first of the two important rules.  First you must make it your goal to listen and understand, and then you can communicate to be heard and understood.

You want to understand on both an emotional level, and an intellectual level.  You want the other party to feel that you understand what they are feeling, as well as understand what they are saying.  You can achieve this through what is most often called “active listening.”  This is just what it sounds like, “active.”  You don’t want to be thinking about what you are going to do later, what happened earlier, or what you are going to say next.  You want to be actively engaged in listening and understanding what the other person is communicating to you.  It’s harder than many think, but easier once you practice and make a habit of being fully engaged in understanding what is being communicated to you.

Ways to do this include blending with a person.  You do this by nodding in agreement with those things you agree with, making occasional and appropriate sounds of understanding like “uh-huh,” “oh,” and “hmm.”  Sometimes you’ll want to repeat back what they’ve said so they know they’ve been heard.  Everything about you, including body posture, voice, tone, eye contact, must convey an impression that you hear and understand.  And the true conflict resolution professional truly does want to hear and understand!

As mentioned above, sometimes repeating something back to the person helps with understanding.  You don’t want to be a parrot and repeat everything back, but depending on the situation, some things will definitely be worth repeating.  You may also want to ask questions to clarify certain things.  Actually, you will want to clarify anything you might not fully understand.  Remember, the goal is to understand.  

Summarize and confirm what you have heard.  Make certain you really do understand and don’t assume anything.  Be sincere in asking if the other person feels understood and ask if there is anything else.  Remember, it is not only your job to listen to understand, but to ensure the person you are listening to knows that you understand and feels understood.  Once you achieve this, the person is much more apt to be cooperative going forward toward resolution.

Obviously, the rules I’ve shared so far relate to conflict that is in a more civil setting, such as a mediation or even a negotiation that isn’t volatile. But listening is equally important in those situations where violence may erupt, maybe even more so because of the stakes at hand.

When I’ve assisted Peyton Quinn with classes in Colorado, we’ve demonstrated the difference between passive, aggressive and assertive responses and how they affect the outcome of situations. But we’ve also addressed the differences between territorial and predatory woofs. A predatory woof might be when someone says he’s going to stomp you, while a territorial woof would be having him say he is going to stomp you if you don’t get out of his territory. When it is territorial, you can often just leave and avoid the violence. That is, as long as your ego doesn’t get in the way with something like, “No one is going to tell me where I can go or not.”

Listening to understand, and recognizing the difference, can go a long ways toward avoiding violence, and resolving conflict easily. Just leave if it is territorial. There is obviously more to it, but this should illustrate why the concept is important.

Communicating to be Understood

If you start your communication with, “You dirty rotten so and so,” how much of what comes next do you think the person you are communicating with will listen to?  Unfortunately, many messages are sabotaged by such ineffective methods of communicating, resulting in misunderstanding, messages not being heard, or sometimes just simply being ignored.

Therefore, the second most important skill when communicating is to communicate to be understood.  We must remember that the signals, symbols, and suggestions that constitute our communication output provide the opportunity to influence relationships in a positive manner if we choose to do so.  Unfortunately, signals we send, even unconsciously, can negatively affect relationships and the communication process as well.  It’s important to monitor the signals we are sending to ensure are message is being received and understood.

Many experts suggest that the non-verbal communications we make are more important than the actual words we use.  Things like the tone of our voice, our body language, and general attitude toward the communication process are all part of the whole, and have an impact on how your message will be received and understood.  You might be saying you want to resolve the conflict, but if you tone and body language project that you don’t care, it will be more difficult to reach resolution.  If you don’t listen to understand the other party, why would you expect them to listen and understand you?

Other things that can help you communicate to be understood include tactfully interrupting interruptions and telling your truth, not the other person’s.  The tactful interruption is done without anger and blame.  It is done without fear.  You can simply say the person’s name, over and over if needed, until you get the person’s attention.  Once you gain their attention, you can proceed forward by stating your intent, clarifying something that needs clarification, and further engaging in effective communication.  Telling your truth involves using “I” language rather than “You” language or absolute truth.  “The way it appeared to me” is less apt to be confrontational as the absolute, “You did X.”  “I felt hurt by what happened,” can be more effective than, “You hurt me.”

The key is to use language, tone, and body gestures that help convey the message you want to convey, while at the same time ensuring that the message is being understood.  If the other party is not as practiced at listening to understand as you are, you can assist the process by making sure you are clear and understandable.  And during the process, always remember that you must also take your turn at listening to understand.

In a conflict that has the potential to become physically violent, I often illustrate the three responses I mentioned that I also assisted Peyton Quinn in demonstrating them. The three responses are passive, aggressive, and assertive. The first two generally end up with the situation going physical, while the third, assertive, has the greatest possibility of deescalating the situation and resolving the conflict without violence.

Using profanity and calling the other person names, combined with aggressive body language and other behaviors is almost a sure way toward punches flying. While assertive language, combined with assertive body language and tone of voice will most often resolve conflict that has the potential to go violent without anyone getting punched in the nose.

Conclusion

These two skills of listening to understand and communicating to be understood are important for mediators and parties involved in conflict. And as you can see, they are as important in the bar or street as they are in the mediator’s conference room. Because so often in mediations the parties are having difficulties communicating (almost always), I started briefly discussing listening to understand and communicating to be understood in my opening statement. Providing the parties with a short communication lesson to assist with the process has paid off with more successful sessions and resolved conflicts.

I recognized that these same two communication principles apply equally to many self-defense situations where the conflict has potential to be deescalated and physical violence avoided. So I started including them in my safety and self-defense presentations too. Much conflict is the result of ineffective communication, and by learning and practicing these two keys to communicating effectively you will find yourself in fewer conflicts and able to better resolve the conflicts you do encounter.

 

Injuries in Firearms Training Classes – Kathy Jackson

Had an interesting talk with a friend and colleague awhile back. This was a late-night conversation, during which I mentioned that nearly all long-term, experienced firearms trainers have had students injure themselves during their classes. That was a euphemism: I actually meant that some students have shot themselves during class. My friend was horrified and a little disbelieving.  But it’s true.
Whenever we as instructors get together to compare notes with other professionals who teach people how to work and live with firearms, it won’t be long before we realize that nearly everyone in the room has at least one horror story of their own to share. Many of those who have been doing this a long time have more than one such story.

The Commitment

As a trainer, my personal motto is, “Not on my watch!” It means I’m going to do everything in my power to stop injuries and accidents before they happen. If someone injures themselves, it will somewhere else at some other time than in one of my classes. It will not happen on my watch.

Every time I step up to teach, I’m acutely conscious of the risks we face when we handle firearms. Every class starts with a detailed safety brief. Every student signs a liability release. Every program begins with dry fire so I can see how students’ trigger fingers habitually behave and so we can fix any bad habits before we go live.

When students learn to draw from the holster, we start very slow and make sure everyone is doing things correctly, and in the proper sequence before we load the firearms. We start slowly and add speed only after students have demonstrated proficient levels of safety in slow motion. We don’t work from concealment until I’ve seen that every shooter on the line can work safely from an exposed holster.

We enforce a “hard break” – a brief rest at the low ready position to give students time to change mental gears – before allowing anyone to put their guns back into the holsters. When they do holster, I make them keep their fingers flagged away from the side of the gun so there’s little chance that the edge of the holster will force a straightened finger onto the trigger as the gun enters the holster. We use a technique that anchors the non-dominant hand out of the way, so nobody will point a gun at their own hand during the holstering process.

My assistants and I do everything in our power to slow down the action and get people doing things safely and correctly before we use live ammunition. We make sure students have built good habits before we add any speed or any stress to their work with firearms. We work hard to keep our people safe.

The Reality

Nevertheless. A great many people whom I deeply respect, who are just as cautious as I am, have had students shoot themselves during class. This has not happened because they are bad instructors, or because they are lazy, or inattentive, or unobservant. It isn’t because they are less than professional or because they don’t know what they’re doing or because they don’t know what to watch for and what to do when they see it. And I’m no smarter than these guys, no more alert, no more cautious.

It’s impossible to eliminate the risk of handling firearms. What we do is dangerous. So we don’t eliminate risk for the students. We manage it. That’s our job as instructors. – John Farnam

That’s an uncomfortable truth.

Ultimately, no matter how careful we are, no matter how many good safety procedures we put in place during class, we cannot remove every possible risk when our students are handling deadly weapons. As an experienced trainer, I’m acutely aware of that.

Learning to use a handgun safely requires an absolutely perfect, unwavering and unflawed attention to detail from both the instructor and the student. And sometimes even the best people blink.

An illustration

For those who are new to this endeavor, or who believe that it’s always possible to control everything that every student does on the line, I’d like you to watch an online video. Before you do, here’s the mental exercise I want you to perform: I want you to visualize yourself standing right next to this shooter in the ideal “range safety officer” position. That’s within close arm’s reach just behind the shooter’s strong side shoulder, where you have a good clear view of the shooter’s trigger finger and holster, and where you can easily reach the shooter’s gun hand just by reaching forward.

Starting at 0:25 and continuing through 0:28, watch only that short section of video. There’s a slow motion replay a little later where you can see every last bit of the drama in excruciating detail. But please, don’t watch the rest right away. Pause the video at 0:28 and answer the questions below based on one viewing of the section from 0:25 to 0:28 only. That’s at normal speed, the speed at which these things actually happen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYvAxLX6OzE

Of course, we all knew a negligent discharge (ND) was coming because I just told you it would be, and because we’ve either seen the video before or at least because we read the headline before we hit “play.”

But still, even though you know the job is artificially easy for you because you could see it coming, mentally put yourself in the place of an imaginary instructor – someone standing right there, staring directly at the shooter from within close arm’s reach. Realistically, would that imaginary instructor really have the reflexes to stop this shooter’s negligent discharge before it happened?

If you were that imaginary instructor …

  • Would you have been fast enough to reach over and physically prevent him from pointing the gun at himself as soon as you saw his finger going to the trigger?
  • What if he wasn’t your only student, and if you had two or three or five other students to watch at the same time?
  • What if you were calling the range commands from a few steps farther away, rather than hovering right over his shoulder?
  • Would you have predicted this event, or seen it coming in time to stop it, if you had been working with this shooter all day, and had not seen any previous unsafe behavior from him  (especially if you also had other students to watch who had presented more of an ongoing safety concern throughout the day?)

This is why we require liability releases from our students before the shooting starts.

If you aren’t a complete control freak with an almost obsessive compulsion for range safety – while simultaneously being able to accept that some risks will always be outside your control – then being a firearms instructor isn’t the job for you.

So, it’s hopeless?

That’s originally where I intended to leave this article, on that very sobering note for instructors. But when I showed it to an early reader, he was horrified. “Do you mean, shooting accidents can never be prevented? You’re going to scare people away, they’ll give up on firearms training entirely because, because, because … well, what’s the use?”

He was right. You as the reader might very well have come to that conclusion. So let me be Little Miss Sunshine here and give you even more good news.

An ounce of prevention…

First of all, of course this ND could have been prevented. All NDs can be prevented! That’s why we call them N-for-Negligent, rather than A-for-Accidental, discharges. Negligent means someone neglected to do something they really should have done, something that would have made a difference in the outcome.

In this particular case, the shooter in that video could have avoided any hint of danger by choosing better gear. A holster that requires you to use your trigger finger for anything other than pressing the trigger is a bad design. And it certainly doesn’t pair well with a mental habit of trusting an external, mechanical safety to keep you out of trouble. (We hear that mindset expressed in the shooter’s explanation of what happened and how it happened; listen for it when you watch the entire video.) A bad gear choice does not pair at all well with complacency and a misbehaving trigger finger! So the shooter himself could have stayed safer simply by choosing better gear, by building a better safety mindset, and by having a better-behaved trigger finger.

Our imaginary instructor – who was not present in real life – may very well have stopped this ND long before the drawstroke started. As many professional trainers do, our imaginary instructor could have forbidden the use of a suboptimal, trigger-finger-activated holster during class. Or the instructor could have insisted that the student not switch from one holster type to another once the class had started. Either of those rules would have avoided the shooter’s crosswired confusion, which was caused by using two fundamentally-incompatible holster systems on the same day.

The instructor could also have insisted that the student do a large number of slow-motion repeats of a correct, safety-conscious drawstroke with the unfamiliar holster before allowing him to load his firearm. Those extra repetitions in dry fire would very likely have extinguished the bad trigger-finger behavior before it became truly dangerous.

At a more basic level, just the mere presence of an instructor, or at least of a separate videographer, would likely have eliminated the shooter’s distraction with the video recording process. Getting rid of that particular distraction may have improved the shooter’s overall attention to what he was doing with the loaded gun. That, too, would probably have increased his safety and reduced his risk.

All of the above is true. There were many ways this ND could have been derailed before someone was bleeding on the ground and well before lightning-quick reflexes were needed to avert disaster.

But what’s also true is that once those extra safety layers have been used – once the gear has been chosen, once the instructor has taught and demo’d and supervised and otherwise made the process as safe as it can humanly be made – well, at some point all those extra safety layers go away. The student loads the gun, the line goes hot, the timer starts.

At that point, the only safety layer left in place is the shooter’s own behavior. Nothing else.

The reality is, an outside human’s reflexes just aren’t fast enough to stop everything dangerous the shooter might do. That’s why, as instructors, we work hard to control all the variables we can control. It’s why we act early to extinguish behaviors that can cause trouble later on. We do it because we know that after the train goes a certain distance down the track, our outside reflexes won’t be fast enough to stop the trainwreck from happening.

The student’s dilemma

Some people might wonder, “Well, then, if an instructor cannot absolutely guarantee that I will always behave safely during class, and if they can’t fly across the range faster than a speeding bullet to stop every possible danger in my world, does the benefit of going to class really outweigh the risk?”

Yes. Yes, it does.

In the long run people always behave more safely when they know what to do than when they don’t. You, me, that guy over there – all of us are going to behave more safely when we’ve been taught how to make safe choices than when we haven’t. We’ll be safer when we’ve been encouraged to choose safer and better gear, to practice new skills in dry fire rather than with loaded guns, and to pay close attention to the details most people miss when they teach themselves. We will behave more safely when we have received good, solid, honest feedback from an outside observer than we will when we haven’t.

You’ll certainly be safer for having practiced your gunhandling skills under competent supervision on a calm day at the range than you will if you try them out for the very first time on some dark night when someone is trying to kill you.

With focused supervision from a good instructor, with careful attention to detail and multiple repetitions of the skill, we work to prevent students from doing anything unsafe during the class. Even if the students do something foolish at some point, the multiple and redundant layers of safety enforced by an observant teacher will sharply reduce the risk of injury.

How do people get hurt?

For those who would avoid firearms training class for fear of being shot by the other students, let me offer one tiny bit of cheerful news: when mishaps do happen, far more people shoot themselves unintentionally than shoot others unintentionally. This is particularly true within the confines of a good class, where an alert instructor maintains safety protocols that reduce the opportunities people have to point firearms at others.

By far the most common pattern for unintentional injuries involves a gunshot wound in the right leg or the left hand. The injury to the right leg usually consists of a stripe down the outside of the leg, directly in line with the student’s holster. It happens because the student tried to holster the gun without removing his or her finger from the trigger, with predictable results.

“Every gun owner believes that his or her gun handling is safe, regardless of how good or bad that gun handling is. This is an example of illusory superiority, a cognitive bias that causes people to overestimate their positive qualities and abilities and to underestimate their negative qualities, relative to others. It’s also known as the Lake Wobegon effect, because none of us believe we are below average.” – Karl Rehn

The injury to the left hand happens when a right-handed shooter carelessly puts the left hand directly in front of the muzzle while handling the gun – sometimes during a reload, but more often (you guessed it) while holstering the gun.

My advice: if you’re concerned about being the victim of an unintentional gunshot injury, learn everything you can about how to safely use a holster. Don’t just assume that because any fool could figure out how to drop a gun into a gun-bucket strapped to his waist, you’re good to go.

“Just go to the range and practice a lot”

Unintentional, injurious shootings happen on public ranges and on private property far more often than they happen during professional firearms training classes. There’s a reason for that.

Here’s a fun factoid. In 2013, according to the CDC (http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/nfirates2001.html), more than 16,000 Americans presented themselves at a hospital needing emergency treatment for non-fatal, unintentional gunshot wounds. That’s one person every half hour, all year long.

During that same year, approximately 800 people were killed by unintentional gunshot wounds. That’s more than two people every single day who did not need to die, people who would not have died if the person handling the gun had known how to handle it safely and had done so by practiced habit.

Learning defensive handgun skills within the confines of a good class reduces your risk of doing something stupid with any firearm, on or off the range, for the rest of your life. That’s one of the primary benefits of a good class. After all, when we have successfully engrained good, safe gunhandling skills to the point of automaticity, so that they will hold up even during the extreme stress of a life-threatening encounter, those same safe gunhandling skills will much more likely hold up during the more mundane stress of an ordinary brain fart. And it’s those everyday brain farts that hurt and kill good people.

Professional firearms instructors know that working to help people become safer and more skilled with their firearms ultimately saves lives. We know it because we have all seen radically unsafe behavior on the range by smart people who simply don’t know any better yet, and because we have all seen the radical improvement in safety consciousness that comes once people have actively been taught how to behave safely around guns.

Bittersweet truths

A well-designed class led by a skillful firearms trainer can reduce the students’ risk during their learning with the gun from unacceptably high all the way down to almost non-existent. But no matter how good we are as instructors, we can never eliminate that word almost. That’s because at some point, we have to take off the training wheels and let the students pedal the bike on their own.

No matter how dedicated and careful your instructor might be, in the end, your personal safety is your personal responsibility. It really cannot be any other way.

Understanding all the above may help us swallow this bittersweet truth, an inoculant against misplaced blame for dedicated instructors: No matter how carefully we watch over our students as they learn, we can never provide the final layer of safety for them. Ultimately, our students must do that for themselves.

 

Knowing Your Audience – Richard Dimitri

As a self defense teacher/instructor I believe it is important to remember what it was like when we first started learning along with a good understanding of who our audience is when it comes to teaching certain tactics and technical applications as we tend to often get locked down on absolutes.

For example, and this one is very popular amongst the self defense crowd who, for better or worse, seem to be divided on the issue of which is better; striking with an open hand or a closed fist? There are of course sub-arguments within the said argument such as the ‘open hand neck up, closed fist neck down’ but that also is kind of absolute isn’t it?

It doesn’t have to be this particular bone of contention either nor does the argument have to be about a physical response, it could be about any strategy, tactics or tool for that matter such as ‘In a knife attack, is it better to stabilize the weapon hand or fuck stabilization and just ‘attack, attack, attack!!!’?

It does indeed depend; as to eliminate either or restrict anyone of either based on the factual statements made on each could very well be limiting someone’s natural or already trained capacity at doing so and who are we to tell anyone that what has worked for them before all of a sudden won’t, and worst, could cost them their lives?

This is where knowing one’s audience in this field in my opinion, becomes critical.  For example, if a very average 70 year old woman concerned about an immediate potential threat in her life was to learn self defense, it would be somewhat ignorant to believe that teaching her any kind of closed fisted striking (to go back to the original example) would render her effective at such strikes, assuming of course the threat she is facing isn’t from an older, blind and paraplegic woman either eh?

Now if a 30 year old, athletic strong female was interested in learning self defense based on the same concerns; offering her the options of both while also explaining the pros and cons of each, and allowing her to figure out for herself which tactic is most natural, suitable and sensible to her being, and then allowing her to experience each in training to ease her decision would be the way to go.

Switch that to a 25 year old male, heavy weight golden gloves champion, who is interested in learning self defense. To take his natural and proficiently trained ability to strike with a closed fist and ask him to change it to open handed striking as the main and only method of defense doesn’t make sense either.  

The same approach should be taken as of the one of the 30 year old athletic female.  Teach both, show the pros and cons of each, and allow the student to experience them in real time/real speed via training to formulate what is best for them.

How do you do that in a large and varied group consisting of young teens, seasoned fighters, elderly folk and everything in between? Always cater to the weakest link in the chain.  The mechanics for a lead palm strike are the same as that of a boxing jab. The mechanics of a horizontal elbow strike are the same as that of a hook punch, etc. The tool itself is incidental and preferential.  

Here is where the argument heats up however.  Once on close quarter/grappling/wrestling range; striking becomes obsolete for the most part as striking requires 3 integral elements to make it functional: 1. Distance 2. Grounding, and 3. Torque. Remove even 1 of these elements and you’re left with at best 70% capacity of whatever chosen strike.  

Now, perhaps the athletic female and golden gloves champion could end the confrontation before it got extreme close quarter with a precise strike, but the average 70 year old or early teen? Generally, not so much.  

The lack of expertise, power, training, timing, precision and clarity in the moment once the initial strike didn’t end the fight, but instead escalated it by bringing it closer quarters would make their punch at best; a distraction. Relying on any kind of striking at this point (or grappling submission for that matter) wouldn’t be functional simply because boxing and grappling require regular training and practice to upkeep the functionality of it.

Not to mention, we’re talking about self defense here…. most people who come for self defense training do so because they feel an immediate threat, only a miniscule percentage of the population train self defense out of pure fun and passion or a possible/potential or imagined what if?  

Those that don’t are there for more pressing reasons and need strategies, tactics and tools that they could manifest fucking tonight if it was necessary. The arm bar taught and learned in one day to an average 70 year old woman won’t give her the ability to perform it under stress were she to get attacked the week after she learned it…. A primal scream coupled by a barrage of gross motor rip/tear/gouge/bite/strikes paired with her already driven adrenal state however most definitely can. and has on more than enough occasions to make it scientifically proven (for those deemed as victims, not necessarily just the 70 year old woman case).

And here’s why in a mixed group, the teaching of the strategies/tactics and tools aimed at those who are unfortunately perceived as the weaker/victims of our species, are paramount simply because if an average 70 year old woman could wreak havoc on a much larger and more violent assailant with these tools and tactics, imagine what the seasoned golden gloves champ could do with them?

One set of tools & tactics works for both individuals while the other set of tools (not necessarily tactics here) works for only the strong/athletic/attributed/attitude individuals. In many instances, it’s the ego of the strong and athletic that won’t allow them to acknowledge, perhaps, the tools and strategies aimed at the perceived victims, for in their mind, it places them in that category.  

Whatever the case, it doesn’t change the fact that they work and work well and are even more devastating in their hands as they also possess an athletic and sport oriented delivery system to back it.  

It’s all in the timing of it as well. Is it a 5 to 10 hour workshop? Is the individual in question taking regular and weekly ongoing private or group classes? How pressed are they to learn self defense?  What are their physical limitations if any? Answering these questions allows the instructor to formulate the class(es) to fit their audience.  

But to simply reject a strategy, tool or tactic, no matter what it is, even a spinning back kick for that matter, is ridiculous… prioritizing them as per the student, the level of immediate threat they are facing as well as taking into consideration their natural abilities, previous training and potential limitations (pointless to teach a spinning back kick to someone in a wheelchair for example) as well as the amount of training time they have should be how one constructs their daily curriculums and not on one’s own personal abilities and beliefs of what works and/or not.   That’s up to the individual in question.

What works for you may not work for all but what works for all will definitely work for you, at that point, it becomes matter of preference hopefully based on logic and sense as after all, this is self defense we are talking about, in the end, it’s your life on the line; choose wisely.

In my opinion anyway.  

Blazzing Saddles UK – Mo Teague

As a child I was raised by cowboys and brought up the cowboy way, I don’t mean cowboys as in builders but as in the ones who ride horses, herd cattle and fight injuns (native Americans, first generation peoples).I gotta tell ya it was tough but it made a man of me. Being brought up as a young cowboy taught me a lot that would stand me in good stead through the years and saved my sorry ass on more than one occasion. Cowboys are tough with a work ethic second to none. They work hard and party harder, they live basic but meaningful lives close to nature and to one another forging friendships that endure over lifetimes. It’s also a dangerous life, working with unpredictable animals in harsh conditions and extreme environments, scorching summers and freezing winters not to mention bears and rattle snakes, and all this on bad food , low wages and scarce female company (no mention of Brokeback Mountain please) So whilst not a glamorous lifestyle there are compensations and you just can’t beat a sing song around the old camp fire with a mess of beans, a slug of whiskey under a starry night sky with your fellow cowboys after a long day in the saddle…….is that a wolf howling in the distance….or those pesky injuns ?

Ah the golden age of cowboy movies, you see I wasn’t as you probably already know, brought up by cowboys, at least not directly. Let me explain. My father was sailor and away for long periods of time (years) so as a young boy I was bereft of male guidance and searching for a male role model, searching that is until we acquired our first black and white TV and the Lone Ranger (and Tonto) appeared on our screen, I was hooked and a cowboy from that day onwards. Now I understand it’s a generational thing so when I talk cowboys I don’t mean the anti hero Eastwood type or God forbid Brokeback Moutain, I mean real cowboys , Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, Alan Ladd, Henry Fonda and of course the cowboys cowboy John Wayne. Now I can picture you reading this and thinking WTF where is this going, but bear with me and I will get to the point!

The point is information can be gleaned, interpreted and adopted from almost any source, even cowboy movies if you have an open mind. So what did I learn from cowboy movies you may ask?

Well the first thing I learned and understood was that there were good cowboys and bad cowboys, good cowboys were handsome and wore white hats whilst bad cowboys were ugly and wore black hats, both sets have lived by an unwritten code, one good , one bad , the clash of codes obviously became the movies story line. Now as I grew older I started o understand the good cowboy code and adopt certain values and attitudes such as calling my parents Ma and Pa and eating more baked beans than was good for my intestinal tract not to say the atmospheric conditions within the ol’ homestead

I also started to understand that good manners were central to the cowboy code especially regarding women and children as was kindness to animals and the weak and the vulnerable, and most important that violence was always a last resort after the hero has been pushed too far and with no other choice, hence the big shootout showdown in the final scenes which despite being wounded the good cowboy always wins and kills the bad cowboy or at least runs him out of town.

You see the point of this article thus far is, you gotta have a code, a personal code that articulates your values and guiding principles to life, see if you don’t know what you stand for you will fall for anything. What will you fight for? because someone spilt your beer or looked at you the wrong way? (Bad cowboy code) or will you walk away with your honour and integrity intact because you were true to your code. Any damn fool can get into a fight it takes a man of character to walk away if he can, especially when he knows he can whup the other guy. Only when there is no option other than to fight, well that’s when the metaphorical six guns come out of their holsters. OK I gotta rodeo to git to so take care.

 

                     To be continued……..

 

Matrix Download Syndrome, Part I – Marc MacYoung


“Don’t think that your book learning is the same as my experience.”
 Terry Trahan

Someone recently asked me how to keep calm when someone is in his face (threatening him). My response was:  Start with the fact that your ability to do it is developed BEFORE you need to do it. Without previous work, there is NO way to succeed on the spot. You asking “How do I do it in the heat of the moment” is too late. You’re screwed.

Hold that thought, we’ll come back to it.

This is going to be a series of articles about what you can do to keep yourself from getting killed out in the streets. But I’m not going to talk about techniques, combat mindset or even legal details. That’s because being able to easily access that kind of information is part of the problem. Instead, I’m going to help keep you alive by addressing assumptions, modern thought, how you’ve been conditioned to learn/think, how changes in technology, how “internet intelligence” and easy access to excessive information is negatively impacting our ability to safely navigate dangerous circumstances.

Here’s the booger about that. You won’t even know this problem exists until you’re either laying on the ground bleeding or sitting in the back of a cop car in handcuffs. Even then while you recognize something went horribly wrong, you won’t know what.

Let me start out by pointing out that you cannot learn self-defense in the classroom, training hall, dojo or even at firing range. This is biggest misconception there is and it often shades into an outright lie. A lie we are told and worse yet, a lie we tell to ourselves to bolster our confidence. But it won’t be until a situation turns into bloodbath that this lie will reveal itself.

Simply stated we can’t see these inherent flaws with our approach to self-defense because it’s how we’ve been educated. I’m talking public schools here. University education is years down the line. Here’s a news flash: Learning how to effectively defend yourself is not the same as learning geography. Here are some bullet points about that.

  • Self-defense is not a fixed subject; it’s a reaction. On both mental and physical levels, it’s on-the-spot and high speed problem solving. That requires assessment and judgment abilities be in place before the situation requiring them.
  • Self-defense doesn’t have a fixed way it happens, there are many levels of danger and even more ways things develop. Unfortunately many people train for only one level of response and believe that will cover ever possible scenario. Mostly these training scenarios are imaginary. They train for their fear about how they believe violence happens, rather than how it occurs (or how to recognize its development).
  • Nor is self-defense a set of techniques, a formula, a ‘mindset’ or a just-do-this ‘strategy’ you can learn on the internet; it reaction to changing circumstances and conditions  you find yourself in. Circumstances that are going to be impossible to predict before. Conditions that are completely situational  and impossible to develop universal tactics to handle. Circumstances and conditions that will change depending on what you (and others) do.
  • Nor is it just physical skills (whether punching, kicking, stabbing or shooting), it’s assessment. It’s knowing when to use those physical skills, when not to, when to start and most importantly when to stop. Self-defense is way more than physical. It’s also knowing what is danger and how to asses its development and degree (including that danger exists outside of perception). It’s having an understanding of human behavior and how your actions are going to positively — or negatively — influence the other person. It’s understanding how adrenaline and emotions can distort both our perceptions and thinking — and overcoming that to still make appropriate calls.
  • Most of all, it’s self-control. That is not something one develops in a class room or from reading the internet. You need to understand what self-defense isn’t, because come that dark and lonely night, it’s not what style you know. It’s not the caliber of gun or ammo. It’s not who your teacher was. It’s not whether he was a bad ass, a cop or a soldier. It’s not about your past, your self-esteem or empowerment. It’s not about your fears, emotions or ‘what ifs’. It’s about your ability to function and make good decisions under pressure.

    If you can’t do that, you’re screwed.

Does this mean classroom training is useless for self-defense? No. Not at all. One of the foundations for making good assessments, is having a working knowledge of multiple topics and –stable –data about those subjects. There are many issues related to self-defense that can only be learned from quality classroom time (e.g., what are the legal parameters, limits and consequences of self-defense?) You can’t gain a full understanding from just reading. You need class time where you can ask qualified instructors questions about the subject.

Does this mean reading on your own isn’t important? Au contrarie mon frere. The reading you do on the widest spectrum possible of topics is critical. But do NOT get all your reading materials from one source. For example, martial arts sources are not the last word on self-defense. They certainly suck as a source of legal expertise — starting with what is self-defense.

Read up on boundary setting, psychology, law, anthropology, conflict resolution, negotiation, leadership, social graces and anything else on human behavior you can lay your hands on. The wider the range of your knowledge, the more options you will have and the better you’ll become at managing conflict before it escalates to physical self-defense. Nobody has a monopoly on this subject, reading show you this truth. The wider the scope of your reading, the more you’ll realize how limited certain perspectives are about this subject.  Better than that though, such knowledge helps you in relationships, career and just getting through life.

Does this mean physical skills aren’t important? Oh this is a can of worms question. It’s especially problematic when someone has Matrix Download Syndrome. Hey Neo learned kung fu and karate by downloading, why can’t I? Ummm. How about, because this is real life and real life is more complicated than movie tropes and sound bites?

So why, even without MDS are physical skills when it comes to self-defense a can of worms? Short answer is: They’re critical, just not in the way you think.

Physical skills are a complex chicken or the egg issue. You do need to have physical skills that work. Yet even that is a multifaceted issue. Starting with dividing two fundamental concerns  so we can see how they interrelate. One is: What does it take to ingrain physical skills so you can do them under pressure? Two is: Is what you are being taught actually effective?

Someone can be extremely well trained in a bad system. This is the basis for my detailed -car -without-an-engine analogy. If important parts are missing, no matter how shiny and polished it is, that car isn’t going anywhere. Another way of looking at it, is just because an instructor can make it work, doesn’t mean you can. This especially because how often an instructor can have internalized an element so well he doesn’t think to mention it. It is therefore missing from his instruction. That’s the happy version. The not-so-happy version is the only reason it works for him is because of his strength and speed. Without those, you have a snowball’s chance in hell of pulling it off.

So ask yourself. Are you being trained so you can do something or are you being trained in what the instructor can do? Does the instructor identify the components of movement that must be present in order for the move to work and then drill them until they are ingrained? (Literally, you can’t do the move without these because it feels wrong.) Or does he show you a move, have you do it a few times and then move onto more sexy stuff?  If that’s how you’re being trained, you won’t be able to make those moves work in a situation.

You also need to have physical skills so ingrained that you don’t have to think about doing them. By that I mean not wasting bandwidth to figure out what’s the best move or where you have to step to do it. When either circumstances are right, you recognize something bad is happening or you’ve given yourself the go order, the process is automatic. That’s the result of understanding the move so well that you know when (and how) to do it without conscious thought. This, no matter how stressed or emotional you are.

The third can of worms element of physical skills is what I call faith. This concept is best exemplified with a simple question: Are you willing to bet your life on that move working? Do you have faith in your physical skills to get the job done?

If the answer is no, not only will you freeze, but when you can move, you’ll do it half-heartedly and without commitment. You will not commit to something you do not trust to work. Which increases the odds of it failing.

The final element of good physical skills has nothing to do with the physical. More than that, it flies in the face of the old maxim about “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”  Good physical skills give you the confidence to try other options. Will those other options work? Well you can’t really say until you try them, but having the physical ability to handle it if they don’t gives you the confidence to try. That’s a confidence you won’t have if you don’t have the physical elements ingrained.

Going back to the “Does this mean…” line of questioning.

Does this mean that scenario/adrenal stress training is the cat’s ass? No. It’s critical, for you to be able to apply your information, but like any other single topic approach to the subject it’s a failure waiting to happen.

Many people from traditional martial arts go into scenario-based training and fall apart — the first time. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth comes from this experience. In fact, many people use this as the basis of their claim that traditional martial arts are useless (and why this new, scientific and reality based training is superior). What these nimrods are overlooking is what happens when someone who has many years of training takes scenario training and finally learns how to function under adrenal stress.

There’s an entire mythology that has sprung up around scenario training. A mythology that often overlooks a simple truth. That’s in order for scenario training to work, you have to have ingrained skills beforehand. Skills that you’ve developed and ingrained over long practice.

Mix physical skills with class room knowledge and understanding and you end up with a process that can be understood akin to swimming. You learn how to swim in the current-less and shallowness of a pool. That’s where you master the component parts and refine your techniques. After that, you add another level of complexity to it by trying to swim in the ocean or river. The currents do not change what you already know, you learn to apply them under different and variable conditions. Scenario training can be best understood as “Okay, you know how to swim in a pool. Now it’s time to learn to swim in the ocean.” That’s a next level of issues affecting your swimming. And yet, when you’re playing in the surf, you’re still under the watchful eye of a lifeguard. This oversight is critical because, there’s a plethora of next level mistakes that a person can make.

Scenario training (or at least well run scenarios) can help you debug your reactions so you don’t make these common mistakes at the same time you develop faith in what you know working. But having said that, it’s still training. It’s not self-defense.

The final ‘does this mean…’ I’m going to leave you with is: Does this mean all training is bullshit?

No, but what it does mean that any training (no matter how good) is a simulation of reality. Training is not the same thing as doing. More importantly, training doesn’t mean you can do it. If we stick to the swimming analogy all that training, reading, classroom and scenario training isn’t the same as being swept overboard (an actual self-defense situation). But they will all contribute to you being able to swim to the life preserver (or to the shores of safety).

I liken training to building a bridge across a canyon. Many people believe if they find the ‘right’ system/approach/teacher, then it’s going to be like driving across the bridge. No problem at all, they just cruise right on over to the other side. When they end up falling off the end of an incomplete bridge they wonder what happened? Why didn’t it work? They’ve done everything right! It should have worked!

This is why I tell you you can’t learn self-defense in the classroom. The best training in the world will only partially complete the bridge, you have to make that final jump yourself. You have to reach inside yourself and pull that out of you to make the jump. Without this final component — and it can only be found in the situation — your training will not work.

At the same time, this is why the quality of the training is important. If the bridge is three quarters done, it’s a lot easier for you to complete the last quarter when you find yourself in a situation. But, if through bad training, the bridge is only one quarter done, then odds are strongly against you being able to make that leap. Some can, most fail.

The thing is, it’s entirely too easy for someone to decide that an instructor is offering them everything they need. This is a big part of why people buy into bad training. They have no frame of reference about how violence happens (and this includes someone who had one bad experience and decides to train). Instead they pick a training program based on their Hollywood based or imagination fueled beliefs about what violence is — and train for that.

In the rest of this series we’ll talk about other cognitive biases and misunderstandings that hinder your ability to act in self-defense. And how the belief that your training will do the work for you is a disaster waiting to happen.

Part II

Part III

A Woman’s Toolkit for Recovery from Violence and Trauma by Anna Valdiserri – Reviewed by Toby Cowern

I have followed the blog writings of Anna Valdiserri for some time now and have been consistently impressed and interested in her observations and conclusions drawn, around a number of aspects of violence dynamics and conflict management.

When I heard she had written a book, I must confess, I ordered it straight away, without a second thought, despite the title leaning heavily towards female readership. If ever there was a case of ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ this would be the epitome of it. Valdiserri herself writes early on:

“What I am trying to do with this booklet is… to provide women with some of the recovery tools we are not taught we may need. Having said all this, I don’t think there is anything in this book that men can’t use too”

That statement is astoundingly accurate. My first thought when sitting down to read this small book was that it would help give me an insight into some of the issues that women may need to address or have concerns with following trauma. This is a vital area of development and understanding I personally need, not only as a self-defense instructor, but also as a husband and father (too girls) On diving into the main sections it felt very akin to reading the “Armored Rose”, this small guide having a power in it’s detail, message and delivery to give me many things to think about and reflect upon.

I found the structure of the book to be excellent.  A list of key headers is provided in the beginning and taken in turn and expanded upon as the book progresses. The power of this book, in my mind, is Valdiserri’ ability to get significant concepts and depth of ideas over to the reader in such minimal writing. With so many writers getting wrapped up in overly expressive styles or wrestling with political correctness, Valdiserri goes straight to the heart of an issue and tells it exactly as she sees it. Not only does this make for a refreshing change (especially in the genre of ‘Self Help’ books) but it enables the reader to understand and engage with the strategies being laid out in appropriately sequential steps, without confusion.

I was reading this book ‘out of interest’, but can imagine how it would feel for a reader to open this book out of necessity, having been the subject of violent trauma and looking for a path to heal. The brevity of this book, I do believe, makes that journey far easier for any reader who may literally be reading and then trying to apply what they have just read.

At only 79 pages long, the author refers to her writings as a ‘booklet’ and that could be a fair description. With that in mind I actually hope that this ebook can find it’s way into physical publication, as I can see it taking an essential and much needed place on desks and side tables through doctors surgeries, hospital wards, police stations, support centers and other venues where those that need the advice most can receive it the quickest and most discreet way.

All in all I found this book to be compelling reading, offering excellent, well thought out strategies, presented in a clear, concise, unambiguous manner in enough detail, but as few words as possible.

I have already purchased copies for friends of mine (The highest endorsement I know how to give) and would definitely recommend this book. Gender regardless it’s content informative and of value, exceptionally well priced and can be read and assimilated quickly.

It is rare a book is released that achieves so much in such few pages. I hope you get as much benefit from reading it as I did, and it’s worth noting, some of the strategies contained within “A Woman’s Toolkit for Recovery from Violence and Trauma” even worked for me…

Available for purchase at the CRGI bookstore.

Talking Knives: Part II – Marc MacYoung

Robbery, although wounds or killing are not common (unless the victim attempts to resist) this can be best understood as a ‘stalled attack.’ Violence routinely comes with instructions how to avoid it. These instructions tend to occur before a physical attack is initiated. With muggings this order is reversed. Basically using deception to cover the significance of his actions, the criminal sets up the range and positioning for an attack, starts the attack, and then stops before it lands. What was an attack stops and is followed by instructions how to keep the attack from finishing (e.g., give me your wallet). If the person resists, the completion of the attack often follows. While a single slash as punishment is common to the face, neck, upper chest and arms. Depending on the degree of resistance by the victim depends on the amount of injury.


Message blade use is common among criminals and certain ethnic groups. It is sometimes fatal (e.g., decapitation) sometimes not (i.e., nostril slitting, cutting off ears and nipples). The use of a blade is very deliberate in order to send a message to others, often through sheer savagery. For example the individual is not just killed with a blade, but hacked apart for intimidation. Especially in situations where more effective weapons are available, the use of a knife sends a clear message about crossing or betraying certain groups. Whereas deliberate but non-fatal maiming (i.e. nostril slitting, cutting off ears or fingers) combine sending a message to others about crossing a group, a lesson for the maimed person, and also demonstrates contempt for the individual left alive (i.e., you/your group are not strong enough to stand up to me/my group).

Brandishing/Menacing is fundamentally a threat display, negotiation tactic— that also happens to be illegal. A distinguishing difference between this and robbery (or kidnapping) is brandishing usually occurs in the middle of an altercation. There is usually conflict, build up and instructions to avoid before the weapon is drawn and displayed. This is repeated when the blade is drawn.

Like other kinds of threat display, brandishing can be based in either ‘do what I want or I will hurt you’ or  ‘I’m too dangerous to attack.’ While either type can result in the blade being used, both require closing distance. If the draw and deployment occurred outside of knife range, somebody has to move into range for there to be wounding.

The question is: Did the aggressor (using it in the first method) close the distance to enforce his demands when he perceived the desired reaction didn’t occur fast enough? Or perceiving this, did the aggressor attack in rage? Or did an aggressor unexpectedly encountering a knife, close the distance to show the defender his (the defender’s) knife didn’t scare him (the aggressor)? Or did it turn into a fear attack by the defender?  All four will result in knife wounds.  

A fifth option is the knife is drawn and deployed with intent to brandish, but is done inside attack range. Due to ‘compression’ and proximity, this attempt to ‘scare someone away’ often backfires in various ways. In these sorts of situations, the question inevitably comes up: Why didn’t he flee when under threat? Simply stated fleeing is only a realistic option when

1) the range is great enough

2) when the person fleeing is in better physical condition than the potential attacker. Failing either or both criteria, turning one’s back at close range is a high stakes gamble for being attacked from behind.

Defensive uses of blades tend to have four common elements. First, even though only one side typically has a knife, there must be immediate threat of death or grievous bodily injury by the other person’s actions to warrant the blade’s use. More often than not that danger comes from other means than a knife (e.g., clubs, guns, improvised weapons or conditional disparity of force). As stated earlier, knife to knife is exceptionally rare, but that doesn’t mean other dangers don’t exist.

Second, typically, once the threat stops the defender stops his actions. This tends to cause a limited number of wounds as when the initial attacker stops and breaks off, the defensive action stops as well.

Third, except in specific circumstances, wounds are to the front of the attacker (that the knifer was defending against).

Fourth, defensive wounds on the attacker tend to be non-existent or minimal. In essence while attacking, very little attention is paid to defense and arms are not used as shields. Often what could be described as ‘defensive wounds’ line up with other wounds (e.g., a cut to the arm that aligns with a cut to the chest from the same slash).

As a subpoint of #2, defense stops when threat stops, the amount of damage an attacker takes is often dependant on his or her commitment to attack. A committed — usually intoxicated —attacker can often take multiple fatal wounds and continue attacking before being overcome by those wounds. Again, usually on the front.

Fear can be considered a catch all category. It can be viewed as a third subset of brandishing gone wrong, sheer panic, or a defensive action that turns into a frenzy.

Under the combination of fear and adrenaline,  the individual—to use layman’s terms— ‘freaks out’ and starts attacking or leaves defensive action moving into excessive force. This flavor of knife use tends to create yet another pattern of wild, untargeted, multiple wounds. These wound pattern are indistinguishable from a rage or FMA attacks.

Fear knife use is also the basis of someone chasing a person down the street and slashing at the other’s, back, then later claiming ‘self-defense.’  Due to adrenal stress, fear and continued proximity the person honestly — although not reasonably — believes the other person is still a threat.

 

How to Stay Safe in the Age of Terrorism – Avi Nardia & Tim Boehlert

This 10 Question interview originally appeared in Black Belt Magazine, but has been edited by Tim Boehlert at the request of CRGI staff.

Q: Should the average person be worried about lone-wolf terrorist attacks?

A: Terror cells, like the Boston Marathon bombers, that are not connected by anything other than ideology will become increasingly common. In some ways, lone cells are more dangerous than organized terrorism because lone cells are difficult to monitor, control or discover. The more we go after the larger terror organizations, the more they will split into smaller cells. This is exactly what has  happened with the drug cartels.

Q: Do you think the Internet is becoming the prime tool for terrorist organizations to recruit lone wolves in any part of the world?

A: Yes, the Internet is a major tool today for recruiting, teaching and spreading terrorist ideologies around the globe. The Internet can be used to traffic information and gather intelligence, and as a meeting place for finding others with the same ideas. It’s very easy to create fake accounts, use them while they are viable, then disappear – maybe completely. Terrorists are becoming increasingly tech-savvy.

Q: Are there any parallels between how terrorists recruit lone wolves and how gangs recruit members?

A: Terror groups share the same mentality as gangs — exploiting hate, spreading anger and practicing brutality. Terrorists also practice the same indoctrination techniques as gangs. Using ideology to ‘persuade’ others that are malleable has been highly effective.

Q: As high-profile targets get extra security, is there an increased likelihood that soft targets — and civilians — will be attacked by lone wolves?

A: Nowadays, we are seeing sick people understand that the more brutal their methods, the more media exposure they gain. As governments and sensitive targets continue to invest in more security, we will begin to see more and more independent terror attacks on soft targets such as bus stations, schools and any place that will instill fear into the public. Terror’s main goal is to create an atmosphere of fear, for control purposes.

Q: In light of all this, what measures can people take to stay safe?

A: Citizens need to push for government to be less tolerant of terrorist ideologies. We also need to educate the public and law enforcement on terrorists and terror culture. It seems to me that people have too much tolerance for terror — sometimes even the police are more strict on normal civilian criminals than on terrorists who walk free among us. One must study and understand what terrorism is before we decide how to fight it. People must understand how terror feeds from the media.

Q: Is increased awareness the most important precaution a person can take?

A: Awareness of who lives around us is important, but it is also important that we protect our freedom from pervasive surveillance and a society wherein anyone could frivolously call the police and have a person arrested. Security and surveillance must be approached in a measured manner. We are seeing instances of abuse as a result of increased surveillance daily it seems.

We should demand more security in schools for our children. In and around our homes, people need to take it upon themselves to study and train in counterterrorism. You are the first responder, not anyone else, and if you always rely on someone else to arrive, they might be too late. We need to take responsibility for our own safety – at hime, at work, on vacation even. Simple things can make a difference.

Q: Do you recommend that people consider lawfully carrying a firearm — assuming they have an interest and have had the proper training?

A: It’s easier to carry a gun in a bag than to carry a police officer. If most normal civilians carry firearms, it will reduce crime as well as terrorism. Switzerland is an example of a country where most civilians own guns, and it’s one of the safest places in the world. People need to take more than just the standard 8-hour course as prescribed in many states. They should know how to use it, how to clean it, how to clear jams. They should know how to shoot in low-light, how to re-load, with either hand.

In Israel, firearm owners must complete 50 hours of training every year to hold a permit. We have seen many situations wherein the first responders were normal civilians who defended and stopped terrorists before any police cars showed up. We also have civilian police volunteers who get training by the police and carry police identification cards. These volunteers patrol sensitive areas and help prevent crime and terrorism. In my system of Kapap, we teach firearms, CPR, surveillance and counter-surveillance as part of our Martial Arts. This training develops awareness and the ability to effectively respond in emergency situations.

Q: How useful could a knife be in the hands of a trained martial artist who’s facing a lone wolf terrorist?

A: Knives are effective weapons and very important to study. The only problem is that it’s hard for a person to use a knife in a real situation. The knife is not a simple weapon unless you are well trained, and overcoming the psychological barrier of fighting with a knife is difficult for most people. People need a lot of training to overcome training that they’ve had since childhood – “Be Nice!”, “Don’t hurt them!”, ” Don’t be rude!” etc. These are simple examples of how we are taught to be courteous and kind, even when facing violence. To overcome this pre-conditioning takes a lot of specialized training. We need to learn to give ourselves to BE RUDE, to strike first – preemptively.

I would also recommend learning about the gun before learning about the knife. Nonetheless, knives are great weapons and are readily available — e.g. in the kitchen. Improvised edged weapons, such as a broken bottle, are also great for self-defense.

Q: How is fighting a person who’s willing to give his life for a cause different from fighting a mugger, a gang-banger or a rapist?

A: Most criminals are not ready to die. That simple fact makes self-defense easier because even rapists and other criminals are just looking for easy victims. Terrorists look for any victim, and therefore anyone is a potential target. Terrorists may fight to the death, which makes the fight very difficult to finish. This is why guns are better to carry than knives. A knife will also require one to be close to the threat, whereas a gun allows one to fight from behind cover. There’s a huge mindset difference. One’s goal is to get resources from you – cash, jewelry, sex. The goal of the terrorist is completely different.  Both may treat you as less than human, for different ‘needs’ to be fulfilled.

Q: Realistically, what chance does an unarmed martial artist stand against an armed terrorist?

A: The first rule is to never give up — regardless of whether you are unarmed and the attacker has a weapon. You should always maintain your awareness and carry your hand-to-hand skills, as well as your gun-disarm skills. Assuming that an attacker does not have a gun can be a deadly mistake.

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Avi Nardia is a a former hand-to-hand combat instructor for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Reserve, the Israeli counter-terrorism unit YAMAM and the Israeli Operational Police Academy. He teaches the martial art of Kapap, as well as Judo, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Krav Maga. Kapap is also being taught around the globe through a network of affiliated schools. Avi has produced a series of DVD’s through multiple vendor sources such as BUDO.

Charting the Principles – Garry Smith

For the record I really find Erik’s 12 Principles of Conflict Management an excellent piece. Equally Rory’s exploration of the deeper reaches of each principle certainly moves us forward as we develop our understanding. It is really important that we do this as CRGI was never established so we could all pat each other on the back and tell each other how wonderful we are, how clever. The search for the truth often leads us up blind alleys and sometimes we end up travelling the long way round to get there when there was a quicker more direct route all along, we just did not see it. The thing is sometimes what we see on the journey is as important as arriving at the destination.

When I read Rory’s article I thought it resembled a trip to the opticians for an eye test, where you wear or look through some contraption that they drop different lenses into whilst you read off a chart. So looking through different lenses allows Rory to tease out the pros and cons of each of the 12 principles Erik rightly identifies, it works well. However, as we debated this prior to finishing our articles something did not click for me. I felt a slight intellectual discomfort with how, rather than what, Rory was presenting. When critiquing a list it makes sense to follow the list, I get it, it works. However, I felt that there was the need for a simpler more abstract presentation to sit alongside both Erik and Rory’s articles, splendid though they are.

When I first read Rory’s response to Erik I got a strange picture in my head, (not an unusual experience).  This is it.

Neville Chamberlain returning from meeting with Adolf Hitler in Munich bearing aloft the piece of paper that guaranteed ‘peace in our time’, the rest, of course, is history.

My problem was why was this picture in my head, well the term appeasement jumped out at me from Rory’s article along with the use of force as kind of polar opposites of managing conflicts. I began to see a continuum for conflict management with two polar ends, one being unmitigated enforcement of a settlement at one end and abject appeasement at the other,  this leaves every possible variation on the line in-between, neat. Well let us see.

Once you take each of the 12 principle and observe and explain its deeper context, lets extend the eye test metaphor here and looking now through a microscope, we begin to see in each the multiplicity of variables that may or may not be present in a conflict what happens when we overlay one principle with another, and another and it was this thought that gave me a feeling of information overload. Each one is explored and explained clearly enough, each one is massively open ended.   What Rory does is open up each principle so that we can see more, but the deeper we probe the more we reveal and, this is the big one for us all, how can we use this list to assess the effectiveness of conflict management or the ineffectiveness of conflict mismanagement?

Well the obvious answer is lists can be checked against events to see if what they described was present or absent, we can then evaluate how this may have contributed to the outcome, then we can judge whether this was intended or not and how effective. That seems like a logical process to me but we all know that variables interact and the complexity involved in any given situation or conflict will produce, even using this logical sequence of analysis, a best guess result based on interpretation and perspective, nobody is claiming any different as far as I can see. Nobody has attempted to claim the mantle of expert, indeed we all reject it for obvious reasons.

The thing is we do need to develop useful tools to measure conflict management techniques, responses and strategies, call them what you may, as well as the flip side of conflict mismanagement as it is often here that most productive learning takes place.

Now I love the list and I love the critique but as I began to suffer from a little conceptual overload. I did what I normally do, I shut it down and went for a walk with the dog, let the subconscious work on this whilst I had a little fun.  

A day or so later I decided it was time to let my thoughts pop out of my head and I drew myself a diagram, here is my diagram.

Garry image
OK it is not a replacement for either of the afore mentioned articles, rather it is an aid to understanding. A framework that allowed me to get to grips with some of the complexity, a simple(ish) model, let me explain.

Underlying most of what Rory looks at is the fair assessment that successful conflict management is achieved by many strategies and tactics and is never simple or straightforward, however, I am pretty sure that if we can use a continuum that ranges from enforcement at one end to appeasement at the other we capture everything in between, (that’s the neat thing about continua). Apply the right strategy/tactics with the right balance between enforcement and appeasement and everything is cool, we hope.

The flip side is true of conflict mis-management, choosing the wrong approach strategy and tactics to manage a conflict and you are quickly in trouble.  

Each situation will have its own dynamic, each situation will have multiple variables. It is the possibly infinite ways these variables combine that make the subject of conflict management so interesting and so challenging if not downright confusing.

The degree of negotiation provides us with a scale to help contextualise the continuum, if you can simply impose enforcement then no negotiation is really necessary, the alternative at the other extreme is what Rory calls begging, I think this is where I got the Neville Chamberlain thought, with no power or will to back up your intention you simply cave in, you are dictated to, you will have to negotiate like hell because that is all you have. It is a crude method of measurement and is a work in progress not a solution.

In fact the whole model is crude, I am not trying to be sophisticated, I am keeping it simple (stupid), remember that. The model is simple and you can use it as a backdrop to your thinking, like this if I take one of Rory’s points at almost random. ” Negotiation only works, negotiation doesn’t even exist, except for the threat of what will happen if negotiation fails. You never do hostage negotiations without a tactical response on standby and a country without an army may make themselves feel important by mediating a treaty… but negotiation without an alternative is begging”

The problem for me is not just the range of variables, legal, cultural, linguistics, environmental etc, the things we can see/hear/smell even, the empirical evidence, that may be present in a conflict management situation, but the things we cannot see and often can only guess at, motivations, morals, feelings and emotions, these are powerful drivers for all the actors engaged in a conflict. The list can never be expanded to encompass all possible components of any given conflict. We would need a much more powerful analytical tool or toolbox to help us to achieve that, this is what fires the agency of the actors involved.

So we can place conflict management strategies and tactics on the continuum as they are applied and then watch them move around the diagram as variables and agency collide and produce a unique recipe for each conflict we see, no two dishes will be exactly the same even if we try to use the same recipe.

My simplistic diagram is not an answer, for me it is a starting point in conceptualising a grand theory of conflict management if that is not too ambitious and outrageous thing to aim for. Can I do this on my own, I sincerely doubt it, can I add to a debate with informed and insightful others, Erik, Rory, YOU, to perhaps help us shuffle along towards such a thing together? I hope so. Maybe these three articles are the first tiny steps that start a big, big journey.