#1- APRIL, 2015 – Page 2 – Conflict Manager

Why “Textbook” Bystander Intervention Training Can Get You Beaten and Killed – Clint Overland and Erik Kondo

I recently came across a news story about a male college student in Iowa intervening when he perceived a group of men were sexually harassing a woman. Consequently, the man ended up in the hospital with multiple injuries when the group of men attacked him. According to an interviewed “expert” on Bystander Intervention training, the young man had acted in “textbook” fashion. He had done everything right.

Read or listen to the full story here:
http://iowapublicradio.org/post/isu-student-severely-injured-after-intervening-street-harassment

While I applaud this man for his courage and willingness to step up to help a woman in distress, in my opinion, the man actually engaged in conflict mis-mangement. In order to bring more knowledge to this issue, I turned to a true expert in the field of conflict management. One who deals regularly with drunk, belligerent, dangerous men and women on a nightly basis – Clint Overland.

Erik: “Regarding the incident as outlined in the news story, what is your interpretation of what happened?”

Clint: “As I read the news accounts and watched the videos from the news, the Victim seemed to want to do the right thing and stop the harassment of a young woman by a group of 8 or 9 men. But, he didn’t have a clue as to what he was doing, and who knows if it wasn’t a setup ambush. I have seen things like this occur in bars over and over again played out with different scenarios. Ambushes like this work because they play on peoples need to do the right thing.”

Erik: “In your opinion what did the victim do wrong?”

Clint: “First of all, let’s start with the Victims size – tall and lanky. He probably hasn’t been in many altercations of extreme violence. His size has always been a factor used for intimidation. He has backed people down in the past because he was taller and possibly stronger than a lot of individuals.

Now, he interfered in a Group Monkey Dance with an unknown tribe of primates. I do not know or can’t say that he shouldn’t have stepped in, but there are damn sure smarter ways to do it. Also he trusted that the attackers would do the right thing according to His own (the Victims) socioeconomic back ground and raising. He used the wrong script for the right reasons. Maybe he has been in a past situation similar to the one that got him beat and the previous script worked. This is a different group with different unknowns.”

Erik: “Specifically, what else could he have done?”

Clint: “The Victim should have called the police immediately. 911 is your friend in these situations. He could have saved himself an ass whipping by calling the cops, speaking clearly and point out what was going on. Give all the info he had at the time and the numbers of individuals involved. He needed to start yelling at the top of his lungs while the police were on the line, “I HAVE CALLED THE POLICE AND THEY ARE ON THEIR WAY”. Then he needed to start hollering for help from other individuals. He could have also enlisted the help of any friends at hand or any store owners close by to call the police. There is safety in numbers when it comes to dealing with predators. The more there are of you, the safer you become.”

Erik: “How would you have handled the situation given the circumstances?”

Clint: “This is a hard question because I really don’t know all of the information. I have been in a few similar situations. One involved a group of frat rats and a girl who had passed out drunk at the bar. They wanted to take her and fuck her. I said, “No, they needed to leave”. Their response was that “there is one of you and 12 of us, so how you going to stop us?” I told them, “I would kill as many as I could before I went down”.

They didn’t want to play in that game. Also, I carry several guns, and other “things” most of the time, and I practice with them regularly. I am not afraid to use them. I also do understand the cost that using force can incur. I have a good lawyer, a bail bondsman, and several intimidating friends. I damn sure would not have walked in the midst of them trying to reason with them. That is being a lamb walking into its own slaughter. Much too many variables to understand and watch at one time. If at all possible, I would have called the police, and called out for help. If that didn’t work, shoot the first few.”

Erik: “Regarding the interview with Mentors in Violence, what is your opinion of the advice being given on Bystander Intervention for these types of situations?”

Clint: “These egghead feel good fellows are going to get someone seriously hurt or killed. They are trying to teach people how to cook a meal when changing the tire is what is required. Wrong tools and wrong skills for the job. Violence is neither good nor bad. It is simply a tool, same as a gun or a knife. It has a specific use and it is the individual’s use of it that sets the theme.

A guy robbing a bank uses a gun to kill one of the customers is then shot and killed by another customer or police officer. Same tools, same results, different reasons. The information given in the interview is good IF and only If it is used in the correct settings. It will not work for every situation or scenarios. Different rules for different settings. Trying that upper class social pressure on certain groups of people will get your ass stomped flat like this kid found out. In my opinion, and again I am no doctor or scientist, just a beat up middle aged bouncer. The info that is being passes around as a godsend by these folks is pure bullshit. It won’t work in every situation and shouldn’t be taught that it will work.”

Erik: “What do you think is harmful about the advice?”

Clint: “Look guys, violence isn’t always the answer, but it damn sure needs to be included in the possible outcome. Don’t get all butt hurt when someone refuse to listen to reason. 90% of my job as a bouncer is listening to people and reading situations. People skills are an asset in any situation. Sympathy, logic and reason can be a great stabilizing force, but so is a framing hammer or a shotgun. These eggheads are trying to get people to be NON violent. Our very nature as human beings is violent. Civilization and all of its blessings are based upon the idea of law and order. How it is impressed on people is through the threat of violence in some form or fashion. Whether it is the police and legal system, or a military force. What we need to be focusing on is the idea that violence is just a tool. We need to all become skilled in the use of that tool.

People are more afraid of making my wife mad than they are of pissing me off. Why? Because she is a calming influence on me. But they understand that if they offend or hurt her in any way, all she has to say is that it’s OK for me to follow my baser instincts. Which can include an old tire, a can of gasoline, and a lighter, if the situation needs it.

I am not afraid to say that we need to quit teaching women to be weaker, and teach them to be meaner and more dangerous. My daughter was accosted by a patron in a bar where she was working. She straight told the guy that “she would cut him from his balls to his brisket if he said one more word” and she meant it. Then, she told her regular customers. They expressed their anger outside, away from cameras. Violence was used and situation was solved.

Erik: “. How would you advise people differently?

Clint: “Folks, I am not, and never will be a proponent of VIOLENCE as the only answer that works. It’s not. Life is made up of skills and tools. Whether it is cooking a frittata or baking a cake, both take place in the kitchen, but use different methods and skills to do it correctly. You wouldn’t try and scramble the eggs with a tire iron, or cut the cake with a pistol. All tools and all skills have their place. To be a complete and rounded person, you need to have as many tools and skill available as possible. I tell my kids it’s great to have a big tool box with everything you need put away in its correct place and available to use.

Erik: “Anything else you would like to say?”

Clint: “There is, and always will be, a need to talk and negotiate with other people. But there will, and always will be, a need for the correct application of violence. I see too many people, who think that because they grew up, or become accustom to the way things are in their realm, that it is the same in every other place. Doesn’t work that way. Each social and economic class, and subclass, has its own rules and own way of doing things. When you step outside the class that you are comfortable with, you find yourself playing a game where you do not know all the rules. Here is where your tool box comes in very handy.”

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When it comes to conflict management, there are number of considerations to keep in mind. When you, as an outsider to a Group, use certain words to “command” a Group, such as “Chill out”, it is likely that the Group will backlash against your command. This is particularly so, if the Group consists of young men from another tribe, late at night, in the presence of a female(s), alcohol has been consumed, and you have no backup.

Were the men wrong to harass the woman and attack the man? Yes, absolutely, they were to blame. But being blameless doesn’t make your injuries heal any faster. Being blameless, doesn’t bring you back from the dead. Being blameless, doesn’t help you handle situations differently in the future. Shaking hands with someone is not a de-escalation strategy if his plan is to suck you into an ambush.

If you intervene in a situation of harassment with the goal of teaching a social lesson about the importance of respect, you must understand that you subject yourself to being the recipient of a different social lesson. This lesson runs along the lines of “mind your own business”, and “don’t interfere with our Group affairs”. Therefore, as Clint mentioned, it is important to understand the dynamics of the situation. What are the rules that the Group lives by? What happens if you break their rules? Are you subjecting yourself to an Educational Beatdown combined with a Group Monkey Dance?

Safely teaching a social lesson requires that you to be backed up by some authority. Why else would the other party listen to your lesson when it directly interferes with what he or she wants to do? For a variety of reasons, intervening as one college boy to another is vastly different than intervening as a college boy to a group of “country” men.

Bystander Intervention training that does not include education on how violence is used and violence dynamics can easily morph into the teaching of conflict mis-management. It has the very real potential of leading to situations that end badly.

Rage Control – Wim Demeere

The earliest incident I remember of my temper getting out of hand was over something trivial. My older cousin had been needling me until I snapped: I grabbed a scythe and swung it down at him as hard as I could. He jumped back and I missed, burying it deep into the ground, unable to pull it back out. He took me to the ground and into a judo choke hold until I calmed down. I was eight or nine when that happened, I’m not sure anymore.

This wasn’t the last time my bad temper got the best of me, nor the worst. Throughout my youth and early twenties, I flew off the handle many times. I’m immensely lucky that I didn’t seriously injure or kill somebody and end up in jail or dead. I’m even luckier in that I realized early on in life that I needed to control my temper or I would eventually mess up my own life. The pivotal moment came after I kicked somebody in the ribs and he was hospitalized. He didn’t deserve that, there was no reason for me to kick so hard, other than that I was angry. So I went looking for solutions to my anger issue.

I learned that there are many different types of therapy or approaches to fix this problem. I tried several and found behaviour therapy, reframing my thought process, progressive relaxation, meditation and humour to work well for me. These might or might not work for you, we’re all different.

After years of hard work, I progressively got better at staying in control and rarely if ever lose my cool anymore. I’ve come to the point that people who’ve known me for years have never seen me angry and say I am the calmest, most patient person they know. But here’s the uncomfortable truth self-help gurus don’t tell you: my temper never went away. It’s still there. I have simply learned to not let it rule me.

Every day, I get up and tell myself to not be an asshole and hurt people just because I am pissed off. No matter how easy it would be to do so.

Every day, my temper gives me opportunities to beat people up and ruin my life with the consequences:

The idiot who cuts me off in traffic, I’d ram him off the road if I acted on my temper.
The arrogant bastard who gives a snarky comment in a meeting, I’d gladly slap him in the face until he starts crying.
The wannabe tough guy who eyeballs me at the gas station, I wouldn’t mind taking him on to see the look on his face when he finds out he can’t win and I won’t stop.

After all these years, my first reaction still tends to be the same: my temper wants to flare and take over. Then I tell it not to.

As I got older I got better at this, to the point where it has become automatic and I don’t end up with a big adrenaline dump anymore. I expect to always have to work, at it, until I die.

Why do I bring all this up?

Letting anger control you is a sure-fire way to get into trouble and attract violence.

We all know we’re supposed to avoid violence and de-escalate problems. Yet we continue to see CCTV or cell phone footage of people ignoring this advice and letting their anger get the better of them until fists start flying. If you take an honest look at your own violent encounters (or near misses), you’ll likely discover your anger and other emotions were a determining factor.

Violence takes at least two parties: you and the other guy. You are half the equation. The decisions you make during conflicts, regardless of what your monkey brain is screaming for you to do, are ultimately yours. Avoiding violence is easy in theory, but once a strong emotion like anger is thrown into the mix, it becomes much harder to stop from engaging the other guy when you should de-escalate. The consequences of that violence can leave your life in ruins or end with you bleeding out on a pavement.

If you are quick to anger, here’s an empowering truth for you:

Your temper is not a force of nature. You can learn to control it.

It isn’t easy. You have to question yourself, your motives, your emotions, your mind-set, your decisions, everything. You have to find a balance between doing that while at the same time avoiding “paralysis of analysis.” What’s more, you only get the benefits of self-control after you do all the work. But once you do, your odds of successfully avoiding violence increase and you can live your life more safely.

Thugs and Chess – Peter Consterdine

Every instructor at some time has said that the worst person to spar against is a beginner. They will always do something totally unexpected, punch incorrectly (sic), but hit you on the nose, block your shin with the point of their elbow, close down your kicks without ever planning to and generally cause chaos. The problem is they don’t know the rules. They don’t know we are supposed to be better at the game we’re playing and they don’t yet know enough to be impressed and let us score on them. They make the same mistake all beginners do – they aren’t yet conditioned by combative rules!

Also we find it difficult to read what they are going to do because, as yet, we haven’t programmed them to move in such a way that we can detect early on what they are about to strike with. That will come with time when we’ve moulded them into the rules. And rules we have – complex, complicated and sophisticated rules about combative engagement and how it should happen within the art we practice. This all may have a facetious ring about it but, unfortunately, there are also some unfortunate truths.

Fine so far until we extend the analogy of the beginner to the street, where the person who, having had umpteen pints of best ale or whatever, decides you’re a suitable case for treatment is also somebody who hasn’t gone through the tedious procedure of learning all the rules. He doesn’t wait for a signal to start, in fact, he probably won’t even convey to you anything is about to start, rather simply knock you out. He won’t exchange complex blows, blocks and counters, he’ll simply plow into you and before he does that he may have destroyed your resolve to fight with such violent language and display of aggression that you’re out of the game before you start. He’ll come in swinging so as not to present a target, be hard to hurt because, unlike your students in the Dojo, his pain threshold and fear threshold are both enhanced with alcohol and adrenalin

You see the problem is that ‘high level martial arts only works best against high level martial artists’ – it’s thugs and chess – you can’t play chess with someone to whom draughts is mentally taxing and who doesn’t know the rules. It’s this point that both Geoff Thompson (my partner in the BCA) and I try to get over time and again to people that, unless you are prepared to rethink the problem of how you adapt to the reality of violent street confrontations, simply relying on Dojo skills won’t work. Remember one thing, that the less a person knows the more dangerous they are, because the better they are at what it is they do. Also the less trained a person is in, say, a martial arts system, the more underhand they will be in trying to get close to strike. They will also be more violent and are prepared to cause you more damage than you would have done to them.

Try and put most martial arts systems into context and that is they come from cultures where display is paramount, the exchange of high level skills is required by the watching public and that everyone feels cheated if the fight ends on the first blow. Taken to extremes one can look at Mongolian Wrestling, part of the yearly National Games, or Naadam, in Ulaanbattar. People have waited a whole year, traveled maybe hundreds of miles, cooked food for the day and will not be cheated by means of short fights – one fight can last hours! Most Eastern martial arts have the same constraints, particularly the display of complexity and competence, whereas, by contrast a fight in a bar is never pretty, never takes time and never shows great martial skills which is counter to how martial artists believe it should happen. Do not take your Dojo model of combat into the bar – this simply becomes a case of martial arts in jeans and will get you seriously hurt.

They practice the two skills of ‘sucking you in’ or ‘psyching you out’. I used to do this to people when working on the door where, and if the distance was wrong I would feign fear or worry (usually not difficult) which made my opponent overly confident and would cause him to close the distance and come into my range. The other alternative was to ‘psych them out’ with either a display of aggression or a display of massive confidence (not actually felt, but well disguised). Both can work, but don’t try the ‘psyching out’ option if you look more like a concert pianist, or art school teacher, as the bluff can’t be carried off.

Be assured of one thing, though, and that is that the person who practices the low-key, suck you in deception is by far the most dangerous. The one who tries to psyche you out with the massive display of aggression, swearing, posturing and threats is simply practicing theatre. It doesn’t make him less dangerous but it does make him predictable and, providing you’ve armour-plated yourself against such displays, when he realises that it isn’t working he’ll have a big confidence dip. Also, he doesn’t expect to get a pre-emptive slap or strike when he’s halfway through his performance.

Both tactics can work for you and both can be used against you. I mentioned a display of confidence and this is probably the one most people should work on. It demands you display no emotion, display no physical capabilities and are able to talk without giving away how you actually feel. Watch doormen – this latter option is the one they cultivate the best. They have become skilled at not betraying emotions and this has been helped in no small way with the advent of CCTV which may monitor their every move and expression, particularly aggression.

What we can use and what people use against us are two sides of the same coin. In nearly all cases the person who is facing you down with a display of aggression and threats is no less nervous or frightened than you it’s just that he’s now working to his rules. You see the problem is that in the Dojo we don’t practice ‘verbal violence’! In fact, we do just the opposite, practicing politeness and control, with little if any displays of true aggression. However, when you face it for the first time, it may be enough to freeze you into immobility and make you the loser even before a blow is thrown.

All my teaching, either for the police or others is centered around not what techniques will work for us in the street, but what psychological, physiological and cognitive barriers will stop us handling and controlling the violent encounter as we would expect and hope to and are trained to. Very simply, this is to do with the body’s response to stress as it impacts the sympathetic nervous system and also the endocrine system. To this can be added a host of other very strange psychological and physiological symptoms that overwhelm us, and which all serve to negate any physical skills we have accumulated over the years. In a separate article I’ll detail the process of what happens and why, but for the moment believe me it doesn’t happen as you may think it does from the comfort of the Dojo.

In a separate concept I’ve developed called the ‘One Yard Rule and the Egg Timer’ I mention how we burden ourselves with too many techniques, whereas your attacker actually has the benefit of knowing very little and so can’t confuse himself about what he is going to do. Most critically, though, he will not be caught between the two stools of attack or defence – unlike you. He has one simple plan and that’s to strike and at a point he knows he can make it work. He wants the first strike to finish you so that he and probably his mates can then go to town on you. As trained martial artists we have choice, to pre-empt or wait and defend, but it doesn’t work to our advantage. Like our attacker we should have only one consideration and that’s to be first, whereas having the choice actually weakens our resolve and decision making powers.

There is a metaphor for life which I have always thought very apt for this particular issue and it’s the story of the Fiddler on The Roof, which is essentially to do with the lifelong battle for all of us to achieve the best we can in life making the most of our innate talents, set against our innate fear of the unknown and risk of failure which usually inhibit us. This is the fiddler who goes through life trying to fiddle the best tune he can whilst at the same time trying to keep a grip of the roof so as not to fall off. If he could be brave enough to be less concerned about his concern over keeping his balance on the roof his playing would be tremendous and he would reach his potential, but all the time this is set against the fear of falling off.

When we are faced with a violent aggressor we are just like the fiddler on the roof, caught between what we have been told we should do, which, probably, is to wait and defend, or pre-empt and strike before he attacks. At such times our real, deep seated confidence in our ability to hit hard is also brought into question – ‘will he go down or will I just annoy him and make matters worse, in other words, should I cling onto the chimney a bit longer and try and talk him out of it’? I’ve been there myself and the price to be paid for an inappropriate mindset is too high, so believe me you need to let go of the chimney!

This is why such concepts as creating a ‘reactionary gap’ are inherently dangerous. A violent aggressor will always fill any gap you create if you try and step back. You’ve also created more confidence in him, less in yourself and, from a purely objective, tactical aspect you’ve stepped back into the unknown. As a concept it fails when you have nowhere to step back to i.e. if you have a wall, busy road or vehicle behind you, but more critically it develops a negative mindset. To upset an offender’s plan of action (POA) you need to do the opposite of what he expects and that’s to go in and to him.

You have to drastically reduce your options, so keep it simple, be first, be impactive, predetermine your ‘POA’ before you engage with the person by means of a structured assessment and forget you’re a 6^th Dan or whatever. Let go of the roof and remember you can’t play chess with someone for whom draughts (Checkers in the U.S.) is the most complex game they are ever likely to tackle.

Zen and the Art of Conflict – Teja Van Wicklen

We dream of life without conflict, but conflict is a quintessential part of our reality. Like oxygen it is ever-present, building us up and breaking us down simultaneously. Just the idea of conflict can cause our shoulders to tense, yet without it we lack challenge, lose connection to ourselves and others, and at least figuratively, wither and die.

There are many different types and degrees of conflict. Some of us are good at withstanding certain kinds and terrible at others. The same person who can pacify an angry boss, may not be capable of doing the same with a frustrated toddler, a soldier who thrives in armed conflict may not be well versed in the verbal version. Sometimes conflict is thrust on us by chance or against our will – new parents of triplets, victims of rape, draftees into war – more often we create our own.

We tend to see all conflict as negative yet sometimes it forces us to reevaluate ourselves and take a better job or get a higher education. Every day, somewhere, someone turns a near death experience into enlightenment – a non-profit to help others, a new lease on a life previously unlived – but only if they have the skills to manage conflict and solve problems. Some skills are innate, some come from upbringing, many can be learned, you can probably name many of them: self-observation, self-awareness, common sense, empathy, creativity, the capacity to take personal responsibility, self-respect, respect for others, open-mindedness, integrity, the ability to spot behavioral patterns, among others.

Conflict is a slippery, elusive creature, but it’s one we should all get to know better. Understanding the nature of conflict and our personal relationship to it might allow us to tame it a bit, or at least work with rather than against it. There is so much conflict interwoven throughout life that if we could harness the energy we might single-handedly light up a small city or launch something into space. How good we are at utilizing and mitigating conflict can dictate the quality of our lives.

For me, as a mother and family member, conflict management means navigating the minefield of differing needs, wants and opinions on a relentless and ongoing basis. As a self-defense instructor, conflict management is the crux. To teach self-defense without conflict management is to teach a person what to do when they get into a car accident without mentioning how to avoid the accident to begin with, or how to avoid making things worse after the fact. And like many car accidents, quite a bit of conflict can be avoided if spotted early on and managed properly.

But, how does one become a Conflict Manager?

We can start by simply acknowledging conflict as a subject worthy of discussion and learning. Conflict 101 isn’t a subject along side math, at least not until higher education which is really too long to wait. Managing life’s constant conflict seems to be another one of those things like taxes and financing homes and cars that we are just supposed to innately understand without much formal learning. And like those other things, unless we are lucky enough to have a good mentor, it gets us into lots of trouble before we acquire a real understanding of how it works. So look conflict in the face, let it know you know it’s there. Expect it each and every day rather than losing your cool when it shows up unannounced. Remember the definition of insanity and catch yourself asking, “Why do these things keep happening to me?”

After we have accepted that there is no way to eliminate conflict from life, we can aspire to become Conflict Managers, people who use conflict to create opportunities or at least mitigate disaster rather than adding to it. We can begin by cultivating the aforementioned skills and also by learning how to reframe the most familiar kinds of conflict, rather than allowing the first shock of an event to control our ongoing view.

As a child homework was a task of nightmarish proportions for me. There was something about the idea of someone I often didn’t agree with giving me work I didn’t see the merit in and adding a deadline as insult to the injury. My stomach tightened, my brain shut down, I couldn’t find the answers to the simplest questions. Conversely, if the work was for extra credit, even if it was six times more difficult, it was a breeze and done instantly. This is a classic example of the difference a change of perspective can make. (I unfortunately did not learn to reframe homework as extra credit work in time to get a 4.0.)

How we frame things dictates which parts of our creative and analytical brains are accessed. I’m not implying that we should be turning a diagnosis of illness or job loss into a cause for celebration – it isn’t always possible to turn lemons into lemonade - but we can sometimes “think” our tastebuds into ignoring a certain amount of bitterness while remembering there is at least some benefit to the vitamin C in lemons.

Steven Covey talks about paradigm shifts in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He describes being on a subway surrounded by a band of loud, unruly kids, their dad sitting quietly by, allowing the chaos to disrupt other people’s lives. Covey finally says something to the man and finds out the man’s wife – the children’s mother has just died of an extended illness. They are all exorcizing their shock in different ways. This realization causes Covey to reframe his annoyance. Now he wants to help.

I am an advocate of playing chess. Encourage your kids to play chess early on and equate chess’ competitive and multi-faceted decision-making process to life whenever you can. Chess exercises strategic thinking and the ability to see patterns. Though chess players are not automatically the best at interpersonal skills or even the most adept conflict managers, I do believe there is a way to use chess as an analogy for life’s conflicts and as a tool for bettering our ability to make choices by projecting outcomes. But the connection needs to be made.

Like any other skill set, you’ll improve the more attention you train on your personal relationship to conflict. Observe yourself in conflicts of all kinds and start asking questions. In a way, it’s like a map. I’m here, I want to get over in this general vicinity, I do not want to pass through this neighborhood on my way. How do I get there?

Living itself is an act of perseverance. By definition, perseverance means withstanding an ongoing barrage of undisclosed miscellaneous types of conflict in pursuance of a goal. I might actually go so far as to describe life as the mastery of conflict.

Reality, Belief and Tribalism – Rory Miller

There are very few facts. There are very few truths. There may be one best way to do a thing, but in an infinite universe the odds that your way is the best way is, roughly, zero.

There are very few facts, and no one gets emotional about facts. Diamond scratches talc, never does talc scratch a diamond. Longer levers increase power but cost distance. 2+2=4 (for all normal values of 2 and 4. That’s a math joke.)

Anyone have an emotional reaction to 2+2=4? Anyone? Nope. You may have an emotional reaction to the person writing the equation on the chalkboard. You may have such an intense reaction that you want the equation to be wrong, but there is no reaction to the equation itself.

So, rule number one: There is no feeling associated with truth. If you feel sure the only thing you can be certain of is that you don’t know. You can feel sure that your politics are righteous or that your religion is truth or that your system is best, but as long as you feel that way you know it is NOT an objective truth.

And our lives are filled with things we do not and cannot know. Not just the BS Philosophy 101 questions of “Do you really know if the sun will rise tomorrow?” Important stuff. You don’t know what anyone really thinks about you. You probably aren’t even aware of the differences between the values you feel and the ones you express in action. You don’t know who you will be under certain stresses.

And people hate being uncertain. Unknown is unsafe. Freedom is a nice idea, but historically people piss away freedom in a heartbeat if someone will offer security.

So, rule number two: People are uncomfortable-to-terrified by uncertainty and they are surrounded by it at all times.

This problem is compounded in martial arts and self-defense. At the high end of the conflict spectrum, there is a lot less experience. Everyone has been in an argument, far fewer have been in an argument that escalated to blows. Even fewer have been targeted by a predator or been required to use deadly force or participated in a riot. Some people spend years in martial arts, studying what to do if attacked. And they have no idea– it is impossible to know the first time– what they will actually do if attacked. You can tell yourself anything you want but until you pull a trigger, you cannot know if you are capable of it.

This uncertainty compounds with the high stakes of life or death conflict. But it compounds with something else as well: identity. For better or worse, violence has achieved a level of mythic weight in our society. The “wisdom” of a “warrior” is held to be more profound than the wisdom of a father, mother or schoolteacher. It’s not more profound, it’s simply more rare. And thus easy to fake, but that’s for another essay.

But the idea of who we will be under pressure, in conflict, is a powerful aspect of our identity. The image in our own mind and other people’s minds of who we are. And if the conflict has only been imagined, a terrifyingly large chunk of that identity is also imaginary. If uncertainty is frightening, what level of fear and insecurity comes from the deep and denied knowledge that you don’t even know who you are? You are your own imaginary construct.

So, rule three: People like to feel sure, even if they can’t be sure. And the best way to feel sure is to surround yourself with people who agree with you and shun the people who make you question your beliefs. This is the first step into the insular world of “tribalism disguised as truth.”

It’s a sneaky worldview. You feel sure. You are surrounded by people who sound sure. The only evidence you hear confirms what you already know to be true. If someone with a different point of view somehow strays into your territory, the tribe has more than enough voices to shout her down, and if you can’t win on logic, you can win on volume (because lots of loud people equals consensus, right?) or you can always drive her away with personal attacks. And ad hominem is always harder to see when you are the one using it.

You never listen to what your opponents say, you listen to what your friends say your opponents say… and those arguments are always easy to shut down.

With only a few tactics, you can drive away words, opinions, or even facts that might challenge your tribal identity. Tribalism disguised as truth is a powerful and subtle thing. http://www.lairdwilcox.com/news/hoaxerproject.html

And there is a nobility to it. Patriotism is tribalism. Taking a stand against all comers for the good of the team is classically praiseworthy. “My country right or wrong.” Generally, surrounding yourself with a tribe suppresses doubt. I believe it actually suppresses the part of the brain that analyzes doubt. But when the doubts well up, loyalty is a virtuous way to slap them down. Not thinking, not challenging, is not only easier, it will be reinforced and praised by the tribe.

And all the while the tribe will insist that the tribe and only the tribe is smart, is logical, is beyond and above politics and emotion. “So say we all.”

http://thespeaker.co/group-acts-love-group-hate-motive-attribution-asymmetry-explained-nu-research/

Rule number four: Groupthink is rewarded and thinking for yourself is punished. It’s not always that simple. Tribalism is at its strongest when you believe that you are a persecuted minority. If everyone is out to get you, solidarity is even more important. Viciousness in defense of “the truth” is warranted. And with this attitude it is easy to see anyone trying to be reasonable as an enemy, offering unwelcome data as an attack, and the most reasonable possible debate as oppression and persecution.

And maybe that’s rule number 4.1: From the tribal point of view, anything that doesn’t confirm the preconception is seen as an attack and anyone who disagrees is seen as an oppressor. And that fully justifies the tribe in attacking and oppressing even more, in “self-defense.” In my experience, weak individuals or groups who get the tiniest bit of power become far more vicious bullies than strong people ever do.

So here’s rule #5, and it’s a sad and horrible thing: The truth has no tribe. There are a lot of reasons for that. First and foremost, tribalism is based on difference and there simply isn’t any difference in the truth. I teach that flurry attacks result in an O-O bounce so that the threat’s OODA loop never resets and he freezes. Richard Dmitri teaches “The Shredder.” Long ago, when a boxer tried to take me out I shot both forearms between his attacking fists in a triangle shape into the side of his neck. It was a flinch that came from nowhere, it worked beautifully, and I’ve been teaching it ever since. Tony Blauer had a genius idea, researched his ass off, and created SPEAR. Whatever our backgrounds, however we name things, there will always be a convergent evolution towards what works. Because bad tactics get people killed. So many of us will arrive at similar truths, and if everybody is teaching the same things, it gets really hard to say, “We’re better than you guys.”

But the tribalism needs to say it. So if the techniques are same, you can focus on the research methods. Or the membership. Or the training methods. Or the buzzwords. To be different. And if you’re different enough you can call the other tribe wrong even if their stuff is just the same.

The second reason the truth has no tribe is because tribal identities are more powerful than individual identities and people who feel sure, in general, seem stronger than those who admit uncertainty.

It takes a lot of maturity? discipline? humility? to say, “I don’t know” or “I was wrong.” But the ability to say those words is the essence of seeking truth. It’s very hard to build a tribe around the embrace of ambiguity. Trust me– that’s exactly what I’m trying to do with CRGI (and that, right there, may be a sign of the tribal brain sneaking in). But small numbers embracing doubt will always be at a disadvantage from big numbers embracing certainty.

Except– and this is an article of faith for me, I have no stats to back it up– except embracing doubt and seeking truth will most often have truth on it’s side. And I find that powerful. To quote Avi Nardia, “I’d rather be a student of Reality than a master of Illusion.”

Street vs. Mat Russian Style – Mikhail Didenko

Here is a brief introduction to the differences between street and mat conditions from a Russian perspective. This will translate for most of you too I guess as violence is an international language. So I will highlight 5 main differences that are important if conflict management goes physical and your previous training has all been on the mat.

1st difference of street self-defense from a sport fight

First of all this is the quantity of opponents. You have only one opponent in a sport fight, and usually there are multiple attackers in a street. And the quantity of opponents is the root problem and difference from a sport fight: different techniques, different tactics, different vision, different mental setting (let alone the street extreme situation which is different as well). Try to analyze your style or school – would its tactics and techniques help you to fight the multiple attackers? If not, I’ve got some bad news.

2nd difference of street self-defense from a sport fight

Then we should pay attention to a surface – can you fall on a concrete with no harm to your health? What if you fall down? What if your opponent is a wrestler? Street pavement is usually made of bitumen which is really hard. Try it if you don’t trust. There are no comfortable mats or tatami. Please be honest – could you harmlessly fall down on a hard pavement? Let alone possible glass fragments or rusty cans which are possible even in a wealthy countries. Could you feel comfortable in a ground fight? Could you easily stand up?

Besides if you fall down you would lose direction for a second at least. At that moment you would be a helpless victim. But if you trained you are OK even in the very moment of falling.

The Russian Martial Arts start from this point – at first we learn to fall (frontwards, backwards, leftwards, rightwards and other directions). Then we learn to do rolls, etc.

3rd difference of street self-defense from a sport fight

Do you think that the biggest guy is the most dangerous one? Sorry to disappoint you, but that is not true. Folks pump iron trying to look cool, but a big biceps doesn’t make you to be a great street fighter. Yes, weight matters in a sport fight – that is why they made weight categories, and a big boxer most likely will do a smaller one. But big muscles can be your disadvantage in a street fight. Why? Because they use weapon in a street, dude! And then everything changes – a smaller, but dexterous person has a chance to evade from a knife, while a heavy, bulky person most likely will be cut. Yes, you can punch or even knock-out your opponent, but he will recover, and you might not.

Some martial arts practice taking strikes or kicks – they harden their bodies to stand the pain. This habit, this reflex can be good in a sport fight, but then such a fighter can reflectively do the same block against a steel bar or a knife…

The legendary Cossacks were dexterous, they didn’t use armor. Instead they evaded from enemies swords and spears and could get anybody at the same time. The Cossacks were the warriors nation. Unlike the Russian peasants they didn’t like to take strikes even in a fist fighting, because as we said before it can make a reflex to take anything from your opponent. If a peasant could afford it as he would never go to war in his lifetime (even if he would, he would go as a simple minuteman), then a Cossack warrior couldn’t afford it.

There is a traditional Russian competition when two persons stand close to each other, and they strike each other in turn. They cannot move their position, they should stand at the same place. They should take all the strikes. The winner is the person who lasts longer. Usually they do it with a naked torso, so everyone can see a damage on their bodies. Well, Cossacks would never play this game. Guess, why.

See the difference between a fist fighter and a warrior.

4th difference of street self-defense from a sport fight

Fighting with multiple attackers demands different vision. In sport combats you can concentrate on one opponent only, but in a street fight you need to check several opponents simultaneously. Central vision doesn’t work here. You need to use peripheral vision and the method of defocusing which was described in the previous chapters. That would help you to see the 180° of 360°, but what about other half? Unlike movies enemies try to attack you at once, preferably from the back.

These are not all possible variants of visual checking of a situation, but we cannot talk about it in this book.

5th difference of street self-defense from a sport fight

In a sport fight you use ‘linear’ techniques, tactics, vision again… You have only one opponent and there is an imaginary line between you. But in a street geometry changes. In a street you are in a circle of multiple attackers. And the sport fight techniques and tactics supposed for a single combat doesn’t work here. In a street you better use hooks, backfists, while constantly moving and rotating at the same time. (Yes – movements are also different.) It’s like you make a protective sphere with your arms. You don’t let to grab you, you block punches, you punch yourself.

Sport techniques and tactics are the best for a sport fight. It wouldn’t be reasonable to rotate in a sport fight, though they use backfists even in MMA sometimes. But why do some folks think that sport techniques and tactics would be good for a real street fight?

Any exercise, any technique is good for a particular situation and for a particular person. Medicine for me can be a poison for you. The Russian Martial Arts make a person to think. Guess you already understand that we better think not only about exercises or techniques, but about life situations and clichés as well.

The Russian Style techniques depend on the following parameters: targets and condition. That is why the Russian Style techniques are difficult to define – it is different all the time.