Garry Smith – Page 10 – Conflict Manager

CRGI, the Origin Story – Garry Smith

In mythology there are many narratives of how the world began, how creatures and plants came into existence, and why certain things in the cosmos have certain yet distinct qualities. Most origin stories are simply that, stories full of the thing Marc MacYoung calls lies we tell to children.

There are many origin stories and most cultures have them and many have become major religions, some were invented by religions, all have true believers and are deeply entwined with our social and cultural practices, they influence almost every aspect of our life. Some exist as they did thousands of years ago, some were adapted and absorbed into newer forms of religion such as Christianity which appropriated then claimed as their own many of the Roman and Norse traditions for example.

The thing is they are all stories, not facts, they only exist because people choose, not always freely, to believe them, they have no objective reality. To one group the origin story of the other group may be seen as nonsense, heretical even, and we know where this leads.

So whilst I know there are many origin stories, as an Englishman I have mine, it starts with the arrival in post Roman Britain of two Germanic brothers, Hengest (Stallion) and Horsa (Horse), they were mercenaries who for a time served the weak Vortigern, King of the Britons, then they sent for their own and the rest is Anglo Saxon history.

Of course there is an origin story for Hengest and Horsa, who’ actual existence has never been definitively proven but long argued over. There are many legends of horse associated brothers which stem originally in proto Indi-European religions. Its a good story and may be based on some truths but there is little evidence Hengest and Horsa existed but it provides a heroic back story for those who choose to believe it.

So there are many origin stories, this is CRGI’s and it is not a myth.

“How did CRGI come to be? A few years ago, Garry Smith (the man who is now editor of Conflict Manager) asked, “If we were to do a full blown, accredited, bachelor’s degree program in self-defense instruction, what would be in the curriculum?”

I said I didn’t know exactly what would be in it, but I had some definite ideas who I would tap to help design the curriculum. That list, with Garry’s insight and experience, became the board of CRGI.

The members of the board are very different in some ways. Some were bad guys, some very bad. Some were good guys. Some are physical monsters, some were monsters in the day— and a few have physical concerns that affect every decision they make. One has been dead, and many have been close. Most are martial artists, but not all.” Rory Miller, ‘Conflict Manager Magazine’, July 2016.

That is how CRGI got started, a question was asked and that question sparked the creation of the first board. Then, as in most good origin stories we wandered in the wilderness for a few years whilst we debated and discussed what our purpose and mission were, we built our nascent infrastructure in cyberspace and began to communicate what we were trying to do and not very effectively either, we reformed the board and brought in new blood and fresh ideas, we gathered followers, but here is where we differ from other origin stories, we discouraged the true believers.

CRGI is not a quasi religion or a social organization promoting a vision of how the world should be, we have no ambition to create an inward looking entity, CRGI exists to promote discussion, polite disagreement included, a space where people can share and learn, a place where people can do sets sapiens above all other organisms on this planet, co-operate.

Being part of CRGI means people are welcome to be members of their own tribe with their own totems, talisman and beliefs but can come to CRGI to meet, to talk and treat with other tribes without resorting to trolling and name calling and questioning their origin stories and the totems, talisman and beliefs of other tribes.

CRGI is about creating a place where tribes can gather together instead of the alternative world where the ‘my tribe is better than your tribe’ mentality persists. As Marc MacYoung says:

“Now if you have people who don’t know how to behave at tribal gathering, how well do you think they’re going to be doing dealing with people of other tribes?

Here’s a hint. Not well. Especially if you consider them stupid, wrong, inferior — if not evil — for thinking differently than you do.

One of the lost aspects that smearing the lines between tribes to create an uber-tribes is how to treat with different tribes. If we’re one big uber-tribe why would we need that? Well, simple, we’re not. People are trying to revert to super-tribes without understanding tribalism. We self-identify ourselves with a tribe and feel we must hate this other tribe — even though we’re technically all one big happy uber-tribe.” Conflict Manager Magazine, December 2016.

CRGI is not some safe place for precious snowflakes it is a space where interesting, challenging and robust discussions can take place between mature adults and this is reflected in our mission statement.

CRGI is dedicated to creating an unimpeachable source for pertinent, accurate information on all aspects of conflict management.

Our mission statement shows our focus.

‘Unimpeachable’ means we vet our contributors.
‘Pertinent’ because we seek actionable information over trivia or speculation.
‘Accurate’ speaks for itself, but we understand we live in a world full of ambiguity.
‘All aspects’ refers to the fact that we are not just about martial arts, we reach out to the self defence practitioner, the firearms community, the survival community, LEO’s, the armed forces, friends in academia and all those who share our thirst for knowledge and learning throughout life.

That is why we use Yggdrasil as our logo. Yggdrasil was, reputedly, a giant Ash tree with branches that reach out into the heavens and roots that went to the center of the earth. The thing is Yggdrasis is not just a tree it is a whole ecosystem rammed with complex conflicts with many gods, eagles, dragons, snakes, squirrels and deer together with no end of mythical characters, not least the highest of the Norse gods Odin himself

“The most satisfactory translation of the name Yggdrasil is ‘Odin’s Horse’. Ygg is another name for Odin, and drasill means ‘horse’.

When Odin hung, speared, for nine days on the Yggdrasil, he uttered the words that he had ‘sacrificed himself onto himself’. This stanza gives us a description of the unity existing between the Godhead and the Tree in the myths. To emphasise this connection, we find in old English the word treow, which means both tree and truth. Etymologically, then, truth and tree grow out of the same root. Subsequently, in the Norse creation myth, man and woman originated from trees. We are all the sons and daughters of the Ash and Elm tree: the first man was called Ask, born from the Ash, and the first woman Embla, born from the Elm. Their oxygen offers us the primordial conditions for life. Ask and Embla sprouted from Yggdrasil’s acorns, and so it is that every human being springs from the fruit of Yggdrasil, then to be collected by two storks, that bring them to their longing mothers-to-be.”

Yes we too like an origin myth but it is Yggdrasil symbolising the search for knowledge and truth that we relate to in an ecosystem, ours and real not mythological, full of conflict from wars to micro-aggressions.

CRGI seeks truth, we pursue and share knowledge and we seek to understand and to manage conflict, join us and one day you may find yourself at Mimir’s Well, and that is another story for another day my friend.

Boundary Setting and Anti-Social Subcultures – Malcolm Rivers

Recently, I asked Malcolm Rivers to apply the concepts of the Everyday Boundary Setting Matrix to his understanding of inner-city boundary setting for urban youth. The following article is his response. The Matrix is a flexible framework that can be used to help understand and teach the basic elements of boundary setting and apply them to specific environments. – Erik Kondo

I like the ideas and expression here a lot. I think of particular use are visuals. The boundary setting matrix is a great tool that really encapsulates the ideas involved. I like the boundary zones a lot too. The underlying adjustment that I think would be useful is based on the interplay between peer relationships and institutional relationships.

In many ways, schools are microcosms for society so the model I’m using is based on an inner-city school and interactions with the neighborhood. Within that school you have school rules and peer rules which are comparable to society’s laws and street law. The difficulty is that for students, peer culture is often based on variations of real street law. For all intents and purposes, society, as represented by social workers, teachers, cops, etc. only visits and the networks that dictate street law and peer relationships live in those communities, making them, in many ways, the true dominant force. Young people in those communities might spend 6 or 8 hours in school but have to spend the remaining 18 or 16 hours in environments dominated by street law. Moreover, school and society often can’t protect these young people from consequences of peer/street code violations which often carry significantly higher penalties than most that institutions can dish out. Thus, respect, as understood in those communities, is a crucially important currency that can literally be the difference between life and death and is governed by different factors.

The version of respect that exists in these environments is based on a couple of factors: willingness to resist or stand on principle, adherence to cultural rules, goodwill and respect for others, and determination to enforce boundaries. Of particular importance is boundary enforcement, which, in many ways, lays the foundation for the rest because respect isn’t so much earned as enforced. Due to various forms of social disorganization, young men have outsized influence in inner cities, leading to environments where respect is an invaluable commodity due to its role in the young men’s competition for dominance. This makes the concept of mutual respect a harder sell because the individual or group with the most respect “wins” and respect can only be earned by enforcing their boundaries or violating others’. If a mutual respect has been established, the first person or group willing to violate that respect, if successful, can shift the balance of power toward their favor. Thus, challenging the boundaries of others is frequently a good way to grow resources (peer respect, etc.) and can even be a form of preemptive defense. Contempt borne of underenforcement can lead to loss of resources or even something more permanent, thus, the willingness to enforce boundaries becomes paramount in this version of respect.

One of the elements that affects this matrix, however, is the role of noncombatants: those who are, for whatever reason, not participating in the pursuit of peer dominance. Most of these noncombatants don’t have much in the way of respect and are more ignored than anything else which can make them safer but keeps them powerless, should a combatant turn their attention in their direction.

“Trying” and “testing” are a big part of the aforementioned competition in these schools and neighborhoods. The idea is that in many interactions, even with authority figures, young people test the boundaries of others, looking to see whether they’ll enforce them and to what degrees. It’s an aggressive way to establish a pecking order or to “score points” off of someone they perceive as weak. The additional difficulty is that, as a result, giving respect to get it can be seen as weakness, especially when combined with a perceived inability or unwillingness to enforce boundaries. This perception of weakness can invite a greater number of respect violations which necessitate more regular, or more extreme, enforcement. On some level it’s almost beneficial for folk working and living in these environments to be tested so as to give them a chance to be seen enforcing their boundaries because the perception, at least, is that everyone is watching and looking for someone to “score points” off of.

In many communities and schools, the perception that the peer group is watching to see how an individual reacts and to assess the level of respect to give them is a significant factor. It’s this consideration, the balance of society/school’s rules and peer/street law, that causes individuals who know they’ll be caught and face consequences to use violence to enforce boundaries anyway. This seems ridiculous from the perspective of the larger school/society but when the goals are adjusted for peer respect, it makes a lot more sense. If the peer audience values the willingness to enforce boundaries and stand on principle, even in the face of consequences, using violence, even when you know you’ll be caught, makes perfect sense. Violence in these instances is just another form of communication to the victim and the larger peer audience: “here’s what I’m willing to do because someone violated my boundaries. No one can protect you from my wrath, so leave my boundaries alone.” In such cases, “overenforcement” is a variable concept, because extreme violence as part of boundary enforcement can be beneficial, depending on which matrix we’re considering: peer/street or school/society. This can lead to inability to code switch and contextually inappropriate communication and enforcement like the woman making a scene in a grocery store, etc.

Thus, the boundary setting matrix works perfectly but is goal dependent. If a young person wants the respect of peers who’re associated with the types of subcultures prevalent in inner cities, their boundary setting matrix, by necessity, will look different than a peer whose focus is on success in the larger school/society, etc. The big challenge is finding ways to balance the two boundary matrices so that the young people don’t have to choose between putting themselves in danger with peers or sacrificing their futures in society. Another potential solution is to significantly damaging the street/peer hierarchy to establish the school/state/society as the dominant force in the environment more directly. This derails the insertion of street consequences into school environments and such. As for respect for institutions, I think you hit the nail on the head. Ultimately, those balances of communication and enforcement contribute to institutions remaining functional and not breeding significant contempt.

Mixed Martial Artists Wouldn’t Last a Second – Randy King

The reality-based self-defense world and all of the people teaching self-defense and commando kill style, all keep saying, keep harping on the fact that mixed martial arts fighters wouldn’t last a second in a street fight. You see it on all the forums, all the Facebook pages, everyone’s always ranting, “oh my ninja style would destroy you”, “my Krav Maga would destroy you in this situation”. This is so ridiculous to me, I can’t stand it. The point of the rants is for me to vent on stupid shit mostly that I see on the internet and this is definitely one of them.

Mixed martial artists are athletes. They are professional athletes that fight with the best in the world all the time. Are all of their skills transferable? No. Are some of the skills transferable? Yes! If I am in better shape, can hit harder, last longer, kick harder and take more damage than you, am I going to win the fight? Yes!

People who train twice a week who think that they can go out there, after whatever their instructor tells them and thinks they can take on the biggest meanest neck tattoo-iest mixed martial artists, are insane! These people are conditioned athletes who put a lot of time into this, this is their career for most of them. They cut weight, they train hard, they train for, some of them will train, in one day, longer than a lot of reality-based self-defense people will train in a week to two weeks. And they train longer than a lot of police forces require their cops to train for a whole year. They get that in a week. They prep for fights, they’re always in constant camps, they’re always constantly watching what they do, improving their technique and their fighting, the best people around them.

In a fight, reality-based self-defense people had better be using the plan A for reality based self-defense which is get the hell out of there. If he’s bigger and stronger than you, as I’ve mentioned in multiple rants, he’s going to have a distinct advantage. Now take a high level of training, you’re in trouble. Even if they are training in the worst MMA gym in the world. There’s a whole bunch of good ones, but even if they are training in a crappy one, with a fake instructor with fake credentials, who has glamour-ed them and talked to them about how awesome they are, if you’re putting in three hours a day sometimes in any system, you are going to be good. You’re going to be able to take a hit, you’re going to be able to move, you’re going to be able to take the fight to the place you want it. They’re able to transition faster than most people, they can stand up, they can take down, they can put the fight where they want, which gives you a huge advantage in the street.

Yes, probably if there’s a weapon involved they’re going to get hurt. Are they going to lose because of their training? No! If I knock you unconscious because I have a wicked right hand then there’s no way that person’s knife’s going to be able to stab me as they’re unconscious.

Stop using this sport combat thing like it’s not real. It is real, there are rules, yes, to protect the fighters, so they can fight again, and gain more experience. I’m not saying run out and join an MMA club, I’m not saying stop teaching what you’re teaching, I’m saying stop saying stupid stuff to your students to make them feel invincible against people that literally get punched in the face all of the time.

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The Growth Mindset – Carol Dweck

Carol Dweck is a pioneering researcher in the field of motivation, why people succeed (or don’t) and how to foster success.

Carol Dweck researches “growth mindset” — the idea that we can grow our brain’s capacity to learn and to solve problems. In this talk, she describes two ways to think about a problem that’s slightly too hard for you to solve. Are you not smart enough to solve it … or have you just not solved it yet? A great introduction to this influential field.

Book Review – “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers” by Robert Sopolsky.

WOW, this is some read, I read the third edition of this and it has been substantially revised. Sopolsky is an incredibly interesting person himself and as a professor of neurology and a primatologist he occupies a unique position in academia. Make no mistake I am a huge fan of his work, I have his new book ‘Behave’ sat waiting to be read.

Written with an interesting sense of humour this book introduces the reader to some incredibly interesting medical research and practise. I have been using certain items from this book into my teaching and cortocorticoids is now my new favourite word.

The emphasis is on stress and there is a wealth of information on how the body and in particular the brain reacts to stressors. Trust me and go get this book, work through it slowly one chapter at a time. Take weeks not days to read it, let the information seep into your subconscious.

As I worked my way through the chapters I could see my friends and family and some of their problems appearing from within the pages. Frighteningly I recognised a few things about myself and how I deal with, react to stressors, trust me I learned some valuable lessons and will modify some of my behaviour as a result.

As I write this review there is a radio debate in the background on the health effects of poverty and the discussion is almost word for word out of this book.

I highly recommend this book, it is an incredibly enlightening read.

Reviewed by Garry Smith.

Youtube Video of the Week – Extreme Ownership – Jocko Willink

War is hell, but war is also a brutal teacher. War teaches you about brotherhood, honor, humility, and leadership. In this riveting talk, Jocko Willink explains from personal experience how war teaches you the most when things go wrong. Jocko asserts that when a team takes ownership of its problems, the problems get solved.

JOCKO WILLINK is a decorated retired Navy SEAL officer, author of the #1 New York Times bestselling book Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win, host of the top-rated Jocko Podcast, and co-founder of Echelon Front, where he is a leadership instructor, speaker, and executive coach. Jocko spent 20 years in the U.S. Navy SEAL Teams, starting as an enlisted SEAL and rising through the ranks to become a SEAL officer.

As commander of SEAL Team Three’s Task Unit Bruiser during the battle of Ramadi, he orchestrated SEAL operations that helped the “Ready First” Brigade of the US Army’s First Armored Division bring stability to the violent, war-torn city. Task Unit Bruiser became the most highly decorated Special Operations Unit of the Iraq War. Jocko returned from Iraq to serve as Officer-in-Charge of training for all West Coast SEAL Teams.

Stop Using Fear to Profit – Randy King

It has been an intense couple of weeks since the largest mass shooting in modern U.S. history happened in Las Vegas. Just one day earlier, here in my hometown of Edmonton, we had a “terrorist” attack.

Sadly, attacks like these are becoming more and more common.

A lot of people have weighed in on these recent events. I am not going to do that – I want to talk about something different. I want to talk about the after-effects.

It has been shown time and time again that when tragedy strikes, the scum seems to rise to the top. Whether that is people pushing political agendas, using tragedy to boost their own profile, or, in our industry, using this tragic time to make money.

Seconds after the mass shooting in Vegas, my Facebook feed was flooded with mentions of active shooter courses. A few minutes after the Edmonton attack, people here were promoting self-defense lessons.

Tragedy should never – I repeat – never be “good for business”. Anyone who is trying to make money off this situation does not deserve your money. Anyone that needs to use fear to fill their gym is shit at what they do.

No system on the planet has an answer for how to deal with a man with multiple high-powered weapons shooting from an elevated cover position … this would take out even the most well-trained and elite soldiers in the world. An ambush of this nature is survivable only if you are not among the first hit, and then by gaining as much distance as possible from the situation. Or, by not being there at all … which is of course just luck, and impossible to predict.

Anyone who is trying to sell you the snake oil that “their” training would have helped you is a liar, and is trying to profit from your fear.

This type of marketing has always made me sick, for two reasons.

Reason one – it is dangerous. You are selling a bullshit answer to a legitimate problem. A solution that, if people buy into your slick marketing campaign (which they do all the time), may actually get them killed.

Reason two – trading on fear makes the world seem worse, not better. If you bring people in who don’t want to be victims, and you try to retain them by constantly reminding them how scary the world is, they will stay victims. Or worse – they will become even weaker, and more likely to be victimized … all while you keep your clients scared in order to pay the bills.

I have personally been speaking out about this for a while … I have ranted about it on my YouTube page (KPCMartialArts). Being as vocal as I am, I have heard all the excuses! As you read this, bear in mind that I already know all your self-justifying tactics; the reasons why it is ok for you to do it (but no one else). So, let me squash those as well.

“Yeah, but … what I teach is important! It doesn’t matter how they get in the door!”

Wrong: It does matter. Our job in this field is to build up, not exploit. The ends do not justify the means here. If your stuff is really that good, don’t start advertising minutes after a tragedy – let your brand stand on its own and see what happens. If people call you, and you give them honest answers, and they come and train … then your stuff is good, and you didn’t have to be a slimeball to get new clients.

“I know it’s wrong, but it’s the best way to collect students.”

Wrong(ish): I will admit that capitalizing on fear is a great way to boost those numbers … but only temporarily. You then have two options to retain these fear-based leads: A. Make them confident and not afraid (which is your job) … but then you have solved their problem … and so they leave. Option B is to keep them scared so you keep them long-term, and if you are willing to do that … then please go back and reread this article from the beginning.

“What I have actually solves the problem though Randy!” / “My system is based in …“ / blah blah blah.

Wrong: You’re not special, and neither is your system. You are problem-solving the same way we all are. If you did your job, you’ve read the reports … and there was no way to stop that attack once it started. Same as the attack that happened here in Edmonton. I don’t care what mystical pseudo-religious figure founded your system – I guarantee that they don’t have a defense against getting hit by bullets or a large truck.

“Randy, you are wrong! The world is the worst it has ever been, and without Combat Krav Jitsu-do, we will all just be lambs for the slaughter!”

Wrong: Please consider figuring your own shit out before you counsel others. (Also, please remove me from your friends list.)

I’ve said it before, and I feel like I will keep saying it for as long as I have a platform to speak from. Stop. Using. Fear. To. Profit. We have enough problems in this world, so please don’t be one more.

Teaching Self-Defense in the Face of Domestic Violence Part II – Tammy Yard McCracken

In the first article we hit a brief overview of why the cycle of domestic violence is self-perpetuating and stubborn. The cycle demands repetition and assuages a deep anxiety triggered by potential tribal instability.

If you are in the self-defense industry this is going to become a factor in your reality. You will have students who are actively in a domestic violence relationship. Teach long enough, you will have a student who is in a DV situation and who decides you are integris enough to entrust you with this information.

Think about why you teach. Take a minute and list out the deep, personal reasons why you choose to invest all the time, money, injuries, cost against family etc. to do this work. At some level, a good instructor knows s/he teaches because they want good people to be stronger people. Oversimplifying it, you want good people to have the power to choose their responses to bad situations.

If you have a student in a DV situation who shares this information with you, it may come to light after she has violated a series of tribal taboos – meaning, after she has left the relationship. This is the easy one. There may still be threats to her safety impacting her choice to train, but she is off the script. The student who is training with you and continues going home to the abuse is the tough one. She is going to trigger all sorts of frustrations for a self-defense instructor. Her subconscious allegiance to the script is going to highlight your glitches.

Note: Glitches are the emotional trigger points that interfere with our capacity to consider a situation, belief, interaction, etc. through a purely logical observation

What is your gut response? Are you angry with her for staying in the pattern? Do you feel helpless? Are you tempted to dismiss her? Do you want to track down the violent partner and meet out justice?

Do you want to save her?

And what exactly is your role? What is your duty to her? What is overstepping? When, in your righteousness, will you accidentally do the same thing her violent partner is already doing – treat her as damaged and less than?

For now, I am forgoing any dialogue about Duty To Warn obligations as it relates to professions who may have reporting obligations. The number of self-defense instructors who also carry these may be more the minority and warrants a separate conversation. What follows are a handful of basic guidelines for a complex dynamic. This is not exhaustive and the guidelines may, in fact, be wrong depending on the specific situation.

Guideline #1: Honor her trust. You may be the only person in her life right now who can demonstrate what respect looks like. The respect that communicates she is, in fact, capable of making her own choices about her own circumstances. Respect that honors her right to make those choices. Now that she has disclosed her situation to you, do not assume you know how she wants you to support her. Instead, ask. What kind of support do you want from me? Another variation of this is what does support [from me] look like to you? Do your damnedest to honor her response. If she tells you she doesn’t know, try not to dictate it to her, she already has plenty of that happening. One request she may make could be particularly difficult for you. She may ask for your silence. If she doesn’t want you telling anyone, don’t tell anyone.*

Guideline #2: You are not a social worker or a psychotherapist. Even if you are credentialed for these professions as her self-defense instructor, this is not your role. Don’t pick up the mantel for it. If you are untrained in this role you have a better than average chance of making the situation worse for your student. You will almost always make your life more difficult as well.

If you take up this role will you be prepared for phone calls at 2 am? For long conversations after class? Are you up for holding in confidence detailed information about one of the darker aspects of human behavior? Are you personally equipped for processing this violence? You can’t unknow this stuff. There is such a thing as secondary post-traumatic stress. What if she calls you to help her move out? Where will you set your boundaries with her? This gets slippery fast so don’t step onto the slope. Licensed therapists have rules and training for how to manage personal boundary-setting with clients. It is unlikely you have this training if you are not licensed. You could end up in the deep end of the pool with no understanding about how to swim through the water.

Guideline #3: You don’t get to save her. It is not your job. I don’t care what argument you want to throw back at this. It just isn’t your job.

It is her job. We know when DV victims are rescued they typically return. When they make the decision personally, when they have reached their own clarity – it sticks.

I have a decent amount of experience working with DV victims and survivors. I am about to offer a series of suggestions and encourage you to take them as a first step, not as the final word. There are people who have a significant degree more experience than I have and there is an extensive body of research available if you are interested.

About Guideline #1. Silence. This comes at a cost. If you are asked to keep her story in confidence, how will you process the impact it has on you? If she tells you and doesn’t want you to do anything, watching her continue in the script can take you to places of frustration and anger that may be new for you. You are her instructor and you get to set your own boundaries about what’s necessary for you to successfully work with her (including not losing your mind over this). Options include telling her you need counsel on how to best support her, get her permission and then get counsel. If she refuses, talk it out with her. If she still refuses get counsel but leave every single piece of personally identifying information from the story and reach out to someone that does not know your tribe. This is risky. She may experience it as a violation of her trust. You may have to decide between the two.
Be Prepared. With the statistics being what they are, assume you are going to have domestic violence victims in your class. Know what the resources are in your community. Have them at quick access and be able to hand this information to a student. This will help avoid a sense of powerlessness and can help assuage your inner hero’s desire to save her. No, it isn’t going to automatically fix everything. That’s not going to happen no matter what you do.
If you feel compelled to get involved, understand this. Law enforcement officers are taught that a DV call is particularly volatile and dangerous…for the officer. The violence can turn on the neutral party. You could end up as a target for the violent partner. You could experience your student turning on you as well. In class, at your dojo this may not be physical but, it doesn’t have to be for her to wreak havoc. Hold to a Do No Harm rule. Ask yourself if your involvement will make things better and how it might make things worse.
This is not your fight. It is her fight. And sometimes people die. She can do all the “right” things and not survive.

If she dies, or is seriously injured in a violent encounter you are going to take impact. The voices in your head will be noisy. They will want you to feel blame and fault. These voices are going to sound off in other situations as well. It’s part of the territory for the emotional make-up of a lot of people who go into the self-defense instructor profession. Get to know your glitches and blind spots. Cultivate a relationship with a violence industry colleague to whom you can extend a deep level of trust. This needs to be someone you can talk to openly and without filters. Let this relationship be strong enough to function as a crucible for conversations about your glitches and possible blind spots. Cultivating this relationship should live in your thinking as a Hard Rule. The crucible relationship will be a critical component for hanging on to your sanity in an industry which daily addresses the elements of humanity most people avoid.

*Trust and Confidentiality. This is one of the murkier issues. If you tell someone, will it help? If you violate her trust will it be for a better outcome overall?

Re-Thinking Resistance Part II – Rory Miller

Sports Resistance.

Sports resistance is what you will get in competition. It isn’t full resistance, no matter what you tell yourself. In any competition, there is a balance between trying to win and trying not to lose. The desire to win requires taking some risks and those risks create vulnerabilities.

Full Resistance.

Full resistance is an unbalanced version of sports resistance. This is when a competitor focuses entirely on defense, putting all of his or her energy into denying your technique with no offensive attempts at all. It can be frustrating to face, and sometimes it’s a trap, cf Muhammad Ali’s “rope-a-dope” strategy.

Specific Resistance.

The resistance levels in this essay are arranged in order of difficulty, not in order of applicability. The last seven levels have mirrored a progression from training to sport. But this last, hardest level goes back to training and specifically to bad training.

Specific resistance only occurs when a specific technique is expected. It is always an egotistic power play. Any technique— throw, strike, lock, stab, combo, whatever— can always be made to fail if the practitioner knows what is coming and chooses to directly resist. When a beginners is learning the basics of a lock, anyone can disrupt his or her process. Even when an expert is demonstrating a technique, the technique can be disrupted. A boxer demonstrating a response to a jab will almost always get nailed if his partner feints the jab and throws a hook.

Specific resistance is extremely unrealistic. Outside of training you will never have both foreknowledge and an agreement not to adapt. It is a pure training artifact, but it is very easy to laugh off, “Are you saying I attacked you wrong?”

There are two advanced versions of specific resistance that can ruin a lesson or even harm an entire system.

The first is Gaming the Drill.

People are naturally competitive. Often an egotistic partner, instructor, or role player will not let a solution work. A role player might simply choose to never let de-escalation succeed. A partner who sneaks a weapon into a grappling drill. A scenario facilitator who punishes a student for the safe, easy and tactically superior option of simply leaving a dangerous situation. It is imperative that partners understand how to play a proper bad guy.

The second advanced version of specific resistance is Inbreeding.

It follows this pattern:

There is a tactical or self-defense problem that actually exists e.g. pushed up against a wall with a knife at the throat.
You have a workable solution to the problem.
The person playing the threat comes up with another way to present the same problem such that the solution no longer works.
You come up with a workable solution to the new presentation.
Repeat steps 3&4. Possibly forever.

Within one or at most two repetitions, you will have a solution to a problem that never has and will never exist in the real world but is required for rank testing. It creates an excessive complexity that can make an entire system unworkable.

To be continued.

Youtube Video of the Week – The 72 Hour Rule

In today’s ASP Extra lesson, Former US Naval officer Pastor John Correia talks about the 72 Hour Rule and why he follows it in all mass murders.

Following the 72 Hour Rule of commentary and criticism and decision-making gives us time to grieve, time to respect those mourning, time to gather accurate and full information, and time to process those into coherence rather than emotion.