Endstate

Mike Ball said, "I think I should teach self-defense the way I teach maths.  I start with an overview of the syllabus so that the students know where this is going to go..."

Mike's going to write a paper on that, so I won't get into it, but that one sentence pinged.  Hard.  If I were to write down what I wanted a student to become, where this was all supposed to go...

I don't most times because I get hung up on filling holes ("Those are great body mechanics, but the require more space that you can get under assault.") or the big mysteries ("Flipping the switch is the most important thing, can it really, truly be taught?")

So lets bring it down a notch.  Or up.  Where is this all supposed to go?

I want the students to be able to recover from shock, to deal with being outmatched physically.  I want them under anything but the most extreme circumstances to be able to pull a 'Bill the Electrician' and say, "Yeah, I seen this kinda thing before." (Very obscure reference).  To not just know the tools, but to understand them (and you can know an awful lot and understand nothing.)  And to understand the problem.

I want taking care of oneself to be recognized as one of the most natural things in the world and to be approached and understood and done with the minimum of artificial monkey-level bullshit gumming up the works.

It may be challenging.  It may be scary and dangerous and doomed.  But survival isn't difficult or complicated, not until we make it so...and then the complications make it less survivable.

Need to work on it, cleaning it up, defining terms, drawing a clear and specific mental picture... but this is the right question at this time.  Thanks, Mike.