Articulation Wars Part II

Anonymous writes:

First, sorry for the anonymous, just don't have any of the id's that would allow me to leave my name and for what is likely a one off question, can't be bothered taking the time to create one.

Now,

"I pounce on that, talking back in Russian, introducing M, who speaks more than I do. The principal backs up. I close and reach out. He y-strikes me in the throat, starts to run,"

Okay, this may be one of those situations where the written word leaves open too much room for interpretation. Because when I read the above, all I thought was, 'A freaking throat strike as a preemptive when there has been no explicit threat you could prove?! So the guy goes down barely able to breath (won't always happen, just Devils advocate), the medics are called...Hell yeah you will need Art. You will need it coming out of your ass to justify what you just did!'

But, as I said, that was how I interpreted your description of the scenario, and I might be way, way off. Could you elaborate?

This is how I would articulate it from his point of view:

"I'd got held over at work on a really big project and almost missed the train, so it was really late and I was waiting all alone for the very last train. Three guys came down to the platform. They were laughing and talking. It looked like they'd been drinking but I couldn't tell until they got closer, then I could smell it.

They saw me and they started moving closer. That wasn't normal, there was a lot of room on the platform and I didn't know them. I wasn't too worried because of the security cameras. Then they got closer and started asking questions, like what I was doing there. I didn't want to talk, didn't want to engage in a conversation so I held up my hands and told them to leave me alone. Sometimes I say it in a foreign accent, cause it makes the panhandlers leave you alone, right?

But these guys acted all excited. They thought I was Russian and one of the guys said his friend was Polish and they really don't like Russians.

I still had my hands up and they got real close. I thought I might be able to talk my way out or run, but the other two spread out to each side. Then I realized the one in the middle had his face covered by his headwear and he wasn't afraid of the cameras. The guy in the middle who was doing all the talking and had his face hidden reached for me.

I stiff-armed him away and turned to run, but they'd backed me up right to the edge of the platform. I almost ran off right onto the rails. So I turned to run the other way which meant I had to run between them. The guy who said he was Polish got in my way and the one I stiff-armed jumped on my back. I tore away and got one kick in on the ring leader, but he just wrapped it up and took me down like some kind of UFC guy."

Question: Did you strike my client in the throat?

"I may have. It was three on one and I was scared and I had no place to run. I just tried to stiff-arm him away. I didn't mean to hit him in the throat and I don't think I did because he got back in the fight too quickly. He's the one that jumped on my back and took me down."

This is why articulation is critical.

One side says, "We were having a good time and trying to be nice to a stranger." If that is all that is said, it sounds pretty reasonable. Someone has to point out why it was unusual. As the bad guy, I pounced on the Russian-- it was a hook, a verbal mistake that could give me the justification to do what I had already decided to do.

The bad guys aren't going to say, "We spread out to make it hard for him to get to the exits without exposing his back." The good guys need to articulate it, explain why he couldn't safely get to the exits.

Generally, you justify a pre-emptive strike by explaining how using force early meant you would use less force. i can almost always solve problems at the pain-compliance or take-down level if I get a little surprise and move first. If I wait until the bad guy swings, someone is going to get injured. A pre-emptive move that prevents a likely injury or death is something that makes sense.

In this case, rather than minimizing the y-strike as a stiff-arm, you have to justify the deadly force: three guys, closing in, finding or manufacturing personal reasons to dislike you, not taking hints or instructions to back off... could you explain to a jury how that all added up to a likely mass stomping? And how the result of that stomping would have been deadly force in any case. Your death or serious physical injury, probably. By some miracle if you could fight off three, how many of them would be badly injured? Can you argue that one lethal pre-emptive strike prevented more deaths? That's the gold standard.

Part of this class, part of any Force class, has to include this concept:

"You will make these decisions in a fraction of a second on partial information. Some of these decisions will leave widows and orphans. You will make these decisions to fast for conscious thought and then you will be required to explain them as if they were the result of deliberate, conscious, rational judgement.

"You are good people, and if you are good people you will make a moral decision even subconsciously. If you have a will to survive, you will make a survival decision. If you are both, you will make a good decision.

The skill comes in explaining that good decision. Trust your ethics. Trust your will to survive. Trust your intuition. But practice explaining them."

There are exercises for training intuition and for bridging the gap between the conscious and subconscious mind and I really encourage everyone who makes force decisions to practice them.

One more note: I'm sorry if it seems manipulative or if this is more storytelling than reporting facts. You articulate your decision so that someone who wasn't there can understand and judge your decision. There will be an emotional element to someone trying to kill you, and the emotion will affect your decision and by rights it should be part of the story. There are little behavioral and communication clues that trigger your instincts and drive many fast critical decisions. They need to be moved up from subconscious to conscious in the explanation.

Begging The Question

I may have written about this before.

"Begging the question" is a debating fallacy, where you make a statement that has some assumptions in it. The assumptions are easy to miss and if you don't call the person on it the debate (or chain of logic) will go to a nice, logical conclusion...and be entirely based on a false premise. What this means in the world of self-defense is that it is easy to teach things that make sense, but don't work.

In "Meditations on Violence" I mentioned instructors who extolled the 'eyes of the tiger' basically saying that you would do very well in a fight if you could get into the predator mindset. That's a perfect example of begging the question. That mindset works very well... provided you can get there. How?

Practicing in any given mindset is not the skill (and as far as I can tell doesn't even help you) of getting to that mindset, especially under assault. Going full-bore offensive works tactically very often... but getting someone to do it for the first time as a conscious decision is like pulling teeth.

This goes on constantly, especially in a field with so many experts and so little field experience like self-defense. Watch for the word 'just': "If you get attacked from behind, just turn around." Could that little bit of wisdom have come from the mouth of anyone who has been attacked from behind? Even (one I am guilty of) "Just get off line". It is logical. It works. It is easy. There are techniques for it. And yet too many people, people who know better, can't ditch their social programming and wind up fighting eye-to-eye. Just because it is logical and it works, doesn't meant there isn't a deeper question being ignored.

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An online VPPG challenge:

In a seminar setting, you don't know what levels of skills you will be dealing with and often (especially at mine) the floors are concrete. You don't know who knows how to breakfall, who doesn't and who thinks they know how to breakfall. Given that environment, can anybody come up with a safe way to practice takedowns, especially the momentum throws?

Articulation Wars

One of the most under-trained and critical skills in both self-defense and Defensive Tactics is articulation.  Explaining what you did and why.  Self-defense law isn't really that complex.  Most of it is common sense, really, and I've had very few people who had a real objection to the principles of the law.

It's not simple enough, however, to process cognitively when you are under attack.  Take a good class on self defense law.  Read your local statutes (and if you can't find them, current jury instructions).  If this is your job, read your policy and procedure at least twice a year.  Force law and policy is one of those things where knowing isn't good enough, you must understand.

Read to make sure it makes sense to you.  Read to find anywhere that your personal ethics don't jibe with the rules.  And absolutely read to see if you are training outside the rules.  There is always a possibility that anyone who uses force might end up in prison.  To deliberately train TO go to prison is stupid and completely avoidable.  Finding these glitches and working them out lays the groundwork for something else, something important.

Most people, if they have a will to survive and an ethical base, make very good force decisions.  The problem is that it is often easier to make a good decision than to explain a good decision. You will be expected, even required, to explain a subconscious, lightning-fast decision as if it was the product of extensive tactical and moral deliberation.

Most of your decisions will be good.  Most of your articulations will be crap.  Unless you not only learn but practice.

Oakland.

The scenario is a potential build-up to a 'bonding group monkey dance' (BGMD).  The principal (student) is a nice guy, intelligent.  I've seen his good tactical awareness and martial skills all weekend.  The goal of the scenario is to push to see if he recognizes the important decision points, to see whether he runs or fight and to have him explain his decisions to the peer jury.

We come on the scene as three young, slightly drunk men, talking and laughing.  Size him up.  He looks interesting, might be some fun.  We start talking, getting closer.  The principal maintains his distance, keeps his hands in an unobstrusive 'fence' position and tries to take himself out of our social dynamic by saying a few words in what sounds like Russian.

I pounce on that, talking back in Russian, introducing M, who speaks more than I do.  The principal backs up.  I close and reach out.  He y-strikes me in the throat, starts to run, returns, tries to run the other way, engages briefly with one of the others. I turn on him.  He launches a roundhouse kick into my ribs.  I take him down.

The safety calls the safety word and we stop.  We are on the ground, too close to obstructions.  It's a good point to end it anyway.

It is time for the principal to explain his actions tactically and legally-- especially a pre-emptive strike to the throat, something my lawyers are certain to characterize as deadly force.

Other than the running away and running back, which was almost certainly a subconscious response to 'this is training, I can't just leave' no decisions here were necessarily bad.  But the decisions needed to be explained in such a way that a jury, most of whom haven't been in a fight since junior high, can understand why there was no choice.  That sort of explaining is a skill.

Even led through the important points (Intent, Means, Opportunity, Preclusion; factors and circumstances that increased the danger) it was hard for the principal to put it into words.

We talked about it with the whole class:  Remember, WE were the bad guys here.  The three of us.  He was waiting for his train, minding his own business.  WE approached HIM.  WE closed the distance.  We had every intention of "having a little fun."  But turning to the peer jury a rambling, indecisive explanation made the actions look doubtful.  As Lawdog wrote; "A good report can't make a bad shoot into a good shoot, but a shitty report can turn a good shoot into a bad shoot." 

The nail in the coffin, this is what I, as the bad guy, would have told a jury:

"Me and my friends were just out having a good time, you know?  We were in a good mood, looking to catch the last train and we saw this dude just standing there so we thought we'd say 'hi' and the dude started talking in Russian, so I thought, "Cool, I know a little Russian and M is from that part of the world and speaks some so I said 'Hi' like, in Roosky, and the dude started acting really weird like with his hands up and acting all agitated so I put my hands up to try to calm him down and WHAM out of nowhere he chops me in the throat and I started gagging and couldn't breath.  Then he runs and I know he told you he was running away but it looked like he was running right at M and M is a little guy and doesn't see to well so I grabbed the dude from behind to pull him off and he kicked me some kind of karate kick so I think he was a really dangerous martial artist and the kick hurt so I just grabbed on to the leg and we fell down..."

I have extensive practice explaining this stuff, both in the dry, boring report form of a Use of Force Report: "The subject (6'2" 234 pounds) raised his clench fist and said "I'm going to kill you, motherfucker" I noticed that his lips were drawn back showing his teeth and he was sweating.  I stepped in quickly with my left foot and raised my right hand catching the arm he was threatening me with under the armpit and turning his body..."

And also in the emotional vein I have heard from so many bad guys justifying their actions.  By the time the peer jury heard my story (the observable things in the story were true) they were on my side.  Damn.

Doing things right is the first step.  You also need to explain them.  He should have won the articulation war.  He was in the right.  He was the good guy.  It was just a part that I had trained and he (and almost all martial artists) had not.

I'm not going to go into all the details of articulation here.  Don't have the time or the space.  But be aware that the hole exists and start thinking about it now.

February

I've blogged almost nothing this month. Not because it has been one of the times of great balance and contentment, my usual reason for not blogging. This has been busy and there is lots of stuff in my head.

Three seminars so far this month: an introductory one in Granada Hills, California; a two-day in the ice and snow of Rhode Island; and two days in Oakland and Berkley. I'm still recovering from that one, sitting in a cafe in San Francisco's Little Italy with a cannoli and a cappuccino.

Southern California was almost a blur: get in, meet people, play, hike for a day, teach for a day, go home. It was good, and I go to see a few people in person for the second time-- Ed and Toma--and met some happy people and good people and good martial artists and beginners looking to be good and... it was a nice time, made especially nice by Lee and Eli. Eli got called away for the first day, but one evening of talk and I like his heart. He takes care of problem kids and he is the perfect man to do it.

Lee was cool as well, and could take or give the appropriate intensity for any demo or drill. And she said stuff right (if a little understated, I doubt her beginner students can grasp the amount of information that she puts out in a few simple words, e.g. "Keep your hand in front of you.")

Home for a few days and then Rhode Island. Note to self: crossing time zones and a flight that leaves at o-dark-thirty means give yourself time to sleep before the first class. I have this weird feeling I forgot a bunch of stuff. And, BTW, so far RI is the only state where I could find neither statutes nor jury instructions about self-defense on-line.

Norm met me at the airport and had to listen to my sleep-deprived babble (which can get pretty dark) for far too long. He was very patient. Chris Thompson of Ocean State JKD, who set this up, and his collection of dogs put me up, so it was just like being at home. (BTW, Chris, do you have a website for me to link?)

Raffi Derderian kindly lent us his studio for the first day and we got to play with the basics, plus the three long-ass talks, "Context of Self Defense" "Force Law" and "Violence Dynamics". We had some good play and got to know each other a little. And I like Raffi. You throw him a new drill, something he is completely unfamiliar with and not only does he do it right but he manages to look pretty.

Then the fun day at, The Spot Underground. Environmental fighting. Dynamic fighting. Ground brawling. Mass drills. All the things that make fighting so damn fun and complex.

Then scenarios. We had a number of people who had been at previous seminars, especially in Boston and Quincy, MA. For the second time I let people (instructor levels who had been through my scenarios before) sit down and listen to how they are set up. All the safety stuff that goes on behind the scenes. The goals and potential goals. How to become a roleplayer. How to design scenarios. How to direct roleplayers. How to choose a targeted scenario for each student. A tiny taste of how to debrief.

It's not a complete course, nor is it intended to be. My certification in scenario training was extensive and I've figured out a lot of things on my own since then... but giving them a taste of how complex a good scenario is is important. Everyone who has tried a scenario wants to bring it back to their students. Most do it poorly.

The scenarios went well and everyone learned. That's huge with scenarios. When Stabby McShank acts in a way that he couldn't justify to a jury in his wildest dreams, it's not a loss. He finds out something about himself. He has to look at the consequences of reactions and beliefs he (all of us, really) internalized without critical thought. Great day. Especially great because the person who got the roughest scenario was possibly the most nervous, and her victory was explosive.

Debrief (which, in this case was simply hanging out with friends) at a hookah bar with Mike and Tia and Chris and Norm and Kate. Perfect end to a good day.

A few more days at home (but I did wade in the Atlantic Ocean before leaving) and then another early, early flight to SF. Where it turned out there was a Salsa convention going on in my hotel. Those girls party hard. And loudly. Next door. Four of them, I think.

San Francisco is always special. It was the first place that the Plastic Mind exercises felt right to share outside of a small group of students, and those have since caught on. One of the first places I talked about edgewalking and change and where the implications could go outside of some very good friends.

The format of the days was very similar, though every class is different, and for day 2 we once again had the East Bay Rats MC Clubhouse for rolling and brawling. It was a blast, and my ribs are bruised, wrist is tweaked and there will be a new scar on the inside of my mouth. (No one talks about those, I assume everyone gets them. Just curious but isn't everyone's mouth a little network of ridges from getting your mouth slammed into your own teeth?)

The big epiphany in Oakland was for me. It was a combination of playing sword flow drills with Maija and talking with Scott.

I've been struggling with what I am doing and why. Not with the validity or the mechanics, I've been struggling with the labeling and naming.

I suspect there will be more on this later. For some people, at their level, fighting is a physical skill. I give those students tools to improve their efficiency. It's up to them whether they choose to, but the tools are effective.

For some it is an intellectual skill, and these are the ones that need to know all of the context and what combat is really about. They get a huge amount of information.

There are sub-levels between these (this is a model, not a description) and between the next.

ButI'm finding that the people I have met over the last year who resonate with me, the ones I am searching for, the people that I get the most out of teaching are opening up to an emotional/experiential level. Not emotional in the sense of whether you will fight angry or scared or cold. And right here is where the language breaks down. There are a handful of people who are using an entirely different part of their brains to understand violence, and their arts and themselves at a different level. One that is difficult to truly put into words.

I will, of course, keep trying.

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Other stuff I need to write about:

More on this emotional level

Perfect example of limbic system behavior between a tourist and a street kid

ConCom went over pretty big with the audience

Flipping the switch and what that means and people who don't know that part of the world

Looks like I'm back to blogging. Anyone want to play in Seattle next weekend?

The Logic of Violence

Doing another on-line class for Savvy authors. One of the things I am trying to get through is that different people in different places and different times do violence for different reasons, and they do violence in different ways. This leads to a cultural, pervasive and internally consistent "logic of violence."

If you understand another culture or individual's logic, you can avoid violence or even manipulate it. If you don't, you can precipitate violence that would never have occurred in your own culture.

The exercise (which will be laid out in the Drills book, by the way) begins with choosing a neo-lithic base, either as a farming community or hunters.

Marginal societies live closer to hunger than most of us can imagine: a bad hailstorm or a wildfire can change the balance enough that many of the tribe will starve over winter. Most systems of preserving food were unreliable and climate specific, before modern refrigeration and canning (with the exception of distilling).

So, the first question- what does your society value and what can society not tolerate? Skills, from basket weaving to pottery to making arrowheads are critical. Farmers need endurance; hunters speed and strength. How do you encourage this in children, what do you reward?

And not tolerate: when people starve, do you tolerate those who don't work? Those who steal? And how do you punish them? Death? Banishment? Pain? Humiliation? Certainly not incarceration. Who would agree to feed a non-working prisoner when four hard workers starve each winter?

The class comes to consensus on these, and so long as they are reminded of certain things (like there isn't unlimited land or resources, other tribes live on your borders) you can see echoes of what the writers choose in history.

Then the hard decisions come: You are done. Out of resources. Your tribe will not survive this winter unless you violate borders or attack another tribe or subjugate a village.

You decide what you will do so that you do not see your children starve, and then you decide how to do it. Somewhere in the mix of the culture already established (fierce, long traveling hunters, peaceful people drifting through acorn lands, or tough farmers who will not yield, or....) and the need, they will pick a victim.

The decision is cold, what will get the most at the least risk. One of the options of potential territories to invade includes a tribe known for cannibalism. No one ever suggests attacking them.

That mix of who you are and who you choose to attack will drive a very logical analysis of how to attack. This is for food, not for honor. It can trigger revenge and if you lose too many people you will be helpless. The students will strategize and they will strategize well and safely. They are writers and peaceful people, but this logic isn't new to humans, not by millennia.

This, incidentally, is one of the things I hate about most fiction: our society has not been marginal for some time. When we fight it is usually non-lethal, fun and over matters of social status (the Monkey Dance) or pride or honor (dueling). That has it's own logic: a contest of skill and social aplomb, with an audience. Lethality of the process has steadily decreased over time as we have come to value life more. All of that is not only unheard of, but counter-productive when applied to the violence based on the logic of hunger. Authors who don't know the difference (and I'm not even sure my beloved George MacDonald Fraser really got this part) frequently do fight scenes that might not be bad, but are stupid...and for me that is worse.

Then the fun part of logic-- after teaching all of your children that it is a good thing to shoot arrows at a squirrel but a bad thing to shoot arrows at their siblings, the children are going to ask some questions when you bring home some grain and meat and clothing and weapons of another style, all still dripping blood.

You'll have to explain to the children. More, you will have to teach the children to do what you did (just in case, sure, until someone notices how much easier raiding is than farming and how slaves give you leisure time...). You will teach them how to do it and you will teach them to be okay with it...

Part of the logic of violence in any culture is why and when it is allowed...and why and when it is necessary. I hesitate to say that religions start here, with trying to excuse the first major violation of ethics... but I have a gut feeling that at the very least the stupid parts of religion start right here.

And once these excuses are in place, once the rules on when violence is demanded are established, what does it take to change them? We all have come from societies that at one time were hungry and we have things written into our laws morals that date from those times. How many of them have we kept even though we are no longer hungry?

Aaaaah. I Needed That

The first part of the day was just walking, exploring.

Later I went away from the town, up into the desert hills. Took the path that was too steep and narrow for most. Set a goal in elevation gained and exceeded it.

Then I sat. Haze of Los Angeles smog to the Southeast. Chapparral, sage, all around. Small lizards. The occassional hawk flying above and helicopter flying below my little perch.

Sitting in the sun as lizards scurry by (western fence lizards, with blue on the sides of their underbellies) and insect eat salt from my sweat. One hour, two hours, three hours... the two liters of water is nearly gone, the trail down is a half-assed climb over weak sedimentary rock and shale, so you use the scrub for the stability it gives to the soil.

Run part of it, glissading in loose rock, fast but not as fast as when you were a kid. The knee twinges. It's okay. Slow walk back to the people place. It's all good.

Slightly Swamped

The to-do list covers a good-sized white board. Two e-books out (The first two years of the blog collected, see the pretty little covers down the side). Working on the Drills manual, and K is getting the cover ready. The e-version of that should be ready soon.

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Indexing "7" (Official, real title is "Facing Violence") somehow this little step got missed in the process. Also trying to storyboard a video for Facing Violence. Not seeing a way to do it in less than 3 volumes.

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Seminars so far scheduled this year in: Rhode Island, San Francisco; Granada Hills; Seattle (2); Minnesota and Portland with possibles for Toronto, Montreal, Reno, Louisiana, Boston and Denver. Next month will be almost constant travel.

(BTW, if you want more information about these or to set one up in your area, e-mail me rory@easystreet.net)

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Melissa sent me a link to CombatCon:

http://thecombatcon.com/

Doesn't look like they have any people from outside the world of entertainment. Hmmmmm.

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May have finally put a handle on what I hope to teach and a way to teach it. I think Maija will be the guinea pig for this particular experiment... if I can find time to organize the thoughts in sufficient depth.

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Need to get the Conflict Communication Power Points rewritten for a civilian audience. Shouldn't be hard and I should have more than enough time on planes to get it done.

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Definitely time to hit the overdrive button. See you on the other side.

Dark Winter.

Winter of 2010/2011 is shaping up to be something dark.

Last night, at about 1700 Eastern time, Vicki died.  Pancreatic cancer.  A remarkably painful way to go.  She'd had warning and I hear she was at peace with it... still.  Vicki was one of the good people and one of the nice people.  A serious athlete, a serious karateka, I didn't believe her when she said she was a grandmother.

It's weird to think that I only met her in person twice.  Both times on Cape Cod, both times so busy, both of us, with teaching and learning and making friends.  I liked her.  She wasn't afraid to disagree or to learn, and she could disagree and accept, and that's rare.  On some subjects those are the only people you can really talk to.

So that is what I will remember of her: how comfortable everyone felt in her presence.

Tim died in December.  Cancer again.  He was 32, I think, or 33.  He didn't know about the cancer, just dropped dead, an aneurysm or embolism or some damn thing.  At autopsy his body was eaten up with cancer.  For years, probably, he had been shrugging off pain that would have destroyed a lesser man, assuming that all the aches and pains and twinges were just mild training injuries.

I only met Tim twice in person as well.  It seems like more.  The first, though he hardly knew me at all, he showed up at one of my seminars with his bulletman suit.  That was a great day.  Tim was a big part of making it great.

Months later, we got together at an invitational BBQ, and I had an awesome idea, a Dream Team of trainers.  Tim was a big part of that concept.

There was M, a well known person in the field who had been at the edge of all of our worlds and could talk through the differences in perception.

There was C, a former high-end bad guy working his ass off for the sake of his family to stay on the side of the angels.

T, quiet and unassuming, who was THE top bouncer in a rough market.  Rarely have I met someone I respected so much right off.

Me, of course.

And Tim.  Tim was in some ways the odd man out.  He wasn't just someone who had always been a good guy, he'd always been nice as well.  He wasn't a thug on either side of the law.  He was a well-respected martial artist, an excellent teacher and the best actor in a suit I've yet seen (and acting when your face is covered with a helmet is a neat trick.)

But even as odd-man out, he had earned all of our respect.  He went toe-to-toe with the reformed bad guy (and I may have forgotten to mention that C is of respectable size and shows off by bicep-curling vans).  He could play different criminal subtypes with great nuance.  He knew what scenario training was for and he let each participant make themselves better.  He understood the complexity of the subject and the non-prescriptive nature of open-ended training.

He not only earned our respect but in a few short meetings (two, in my case) he impressed us.

And now he's dead.  Vicki is dead.

Don't get your panties in a twist and try to be sympathetic.  Death doesn't have the same weight for me as it seems to for others.  Nothing has happened that won't happen to me in time.  It's not a big deal.

The regrets are simpler: Tim would have taken the RBSD movement to an entirely new level.  Vicki every day showed that grandmas can kick ass.  The world lost something.  That's okay, the world loses something every second.  It's still here.

The personal regrets-  that I'll never see the interactions of the full Dream Team. (I actually feel sorry for whoever we choose to replace Tim, it would feel like an understudy for Marlon Brando).  That I'll never again sit down with Vicki for a beer.  I'll never again put on my suit and brawl with Tim and see if the students break us up or not.  Never feel how hard Vicki can punch in a ground fight.

Good people.

External

One of the most robust (meaning least likely to change over time) personality traits is the "locus of control." This is one of the most fundamental assumptions about the world and it affects so much.

In a nutshell, a person with an internal locus of control believes that he or she controls his or her own life. An external focus of control believes that they are at the whim of forces much greater than themselves.

I can make a good argument for either case: Your genetics, the place, time and circumstances of your birth, and the luck of accidents or even who you meet in the course of your life make for a matrix of overwhelming forces....

Except you will be hard pressed to find a circumstance so bleak that someone hasn't excelled, or a circumstance so privileged where someone hasn't failed.

I find an internal locus of control useful. It's where I am anyway and maybe that's just making a virtue of necessity, but damn. With an internal locus of control you can change things. You have choice. You have, as Kai would say, agency.

Everyone has these, of course. Always do and always will. But people with a strong external locus of control can't seem to see it, and if something is invisible to you, you can't use it.

You can tell an internal locus of control because they tend to take personal responsibility for their failures. The more extreme the ILOC, the more things they feel responsible for (seriously, I should have seen the economic crash coming. All the signs were there but I went haring off to Iraq...) An external locus of control, not so much. "I never had a chance." "They would never let someone like me..." "The ball bounced wrong."

Years ago, I got into a minor debate with a friend. I'm still not sure I'm right, but my gut feeling is that you can't teach an ELOC any form of self-help. You can show them everything they need to do to get control of their own lives and they will agree, and then just look at you with a blank face, waiting for everything on the to-do list to magically happen.

I had a minor epiphany the other day that got me thinking about it. A friend thought I would or should be mad at something that happened. I had to fix it, but it was a pure accident. No malicious action from anyone. Because it was her accident, she thought I would be mad at her.

This is just speculation (though it looks solid, thinking back) but with ELOCs, feeling what they do is the result of other forces, not really distinguishes between chance and their won actions...does it work the other way. Is it not just that they don't feel blamed for failure, but they do feel blamed equally for failure and for chance?

Don't feel I'm explaining this well. What I saw, was someone who didn't feel responsible but expected blame. Do ELOCs feel that there is no connection between not just result and action but reward, punishment and chance? Does the world look arbitrary to them?

Or are they the world? Expecting to be punished if the world does something?

Serial

I just uploaded all of the 2005 Blog entries on Smashwords as an e-book. Over the next couple of months I'll be doing it with all the years at least through 2009.

I won't take them down here, but I added a tiny bit of new content to sweeten the deal.

The link:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/38355

Kami, as usual, did a great cover (and she is available to do covers for those who are interested):

So, would there be interest in my one decent stab at a novel?

Heroes and Warriors

I’ve written my thought about what it means to be a warrior here, and it certainly annoyed some people. I’m going to take another stab at it, because there is something intrinsic that all the people worthy of the name have undergone and damn near zero percent of people claiming the name can even comprehend.

Warriors, soldiers, every last person worthy of the name has voluntarily put themselves in a position where they can be ordered to do something they know or believe will get them killed. And they do it. It’s not simply the risk of death. Any ass-hat that commutes to work can rightly claim that he risks death every day on the road. And there’s no selfish choice in it. You don’t get to pick only leaders you respect or to only obey orders you agree with.

That means a cherry lieutenant can give you an order to watch a street or hold a passage or take point and you will do it, even if it leaves you vulnerable. If the brand new team leader comes up with an entry plan and the plan is shit, you don’t get to say ‘no’ (there may or may not be a time for input). It becomes your responsibility to make the shitty plan work. To not die and not let others get killed, to the extent of your ability. But one person too arrogant to accept any plan except his own endangers everybody.  

If you have never been in that circumstance, not only have you not earned even the basic, apprentice level of the title ‘warrior’ but I doubt that you can really discuss it with any intelligence, understanding or even integrity. That’s my opinion.

Heroes, heroism and heroics came up recently. It was in the context of thinly-veiled tribalism: "My side is heroic, that side is evil."

As I listened, it struck me that the named ‘heroes’ risked being called bad names and missing out on huge commissions... and that’s about it.

My definition of hero is pretty simple- someone who risks his or her own life to help other people. Not risking inconvenience. Not risking hurt feelings. Risk your life. If, barring the occasional crazy and road accidents, people or circumstances don’t try to kill you, the heroism label is off the table.

And there is no heroism in fighting only for yourself. Survivors, whether of assault or cancer, are not heroic. They are alive, and that is worthy of admiration enough… but any biological entity, even a worm, will struggle to survive.

That one hits a personal button with me, because I have known many brave and tough survivors and I do admire them… but they had no choice in the fight. Immense choice in how they fought, but no choice in the fight.

To make an analogy, running into a burning building to save someone would be heroic. Running out of a burning building to avoid dying (like seeking treatment for a horrible disease) is simple common sense. Almost a biological imperative.

There is one more thing about 'hero' and why anyone actively seeking the label is unworthy of it.  My drill sergeant in basic training said, quite accurately, "You want to be a hero, son?  Let me tell you: 'hero' is a four-letter word for someone who gets all of his friends killed and then writes the report so he looks good."

I've known a handful of heroes.  I have yet to meet someone of worth who wanted to be in the position that might make him or her a hero.

For Anonymous

Not all the comments make it to the comment section. I personally only ever delete obvious spam, but occasionally I get an e-mail notice and the comment isn't on the blog, so I assume the author deleted it.

A recent one wanted to share a criticism: that I focus mostly on ambush and he has felt it far more likely, for him, for things to get physical because he chose to intervene in a third-party situation.

First thing- I hope the comment wasn't withdrawn out of fear of my reaction to criticism. Sure, I may go off into a dark room and cry a little, but that won't come out on the blog. No one needs to know.

Second, I've adressed this once that I remember, heavily focused on how complicated a question this really is. You can read that one here.

Third, and this is the meat for this post-- yeah, I'm biased towards ambush survival, largely because that is where I see the biggest holes and the highest stakes and the least choices.

Not many people teach third party intervention. Even the stuff at our academy was weak to non-existent. That is a hole. But it's pretty clear that you aren't teaching it. I could ask any martial artist if they practiced third party defense and they would go over their last couple of classes and say either, "yeah" or, "no, not really."

That's cool. But ask a roomful of martial artists if they ever train against surviving an ambush or a sudden assault and, IME, most will assert positively that they practice it all the time...and almost every element of a sudden assault will be completely unfamiliar.

Few people practice third party interventions...but almost nobody pretends they do. People believe they are practicing assault survival frequently when they are not. I consider that a bigger and more insidious hole.

The stakes are very high in ambush survival. The true ambush is a pretty rare assault, but it is always, or almost always, very serious. For all the marbles.

They can be high in third party interventions, but not always. The fact that you are there to intervene means that the act happened with an audience. The presence of an audience is an indicator of social violence. Social violence rarely results in lethal force. There are exceptions. The status seeking show, certain forms of the group monkey dance (betrayal or an insecure leader/group) can both be hideously brutal forms of social violence...and there is always the possibility that a predator missed you in his witness scan.

Intervening there are a plethora of choices. You don't need to get involved. You don't need to act immediately-- you can get help and attention and marshall resources. You can go in at a number of different levels (the presence of a witness alone may make a predator scurry off.) YOU get to pick your angle of approach and position.

Under an ambush... nope. It's on. Any choices or even information gathering take time and time is damage. the bad guy picked time and position and place and distance, not you. All the lower levels of force are off the table...

So, yeah. I concentrate on the ambush. I can teach the other stuff, and sometimes I enjoy it. You can really use the threat's adrenalized state and make some cool stuff happen.

But, unless you are embarrassing yourself (and you didn't) there's no reason to delete comments. Not on my account, anyway.

Damn Big Hole

SWAT teams were first formed about the time that a lot of people entering law enforcement had combat experience in Vietnam.  They had special training and experience and things were getting pretty violent in some parts of America.  It made sense to exploit the training.  But being a cop is not the same as being a soldier and there was about twenty years or more of adapting the military tools to the civilian environment.

CERTs (Corrections Emergency Response Teams) were relatively new when we started ours and you could see the same process.  Just as SWAT tried to adapt military tactics and technology, we were trying to adapt SWAT tactics and technology.  The environments are vastly different.  We actually sped our evolution up massively by using a few simple tools.  One was to really look at the problem: what were our goals, our environment, our likely,unlikely and possible scenarios?  Under what kind of conditions would we execute our missions?

Lawrence Kane and I are working on a book, an introduction to the force continuum as it applies to self-defense.  More principles-based than technique based.  Non-prescriptive.  The kind of stuff I like.

Deadly force has to cover weapons.  There are unarmed deadly force techniques but, realistically, there are damn few that work when they can be justified.  Long and short of it, in order to justify deadly force you have to be losing and overwhelmed.  So when you boil down the stuff that works to the stuff that might work when you are surprised, off balance, your structure is compromised and you might be concussed, the unarmed list gets considerably smaller.

Lawrence has been to a number of civilian shooting schools that teach self defense with a handgun, judicious deadly force, stuff like that.  I was trained as a tactical shooter for an entry team.  That's a pretty broad range of training, right?

No.  It's the same problem as converting military to SWAT to CERT.  The situations simply are not the same.  Range training, tactical ops, surviving a gunfight are all important pieces, but they are skipping the one piece that civilians most need for self-defense: How to turn it into a gunfight.

Who practices and has techniques for drawing when you are being battered, slammed into walls or lifted and tossed into a van?  Who has practiced shooting someone who is lying on top of you, punching or choking or stabbing without the bad guy recognizing the action?  And without shooting yourself?  Remember penetration, bone fragments, concussion wave and burns from your own muzzle blast...

Is this a damn big hole in current training?  Or is someone teaching this that has managed to stay off my radar?

Do I really have time to design yet another course?

Seeking a Work-Around

Criminals are very good at getting you act in ways that go against your self-interest.  Whether it is the archetypal pimp at the bus station offer help to the innocent girl he intends to turn out or the inmate manipulating new jail staff or the sophisticated serial rapist who wants to get his victim alone but make it seem like each step was her idea.

There are tactics for it, and I usually direct people to Gavin DeBecker's "The Gift of Fear" for a pretty good list.

A lot of the tactics are based on social instincts, that gut-level deep-brain tribalism that is so common and seems so necessary to humans.

But people, not just predators or victims, everybody, uses the same tactics on themselves when their identity is threatened.  We all have things we believe, and some of those things are more important than others.  Some are so deep that they impinge on our identity.  Those will be defended, and they will be defended despite all logic, even by extremely intelligent people.

Because of what I try to do with martial arts and self-defense, I'm getting a little obsessed with trying to find a work-around.  Realistically, it's not important.  Violent crime is at an all time low and for almost everyone it is safe to believe any damn thing that makes you happy.

But...

Two conversations today, talks where intelligent people lied and math (not fake philosophical math but simple "2x4 is less than 2x8, you realize that, right?" ) was dismissed, and historical documents didn't count.  But the most important thing is realizing, whether in criminals or martial artists or debate, that there is an identifier.  When the other side gets labeled.  When the person says "You are a _________" or "You sound just like___________"  Right there the tribal mind is engaged.  You are no longer reasoning with a human but trying to reason with a monkey (Did I just label right there?  Is this my neo-cortex still firing or did my mid-brain just kick in, convincing me that I am the smartest of all the monkeys?).

With patience and by pretending to not notice dominance games or accepting a label as 'other' I have sometimes given people the space and time to let the monkey brain die down and get back to tangible problems.  But rarely, if ever, when the problem was tied directly to their identity.

I can identify when it happens and have a pretty good idea of how and why... but I don't know if there is a simple strategy.  Maybe not.  More to think on.

Self Esteem and Insecurity

Two ideas here that I feel might form a matrix. They might explain a lot. I’ve already mentioned that increasing self-esteem increases violence in violent people. Somewhere in the soup of reasons and justifications that leads to violence, the simple belief “I am more worthy than you” plays a part. It not only makes sense, it’s demonstrable.

In the upcoming book (available for pre-order, BTW) I talk about 'othering'. The more different you can convince yourself an enemy is, the easier it is to hurt or kill. That’s the basis of war propaganda. It is also important to note that in people raised tribally (my tribe are real people, everyone else is not) not only are the levels of violence between tribes sometimes horrific, but there seems to be no PTSD associated with such violence (See “Machete Season”).

Raise the self-esteem and you raise the perceived value and increase the perceived differences between people. Is it any wonder that it makes violent people more violent?

There is another factor, though. In Conflict Communications, one of the things that we noticed is that insecurity, especially in leaders, also correlates with violence. It’s one of those stupid monkey things: a leader is in a leadership position. When he starts losing respect or personal authority, he becomes more aggressive. Maybe he just gets louder. Maybe he beats one of his lieutenants to death at a dinner party (Al Capone, anyone?)

It is almost universal- it is almost like the monkey brain demands it- even though, from the audience point of view, it is a loser. You get a boss screaming and acting out you KNOW he is on the way down. We call this ‘losing it’ for a reason.

Despite the fact that we know acting out decreases our audience's belief in our authority, we still do it. Why? Because the emotional brain doesn’t distinguish between signs of submission. You’re doing a good job and people follow your orders and say, “Yes sir!” and salute, your monkey brain feels secure. You act like an ass and people start scurrying and not meeting your eyes and saying, “Yes sir!”… your monkey brain feels secure.

So here’s the interaction between self-esteem and insecurity if I am reading this right—and why some of the modern philosophies will backfire.

If you raise the self-esteem based on nothing, whether ‘everyone passes’ or ‘everyone’s a winner’ when you take away the possibility of failure to “program for success” you do succeed in raising self esteem. But every last person involved, knows that the self-esteem isn’t based on anything. It is inherently insecure. Insecure but high self-esteem is a recipe for violence.

The policies are well intentioned. And they are cheap. Telling kids they’re awesome is fast and costs nothing. Teaching them to become awesome takes time and effort. And there will be some failures.

Maybe it’s time for a change in language. How about self esteem based on actual accomplishment should be labeled self-respect?

"What is this thing you call..."

Started this post on the way back from Tim's funeral. Time to end it now.

It will be three days on the road in a few hours. Everyone is sleep-deprived, not because of travel but because every time we settle down, we start talking and we don't stop.

Edwin put something into words. He studies systems, among other things, and is very good about making sure we define terms. So what is self-defense?

I like T. Rose's definition: "Self defense is not having your life changed for you." It implies a lot of things, like that there can be emotional and identity damage as well as physical harm. That on many levels we are not defending ourselves from physical damage and thus few people call a seat belt self-defense but everyone recognizes boundary setting as a basic self-defense skill.

But that is totally wrong. Our self changes all the time and has all of our lives.

We are, I hope, constantly learning. But all new knowledge changes you slightly. I type shittier when I'm tired and really don't care much about humans when I'm dehydrated. Puberty changed you far more than a near-death experience will. This thing we call 'self' doesn't have a solid existence. It is, at best, a fluidity.

One of the frustrating things with naive martial artists is that when you boil it down, they want to be able to survive something completely outside of their experience, an incident where all of their preconceptions about human behavior and what they will do if and when will be shattered. They don't only want to survive the ohnomoment, but they expect that they will survive it with all of their illusions intact. All of their beliefs confirmed. That at the end of it, they will be who they always imagined they would be.

Sure. That happens. (Do I need a sarcasm icon?) And the even weirder part is that no matter how many times people say it won't be like that or that the things they fantasize at the best are more like driving a garbage truck than riding a white horse (at the worse they toy with blindness and paralysis and death and colostomy bags and the sure and certain knowledge of failure)... it doesn't matter. Their eyes still get shiny. They still cling to comforting lies.

But it's not just comforting lies about their skills. Who we are is rarely more than a comforting lie. There's a meditation exercise where you think of who you are and then take things away and ask if you are still you. Blind? Crippled? Loss of family or status? How much intelligence loss? Memory? (that's the one for me, I don't think I would be me under extreme dementia, but then I look at all the events of my life that I have already forgotten and wonder...) Your dignity? Happiness? If the gods decided on a bet to torment you so that you never had a happy moment again, it would still be you being miserable. If your pain was taken away?

So where is the 'self' in self-defense?

The ego is just as much of the self as the body, maybe more. Yet like everyone else, I caution against fighting for ego. Probably because it is just an illusion anyway. Maybe. Maybe because all of the changes of life can be managed, can be recovered, if you are alive to do it. You die with your self-image intact, then that self-image fades to nothing as the oxygen leaves your brain. You survive with your self-image shattered and you have the opportunity to build a new one.

Up Until ...

Up until 1985, it was completely legal for an officer to shoot a suspect merely for running away.  Going clear back to English Common Law, running from authority was evidence of wrong doing, and sufficient evidence to justify deadly force.

I didn't live through the sea-change brought about by Tennessee v. Garner.  I started in 1991 and by then it was merely common sense: You don't shoot a fleeing suspect in the back just because he is fleeing.  Not unless you have damn good reason to believe that he will kill someone else if you don't shoot.

(My favorite example, BTW, is the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" where a drunk Jimmy Stewart wrecks his car and then runs from the officer and the officer takes a pot shot.  For some reason no one even blinks when they see that in such a sweet family film.)

"Mississippi Burning" is one of my favorite movies because it works on so many levels.  It is about justice and injustice and changes in national perception and mood.  It is about understanding the culture around you, whether ally or enemy.  It is about getting the job done when the stakes are high enough... (and a side thought here, re-watching it the other night: the tactics that broke the case, in the movie, are the same tactics -though cruder and more vicious- than the worst of the tactics America has been accused of in hunting terrorists.  To some eyes, one application is heroic, the other a despicable abuse of power.  Do you see them as different?  Which one heroic, which despicable?  Or the same, as I do... and if you see them the same are both heroic, both wrong or something else?)

To the main point- it occurred to me that many of the injustices that spawned the civil rights movement were perfectly legal.  In many states force, including deadly force, was legal if an officer met any resistance.  When that is the background, there aren't a lot of rules.

Times have changed.  Officers work under case law and precedent and generally quite detailed policy.  Before 1985, was "Judicious Use of Force" even an academy subject?  Now it is the one thing that never gets cut in annual refresher training, no matter how tight the budget.  It is something officers spend many hours on, and most (I believe) have it down cold.

When there is an officer-involved shooting, the usual suspects come out of the woodwork to decry the incident and scream for more training and demand justice... Hmmm.  The part that gets me is this even happens in things that look like good, even sterling shoots.  It occurred to me today that outside of Law Enforcement, how many activists and civilians have even heard of Tennessee v. Garner?  How many, especially of the big name activists, are just doing a schtick that they perfected in their glory days of the 60s and 70s?

I don't expect them to know the difference between a good shoot and a bad one or to be up on the arcane nuances of force law.  If they are going to make a career out of squeaking about it, sure, I'd prefer if they knew what they were talking about... but that's a lot to ask.

This has been on my mind lately.  I wrote a book a year ago, a Citizen's Guide to Police Use of Force.  It will be perceived and maybe attacked as an apologist for the system, but that's not really the intent.  The intent is that when these debates come up, regular citizens will have an easy-to-read reference that details the standards that police are held to and why, as well as the practicalities of actually applying standards in chaotic situations.

I was reluctant to offer Citizen's Guide.  I really think that the people who need it most are incapable of setting their prejudices aside and so it would be meaningless.  Also, parts of it are pretty personal.  Tiff is the one who added enough weight to the balance to get the book to a publisher.  The publisher wants it.

What I would really like is to have one of the 'usual suspects' write the foreword.  Someone who reflexively agitates against the police whenever something happens.  Someone with an anti-establishment following.  But also someone who can read past preconceptions and see this for what it is: A piece of an ongoing debate.  A side that is almost never represented by anyone who just knows the 'why' and lays it out there.  

Anyone have access to an open-minded demagogue?

Unfocused

Unfocused thoughts right now, about edge-walking and writing.

There are people far more qualified who don't write...and there are much better writers who don't have the experiences to share.

Bob Patterson, (who I haven't met) did a review on "Meditations on Violence" that got him thinking about the four years he worked with inmates- be sure to see the posts that follow the one linked. It all reads familiar. He describes it quite well. But he hated it and I loved it. His strategies and tactics sound very close to the way that I handled things... but for some reason I found the situations energizing. I loved being the good guy. I loved being relatively undamaged and able to walk in a sewer and stay clean.

E postulates that there is a subspecies who don't react to adrenaline and serotonin normally, people who heal faster and have denser bones and muscles than others and looser joints... maybe. I don't think I was born a meat-eater. I think it was an attitude that I learned to survive a very specific situation.

Nature/nurture, again. I usually fall heavily on the side of nurture for that one. Not because it is right or wrong, but because it is useful. Human adaptability is probably our most 'nature' aspect. If you need to do something to prevail or survive, you'll do it given half a chance. And like most organisms, humans are essentially lazy. The problem with 'nature' as a primary source of anything (that skills or personality or talents are inborn) is that our adaptable, lazy nature immediately sees the excuse value in that,

"I can be a jerk, it's just my nature." "I'm not really a slob, it's just my nature." On and on.

But force someone to respond as if everything was a choice and suddenly they make better choices. Not a lot of aggressive jerks at a firing range. Not a lot of slobs in Boot Camp.

As I said, unfocussed thoughts.

The year ends. It's just a number. The days keep coming.

----------------------------------------------------

Four events set up for February:

Granada Hills CA Feb 5th

Two day event in Providence RI Feb 12-13

Tentative San Francisco 2-day plus Conflict Communications Feb 19-20

Invited to be at a SD group teach in Seattle sponsored by John Darby February 26

Considering putting the blog entries in chronological order, cleaning up the grammar and adding a little content (like a few of my actual journal entries for some of the events) and creating an e-book for each year so far.

A Subtle Distinction

It always bothers me when people say, "There are no rules in a street fight."

That's just ignorance. Of course there are rules. At the very minimum, there are laws. If you don't act (and train) with respect to the laws there can be some pretty dire consequences. Unless you like community showers, no privacy and spending time in large crowds of people who are generally either asocial or antisocial.

That's without including the local taboos.

Oh, yeah, there are rules in a street fight.

But there is no such thing as cheating. That's a subtle distinction.

Rules and cheating are social ideas, things designed to keep you at a very specific level of interaction. If you cheat as a child playing games, you won't have any friends. You cheat at a card game and you may lose more than friends, depending on the culture. You might get knifed or you might get voted out of the country club.

Rules keep everything hunky dory in the tribe. The big rules are physics, the big social rules are laws. The rest are just agreements and expectations. Most unwritten, most things we just do, subconsciously, because we have always seen them done. Alternatives don't occur to us. We could just move our little Monopoly doggy to 'Go' every time, regardless of what the dice say. But we don't. That would be cheating. And no one told us that. That is what we, as socialized individuals, bring to the table.

There is no such thing as cheating when you are under attack. You're a good person. You don't cheat. And so you hesitate, not doing things you know would work because you aren't sure if you will violate social taboos. If it's going to violence, guess what? The social taboos have already been pretty much nullified. There are rules in a fight. Please don't go to prison. But there aren't a lot of rules unless you bring them in your own head. If you do, the rules in your head only apply to you.

There is nothing you can do under assault that will make the other kids say, "I don't want to play with you any more! You're a big cheater!"

And you know what? If their idea of play involves a criminal assault, I'm okay with it if they don't want to play with me anymore.

Not Bad

Just signed the contract for "Citizen's Guide to Police Use of Force."  I'm sure the title won't survive, but there it is.  

Wrote another section for the collaboration with Lawrence this morning.  That project should be ready to go in a month.  

Waiting to hear back from a couple of first readers on the drills manual, then that should be e-bookable shortly, with a possible expanded print version afterwards.  Might even give me the incentive to shoot some video.

The Christmas music finally stopped.  I think.  I'm a little afraid to go into town and find out.  I can just listen to the blues at home and sip coffee.

Rain in grey sheets outside.

My right side hardly hurts at all.

Quiet, empty house.

Not a bad day at all.