Category: #3 – JUNE, 2015

Two Keys To Communication – Alain Burrese

I have a unique background in that I’ve dealt with conflict on numerous fronts, and in different capacities. As a former member of the U.S. Army and a student of martial arts and physical self-defense for over 30 years, I’ve dealt with conflict on a physical level. Working various bodyguard and security positions throughout the years provided experiences in dealing with conflict on a different front. And as an attorney and mediator, I’ve both represented clients in disputes and acted as a neutral to assists parties in resolving their conflict before turning the authority over to a judge or jury. One unifying constant in all forms of conflict is that the communication between the opposing parties directly influences how the situation will be resolved and where the conflict will go next. In every mediation, and in all of my communication skills workshops, I teach these two simples keys to effective communication. Because, as I like to say, we are always communicating, but we are not always effectively communicating. We must listen to understand, and communicate to be understood.

Listening to Understand

The first of the two most important skills regarding communication is listening to understand.  When people express themselves, they want to be heard.  FBI negotiator Gary Noesner has stated, “Listening is the cheapest concession we can ever make.”  I agree with him one hundred percent. Listening is crucial for the mediator and anyone who wants to resolve conflict.  But it’s not enough to just listen, or pretend to listen, that’s because people also want to be understood.  Therefore, you must listen to understand.  Sometimes people don’t even understand themselves, but want those listening to understand.  This is why this is the first of the two important rules.  First you must make it your goal to listen and understand, and then you can communicate to be heard and understood.

You want to understand on both an emotional level, and an intellectual level.  You want the other party to feel that you understand what they are feeling, as well as understand what they are saying.  You can achieve this through what is most often called “active listening.”  This is just what it sounds like, “active.”  You don’t want to be thinking about what you are going to do later, what happened earlier, or what you are going to say next.  You want to be actively engaged in listening and understanding what the other person is communicating to you.  It’s harder than many think, but easier once you practice and make a habit of being fully engaged in understanding what is being communicated to you.

Ways to do this include blending with a person.  You do this by nodding in agreement with those things you agree with, making occasional and appropriate sounds of understanding like “uh-huh,” “oh,” and “hmm.”  Sometimes you’ll want to repeat back what they’ve said so they know they’ve been heard.  Everything about you, including body posture, voice, tone, eye contact, must convey an impression that you hear and understand.  And the true conflict resolution professional truly does want to hear and understand!

As mentioned above, sometimes repeating something back to the person helps with understanding.  You don’t want to be a parrot and repeat everything back, but depending on the situation, some things will definitely be worth repeating.  You may also want to ask questions to clarify certain things.  Actually, you will want to clarify anything you might not fully understand.  Remember, the goal is to understand.  

Summarize and confirm what you have heard.  Make certain you really do understand and don’t assume anything.  Be sincere in asking if the other person feels understood and ask if there is anything else.  Remember, it is not only your job to listen to understand, but to ensure the person you are listening to knows that you understand and feels understood.  Once you achieve this, the person is much more apt to be cooperative going forward toward resolution.

Obviously, the rules I’ve shared so far relate to conflict that is in a more civil setting, such as a mediation or even a negotiation that isn’t volatile. But listening is equally important in those situations where violence may erupt, maybe even more so because of the stakes at hand.

When I’ve assisted Peyton Quinn with classes in Colorado, we’ve demonstrated the difference between passive, aggressive and assertive responses and how they affect the outcome of situations. But we’ve also addressed the differences between territorial and predatory woofs. A predatory woof might be when someone says he’s going to stomp you, while a territorial woof would be having him say he is going to stomp you if you don’t get out of his territory. When it is territorial, you can often just leave and avoid the violence. That is, as long as your ego doesn’t get in the way with something like, “No one is going to tell me where I can go or not.”

Listening to understand, and recognizing the difference, can go a long ways toward avoiding violence, and resolving conflict easily. Just leave if it is territorial. There is obviously more to it, but this should illustrate why the concept is important.

Communicating to be Understood

If you start your communication with, “You dirty rotten so and so,” how much of what comes next do you think the person you are communicating with will listen to?  Unfortunately, many messages are sabotaged by such ineffective methods of communicating, resulting in misunderstanding, messages not being heard, or sometimes just simply being ignored.

Therefore, the second most important skill when communicating is to communicate to be understood.  We must remember that the signals, symbols, and suggestions that constitute our communication output provide the opportunity to influence relationships in a positive manner if we choose to do so.  Unfortunately, signals we send, even unconsciously, can negatively affect relationships and the communication process as well.  It’s important to monitor the signals we are sending to ensure are message is being received and understood.

Many experts suggest that the non-verbal communications we make are more important than the actual words we use.  Things like the tone of our voice, our body language, and general attitude toward the communication process are all part of the whole, and have an impact on how your message will be received and understood.  You might be saying you want to resolve the conflict, but if you tone and body language project that you don’t care, it will be more difficult to reach resolution.  If you don’t listen to understand the other party, why would you expect them to listen and understand you?

Other things that can help you communicate to be understood include tactfully interrupting interruptions and telling your truth, not the other person’s.  The tactful interruption is done without anger and blame.  It is done without fear.  You can simply say the person’s name, over and over if needed, until you get the person’s attention.  Once you gain their attention, you can proceed forward by stating your intent, clarifying something that needs clarification, and further engaging in effective communication.  Telling your truth involves using “I” language rather than “You” language or absolute truth.  “The way it appeared to me” is less apt to be confrontational as the absolute, “You did X.”  “I felt hurt by what happened,” can be more effective than, “You hurt me.”

The key is to use language, tone, and body gestures that help convey the message you want to convey, while at the same time ensuring that the message is being understood.  If the other party is not as practiced at listening to understand as you are, you can assist the process by making sure you are clear and understandable.  And during the process, always remember that you must also take your turn at listening to understand.

In a conflict that has the potential to become physically violent, I often illustrate the three responses I mentioned that I also assisted Peyton Quinn in demonstrating them. The three responses are passive, aggressive, and assertive. The first two generally end up with the situation going physical, while the third, assertive, has the greatest possibility of deescalating the situation and resolving the conflict without violence.

Using profanity and calling the other person names, combined with aggressive body language and other behaviors is almost a sure way toward punches flying. While assertive language, combined with assertive body language and tone of voice will most often resolve conflict that has the potential to go violent without anyone getting punched in the nose.

Conclusion

These two skills of listening to understand and communicating to be understood are important for mediators and parties involved in conflict. And as you can see, they are as important in the bar or street as they are in the mediator’s conference room. Because so often in mediations the parties are having difficulties communicating (almost always), I started briefly discussing listening to understand and communicating to be understood in my opening statement. Providing the parties with a short communication lesson to assist with the process has paid off with more successful sessions and resolved conflicts.

I recognized that these same two communication principles apply equally to many self-defense situations where the conflict has potential to be deescalated and physical violence avoided. So I started including them in my safety and self-defense presentations too. Much conflict is the result of ineffective communication, and by learning and practicing these two keys to communicating effectively you will find yourself in fewer conflicts and able to better resolve the conflicts you do encounter.

 

Injuries in Firearms Training Classes – Kathy Jackson

Had an interesting talk with a friend and colleague awhile back. This was a late-night conversation, during which I mentioned that nearly all long-term, experienced firearms trainers have had students injure themselves during their classes. That was a euphemism: I actually meant that some students have shot themselves during class. My friend was horrified and a little disbelieving.  But it’s true.
Whenever we as instructors get together to compare notes with other professionals who teach people how to work and live with firearms, it won’t be long before we realize that nearly everyone in the room has at least one horror story of their own to share. Many of those who have been doing this a long time have more than one such story.

The Commitment

As a trainer, my personal motto is, “Not on my watch!” It means I’m going to do everything in my power to stop injuries and accidents before they happen. If someone injures themselves, it will somewhere else at some other time than in one of my classes. It will not happen on my watch.

Every time I step up to teach, I’m acutely conscious of the risks we face when we handle firearms. Every class starts with a detailed safety brief. Every student signs a liability release. Every program begins with dry fire so I can see how students’ trigger fingers habitually behave and so we can fix any bad habits before we go live.

When students learn to draw from the holster, we start very slow and make sure everyone is doing things correctly, and in the proper sequence before we load the firearms. We start slowly and add speed only after students have demonstrated proficient levels of safety in slow motion. We don’t work from concealment until I’ve seen that every shooter on the line can work safely from an exposed holster.

We enforce a “hard break” – a brief rest at the low ready position to give students time to change mental gears – before allowing anyone to put their guns back into the holsters. When they do holster, I make them keep their fingers flagged away from the side of the gun so there’s little chance that the edge of the holster will force a straightened finger onto the trigger as the gun enters the holster. We use a technique that anchors the non-dominant hand out of the way, so nobody will point a gun at their own hand during the holstering process.

My assistants and I do everything in our power to slow down the action and get people doing things safely and correctly before we use live ammunition. We make sure students have built good habits before we add any speed or any stress to their work with firearms. We work hard to keep our people safe.

The Reality

Nevertheless. A great many people whom I deeply respect, who are just as cautious as I am, have had students shoot themselves during class. This has not happened because they are bad instructors, or because they are lazy, or inattentive, or unobservant. It isn’t because they are less than professional or because they don’t know what they’re doing or because they don’t know what to watch for and what to do when they see it. And I’m no smarter than these guys, no more alert, no more cautious.

It’s impossible to eliminate the risk of handling firearms. What we do is dangerous. So we don’t eliminate risk for the students. We manage it. That’s our job as instructors. – John Farnam

That’s an uncomfortable truth.

Ultimately, no matter how careful we are, no matter how many good safety procedures we put in place during class, we cannot remove every possible risk when our students are handling deadly weapons. As an experienced trainer, I’m acutely aware of that.

Learning to use a handgun safely requires an absolutely perfect, unwavering and unflawed attention to detail from both the instructor and the student. And sometimes even the best people blink.

An illustration

For those who are new to this endeavor, or who believe that it’s always possible to control everything that every student does on the line, I’d like you to watch an online video. Before you do, here’s the mental exercise I want you to perform: I want you to visualize yourself standing right next to this shooter in the ideal “range safety officer” position. That’s within close arm’s reach just behind the shooter’s strong side shoulder, where you have a good clear view of the shooter’s trigger finger and holster, and where you can easily reach the shooter’s gun hand just by reaching forward.

Starting at 0:25 and continuing through 0:28, watch only that short section of video. There’s a slow motion replay a little later where you can see every last bit of the drama in excruciating detail. But please, don’t watch the rest right away. Pause the video at 0:28 and answer the questions below based on one viewing of the section from 0:25 to 0:28 only. That’s at normal speed, the speed at which these things actually happen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYvAxLX6OzE

Of course, we all knew a negligent discharge (ND) was coming because I just told you it would be, and because we’ve either seen the video before or at least because we read the headline before we hit “play.”

But still, even though you know the job is artificially easy for you because you could see it coming, mentally put yourself in the place of an imaginary instructor – someone standing right there, staring directly at the shooter from within close arm’s reach. Realistically, would that imaginary instructor really have the reflexes to stop this shooter’s negligent discharge before it happened?

If you were that imaginary instructor …

  • Would you have been fast enough to reach over and physically prevent him from pointing the gun at himself as soon as you saw his finger going to the trigger?
  • What if he wasn’t your only student, and if you had two or three or five other students to watch at the same time?
  • What if you were calling the range commands from a few steps farther away, rather than hovering right over his shoulder?
  • Would you have predicted this event, or seen it coming in time to stop it, if you had been working with this shooter all day, and had not seen any previous unsafe behavior from him  (especially if you also had other students to watch who had presented more of an ongoing safety concern throughout the day?)

This is why we require liability releases from our students before the shooting starts.

If you aren’t a complete control freak with an almost obsessive compulsion for range safety – while simultaneously being able to accept that some risks will always be outside your control – then being a firearms instructor isn’t the job for you.

So, it’s hopeless?

That’s originally where I intended to leave this article, on that very sobering note for instructors. But when I showed it to an early reader, he was horrified. “Do you mean, shooting accidents can never be prevented? You’re going to scare people away, they’ll give up on firearms training entirely because, because, because … well, what’s the use?”

He was right. You as the reader might very well have come to that conclusion. So let me be Little Miss Sunshine here and give you even more good news.

An ounce of prevention…

First of all, of course this ND could have been prevented. All NDs can be prevented! That’s why we call them N-for-Negligent, rather than A-for-Accidental, discharges. Negligent means someone neglected to do something they really should have done, something that would have made a difference in the outcome.

In this particular case, the shooter in that video could have avoided any hint of danger by choosing better gear. A holster that requires you to use your trigger finger for anything other than pressing the trigger is a bad design. And it certainly doesn’t pair well with a mental habit of trusting an external, mechanical safety to keep you out of trouble. (We hear that mindset expressed in the shooter’s explanation of what happened and how it happened; listen for it when you watch the entire video.) A bad gear choice does not pair at all well with complacency and a misbehaving trigger finger! So the shooter himself could have stayed safer simply by choosing better gear, by building a better safety mindset, and by having a better-behaved trigger finger.

Our imaginary instructor – who was not present in real life – may very well have stopped this ND long before the drawstroke started. As many professional trainers do, our imaginary instructor could have forbidden the use of a suboptimal, trigger-finger-activated holster during class. Or the instructor could have insisted that the student not switch from one holster type to another once the class had started. Either of those rules would have avoided the shooter’s crosswired confusion, which was caused by using two fundamentally-incompatible holster systems on the same day.

The instructor could also have insisted that the student do a large number of slow-motion repeats of a correct, safety-conscious drawstroke with the unfamiliar holster before allowing him to load his firearm. Those extra repetitions in dry fire would very likely have extinguished the bad trigger-finger behavior before it became truly dangerous.

At a more basic level, just the mere presence of an instructor, or at least of a separate videographer, would likely have eliminated the shooter’s distraction with the video recording process. Getting rid of that particular distraction may have improved the shooter’s overall attention to what he was doing with the loaded gun. That, too, would probably have increased his safety and reduced his risk.

All of the above is true. There were many ways this ND could have been derailed before someone was bleeding on the ground and well before lightning-quick reflexes were needed to avert disaster.

But what’s also true is that once those extra safety layers have been used – once the gear has been chosen, once the instructor has taught and demo’d and supervised and otherwise made the process as safe as it can humanly be made – well, at some point all those extra safety layers go away. The student loads the gun, the line goes hot, the timer starts.

At that point, the only safety layer left in place is the shooter’s own behavior. Nothing else.

The reality is, an outside human’s reflexes just aren’t fast enough to stop everything dangerous the shooter might do. That’s why, as instructors, we work hard to control all the variables we can control. It’s why we act early to extinguish behaviors that can cause trouble later on. We do it because we know that after the train goes a certain distance down the track, our outside reflexes won’t be fast enough to stop the trainwreck from happening.

The student’s dilemma

Some people might wonder, “Well, then, if an instructor cannot absolutely guarantee that I will always behave safely during class, and if they can’t fly across the range faster than a speeding bullet to stop every possible danger in my world, does the benefit of going to class really outweigh the risk?”

Yes. Yes, it does.

In the long run people always behave more safely when they know what to do than when they don’t. You, me, that guy over there – all of us are going to behave more safely when we’ve been taught how to make safe choices than when we haven’t. We’ll be safer when we’ve been encouraged to choose safer and better gear, to practice new skills in dry fire rather than with loaded guns, and to pay close attention to the details most people miss when they teach themselves. We will behave more safely when we have received good, solid, honest feedback from an outside observer than we will when we haven’t.

You’ll certainly be safer for having practiced your gunhandling skills under competent supervision on a calm day at the range than you will if you try them out for the very first time on some dark night when someone is trying to kill you.

With focused supervision from a good instructor, with careful attention to detail and multiple repetitions of the skill, we work to prevent students from doing anything unsafe during the class. Even if the students do something foolish at some point, the multiple and redundant layers of safety enforced by an observant teacher will sharply reduce the risk of injury.

How do people get hurt?

For those who would avoid firearms training class for fear of being shot by the other students, let me offer one tiny bit of cheerful news: when mishaps do happen, far more people shoot themselves unintentionally than shoot others unintentionally. This is particularly true within the confines of a good class, where an alert instructor maintains safety protocols that reduce the opportunities people have to point firearms at others.

By far the most common pattern for unintentional injuries involves a gunshot wound in the right leg or the left hand. The injury to the right leg usually consists of a stripe down the outside of the leg, directly in line with the student’s holster. It happens because the student tried to holster the gun without removing his or her finger from the trigger, with predictable results.

“Every gun owner believes that his or her gun handling is safe, regardless of how good or bad that gun handling is. This is an example of illusory superiority, a cognitive bias that causes people to overestimate their positive qualities and abilities and to underestimate their negative qualities, relative to others. It’s also known as the Lake Wobegon effect, because none of us believe we are below average.” – Karl Rehn

The injury to the left hand happens when a right-handed shooter carelessly puts the left hand directly in front of the muzzle while handling the gun – sometimes during a reload, but more often (you guessed it) while holstering the gun.

My advice: if you’re concerned about being the victim of an unintentional gunshot injury, learn everything you can about how to safely use a holster. Don’t just assume that because any fool could figure out how to drop a gun into a gun-bucket strapped to his waist, you’re good to go.

“Just go to the range and practice a lot”

Unintentional, injurious shootings happen on public ranges and on private property far more often than they happen during professional firearms training classes. There’s a reason for that.

Here’s a fun factoid. In 2013, according to the CDC (http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/nfirates2001.html), more than 16,000 Americans presented themselves at a hospital needing emergency treatment for non-fatal, unintentional gunshot wounds. That’s one person every half hour, all year long.

During that same year, approximately 800 people were killed by unintentional gunshot wounds. That’s more than two people every single day who did not need to die, people who would not have died if the person handling the gun had known how to handle it safely and had done so by practiced habit.

Learning defensive handgun skills within the confines of a good class reduces your risk of doing something stupid with any firearm, on or off the range, for the rest of your life. That’s one of the primary benefits of a good class. After all, when we have successfully engrained good, safe gunhandling skills to the point of automaticity, so that they will hold up even during the extreme stress of a life-threatening encounter, those same safe gunhandling skills will much more likely hold up during the more mundane stress of an ordinary brain fart. And it’s those everyday brain farts that hurt and kill good people.

Professional firearms instructors know that working to help people become safer and more skilled with their firearms ultimately saves lives. We know it because we have all seen radically unsafe behavior on the range by smart people who simply don’t know any better yet, and because we have all seen the radical improvement in safety consciousness that comes once people have actively been taught how to behave safely around guns.

Bittersweet truths

A well-designed class led by a skillful firearms trainer can reduce the students’ risk during their learning with the gun from unacceptably high all the way down to almost non-existent. But no matter how good we are as instructors, we can never eliminate that word almost. That’s because at some point, we have to take off the training wheels and let the students pedal the bike on their own.

No matter how dedicated and careful your instructor might be, in the end, your personal safety is your personal responsibility. It really cannot be any other way.

Understanding all the above may help us swallow this bittersweet truth, an inoculant against misplaced blame for dedicated instructors: No matter how carefully we watch over our students as they learn, we can never provide the final layer of safety for them. Ultimately, our students must do that for themselves.

 

Knowing Your Audience – Richard Dimitri

As a self defense teacher/instructor I believe it is important to remember what it was like when we first started learning along with a good understanding of who our audience is when it comes to teaching certain tactics and technical applications as we tend to often get locked down on absolutes.

For example, and this one is very popular amongst the self defense crowd who, for better or worse, seem to be divided on the issue of which is better; striking with an open hand or a closed fist? There are of course sub-arguments within the said argument such as the ‘open hand neck up, closed fist neck down’ but that also is kind of absolute isn’t it?

It doesn’t have to be this particular bone of contention either nor does the argument have to be about a physical response, it could be about any strategy, tactics or tool for that matter such as ‘In a knife attack, is it better to stabilize the weapon hand or fuck stabilization and just ‘attack, attack, attack!!!’?

It does indeed depend; as to eliminate either or restrict anyone of either based on the factual statements made on each could very well be limiting someone’s natural or already trained capacity at doing so and who are we to tell anyone that what has worked for them before all of a sudden won’t, and worst, could cost them their lives?

This is where knowing one’s audience in this field in my opinion, becomes critical.  For example, if a very average 70 year old woman concerned about an immediate potential threat in her life was to learn self defense, it would be somewhat ignorant to believe that teaching her any kind of closed fisted striking (to go back to the original example) would render her effective at such strikes, assuming of course the threat she is facing isn’t from an older, blind and paraplegic woman either eh?

Now if a 30 year old, athletic strong female was interested in learning self defense based on the same concerns; offering her the options of both while also explaining the pros and cons of each, and allowing her to figure out for herself which tactic is most natural, suitable and sensible to her being, and then allowing her to experience each in training to ease her decision would be the way to go.

Switch that to a 25 year old male, heavy weight golden gloves champion, who is interested in learning self defense. To take his natural and proficiently trained ability to strike with a closed fist and ask him to change it to open handed striking as the main and only method of defense doesn’t make sense either.  

The same approach should be taken as of the one of the 30 year old athletic female.  Teach both, show the pros and cons of each, and allow the student to experience them in real time/real speed via training to formulate what is best for them.

How do you do that in a large and varied group consisting of young teens, seasoned fighters, elderly folk and everything in between? Always cater to the weakest link in the chain.  The mechanics for a lead palm strike are the same as that of a boxing jab. The mechanics of a horizontal elbow strike are the same as that of a hook punch, etc. The tool itself is incidental and preferential.  

Here is where the argument heats up however.  Once on close quarter/grappling/wrestling range; striking becomes obsolete for the most part as striking requires 3 integral elements to make it functional: 1. Distance 2. Grounding, and 3. Torque. Remove even 1 of these elements and you’re left with at best 70% capacity of whatever chosen strike.  

Now, perhaps the athletic female and golden gloves champion could end the confrontation before it got extreme close quarter with a precise strike, but the average 70 year old or early teen? Generally, not so much.  

The lack of expertise, power, training, timing, precision and clarity in the moment once the initial strike didn’t end the fight, but instead escalated it by bringing it closer quarters would make their punch at best; a distraction. Relying on any kind of striking at this point (or grappling submission for that matter) wouldn’t be functional simply because boxing and grappling require regular training and practice to upkeep the functionality of it.

Not to mention, we’re talking about self defense here…. most people who come for self defense training do so because they feel an immediate threat, only a miniscule percentage of the population train self defense out of pure fun and passion or a possible/potential or imagined what if?  

Those that don’t are there for more pressing reasons and need strategies, tactics and tools that they could manifest fucking tonight if it was necessary. The arm bar taught and learned in one day to an average 70 year old woman won’t give her the ability to perform it under stress were she to get attacked the week after she learned it…. A primal scream coupled by a barrage of gross motor rip/tear/gouge/bite/strikes paired with her already driven adrenal state however most definitely can. and has on more than enough occasions to make it scientifically proven (for those deemed as victims, not necessarily just the 70 year old woman case).

And here’s why in a mixed group, the teaching of the strategies/tactics and tools aimed at those who are unfortunately perceived as the weaker/victims of our species, are paramount simply because if an average 70 year old woman could wreak havoc on a much larger and more violent assailant with these tools and tactics, imagine what the seasoned golden gloves champ could do with them?

One set of tools & tactics works for both individuals while the other set of tools (not necessarily tactics here) works for only the strong/athletic/attributed/attitude individuals. In many instances, it’s the ego of the strong and athletic that won’t allow them to acknowledge, perhaps, the tools and strategies aimed at the perceived victims, for in their mind, it places them in that category.  

Whatever the case, it doesn’t change the fact that they work and work well and are even more devastating in their hands as they also possess an athletic and sport oriented delivery system to back it.  

It’s all in the timing of it as well. Is it a 5 to 10 hour workshop? Is the individual in question taking regular and weekly ongoing private or group classes? How pressed are they to learn self defense?  What are their physical limitations if any? Answering these questions allows the instructor to formulate the class(es) to fit their audience.  

But to simply reject a strategy, tool or tactic, no matter what it is, even a spinning back kick for that matter, is ridiculous… prioritizing them as per the student, the level of immediate threat they are facing as well as taking into consideration their natural abilities, previous training and potential limitations (pointless to teach a spinning back kick to someone in a wheelchair for example) as well as the amount of training time they have should be how one constructs their daily curriculums and not on one’s own personal abilities and beliefs of what works and/or not.   That’s up to the individual in question.

What works for you may not work for all but what works for all will definitely work for you, at that point, it becomes matter of preference hopefully based on logic and sense as after all, this is self defense we are talking about, in the end, it’s your life on the line; choose wisely.

In my opinion anyway.  

Blazzing Saddles UK – Mo Teague

As a child I was raised by cowboys and brought up the cowboy way, I don’t mean cowboys as in builders but as in the ones who ride horses, herd cattle and fight injuns (native Americans, first generation peoples).I gotta tell ya it was tough but it made a man of me. Being brought up as a young cowboy taught me a lot that would stand me in good stead through the years and saved my sorry ass on more than one occasion. Cowboys are tough with a work ethic second to none. They work hard and party harder, they live basic but meaningful lives close to nature and to one another forging friendships that endure over lifetimes. It’s also a dangerous life, working with unpredictable animals in harsh conditions and extreme environments, scorching summers and freezing winters not to mention bears and rattle snakes, and all this on bad food , low wages and scarce female company (no mention of Brokeback Mountain please) So whilst not a glamorous lifestyle there are compensations and you just can’t beat a sing song around the old camp fire with a mess of beans, a slug of whiskey under a starry night sky with your fellow cowboys after a long day in the saddle…….is that a wolf howling in the distance….or those pesky injuns ?

Ah the golden age of cowboy movies, you see I wasn’t as you probably already know, brought up by cowboys, at least not directly. Let me explain. My father was sailor and away for long periods of time (years) so as a young boy I was bereft of male guidance and searching for a male role model, searching that is until we acquired our first black and white TV and the Lone Ranger (and Tonto) appeared on our screen, I was hooked and a cowboy from that day onwards. Now I understand it’s a generational thing so when I talk cowboys I don’t mean the anti hero Eastwood type or God forbid Brokeback Moutain, I mean real cowboys , Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, Alan Ladd, Henry Fonda and of course the cowboys cowboy John Wayne. Now I can picture you reading this and thinking WTF where is this going, but bear with me and I will get to the point!

The point is information can be gleaned, interpreted and adopted from almost any source, even cowboy movies if you have an open mind. So what did I learn from cowboy movies you may ask?

Well the first thing I learned and understood was that there were good cowboys and bad cowboys, good cowboys were handsome and wore white hats whilst bad cowboys were ugly and wore black hats, both sets have lived by an unwritten code, one good , one bad , the clash of codes obviously became the movies story line. Now as I grew older I started o understand the good cowboy code and adopt certain values and attitudes such as calling my parents Ma and Pa and eating more baked beans than was good for my intestinal tract not to say the atmospheric conditions within the ol’ homestead

I also started to understand that good manners were central to the cowboy code especially regarding women and children as was kindness to animals and the weak and the vulnerable, and most important that violence was always a last resort after the hero has been pushed too far and with no other choice, hence the big shootout showdown in the final scenes which despite being wounded the good cowboy always wins and kills the bad cowboy or at least runs him out of town.

You see the point of this article thus far is, you gotta have a code, a personal code that articulates your values and guiding principles to life, see if you don’t know what you stand for you will fall for anything. What will you fight for? because someone spilt your beer or looked at you the wrong way? (Bad cowboy code) or will you walk away with your honour and integrity intact because you were true to your code. Any damn fool can get into a fight it takes a man of character to walk away if he can, especially when he knows he can whup the other guy. Only when there is no option other than to fight, well that’s when the metaphorical six guns come out of their holsters. OK I gotta rodeo to git to so take care.

 

                     To be continued……..

 

Matrix Download Syndrome, Part I – Marc MacYoung


“Don’t think that your book learning is the same as my experience.”
 Terry Trahan

Someone recently asked me how to keep calm when someone is in his face (threatening him). My response was:  Start with the fact that your ability to do it is developed BEFORE you need to do it. Without previous work, there is NO way to succeed on the spot. You asking “How do I do it in the heat of the moment” is too late. You’re screwed.

Hold that thought, we’ll come back to it.

This is going to be a series of articles about what you can do to keep yourself from getting killed out in the streets. But I’m not going to talk about techniques, combat mindset or even legal details. That’s because being able to easily access that kind of information is part of the problem. Instead, I’m going to help keep you alive by addressing assumptions, modern thought, how you’ve been conditioned to learn/think, how changes in technology, how “internet intelligence” and easy access to excessive information is negatively impacting our ability to safely navigate dangerous circumstances.

Here’s the booger about that. You won’t even know this problem exists until you’re either laying on the ground bleeding or sitting in the back of a cop car in handcuffs. Even then while you recognize something went horribly wrong, you won’t know what.

Let me start out by pointing out that you cannot learn self-defense in the classroom, training hall, dojo or even at firing range. This is biggest misconception there is and it often shades into an outright lie. A lie we are told and worse yet, a lie we tell to ourselves to bolster our confidence. But it won’t be until a situation turns into bloodbath that this lie will reveal itself.

Simply stated we can’t see these inherent flaws with our approach to self-defense because it’s how we’ve been educated. I’m talking public schools here. University education is years down the line. Here’s a news flash: Learning how to effectively defend yourself is not the same as learning geography. Here are some bullet points about that.

  • Self-defense is not a fixed subject; it’s a reaction. On both mental and physical levels, it’s on-the-spot and high speed problem solving. That requires assessment and judgment abilities be in place before the situation requiring them.
  • Self-defense doesn’t have a fixed way it happens, there are many levels of danger and even more ways things develop. Unfortunately many people train for only one level of response and believe that will cover ever possible scenario. Mostly these training scenarios are imaginary. They train for their fear about how they believe violence happens, rather than how it occurs (or how to recognize its development).
  • Nor is self-defense a set of techniques, a formula, a ‘mindset’ or a just-do-this ‘strategy’ you can learn on the internet; it reaction to changing circumstances and conditions  you find yourself in. Circumstances that are going to be impossible to predict before. Conditions that are completely situational  and impossible to develop universal tactics to handle. Circumstances and conditions that will change depending on what you (and others) do.
  • Nor is it just physical skills (whether punching, kicking, stabbing or shooting), it’s assessment. It’s knowing when to use those physical skills, when not to, when to start and most importantly when to stop. Self-defense is way more than physical. It’s also knowing what is danger and how to asses its development and degree (including that danger exists outside of perception). It’s having an understanding of human behavior and how your actions are going to positively — or negatively — influence the other person. It’s understanding how adrenaline and emotions can distort both our perceptions and thinking — and overcoming that to still make appropriate calls.
  • Most of all, it’s self-control. That is not something one develops in a class room or from reading the internet. You need to understand what self-defense isn’t, because come that dark and lonely night, it’s not what style you know. It’s not the caliber of gun or ammo. It’s not who your teacher was. It’s not whether he was a bad ass, a cop or a soldier. It’s not about your past, your self-esteem or empowerment. It’s not about your fears, emotions or ‘what ifs’. It’s about your ability to function and make good decisions under pressure.

    If you can’t do that, you’re screwed.

Does this mean classroom training is useless for self-defense? No. Not at all. One of the foundations for making good assessments, is having a working knowledge of multiple topics and –stable –data about those subjects. There are many issues related to self-defense that can only be learned from quality classroom time (e.g., what are the legal parameters, limits and consequences of self-defense?) You can’t gain a full understanding from just reading. You need class time where you can ask qualified instructors questions about the subject.

Does this mean reading on your own isn’t important? Au contrarie mon frere. The reading you do on the widest spectrum possible of topics is critical. But do NOT get all your reading materials from one source. For example, martial arts sources are not the last word on self-defense. They certainly suck as a source of legal expertise — starting with what is self-defense.

Read up on boundary setting, psychology, law, anthropology, conflict resolution, negotiation, leadership, social graces and anything else on human behavior you can lay your hands on. The wider the range of your knowledge, the more options you will have and the better you’ll become at managing conflict before it escalates to physical self-defense. Nobody has a monopoly on this subject, reading show you this truth. The wider the scope of your reading, the more you’ll realize how limited certain perspectives are about this subject.  Better than that though, such knowledge helps you in relationships, career and just getting through life.

Does this mean physical skills aren’t important? Oh this is a can of worms question. It’s especially problematic when someone has Matrix Download Syndrome. Hey Neo learned kung fu and karate by downloading, why can’t I? Ummm. How about, because this is real life and real life is more complicated than movie tropes and sound bites?

So why, even without MDS are physical skills when it comes to self-defense a can of worms? Short answer is: They’re critical, just not in the way you think.

Physical skills are a complex chicken or the egg issue. You do need to have physical skills that work. Yet even that is a multifaceted issue. Starting with dividing two fundamental concerns  so we can see how they interrelate. One is: What does it take to ingrain physical skills so you can do them under pressure? Two is: Is what you are being taught actually effective?

Someone can be extremely well trained in a bad system. This is the basis for my detailed -car -without-an-engine analogy. If important parts are missing, no matter how shiny and polished it is, that car isn’t going anywhere. Another way of looking at it, is just because an instructor can make it work, doesn’t mean you can. This especially because how often an instructor can have internalized an element so well he doesn’t think to mention it. It is therefore missing from his instruction. That’s the happy version. The not-so-happy version is the only reason it works for him is because of his strength and speed. Without those, you have a snowball’s chance in hell of pulling it off.

So ask yourself. Are you being trained so you can do something or are you being trained in what the instructor can do? Does the instructor identify the components of movement that must be present in order for the move to work and then drill them until they are ingrained? (Literally, you can’t do the move without these because it feels wrong.) Or does he show you a move, have you do it a few times and then move onto more sexy stuff?  If that’s how you’re being trained, you won’t be able to make those moves work in a situation.

You also need to have physical skills so ingrained that you don’t have to think about doing them. By that I mean not wasting bandwidth to figure out what’s the best move or where you have to step to do it. When either circumstances are right, you recognize something bad is happening or you’ve given yourself the go order, the process is automatic. That’s the result of understanding the move so well that you know when (and how) to do it without conscious thought. This, no matter how stressed or emotional you are.

The third can of worms element of physical skills is what I call faith. This concept is best exemplified with a simple question: Are you willing to bet your life on that move working? Do you have faith in your physical skills to get the job done?

If the answer is no, not only will you freeze, but when you can move, you’ll do it half-heartedly and without commitment. You will not commit to something you do not trust to work. Which increases the odds of it failing.

The final element of good physical skills has nothing to do with the physical. More than that, it flies in the face of the old maxim about “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”  Good physical skills give you the confidence to try other options. Will those other options work? Well you can’t really say until you try them, but having the physical ability to handle it if they don’t gives you the confidence to try. That’s a confidence you won’t have if you don’t have the physical elements ingrained.

Going back to the “Does this mean…” line of questioning.

Does this mean that scenario/adrenal stress training is the cat’s ass? No. It’s critical, for you to be able to apply your information, but like any other single topic approach to the subject it’s a failure waiting to happen.

Many people from traditional martial arts go into scenario-based training and fall apart — the first time. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth comes from this experience. In fact, many people use this as the basis of their claim that traditional martial arts are useless (and why this new, scientific and reality based training is superior). What these nimrods are overlooking is what happens when someone who has many years of training takes scenario training and finally learns how to function under adrenal stress.

There’s an entire mythology that has sprung up around scenario training. A mythology that often overlooks a simple truth. That’s in order for scenario training to work, you have to have ingrained skills beforehand. Skills that you’ve developed and ingrained over long practice.

Mix physical skills with class room knowledge and understanding and you end up with a process that can be understood akin to swimming. You learn how to swim in the current-less and shallowness of a pool. That’s where you master the component parts and refine your techniques. After that, you add another level of complexity to it by trying to swim in the ocean or river. The currents do not change what you already know, you learn to apply them under different and variable conditions. Scenario training can be best understood as “Okay, you know how to swim in a pool. Now it’s time to learn to swim in the ocean.” That’s a next level of issues affecting your swimming. And yet, when you’re playing in the surf, you’re still under the watchful eye of a lifeguard. This oversight is critical because, there’s a plethora of next level mistakes that a person can make.

Scenario training (or at least well run scenarios) can help you debug your reactions so you don’t make these common mistakes at the same time you develop faith in what you know working. But having said that, it’s still training. It’s not self-defense.

The final ‘does this mean…’ I’m going to leave you with is: Does this mean all training is bullshit?

No, but what it does mean that any training (no matter how good) is a simulation of reality. Training is not the same thing as doing. More importantly, training doesn’t mean you can do it. If we stick to the swimming analogy all that training, reading, classroom and scenario training isn’t the same as being swept overboard (an actual self-defense situation). But they will all contribute to you being able to swim to the life preserver (or to the shores of safety).

I liken training to building a bridge across a canyon. Many people believe if they find the ‘right’ system/approach/teacher, then it’s going to be like driving across the bridge. No problem at all, they just cruise right on over to the other side. When they end up falling off the end of an incomplete bridge they wonder what happened? Why didn’t it work? They’ve done everything right! It should have worked!

This is why I tell you you can’t learn self-defense in the classroom. The best training in the world will only partially complete the bridge, you have to make that final jump yourself. You have to reach inside yourself and pull that out of you to make the jump. Without this final component — and it can only be found in the situation — your training will not work.

At the same time, this is why the quality of the training is important. If the bridge is three quarters done, it’s a lot easier for you to complete the last quarter when you find yourself in a situation. But, if through bad training, the bridge is only one quarter done, then odds are strongly against you being able to make that leap. Some can, most fail.

The thing is, it’s entirely too easy for someone to decide that an instructor is offering them everything they need. This is a big part of why people buy into bad training. They have no frame of reference about how violence happens (and this includes someone who had one bad experience and decides to train). Instead they pick a training program based on their Hollywood based or imagination fueled beliefs about what violence is — and train for that.

In the rest of this series we’ll talk about other cognitive biases and misunderstandings that hinder your ability to act in self-defense. And how the belief that your training will do the work for you is a disaster waiting to happen.

Part II

Part III