Monthly Article Index – Page 12

Knives, Accepted Wisdom, and Dueling – Terry Trahan

One of the greatest things about the internet and social media is the ability to see commonalities in thought, different peoples opinions, and where certain people and communities are coming from. Conversely, one of the worst things about the internet and social media is the same.

If you spend any amount of time cruising the “knife” pages on social media, you start to see a lot of assumptions, conclusions, and statements that are echoed without a lot of thought. This is not just confined to the knife world, martial arts, politics, and arts and crafts seem to suffer from the same thing, but since I’m a ‘knife guy’, I particularly see it in that area.

One of the assumptions and statements that seems to get repeated ad nauseam is the uselessness, or non-existence, of dueling in real world fights and knife encounters. We have even developed scientific sounding names for it. Symmetrical vs. Asymmetrical Engagement. Symmetrical is when both parties in the conflict are armed, usually equally, say with two butcher knives, but can also mean simply that both parties are armed, period. For example, I have witnessed or participated in fights where it was knife vs. hammer, shop rag vs. knife, chair vs. gun, baseball bat vs. knife, and several others in that vein.

Now, obviously, if our goal is to survive, we would like every fight to be asymmetrical in our favor. But, the great British sage Sir Mick of Jagger said it best, you can’t always get what you want. We have to deal with violence and reality as it is, not what we wish it to be. And this is where training in “useless” dueling can be very beneficial.

First, if you still don’t believe it is necessary, or that dueling really does not happen in real life, let me share a very unpleasant experience I had that shows reality is what it is, and doesn’t care if you believe it or not.

So, there I am sitting around the table in the bar, with the General Manager and two DJ’s, I was the Bouncer. Things had been tense, and getting worse, and this little meeting was called to try to air things out, and see if it could be calmed down. Some details. I never worked in fern bars or meet markets. I usually worked at topless bars, biker bars, or topless bars that were owned and run by bikers (1%ers, not RUBS) such as this bar. Meaning, some times negotiation really was at the pointy end. Violence was always considered a fair bargaining tactic, and it was getting very close to that in these discussions. So, as I said, the four of us were sitting there, and it is going past tense, to threatening. All the sudden, someone made a comment about the other ones Mom’s choice of species for a sexual partner. Not wise for negotiating, but prime Monkey Dance scripting. In response, before thinking could occur, we were all up, chairs knocked over, table shoved aside, and all four of us had our knives out, and taking sides. Sure sounds like a symmetrical, equal arms fight to me, how about you?

And if you’re curious, calmer heads prevailed, and nobody got hurt. Unfortunately, at the time, the calmer head wasn’t mine, wisdom would come much later.

Now, on the other side, it is very unusual in a criminal encounter (stick up, mugging, attempted kidnapping) to be able to draw your weapon in time, and this is where working and fighting to the draw, awareness, and all the rest comes into play.

But the point is, in a real fight, weird shit happens, and we need to, if we’re smart, plan for and train as much as we can, to address the variables that can occur.

Another aspect of training in a dueling capacity. In reality, what you are doing is training timing, perceptual speed, positioning, movement, and avoidance. You are also training to take a symmetrical engagement and flip it to an asymmetrical engagement in your favor. It is all in the way you categorize and conceptualize the training you are doing in your own head. If you don’t see the tools you are developing, you won’t know how or where to use them.

Violence is bigger than all of us, and it comes in a variety of flavors. Address as many aspects as you can in training, so you will be able to improvise in real life if you ever have to be in that situation. Don’t limit yourself to any one persons interpretation of violence. He has a piece of it, and so does she. As well, I have my own piece, as does that other guy. Try to learn from as many of them as possible, while making it your own, and researching the problem to be as realistic as possible.

One of the worst things about this line of thinking, especially considering we are dealing with life and death, and the possible death of you, is to use this kind of arguing and back and forth as a marketing tool. I’m sure you’ve seen it…”We only train in what works, there is no need to go out and train that other non-realistic crap, we have all the answers”… In a word, bullshit, you only have the answers to the questions you know. Nobody knows everything, and nobody can know everything. Don’t believe it. You can train in totally different things, you don’t have to limit yourself to one Poobahs way of doing things. In fact, I would advise against it. There is no place in life and death subject matter for cultish behavior or hero worship of a teacher. By doing that, you short change yourself, and are not learning a full picture.

The thing to watch for is how the training is presented and conducted. Skills must be taught in an isolated manner in order to learn them, but then that isolated skill needs to be integrated into a whole. And then that whole needs to be trained in a free range manner, and then pressure tested. All of these steps are necessary in order to make it fight worthy. If the training you are looking at does not have this progression, that is the problem, not the material.

So, like always, train for the reality you know, seek out others that can teach the reality you don’t know, but don’t accept advertising slogans or biases as the ultimate truth. Be broad based in your search, and be your own final authority.

If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.

Personalizing Broken Windows Theory – Mark Hatmaker

Today let’s have a look at a partially-discredited theory of crime-prevention that was proposed to work on the large-scale [cities, etc.]

We’ll discuss the aspects that did and do, indeed, work.

We’ll briefly ponder the unintended consequences of following “broken windows” to the extreme.

Then we’ll wind this whole thing down discussing how the “broken windows theory” can work in your life, both in self-protection and the mundane aspects with none of the negative unintended consequences, unless you dig randomly stopping and searching yourself, then it’s a win-win.

Let’s start with, what exactly is the “broken windows theory”?

In 1982, social scientists James Wilson and George Kelling start the ball rolling with a paper titled “Broken Windows: Police and Neighborhood Safety.”

In precis, Wilson and Keller postulated that by increasing focus, or policing of small crimes [vandalism, public intoxication, toll-jumping, and the like] there would be a decrease not only in these petty crimes but also in major crimes.

The “broken windows” of their research paper’s title points to the fact that neighborhoods with high incidences of broken windows and other such vandalism are also signals of higher crime areas. This is a no-brainer as this is basic signaling 101.

We are not surprised by such observations, and lest anyone is skeptical that broken windows may or may not signal something I offer the following thought experiment.

You are alone in an unfamiliar city, walking back to your hotel. You are confronted with a choice of routes.

One shows neatly parked cars, freshly painted building fronts, well-maintained landscape, bright tasteful curtains in unbroken windows.

On the other route, we see a car on blocks with broken windows, graffiti on walls, and an over-turned trashcan.

Which route back to the hotel do you choose?

Exactly.

Now, at this point we simply see confirmation of broken windows as a signal to something, but what? Why would we assume the evidence of vandalism is also evidence of crimes a bit beyond.

Wilson and Kelling demonstrated an interesting linkage between petty crime [and I hate using that word, as to the property owner “petty” still means loss of time, money, and peace of mind] and more egregious crimes.

It seems that habitual petty crime committers are following Pareto’s Principle, that is 80% of ALL crimes are being committed by 20% of the “lawbreakers.” In other words, most of the damage in the world is done by some very busy perpetrators. Those with no compunction about randomly damaging property or toll-jumping also showed a higher likelihood of committing other crimes.

Keep in mind the link is not 100% causal, meaning that every kid with a spray paint can caught tagging a building is not necessarily destined to commit a major crime but…it does mean that that petty-crime signaler does show a far far higher likelihood of something more dire or damaging in the future than the kid we see pushing the broom in the supermarket.

Broken Windows Theory found that greater vigilance on the small reaped large-scale rewards.

Now, where this went awry had nothing to do with Wilson or Kelling, it was more a case of overreach or prior restraint. Some police departments moved from cracking down on petty criminals to attempting to stop petty crimes before they occurred—and prevention is always a great idea, but the distasteful tactics of stop and frisk and, in some cases, overzealous profiling took a solidly researched idea and moved it to something akin to the “precrime” storyline of the film “Minority Report” based on the Phillip K. Dick story.

Lest, any of my brothers in blue think I have simplified, and I have, I’m on your side—bad guys should be stopped—thank you. But, also, the constitution is pretty sweet, too.

Let’s take this to an area where we can probably all agree, and extract some personal utility out of the “broken windows” theory.

I’ve been doing this martial arts, self-protection thing for years upon years and I don’t think my estimation is off-base when I say most every self-defense class I’ve witnessed, self-protection tome I’ve slogged through, “How to be Safe & Kick-Ass” article I’ve ever read begins in SHTF territory.

There is indeed a place for SHTF tactics, but jumping to there from the beginning and perhaps, too often, gives far too little weight to all the wee tactics and observations we could be making along the way. Tactics and observations that might render all this SHTF side of things a bit less than useless [if we’re lucky, that is.]

I think we can all agree that locking doors, a worthy alarm system, well-lighted entrances on a home in a “good” area are all more useful than being slack in these areas and spending all your time on working dry fire “Clear the home” drills each weekend.

Locking doors, good lighting, using the wisdom of real estate agents everywhere of “Location, location, location” is essentially exercising “Broken Windows” strategy.

Take care of the small things and the large will often take care of themselves.

Let’s run a brief and admittedly incomplete checklist of personal “Broken Windows” tactics and see how many we adhere to:

Eyes up and off phones, aware of surroundings when in public.
Ear buds out, taking in the sounds of what’s around when out and about.
Scanning each new environment for alternate exits and less than savory types.
Paying attention to gut feelings and leaving locations before your gut has a chance to be right or wrong.
Realizing that never losing your keys, always having your personal items squared away and good to go is just as important, if not more, than that emergency weapon you’ve got tucked away somewhere.

You get the idea, policing ourselves for the small habits will prepare us for greater vigilance if ever needed. Always jumping to SHTF is akin to skipping the purchase of the small kitchen fire extinguisher for a chance grease fire, and rather opting for your own fire truck if the house should ever goes up in a blaze.

Take care of your leaky faucets, your creaky doors, your broken windows before they bring the whole house down.

Political Violence and the Hive Mentality Part III- Garry Smith

I agree with Hoffer on a second point that the individual’s existence is based on their feelings of dissatisfaction with themselves so the surrender their individual will to the freedom of being told what to do, who to love, who to hate, and this hate spreads through the mob when it forms. Once one member of the mob triggers the others then the hive mentality takes over and the desire to sting infects all. But it’s happening here too, we are not that far behind.

As I watch these groups ‘protest’ their behavours continue to amaze me, do these people ever see themselves afterwards? People act but do not think, their emotionally driven violent outbursts are experienced outside of our ‘normal’ frames of reference, my wife Karen Moxon Smith wrote in an article for Conflict Manager magazine “I have seen grown men cry when the CCTV shows them repeatedly kicking someone in the head when they honestly thought they had only acted lawfully”.

When individuals lose control, and I have been there, they will commit acts they would be shocked at any other time, appalled even. I have been in mobs that once a victim goes down then the kicking starts and it goes on long after they are unconscious. Football violence is fuelled by many things, the desire of young men to fight, the consumption of alcohol, the intense tribal emotions and an othered enemy who are going to attack us. I have swarmed, I have attacked and I have hurt people and just because the supported a different team. Not politics or religion or race, football.

So I understand this from a subjective perspective as well as an objective one, I may be wrong, feel free to disagree, I welcome that but I have been there and done that. To non participants the shock of the hive attacking can be as frightening as for those actually attacked, especially when lives are being taken now. Once you upset the hive and the bees come out it is almost impossible to get them back in.

We are, post event, and from the comfort of our armchairs, unable to comprehend this behavour when we see it and one coping mechanism is to other those involved. They are not human, they cannot be, and from there it is one small step to de-humanising them, whoever they are. We, whoever we are, need to stop these people; we can only do so by banding together against them.

Can anyone hear a small buzzing sound or is it just me?

The thing I have not discussed and that really bothers me is that hives are really easily triggered. Social media today allows not just one hive to be triggered but multiple hives in multiple locations. Chaos can erupt real fast now and infection can be global in seconds. The massive threat is hate groups manipulating social media to trigger their own hives and this triggering the hives of opposing hate groups. They feed of one another. They feed of truths as much as they feed off lies and often nobody knows what is truth or lie.

The social infection can go viral incredibly quickly and there are many who, as Haidt shows very clearly, act instantaneously on emotion and then proceed to rationalise the emotion. As they say the first victim when war breaks out is the truth, for me the first victim when emotion breaks out is rationality.

Over here in the UK the electorate defied all the major political parties, all the major institutions, interfering foreign leaders and all the celebrities they wheeled out to tell us our future was better in the European Union, and we won. Brexit should become a reality in the next few years, those who supported Brexit were attacked mercilessly as bigots, little Englanders, ignorant, stupid and racist, and we were the undesirables. The hive mentality was triggered and the stinging went on for weeks led by a fearful political class and the comfortable middle classes, it is still going on now.

I mentioned hate groups from minorities earlier, well the biggest hate group is those who have the most invested in the system, the socio-economically comfortable and the people who do their bidding, they will drop their veneer of rationality and reasonableness when threatened and they will swarm. The hive mentality has a wider reach than we thought.

Does this remind anyone of Nazi Germany or Communist Russia or even the horrors of Pol Pot and the Khymer Rouge with their year zero and killing fields? You see people love a charismatic leader and they in turn only love their true believers.

Remember that in his novel 1984, Orwell described that “the two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought.”

Welcome to our brave new world where freedom of thought and expression are feared and those of us who value that freedom have a fight on our hands. The virtue signalling identity politicos are now fighting one another as allies who have even minor differences are transformed into enemies. Thought crime is now real and punishable by death, white men are terrorists and should be eliminated according to some.

In London a couple of weeks ago there was a political attack on a group of radical feminists at speakers corner, they were not attacked by chauvinistic men but transgender supporters and one very angry and possibly mentally unstable transgender person who had posted his intent to harm someone on social media earlier that day.

Members of Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists had gathered at Speakers’ Corner, Hyde Park, central London ahead of a talk on gender issues. They moved the discussion from another venue in London after threats were made by rivals Trans Activists. But the protesters discovered the 50 TERFs were meeting in Hyde Park and confronted them.

“Members of Action for Trans Health (ATH) have issued a series of incendiary statements on social media since its supporters were involved in an attack on a 60-year-old woman in London’s Hyde Park on September 13.

The victim, Maria MacLachlan, suffered bruising after being punched by an activist widely identified on social media as Tara Flik Wood, 28, a courier who lives in London. MacLachlan was with a group of feminists who were planning to hold a meeting about gender identity.

Unlike MacLachlan and her group, ATH believes that anyone who self-identifies as a woman — without having undergone transition surgery — should be allowed to use women-only spaces such as changing rooms. The ATH extremists refer to MacLachlan and women who hold similar views as “trans-exclusionary radical feminists”, or Terfs.”

So who are these evil TERF’s? We according to Action for Trans Health Terf’s are, yes you guessed it, NAZIS.

“After the attack ATH’s Edinburgh branch sent out a series of tweets defending the use of violence: “punching Terfs is the same as punching Nazis. Fascism must be smashed with the greatest violence to ensure our collective liberation from it”, and “violence against Terfs is always self defense”.

Yes you read it correctly attacking a Terf is always self defence. What disgraceful crime were these Terf’s committing, well they were peacefully standing around at Speakers Corner whilst one of them sang a little song she had written, the ATH activists arrive and begin chanting, “when Terf’s attack we fight back’ on and on until Tara Flik Wood actually attacked a woman taking pictures.

Nobody was attacking anybody, it was a group of women enjoying their democratic right to spot their views, I have been to speakers corner a few times, I have heckled good naturedly, I have heard things I agreed with and things I did not agree with. Somebody saying things you do not like is not an attack, at least not in the physical sense. The hysterical ATH, BLM, Alr-Right activists do not understand this, once the hive mentality is triggered its time to use violence against words.

The Terf’s said things ATH did not like, they deserve to die, let’s build the camps now. Fuck me sideways but once again we have people using Nazi tactics claiming their victims are Nazis because they hold a different opinion.

I am off to colour my hair purple, chop off my manhood and put on my jackboots, there must be a human face somewhere that needs stamping on, forever.

RSA Video of the Week – Changing Education Paradigms – Sir Ken Robinson

An excellent examination of how we process and dull intelligence in children, this is an incredibly interesting argument.

This RSA Animate was adapted from a talk given at the RSA by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA’s Benjamin Franklin award.

Fed Up With the Way Women are Treated? – Randy King

So, on the Randy King North American Tour 2015 summer edition, we had a couple of women’s self-defense seminars that we taught. We teach two versions of our women’s self-defense seminar, number one is a three hour course pretty much making you aware of danger, what to look for, how to avoid it, and then there’s our two day course which has some physical techniques. One of my courses was done on a reserve. The questions that were asked of me at that seminar blew my mind. It made me realize that I don’t understand the plight of women in situations like that. So many answers I thought would work wouldn’t work, so many questions were so specific, about the specific attacker that they had, like “when my attacker does this”, not “what if my attacker is this big”. It made me re-think self-defense for women.

Number one, education is way more important than technique, there’s no way around that. There is no way a three hour course of kicking a man in a bullet suit in the groin that you’re going to become good at defending yourself against anybody. You might be able to run away from a predator, it’s not going to stop an uncle or a cousin from beating on you, it is not going to stop that guy at work. Women need to have more education on what they can and cannot do, and men need more education on treating women not like animals.

We have a link to this as well on our Facebook page if you follow us on Facebook. We put up an article about a girl who was talking about her version of what men do to women, and how her day was every day. It blew my mind, and it was so foreign to me, the concept of what was happening to this woman, that I almost didn’t believe it. So, I put it out to the ladies of KPC, and I asked them, “ladies, is this true, is this lady crazy, what’s going on?” From a lot of women that I trust and respect, I got a lot of answers that made me sick to my stomach.

Guys, what the fuck are you doing out there?

This is not every person out there, there’s a lot of nice guys out there that are doing stuff, but man there’s a lot of you wrecking it for all of us. I don’t understand your ability, your thought process, that you think you own somebody, that you can stop somebody. Or you can get mad at somebody for not wanting to have sex with you.

I saw a really funny meme on the Internet and it said, “Why is the friend zone not a thing? Because women are not fucking vending machines that you put tokens into then receive sex.”

Women’s self-defense is a joke in a lot of places because a) the people teaching don’t understand the problem, and b) what they are teaching is a physical response that works against male-to-male violence, they don’t understand the female social-asocial thing. There’s a movement to say that it’s better to teach boys not to rape – everybody wants a universal reason for why things are happening. People want to blame it on porn or the way men are raised or religion or whatever. Everyone wants the big bad wolf in the woods, that is going to be able get shot once and all our problems will go away. This inequality and un-safety issue with women is across the board, everybody’s fucking this up. Men are fucking it up, government agencies are fucking it up, the women are fucking it up. People are taking unnecessary risks on the order of “this shouldn’t happen to me”.

There has to be a way to fix this. The only person who is in charge of your safety is you. I say this so much we have a meme about it. You cannot wait and think that there’s going to be a knight in shining armor or a person’s going to save you when you are in trouble. When seconds count, police are minutes away.

I know this rant is going longer than normal but this is really pissing me off. Reading this blog, reading the woman’s response, knowing that people I give a shit about and care about are scared out of their minds to go anywhere and it’s an act of bravery to go to the grocery store is not fucking acceptable.

Women, we can’t fix the system right now, it’s on your onus. Get as much education as possible, learn the laws, learn what tools are good, learn the bad people in the neighborhood, do everything you can to keep yourself safe because it looks like nobody else is out there to help you.

Looking for more resources on how to up your game in the reality based training world? well sign up now for the CRGI Digital Dojo.

The Sixth and Seventh Rules – Teja Van Wicklen

Here are episodes 6 and 7 from Teja Van Wicklen as she takes us through her Mommy and Me Self Defense course.

We will be putting 2 downloads a week here so subscribers can collect the set for FREE, it is available on amazon for $13.98.

The Sixth Rule

The Seventh Rule

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Political Violence and the Hive Mentality Part II – Garry Smith

Traditionally the political left accuses the political right of doing this and vice versa, but the centrist parties do it too, in fact all the political class do it and all religions have been doing it far longer.

In his book ‘The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt revives the work of several theorists who were also sacrificed at the stake of political correctness and shows how resulting evidence almost conclusively provides the evidence they lacked which allowed the ‘PC mob to grab their pitchforks and light their torches.

I am not claiming that much for Le Bon but he sure saw something the others did not want to see.  There is another parallel I want to draw with Haidt’s work that also prompted me to go back to Le Bon, Le Bon was here first and Haidt never heard of him, or if he did he never recognised him.  Maybe because Le Bon was lost in some pseudo academic backwater is what I would think, forgotten and unloved. However, I suggest you go get your free copy from Kindle now, read it, read it in the full and tell me that it does not describe how the world is today.

As I reread it I saw all the arguments, and candidates, in the recent presidential election in the USA, the BREXIT vote and our recent snap election in the UK, it frames the rise of Islamic State, I will not prime you too much but this is a really interesting read. There are bits that lack intellectual rigour, it is more polemic than analysis and his biases are obvious, BUT, that is not a reason to ignore it. Go get a copy and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

“Man is not a rational animal, man is a rationalizing animal”, Marc MacYoung.

We know people make decisions with the emotional part of the brain first then rationalise those decisions. In the introduction to his classic book ‘Emotional Intelligence’, Daniel Golemen states.

“Our journey begins in part one with new discoveries about the brain’s emotional architecture that offer an explanation of those most baffling moments in our lives when feeling overwhelms all rationality. Understanding the interplay of brain structures that rule our moments of rage and fear – passion and joy – reveals much about how we learn the emotional habits that can undermine our best intentions, as well as what we can do to subdue our more destructive or self-defeating impulses.”

So back to 2016 and 120 years after Le Bon put forward his theory we saw mobs rampaging in the USA as the presidential election certainly divided good people, we saw racial tensions thrown into this mix too with black and white supremacists making capital from these divisions. We saw the Alt-Right on the streets and Antifa using the iconography and tactics of the fascists, WOW. Hate spewed forth as emotions ran incredibly high. Why are we surprised when the violence comes? Now in 2017 people are attacking statues, not just statues of Confederate soldiers but any old statue that triggers their ‘I am offended’ button. Just like the religious lunatics that are ISIS history can be attacked if it does not fit in with your righteous world view.

When Hitler and Stalin did this it was accompanied by industrial scale imprisonment, torture and murder of millions of people.

When manipulated by charismatic leaders groups of true believers form behind the new movement that promises a better future. Eric Hoffer describes these people and we can see them daily, our sweet Corbynistas and Britain First in the UK, the alt-right and Antifa in the USA.

First they join the group and gain acceptance, then they subscribe then ingest the groupthink 1984 style until their vision is all that matters, not whether it is rational, not whether it is possible, there is no consideration of a down side to the better future vision because it is incomprehensible that there could be one. So with fixed and totally ideologically armed warriors can pursue total control and the driving before them of their enemies and their eventual liquidation.

Their emotions are hijacked and emotional flooding is explained brilliantly by Goleman:

“The technical description of flooding is in terms of heart rate rise from calm levels. At rest, women’s heart rates are about 82 beats per minute, men’s about 72 (the specific heart rate varies according to a person’s body size. Flooding begins at about 10 beats a minute above a person’s resting rate; if the heart rate reaches 100 beats per minute (asit easily can do during moments of rage or tears), then the body is pumping adrenaline and other hormones that keep the distress high for some time. The moment of emotional hijacking is apparent from the heart rate: it can jump 10, 20 or even as many as 30 beats per minute within the space of a single heartbeat.”

Yes it is that quick, this all happens in a single heart beat, less than a second, makes the 2 minute hate in 1984 look quaint doesn’t it? The thing is this massive flood has rapid physiological effects as Goleman explains that when flooding happens:

“Muscles tense; it can seem hard to breathe. There is a swamp of toxic feelings, an unpleasant wash of fear and anger that seems inescapable and, subjectively, takes “forever” to get over. At this point – full hijacking – a person’s emotions are so intense, their perspective so narrow, and their thinking so confused that there is no hope of taking the other’s viewpoint or settling things in a reasonable way.”

Once incited when time for action comes the mob mentality takes over, here the work of Le Bon seems as good an explanation as any other. Actual attacks on communities, even suspected attacks, in the currently overcharged atmosphere cause people to swarm and to sting their real or perceived enemies.

The mob was feared by Le Bon, he was frightened of the mob and its riots, but those riots were underpinned by revolutionary ideas that threatened the existing order. He was frightened by social change and in a time where execution by guillotine was in overdrive who can blame him.

I think we now have a phenomena worse than the mob as there appears to be little rationale behind most of these hate groups other than fear, misconceptions and misunderstandings, be they the KKK, Westborough Baptists, Islamists throwing gays off roofs or Black Lives Matter screaming for the slaughter of white babies, my observation from the much calmer side of the pond, is that they had rhetoric, now they are mostly spewing out hate and some of it is vile.

The Angela Meyer Interview Part V – Erik Kondo

Erik: I think that much of self-defense can be thought of in terms of boundary setting. IMO, boundary setting is comprised of the three elements of Respect, Communication, and Enforcement. Most people think that all physical self-defense is Enforcement.

But I think physical self-defense can be divided into two overlapping categories:

Physical actions that are primarily Communication.
Physical actions that are primarily Enforcement.

Defense actions that are “resistance” based are really Communication. These actions send a message of non-compliance. But Enforcement requires actions that go beyond resistance and actually “force” resolution by injuring and/or disabling the attacker.

I think that many times WSD instructors and students confuse these two different types of physical actions. For example, Resistance/Communication is only effective against lowly motivated attackers who are looking for victims that will not resist. But a highly motivated attacker will not be stopped by Resistance/Communication. This type of person must be dealt with through the use of true Force/Enforcement.

Problems come about when the Defender employs Resistance/Communication when she should be using Force/Enforcement or the Defender uses Force/Enforcement when Resistance/Communication would have been sufficient.

Therefore, effective self-defense requires knowing the difference between Communication and Enforcement and when which type is required.

What are your thoughts on what I said? Can you think of specific examples of what I am referring to?

Angela: I agree completely and really like the language you’ve coined around this. I think so often when we are talking about Women’s Self Defense, we have this idea of being a badass on the streets and being able to “I wish a motherfucker would” stare down an attacker, when the reality is, most attacks will happen from men you know. AKA, highly motivated, or driven by emotional content.

So, how do we teach this in WSD classes/ workshops? Like any type of Self Defense or Martial Arts that is taught, there are layers to the teaching. For the foundational classes or “one off” workshops, in Women’s Self Defense, I think the most important take away is boundary setting through physical intensity and becoming more familiar with limbic brain processes.

For those who continue to train and become more serious, the key word is “stress inoculation”. I do not think this is just physical, although I do think physical is the “gateway.” Physical, mental, emotional training is all connected. For example, I have trained in Muay Thai, Jiu-Jitsu and wrestling for many years. I think I’m highly competent in the physical movements during training. That said, I still struggle with freezing if my brain goes into a limbic state. Consistent training and stress inoculation in a safe and controlled environment has greatly helped me to access the ability to act in these situations instead of freeze, but I do still have a lot of work to do.

Circling back to your question, I think we must start with the psychological realm (also knowing that when we are talking about “Women’s Self Defense” we must take into consideration different cultures, socio economics, age, well/sick, etc., and not lump all women into one category)

How do we live our everyday lives? This needs to be brought to light… day one… through some type of stress inoculation.

Once a woman has entered this realm, then I think introducing weapons into the equation is necessary, since 99 percent of the time, women will not be successful in “beating up” a larger man even if he is “untrained” and she is “trained”. It’s just bullshit to think that can happen. It’s a Hollywood mentality.

I do believe learning to fight and becoming stress inoculated is the first step, because without this, it’s not realistic to add on a weapon. If I don’t understand “push/pull” energy, if I freeze when I’m hit, if I lay down and die, a weapon will certainly not save me.

I think it is extremely important and intellectually honest to make the distinction between lowly and highly motivated attackers. This is why I think it is bullshit to teach “moves” in a WSD workshop or class and insinuate these “moves” will save you. This work is much deeper and complex than earning moves. I’m going to bring it back to working with psychology (especially, limbic response) through physical, emotional and mental stress inoculation.

Erik: I think that honesty and authenticity are two qualities that are missing in much selfdefense instruction.

I have a theory that instinctive movements are influenced greatly by the person’s emotional state. And a certain group of movements are consistent with the emotion of FEAR and another is consistent with the emotion of ANGER. Many of these movements are opposites. For example, the emotion of anger creates movements that bring someone closer to the person that she is afraid of. I call these IN Movements. While the emotion of fear drives the person to want to move away. I call these OUT Movements.

When you consider many physical self-defense techniques, you will notice that many of the technically effective ones require the defender to “attack the attacker” by closing/shutting him down or engaging in close quarter strikes, joint locks or chokes. What this means is that the defender needs to move closer to the person that she fears. These movements are not consistent with the defender’s primary emotion of fear. They are consistent with anger.

In other words, regardless of the theoretical effectiveness of the technique or how well the student can perform the technique when not fearful. She will most likely not be able to perform these techniques when in a fearful state. On the other hand, she is more likely to execute techniques that are consistent with being afraid such as kicking and pushing away in order to create the opportunity to escape.

For example, making a fist and punching is an anger action. Whereas an open-handed push away is more likely to be a fear action. This is not a question of which movement is more effective. It is a question of which movement is more likely to be executed given the projected emotional state of the defender. If the action is intended to be used by a female defender against an attempted stranger attack, it is highly likely that fear will be woman’s primary emotion. Therefore, those techniques that involved the woman pulling IN her attacker to choke/gouge/bite him are unlikely to be carried out, regardless of their underlying effectiveness.

It is for this reason that WSD self-defense instructors are constantly trying to get women to “get mad” when simulating a self-defense scenario. Or they use the analogy of the “protective mother” fighting to save her children. The instructors intuitively recognize that anger is an essential element for success in their fighting methodology. I think these instructors also need to understand is that they need to teach an alternative methodology that is suitable for the fearful defender too. It is not enough to only provide students with an Anger Toolbox. They must also have a Fear Toolbox. And students need to understand how their emotions are likely to override the trained movements that are not consistent with their emotional state.

here are small group of movements that are consistent with both the anger and fear state. I think that the hammer fist striking qualifies because you can use it in anger and also in fear to hit someone away with or without a weapon.

What are your thoughts on IN and OUT Movements?

Angela: I am in complete agreement with this theory and from my experience in teaching Women’s Self Defense, most women who have been through traumatic experiences, express anger and rage when training, because when the actual attack took place, they froze in fear. They use mottos like “never again mother fucker (s)” Anger is a very powerful energy and when used properly can fuel a sense of fearlessness needed to create “IN” movements.

I also think it is important to use anger as a tool for women to find voice and authenticity in the world. A woman who has been told to shut up and look pretty her whole life can find a lot of power through physical modalities that ask her to become bigger, aggressive and not selfconscious. That said, as someone who is a fighter and struggles with anxiety, I know first-hand that when put in a fight or flight situation, where huge adrenaline dumps are a factor, my fear or “OUT” movements are dominant.

In my most recent fight, I was able to override anxiety, by changing my eyes to “mean eyes” and sounding off in a very scary way every time i would strike. These “anger” actions made me feel more powerful, therefore actually physically exhibiting more power. This tactic worked beautifully in round one, but in the second round where her forward pressure didn’t stop and I was met with a situation that I had not planned for, fear became my dominant response, my eyes changed and I had more freeze responses, not able to think or take action. After round two in the corner my coach sat me down and basically slapped me awake with his words, “What the fuck are you doing? You are not scared of her. Change your eyes right now.” With just the coaching and shifting my state through my gaze and energy, I was able to translate the fear back into anger which felt more powerful.

These shifts take time, and self-awareness practice. I think this is vital in teaching women’s self defense. How do we, or can we in a limbic state, choose how you want to show up? What are tools that can get us there? Changing your eyes from deer in headlights to slits? Changing facial expressions and posture?

I think we start here and then move to other physical techniques that address the reality in an attack most women who are untrained or very little trained are going to have the natural response of fear.

Erik: In the example of your ring fight. When you are feeling Angry what images flash into your mind? And when you are feeling Fearful, how do the images change?

What do you “see” happening, if only for a moment?

By images, I mean rapid flashes of the future within the context of the fight. These images are part of your emotional mind communicating with you.

Angela: “In the example of your ring fight. When you are feeling Angry what images flash into your mind?”

Blood. Lion with sharp teeth devouring its prey. Goddess Kali. Predator animal that kills without concern or thought for another’s humanity.

“And when you are feeling Fearful, how do the images change?”

I see myself scared…more as a little girl. Tender. tears. an animal who plays dead for survival purposes.

“What do you “see” happening, if only for a moment?”

First round of last fight. Saw me as the predator. Kill shots. Dominating. Out for blood. Invincible

Second round of last fight: Saw her crazy eyes. Constant pressure forward without technique, but just animalistic aggression. I saw myself getting mentally tired, because I was afraid that physical I could gas out if I was that aggressive.

Third round of last fight: I saw me losing and didn’t want that outcome. I still didn’t go back to the kill switch, but I was not running. I saw me winning because I wanted to.

“By images, I mean rapid flashes of the future within the context of the fight. These images are part of your emotional mind communicating with you.”

When angry: Predator animal. Wild animal. Fangs out. ability to kill without concern for humanity or feelings

When afraid. Myself as a little girl. hiding. running. not trusting in my own capacity to fight.

CRGI would like to express our sincere thanks to Angela for this interview.