Video Plans

The first two of these won't be shot until September and I have absolutely no experience with this, so I don't know how long production and distribution will take.  Anyway, David Silver at YMAA has been doing the planning for two videos as kind of a match/augmentation of the books.

My concept right now, for the video of "Meditations on Violence" is simply to look at an attack, specifically an assault.  To look at the motivation and what that requires from the bad guy (if a bad guy is terrified of withdrawals, his actions must result in money, must be physically safe and not get him caught).  How those requirements drive the dynamics of much violence (goals dictate strategy, strategy dictates tactics, tactics dictate technique.  Sound familiar?)

And that, on the victim end, dictates what you must recover from.  MoV, as a video, will be all about recovering from extreme disadvantage.

The "Facing Violence" video will cover the seven necessary areas: legal/ethical; Violence Dynamics; Avoidance, E&E and De-escalation; Operant conditioning for counter assault; Breaking the freeze; Realities of dynamic fighting and; Aftermath.  Lots of it will refer to the book.  A ninety-minute lecture on self-defense law would be boring as hell.

They should be good and YMAA has a reputation for putting out high-quality videos.

There's a third one I want to do, though, and the real reason is that most knife defense instruction makes me sick.  I'm not a knife guy.  I've played in a couple of systems and had five real encounters.  Big deal.  But the most intense of the knife systems didn't resemble the real encounters in any way.

This is what I want to do and, if I had my dream team, who I would like to team up with:

Mauricio in Montreal.  He comes from a knife culture and he is more scarred up from that than anyone I know who has lived.  Plus he's skilled, intelligent and I love him like a brother.

and

Teja from Devi Protective Offense.  NOT because of her extensive training in a knife system, but because she understands how women are victimized.

So instead of some bullshit fantasy about clean defenses aimed at attacks that don't happen, start with how the knives are used and the logic of violence.  

Someone coming at Teja with a knife won't be wanting to kill her, not right away.  The threat will want a compliant victim and will be looking to hurt and dominate if necessary.  Most of the solutions in that scenario happen early, with prevention or action before the victim gets isolated.  If not, the dynamics are close, brutal and the defender is someone who has likely already been emotionally destroyed and is now looking at physical death.

Someone coming at Mo or me will be an old enemy and it will be fast, brutal and from behind.  Solo if they want a reputation, otherwise not.  Head or right arm controlled.  Extremely close range.  There are no high percentage options from that, but there are a few that are better than zero.

Some stuff will be included about the knife as a rage attack (that stupid figure four armlock from old-school JJ actually works beautifully against an enraged person doing the over-hand stab) and possibly armed EDPs.  A section about the weapon as a dominance display.  A last section about not stepping into shit: when not to get involved as a third party, how to tell if you are in an area with a weapons subculture.  Stuff like that.

Partially thinking out loud.  Partially a taste of things to come.