Attributes, Grace and Self-Defense

Been out of touch for a couple of days.  And I'll get back to the class.  But there are other things to write about.

Finished the second day of Logic of Violence in Edinburgh.  The students derived about 30% of what I know (as opposed to 80% in Granada Hills).  That is still a six year reduction in what it took me.  Loving this as a teaching method.

One of the first things that everyone derives, so far, is exploiting momentum.  It's not new.  Every realistic combative method teaches it.  But until people get exposed to the dynamics of assault, it's an intellectual knowledge.  Not a feeling.  Not an understanding.  Exposed in the right way it is seen for what it is-- a crucial aspect of self-defense.

Old school stuff required it.  The civilian self-defense that arose over time knew that the essence of self-defense was to be outmatched in size and strength and weapons and whatever else the bad guy had arranged.  The old military systems (when sword and spear were king) realized that the unarmed arts were poor, last-ditch efforts against a superior and armed opponent.  Early sport, like my beloved old-school (pre-weight class) judo relied on the concept as well.

Sport has changed that.  Being stronger, faster and more endurant are keys to winning.  Are they?  Or are these attributes simply the easiest to develop when you are a young male?  Compared to mat sense and timing and awareness-- which all add up to 'grace under fire'-- are they the best skills?  Or merely the easiest to develop in that demographic?

BJJ reversed the trend for a time.  In the early UFCs we saw grace under pressure defeating size and strength.  But the competition mindset and the drive to create something exciting to watch drove a very particular kind of change.  Add to that the fact that competition appeals to a very specific group of people-- young men with something to prove.

I'm not disparaging that.  Young men are driven to know who they truly are.  They want to be tested under pressure.  MMA is the latest stage of a long evolution of finding a relatively safe way to test the limits of identity.  I applaud the people who play and I am a little appalled and very unimpressed by those who watch and talk and don't test.  Because an even bigger demographic than young men who test themselves is the demographic of young men who want to, but are afraid.

Side note-- I asked a young man if he had ever served in the military.  Very primly he said, "I have never had that honor."  Bullshit.  There is absolutely an honor to it but you don't get it handed to you.  You want that honor you get off you lazy, cowardly ass and volunteer.

Anyway, the ones who are driven to certain kinds of training are both the ones least likely to need it (who are you going to pick as a victim, a 200 pound martial athlete or a 120 pound elderly woman?) and the ones who get the most from attribute training.  If I catch you young enough, especially before puberty, I can make you incredibly strong, endurant, flexible, able to withstand pain... all that good stuff.  And, unfortunately, that is more true for males than females.  Biology speaks.

When you don't have those?

Logic of Violence makes it incredibly clear that physical self-defense is all about recovering from a position of disadvantage.  And that, simply, requires better physics (and some things conditioned to reflex).  Mat sense.  Timing.  The stuff that old guys use in class every day to show the young pups that it is not all about size or strength or aggression.

Within that context, young men start to see the value of the old school basics.  So that's my goal, and my advice to you.  Train your body, your physicality, like you are a fit young man.  But train your skills like you are a sneaky old women.  That's the best of both worlds.  And it is the best option when a predator chooses you.

CofV Lesson 2: The First Model

Graphic courtesy KZ Miller, Wyrd Goat Press

What follows is from a draft of the upcoming Conflict Communications Manual:

The idea is simple.  If you are in danger of dying—starving, thirsty, sick or about to be killed and eaten-- that is your highest priority.  Until you have taken care of your immediate survival needs you don’t give a damn, and you don’t waste resources, on anything else.

Once your immediate physical needs are taken care of, you can start thinking about your physical security.  How do you arrange to have food and water tomorrow and next week?  How do you get shelter to protect you from the elements and from predators? 

The next stage is the awkwardly titled “Belongingness” need.  Humans in the wild are poorly adapted to live alone.  Providing all of the physical security needs are easier with a group, with tasks divided among several people.  This is compounded by the fact that human children cannot survive alone.  We are born into a family group of some sort and spend the rest of our lives in groups.  Not only are few humans fit to survive alone, most can’t even truly imagine being alone for any length of time.

Almost as important as being in a group is knowing your place within that group.  Maslow linked this to status in the group, being loved and respected.  That’s nice, but the need is deeper and less logical than that.  Even being low status, a pariah, is less stressful than being unsure of your status.  Most people have felt this uncertainty joining a new job or new team or a new school.  You’re on board, maybe even have a title and official status… but you need to see where you fit with the social groups, the unofficial status hierarchy.  Again, fitting in somewhere is far more important than where you fit in.

Lastly, according to Maslow, if all of these needs are fulfilled an individual can self-actualize.  You can live your dreams.  Follow your heart.  Write poetry or sculpt or do philanthropic charity work.  Or you can live out your serial killer fantasies.

That’s important.  Not everyone shares your dreams.  Not all humans draw joy from the same things.  The pattern (whether of Maslow’s hierarchy or the scripts we address later) are nearly universal.  Their expression, however, can run the entire spectrum of human thought and feeling.  If you give a man everything he needs, he will start looking for what he wants.  What he (or she, men have no monopoly on this) wants may be to dominate or to destroy.  You cannot simultaneously ignore this fact and deal with it.

You cannot simultaneously ignore problems and solve them.

Maslow’s Hierarchy creates a pyramid.  The more vital something is to survival, the closer it is to the base.

As a theory, it has some obvious holes.  It implies that there could be no art without a steady food supply.  There is no mechanism in the theory for either heroism or death poems.  It also implies that these levels are something we work through from the base upwards when, in reality, our ancestors took care of the two lowest levels long ago and we are almost all born into a group.

So, in my opinion, as a theory it’s crap.  As a model, however, Maslow’s pyramid is extremely useful for anyone who deals with conflict.  If someone has multiple problems, they will deal with the lowest level first.  When a tiger is chewing on your leg, you really don’t give a damn about your relationship issues or unresolved maternal relationship problems.

Conflicts stemming from different levels have different patterns.

Survival Level. If you are drowning or under attack with a knife, the skills you need are unrelated to the skills you need for a promotional exam.  The resources that your body and mind can bring to bear are also very different.  They are completely different problems.

Nothing you have learned about sales or mediation will help you hunt, grow or steal food.  Conversely, if you go into mediation as a hunter or thief, it will probably not work out so well.

For most people in the industrialized world, the bottom two levels of the pyramid have never been a concern.  It has been almost a century since Americans had to worry about winter starvations or an epidemic killing thousands of people.  It has been sixty years since Western Europeans have experienced invading armies.

Security Level.  Shelter, food, water.  Also savings accounts, insurance and retirement plans.  There is not a lot of fear at the security level in our society, but there is a lot of anxiety, and that drives some conflict.  You can see Union/Management issues this way, as well as some arguments between spouses.

When big problems, like starving or being eaten alive by bears fade, energy goes into other concerns. 

The Social Levels (Belongingness and Esteem)

For most people, the conflicts they have been exposed to originate exclusively from the social levels of the pyramid.  People trying to work their way into a group (and others trying to prevent this), people bucking for position within the group and people breaking or disrespecting the rules of the group.

Social conflict rarely leads to serious violence.  It would be counterproductive, after all, to destroy a group you wanted to be part of or to create so much hate and fear that you couldn’t enjoy status.  When it does lead to extreme violence, such as a workplace shooting, the shooter is aware that he will not be getting a membership invitation from the group afterwards.

This is the one area where people have extensive experience with conflict, and it is easy to base beliefs on this experience. 

Status struggles at work to “that’s my seat” at the bar, the patterns are predictable.  This is the level where ego gets in the way.  Where it is not enough to solve the problem, but you need to get credit for solving the problem.  Where you need to ‘teach a lesson’ or show who is boss.

Generally, the Self Actualized conflicts should be the easiest to resolve because there are no survival or esteem issues at risk. As long as both people are working from that level.  If you are writing in your free time after you have put in time at work (paycheck covers the survival needs) and are writing for joy, unconcerned about what others think (no esteem issues) there is no rational problem.  And no one working from a similar, self-actualized level will have a problem.

Unfortunately, someone who feels a need to dominate (social levels) will be driven to tell you to quit wasting your time and do something useful.

There is an exception to this.  Some of the most violent people in the world are fully self-actualized.  They are not killing and raping out of need or desperation, nor are they committing violence out of some deep psychological pain.  They kill or rape because they enjoy it.

Kill or rape is an extreme example.  Less extreme, there are people who destroy other people’s careers when they have no need and people who seduce and abandon who do it simply for pleasure.

Conflict or violence can be triggered from any level.  

Classifications of Violence 1: Violence and Conflict

I'll try, but the language won't always be clear.  As a default, I will probably use the word fight when I mean assault or counter-assault, and things like that.  But the blending of violence and conflict is huge.  It is not a division, nor is it a precise scalar.

One example that may be useful is bullying.  If my friend wants to go to fast food and I drive to a nice restaurant instead, is it bullying?  I'm taking charge, disregarding wishes, showing that my desires are more important than his or hers, dominating.  THAT IS ALL IN THERE.  Is it bullying?  Does your assessment change if I pay? If I insist on splitting the check even though I chose? If I say I want things my way?  If I don't say it? Do I need to say a mean thing?  What if I know the only reason my friend wanted fast food was for economy and I'm trying to be nice?  Is paternalistic dominance any different than the other kind?

And, quick experiment but I doubt if one person in ten is honest enough to truly answer the question-- if we reversed the initial premise and I force us to go to fast food, do your political sensibilities around fast food make that choice worse and therefor more bullying than the other way?  Is it not bullying if it is "for their own good?" And isn't that self-righteous bullying the most dangerous of all?

Point is, no two people will have the exact same line on what constitutes what behavior.  And no person will be completely consistent  either.

Conflict is natural and endemic.  It will never, ever go away.  Tropical plants poison and strangle each other for sunlight.  No two people will ever agree on 'best.'  If we want the same concrete things, we will compete for them.  If we want different abstract ideas, we will compete there as well.  It would take an infinite amount of resources to make concrete competition go away and an insect-like hive mind to make the abstract competition go away.

And that creates conflict.  And almost every aspect of human behavior and language, on some level, is about managing conflict.

So where does conflict become violence?  My answer would not be yours.  Marc likes using a dictionary definition just to show that the definition of 'violence' is so broad as to be meaningless.  A violent emotion, a violent storm, a violent outburst, a violent assault.  In practice, I find that people define violence as conflict that scares them or really offends them.

My example-- there are acts of physical force that I don't find violent.  Spin the guy, shove him against the wall and cuff him.  I see no violence in that. I know that other people do. Spin the guy, sweep his legs out from under him and cuff him, I see a glimmer of tiny violence in the takedown, but it's borderline.  Yet I see a huge amount of violence in grooming a child to be a victim personality.  In that entire process there might not be even a harsh word... but I see it as profoundly violent.

Everyone will see and feel that line in a different place.  Don't sweat it.

For our purposes, this is why we need to think about this:  In what follows we will be talking about the motivations and patterns of beatings, assaults, muggings, rape and murder.  But the exact same patterns will show up in other kinds of conflict that never rise to the physical level.  A violent group will punish a member who betrays with an orgy of violence, with all of the loyal members participating.  It is the exact same pattern as a group of high school girls starting a gossip/character assassination campaign because one of them started dating the clique leader's ex.

Don't think of violence as exotic.  It is just more magnified.  The patterns of conflict change very little even with extremes of expression, you just have to look at the pattern.

So, you DO have experience.  Just at a different magnification.  Take any examples or categories I give and look for the corollaries in your life.

And, second, as a favor-- just because something follows the pattern, please don't try to pretend that they are equivalent.  Being bullied is not the same as being murdered, words do not cut like knives.  This is something that people cling to in order to make their personal lives and experience seem more special.  That's a trap.  Whenever possible, personally, I take a step back and realize how very simple and comparatively easy my life has been.

Classifications of Violence and Conflict Part 0

Soon we begin the on-line free class (although there is a donation button).  No idea how often I will post these or how long each will take to write.  It will probably be collected into a stand alone e-book when it is done, along with expansions inspired by any questions.

So, this is lesson zero. Which means an introduction.

The class is going to cover different types of violence.  The underlying drives of the different types, the patterns and some hints on avoidance, prevention and de-escalation.  At the end of the class you should be able to tell them apart.  It should also point out some common blindspots.

Most of the material isn't new, but it is spread out.  I'll be drawing from sections of "Facing Violence" "Violence:  AWriter's Guide" a series of articles I did for Concealed Carry magazine, and the Conflict Communications material.  And if it comes together...

It won't be comprehensive.  For two reasons.  First, the subject is vast and my brain and experience are both limited.  Second, this is the blog, not how I make a living, so it will not be my first writing priority*. Going into advice, specific strategies... that would make my poor little typing fingers (I only have two, my left index and right middle finger) very tired.  I'll try to answer relevant questions unless it starts to take up too much time.

And there might be homework.  Haven't decided yet.

*Current writing project (won't be long enough for a real book, so expect an e-book) is about how to teach cops.
-----------------------------------------------------
Added material.  Occurred to me that I might lose the bar napkin the lesson plan is written on, so just so I don't forget (and, of course, subject to change) the basic lesson plan:

Lesson 1: Conflict vs. Violence
2: The first underlying model
2.1: The second underlying model
3: Survival Violence
4: Social Violence Overview
5: MD
6: GMD
7: EBD
8: SSS
9: Asocial Overview
10: Resource Predators
11: Process Predators
12: ID of Danger
12.1 Adrenaline signs, skilled and unskilled
12.2 Distinguishing social and asocial
12.3 Special cases- Cyclic violence and both date rape dynamics
13 Comfort Levels (may go earlier in the lesson plan)

Sheffield Snow

Sheffield seminar done.  Two good days with a roomful of good men.  We covered the A&T (Ambushes and Thugs, the Introduction to Violence) material.

It was frustrating for me.  Knee brace, cane and strict orders not to play.  I love rolling with good people.  Getting into the toilet stalls and practicing environmental fighting.  Doing the mass brawl in the concrete fire escape stairwell.  So I played a little. Don't tell my doctor.  And had a great time.  But there are a few things, like fighting, martial sports, football and naked dancing that were never meant to be spectator sports.  The fun is in playing, not watching.

Still, for career reasons it's good to know that I can teach even when I'm crippled up.  That the message still get through.  Some good feedback.

Some repeats from last year including one who'd been at Edinburgh.

And, as always, the talk and camaraderie at the pub.  And anyone who says English food is terrible really needs to try gammon.  And bacon tomato sandwiches. And hunter's pie.  And their pub snack pork rinds are way more like New Orleans cracklin's than grocery store chicharrones.  I'll have to try to bring some back if DHS will let a packaged meat product through.

Rambling.  Karen and Garry are wonderful hosts and good people.  Watching them banter really makes me miss K.  Got to see John again and Mick and Mike and Mike, all of whom left an impression last year.

The eight hour time difference is exactly wrong for calling home.  K is leaving for work as the seminar winds up; I'll be asleep when she gets home.  Slight possibility she will still be awake if I get up early enough in the morning.  The twelve hour difference in Iraq actually made calling much easier.

A&T-- covered One-step, seeing and efficient movement; Context of self-defense (the '7' talk); blindfolded infighting; SD Law (shortened version, I'm not in the US); power generation, power stealing and power conservation; Violence Dynamics; Counter-assault; Ground movement; ethics and application of pain; striking from the ground; dynamic fighting; using walls and geometry; environmental fighting; groups; fighting to the goal.  Plus a debrief each day.  And the end of class ritual.

Lots of thinking.  Looked like some lightbulbs went off.

Next up: Edinburgh.  Unless someone wants to do something during the weekdays.

Freudian Slip

Driving my kids around last week I saw a sign for "Little Nippers Daycare."
I absolutely read it as "Little Snipers."

Wouldn't that be fun?
"Tommy, I saw you move.  It's only been an hour."
"Sarah, I can hear you breathing.  You aren't quiet enough."
"No, Billy, you can't go to the restroom.  That's what your empty canteen is for."

Easiest, quietest job with kids ever.  The gift shop would have little ghillie suits for toddlers.  Of course, you could never take them on a walk in the park.

When my kids were little we would sometimes play a game I learned from my parents-- Hide and Don't Seek.  I'd send them to hide and remind them to be extra still and extra quiet and that I would not only find them but stalk them silently.  Then I would get done whatever job I needed the peace and quiet for. After that I would go look.  "You guys did so good!  It took me almost an hour to find you!"

I was not a good father.

Three Things

Some of you are working on your list of Principles.  Cool.  Refer back to that link to see where I'm going next.

I'm sure there are more, but for my purposes, there are three distinct modes of teaching and learning:

• Conditioning
• Training
• Play

To make this useful, we have to define them.
For our purposes, 'Training' is verbal teaching, explanation, patterns and repetitions.  Almost anything that you learn as a step-by-step process.  Practicing basics is training.  Going over the mechanics of a particular submission is training.  Kata is training.  Shadowboxing a specific pattern is training.  Whiteboard lecture on SD law or violence dynamics is training.

Conditioning is pairing a stimulus with a response.  Through immediate reward (punishment also works but can have some side effects) it can bring action up to nearly reflex speed.  It has limitations-- it's very difficult if not impossible to condition a complex response. The stimulus must be realistic, etc.  But conditioning is what you need in very fast situations.  And (proper) conditioning does come out under stress.  Responses that have only been trained seem to require experience before they can be accessed under stress (the 3-5 encounters that Ken Murray mentioned in "Training at the Speed of Life").

Play is getting into a chaotic environment with the fewest possible restrictions and getting a feel for what works.  Randori, sparring, live training and competition.  But there are also a lot of games in different things.  And nothing beats reality.  No one has become a good driver just through classroom lessons or simulators.  You can memorize all the vocabulary and grammar rules but until you can bargain and argue and flirt, you don't really know a language.

Conditioning is limited, but it has a critical aspect that is invaluable.  It is not only effective under stress but it is fast when done properly.  How many reps does it take to learn to throw the perfect reverse punch?  That's training.  How many reps did it take for you to learn not to touch a hot stove? That's conditioning.  It is powerful.  And conditioning is always on.  Your hindbrain is constantly learning lessons, getting a feel for what works and what hurts.  It is incredibly common for an instructor to teach something different than he is conditioning.  You teach pulling punches, you will yell at the student who makes contact.  Punching is taught but missing is conditioned.  The student will miss under stress.

Playing is critical because not just improvising but improvising subconsciously (the conscious mind is too slow) is possibly the most critical skill when things go bad.  Playing is how your skills become 'nothing special.'  Just a normal way to move.  Playing moves what you have trained from your too-slow neocortex to a deeper part of your brain.

Training is the aspect I find myself questioning.  Some stuff is complex and almost everything interconnects.  Your higher brain is the only part that can grasp that, so training is critical.  But almost by definition, training wires skills to the part of the brain that is least effective in a crisis.  Critical.  Especially critical for talking about, challenging and improving your stuff.  You can't share information easily or clearly by the other two methods-- so without training everyone is in the trap of their personal experience and personal lives.  I believe it was Kano who said, "We must learn from the mistakes of others because we will never live long enough to make all the mistakes ourselves."

So is training necessary?  How necessary?  How much?  When and how is it counterproductive?  Does rote repetition actually make you worse under stress?  I know it does if the environment is too different. I know it can get you killed if you don't recognize when you are staying on a script and the world is changing.  So is training good?  Sub-optimal? Bad? A necessary evil?  How necessary?  And do most people spend most of their time with that aspect because they believe it works?  Or because the other two are too simple to satisfy our monkey minds?  Or because we all know, on some level, that training is easier, more controllable and often safer than conditioning or play?  And humans love control, safety and ease.

Real quick, the next step in our program, as the students identified the principle became:
Is there an aspect of the principle that can or must be conditioned?  How?
What needs to be trained to understand and apply this principle?
Can we come up with a game that relies on the principle so that it becomes natural, easy and fun?

Note- Play includes conditioning.  Instant feedback to what works and what doesn't; immediate reward and punishment.  And play also provides 'teachable moments' where you can, with a few words, evoke a principle and increase efficiency.

Positive and Negative

Several long talks with LLR last week.  In between conversations about martial arts and teaching, politics, ethics and history and layered interpretation of spiritual writing LLR brought up two schools of thought (literally, formal schools) of interpretation in a certain well-known holy book.  One, as she described it, focused on fulfilling the positive intent of the work.  The ritual existed for some good.  Do the good.  The other school focused on following the procedures strictly.  Don't do anything wrong.

Lightbulb moment.  One of those tiny epiphanies.  Not a real mind blower, but a lot of subtle implications:

When you are training (anything, not just martial arts or SD).  Do you try to do it well?  Or do you try to not make mistakes.

On one level, they seem to get to a similar goal.  If you never make mistakes, what you do, by definition, must be perfect.  So you are doing it well.  That's pretty logical.

But it's not.  Too often, flawless is lifeless.  Trying to create a positive impression feels different and looks different than trying to avoid a negative impression.  Good things happen when you try actively to do well.

But mistakes, especially in this field, can be dangerous or deadly.  Costly.  And so it makes sense to put effort into avoiding mistakes.

Either side can be toxic.  Enthusiasm is one step away from false confidence, and that is a stupid way to die with a penchant for horrible last words, like, "Here, hold my beer.  This is gonna be fun."  But fear of failure leads to a paralysis, sometimes from overthinking.  Sometimes from learned helplessness.

I'm of course thinking of martial arts.  The perfectionists overtly try to avoid mistakes, seeking a visible perfection.  'Form.'  And these often divorce form from use.  So things can look perfect and not work.  And I wonder sometimes if the tendency of the perfectionists to avoid rough and tumble testing is just an extension of the fear of making mistakes.  You don't have to count the mistakes you don't know about, right?  And there is a potentially toxic teaching style with this.  If you point out every flaw, if nothing can ever be good or good enough, the student conditions at a very deep level that the safest strategy is to do nothing.  Be passive.  Never take risks.  This is 'learned helplessness' and it is an important aspect of training someone to be a victim.

The other way may have no standards at all.  Do your own thing.  And to an extent, I support that. LLR and I are different sizes, genders and have different training backgrounds and life experiences.  It would be stupid to assume that we would fight the same.  But 'do your own thing' without a goal and a test for effectiveness is self-absorbed, pointless masturbation.  And people have a tendency to get self-righteous about this kind of thing. Especially when it is untested.

(This is an aside, since I'm thinking about the questions not the answers... but here's my answer.  Do your own thing BUT constantly get better, by working the physics and studying the problem and the context and use an outside source to test if the improvements are really happening.)

Even at the best, though, the positive/active side of this tends to be sloppy.  They can almost always use a tweak in their body mechanics.

Are these personality types?  Inherent to certain systems?  I know learned helplessness can be created through poor teaching; as can ridiculous overestimation of abilities.

Trying to do it right versus trying to avoid doing it wrong.  Huge difference.

That Went Swimmingly

The new seminar format went really, really well. Some old acquaintances, and some new that felt like we'd known each other for a long time.  A roomful of brilliant thinkers, varied experience and everyone was cool with not being spoonfed.

The big test was whether, given some background information and after reasoning out aspects of the problem the class would recreate a list of Principles and Concepts that would match mine.  Thirty years of martial arts and twenty of (mostly, usually, on my end) unarmed encounters with violent criminals, I have my list.  There are more-or-less precisely:

Eleven principles that make all techniques either work or fail

Sixteen thought processes or concepts that experienced people have that are unfamiliar to many civilians

About twenty classes of physical skills that fighters need

That's my list.  That doesn't make it exhaustive and it sure doesn't make it right.  But it is mine and it does make a good framework and it is transmissible, so that's all good.  And I'm not going to share them here.  Nope, not hiding information to be a dick.  The handful of you that really care and really get this are already making personal lists in your head.  I don't want my list polluting yours.  Happy to share when you are done, but people have this weird tendency to quit thinking for themselves as soon as they see a list of answers.

So, it took a little steering (but not much) and of the eleven principles, the students identified eight.  Two of the others are kind of esoteric (so broad that they are almost metaphors) and the third was so obvious it was probably just assumed.  So I'm happy with the ratio.

Nine of sixteen concepts. Two of the ones missed are actually really specific to law enforcement.  And one, I realized in the after-action this morning was right there, a perfect teaching moment, but I missed it too.

In two days we touched on some of the building blocks (classes of skills), but only as a way to show how skills could be taught separate from technique and improvised immediately or as they came up in the specific solutions.

In two days, this group of people got a huge chunk of what took 20+ years of trial and error to learn.
THAT is what teaching is all about.
Very, very good weekend.

Fellow Explorers

This will be a challenge. Not the material.  That is pretty intuitive once you get the underpinnings down.  The method will be a challenge.  Over the next two days I want this course to be almost entirely student-driven.  The Logic of Violence piece has been that way from the beginning.  That's material the students need to own, not just know...

Brainstorming here.

Intro-- Violence Dynamics.  Make sure all of the students are using the same vocabulary and understand the drives and purposes of different types of violence.

Part 2-- Logic of Violence.  The students, as a group, will solve the problems that a successful criminal needs to solve.  This will give them a strategic view of what the actual problems of SD are.   This will be the first time where I hope that they will break up (or at least see) that SD can be, maybe must be implemented at five (?) different stages: 1) Not being the person who can solve the bad guys problems or 2) Not getting on the victim list or 3) Avoiding/resisting the psychological dominance techniques 4) Surviving or countering the ambush 5) surviving the fight if you are lucky enough to turn it into a fight.

All the big survival gains are in the first steps.  Most SD and MA spend time on the last step, which is the one least likely to work but easiest to teach.

Part 3-- As they come up to answers to the problems they themselves have set, it's going to require some deep thinking and that should lead into the physics, the principles that make things work.

And this is where it gets three dimensional, because the easiest way to teach is NOT the best way to get applicable skills into a student.  So that will take a digression into conditioning versus training versus play (or randori).  All three get things into a student in different ways, but conditioning is the one you need for surprise and only in play can you learn to adapt, improvise OR make your skills simply part of the way you move.

If this student pool is as brilliant as I think they are, they'll not just learn this stuff over the weekend, they'll discover it.

The goal: No students, no teachers.  Just fellow explorers.

Knee Brace

The Doc doesn't care for my life style.  Why didn't I make an appointment right after the injury?  Because I was out of the country.  Shouldn't be walking (or able to). Sorry, got stuff to do.  We need to schedule a surgery.... Booked through October.  How's October?

Have to rethink things.  The knee is unstable.  Reflexive, casual, regular walking it has collapsed in three different directions.  So I have to pay attention all the time.  The walking my dad taught me for stalking deer seems to protect it best, but it is slow.  The chaos of play (much less fighting) is risky.  I'm actually sitting on the edge of a career-ending injury.  Yeah, definitely have to rethink.

Be an adult.  Demonstrate less.  Play less (and my stomach knots up at that thought.)  I never really wanted to teach.  I don't get an ego-boo out of people calling me 'sensei' it actually makes me feel awkward and shy.  I'm Rory.  Standing in front of a class changes nothing.  Still just Rory. Sometimes the responsibility of teaching feels like a weight. Especially when the students invest too much in the (IMO completely wrong-headed) student/teacher relationship. My first formal class was simply because I had run out of people locally who could play the game the way I wanted to.  I knew if I wanted partners that could hang, I'd have to create them.  I only ever taught because I wanted to play better.

Be an adult.  Limit risks.  Limit chaos.  Try to teach chaos while avoiding it.  Which is okay, because avoiding is the best strategy for chaos. But reveling in it is the second best.  Focus the classes on the lectures and data dump.  And that's okay, too.  I know it's the important part.  Most people who train have fine physical skills.  The physical stuff is easy.  Will is hard.  Foresight takes some practice...

So the next few months a big bulky brace and a shiny new cane.  Hmmmmm.  Never really got into training with a cane.  Opportunity.

WNL

"Within Normal Limits" was a distinction from medic class a long time ago.  There's no healthy or sick, no right or wrong, no crazy or sane, just stuff that is or isn't within normal limits.  WNL. Joints are a little tight or a little loose, that's WNL.  You can function in society, your psychology is WNL.

More or less.  I've written about this before and been thinking about it much.  Normal limits shift.  They shift with time and society and subculture and circumstances.  My normal limits (and expectation) for appropriate alertness, speech and ability to engage were very different in the jail than at home.  WNL behavior is context dependent.

Obviously.  And one of the things I've written about before, in different words is that most attempts to 'fix' bad guys are not attempts to make them better, but attempts to make them more like the people that judge them.  In other words, to drag them within the boundaries of our normal limits.

Last Tuesday, I got the chance to talk to a small group of people at Walter Reed Medical Center in DC.  Some were clinicians, some patients.  It was good, especially for me.  There are people who have been through certain things and that lets us cut out the bullshit and talk about things instead of around things. Sometimes on the blog I feel like I am ranging fire, trying to find the concept that most people can get as an analogy to some of the things I try to say.  But at best, it can only be an analogy.

One of the symptoms of PTSD is "hypervigilance" the adrenaline-fueled jumpiness that has you living on orange alert.  Is it bad?  Looked at in the context of where it developed it is an important survival trait.  In an environment where people are hunting you, where vest bombers and assassins and snipers will do everything possible to hide their intention, hypervigilance is far more valuable than the complacent zombies you see all over Costco.  Not only are the zombies unaware and helpless, they also aren't really living.  They don't see the snipers but they don't see the sky, either.  They live small and pathetic bubble lives.

People in certain professions have done things and adapted to doing things that others cannot imagine.  In any other endeavor, we would recognize this for what it is-- superiority.  All other things being equal (not that that ever happens) the person who holds the gold record in the 100m dash is superior to the one who doesn't.  The person who speaks three languages is superior to the one who speaks only one.  All other things being equal, being better at math is simply better.

Take a minute and let your little insecurities come out in whimpery growls.  Explain all the reasons why everyone is equal OR why someone who is better than you at everything doesn't mean, on some imaginary spiritual level that you are inferior.  Whatever you need to say so you can sleep at night.

When it comes to violence, though, there is an extra level of weirdness. Our civilization has progressed to the point that some can believe that violence is an aberration.  They can deny that they remain safe only because other people (who can do something they cannot do for themselves) stand ready to oppose those who would use violence.  And so, most are driven to believe that those who can do violence MUST be broken in some way.

The broken/fixed paradigm may get in the way.  Appropriate levels of response vary by situation (and that was one of the Major's goals with this talk was a conscious recalibration of threat assessment.)  I have a hard time saying there is something wrong with mindset X if it gives you an edge surviving situation Y.  The skill of reading the situation and opting between mindsets might be the way to go.

Enough.  I'm rambling.  Just be aware that if you have a superpower, those without will be driven to describe it as a problem.  The question may not be whether something is wrong but where that something fits.

Teaching Adults

Adam e-mailed with a suggestion on what to teach, which sent my brain into a completely different tangent.  I'll try to avoid the Myers-Briggs references too much.

The suggestion was good and it's definitely on the table, but what intrigued me is that Adam and I are both fairly rare MB types.  He felt that my communication style was very helpful.  The money quote:

"For example, it is more effective to tell me what striking is and what it is useful for and then show me how to punch; it is much less effective to start by showing me how to make a proper fist."

I don't think this is an INTJ/P thing.  This is an adult thing.

Some of the tenets of adult education versus childhood education are:

• In order to interest an adult, you must show the adult the value in the lesson
• You must tie in what you are teaching with what the adults already know
• You just fit the new information into the world that the adult lives in
• It is better to use the adult's current skill and knowledge as a jump board

This is different with kids.  Kids don't know very much.  They can be smart but rarely knowledgable, some have memorized facts but few understand context.  So for the most part, we can skip these bullet points.  If you tried to explain to a four year old the value of symbolic communication, he or she simply wouldn't get it, nor see the connection between that and learning the alphabet song.  Small children don't sometimes know enough to tie things together, like the relationship between drawing letters and listening to songs.  The third point we don't skip, but we do adapt it to the kid's limited world and so they learn the alphabet in the context of a song and not an indexing system.  Lastly, small children rarely have relevant skills and knowledge to build from.

So we teach them their abc's and the alphabet song and then how to draw letters and then simple words that we attach to pictures.  It's a painstaking way to learn from zero to a level of skill.

The equivalent kid way is to teach how to form a fist.  Then the proper way to strike.  And things sometimes go bad in this martial process when proper=pretty and (to stretch the metaphor to breaking) the students believe they are learning critical writing when in fact they are only learning calligraphy.

With adults, treating them like children ("Do it in this order and do not ask questions.") doesn't work that well.  Personally I find it profoundly disrespectful.

You start with problems and goals, parameters. There are bad people in the world.  You want them to NOT affect your life.  You want to do that with minimal bad effects.

You tie that into what they know-- all relatively athletic people know how to move and what hurts.  they never go up on their toes when they are trying to push a car.  They do go up on their toes when they need speed.  You can show them that they already know structure and whip.

At it's simplest, when things go physical, the goal is to get kinetic energy into the bad guy. And so they learn to strike.

And to do so with minimal damage to yourself, since every action has an equal and opposite reaction. And so they learn to make a fist.  As something they need and want to know, because they see the use in their own world.

Thanks, Adam, for getting me thinking.

Commemorative Plans

Follower #300 signed up today.  Appears to be SJ Fowler, but it's hard to tell.  Sometimes the new number goes up and nobody shows up on the little widget.

So, there's something I've been considering and now seems like the time to get the ball rolling.  On line free lessons.  (Not completely free, I installed a 'donation' button below just in case anyone feels compelled to help me replace my armor).

So, I'm soliciting suggestions.  Couple of caveats.  They have to be stuff that can be written down.  The hands on stuff, as I teach and understand it, has to be felt.  Even video isn't good enough.  So nothing technique based.

Who to aim it at?  Martial artists?  Self-defense instructors?  Self-defense students? Writers? Some other group I'm not thinking of?

Once target audience is identified, we'll narrow it down from there.  Or I'll throw out suggestions.  Or I'll do whatever I damn well please...

Format will be just like any other blog post, it will just say subject and lesson number/title at the top.  Open access.

Might be fun.
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Teaching for the MCSO reserves in a few days, then flying to DC for a seminar, a class for a police academy and one for some of the guys at Walter Reed.  Sign-ups for the open parts are here:
http://chirontraining.com/Site/January-DC.html

Granada Hills at the end of the month.  Information here:
http://chirontraining.com/Site/January-Granada_Hills.html
Contact Lee to sign up.

Then the UK in February and Orlando in March.  Nice weather contrast.

Changes

 K and I are both free for an unbelievable 3 days, so we grabbed an apartment on the coast for a working weekend.  Drove a new route yesterday, stopped in a small town park, went for a long walk on the beach and into the tiny, mostly-closed, off-season town.  Took pictures.  Salvaged some jetsam.  Finished the rewrite of the second edition of "Violence: A Writer's Guide" (Nearly 30000 words longer than the first version) and passed it to K to upload to her WyrdGoat press project.

I missed the annual Polar Bear swim with the Kajukenbo crew on New Years day. Made up for it this morning.  Crunched through icy-coated grass until I got to the sand.  A pair of bald eagles were doing some kind of coordinated flight (mating? flirting) above as dawn broke.  Dropped my sweatshirt and sandals and ran into the waves.  It was appreciably cold, as was the wind.  But it felt good.

Lots of mental ghosts trying to lure me back to a warm bed: "There's no reason to do this."  "You aren't a kid, you don't have anything to prove."  The sneaky voice: "Aren't you supposed to be beyond this kind of bullshit posturing?"  And the last ditch effort, just before I hit the water: "You know, you aren't young any more.  Your heart might not be able to take this..."

Sigh.  The doubt voices never go away.  And I guess that's one of the big challenges-- to know the difference between the still small voice that whispers of a glimmer of potential growth; the protective intuition that whispers a warning; and the screaming monkey voice that fears any change and any challenge.  It's not enough that your monkey mind is the center of emotion.  Not enough that it will stick to your tribal identifiers (like politics or sports teams or religion) in the face of all evidence.  Not enough that it drowns out the part of your brain that actually listens to evidence and makes good decisions.  Nope.  It will actively lie to you to prevent any change.  To keep you solid in your identities.

When someone says something breathtakingly wrong in defense of a point of view, it doesn't always meant that they are stupid.  Nor that they are lying to you.  They are lying to themselves.

Tribal identities, patterns...and habits. I am more 'me' when I travel.  I explore, play, try new things, brawl.  Don't work out much, but I've never been a gym kind of guy.  I liked trail running and climbing and grappling.  Or else I was living and working in a place that demanded a lot of manual labor.  Constant activity, constant pushing.

Because for seventeen years, home was the place where I decompressed.  The job was constant crisis management.  Always moving, always on stage.  You were either fixing a dangerous problem or trying to predict and avoid the next one.  So you'd go home and desperately want to NOT think.  And I have that slug habit associated with home.  Some is age, sure, and some is injuries... but a lot is habit.

Time for some changes.

Cannoli in the Sun

2013 looks like it is going to kick ass.
Yesterday, got an hour of just play with a White Crane Silat player (those White Crane guys got everywhere).  Today, sunny skies but cold, time with my daughter...and found a local place that makes cannoli.  Hee, hee, hee.

Calendar is filling.  New projects.  All good.  Looking at knee surgery sometime soon, but I've done that before.  It will be good to have legs that can handle aerobics again.  The combination of no longer fighting for a living, the fact that I'm too good a cook, and the writer's lifestyle... easy to get out of shape.

Also realizing, and this may be a blog post later, how much of who I am was based on fear.  I don't even like that word.  Fear was always the enemy. Always the thing to overcome.  But if I had never listened to my parents argue about whether they had money for food, I wouldn't have accumulated the skills or needed the self-sufficiency.  If I hadn't played football as the smallest boy in my high school.  If I hadn't left home at sixteen.  If I hadn't walked away from everything I knew a couple of times.  If I hadn't gone to work in a maximum security jail as a 148# kid.

From hunger to taking hits to new cultures to...I always had to be at the very top of my game.  No choice.  The fear, whether of letting others down or what could happen was a constant drive.

I was never driven by desires.  There's not a lot in the world that I want.  K to be comfortable and...that's about it.  Warm place to sleep.  Food.  Cold water and hot water.  Coffee.  Learning.  New experiences.  We all rate our lives.  Some people use money to keep score or relationships (quality or quantity).  Some have other measures.  I think I do mine with stories.

2012 was tons of new experiences and new people.  At least seven new countries.  Ten countries total. Fifteen states or thereabouts.  Swam in three new seas.  Stick sparring in a villa on the Adriatic.  Shot (poorly) with German cops and well with the crew in the Big Easy.  Ate horse.  And fish eyes.  Fine Hungarian wines and Barack (thanks, Atilla).  Discovered gammon.  Hung out, ate, played and trained with people who cannot be named.

Maybe a retrospective later.  For now, it's time to enjoy my cannoli and the sunshine.

Grinchin'

I can't stand Christmas.  Most holidays set my teeth on edge.  Some of it is the music-- omnipresent, cloying.  Occasionally I can break out of my time and realize how beautiful and sincere much of the music was when it was written by believers and listened to by believers.  That's one of my buttons: when sincere good works get manipulated or, worse, are used to manipulate others.  So the music annoys me, but that's not why the season annoys me.

Looked at one way, there are no great moments.  No big events.  Every tactical operation was a few minutes or hours of activity, but what made it possible was the hundreds or thousands of hours of training and prep and the minutes or hours (depending on what we had) of planning.  That is what made the visible stuff possible.

But that's not the half of it.  Everyday someone got up early in the morning, got her kids off to school and went to work in a factory.  She made my armor.  Someone else designed the radios.  Someone else made the batteries.  The motorpool guys took the truck out of circulation every three months to make sure it was lubed and ready to go.

Everyday, everywhere is a constant mill of people doing the right thing.  And it keeps all of us going.  (As an aside, there isn't enough real work left in the world to keep us all meaningfully employed, so there is a certain percentage of that milling, maybe most of it, that is not contributing, but that doesn't meant they realize it.)

So 'special days' where you are supposed to be thoughtful and kind and caring mean exactly what for the other days?  If I give K a present on Xmas; present and a dinner on anniversary and Valentine's Day...are we done?  Hell no, and we all know that at some level.  Being kind, taking care of others-- that's an every day thing.  Or it should be.

(And, personal rant, speaking as an introvert being nice spontaneously is natural and easy.  Being nice on a holiday schedule I find exhausting.)

The guys who take away our garbage every week have saved more lives than every policeman and paramedic combined ever.  So did the people who designed the sewer systems in any major city.  Good deeds.  Heroically good deeds.  And done every day.  People who are nice every day make the world better every day.  Not just on Christmas.

Layered Writing

Multidimensional projects are interesting to teach and both interesting and damnably difficult to write.  "Meditations on Violence" was hard.  Good information, but it never felt organized.  "Facing Violence" was better.  Organizing an introduction to violence around the context was useful and much easier to write.

Violence is one of those things that is dead simple and incredibly complex.  People use violence because it will get them what they want.  What they want dictates how the violence will be used, on whom it will be used... there are always outliers, but the logic is simple.

On the other hand, like any form of communication, violence is incredibly complicated because it is hooked into every other thing.  Relationship tweaks it.  Environment, social milieu, brain chemistry all tweak it.  The magnification you choose to view a situation dictates what you can do.  The more connections you understand, the better you can manipulate things.

Working on the rewrite of the Conflict Communications manual and I am really wishing I could write (or, rather, that humans could read) in simultaneous layers.  It has to build in logical steps from a solid base.  Too much information too early is overwhelming.  Some of it pushes buttons so trust must be gained.  Sometimes you need one concept before you can have the language to understand the next.

That's cool, and that is standard for teaching almost anything.  But I wish I could do it another way.

Maslow is a good starting point for understanding that different motivations drive different behavior.  It is accessible and can be tied into anyone's personal experience.  So we start there.  Great. Remembering to be straightforward that it actually kind of sucks as a theory but rocks as a model.

The second model is a slightly harder sell.  Not to everybody.  There are some people who have experienced deeper parts of their brain, or who have read the right things and understand the concept at least intellectually.  But this has potential to hit buttons or resistance.  Not a big deal since being both true and useful people will get it... but that difference means it comes later.  It can't be the lead-off concept.

But (and this is what is fascinating me right now, not just in writing but in teaching, too) the second concept, once understood, deepens and enriches the first.  Maslow is cool.  Maslow seen through the triune brain model is profound.  And seen again under the violence comfort scale (originally in "Violence: A Writer's Guide")... but there is no way to get people to read and process three things simultaneously.

 I think there are a few books that have to be re-read.  Books that turn into different books once you have internalized the initial concepts.  I think that happens in teaching, too.  Not as often as people think it happens, in my opinion (lots of shitty teachers pretend to be 'nuanced' or 'deep' or --my favorite-- 'coyote teachers').  But there are definitely some things that I knew early and understood late, if you get my meaning.

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So, "Force Decisions" Won the USA Book News award for Current events in 2012.  Yay.

It's Later

Sampling error, cherry-picking and story telling.

In the most recent post on scenarios, I said "There are a very small percentage of criminals who will kill you after you give them your wallet (and the reason the percentage is so small is social and logical.  Maybe I'll write about that later.) "

It's later.

Some background first.  There are a lot of experts on criminal behavior out there.  There are also a lot of 'experts'.

'Experts' first.
The biggest problem is that bad guys lie.  A lot of the so-called experts were clearly snowed.  They were manipulated from the very beginning to tell the story that the bad guy wanted told, and they were either not smart enough to realize it or, more likely, too arrogant to admit even to themselves that they were conned.  They then pass on information tailor-made by the criminal to citizens and other experts.

The second problem with 'experts' is agendas. Not just they agenda they may want to advance, but the agenda that they want to believe.  For most people, violence is big and scary and a lot of people are driven to do something and so they latch on to something they think might work, hope will work, and either insist that it will or create, or cherry-pick research to show that it will.  And this becomes pseudoscience really damn fast.  (Point of Order, boys and girls: Science, by it's nature cannot prove anything. 'Proof' as such only exists in mathematics and logic.  The scientific method is the most powerful tool ever devised for disproving things.  It is the ultimate bullshit detector, not a truth detector.)

Experts, the genuine thing, are imperfect as well.  For bad 'experts' the problems are usually cherry-picking data in order to create a narrative to support their agenda.  In real experts, the problem is usually sampling error and the inability to do real research.

Real research first.  All the anecdotes and computer models and surveys would just be background research in real science.  They would be the data you looked at to design the experiment.  The nature of the beast is that these kinds of research, even optimally designed, can show corelation but not causation.  The classic case is the statistic that the more churches there are in a given area, the more violent crime there is.  Corelation is not causation.  You can jump on the statistic saying it proves religion causes crime or crime causes religion or religious people are hypocrites... but that is all just talking about your internal workings.  The simple fact is the more people there are in an area, the more crime there will be and the more churches (and grocery stores and schools and everything else) there will be.  Corelation is not causation.

In order to show causation, you must design an experiment.  Take a hundred cities of the same size and build  four extra churches in fifty randomly chosen cities from the hundred and see if the crime rate changes.  If crime rate remains unchanged, you have disproven the hypothesis.  If it changes, you have shown it might be the independent variable.  Might.  Nature of the Scientific Method.  Rules things out, not in.

Because of the nature of violence and society, no real experiment in violence and criminality will ever pass a university ethics board.  Which means that what experts we have are basing things on background research of often dubious value and their own experiences, which vary widely.

Case in point, and this is where it gets to the question about why so few criminals will kill over a property crime- I recently read an article by an extremely experienced super-max prison psychologist who stated that hardened criminals will reflexively kill to keep from being caught.  And implying that every robbery should be treated as a deadly force encounter.

Sampling error.  This author (who seemed a great observer with a ton of insight) dealt with a fraction of a fraction of the criminal population.  The ones who had done serious violent crimes.  Got caught. Couldn't bargain it down either out of stupidity, history or stubborness.  Couldn't follow the rules on violence even under the scrutiny of the prison system (you don't get to super-max by singing "Kumbaya" too loudly).  Within that population?  Hell, yeah.  The majority will kill for any reason or no real reason at all.  But that's not normal.

We booked about 40,000 people a year at my old agency.  A handful of serial killers, killers, robbers...and lots and lots of petty thieves and druggies and drunk drivers and Domestic Violence cases.  The majority of those 40k didn't stay very long.  Prisons are so crowded that judges, recog and other programs were looking for any excuse to keep people on the streets.  So most of the people who stayed for any length of time were violent and/or multiple repeat offenders.

Most of the robbers didn't hurt anyone.  Because it didn't suit their purposes.  The goal is to get money (usually for drugs) and not get caught (cause withdrawals are a bitch) and not get hurt (because it makes it harder to do crimes tomorrow.)  If they showed a weapon and you handed over your wallet, you'd likely report the robbery to the police, it would get a little attention, but an arrest would be unlikely.  Unless they found the gun exactly as you described it and something of yours like a credit card still on the bad guy, a conviction would be iffy.  Even with that, it would likely be bargained down.  This criminal will do a lot of crimes, but he'll never see the inside of a super-max, and never make it onto that particular expert's radar.

On the other hand, if the guy shoots his victims, he becomes a very high priority for enforcement and their is a ton more forensic evidence which makes a conviction more likely.  And long sentences. And, if he is also stupid inside prison, he will get to super-max.

That's just practicality, but there is a social side to it as well.  DO NOT count on this dynamic in places where no crime will be investigated or where no one cares or there is no law.  This relative lack of violence is a practical adaptation to this environment.  It is not because the robbers I dealt with were 'nicer'.

So, bring this back to you.
There are lots of experts out there as well as 'experts' and not one of us knows it all.  We all have our experience or our research or research that we have borrowed.  No one has definitive answers and we all have blind spots.  Listen to as many different voices as you have time for.  Try to pick out the agenda.  If a self-defense instructor's answer to all problems is lethal force, he will be cherry picking sources to make that sound reasonable.  Don't sweat it.  Recognize the agenda, absorb the non kool-aid parts and move on.

And, this is huge:  Examine your agenda occasionally. What you want to believe will always get in the way of what you know.

The Sacred Questions

I know that there are more, that this just scratches the surface of a way to look at the world, but I know two, and only two, of the Sacred Questions.

What is a Sacred Question?  You probably aren't ready for this, but:  life is about questions, not about answers. Not a single one of your answers will survive death.  The Sacred Questions recognize that.

The First Sacred Question is, "What is the goal here?"  If you know what you truly want, you can make it happen.  If you know what someone else wants, you have absolute control.  But the real goal is almost never the declared goal.  The part of the brain that comes up with stated goals is the exact same part of the brain that comes up with excuses for all stupid behavior.

If I know what you want separate from what you say you want and separate from what you think you want... I own you.  This is the heart of strategy.

The Second Sacred Question I learned earlier, from Tom Brown.  "What is the lesson here?"  There are no successes, no failures.  Only lessons.  And the lessons are everywhere and in everything.

Some Thoughts on Scenarios

This came up in an e-mail exchange, and I wanted to expand here.
Most stuff in real life can be avoided or de-escalated.  If you have been around 100 people today, there was at least one situation you could have escalated.  Odds are you don't even remember it because we are all constantly adapting to and manipulating the people around us.

Violence isn't a normal distribution (Bell curve).  It's a hockey stick distribution.  There is a lot of low level stuff and a very small quantity of very high intensity stuff.  That stuff is rare and high-stakes.

One of the important things in scenario training is to not make the exceptional ordinary.  I don't means in terms of just quantity.  There should be more high-end things than happen in real life... but you should avoid avoidable/preventable scenarios where the role players act exceptional.  That creates bad training artifacts on multiple levels.  In other words, if you (because of role player ego or facilitator decision to get a specific result) don't let the student disengage or de-escalate, when it would work in a real encounter, the student is conditioned not to try things that work.  And pushes them towards strategies with risks.

Going hands-on is never a guaranteed approach.  There is always a chance it will go bad.  If the guy has weapons or friends, then bad is relative, but almost certain.  It won't end well.  The only scenario that has no chance of injury and death is a scenario where no one gets touched.  No matter how good you are there is the chance, maybe a miniscule one, that this will go to a bad place.

In that hockey stick distribution (I'm pulling numbers out of my ass here) 90% of things in the world can be avoided or de-escalated. Another five percent can be handled with a shove and a shout.  3% you
must and can fight out of.  But there will always be 2% where you HAVE NO HOPE.  Wrap your brain around that, because it is a big, bitter pill for martial artists to swallow.  There is stuff that can crush you like a bug on a windshield.  Steve likes to talk about the Chinese army coming over the hill or the shotgun at twenty feet or the sniper.  But it doesn't have to be that.  Any waiter who has ever handed you a steak knife in a nice restaurant could have had you.  There are a very small percentage of criminals who will kill you after you give them your wallet (and the reason the percentage is so small is social and logical.  Maybe I'll write about that later.) and they will do so after putting you at your ease that you played it right.  There are no win scenarios.

So, training corollary #1: If you give them hopeless scenarios, they learn to give up.  It's called 'learned helplessness' and you may have seen it in bad bosses.  The ones who talk about initiative all the time but punish any they actually see.  The ones who must find something wrong or don't feel they are doing their job. And you will see it in a lot of sensei.  If you will get punished no matter what you do, your hind brain learns that doing nothing is the safest solution. Bad.  This training method conditions people to freeze.
_Talk_ about the no-win scenario, by all means.  Explain it.  It's a great place to talk about glitches and values and one of places where I advocate changing the definition of a win (from survive and escape to 'leave enough forensic evidence this guy will not get away with this)  But don't TRAIN no win scenarios.  Don't practice losing. It's not something you want to get good at.

Training corollary #2.  Remember hands on is always dangerous?  It can always go bad.  The five-year-old with the knife can get lucky and stab you... or you could both die or... 

So fighting has to happen when not fighting would be worse.  This is a game of odds and reading the situation.  If you skew the odds in training your students will go into the world with a warped sense of what the odds are.  If you teach them that the wrong things work OR teach them that the right things fail, you are sending them into the world more confidant and less capable then when you got them.
Scenario training ingrains conditioning hard and deep.  Unrealistic scenarios are unforgivable.

Go back to basics.  IScenario training is not about the scenarios.  It's not about style or system or even self-defense.  It's about the student.  Take a look at each individual.  What does he/she need?

The big tough guys?  Test their judgment.  Do they know when it is safe to intervene as a third party or when it might make things worse? Can they choose when and how to intervene at the lowest level?  Or do egos get involved and they try to win?

The little guy who is a great martial artist but has some insecurities?  Put him in a fist fight.  (I have a scenario I stole from LawDog that sets that up really well)

The student who is much better than she believes herself to be?  Throw her into the sudden stranger attack or waking up to a knife wielding intruder.  Let her see what she can do.

 Scenarios are a tool and a great way to cap and integrate previous training.  But don't fall in love with them and don't do scenarios just to do them.  First question for almost everything in life is: "What is the goal here?"

RIP

I'm late to this.

Tim Bown's book, "Leading the Way: Maximize Your Potential as a Martial Arts Instructor" is out and available on kindle.


He wrote the manuscript.  And then he died.  First day on the job with the Canadian Border Patrol (the real job, he'd completed the academy) Tim collapsed.  Dead very quickly.  Autopsy found him eaten up with cancer.

Editing it was hard.  It's a first book from a brilliant instructor.  One of the few people who ran a successful dojo without dumbing it down or selling out.  Tim could fight and he could teach and his students were good.  But it was still a first book.  And a last.  Had he been alive, the editing process would have been very different.  There would have been lots of late-night phone calls, "What did you mean here?  Double check that, US law is different.  Too much on the writing process."  And each question would have turned into a long talk.  And I would have learned.

Posthumous, the process is different-- make sure the book is all Tim.  But there is a lot of regret over the conversations (and the brawling sessions and the scenarios) we will never have.

Enough about that.  Tim was a premier trainer in scenarios, the best role-player I have ever worked with.  And this book isn't about that.  It's about running a traditional dojo (a lot about teaching kids, which is the bread-and-butter of many schools) and doing it effectively and with integrity.  He covers a lot and he covers it well.  I don't know another book on teaching MA of this quality.  And it will be his last book.  All proceeds go to his wife and daughter, who he adored.

Tune Up

Good unwind weekend.  Talk, swing swords at each other, mix it up unarmed a little, talk some more.  Got some of my internal assumptions identified and challenged.  And all bleeding (on my end) was minimal.  Someday I will learn that no matter how much fun I am having, I tend to bit my tongue when I'm smiling and get clipped.  But it's hard to imagine brawling without smiling.

Later, K said, "That's a good group.  I haven't seen people who can play at that level that safely in years.  I might even play next time."  That would be cool.  She moved away from this kind of play when the injuries started stacking up.

At the same time, I don't think anyone else would look at this group and think, "Safe."  But it is.  Everyone involved, whether because they play with swords or because it was a professional requirement, needed to be utterly precise and controlled.  Almost everyone in that room had hurt people, hurt them badly... but not by accident.

There's a friend I haven't seen in years.  Barry is one of the knife gods.  Fast, ruthless, skilled.  And it is absurdly simple to defend yourself from this very dangerous man: don't threaten his family.  That's all.  Like most dangerous good guys he is very, very dangerous in certain ways and to certain people and under certain circumstances.  And outside of those circumstances, you are safer if he is around.

This was a room full of this group.  And it was fun.  Maija is working on a manuscript on deception in dueling.  She demonstrated some and more and more I love the way her mind works. R is a blast.  I love playing with someone big, strong, skilled and ruthless.  And with the control and trust to not hurt each other (or my gimpy knee, got the 'good' knee popped sideways a few weeks ago.  MRI this morning, no results yet.)  Ivy likes playing just to play.  I think E rarely likes to just play.  We have in the past and it's fun but one of the elements of play is that it has to last a lot longer than you would let anything real last and E recognizes that as a bad habit.  So do I, but it's still fun.  Even when I bite my tongue.

Physical part, good.  But the talks were huge.  And not just with players but with spouses.  It is eerie how well our wives know and understand us.  And to be in a group where you can share some of the things that bubble up without people flinching, where you don't have to constantly navigate the minefields in other people's heads.  That's comforting.  It makes a place feel like home, or like the quiet of the desert.  My happy place.

Unnaturally Good

Building from a piece of the last post and from Neil's comment:

"Also, couldn't it be argued that this behavior is related evolutionarily to how many animal species treat the smaller and weaker of the litter ?"

Bullying.  Predation. Abuse and exploitation and even slavery...all are very, very natural things.  Ants milking aphids (or is it the other way around?).  Cats toying with mice.  The new leader of a pride of lions killing the cubs of the previous leader.  This is where we came from.  All of us.

A lot of it is very cold math.  If your tribe is starving you MUST take food or land from a neighboring tribe.  There are only three options-- 1) Refuse to take the land.  You and your children starve. None of us are the products of this choice. 2) Try to take the land and fail.  You leave no descendants.  None of us are the products of this choice. 3) Try to take the land and succeed.  We are all descended from people who made this choice.

If lion 'A' kills the previous leader's cubs and lion 'B' does not then B's cubs start out at a disadvantage. The killers win the darwin game.

And this is where people glitch.  There is an automatic assumption in our world that natural=good.  Most of what we call good is profoundly unnatural.  And it is still good.  Compassion for others outside our immediate gene pool? You will search long and hard for this in nature and if you can find an example it will be because the very oddity has drawn attention.  Natural sanitation systems?  Where is the gender equality in a pride of lions or a herd of deer or any other social mammal?

Do we have gender equality now?  Of course not.  But we have the idea. An idea not found in nature.  And we have decided it is good and many, many people are working for it.

You may or may not agree, but I like this civilization better than the natural world.  I love that I can cherish K instead of thinking of her as a commodity or a 'helpmate' or a gift from her parents to cement ties who could be traded off...

But this civilization, this concept of good, is an act of mass will.  It takes work and effort and conscious decisions every day.  Being a bully is natural.  Even the weak do it when they get the chance.  Exploiting is natural.  People do it unconsciously every day.  Seeing your impulses and choosing another course, a better way...

That is unnatural.
That is an act of will.
That is what being human is all about.

Bullying as Human Behavior

I was asked a while ago to put something together for Bullying.  It's getting a lot of press.  There are a lot of programs, and people seeking more.  I refused.  The simple fact is that the people who want those programs want a magic solution and there have only ever been two things that work in preventing bullying:

1) Not being interesting enough to be targeted in the first place or
2) Being too expensive to victimize

That's it.  Not making friends or telling jokes and definitely not complaining to a teacher, especially in an environment where the teachers can do so little.  Be invisible or make the bully pay.  And no one wants a program that advises little kids to band together and beat the bully up on the way home.

There is a lot of bullshit about why bullies are bullies.  I don't think it's complicated.  Bullies are bullies because it is fun.  The sense of power may be working on some Freudian security issues, but we don't have to look all that deep.  Expressing power is fun.  The perfect judo throw.  Center shot out of a target.  Overhearing people talk about something you've made.  Putting up a bookshelf.  Anything that affects the world is inherently fun.  Including making weak people scream.  We have to learn to get over that (a toddler doesn't automatically know that squeezing kitty is bad and if the kitty makes noises but doesn't use claws, the toddler will continue to squeeze)  and whatever needs are fulfilled, we learn to fulfill them another way.  This is maturity and growth.  But don't assume it is natural.  It is an act of will and rarely an internal act.  We are taught to be kind.

 That's a lead off.  Last month I witnessed a superb act of bullying.  It was targeted, organized and even orchestrated... and not one of the people hurting others for fun realized they were doing classic bullying.  Bullying is not just the strong targeting the weak.  The weak will bully too, if they get the chance.

Can't go into too many details here, so bear with me.
A certain organization had organized an event to talk about a community.  They had done this many times in the past, very successfully and were very well received by people in that community.

Another group of self-appointed advocates for that community demanded to know who at this event were in fact members of that community.

The organizers didn't know.  And you know what?  They couldn't know. HIPPA prevents even asking the question.

The self-appointed advocates (I think I can safely say I'm at least on the fringe of that community and I sure didn't appoint them) started a massive (for this area) e-mail and tweet campaign.  And they got what they want.  The organizers cancelled the event.

Bullying worked.  But it wasn't enough.  That one sign of weakness triggered more vitriol and demands for an apology.  And that's the thing, whether the bully is weak or strong and whether the bullying is done with messages or fists, the purpose is to hear the victim squeal.  To revel in the power of forcing the victim to obey.

And some of the scheduled participants, on their own, held an informal talk anyway.  Because they didn't like being bullied.  And you know what?  They weren't bullied.  None of the ones who stood up.  But the complaints and slurs and bullying redoubled on the ones who had given in.  Bullies hate being defied.

You get the idea.  It's easy to look around and see all the bullying behavior done by people who label themselves 'victims'.  And it works on compassionate people.  It hurts the people who are most inclined to help.  But whatever they say, whether protester or community activist or self-appointed spokesman, it is about reveling in the power to coerce others.

Much harder to look at yourself and see where you do this.  But you probably do.  It's human behavior.  It's also human behavior to grow out of it and find the thrill of power in protecting and helping.  Or so I hope.

Hi Again

Over two weeks.  That's a new record.

Lots to recap.

Upstate NY.  Good time.  The groups were small, and that was cool because it gave me more freedom to play and improvise.  The format was new.  Randy and Dave wanted four-hour chunks.  It flowed well, except I sometimes caught myself referring to an earlier block of training that some of the people hadn't attended.  And I've been teaching this a lot, with what seems like few breaks... so I would occasionally want to gloss over things.  Constant reminder to all instructors: Just because you've said something a thousand times doesn't mean your students have heard it a thousand times.

Randy was a kick.  Genuine, warm, really clever and bitingly sarcastic. Perfect companion for people watching, especially when you feel a little mean about people.  He is also a delicate flower and I had to take his man card away when he asked for a decaf pumpkin spice coffee.

Dave is solid.  Former cop, gun guy, and a thinker.  We had a long drive to talk and listen.  Good man. The students at the Rochester event were a mix.  Some had got into firearms because of age and fragility.  That's a viable option.  And think it through, for those of you who teach the hands on stuff.  At what point is it no longer safe to even practice some of what we do?  The handgun is the big equalizer.  But it takes practice and a good teacher.  It's a tool, not an answer and it shouldn't be an amulet.

I also got to spend some time (not enough) with Scott C.  An old friend (old friend kicks in at about four years, right?) and one of the best men I know.  And like a lot of the best of the best, he can't see it in himself.

Finally met Tim B in person as well.  Another excessively self-effacing good guy.  Turns out we both like the blues...
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Home is good.  I've been being a hermit to the best of my ability.  Petting dogs, fixing the goat fence and working on a second edition of "Violence: A Writer's Guide."  Should kick ass.

Scheduling for next year.  Which, BTW is now officially open.  If you didn't get the announcement e-mail and you wanted it, sorry.  If you're interested in hosting, e-mail is rory@easystreet.net.  january has stuff in Washington DC and Granada Hills CA already.  Return to the UK in February.

Fiorella's Cafe

If I did poetry worth a damn, I would have written some today.
Two long days of training-- twelve and eight hours-- with a very good group of people.  Long talks each evening with Scott and Jason.  Helped break in Brandon's new indoor shooting range.  Not yet open, but the old St. Bernard's range.  It is going to be a fantastic facility, and Brandon has big plans and a boatload of credentials to make something special.

Then, today, on his way out of town Jason dropped me off in the French Quarter.  Showed me around enough that I could keep oriented and he hit the road back home, far away.  (Thanks, J.)  So, a day to walk and explore.  The River Walk.  French Quarter.  French Market.  Beignet's for breakfast.  Jazz in the streets.  And Fiorella's cafe.

Here's the beauty of being a writer:  I can walk in a strange city until I am tired, stop someplace and order food, coffee and a drink, get out my laptop and I'm working.

Today I did my working at Fiorella's Cafe. Kayla in service.  Nice.  Knew everybody.  Talked to people passing by in trucks.  Native but with almost no accent: "My mom was a school teacher and hated the New Orleans accent," she said.  The kind of waitress who is right there if you look up, but leaves you alone when you are writing.  Awesome.  And Yvonne running the bar.  Well done.  Best dirty martini I have had and I have her recipe for a burnt martini...and I don't even usually like martinis that much.  And the fried chicken.  And the red beans and rice. There are some things I love about the deep south.

So, New Orleans.  Nice people, great food.  Going out to listen to some of the music in a few minutes (Smoky Greenwell).  Stupid tourists (one, obviously drunk was doing tarzan yells and challenging women to strip from a balcony-- "He's not from around here," Kayla apologized.  "I can tell," I said.)

The seminar.  Small group of fantastic people.  We got dirty.  We covered a lot of material.  We broke some barriers.  Scott was a fantastic host. I got to see David again (Slovenia and now NO).  Exhausting.  Wonderful.  Amazing how often those two go together.  Lot's of experience in the group.  Lot's of Katrina stories and post-Katrina stories.  Gratifying, in a way, to see the reflexive preparations that people who have been through something like Katrina make.  And sad, because more people should be ready, should be thinking, "Just in case."

It's been over a week since writing on the blog.  A lot of it is because things have been going too well.  The handful of things that might have gone bad have been avoided or de-escalated.  I have little on that score to write about.  Teaching has been going well and I have to guard against complacency there.

Part is business and travel.  Most of October was spent either in frantic activity or exhaustion.  Writing time has been spent on other stuff.  Under K's publishing company, finally put out "Horrible Stories I Told my Children" under a pseudonym.  Didn't want to use my kid's real names.  You understand. Kami did the cover and the internal illustrations.
"Horrible Stories" on Kindle
"Horrible Stories" at SmashWords

Also working on a second edition of "Violence: A Writer's Guide."

And opened the 2013 calendar.  Contact me if you want to host a seminar.