Well it is our $64,000 question and here is as good an explanation as I have heard. Laurence Miller, Ph.D., author of ‘Criminal Psychology – Nature, Nurture, Culture’ explaining the biological, sociological, and psychological reasons for violent behaviour.
This book just went on my to read list for certain. The phrase “Active Gene Environment Correlation” is a very good way of describing how like finds like.
When we discuss the many and varied aspects of violence dynamics, including preferences, techniques, styles and more, we should also keep a few key points in mind:
[01] Violence is different with every encounter. What worked once, may not work in a similar situation somewhere down the road, which effectively forces you to pick alternative responses, preferably before-hand, and no matter who you are or how good you give yourself credit for being. Don’t believe your own story, that’s the first thing that will get you in trouble.
[02] Limiting what you learn may be a great choice, but it could also cost you. For instance, if you choose to limit your exposure or your training for only specific types of encounters, you’ll come up empty when that doens’t happen, but ‘this’ does.
Perhaps you should consider reading more about the differences between possible and probable events, and change your training, or modify it to the most likely (probable) scenarios primarily, but not to entirely discount the other possibiltiies?
[03] Violence in the form that most of us will encounter is going to be social-based, and not asocial violence. Thus, your goals may be merely to set social status, or to protect property, or maybe even to send a message/threat, implicit or otherwise that “it would not be wise to cross this line” or some such similar reasoning.
[04] Having a weapon on your person at the time of any encounter may determine to a judge/jury an outcome that you didn’t expect, foresee or plan for. Think of how others will see your actions – “You planned it.” Thus, a pre-mediation factor creeps in by the other sides legal team. And again, you need to understand your laws, because I can guarantee you that the arriving officials may not, and/or do not understand the laws concerning the UOF and threat of UOF when displaying/brandishing as an example a ‘pocket knife.’
I will give you an example of how and why my path differs from yours. In one of my jobs in a Security force function, we had to follow policies (those of the institution – the employer.) We were never allowed to strike, kick or throw anyone. Now if you’d already learned your ‘art’, a lot of your go-to options have effectively been taken off the table. What now? You’ll spend a lot of time un-learning everything you know about your MA or your combatives training.
We were also limited in our responses and options by local, state and federal laws. Have you got any familiarity with any of the typical laws regarding the use of force in your community? If you do, that’s a good start. Now, throw in dealing with a vulnerable population – the homeless, those with substance abuse issues, those with mental health diagnoses, those showing altered mental status (AMS) symptoms – which could include some of the above, but also consider the autistic, those with dementia and those with alzheimers disease.
Now, add these restraining factors:
[a] You are being watched and recorded in almost every interaction – by the institution, and many times by the public. And while the institution may back you up in your response, the public likely won’t. Why? because violence is ugly, no matter who you are. And the only way that you can even approach ‘getting it’ is by studying it, doing it and learning from it all, good and bad.
[b] You could be reprimanded, suspended, fired, sued or some combination of all of these possible ‘disciplinary’ actions. And then there may be the media exposure…
[c] There’s also a toll you pay – with every, single transaction. With some, you may feel confident beyond a doubt that your use of force (violence) was justified. but with many events, you’re going to question what you did, how you did it and more, if not now, based on how your work develops and the amount of support or lack of support that you receive along the journey. Unfortunately, you still need to make your own choices with almost every encounter. The toll may be feeling guilty, or bad, but another cost is in your future performance factors – will you step up the next time, will you throttle back your response stance for better or worse? Again, these are personal choices based on several factors – the law, the policy, your moral compass, the views of your peers, the views of the public or other employees that surround you.
[d] There are also environmental factors that need to be considered, maybe specifically in my model, but I’d say likely in yours as well. As a much used training example: after hitting another combatant, he goes down, and hits his head on a curb. He dies as a result of his injuries, and your actions. Your life as you knew it ended when he died.
Now of course there are times when you may have no worries, but I can’t think of a specific one at the moment. Even as an employee, whose job description cites protecting property and the public in/around your facility, and even if he’d pulled a knife on you, and you may have legal grounds to justify your actions, it’s not over – not by a long shot. Knowing your environment may convince you to re-think the options you choose to deploy in all or most of your actions. Sometimes that’s not possible, but you may have to plan that into your ‘threat response kit.’
Violence is an ugly option, but it’s also a necessary one when dealing with violent people. The only outcome should be in your favor, and in conjunction with all of the legal and moral lines that we all typically follow and/or are held to. There are more mental aspects to dealing effectively with violence than there are physical aspects perhaps, but years of study has shown me that, and your experiences may be different. One quote that I learned early on was: “to stop a violent act, you need to be better at violence than they are.” For me, that set the tone of every encounter. It started the ‘conversation’, helped set my mindset when ‘the dance sequence’ began, and added confidence at the beginning of every dance.
I dealt with hundreds of acts of violence over the years that I was active, and I can honestly state that I never had a plan other than to end it in my favor. I never used more than a few go-to techniques. I transitioned into control after the ‘attack’ with no abuse, no ego issues, and no threat of retaliation or to punish. It was never about punishment. When it was over, it was over – not personal, just a business transaction between two parties that didn’t view the transaction in the same terms you might say.
I can also state that I dealt with a varied population – MH patients, family members, friends and acquaintances, but also substance abusers, those at risk, child molesters, murderers, rapists, thieves, juveniles, men, women, transgender ad all of it’s associated labels and children. They all had one thing in common – they were all violent. The one takeaway for me is that it was a great learning time, with either willing or unwilling participants that all had one thing in common: they knew how to use violence. It mattered just a little about why, but you need to let that go too. Rather than to reject their reasoning, or to argue about it, you just need to embrace the fact that you may not change their minds, and when it’s time, it’s time. You need to pick the when, where and how. Everything else is open for discussion, but perhaps afterwards.
I’ve even had to address other Martial Artists. I had one technique that I used under those circumstances. It never got physical, despite their sometimes impressive attempts to convince me that I was not going to be able to stop them because of their knowledge, which was scary during more than one encounter. Any Martial Artist has this knowledge, and knows what my solution was. There was of course a backup plan, and that was just too easy – it makes me smile to think about it, because might isn’t always right. And that is a technique too.
Give choices – it MAY work… A lot of social violence is about saving face – learn that. Respect goes a long, long way, even when it’s not deserved or earned.
Learn to actively listen without feeling the need to respond – immediately at a minimum. Most of us listen half-heartedly while we are formulating a response. STOP doing that! Be conscious of it when you are doing it, and work at getting better at not doing it in the future.
Expand your vocabulary, expand your training potential, expand your capacity for discovering that you’ll never know it all, you’ll never be the best, or undefeated even. Embrace the possibilities, educate yourself, and share.
This knowledge, my knowledge, is specific, to and for me, because I know what worked for me. I wasn’t ever the best, but I was never the worst. I was effective, and had only a few close calls where it could have gone the other way, but the social aspect of the struggle was on the table and in play, to my advantage. I was maybe the most studied. I continue to learn, and expand my horizons and educate others based on my knowledge and experience, because it can make a difference for someone, somewhere – you’ll never know.
The book of knowledge is deep, and it needs to be shared.
Experts have to make themselves special. “Who are you to teach me?” is the rational question of a discerning consumer. Accordingly, SD/MA (self-defense and martial arts) instructors find ways to reflect expertise: certifications, ranks, or stints as violence professionals. Awhile back I wrote a piece called “Power By Proxy” warning students of the tendency to thoughtlessly surrender power to chosen gurus, believing in the osmotic absorption of their instructor’s perceived potency. But that dynamic is almost always a two-way street; it’s not just students at the altar of assumed badassery. Martial training aims to empower, sometimes requiring resources held by these experts who, logically, must have more power than their students. This reasonable assumption often festers, producing a toxic social ponzi scheme: the power hoard.
For many instructors, the power hoard begins as a quiet addiction: they start drinking their own kool-aid. Suddenly, their power over students is all they have and they need it. What else are they when there are no more bones to break, ranks to earn, or competitions to dominate? So, they make people like them as special and different as possible because, surely, power is a finite resource. Besides, the more power they have, the better they can use it to help students, right? Their charges need them to be powerful so they can benefit others!
I’ve seen power hoarding dynamics so often that I didn’t notice it until I felt myself start exhibiting them. I started very quietly assuming that I was somehow different than students who’d grown up in less volatile environments or hadn’t spent time professionally babysitting inebriated adult adolescents. My few stories made me feel powerful as I watched students’ reactions to my narration. It felt good to be special, even if my being special had nothing to do with making them stronger.
You see it everywhere. Youtube videos explain how helpless women are; coaches sell their training as the only path to power; instructors chortle as they condition students to weakness and humiliation. Every once in a while, I see it in person: an instructor egotistically punking someone. I went to an active shooter seminar where one instructor threatened to “kick the shit out of” a student after spending most of the day overcompensating with her sport grappling background. Later, I performed a gun disarm on the instructor and explained to her that the weapon was out of battery. She hadn’t known what “out of battery” meant…at an active shooter seminar. The worst exhibition, though, was at another (surprise, surprise) active shooter seminar run by former military operators.
The main instructor began showing footage of shootings without much analysis as part of a ploy to evoke emotional reactions from students. When role players stormed the safety briefing, a student was publicly humiliated for ineffectual resistance, though hiding and running weren’t great options. Throughout the scenarios, participants were prohibited from resisting the shooters physically, told repeatedly how often they “died”, and sent into tactically improbable scenarios for which they were conditioned to fail with little regard for the effects. Within 2 minutes of the final “lockdown” drill, I was outside the staging area, waiting out the end of the scenario. We’d been told repeatedly that we couldn’t leave because, apparently, this was an active killer situation on a submarine! I was reminded to go back in, literally toward a couple of well-armed murderers, after achieving the theoretical goal of both the exercise and the situation it sought to simulate: getting away alive. Upon reentering, a commando loudly informed me that I’d been shot dead while sprinting away. I kept running. My mindset is simple: you’ll have to prove to me I’m not immortal. I understand how significant crappy conditioning can be and refuse to let it in. I also know at least a couple of people who found out they’d been shot when they stopped running so the realism angle wasn’t compelling. Why it made sense for me to pretend I was dead was beyond me. At the end, our central trainer offered the icing on the cake: “too many of you died, more than any other group; but, you know, good job.” Most of the experience was a power hoard. Lines were drawn between high-speed operators and mere civilians; resistance was restricted, prohibited, or punished; students were reminded more of failures and “deaths” than anything else. All we learned was these guys were badasses and we weren’t. I see the same things in everything from Krav Maga intro classes to MMA tutorials.
If these dynamics existed in environments without stacked decks, my attitude would be different. But most self-defense participants are tacitly acknowledging weakness and handing experts power to shape them. Anything that doesn’t fit directly into empowering them is bullshit. These are folks, sometimes with open wounds, who are making themselves vulnerable. Stop making yourself special because you’re supposedly better at violence. If you’re special, so is their future attacker, current abuser, or other threat and it *will* make it harder for them to move. With that said, it’s an understandable phenomenon.
The road to power hoarding is wide and well-lit. All it takes is some unexamined epistemology and a class of neophytes. For example: you want an attentive respectful class. Occasionally someone’s skeptical, disturbed, or even bored by your content or style. Their disrespect threatens to derail the learning of others. So, in a moment of irritation, you show them just how misplaced their self-superior attitudes are. But, in doing so, you’ve failed. A professional conflict manager, so skilled he’d been empowered to teach, couldn’t handle a minor blow to the ego or see past a façade to a student’s needs? You’ve dis-empowered one student and likely alienated several others. Depending on the crowd, this will read as obvious insecurity and/or petty tyranny. Or, worse, they’ll assume that “this is just how powerful people are” and look to become petty tyrants themselves. If you’re not careful, this becomes a trend. You’ll leave squashed students in your wake and collect acolytes, eager to bask in your glow.
To my fellow “experts”: get over yourself. A friend, well acquainted with lethal conflict (because that’s the only reason to listen to someone, right?) always balked at the idea of anyone being special because of a title, rank, former job, or violent history. His response? “Who cares what you did a decade ago? What are you doing NOW?” I take that to mean: make sure whatever you’re doing is contributing, no matter how “special” you are or were. True teaching is much more about empathy than knowledge or even experience. Get better at it so you’re adding value beyond “guts and glory” stories or endlessly reminding students of membership in a martial clique.
Be human and vulnerable to your audience. Use your power to continually show and tell students they can be just as capable as you remember yourself being. Many instructors tacitly or overtly communicate that their students could never “take” them. This is laughable (no one’s found monopolies on physics nor mortality) but students pick up on it and think you’re another species. You’re not. Show them that so when they meet someone more dangerous than you, they’ll remember that everyone bleeds. Be secure enough in whoever you are (or were) that you don’t need to maintain the invincibility aura. If you’re worthy of your status, knowing that even they can beat you will make them stronger, making you more valuable.
To the schools, make the accolades mean something. If you’ve got tokens or talismans, make them empowering to students and not just reminders of gulfs between social strata. Focus on creative problem solving and not paint by numbers solutions. Stop punishing people for being better than they should be. Power isn’t finite; share it. Hoarding power doesn’t make you strong, it comes across insecure and needy. Show students how powerful they can be, it can only make you better.
Categorical thinking is thinking by assigning people or things to categories and then using the categories as though they represented something in the real world.
What do they have in common?
They have all been used in a court of law to explain the behaviour of a murderer.
This is a highly entertaining and incredibly interesting video of a lecture by Robert Sopolsky. This is high octane information at its best. You may want to watch this more than once as it covers so many aspects of human behaviour.
Professor Sopolsky is a neurologist and a primatologist and his books are incredibly interesting, I ham currently reading ‘Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst and this lecture is like an intro to that book.
So I hope you enjoy this and find the funny bits as funny as I did. Garry.
When Matt asked me to review his book I was unsure whether to. I had seen it advertised and it looked interesting but I had that much to do myself I did not think I would have the time. However, Matt kindly sent me a copy so I decided to read the intro and make my mind up. I read the intro and the first chapter and decided this was worth fitting into my schedule.
I am really glad I did as what appears to be a book about being on the doors is actually a piece of social history. I share Matt’s reservations about how the doors were run and how they are run now, I shudder when I see what pass for door staff sometimes now and wonder how the hell they cope when the shit hits the fan. As Matt states in the introduction this is not another hard man on the door reliving war stories, it is a huge collection of highly entertaining, often amusing, anecdotes told with a refreshing candour. There is no bragging, there are dashings of humility and many wry observations on the often weird manifestations of human behaviour both good and bad.
Some of the anecdotes remind me of the writings of Theodore Dalrymple as the descriptions of some of the meaner, nastier echelons of society are exposed for our benefit. Many people like to not see how despicably some people can act, how horrible and narrow their drug addled, alcohol and crime filled existences but for the person on the door dealing with these people is often unavoidable. It was refreshing how Matt obviously used soft skills when dealing with difficult customers but had the muscle and skill in reserve for when the softly softly approach did not work.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Modern Samurai and whilst I told Matt I might take 3 weeks to do so a bit at a time, I finished it in under a week as it was a really interesting read. In this book Matt paints vivid pictures with words, I saw the venues he described come to life, the characters too were well described and their attitudes, mannerisms and behaviour jumped off the page. I would recommend this book to anyone thinking of taking their SAI door badge, I almost did once and walked out on day 2 of the appalling training and looking at those training with me and realising I would not trust 1 of them to watch my back, especially the t****r doing the training. Not 1 of them had any grounding in the reality of violence.
So here is a glimpse into a world that existed but is rapidly changing, this is a great piece of social history and Matt is clearly a cool guy who I would really like to meet, buy the book, it will make you frown, it will make you wince but it will definitely make you smile, a lot.
As editor I have to admit I really enjoy anything by Nick Hughes. His experience and credentials are extraordinary and he is humorous and entertaining whilst making many a good point about the SD industry. Here is a link to a well worth listening to podcast courtesy of Primal Radio, of which I am now a HUGE fan.
Please enjoy as none other than Jim McCann interviews Nick Hughes CPP of Lake Norman Krav Maga.
Nick is a former commando with the French Foreign Legion who worked extensively throughout the world as a body guard. His clients have included members of the Saudi Royal Family, VIPs, celebrities, rock stars and executives. Author of “how to be your own body guard”. Holder of blackbelts in 3 styles of karate, as well as Judo, Ju-jutsu and Aikido. He also holds rank in Filipino martial arts, has boxed professionally and has taught unarmed combat to various military units as well as dignitary protection to SWAT units.
https://podcast.app/nick-hughes-former-legionnaire-body-guard-owner-of-lake-norman-krav-maga-e36912759/?share=iosClick here for podcast link
“When you stay in your comfort zone you do not develop resiliency. What’s more is you don’t realize it, but your comfort zone also shrinks.” Marc MacYoung.
Life, for most of us, is a busy thing. We have multiple roles to play and time is finite. Time management is an issue for most people as we try to meet a multiplicity of demands from competing sources. Some do this with unerring skill and efficiency whilst the rest of us bungle through as best we can like plate spinners on a game show hoping we can keep all the plates spinning and not drop any.
Because we are so absorbed in keeping the plates spinning we never have the opportunity to take a step back and evaluate what the hell we are doing. We become a slave to our actions and, better still, we can find no end of reasons to justify keeping the plates spinning away, in fact whilst we keep up the act, exhausting as it can be, we thrive on our skill and dexterity. Dammit, we even throw in another plate every now and then to keep things interesting because we can.
Anyone recognise this? Because I sure as hell do. Earlier this year I did a things to do list, I split it into several crude divisions and it was enormous, frighteningly so, in fact the intention to give myself direction and purpose backfired dramatically as faced with the huge amount of things I needed to do I froze and stasis set in. I did not become inactive, I kept on spinning my plates, but I did not refocus my priorities and create a structure to me time management as I intended, I simply went into a period of denial.
I knew I needed to do something but the problem was where to start as everything needed doing at once, not only did I need to keep my current plates in the air I needed to start multiple new ones spinning. Well sometimes we have to admit we are beat, and I did. Not beaten in that everything crashed but beaten in not being able to see the best way forward. So what to do?
Well that is where I am lucky as I am surrounded by smart people. It was time to take some time out and start to hear some of the things they had been saying for a while, things I had not listened to properly as I shuttled from plate to plate. This was not a conversion on the road to Damascus. There was no overnight solution. We are talking a process, still ongoing, that is nearly 6 months in progress.
If for years you have convinced yourself all is hunky dory then realising that there are serious inefficiencies in how you work and live is a massive shock, rationalising it alone takes time, acting upon it more so. I do not have a master plan to share, my situation was/is unique to me but I think there are a few steps others in the same situation could follow.
The first step is to identify the most important plates and the least important. The latter have to go, no matter how hard that is, they have to go, maybe not into the bin but at least into storage, then you can focus on the former.
Secondly it is important NOT to set too targets that are unrealistic, staying grounded is important, and remember to take baby steps forward instead of trying great leaps.
Thirdly be honest with yourself, we all have limitations, if you cannot do something, find someone who can and let them.
That is it. Now for an example and whilst I can use some work related ones I thought I would just spin off here with one indirectly related but important. Fitness.
As an instructor of Ju Jitsu and self defence it is important to stay fit, others may disagree with this statement in full or part, as you are a role model as well as an instructor. About the same time that I realised I was trapped in a potentially never ending plate spinning hell I also took a good look at myself. Now we all look in the mirror, we all see pictures of ourselves, we all have an image of how we appear to others. Well one day I got a shock. I looked at some photos I had taken to use for publicity purposes, come train with me, and there was this slightly overweight round faced guy staring back at me. An imposter who contradicted my internal picture of how I thought others saw me.
Damn. Now long with my other priorities I needed to take action on my fitness and by default my health. Whilst my attention on keeping all those plates spinning I had taken my eye off the ball regarding my own fitness. I had grown used to deceiving myself that because I trained in some of my own sessions, walked the dog etc, that I was fit and healthy, a good weight too at 15.5st, plenty of firm muscle around the stomach but little fat too. I had, once again, slipped into a comfort zone.
Then I listened to others and stopped telling myself lies. I had to get up and do something about this. So in line with my 3 steps above I decided that this was one that was a priority, I set very limited targets (increasing them very gradually as I progressed) and only I could do this.
This all started in February 2018, it was a spluttering start. On the advice of a friend I bought a proper pair of running shoes, I had not run in many years but realised my cardio vascular fitness was poor, well not so much realised as admitted. A number of people had pointed out that I often wheezed when breathing, several asked if I had asthma, I explained it away as the residue of chest infections.
It was the back end of May when I finally got into something of a routine. Short runs of just 12 minutes duration were enough and short sessions on the weights made me ache a lot. I worked through the pain and began to feel the gains. My focus was on getting fitter not losing weight, I worked my exercise regime into my life as advised by another friend as time spent sharpening the saw, it started to work. Over the next couple of months I extended both my runs and my weights sessions, No set targets or dates, just when it felt right. I could feel the gains and other people started commenting, quite a few people, so mid July I weighed myself.
To say I was surprised was an understatement, I had lost 1.5st despite putting on some more muscle. By the end of July I had lost over 2st of fat I never thought I had. My weight then, and now is 13.5st, I now run for 1 hour 3 times a week and weight train 3 times a week. I eat sensibly and fast for 16 hours overnight (liquids only) and I have continued the regime of cold showers begun a year or so ago. I am not on a diet but I manage my intake and output. My run is before eating in a morning so that I burn stored fat and the exposure to cold stimulates the burning of stored fat too.
This is not a recipe for anyone to follow, it is now part of my daily regime, it works for me. It is an example of taking a look at yourself, realising there is an issue, identifying appropriate action and taking it.
This one set of actions has also enabled me to become more focused and disciplined on other areas of my life, professional and personal. The journey is not complete, it never will be, in terms of fitness I am now incorporating other activities into my lifestyle and evaluating their effect. It is a fact that knuckling down on my need to recover my fitness provided a fairly quick win, some unexpected gains (unexpected weight loss) and a massive sense of achievement. I am 60 years old next birthday, inescapable fact, and the coming years will not get easier. I am not trying to relive past glories, not that there were many, but preparing to age well and live life to the maximum whatever that may be.
The rediscovery of the self discipline to train regularly and stay motivated has been a joyous thing, it has helped me to focus more on other aspects of my life and make progress in them too. I have a long way to go and will always be imperfect but recognising our limitations and working on the deliverables is now my focus.
It all started by taking a long hard look at myself, recognising the weaknesses in myself and hearing the messages others were sending me, people who cared and care about me. In truth I have recovered a part of me that was subsumed under the necessity to keep too many plates spinning.
Instructing others is what I do, they pay me to train under my direction, it is a contractual relationship. Setting an example is part of that relationship in terms of continuing your own professional development (physically and mentally), maintaining a positive attitude and exhibiting positive behaviour. In order to check we are doing this every now and again we need to take a look at ourselves.
Are you in a comfort zone?
A new homeless woman has been hanging around the Boulevard lately. Dressed in dark blue institutional pants and a white t-shirt, she carries a large black plastic trash bag jammed with unknown contents. As she wanders the area, she is usually screaming. While most of those who rant on the Boulevard yell at no one in particular, this newcomer targets people with her verbal tirades.
As I headed down to the Metro platform today I had my game face on — that resting bitch face effective in warding off the creepers and would be threats.
As I approached the turnstiles I spotted the woman. As usual, she was in the middle of an incoherent rant. I gave her a wide berth as she screamed in my direction. I avoided eye contact but kept her in my peripheral sight as I made my way down the escalator to the train platform.
Below a child cried, which seemed to draw her down behind me. She fixated on the child’s cries and began bellowing about child abuse as she descended the escalator.
My heart breaks for her every time I see her:
How is this the country that I live in? The city that I live in, that allows such a desperate and mentally disturbed human being to live on the street?
As she howled about child abuse, I wondered if the sounds of the crying child touched on some painful memory.
As I reached the bottom of the escalator the child was now quiet and nowhere to be seen. Alert to her coming down behind me I instinctively turned right. I judged the platform in this direction as out of her sight and attention.
As I settled onto the bench I rested my heavy laptop bag on my knees to take the pressure off of my shoulders. There was no one around and for a moment I enjoyed some peace while I waited for the train. Then suddenly she came around the corner screaming in my direction.
Sh*t.
I stood up and pretended to look at the monitor displaying train arrival times. But my real motivation was to be on my feet and ready to run if needed. She headed my way continuing to scream. Maintaining her in my periphery I circled behind a large concrete pillar which I hoped would make me out-of-sight and out-of-mind.
It worked.
She slid down the pillar, sat on the floor and continued to wail. At least it was no longer aimed at me. I considered slipping past her to get to a more populated area with more accessible exits. But as prey instinctively knows to freeze while weighing whether to flee or fight, I stayed where I was — out-of-sight to avoid attracting her attention.
All was going well until a woman with two young girls, about five and seven, approached to take a seat on the bench. They made it safely past her, but the presence of the children aroused another outburst.
The woman got up and began pacing the platform again screaming about child abuse. The mother calmly braided her youngest daughter’s hair while I stood nearby trying to appear as casual as possible. I pretended to look for the train as I nonchalantly pivoted as she circled so she would never have my back. She never came within striking distance of myself or the family, but I was on edge. I prayed that when the train came she would not get on.
The train arrived and my prayers were answered; she stayed behind while the family and I piled on.
It was then that the little girl asked her mother, “What was wrong with that lady? Why was she yelling?”
Stroking her hair, the mother softly replied, “Sometimes people are very sick and yell unkind things. But they can’t help it. We need to be careful around sick people. But we should never hate them because it’s not their fault.”
Throughout my vigilance and strategic maneuvering, my heart broke for the woman. With the little girl’s question, my heart shattered all over again as reality intruded on this child’s innocence.
But the cracks of the heartbreak were filled by the mother’s compassion. At her words, I turned my head as if I were looking out the window. But really, it was to hide the tears that would betray my resting bitch face.
And the train pulled out of the station.
This is an epic read and thoroughly interesting and entertaining in equal measure. As former head of the SAS and as commander of the First Battalion the Royal Irish Regiment he describes dealing with murderous terrorists in Ireland, the West Side Boys in Sierra Lone to the invasion of Iraq with clarity and some humour.
A compassionate man by nature he is also fiercely dedicated to achieving the mission he is set. He has a wonderful grasp of the importance of culture, religion and sets incredible examples of peaceful conflict management in some very frightening places where there is little respect for life from some people.
Tim Collins embodies the diplomatic warrior, his skill lies in using soft skills first and foremost but there is an iron hand ready to follow if that does not work. He has proved himself to be an expert negotiator and strategist but honestly discusses the things that went wrong. He clearly commanded the loyalty of his forces as those who lead by example do.
This book is a behind the scenes look at how modern war is waged, it is very different than what we see on the news. What struck me was the complexity of the operations and the scale of everything and yet Collins was still able to focus on the individual be it friend or foe. The book itself is epic in scale and gripping, a real page turner.
For me this was a great read. Tim Collins made a legendary speech to his troops as they prepared to cross over into Iraq, I do not have the original but here is a recreation by no other than the great Shakespearian actor Kenneth Branagh.
Collins is one of that rare breed of men who wears his heart, alongside the Union Jack, on his sleeve. A gentleman and a scholar.
Read the book, it is a cracker. This man should be Prime Minister but that is just my opinion.
Review by Garry Smith.
This UWCB (Ultra White Collar Boxing) mob are going to get someone killed….
16 hrs training in a hall, with no Boxing Coach is not enough to then throw someone into a boxing ring, add to that they don’t adhere to matching opponents by similar weights and levels of Experience, all combining to create the most dangerous life threatening EVENT…….. this money making model is a CIRCUS… a complete joke, masquerading as a Charity event…. CANCER RESEARCH is nothing more than a business paying its employees and CEOs millions of pounds yearly…. it’s been researching cancer for over 150 years FFS …… it’s greed knows no boundaries… allowing young men and woman to be thrust into danger on a weekly basis in pursuit of financial gain….. for the record UWCB does not pay 1 penny to Cancer Research….. nope it’s YOU the MUG taking part in this LIFE THREATENING CIRCUS that gets all your friends and family to donate the monies they claim to have donated……. they UWCB sit back and take the Ticket Money you gave them for themselves…. money from your friends and family as they cheer you on, baying for the blood of your likewise untrained unevenly matched , heavier or lighter opponent…. 
???
Someone is going to die…. a brain clot incident earlier in the year…. hundreds of Knock-outs and concussions…. now this ( just for the record… in thousands of Amateur Boxing Contests up and down the country yearly… there is no such injuries… because it’s PROPER BOXING PEOPLE running it with codes of practices in place to facilitate it…. as we have done for decades under the stringent AIBA rules and regulations.
If you know someone in Scotland, taking part in one of these GLOSSY PROMOTED easy access ( it appears to be Free but costs all your family and friends money and you perhaps your life ) then it’s more than likely that even after you show them this …. they will still do it… ( that’s my Experience in the past on warning people ) they are caught by the cancer lie but in the most are deluding themselves and won’t pull out…. I have a message for anyone signed up or considering…
Boxing is not this easy… you are fooling nobody but yourself…. proper boxing people LAUGH at this UWCB and see it’s set up and designed for people, somewhat lacking… in what I’m not sure…. but if you want to box… there’s hundreds of proper boxing gyms in our communities…. GO DO IT PROPERLY and not make a fool of yourself…. sorry but that’s how it is…. it’s by calling out the people who do this as well as the UWCB CIRCUS that will eventually stop this, giving the government don’t care and while unscrupulous INSURANCE COMPANIES like BLUEFIN give them dubious insurance policies on the basis of self accredited details… it’s going to take a death to shine a bright enough light on this to unpick the lies and failures to adhere to basic boxing rules.
Now anyone who would wish to disagree with the above, please. You only qualify to comment here If you have at least 25 years of specific boxing Experience… I’m not interested in your opinion or defence of this because you had a jolly old time having your ego rubbed when you took part in your mis-matched spectacle.
Strong words for a Wednesday morning as the kids go back to school….. yup this summer I took Amateur boxing training to some 2600 Edinburgh kids…. I’m sure to have these Clowns destroy what I work hard to build.
Please take a moment to Tag in people who might be considering this and also our brothers and sisters in the REAL BOXING WORLD… it’s your duty to your sport to speak out against this Circus
In sport and community
http://www.mirror.co.uk/…/dad-34-nearly-killed-after-130821…
Bradley Welsh
Former ABA Lightweight Champion ( 1993 )
40 years in Boxing
As Boxer / Coach / Promoter
Just finished kids initiative in Edinburgh delivering Free Boxing Classes in 12 communities for kids 2600 participated in partnership with Boxing Scotland Ltd .
