Erik Kondo – Page 9 – Conflict Manager

Open-hand vs Closed-fist – Amir Niknam

Hello, I’m Amir, a self defense instructor from Holland, and recently I’ve shot a couple of videos featuring a force meter: a device that measures the impact of a strike. The videos show that open-hand slaps can be more effective than strikes with a closed-fist.

Background

The device was originally designed for Taido, a martial art with some very unorthodox techniques, as a way to show students exactly how they are improving. Later, we also started using the device as a way to experiment with various techniques, and determine which generates the most force. This is where the force meter became interesting for self defense.

I’ve learned from Explosive Self Defence System (ESDS) to use the open-hand method for self defense. Because of my background in cognitive psychology, this instantly made sense to me for a number of reasons: it is an instinctive movement and a common reaction to sudden danger, it’s a gross motor movement that works well under high levels of stress, and potential witnesses are more likely to see you as the defender (rather than the aggressor) if your hands are open.

The ESDS instructors mentioned some other advantages as well: it’s a safer option than punching with a fist (less chance of hurting your own hand), the open-hand method will leave less visible damage on the attacker, it’s applicable in many different situations, and it will cause a bigger ‘shock’ to the brain – resulting in a bigger chance of a knockout.

They had some pretty convincing evidence on this last point, such as when they knocked someone out who was wearing a motorcycle helmet. On top of this they also made sure students felt the power of the open-hand, and I’ve seen plenty of students fall to the ground after a slap to the chest (or even the leg).

But does an open-hand slap really work better than a punch?

The experiment

Fast forward to about 8 years later, I now had a force meter to compare the impact of an open-hand slap to a punch with a closed-fist. After dozens of tests, I consistently found that the open-hand slap generated higher levels of force. The actual angle of attack (e.g. hook or straight punch) didn’t matter: the open-hand slap came out on top every time.

You can see the result of one of the tests online: https://youtu.be/RkNRU8N2jcU

I recently repeated the experiment to determine the usefulness of open-hand strikes in MMA, and even with MMA gloves the open-hand slaps generated more force: https://youtu.be/YY2qPzR9Pfo

Discussion

So, why did the open-hand slaps generate more force? Well, this mostly has to do with the difference in surface area.

A strike with a fist has a much smaller surface area than a slap with an open-hand. As a result, a strike with a fist is much more likely to break a nose or jaw. Now at first glance, this ability to break bones might make it seem like the punch is generating more power – but that’s not the case. In fact, the amount of force of a punch and open-hand are pretty much the same, the difference is that the fist concentrates all the power in a small area. The small (and hard) impact area of a fist concentrates the energy of the strike into a point, but this also means that there is less energy left to impact other areas.

On the other hand, an open-hand slap will spread the force of the strike over a larger surface area. As a result, less energy will be concentrated into a point (smaller chance of leaving any visible damage on the target), and more energy is left to travel deep into the target. When striking the head, this means that an open-hand slap will put more energy into ‘shocking’ the brain, resulting in a bigger chance of a knockout.

This is measured nicely with the force meter that we used, as the sensor was placed in the back of the pad: so that only the energy of the strike that would have impacted the brain was measured.

On top of this, there is a different factor at play that the force meter cannot measure: striking a bigger surface means that more nerve endings will be hit, and as a result that the brain will receive more pain signals. Although this alone won’t knock anyone out, it might overwhelm and cause a short freeze.

Issues

I’ve repeated this test dozens of times, more than enough to say with confidence that I have generated reliable results. However, what about validity? Is this a valid way to test open-hand vs closed-fist strikes?

There are some issues that I would like to mention. First of all, most of the people that were striking the pads were well trained in both the open-hand slaps and in closed-fist punches, but perhaps they were simply better at open-hand slaps. If this is true, then the difference in force can (partially) be explained by the participants simply being more skilled at delivering open-hand strikes.

Second, none of the participants were skeptical about the open-hand method. Perhaps they unconsciously wanted the open-hand slap to do better than the closed-fist? Until some skeptics give this a try, there is no way to know for sure.

One more issue is that the force meter itself wasn’t calibrated. This means that the measured force of the strikes cannot be translated to Newtons. So although we can definitely conclude that the open-hand slaps generated more force than the punches with the closed-fist, there is unfortunately no way to know how much more powerful the open-hand slap was (this similar to temperature: 30°C is not twice as hot as 15°C).

In the future, we should re-do the experiment with a calibrated force meter, so that we know exactly how much more powerful the open-hand slap is compared to the punch with the closed-fist.

Finally, self defense is not an exact science. Although I would like to recommend everyone to use open-hand slaps for self defense, I cannot say that the open-hand method will be more suitable in every self defense situation or for every person.

More info

Curious about the Force Meter, or perhaps you’d like to build one as well? See TaidoWorld.com/Force-Meter
ESDS stands for Explosive Self Defence System, be sure to check them out!
And for those in Holland who would like to learn more about my teachings in self defense, visit ModerneZelfverdediging.nl

Thank you!

Learning from Fight Videos – Erik Kondo

Why do people watch “fight” videos?

Watching videos of other people fighting and engaging in violent confrontations is a hugely popular pastime. Videos of this nature regularly receive millions of views on YouTube and Facebook.

What are some of the reasons that drive people watch violence? Here are a few.

The entertainment value. Many people simply enjoy watching other people engage in violent activity.

One type of entertainment is the desire to watch someone “get what he or she deserves”. These videos require a clear cut Good Guy and Bad Guy to root for and against. Many times the video will be titled or subtitled in a manner that tells people who is who. For example, Gang Member Picks on the Wrong Guy, or Bully Gets His Ass Beat. These titles influence the viewer with the power of suggestion regardless of the true nature of the conflict.

Confirmation of a viewpoint. In this case, the video serves as proof/evidence of what someone already believes to be true. For example, you believe that a certain Group consistently exhibits bad behavior and thus you like to watching members of the Group behaving badly because it confirms your worldview.

This type of viewing is particularly popular among those who like to stereotype people by race, religion, gender, and occupation.

Learning. If you are truly watching a video to learn something, then the video must exemplify something you were not already aware of or something you didn’t know. There needs to be a takeaway point for further consideration. Watching videos of people getting attacked will not help you to not get attacked, unless you learn something from the incidents.

The focus of this writing is on #3 – How to learn something from a fight video.

In order to actually increase your understanding, you need to conceptualize how the video relates to your own potential behavior or the potential behavior of someone you may come into conflict with. For example, if you watch a video of a person “freezing” and you think that you would never freeze, or that the victim is just an unaware person, whereas you are always aware, then viewing this video teaches you nothing.

In this case, most likely you watch these videos due to their entertainment value for you, or the videos confirm your view that other people are helpless “sheep”, while you are not. Watching the videos becomes a means for you to feel superior.

But if you open yourself up to the idea that you too might “freeze” or be caught unaware in a similar situation, then the video has potential educational value for you.

When it comes to your own conflicts, there will be at least one human involved and that is you. The more you learn about other people’s behavior in conflict situations, the more you will learn about your own potential behavior in similar situations. If you think “I would never do that”, then you will not learn or increase your understanding on the subject.

Therefore, when you watch a conflict video, look for things occurring that surprised you, or that you didn’t think would happen. Watch it with and without sound. Ignore the title and descriptions. Come to your own conclusions. Recognize when events unfold in a manner different than you expected. Don’t just passively watch the video and make snarky comments.

Put yourself in the shoes of the victim/predator/combatants. Ask yourself, what would I do in a similar situation and why? What are other possible outcomes that could have happened? How would I have dealt with the aftermath of the conflict? Do other viewers notice aspects you didn’t? Try to determine if what happened was primarily situational or an example of systemic human behaviors.

If you don’t want to engage in this type of mental workout, that is fine too. But don’t kid yourself, you are not watching fight videos to learn, you are watching them for entertainment.

What Counts As Primary Prevention? – Martha McCaughey and Jill Cremele

The 2014 White House Task Force on Sexual Assault on College Campuses has mandated that in order to continue to receive federal funding, colleges and universities must step up their game, including providing rape prevention education. The 2014 “Not Alone” report outlines the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) public health model of sexual assault prevention, and reiterates the need for evidenced-based programming to combat rape and sexual assault.

The CDC’s public health model defines the terms and levels of prevention, and articulates what “counts” as primary prevention – namely, bystander intervention training and psychoeducation to shift rape-supportive attitudes. As we describe in detail elsewhere (see McCaughey & Cermele, 2015), despite the overwhelming evidence that self-defense (training and enacting it) works both to stop rape and to shift rape-supportive attitudes, the CDC does not discuss or recommend self-defense training in its public health model.

On the surface, the omission of self-defense training from the category of primary prevention is perplexing, considering the CDC’s own definition. Primary prevention is defined as thwarting violence before it happens, while secondary prevention includes strategies and responses that immediately follow victimization, such as counseling or medical care, to address the short-term effects. The CDC has consistently and openly argued that while teaching (often male) bystanders to intervene in and thwart sexual assault is an established primary prevention tactic, teaching women to intervene in and thwart sexual assault targeted against themselves is not.

This stance is flawed for two main reasons. First, both self-defense training and bystander intervention training target sexual violence at the same point in time – when a sexual assault is imminent or in progress. So while both meet the criteria for primary prevention, they differ on one important dimension: who is encouraged to intervene. Bystander training requires the presence of a (presumably) benevolent and engaged third party to thwart rape, contributing to the erroneous belief that the woman targeted for sexual violence cannot, or should not, intervene on her own behalf.

Self-defense training, on the other hand, disrupts the script of sexual violence by offering women a range of verbal and physical strategies to thwart rape, which, although it can include soliciting bystander intervention, does not require the presence of a bystander in order to prevent assault. Given that both methods of rape prevention education target sexual violence at the same point in time, with the same goal and even potentially similar methods, it stands to reason that they must be in the same category – they are either both primary prevention, or neither are.

Second, only one of these meets the CDC’s second criteria, that rape prevention education be demonstrably effective – and that is self-defense training. The data are clear—and reviewed in our article (McCaughey & Cermele, 2015)—that self-defense is effective in thwarting sexual assault. In addition, numerous empirical studies have documented that self-defense training is what the CDC calls a protective factor, and that women who have taken self-defense training are at less risk for sexual assault than those who have not, reducing risk of sexual assault by as much as 40%.

Furthermore, self-defense training creates positive behavior and attitude change, including feelings of empowerment in women. Finally, women’s participation in self-defense training and the enactment of effective resistance strategies directly challenge the attitudes that permeate rape culture: that the safety and integrity of women’s bodies exists at the whim of men’s bodies. Women who learn to defend themselves learn to take themselves and their safety seriously in realistic ways, rather than simply following an unsubstantiated list of “don’ts” – don’t wear this, don’t go there, don’t be alone. Instead, they assess situations better than they did before their training, are more likely to identify situations that could be dangerous, and have the skills to respond if necessary.

We also reviewed the data on bystander intervention training (see McCaughey & Cermele, 2015), which are much less promising. There is some research demonstrating that participants in bystander intervention rape prevention education reported positive changes in attitudes and increased intent to intervene or increased self-reports of intervention. However, there is as yet no empirical data to suggest that bystander intervention programs are effective in actually thwarting rape and sexual assault. And yet, the CDC maintains its stance that bystander intervention training meets the criteria for primary prevention, and self-defense training does not.

This cannot continue. By the CDC’s own criteria, training women in self-defense is a demonstrably effective primary-prevention strategy in preventing rape and sexual assault, and is entirely consistent with the goals of a public health model in combatting the crisis of sexual assault on college campuses. At a time when so many organizations and task forces are looking to the CDC’s public health model for combating sexual assault, the CDC must begin to pay attention to the data and acknowledge women’s capacity for and right to resist sexual assault. Self-defense training belongs at the forefront of their recommendations for sexual assault prevention on college campuses.

Citation: McCaughey, M., & Cermele, J. (2015). Changing the hidden curriculum of campus rape prevention and education: Women’s self-defense as a key protective factor for a public health model of prevention. Trauma, Violence, and Abuse, online pre-print, 1-16. DOI: 10.1177/1524838015611674 tva.sagepub.com

Jill Cermele is a professor of psychology and an affiliated faculty member of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Drew University. Her scholarship, teaching, and activism are focused on gender and resistance, outcomes and perceptions of self-defense training, and issues of gender in mental health. With Martha McCaughey, she was a guest editor for the March 2014 special issue of Violence Against Women on Self-Defense Against Sexual Assault. McCaughey and she also write the blog See Jane Fight Back, where they provide commentary and analysis on popular press coverage of self-defense and women’s resistance.

Martha McCaughey is a professor of sociology and an affiliated faculty member of the Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies Program at Appalachian State University. She is the author of Real Knockouts: The Physical Feminism of Women’s Self-Defense and The Caveman Mystique: Pop-Darwinism and the Debates Over Sex, Violence, and Science. With Jill Cermele, she guest edited the special issue of Violence Against Women on self-defense against sexual assault and blogs at See Jane Fight Back. www.seejanefightback.com

The article can also be found at http://seejanefightback.com/.

“The Illusion of Self-Defense” A Personal Perspective from a Martial Artist – A. Kunoichi

Several mornings ago while groggily clutching my warm, comforting cup of coffee, I came across an article that jolted me awake.

It was an article concerning Kayla Harrison, an Olympian martial artist who was sexually assaulted and abused by her instructor as a teenager. In light of this, the author puts forth a challenge as to whether modern women’s self-defense courses offered by martial arts schools give sufficient, comprehensive preparation to the women enrolled in their courses.

And if not, then what is lacking in the schools’ curriculum?

Self-defense programs in general, have one singular, primary focus: to teach women, who are often viewed as a vulnerable population, to defend themselves in any number of violent scenarios. The scenarios that are rehearsed center around the presumption that a woman could be attacked suddenly by a nameless predator.

Basically, a stranger…remember “Stranger Danger” ?

Theoretical purse snatchers, being held at gunpoint or the tip of a blade, some menacing figure demanding your money and valuables.

Even worse – to be snatched into the back of a dark, unmarked van and raped, or left for dead.

Yes, this stuff happens. If you watch CNN regularly, you can’t help but notice the reports of young women who go out for a jog, only to be found hours later dead in a ditch, with visible signs of assault.

Compassionate self-defense instructors want to give their student the necessary tools to ensure that they don’t become THAT headline. It’s a noble goal, and an empowering one. I can say with some confidence that my martial arts background has given me some survival tools for the times that I must run alone, or walk through a dark parking garage to my car.

But I’m not overly cocky to think that my training is foolproof, nor will it save my ass in every possibility. Because nine times out of ten, it’s not a stranger that’s going to hurt me.

It’s going to be someone I know.
Perhaps someone I trust.
Someone I love.

I walked into a local dojo one summer when I was 22 years old, to inquire about self-defense classes. I wasn’t looking to become a badass overnight, although that would have been a pretty cool bonus.

The truth was, I walked into that dojo, having already been physically and mentally hurt.

It wasn’t by a stranger. It was my mother.

There was a story recently on the news about a 4 year old child that was found severely traumatized by police officers. When they asked the child what her name was, she simply replied, “Idiot.” She had been called idiot so many times, she had forgotten her real name.

Talk about a page out of my life.

I grew up in a house where a hard. ringing slap was not usual. Nor were drunken tirades, the phone being ripped off the wall, blinds getting shredded in her bare hands. Recounting all the names, and all the ways that left a dent in childhood, would take too long to say. Social services was called once by someone anonymous. It didn’t help. It only left me an accessible target for her rage. How dare anyone interfere with her right to parent me?

Self-defense and martial arts did not protect me from childhood abuse.
I walked into that dojo a few years too late.

But I did step onto a path that was necessary for my soul and well-being.
Because I was still hurting. And damn angry.

I couldn’t understand why the parent who raised me, was incapable of love. And why I constantly lived with the sense that my best was never enough.

My teacher saw the mess that was both abused child, and angry, confused adult. He used martial arts to tame my fury and teach me patience, to give me some small sense of self-worth.

He gave me encouragement where previously there was none.

He was 3 times my size, a gentle bear.
Because of him, I began to consider that I had some value in this world.
Or that I could be capable of something great.
And family, well..that meaning grew beyond blood and bone.

I cannot give enough credit to my first teacher, or the people and lessons learned in my time on this still-evolving path. If someone wanted to try martial arts, I would not deter anyone from doing so. It was the best decision I ever made for myself.

I lived alone during those early years, so I was anxious at the possibility of a home invasion. We did sometimes, work on “worst case scenarios”. I think I figured after the hell that passed for childhood, that the next person who tried to hurt me would be a stranger.

I miscalculated on that. Big time.
Because the next person who hurt me, was again, someone I knew and loved deeply.

Not long ago, I was in a relationship with someone within our martial arts community. The relationship moved very hard, very fast and without logical thought.

Looking back, it was a car crash waiting to happen.

He was handsome, charming, confident. He walked and moved with an assurance that I secretly envied. He could be so damn funny, passionate, and remarkably persuasive.

Perhaps too persuasive. He was blessed with a silver tongue, and would often privately boast, that he could get anyone to do anything he wanted.

That should have been a warning.

The relationship quickly took on the boundaries of dominance & submission, both psychologically and sexually. He was an intense force of nature, so naturally he emerged the dominant.

I was eager to prove myself worthy of someone’s love. That invisible scar from childhood abuse was still there, and I was starving for affection. Any affection.
Easily, I became submissive.

The relationship, through a number of twists, took a darker turn. I soon discovered that my passionate force of nature could be incredibly moody.
He showed one face in public to our friends, but something else when we were alone.
Intimacy took on a harder edge, until it was no longer true intimacy, but acts that bordered a gray line between pain and pleasure.

He ended our relationship to pursue someone else. But he decided that he wanted to keep our dominant/submissive sexual relationship, even as he pursued this new relationship.

He was maddenly, charmingly persuasive in why this was perfectly acceptable. He outlined passages from one of Antony Cummins’ historical research novels on the bujinkan, that detailed how the shadow warriors were encouraged to have sexual relationships – the theory being that it would further strengthen their bonds should they ever have to go to battle.

In other words, you’ll happily die for the one you’re fighting alongside, if you’re also screwing them.

I recognize now that he was taking historical martial arts lore and bending it in such a way as to keep my conscience satiated and my mouth shut.

Eventually, I began falling apart under the weight of the psychological games, and my conscience.

I wanted to be deemed worthy of someone’s love, but I was sickened by the fact that we were lying and hurting someone who didn’t deserve it. It went against the code of honor and integrity that we have within our community.

Be mindful of our thoughts, our words, our actions.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being used. There were many arguments and disagreements.
Be quiet, not be quiet.
End things, keep things going.

My conscience was a noose around my neck dragging me to the ocean depths, but I would still be quick to say whatever words he wanted to hear.

No, I won’t tell.

It exploded one night, in a way I never imagined, the last time I was alone with him.

A year would pass before I could even discuss what happened.
And even then, I could only detail in writing.
When I finally gathered the courage to share, I was told by a friend with sad, concerned eyes, that it was unnerving, violent, and that it reads as a sexual assault.

It’s still difficult for my mind to wrap around.
It should not exist for me, not with my background and training. But I can’t explain away the psychological ramifications.

Bouts of insomnia and terrible dreams, which I sometimes still have.
I once dreamt of him etched in stone, a beautifully carved statue that abruptly turned into a roaring monster, chasing me down into darkness.

I woke up screaming from that one.

I attempted to date, but couldn’t bear to be touched. I would visibly shake, cry and have an instinctual urge to just..run like hell. And my dates were nice guys, really.

I spent a long time in a perpetually anxious state of mind.

Honesty; It’s such a lonely word – Terry Trahan

In pursuing our lifestyle or hobby of self protection, it is very easy to fall prey to the fantasies and untruths that pervade this industry. What I hope to do is point out somethings that can keep us on an even keel in our training, and avoid some of the hassles that can occur when unreality takes over.

Train to handle what happens most, and you’ll be able to handle most of what happens. ~ Marc MacYoung

Marc introduced me to this saying when he first started training me, and ever since then, I have used it as a guide to how realistic I keep my outlook and training.

Before Marc, I had a lifestyle where what happened most were shootings, stabbings, multiple attackers, and they happened fairly often, so naturally, my training was more brutal and aimed at ending these kinds of conflicts quickly.

Then I became a bouncer and security escort. My most common attacks and, most importantly, responsibilities changed. Now it wasn’t a matter of being counteroffensive, it was about spotting trouble sooner and heading it off. If that wasn’t possible, my job now meant that I had to be more lowkey and subtle in my responses. Gunfire, explosives and fire are not subtle.

Finally, after I left that life altogether, and I became a ‘civilian’, my landscape changed again, and I had to worry mostly about regular crime occurring, and not blowback from my actions. Yes, I still had to be wary of revenge from the past, but not as an active motivator.

It took me a long time to reach this level of honesty with myself, and to alter the way I train, and what I teach, but the handy little saying Marc taught me has been a helpful meme to keep me on track.

Two is one, and one is none…

How often have you heard this saying, whether military, RBSD, or EDC collectors, it is bandied about with abandon. And on the surface, it is a good thing to keep in mind. I myself still carry multiples of certain items. But I do not do it blindly. I look at my risk factors, my environment, and my proclivities, and make a decision based on that. Over the years, and through my lifestyle changes, I have severely cut down on the amount stuff I carry, and mostly now, it is focused on medical and emergency stuff.

We need to be able to look at what our needs are and carry what we deem appropriate for the mission, day, or season. Don’t let anyone make you feel unprepared for not carrying a jeep full of tactical gear when you run to the corner store, your life is yours to live, and you should take all factors into consideration, not just the oddball chance of a terrorist attack occurring down at the Stop and Rob.

Case in point. I know a lot of people who are into firearms. Most of them recommend carrying semi-autos, and several magazines. I’m all for that, for them. For me however, that doesn’t fit my assessment. If I carry, it is a simple snub nosed revolver and a couple Speed Strips. I don’t see me being involved in an active shooter event, or terrorist/gang attack. And if I am, my goal is to get me and mine to safety, not engage the enemy and hunt them down. I am being honest with myself, my background, equipment, and needs. If I receive newer, different information, that conflicts with my present, I will reassess my position. But I won’t change just because everyone else says different.

All fights go to the ground; or a knife always beats a gun at 21 feet

Once again, these are great rules of thumb, and we should pay attention to them. But remember, they are guidelines, not hard and fast rules.

Anybody that ignores striking because they are told groundwork is all you need, needs to do a reassessment quickly. Both are events that may happen, and both need to be trained, within the fight continuum. No, not all fights go to the ground. I say this after years of fighting and watching them. But you know what, enough do go to the ground that you need to be familiar with it. And most serious instructors will tell their students this.

The same goes for weapons. As much as I am a ‘knife guy’, I need to know all ranges and categories of weapons; guns, knives, impact, flexibles, etc. To just concentrate on one does me and my students a disservice, and leaves us vulnerable.

In closing, all I am encouraging is honesty in your thought process and approach to training. Even if your conclusions are different from mine, or everyone elses, it is your life and your fight. You have to live with it, not anyone else, and the only person you should please is yourself in this arena. So, examine your conclusions in the light of reality, and do it often. The world is everchanging, as are we, and we need to keep up, or become irrelevant or dead.

Institutionalization of Flukes – Rory Miller

Last month, I wrote about normalization of deviance, the process by which cutting corners and skipping established protocols becomes simply “business as usual.” This month we’re going to look at the other side of the coin.

Violence presents a perfect storm for ignorance. The events themselves are rare. You will not often meet someone who has personally experienced a hundred assaults. Violent events tend to be quick— the internet is happy to give you numbers such as “6 seconds” or “3-8 seconds.” Assuming that’s true (most of mine took longer, but that ‘applying handcuffs’ step can be slow) a hundred fights would add up to a grand total of five to fifteen minutes of experience.

Further, anything experienced in this five-to-fifteen minutes of experience tends to be experienced in an adrenalized state, with all the sensory, cognitive and memory distortions that implies.

Acts of violence are complicated on multiple levels. An attacker in a rage is different than one with a plan, even if both are active shooters. Two shooters may have wildly different goals, training, ability, equipment… the list goes on. And the intended victim is also a very complicated and often unknown quantity. Then there are the bystanders. And the environment. And…

Violence is complicated. And idiosyncratic (sometimes downright weird). Frequently, things that make good sense and work in class fail spectacularly in the real world.

But also, very rarely, the stars align and a technique that has no business working saves the day.

These weird successes can happen for a number of reasons.

Sometimes, there is an abnormality in the person performing the technique. Bare knuckle boxers used the term “heavy hands” to describe a boxer who could reliably hit an opponent in the head without breaking his metacarpals. I believe there may be entire systems based on the genetic gift of one practitioner who died long ago.

Sometimes, there is an abnormality in the person receiving the technique. A lot of things work on drunks that fail on sober people, and vice versa. A stomach punch is an entirely different thing to a threat with a full bladder. Accidentally striking or gouging an existing injury can get an unexpected reaction.

And sometimes, it is just dumb luck. Maybe the effortless takedown was awesome or maybe the bad guy just slipped. Maybe your gouge made the grappler spring away… but maybe he flinched when he knelt on some broken glass.

Then there’s the twilight zone stuff. Everyone I know who has survived a close-range knife ambush broke the rule that “action beats reaction.” Several of us have done things when it counted that we were never able to replicate in training.

Institutionalizing a fluke is to make something unreliable part of your tradition or procedure. Assault survival— real self-defense— is very high stakes, very hard to pull off successfully, and there is a dearth of good information.

Tradition is the mechanism humans use for accumulating and passing down rare but important information. Kano Jigoro (I was told, might have been someone else) said, “We must learn from the mistakes of others. We will never live long enough to make them all ourselves.” Tradition is the accumulated successes and failures, the collected knowledge, of a long-standing group.

Tradition— the memory of the system— is incredibly important when information and reality checks are rare. If your tribe faces famine every twenty years, people remember what to do. If your tribe faces famine only every thousand years, what to do must be passed on.

When unexamined and untested, you simply can’t tell the flukes from the effective techniques. Especially when people in positions of authority can’t bring themselves to admit ignorance and invent plausible reasons for stupid things.

There are a few schools of kempo that use a fist with the little finger knuckle extended. They are imitating a famous instructor who demonstrated with a broken finger. Some throw the shuto (knife hand strike) with the little finger bent, imitating a famous instructor who has a severed tendon.

Life-or-death combat also skews knowledge and tradition towards the positive. If something worked, you’ll come back to the training hall and tell everybody. Whatever worked will become part of your tradition. If something failed, however, you don’t get to come back and spread the word. Techniques (and flukes) accumulate, they are rarely weeded out.

This is very different for combat sports. Non-lethal encounters and spectators make for tons of information from multiple perspectives. Sports are also driven by tradition, but it is the accumulated tradition of success and failures; not dependent on the memory of a single adrenalized person and; subject to extensive analysis and experimentation. Sport arts evolve very quickly.

There are two dangers with flukes. The first is obvious. If flawed information has crept into your syllabus over time, you have weaknesses and points of failure to which you are blind. It kind of sucks when your never-fail technique fails and your ass is hanging in the wind.

The second is when the results of a fluke are so desirable that there is a push to formally require others to follow suit. To mandate “luck” as an essential part of the system. In 2013 a man slipped into the Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Center, a grade school, with a semi-automatic weapon. Antoinette Tuff, a front office worker, talked him down. Kids didn’t get shot. The gunman didn’t get shot. Responders didn’t get shot. A perfect win— no injuries in a dangerous and highly volatile situation.

And there were a few voices using this as an example that anyone could be talked down, by anyone. That force should never be an option. Do you think none of the victims of Columbine or Newton tried to talk? Tried to reason or argue or beg? Only the successes get reported.

Without more real world experience than an individual could survive, it’s hard to find your flaws.

I’m not going into finding flukes, because, believe it or not, I don’t think that’s the problem. The biggest problem is that people defend their flukes, explain them away, ignore or support them.

People invest not only time and money, but also identity in their high risk games. People rarely “practice martial arts” but are far more likely to say, “I’m a martial artist.” I had a huge amount of identity invested in being a tactical team leader. When humans have invested time and identity, sometimes sweat and blood, it’s really difficult for us to admit that some of it might have been wasted. We tend to double down on the stupid.

I learned the pronated straight punch of traditional Japanese karate. Every wrist injury I saw on a heavy bag was from that punch. It shortens your range slightly. Despite what I saw, including real injuries, I couldn’t admit it was a flawed technique… until a very old Japanese man (and for my psychological purposes he had to have been both old and Japanese) explained that it was intentionally introduced to make the wrist weaker because the Japanese were not as tolerant of the occasional training deaths as the Okinawans.

Don’t get your panties in a bunch if I just offended you. It’s not about you or the system. It’s all about me. When you invest identity, you will sometimes discount personal experience. We work to protect our own flaws.

When boxing gloves were introduced, head punching became the center piece of boxing. It wasn’t in the bare knuckles days, largely because hitting people in the head is more likely to do permanent injury to the hand than even stunning damage to the head. But head punching has become so iconic that it will be part of MMA for a long time to come, and will require gloves and handwraps to make it viable.

Once upon a time, someone tried to stab me in the back. It was done with a lot of resolution and appreciable skill. The only reason I am alive is because I saw a reflection. What I did physically was spin, clap my hands together over the blade hand, and twist.

Awesome. We have one example of a technique actually working in a worst-case scenario. Yay. Let’s teach that. Except…

I couldn’t do it again in a million years. I’ve tried to replicate it in training. As near as I can tell, it’s not possible. The time framing doesn’t work. You can’t spin and get one hand around the weapon so you can hit it from the outside and the inside simultaneously hit it from the inside before a lunge (which started first) can be completed. Can’t be done. But it happened.

To try to make this a centerpiece or even one technique in a system would be to institutionalize a fluke. It would make the students weaker.

Comment by Erik Kondo
The following video shows a fluke.

Book Review: The Liar, the Cheat and the Thief by Maija Soderholm – Paolo Cariello

The Liar the Cheat and the Thief: Deception and the Art of Sword Play by Maija Soderholm

This book was recommended to me some time back by the sort of people who know how to use their skills to hurt someone, so when they raved how great the book and how great training with Maija was I paid attention. Last week it arrived, it arrived the same week that marked the 10th anniversary of her Teacher Sonny’s passing I took this as a sign.

Within the first I knew I held gold, yes it could have been better but none the less it is brilliant, sue me I have high standards and yes even brilliant can be better I will go into that a little later but for now let’s focus on why it’s brilliant shall we.

One of my teachers used to say practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect and this book gives you the drills to practice at the highest level, it’s not a beginner’s manual it won’t teach you techniques what it will do and do so perfectly is give you a series of drills that will improve your skills specifically in sword fighting but also in other arts as well as other parts of your life.

Maija’s art is originally from the Philippine’s and the background is where losing means you might be dead or worse, coming from a similar background in sword fighting my originals sword system being Italian, not the fancy fencing but designed for survival against someone trying to kill you, all the drills she writes about can be applied to any sword fighting system (I’m looking forward to the day someone from combative fencing cleans up all the their opponents and praises this little book for helping)

I can’t recommend this book enough, you will find yourself returning and rereading it and drawing gems out for a long time, and if you add the drills to your training your swordsmanship will be beyond the common, but it will be lots of hard work this is not an turn you into Zorro overnight, if it was easy being a peerless swordsman everyone would be one and you wouldn’t be peerless.
Ok for the drawbacks they are very few and next to nothing, sadly it’s not illustrated but you can get the footage for all the drills (I’ll be buying that when my budget improves) and Maija does have the link for it. I say sadly because I can honestly see someone generations from now reading what by then will have become a classic and compulsory reading material for future practitioners.

Just my two cents Paolo

Autumn Attitude Adjustment – Toby Cowern

As I write this article in the third week of august, Autumn has already arrived here in the Far North of Sweden. The first frost thankfully brings an end to mosquito’s season, the birch leaves yield from green to fiery reds and yellows, and the berries ripen to allow the pre-hibernation feasts to begin.

We often joke here in these latitudes, that you ‘need two of everything’ to deal with the annual extremes. Two wardrobes, two sets of wheels for the car, two completely different set of tools etc, such is the contrast between summer and winter. 24hr daylight gives way to 22hrs of darkness and temperatures drop by 60 degrees Celsius (108 degrees Farenheit)

Autumn is definitely seen as the time to adequately and thoroughly prepare and transition from summer to winter. Along with the physical changes, it is also a powerful shift in mindset. In winter you will dress differently, drive differently, even walk differently and items you routinely carry or ensure you will have with you also change and typically grow in size and number.

With such a significant annual transition and ‘mental switch’, people here will routinely review how the previous year’s plans worked and if any changes need to be made. Yes, somethings will be routinely the same, but more often than not things that get lost, broken, damaged over the summer in storage will get replaced or upgraded and technology will also continue to press new solutions into the market (albeit with mixed results)

One of the things I routinely reinforce to students in training is to ‘continuously interrogate your equipment’ meaning, understand the purpose, limits and versatility of any and all things you carry, combined with is it ACHIEVING what you want it to?

As I have previously written I am not a fan of generic Every day carry (EDC) lists, and equally do not believe in carrying an item just because ‘somebody else does’. You need to ensure your EDC items work for you and are carried in a way that are conducive with their anticipated use.

In the spring I encouraged you all to complete a routine maintenance check of your EDC, for the autumn I’ll ask you to sit down and review your EDC and honestly ask what changes and improvements can be made?

I had the privilege of hanging out with an exceptional group at the Violence Dynamics Seminar in California early this year and received an overwhelming input and discussion on carry items, which I am still processing 4 months later. What I can say, is I have been modifying things since then, that have worked well for over the last 10 years, but now work better or more effectively than ever before. Some changes were minor; I now carry certain clothing items draped over a shoulder instead of tied around my waist. Other have been major, one example being a total change in carry style and blade orientation of edged tools.

The summer has given us a number of stark examples of how quickly everyday situations can turn extremely bad, most notable of which have been incidents in various major airports around the world (Although many other significant incidents have occurred, all with essential lessons) It is worth noting in all of these situations persons involved have been reliant on themselves and their own equipment for prolonged periods of time to ‘manage as best as they can’ before any additional support was available.

Now is the time to ensure you are not carrying ‘Tacticool Talisman Tools’ but genuine items that will help boost your everyday resilience.

So, expose yourself to some new and different ideas, do some research, listen to the excellent advice coming from the authors here in CRGI and Conflict Manager Magazine. Get involved in the facebook discussions, most importantly see how you can adapt and improve your current habits…

By-Force

When most people think of self-defense, they are usually thinking of the use of By-Force. By-Force is physical self-defense. It is also a form of enforcement. By-Force may be one of the primary ways of self-protection, but it is not reliably effective by itself. The use of By-Force is very closely tied to Deterrence.

While By-Force may be thought of as the last resort or the final option, it should also be thought of as an unreliable option in many situations. While By-Force may succeed spectacularly, it also may fail miserably.

Think of By-Force as a parachute you have packed a few days or many years ago. Maybe it will deploy when you pull the rip-cord or maybe it will not. The longer it has been since you have last used it, the more likely that it will not work as intended. But regardless, you always need to have it available for use.

By-Force is the physical enforcement of your boundaries. It is used when communication has failed. The use of force may be initiated by you pre-emptively, or it may be first applied by your assailant.

The goal of Change Others, Avoidance, Negotiation, and Deterrence is prevention of physical conflict. The goal of By-Force is to stop your assailant’s Intent and/or Means and/or Intent to do you harm with an appropriate physical response(s). An appropriate response is defined legally determined by society. But you are faced with making a decision in the heat of the moment. Therefore, not only is your use of By-Force subject to failure, it is also subject to judgement by society. Failure to use a reasonable amount of force may subject you to criminal penalties and civil lawsuits (a/k/a Over-enforcement).

Once you engage in By-Force, you are in a violent conflict. Prevention has failed. You are now an assault statistic. Invariably, the potential negative consequences of engaging in By-Force are much greater than engaging in Avoidance, Negotiation, and Deterrence. But By-Force may be successful where the others have failed.

In the context physical self-defense, it is common for people to think of it as fighting back against an attacker. In this case, your response to your attacker is going to be combination of instinctive and trained actions heavily influenced by your emotions and prior training and experience. In addition, the effectiveness of your actions will also depend greatly up upon the physical and emotional makeup of your attacker as well as environmental factors.

Many stranger attacks are initiated by relatively lowly motivated attackers. These people are looking for easy victims who will not resist or can be quickly overwhelmed into submission. In this case, the use of By-Force will have a higher chance of success even if the use is technically ineffective. The simple act of resistance may be enough to cause your attacker to disengage. When this happens, By-Force is really a form of communication and a deterrence of a further assault.

But there are also highly motivated attackers who will not give up easily. These people will require a high level use of force response to stop them. Simply resisting is not enough. These people will use tactics and strategies to their advantage. If you are attacked by a highly motivated attacker, the chance of By-Force failing is much greater. Therefore, the best defense against a highly motivated attacker is the use of prevention. You want to avoid them at all costs. You don’t want to rely on By-Force as your only option.

It is also true that many highly motivated attackers are people who know their intended victim. This actually makes sense. It is the perpetrator/victim relationship that creates the high level of motivation to do harm. People who don’t know you don’t care about you. And thus, are usually not highly motivated to do you harm.

There are also many lowly motivated attackers that know their victims. In this case, these attackers use their knowledge of the target as part of their selection process. They attack their victims because they think they will not encounter resistance, particularly the use of By-Force. Therefore, the use of By-Force is more likely to create a successful physical defense.

Most people who come to a self-defense class are looking for “moves” and techniques to use in case of attack. They view assaults only in terms of a physical attack and think the solution is some type of a physical defense. These people fail to take into consideration the other six primary ways of personal safety and how these six ways relate and interact with each other and By-Force. You need to know when it is legal to use By-Force and when it is not legal to use By-Force. You need to know when using by force is likely to make things better and when using By-Force is likely to make things worse.

It is only when By-Force is considered in totality with the other six ways of Change Others, By-Proxy, Mitigation, Avoidance, Negotiation, and Deterrence, and the limitations and risks of By-Force are fully understood that the use of By-Force can become a more viable option for self-defense.

Deterrence

Deterrence is a wide set of strategies and tactics that are designed to discourage someone from attacking you. Avoidance is really a subset of the overall concept of deterrence. Deterrence can be used with both strangers and people you know.

Deterrence focuses on reducing someone’s intent to cause you harm. For example, anything that you do that makes you a harder target has the effect of deterring an attacker looking for an easy victim. Anything you do that has the effect of raising the “cost” and or risk of attacking you is a deterrent.

The following are a few examples of deterrence for runners:

1. Running with other people.
2. Running with a dog.
3. Running in an alert and confident state.
4. Running with a visible weapon.
5. Running in well-lit and well-travelled areas.
6. Running in a powerful manner.
7. Running with a flashlight.
8. Running with a visible whistle or personal alarm.
9. Running a varied route.
10. Running at varied times.

The above is just a few of the many examples of deterrence that are intended to reduce your chance of being targeted. This next category of deterrence is for if you may already have been targeted, but you have not yet been attacked. In this case, the predator is still in the “selection” stage, but you have moved closer to being selected for victimization.

Remember, an attacker must have the intent and means and opportunity in order to attack you. These three concepts are separate, yet also intertwined. Means and opportunity can have an effect on Intent. If someone has the means and opportunity to successfully attack you, that fact may nudge his intent high enough to trigger an attack. If someone has a high intent to attack, then being provided with even minimal means and opportunity may still be enough to launch an attack.

Therefore, deterrence works by lowering intent directly or indirectly through lowering means and/or lowering opportunity. Deterrence has the effect of changing the risk/reward equation such that the risk of attacking you now outweighs the reward. The potential cost is not worth the potential benefit.
The primary method of achieving this result is communicating your undesirability as a victim.

• You are too much trouble to deal with.
• You are someone who will defend yourself physically.
• You are potentially dangerous to the attacker.
• You will be loud and make a fuss.
• You will not be quiet.
• You will not submit.

This message is conveyed through a combination of physical positioning, body language, and verbal declarations and warnings. The message is backed up by your willingness to use force to defend yourself. In order for deterrence to be effective, you must also have the option of using force. It is the knowledge that you will enforce your boundaries that provides the legitimately to deterrence.

Deterrence is also backed up by your willingness to engage in By-Proxy and Mitigation in the event of an attack. In this case, you will report the crime. You will get the police involved, and you will aid in the prosecution of your attacker. In fact, it is more likely that a potential attacker will fear the societal consequences of attacking you than the physical consequences of attacking you.

One reason for that is that he (or she) gets to choose who not to attack. If you are targeted for victimization, it is likely that the attacker has already discounted your ability to successfully fight back. You need to convince him he has made a mistake in his selection process.

Deterrence works by sending a strong message to your threat(s) that he (or she) should not attack or he will suffer the consequences of attacking you. Deterrence is an implicit threat of you using violence in your defense either directly by you or indirectly via By-Proxy. Therefore, the effectiveness of deterrence is dependent on you getting your message across to any and all potential attackers. It a nut shell, your message is “Do NOT mess with me!!!!”

How exactly you achieve this result varies from person to person. It varies from situation to situation. But a common tactic involves a strong use of your voice to establish clear boundaries. The closer a threat is to you, the more direct the message needs to be.

It is important to recognize that any level of deterrence may not be enough to be effective. The threat may choose to attack you anyway. But a low level of deterrence is more likely to be disregarded. When your boundary setting uses Under-enforcement it is likely to result in feelings of contempt and a continuing lack of respect for you.

On the other hand, boundary setting that is perceived as Over-enforcement may result in a backlash against you. In this case, your boundary setting is not effective deterrence. It actually serves the effect of making it more likely you will be attacked. An example of this is the use of naming calling. “Back off!!!!” sends a different message than “Back off you piece of shit!!!!” and “Step back or else!!!”. The first sets a clear boundary. The second is an insult. The third issues a challenge. In order for deterrence to be effective, it must serve the result of making it less likely that the person will want to attack you.