You’re going to get some homework with this article. But you’ll be a better communicator for it. If nothing else, it will help you articulate why you did what you did when being polite didn’t work. Forbes Magazine ran a web article, ” 21 Ways To Leave A Never-Ending Conversation Without Being Rude.” It’s … [Read more…]
“The body is the armature of the self, the physical self around which the psychological self is constructed.” -Psychologist Nicholas Hobbs Trauma can alter the relationship between the psychological self and the physical self. A violent event can turn the body into a foreign place, with all human interaction becoming somewhat distant and strange. Martial … [Read more…]
Many people believe that personal safety is little more than formalized common sense, and that by following a few sensible rules it is possible to thwart the plans of those who intend to cause us harm. They will gladly accept the top 10 safety tips that some magazine posts, and nod as they read each … [Read more…]
Violence is a visceral thing and people tend to respond to it emotionally. There is always an emotional element to an act of force. Simultaneously, people assume a moral aspect to an act of force. One person is assumed to be the good guy, one assumed to be the bad guy. Combined, these make a … [Read more…]
Read Part I Rabbit Trail I suspect there is an intellectual drift in our thinking as professionals in the world of violence. Whether it is as force professionals, martial art instructors, self-defense instructors, or etc., human nature is to normalize what we learn from experience and training. Once normalized, there is an unconscious judgment that … [Read more…]
An opening disclaimer is important: research, hard science, is difficult to find on this topic. Ethics as they are on human research prevents us from setting up attacks on a randomized sampling pool of unsuspecting, uninformed women. The ethical guidelines on human research are there for a reason. The result? What follows is based on … [Read more…]
What If….? What if you are attacked? What if someone sticks a knife in your back? What if you don’t know how to defend yourself? “What ifs” are terrible. They are projections of situations and scenarios that may never happen. They increase fear and make you anxious and leave you feeling uneasy all the time. … [Read more…]
Talking with Sifu Lam about the importance of skill and strength and skill vs strength and how to prioritize my training and he gave me this. I call it “Lam’s Equation” 10 skills = 1 strength 10 strengths = 1 will I understood the 10 skills = 1 strength piece. You simply need a skill … [Read more…]
The simple answer is ‘See it coming and move.’ The not so simple answer is I just finished writing a 150 page e-book that covers this subject. It will be available next month. It’s called “Writing Violence IV: Defense” and it will be available for a whopping $2.99. I specifically go into some of why … [Read more…]
We’re going to take a weird sojourn through 17th-century French theater, an eyewitness account (names withheld) of an embarrassing demonstration, 10-day weather forecasts, and end (hopefully) with a point about taking drills too seriously. First, a trip to the theater with an excerpt from Moliere’s The Bourgeois Gentleman, the premise of which is that a … [Read more…]