Author: Garry Smith

Paunching a Pigeon – Garry Smith

On my birthday recently my wife and I decided to do something a little different, careful, it is not that kind of an article although it does involve me and another bird with two lovely breasts.

We decided, a few months in advance, to visit the Northern Shooting Show that was being held for the second year in Harrogate (the posh part of Yorkshire). So an a reasonable if chilly birthday Sunday morning we folded back the roof of the car and sped off on our jolly.

I had watched a few promotional videos on Youtube and had a fair idea what to expect, remember guns are not as much part of British culture as they are in the USA. The last time I had regularly fired weapons was a long time ago as an infantry soldier in the Territorial Army, the Yorkshire Volunteers, well apart from shooting the odd rat or beer can in the back garden with my air rifle that is, I was in the regimental shooting team back then.

Anyway the first thing I did was have a go with an AR15 .22 on a portable range and my wife had a go with a Beretta and we both got good groupings. We then had a saunter round the outdoor stalls, watched a bit of the air rifle shooting competition, watched the retrievers being put through their paces in a competition that looked a lot of fun, the we went into the big exhibition halls as the sun was refusing to come out and it was pretty cool. Here we found masses of interesting things to look at and to play with, I even bought 3 really neat little knives for a mere £5.

At the back of one of the halls was a bushcraft area and this was on my list of key things to visit. We really enjoyed the ferreting display with Mark Davies, this was really entertaining and educational in equal measure and my wife got to hold a cute baby ferret…….

The next stall was a guy who was showing people how to field dress game for the pot, we got their when he was dressing a pigeon, by hand. So we watched as showed us how to assess if the bird was healthy, he removed the wings, then the head, cleaned out the crop, then he inserted his thumbs, one at a time down into the body, the first along the back bone, then the second along thr breast bone, then with both thumbs slid back in place he spilt the bird open.

This exposed the breasts and he then showed us how to remove the breasts using the thumbs. Hey presto two lovely pigeon breasts ready to cook. I had never seen this done before, virtually everything we eat comes from a shop, the meat from a local butcher or preprerared from the supermarket.

I had prepared pigeon years ago with a knife but it was messy, this was easier and less mess, I was impressed. He then asked for volunteers to try this on two more pigeons, step forward one willing volunteer and I was joined a minute later, after some persuasion, by a woman who had been watching too. So I paunched my first wood pigeon, yes there was blood and giblets but I successfully retrieved the breasts, no tools needed, not even my nice sharp little knives.

So after washing the blood off my hands I was quite pleased with myself. I had tried something new and got it right, nothing life changing but it told me a little more about myself. I have a great love of the outdoors, I never fail to be please when surrounded by flaura and fauna, I have no wish to kill or harm anything unless I am going to eat it and like most people hat is done for me virtually all the time. The moral of this tale, and a major part of my upcoming book, Exit the Dojo, (teaser), is that we are increasingly, and to our cost, detached from nature and the natural world.

I do grow some food, vegetables and fruit and my grandchildren learn where food comes from. I have one daughter who is vegan and another who is vegetarian, the latter ones children eat meat. We need to see where our meat comes from. Toby Cowern is the CRGI survival expert, mine is an interest that grows out of my use of the countryside, its mountains, lakes and woodlands, the wild moors in all the weathers our temperate climate provides. Would I kill and eat a rabbit, a sheep, a cow? Yes I would and I would want to know that every bit of that animal that could be used would. In my predominantly white western consumer orientated society, living in a country of shopkeepers as Napolean, once said, we are alienated from nature, we need to return to older ways occasionally to get in touch with our species being, the experience of the last 50 generations has not wiped out what was learned from the previous 5,000 generations, we are tool users, but before we had tools the opposable thumb set us apart for our hominid cousins, and incorporating meat into our diet fuelled the massive growth of the brain.

Paunching a pigeon is a primal act, we need to recognise and learn to love the primal in us.

 

Book Review – ‘Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive’ by Charles Duhigg.

Having previously read Duhigg’s book on Habits I must admit this one is not as good a read, Habits was exceptionally well written and packed with incredibly interesting material. However, smarter faster better is still full of some very interesting information and very well presented, I think some of my slight disappointment is tainted by having previously read quite a bit of what Duhigg covers, so maybe that tainted my experience.

There are some really interesting anecdotes that certainly help us to see how we can become more productive but the stories dominate the narrative. I enjoyed the book overall but was left wondering how this moved me forward in terms of business skills, that is why I bought it after all. If you are new to business management then this is a good starting point in your education, for those with some experience there are some very interesting ideas presented and Duhigg does tell a good story.

The book, which is divided into a series of chapters (Motivation, Team, Focus, Goal Setting, Managing Others, Decision Making, Innovation, Absorbing Data, Appendix and Notes), is well laid out and organised but I got to the end feeling something was missing if much better informed, a strange feeling. Would I recommend it? Well that would depend on what you want from it, will it make you, me, smarter faster better? Who knows, for me nothing really jumped out and said I must do this…… Who knows it may for you, as I said earlier it depends where you are starting from.

The Importance of Reputation – James Hall

Many CM readers will have seen the media coverage of a recent incident in China, in which MMA fighter Xu Xiaodong soundly defeated “Thunder style” Tai Chi master Wei Lei in a challenge match arranged by Xu to show that “traditional” Chinese martial arts styles are ineffective. The New York Times’ article covering the match can be seen here: https://goo.gl/mGT56B [1].

The fight itself has already been the subject of much analysis and comment. What I would like to talk about is the aftermath of the fight, particularly its reported consequences for Xu Xiaodong, and the lessons which can be learned from Xu’s experience which are relevant to self-protection.

As the NY Times reports, Xu may have proved his point by winning the fight, but he has faced a powerful backlash from the Chinese media, public and martial arts community, including a statement from the Chinese Wushu Association saying that the fight “violates the morals of martial arts”. The backlash has been so severe that Xu has been forced into hiding, and has reportedly posted statements online saying that his career is in ruins and he has “lost everything”, seemingly baffled as to how things could have worked out so badly for him.

The moral outrage surrounding Xu’s actions can be understood by reference to the “Moral Foundations Theory” put forward by Jonathan Haidt and Craig Joseph. This theory is explored in detail in Haidt’s book “The Righteous Mind” [2], and a summary can be found at http://www.moralfoundations.org. In brief, Moral Foundations Theory proposes that there are five “foundations” to our instinctive sense of what is morally right or wrong:

Care/Harm;
Fairness/Cheating;
Loyalty/Betrayal;
Authority/Subversion;
and Sanctity/Degradation.

A sixth foundation, Liberty/Oppression, was added to the model later. Caring actions are likely to be viewed as moral, harmful actions as immoral, and so on. Haidt also proposes that in society, there are two distinct groups of people: those whose moral sense is dominated by the Care/Harm and Fairness/Cheating foundations, and those for whom all six foundations count more equally.

It seems clear that Xu is in the former category. He has publicly stated that the purpose of his challenge to the traditional martial arts community was to “fight fraudulence”, or to expose the ineffectiveness of traditional systems. This shows clear Care and Fairness motivations – in his mind, the traditional schools are cheating people by taking their money but teaching them ineffective systems, so by exposing their ineffectiveness he is protecting the public from being harmed in this way, which is a good and righteous thing to do. It also seems plausible to suggest that Xu may have been motivated by concerns of Liberty, perhaps in “freeing” would-be martial artists from a perceived oppression by the traditional schools. However, Xu has failed to realise how his actions would be perceived by people in the latter category. The depth with which the traditional martial arts are ingrained in Chinese culture means that his challenge appears disloyal to his heritage, subversive of the authority of the traditional schools in society, and degrading of traditions which are viewed by many as sacred. It is this interpretation of his actions which triggered the outrage that has made him a virtual outcast.

The relevance of this to conflict management and self-protection can be understood by assessing Xu’s actions against another model, this time the model of “winning” put forward by Martin Cooper [3]. In Cooper’s model, to achieve complete victory a person must “win” on four levels:

overcome adrenaline and fear to be able to perform;
overcome your opponent;
overcome criminal charges to preserve your liberty;
and overcome civil charges to preserve your resources.

Marc MacYoung has proposed a fifth level: survive retribution from the person you defeated [4]. If we examine Xu’s actions against this model, we can see that he won at the first level, since he was clearly able to perform in the fight; he won at the second level, easily overcoming his opponent; since the fight was consensual, criminal and civil legal consequences were not an issue, so the third and fourth levels are irrelevant; and as far as we know, the repercussions that Xu has experienced have not come directly from his defeated opponent. Therefore Cooper’s model, with MacYoung’s extension, can’t explain why Xu “lost everything” in the way that he did.

To explain the repercussions, we need to add a sixth level to the model: Protect your reputation and good name. Xu “lost” by failing to appreciate the effects that his actions would have on his reputation.

Reputation is key to all our social relationships. Our professional reputation affects our ability to find work. Our personal reputation affects our ability to form and maintain friendships and relationships. Reputation can constitute upwards of 40% of the value of corporations, who invest billions in developing and protecting it [5]. A person with a bad reputation can quickly find themselves isolated and penniless, which even if you’ve prevailed in a confrontation, been exonerated of criminal charges, escaped civil litigation and protected yourself against direct repercussions, is not a good place to be. Xu’s example illustrates that preserving our reputation and good name must form part of a comprehensive self-protection strategy.

The first step in developing a reputational protection strategy is to consider how our actions could give rise to a moral backlash. We can do this using the framework offered by Moral Foundations Theory: how might our actions be considered harmful, unfair, disloyal, subversive of authority, degrading of something sacred, or oppressive? The second step is to consider from whom the moral backlash may come. In Xu’s case, this should have been obvious – he openly challenged a highly respected institution of society, so of course the institution in question and its many supporters would rally to its defence. In self-protection, or protection of others, it will depend very much on the individual’s particular situation. For a law enforcement or security professional, the backlash may come from community groups, for example, and may have a political as well as moral motivation. For a private individual not employed in a profession where the use of force is routine, the backlash is more likely to come from friends and colleagues who can’t cope with the reality of an act of violence, however lawful, by someone they know. Thirdly, we need to consider the form that the backlash may take, and what its adverse effects might be on a social, professional and personal level. For law enforcement & security professionals, a backlash may be overt and very public, possibly in the media; for individuals, it may be more subtle, perhaps a quiet withdrawal of social contact as people seek to distance themselves. Particular consideration should be given to our online reputation via the internet and social media. A good introductory guide to online reputation management can be found at https://goo.gl/XZ4eUJ [6] – it’s aimed at corporate executives but its principles apply equally to individuals. Finally, we need to consider how we can take pre-emptive action to strengthen our reputation and good name within our professional and social circles so as to be more resilient to any future risk to our reputation, and what reactive actions we could take to repair any damage which our reputation may suffer.

Everyone’s individual situation is different, so the purpose of this article is not to prescribe solutions, but rather to raise the issue and get the thought process started. Including reputation management in our planning and strategies should help to ensure that if the worst happens, we can come out of it still able to function in society – not ostracised, baffled and broke with no idea of how we got there.

References

[1] Tatlow, Didi Kirsten (2017, May 10). MMA fighter’s pummelling of Tai Chi master rattles China. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/world/asia/mma-martial-arts-china-tai-chi.html

[2] Haidt, Jonathan (2013). The Righteous Mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. Penguin Books, London.

[3] Cooper, Martin. Quoted in MacYoung, Marc “Animal” & MacYoung, Dianna Gordon. Training goals, assumptions and screwups. No Nonsense Self Defense. Retrieved from http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/traininggoals.htm

[4] MacYoung, Marc “Animal” & MacYoung, Dianna Gordon. The cost of winning. No Nonsense Self Defense. Retrieved from http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/repercussions.htm

[5] Brigham, Alexander F. & Linssen, Stefan (2010, Feb 01). Your brand reputational value is irreplaceable. Protect it! Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/2010/02/01/brand-reputation-value-leadership-managing-ethisphere.html

[6] Protecting company & executive reputation (2016, March 23). Ignyte. Retrieved from https://www.igniyte.com/en/resources/guides/protecting-company-executive-reputation/

Contact

hall.jp@gmail.com

https://www.facebook.com/james.hall.902819

 

ASSUME, making an ASS out of U and ME – Terry Trahan

Wow, after three separate intense conversations a couple days ago, where it was soul draining, and at times intelligence straining, I took yesterday off. Spent the day with Jae, and also spent the time contemplating all that went down, and how disappointing the engagements were. Bad enough that for a little while, the best looking option was to say fuck it, and just ignore that kind of stuff from now on.Three totally separate and different topics, yet there was a common theme in the responses I was dealing with, and that really intrigued me. So much so that it inspired this post.

The first response is large assumptions not based in really wanting to understand the other position. I have noticed in these debates I’ve been engaged in for the last few months, at least half of the people involved don’t want to discuss, debate, or even try to address a problem. They simply want to be heard. Not even listened to, they just want to be heard, content doesn’t seem to matter. Due to this, all of their responses, insults, or questions are based off of assumptions made from a very narrow understanding of the topic at hand, or of the other participants. What is worse, when this is pointed out, the next response is to attack you for pointing that out.

The second thing thrown out is a demand for purity of thought, as long as it is their thoughts. No acknowledgement of differing world views, different possible meanings or understandings, or even different definitions of words. Nope, you must believe exactly as them, or you are the same as the enemy. This also leads to thinking that they are the smartest person in the room. Considering the circles I run in, that in and of itself is laughable, but yet, it always seems to happen. Something these kinds of people need to realize.

Sometimes the best you are going to get is someone that cares enough to listen, and try to fix things, even if they don’t believe the same as you, or even if they think you are wrong. Not everyone in the world even sees there is an issue, much less give a shit enough to attempt to address it with differing tribes of thought. But, keep on insulting those people, that is sure to make them want to keep working on it with you.

The thing that bothers me the most is substitution of emotion for intellect. Once this occurs, any rational problem solving, or even ability to learn goes out the window. I don’t care how much you care about an issue, the minute it becomes an overly emotional thing to you, the ability to actually solve the issue goes away.

The absolute worse part of this is the dismissal of people, ideas, and alternatives, if it doesn’t involve slavish submission to one group. This is insidious, and in my opinion, the poison that keeps these problems going.
Remember, in any discussion, there is responsibility. To the communicator to state his case the best he can, and to the listener, to honestly listen, extend the benefit of the doubt, and to seek clarification in the case of misunderstanding. That is not possible when the above factors are in effect.

Necessary Evils – Tammy Yard McCracken

I grew up around the phrase “necessary evil”. It was used to indicate a task or action necessary, but unfortunate. Something that, if it could be avoided, would be avoided.

The colloquialism has a lot of play when it comes to creating an open culture for women on the mat. Necessary fits because intentional conscious effort is necessary to turn good intentions into tangible impact.

A necessary evil because making this conscious effort isn’t without backlash and because in a perfect world, there would be no need for the effort. In a perfect world, conversations about how to get more women a) through the door and b) how to get them to stay, would be moot.

In this perfect world women grow up training at the same rate and percentage as men. They grow up with effective socialization for boundary setting and with a more comfortable (normalized?) context of violence.

As of now, this is not the norm.

The number of untrained women is substantially greater than the numbers of untrained men and the statistics of violence against women remains markedly high (also in comparison). I am hesitant to lean too heavily on published stats for our conversation because those are generally inaccurate. If you train, have ever trained, your experience may be enough to validate these assertions. Training centers with greater than 20% women are rare. That number comes from one of the organizations I am affiliated with, and I don’t know if there are any broad scope numbers we can generalize so I am working with what I have.  The numbers are gleaned from experience, and a small sampling statistical sampling. Bear that in mind.

The end result? It’s not a perfect world so the questions get recycled. How do we get women in to train? How do we keep them once they come in for a trial? There is no single, effective answer. Each style of training, each individual dojo or location has its own flavor and culture. Whatever the culture or training approach, I can safely make one generalization. Low numbers of women are reflected in the attitude expressed toward women on the mat.

You can gain insight to what the attitude may be by looking at the following:

Are there a few token females or are women expected to be there?

When the men show up to train, are they surprised when a new female student is on the mat? Is she treated like a snowflake?

Shunned as too weak to be a good training partner?

Is she respected as formidable (or with the potential to become formidable)?

Are the male students dropping trou in public spaces or do they step into a bathroom to change?

If it’s cool for men to discreetly publically remove groin protection after training, is it cool for the women to do the same, or do the women get grief for it?

The culture of the mat space determines the protocols and like water, the attitude runs downhill. The instructors set the tone and the students will – mostly – follow suit. No big surprise on this one, right?

What has piqued my curiosity is the backlash lurking about the edges. As training programs make efforts to create environments in which women are as comfortable hitting/rolling/grappling as men, there are a few men who are kicking up a little dust. What about the men? Why aren’t the women being asked to make the men more comfortable? Why shouldn’t the girls be asked to put the toilet seat up?

If training programs and dojos had risen up out of Amazon Princess Warrior cultures and men were only recently being encouraged and accepted, this would be a valid question. That isn’t the history.

Whether it’s through humor, protocols, expectations, or ritual there are effective ways to bring more women to the mat. If the men get resistant to the efforts creating an invitational environment to both men and women; here is a question.

What are you afraid of?

And the guys are not the only ones who resist efforts to create an effective training environment for women, there are women who fight it as well. The women who are accustomed to being the token female in a male environment can fight to maintain their position. They can resist sharing the status they have earned by toughing it out in the “boy’s locker room”.  This is a different problem. The question about fear remains.

 

Technical Virgins and the World of Self Defense – Clint Overland

Ok folks, I will make an admission here before all of you and God Himself. I have very little training in the Martial Arts. Matter of fact, I am an eternal white belt. Never had the time or the patience to want to spend in training in a martial arts system. But what I do possess is 27 years of experience in the violence trades. Bouncer, body guard, SOB for hire whatever paid the bills. If you had the money you didn’t need to get mad. I and my associates would get mad for you.

Simple as that. I never understood why someone would spend thousands of dollars and years of their lives training to learn how to kick ass and take names when I always found the best way to learn was by spitting blood or teeth. Lord knows I can only chew on one side of my mouth now and have difficulty breathing through my nose but I did learn some very hard lessons.

What is really getting to me lately is the complete and total disregard for the school of hard knocks. I have friends that have paid their dues in the dojo and are pure hell on wheels when it comes to the martial art of their choice. Men and women both I would never stand up face to face and want to fight. It is much safer just to ambush them with a hammer to the skull from behind than to try and prove that I am the better fighter.

This is not directed at them, but to the complete opposite of them. The twenty –four year old Grandmaster and YouTube hero with a great marketing scheme and sales pitch. I have been going through a bunch of these so called Self-defense sites and for the most part they can make someone like me doubt my skill level. I mean these guys are slick, they choose and use every little trick in the book to get you to buy their programs. The whole what if scenario of can you protect your family if this happens. What would you do if you were accosted in a dark alley at midnight by a group of thug’s hell bent on raping you and taking your wallet?

These guys have it down to a science of manipulating fear and insecurity. But here is the question I want to ask you. Please after reading the question take a moment to think about what it means to you.

What would a virgin be able to teach you about fucking, let alone stunt fucking? I mean come on folks these guys are technical virgins.  And no I don’t mean girls who take it up the ass so they can give their husbands their cherry on their wedding night. I am talking about guys who have never had sex, jacked off a lot, but never really been balls deep in the real stuff.

Sure, they may know all the right moves, but when it comes to implementation they would throw their backs out in the first 20 seconds of some serious porn star sex. The majority of these guys have never been a real bad situation or they damn sure wouldn’t be teaching the crap that looks cool, but is as useful as a broken rubber. Hell, shoving a pen into a guy’s eye or ripping his ear off is a hell of a lot quicker way to end a fight than all of the fancy pants moves you see being taught to a lot of folks as 100% effective every time.

I watch the YouTube videos and think “Boy, that sure looks good, except for the part of when they went to the ground, then bad guy’s backup is going to run over and mule stomp that poor bastards head in, while they are rolling around on the ground.”

 

Again please do not misunderstand what I am trying to get across to you. I have the highest regards for the Martial Arts, and for people teaching real world applicable self-defense. But there are as many shysters out there teaching fighting as there are preaching the Gospel for cash. Look at what these people are offering. Is it a one day seminar that guarantees that they will make you an invincible fighting god for the cost of a used car? Or is it someone that tells you this shit is complicated, and is going to take you some time and effort to really learn and know what can and will go wrong?

Nothing can completely guarantee your safety. Nothing is 100% effective all the time. Sorry, but it isn’t.  I have shoved my thumb in a guy’s eye to the second joint and the fucker kept on trying to run a knife into my stomach, instead of trying to get off me like I wanted. I have had a drunk bust a chair across my shoulders and it didn’t turn out like he planned.

That’s the real world folks. One of the first things I teach a new bouncer is that Murphy is an optimist. Be ready with a plan C, D, and E, if the first ones don’t go right, because chances are they won’t.  Look folks, I am not in any way an expert in self-defense. But, I am pretty knowledgeable in what it takes to survive in a business that eats people up in less than 10 years.

I can tell from experience that a MMA program or a sports form martial art is useful as a beginning. But, these are duels with rules and regulations. A close quarter’s combat class can be a great way to wind up in court or worse jail because you went to the extreme and killed someone because you were just doing what you were taught by a guy that never went to the limit with anyone in the real world. This shit is a balancing act and you had better be ready for it to all come crashing down around you.

My advice is take the next two years and begin studying all you don’t know about what really happens in situations. Go find a good boxing club and get hit in the face a few times. Read Marc MacYoung, Rory Miller, Lawrence Kane, and Kris Wilder.  Teach yourself to stay out of bad places and use prevention to keep your ass alive.

 

Youtube Video of the Week – RSA ANIMATE: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

This lively RSA Animate, adapted from Dan Pink’s talk at the RSA, illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace.

Follow the RSA on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RSAEvents

Like the RSA on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rsaeventsoff…

Listen to RSA podcasts: https://soundcloud.com/the_rsa

See RSA Events behind the scenes: https://instagram.com/rsa_events/

This audio has been edited from the original event by Becca Pyne. Series produced by Abi Stephenson, RSA. Animation by Cognitive Media. Andrew Park, the mastermind behind the Animate series and everyone’s favourite hairy hand, discusses their appeal and success in his blog post, ‘Talk to the hand’: http://www.thersa.org/talk-to-the-hand/

Stay Sharp – Toby Cowern

I’ll be honest, It’s a bit of a shock to me to write this article… However, we here in the CRGI have frequent conversations about never assuming what people do or don’t ‘know’.

Over my last few courses (both teaching and attending) a similar issue kept being raised, to the point I wanted to address it here.

I feel fairly confident that all readers have some familiarity with the Every Day Carry (EDC) concept and most of you have daily carry. For those that do, most likely some sort of weapon is included, be it edged tool, firearm, flashlight, or similar. (Some of you will carry all these and more)

Having these excellent tools at your immediate disposal is an excellent concept, and we are all, most likely, aware of the need for good and continuous training in the effective use of these tools. The issue that has kept surfacing, for me, as of late is the complete lack of understanding and discipline in maintaining these tools.

As dry, boring as this topic is, it is however absolutely essential to include in your regular routines, especially if you are using your tools with any degree of frequency.

Regular and routine inspection, cleaning and maintenance of your tools, will not only help identify early indicators of problems or defects, but will also ensure smooth function and operation in use.

I am seeing, on a frighteningly regular basis, people carrying knives with no means or knowledge on how to sharpen them, or if they have the means, only sharpening their knives ‘when they get blunt’…!!! For me, this mindset is exceptionally concerning and one I am now addressing more thoroughly during training.

In terms of my personal routine, I inspect and clean EDC edged tools each evening (when washing the other cutlery from dinner) sharpen as necessary, but with specific time set aside on Sundays (when I do my regular house maintenance chores) for regular or scheduled maintenance/repair.

I use rechargeable batteries wherever possible for flashlights and rotate batteries weekly (Sundays), as well as ensuring I have at least one spare set of batteries available as well.

If you are an instructor, maybe set aside 5 minutes at the end of your next class to ask your students if they are regular servicing their tools and if not take a few minutes to show them how it’s done.

If you are a student, I highly recommend you try to incorporate regular inspection and maintenance into your routines.

I feel the crux of this problem is far more lack of awareness than any sort of ‘bloody minded refusal’ on the part of the individual, so with this brief article today I hope to take one step forward in raising awareness of the potential problem and how easy it is too solve.

Regular inspection and maintenance will range from a few seconds to just a few minutes, is easy to learn and easy to execute.

I’ve included a link here to one of my favorite knife manufacturers and it highlights how simple sharpening of edged tools can be.

https://www.fallkniven.com/en/product-information/knife-sharpening/

With all the time, effort and money we spend on being proficient tool users, it would be a terrible shame to ‘fall at the last hurdle’ by not keeping our tools in the best condition possible…

Book Review – “Force Decisions: A Citizen’s Guide to Understanding How Police Determine Appropriate Use of Force” by Rory Miller

I just wrote this to someone about understanding use of force, are you willing to read a book?

The book title is “Force Decisions: A Citizen’s Guide to Understanding How Police Determine Appropriate Use of Force” by Rory Miller. It’s a whopping $8.69 on Kindle.

It will not give you a universal answer but it will help you understand why there isn’t such a thing. Which since you are asking, (and I’m going to assume that isn’t a rhetorical question or virtue signalling,) I can give you an overview why things aren’t so simple. Also why reading that book will help you understand and appreciate that not ‘so simple.’

Rory will give you a different break down — and a very important one — but I want to focus on something else. There are three different categories. A good use of force. A bad use of force and — let’s call it — borderline.

I can point to the videoed incident a few years ago where a North Carolina cop shot a fleeing suspect in the back and then another cop walked up dropped a taser next to the dying guy to make it look like he’d pulled a gun. Bad shoot, bad, bad, absolutely no question. That was manslaughter and attempting to cover it (The now ex-cop Michael Slager is facing murder charges AND Federal charges). As this demonstrates, bad shootings DO exist… as do bad uses of force.

Then there are good uses of force. Like hey sending in a robot with a bomb against the sniper in Dallas. This AFTER killing five people and wounding seven more, he told the negotiators there were bombs and he’d kill anyone who came in after him. (I specifically use this example for a reason that will become clear in a second.)

Borderline are the booger. They are the ultimate “it depends” Starting with that they are VERY factor dependent. (Take the Castile shooting. Some reports say he had the gun in his hand by his thigh. Some say it was in his waist band and his hand was near it. ‘Girlfriend’ says he wasn’t doing nuthin’ and was legally carrying) You can’t really make a call until you get as much evidence as possible, then you’re still left with assessing if it was good, bad or borderline. Because with borderline an argument can be made for both positions.

Borderline calls are complicated by four things

1 – Many people have absolutely NO experience with physical violence. While most have only extremely limited experience. Yet they become instant experts on the subject when it comes to police use of force. Oh r’lly?

2- An often used term — and just as often dismissed — is “officer safety,” We’re not just talking death, we’re talking injury and permanent disability as well. I don’t know if you’ve ever had to go up against someone who you don’t want to hurt, but they have no hesitation about hurting you. Physically doing this without injury to yourself is to put it in the most polite terms, ‘a bitch.’ (If that’s polite you can guess how complicated and nasty it is) Officer safety is often dismissed when public opinion is driving the bus.

3- There are a LOT of people in in this society who believe “Violence never solved anything.” As such ANY use of force is automatically bad. I cannot stress enough the influence of this belief on the subject. Simply put, if all violence is bad, then all police use of force is — by extension — a bad use of force. Now is it tolerable? A necessary evil if you will? That would give you some leeway. (For example, bomb vs. sniper, still not right, but okay, if you must….) There are some people however, that both actively hate the cops and hold that any use of force by the police (not violence by them mind you, but from the cops) is automatically, categorically and unquestionably BAD. There is no good. There is no borderline, they are all bad. While often they will eventually reveal this extreme position, they will usually try to pretend their condemnation is about the use of force in this particular incident. (Remember the robot bomb? There are people condemning the cops for using it. I lie to you not.)

4- There is a growing … what? Trend? Movement. Attitude? …that you can treat cops like some asshole at the bar. As in you can argue with him and if he pisses you off you can attack his punk ass. The more general movement is Youtube lawyers (am I being detained), passive resistance, ‘you have no right,’ and the more extreme sovereign citizens.This is not only a foundation for the attitude of ‘fuck the cops’ but it often manifests in resisting arrest and physical attacks on the cops. What is often overlooked is how fighting the cops (even though you’re usually going to lose) gives you street cred.’ Do NOT underestimate the influence of braggin’ rights (Man, it took five cops before they could cuff me!)

Those four points — which factor into a lot of borderline incidents — are often swept aside in the rush to condemn a use of force incident as ‘bad.’

While I could say that reading Rory’s book will help you have a more informed opinion. That’s not the major selling point. People’s opinions tend to be their cherished pets. And gawds know that if you’re in a group who believes a certain way, being informed or daring to question accepted views is social suicide. The real selling point is to make more informed decisions in your dealing with cops. This so you don’t get your ass slammed to ground and then find out the hard way (and expensive) that what you were doing was non-compliance if not actually resisting.