Things Change

Talking with the Doc last night. About a lot of things, training and the past and connections and places been and things done. He observed, (or maybe it was me, doesn't matter) that when we were young, we were shaped by 'perfect days' which usually included adventure and often danger. The big learning, the cool things, the events that shaped us were defined by discomfort and risk, challenge and the unknown.

That's still there, that will always be there. You find out stuff on the edges, find out who you can be. In comfort, 'you' becomes sort of a compromise. Not sure I can find the right word.

As we get older some of the best memories are of quiet times with good people. Talk or silence. Sharing with or without words. Sometimes with a great view and a fine meal. Sometimes in a dingy office in Baghdad eating strawberry jam and processed cheese spread on flat bread.

The August Babies party was the same. Good food and a plethora of fine scotch... but I was looking forward all day to listening to stories around the fire. Old stories and new. The things the old timers thought were important and the things that excited the kids. Brand new stories and stories many of us knew by heart. Competing versions of the same stories or commentary by the others who shared a particular cave trip or mountain slide or fire or electrocution. (Not kidding on that list. Explosions, too.)

If ever my confidence starts to slip, I just have to look at my friends. They are extraordinary and, somehow, they seem to think I am worthy to be in their company. No higher compliment exists.

Proto-Zombie Alert!!!

Disclaimer: I hope no one reading this is really stupid, but just in case: What follows is a joke. Please do not act on it. Or, if you do, man up and take personal responsibility.

It is common knowledge in certain circles that George Romero's early zombie movies were financed by the US government. The DIA and NSA having found compelling evidence that the Soviets had perfected a weaponized rabies virus, the government decided that moving zombies into the mainstream might help survivors of a bio-war overcome the emotional challenge of killing a friend or relative who had become a murderous, bloodthirsty and highly contagious monster.

The situation is worse than we feared. The weaponized rabies has been released into the population of the United States. We don't know who released the virus: terrorists working with Soviet cold-war scientists? The Yucatan Socialist Worker's Party (YAZIs)? Some lost cell of the long-defunct KGB?

We only know that the virus is here and it is subtle and more dangerous than our initial intelligence estimates.

The first generation of weaponized rabies works slowly. It can take as long as five years to build up in the system and create "zombies". As it does, the virus slowly eats away at parts of the brain that control independent thinking and compassion. When, and it is when, gentleman, not if, the first of the infected turn, it will be hell on earth. Their bites will turn others almost instantly. And they will be fast-mover zombies, not the shamblers we hoped and prayed for.

What follows is a list of signs and symptoms that indicate the virus is building up:

1. The subject is a shitty driver. It may be a loss in reflexes from the virus eating at the nerves or rudeness and aggression or both.
2. The subject sometimes just stops his or her cart in the middle of big box stores and just stares around with a blank expression.
3. The subject demands to do whatever he or she wants while simultaneously declaring membership in a special group. A sign of the essentially sociopathic lack of compassion of a zombie combined with mindless herd instincts.
4. Constant texting and social media. Appeals to the zombies attraction to shiny objects and the herd instinct.
5. Ignoring children, especially leaving them to be raised by television.
6. Constant complaining. As their brains are eaten away, the proto-zombie experiences mysterious pain and becomes stupider, which gives them a lot to complain about.
7. Inability to solve problems for themselves. A side effect of stupidity, but with low cunning, the proto-zombie often combines this defect with #6 and demands that others-- friends, family or the government-- solve the proto-zombie's problems.
8. Working to make a world safer for zombies and other monsters. Probably not a conscious decision, but working to disarm future meals is the proto-zombie's way of ensuring the safety of the zombie it will be.
9. Doing nothing in large groups of similar people. Whether common loitering or the feeding frenzy at the free samples in the big box stores, watch for the zombie tendency to hang out in groups and just mill around.
10. Loud and rude in public. The higher brain functions, such as those controlling civility, are among the first to go.

If you see a person exhibiting seven or more of these ten symptoms, they are on the verge of total metamorphosis. Do the right thing.

Reno

This is my first time in Reno in 25 years. I used to joke to my wife, "I can't go back until a few more people have died." Yet here we are.

I don't tell the Reno stories. In a lot of ways, this is where I came of age, crossed a barrier, whatever. I came here to find out who I was. I found out, and in the process changed.

My eyes feel tight. Watchful. K said, "You're different since we got into town. All teeth." She didn't mean smily teeth.

I didn't really noticed until I casually, habitually, laid my sunglasses on the table upside down. It's a better angle for seeing anything behind me in the reflection. I haven't done that in years and here it just happened without a thought.

Have to get up early or tonight would be a night for prowling. See if the hobo "jungle" is still there on the railroad tracks west of town. See if the storm sewers are still open on the Truckee. Night action at the CalNeva. Maybe a midnight run to Pyramid Lake and the Needles. See how many of the hidden service doors I can still remember or find in the strip casinos.

Just stuff. Memories.

Teasers and Pitches

Trying to hit things from the other side.  I have real trouble, sometimes, putting a label on what 'this' all is, on what I do and teach.  Sometimes the best way to explain to yourself is to explain to other people.  I'm also crappy at the whole business side of this, so consider this marketing practice as well.

The 'elevator pitch' is something I learned about from writers.  You happen to step onto an elevator and there is the editor of your dreams.  How do you sell him or her on your project? Teasers are things I've been playing with, so:

Conflict Communications

Elevator Pitch:  Marc and I seem to have stumbled on the principles underlying all human conflict.

Teaser: In every long term relationship, there is at least one argument that the couple have word for word periodically.  There were some clues in that:  It's scripted.  You say the same words without ever deciding to.  It's also hard to just walk away without bringing it to closure, finishing the script.  It's subconscious, you are sometimes minutes into the script before you realize that you know exactly what everyone is going to say.  You don't choose it.  It doesn't resolve and at first that was the puzzle... but once we figured out who it served, lots of things came together.

Logic of Violence  

Elevator Pitch: Just simply using the methodology of disaster planning and applying it to self-defense.

Teaser: Take a guy who teaches self defense.  He's well trained and from his work as a bouncer has over a hundred real fights.  How applicable is that?  He's also six foot two, in great shape, and has dragons and tigers tattooed on his arms.  He has had hundreds of real fights, but all with drunk college kids saying, "You don't look that tough to me."  What in the hell does that have to do with an elderly lady mugged for her pension check or a 110 pound drunk girl being singled out for an abduction rape?  Is the approach similar?  The type of attack? The force parity.  You know damn well it's not.  For generations, martial arts has been about fighters teaching fighters how to fight other fighters.  Almost nothing about how to teach victims to survive attackers.

Introduction to Violence sometimes called Ambushes and Thugs

Elevator pitch: It's an introduction to the context of violence.  Most martial artists know how to fight, but they don't know when and they don't know exactly what they will be fighting against.

Teaser/Elevator pitch:  You've been studying martial arts for twenty years?  Twenty years of training in what to do if you were ever attacked by a bad guy.  Cool.  Tell me, in those twenty years have you spent one day studying how real bad guys attack?  Doesn't that strike you as odd?

More a straight pitch:  There are seven areas of vulnerability for your students and if any of those areas are left out of training your students can fight like demons and still lose.  If you are teaching self-defense you have a responsibility to make sure that they understand the legal and ethical ramifications of force; how bad guys really attack; that they practice avoidance, escape and de-escalation; that they have some tools to deal with the ambush and suckerpunch; that they are prepared to break out of a freeze; that there skills for fighting adapt to the real world and; what to do and what they have to deal with after a force incident.

Dream Team

Elevator pitch: Really want an inside view on high-end criminal violence?  It's expensive, but if you think you're up for it I know the guys.

Teaser: You get a former high-end criminal or three; one of the best and most experienced bouncers in the business; a role-playing and safety expert (for obvious reasons) and me.  If you want to know not just how violence breaks down, but how violent people think, plan and react to violence this is a weekend that should rock your world.

Recap

I want to do the last two weeks justice and really can't.

I love this world. It's messy and chaotic and maybe things are breaking down, but it is full of wonderful people who are deeply passionate and caring. In the last two weeks I've spent time with people who have spent fifty years with an art that they loved (and probably dozens who have loved their arts for forty or thirty years). Spent time with extraordinary individuals who walked away from everything out of a passion to learn. Spent time with people who are experts to the point of being savants and some who are just as good but also complete and functional.

Martial arts attracts some very broken people. People who have always felt awkward can learn to move with grace. People who feared and avoided the primate aspects of high school locker rooms can feel like jocks. People who don't have the social skills to get a date can be called "master."

It can be incredibly empowering or heady or toxic. Or all three. I got to spend time with people who saw it clearly and still forged ahead, subtly pushing students towards the empowering and away from the toxic.

There is a special group coming of age in the field of self-defense right now. Men and women with the insight to see how much crap is taught, with the passion to do better and with the humility to wonder, "I've never done this. Who am I to teach it? How will I know if I start teaching crap without that frame of reference?" It's a good internal debate, it keeps them honest and skeptical and learning.

If mastery means anything in this culture (and I hate the word, the connotations in America are too dark, it becomes reminiscent of slavery rather than guilds and implies control more than ability), but if mastery means anything in this culture, George Mattson's annual camp is a collection of Masters. Brilliant researchers and thugs and historians (yes, thugs can be brilliant). people who care about a system and each other and their students above all. Awesome.

I got to meet with my East Coast brain trust, and I absolutely owe them a dinner. We got sooooo busy talking we forgot to eat. Jake, Erik and Bill are brilliant and insightful (Jeff couldn't make it). They helped with presentation and got a taste of the Logic of Violence material in return. I got the best end of that deal. Erik is also a consumate business man (huge compliment in my world) and may have come up with a way to present LoV not as a book, but as a self-study (group study, actually) program. that will probably be my November writing project.

Jeff and Jessica and (for a day) Lisa were awesome hosts. Hospitality is one thing, but learning something every day (side kicks without hip replacement surgery; a refresher on how to suture wounds) is very special.

The seminar at YMAA was new material to a new audience. Nick Yang is one of my favorite martial artists. At the Crossing the Pond seminar in Seattle there was Al Peasland (thug); Marc MacYoung (thug); Iain Abernethy (Really nice thug-- imagine what Santa Clause was like in college); me; and Nick Yang (serious martial artist, super nice guy and definitely not a thug.)

So we were talking about brawls and dismemberment and stuff like that and Nick was talking about White Crane...and we all liked him. With absolutely no idea how to express that without scaring him. Thing is, Nick wouldn't have been scared.

Anyway, Nick hosted a session on recovering from overwhelming force. It's stuff the regular readers are familiar with, but the big gain for me is how natural the concepts were for this group. It shouldn't have been a big insight-- the stuff these guys studied dated from eras when people were trying to kill each other. It wasn't a contest and there were no weight classes. Why should I be surprised that the things I learned were important in jail ambushes were part of systems that dated from this world?

Wes Tasker worked on my back and the difference is incredible. Still pain and numbness, but much less. Much happier...and Wes is one of the people I find intimidatingly intelligent. Cool. Also got to stick spar with Mike M... tee hee hee.

Raffi Derderian is a damn fine man, a great martial artist and an extraordinary teacher. It was very good to spend a day with the people that he admires. I also got to hang with Chris, who is one of the coolest people in the world and meet some new people: Stephe, a bulky, carnivorous, Tai Chi guy who admonishes people to, "keep the F.U. in kung fu." Yet another Erik with a "k" who was that rarest of martial artists: a kenjutsu instructor who isn't anal-retentive. That was awesome. A recluse who hits like a freight train... Good times with good people and a chance to put out some new material (gender differences in violence) and get my material critiqued by new eyes.

All in all, an extraordinary time. But I am missing Kami and eager to be home. Next week: Reno.

Lisa asked at one point what I am most proud of. It's my friends. That I am allowed to spend time with people of this quality blows me away every day.

Too Simple

Teaching new material tonight. That always feels weird going in. Not so much worrying about whether people will like it or not, or the usual bullshit stagefright thing. It's mostly when people ask for something or I see an obvious hole, the program always feels too simple to teach.

"Facing Violence" is doing pretty well and getting good reviews... but did anybody NOT know that self-defense has ethical and legal dimensions? That avoidance was a skill that needs to be practiced? That bad guys attack differently than training partners? Seriously?

In almost every class I'm almost embarrassed to point out that it is easier to beat people up from behind. There are giggles, but always several who have not really practiced it, who don't even realize how their learned strategy is derived from dominance displays (which kind of require fighting eye-to-eye.)

Logic of Violence is merely an exercise in examining a problem from the viewpoint that drives it. We all do this every day. There are nuances and details that people who don't spend time with criminals might miss, but humans think like humans. Apply your mental tools to the threat's problems and you will come up with some things very close to the threat's solutions.

I'm proud of ConCom, but on at least one level it is just a taxonomy, just putting labels on things that every person sees every day. We have made important connections. Just as an example, in every long-term relationship I've seen, the couple have at least one argument that they have word for word periodically. That one observation leads to some pretty cool inferences. But once the program is laid out, it's just stuff that every person does and sees every day. Once you see it, you can act with far more skill and intention... but I wonder why people don't see.

Self-defense is what happens when you are losing. Everybody knows or should know what losing feels like, should know that part of losing is not having access to the resources you rely on when you are winning or even. Anyone who has spent thirty seconds thinking about this grasps it. Anyone who has a background in any kind of movement art and gives a little effort to understanding bad guys can start coming up with some solutions. What feels to me like ten minutes of correlating known data will be two hours of class tonight.

So I keep expecting every last student to look up and say, "Well, duh."

Pain

I remember, once, laying (lying?) on my back and trying to scream. I'd taken a fall, about twelve feet is all, but flat on my back. I couldn't breathe and I wanted someone to know. It's hard to scream if you can't breathe. The pathetic squeaks that came out never carried past my own ears.

A couple of years later, frostbite. An arrogant teenager it, seemed stupid to put on gloves just to water the neighbor's rabbits. 17 degrees below zero fahrenheit with a stiff wind... when I got home, my fingers looked like they were made from candle wax and clicked strangely when I slammed them together. My mother had me slowly thaw my hands in lukewarm water. It felt like it was boiling as feeling returned. I promised myself I wouldn't scream, but I couldn't stop the little animal whimpers coming from my throat.

Learning sword and buckler, somehow-- still not sure how it happened-- the ring finger on my left hand was crushed. ICES--Ice, Compression, Elevation, Splint-- didn't cut it. Went to the doctor. He said it wouldn't hurt as he heated a straightened paper clip under a Bic lighter to melt through the fingernail to relieve the pressure. It was a lie, but he was sprayed in blood and pus for the lie so, in retrospect, it was okay.

Run on a broken fibula. Liver punches and testicle kicks. Broken ribs and broken fingers. Lacerated eye. As the man says, "Life is pain, Princess. Anyone who tells you differently is trying to sell something."

Living is a privilege, and sometimes we pay a price to get here.

Recovering Under Overwhelming Force

Will be doing a workshop in a few days and I want to think out loud here. Nick wants me to do self defense law, and that's easy. One of the standards. He also keyed on an article I wrote for YMAA and wants a class on recovering from overwhelming force.

It's one of those things that is so inherent in my assumptions that I hadn't thought about breaking it out. I mean, physical self-defense is what happens when you are losing. Deadly force is justified because you are about to die-- so having a solid base or good structure or room to move or time to think or space and time for feints or a single opponent in your weight class are all really, really unlikely.

So, brainstorming, this is how I plan to structure it:

• Super brief Logic of Violence intro: Self-defense predicates on a threat doing something bad. The threat will be doing whatever he does for a specific goal and with definite parameters (don't get caught, don't get hurt and two more). His choice of time, place victim and specific situation derive from the goals and parameters. His choice of time, place, victim and situation also completely drives who the victim will be and what the victim must defend against.
• Quick talk that most crimes involve psychological dominance rather than injury for very logical reasons, at least in this country. Signs of psych dominance, signs it might go bad, decision points and the one thing you absolutely don't want to do.

Then the actual elements of physical dominance (speed to freeze your brain, power, compromised structure, constant movement... that kind of stuff) and what to do:

• Beating the OODA loop-induced freeze.
• Fighting emptiness: Not the direct skill needed under an assault, but a habit and way of thinking that helps with other direct skills. It sounds esoteric, but fighting emptiness is just ignoring our primate instinct with other humans to try to match force with force and instead use our force on the undefended place, or get to the flank or squeeze out of a lock or wall pin through the gap... it's a pretty universal principle.
• Which leads to exploitation of the threat's momentum.
• Pocket structure: Finding and training places where you can create structure to hit hard with only some bones in alignment.
• Trying to come up with a name for this one. "Gift-blasting?" Often, the thing the bad guy does to compromise your structure, (like whipping your jacket over your head and forcing your head down) gives you something cool, like a powerful falling shoulder slam directly into his knees if you can see it. It plays a little off the fighting emptiness concept because most people instinctively try to rise directly against the force and fail to see the gift.

If there's time we might go into the fighting the mind stuff, but it already looks fairly ambitious for the time slot.

Does that look like a good intro?

Anyway, if you're going to be in the Boston area Friday:

http://ymaa.com/seminars/boston/selfdefense

And, for that matter, Saturday in Rhode Island:

http://www.damajkd.com/camp.html

Uechi

I'm not sure if I can ever really explain how much George and the Uechi crew mean to me. Martially, I'm a bit of an outcast and an orphan (cue the violins for the sad, self-pitying music. Naw. I like running alone.)

There are a lot of people I play with, like and respect in the martial community, but as far as family... Dave retired about a year after he ranked Bo and me. Bo moved away. Don't want to hurt any feelings, but the few yudansha who continued to teach didn't come close to matching Dave's depth or intensity. It was easy to drift, looking for that level of play.

Found a few training partners, but never did, outside of the Team, find another 'home.'

So my first time at Uechi camp was like an orphan being invited to an Italian family dinner. Then just kind of accepted.

So, brawling and everything aside, the Uechi crew have a special place. I'm a little bummed the weekend is over.

Darin told stories, and so did George. Bill brought a friend, an impressive martial historian who will have his brains picked in the future like a baby at a zombie rising. Patrick and Sara and one other person of unknown name worked on my shoulder. Robb was Robb- big brawling profane and devilishly intelligent. Van and I talked, but not enough. Never enough. Someone shared things that neither of us normally talk about. Mike and Harry shared great talks, even when I was close to drifting off to sleep.

It was a good time.

Landed in Boston

Couldn't nap. Red eye flight. Didn't want to sleep during the day and mess with sleep cycle... so the answer was coffee and constant movement. Jeff and I walked for six hours yesterday (his estimate) constantly talking. About martial arts and martial artists, fights and psychology, early criminal behavior, and Boston. He talked about training in China and Thailand (and he really needs to write a book, not on the training so much as the personalities). I showed him what I meant by 'fighting the mind' and now he wants to gestalt slap somebody. He gave me some exercises for an old injury that seems to be getting worse.

Then a hookah lounge with Mike and Tia. Very nice company but the music was too loud for conversation after a certain point. Good talks as well, and Boston traffic, which makes all driving sort of funny.

Then sleep.

Teaching first class at 0900 tomorrow. May have to experiment.

Packing

Today will be a prep day.  Packing.  Laundry.  Going over lists.  Just a few.  Nothing in the next two weeks requires armor or special equipment, but I should bring the knee brace and the wraps.

Catch an all-night flight tonight, then ten days or so in Boston, Plymouth and Providence.  I love two of the groups I'll be working with.  George Mattson is one of the Grand Old Men and it is always fascinating to watch this group of people that he has created.  Strong, serious, talented and each individual very different, and George cherishes the differences.  The Summerfest is always a blast.

Raffi Derderien is good.  I've only taken a couple of classes with him and been very impressed, but a long time ago I quit watching instructors.  If I want to know about the instructor, I watch the students.  I love hanging with Raffi's students.  Smart, quick, skilled and they laugh and think and question and change.

This will be my first time at Raffi's summer camp and I'm a little excited.

Somewhere in the middle I'll meet with four of my favorite self-defense instructors in the area.  Jeff Burger is a fighter, an obsessive martial artist and hasn't always been one of the good guys.  His perspective is invaluable.  Erik Kondo is one of the most dangerous men you will ever knock out of a wheelchair. He knows the real problems of self-defense from a perspective most martial artists can't grasp.  Bill Giovannucci is a Uechi guy who thinks deep and makes me grateful for good armor.  Jake Steinmann is a PDR instructor who thinks, experiments and uses words like pedagogically.  Want to bring your game up?  Surround yourself with people smarter than you.  Works for me.

The goal is to get these few good men to look over the Logic of Violence concept, evaluate, tweak, and possibly help with one of the sticking points in presentation.

There will also be an evening workshop with YMAA.  It will be my first time at their facility, but with luck I'll see Nick Yang again, and that's always a good time.  Nick asked me to go over SD law, which is pretty a standard by now, but also recovering under overwhelming force.  I haven't considered teaching that as a separate thing before.  It's just sort of one of the background facts of SD: hard, fast, close, surprise.  It will be good to separate it out, I think.

So pack, prep, clean up the house a little.  Say goodbyes, fly.  Should arrive in Boston in time for a breakfast cannoli and a nice coffee in the North End.

Tricks

Anonymous asked about "messing with the mind." I hate it when people use movies to illustrate things, but I'm going to.

There's a wonderful movie called "By the Sword". To the best of my memory, the fencing master in an epee bout with his promising competitive protege suddenly springs straight up and thrusts straight down on the kid's wrist. The kid tears off his mask and screams, "You never taught me that!"

The fencing master screams back, "I can't teach you surprise!"

That's the problem with a lot of tricks, with most of the tactics that attack the mind or the context or the relationship directly. The obvious concern is that if you show people the tricks the tricks won't work as well... but obvious doesn't mean important. You show a trick, people memorize the trick. It becomes a technique. The things that made it work (reframing the question, fighting in the emptiness, social/asocial juxtaposition, feeding expectation....) get lost. I can teach tricks that might allow you to gain surprise, but that's not the same as teaching surprise itself.

Same with the Baby Drill. I took it out of the drills e-book not just because it is more a trick than a drill or just because if you read it, you won't make the same mistakes, but because if you read it you will THINK that you know it... but even people who do the baby drill don't always learn the lesson of the drill. We've demonstrated that again and again.

Reading, hearing doesn't lead to understanding. Even a few experiences don't always. And if you learn something real good, it doesn't mean that you will be able to recognize when you can generalize the lesson.

So, attacking the mind, the no touch parry, the baby drill, knife exposure, super woofing... some of the cool stuff will have to be in person. Not because of the exercise, always, but often because of the debriefing. The no-touch parry looks like magic, but I can explain why it works. More importantly I have a good handle on the personality types it will fail. You kind of need to know that.

More Math

The math thing. Remember that any model is a model, a way of explaining the world and no more. It is not the world. No model is "truth" whatever truth may be. But many models are useful (and, in my experience, useful can be measured by how well the model predicts the future.)

You can represent the problem with knives as math.  One of the cool things about knives (for math purposes) is that they operate so much like hands.  Baseball bat swings have huge dead zones, but a knife doesn't require any more of a swing that a bare hand.  For that matter, it can do more damage with less speed and distance.

So, for our model, a knife is functionally a hand, but say, increases the effectiveness of a threat's attack by 'sixty'.  Part of that imaginary number is damage/lethality, and part is the way people tend to choke when they see something shiny and sharp rising towards their belly.

So, in our completely imaginary, numbers-pulled-out-of-the-ass mathematical model, we have two people with combative chances of o-100.  Hand one a knife and the balance becomes 0-100 on the unarmed side, 60-160 on the weapon side.  Mean is 50:110, for what it's worth.  All other things being equal, the knife is a huge advantage.

There are other things making that initial score of 1-100.  Size, strength, speed, ferocity... it seems like a some of the dynamics on defending against a knife involve trying to amp one of these.  For that matter, a lot of self-defense: "Your natural ferocity is about a 12 out of 100, like most nice, civilized people.  Let's ramp that up to 80 and you will be a far more effective fighter."

That rise from twelve to eighty is huge... but if the threat started at ninety you have only begun to level the playing field.  It's a big gain in an area where it is easy to make big gains.  Lots of skilled martial artists are shitty fighters.  Teaching them to slip the leash is huge.  But that doesn't mean that the threat started at a twelve, and if you are slipping the leash for the first time and he's been doing it for awhile... it's an increase, but it's still a far cry from an edge.

Hmmmm.... and willingness to use a knife (an up-close, messy and personal weapon) usually indicates that the threat has already pretty much maxed the 'ferocity' and 'disdain for human life' attributes.

Controlling the weapon arm is an attempt to neutralize the knife's sixty percent advantage, but it does so at a cost.  If you don't know how to control a limb without hands, it often ties up two of yours.  Do you lose forty or more points of your own effectiveness?  If you went into any other type of fight and decided that you would use both of your hands to keep a death grip on one of the other guy's hands... how do you think that would work out?

The thing with a knife, not just in skilled hands but in any except spectacularly stupid and brain-washed hands, is that the sixty-point advantage doesn't come at any cost anywhere else.  Swinging a club involves a vulnerability in geometry and another one in momentum.  The only cost to a knife is that you can't grip with that hand, and sticking a piece of steel through flesh and under a bone can do almost everything a grip can do.

*Over-reaching generalization alert*

It seems that lots of the RBSD out there focuses on increasing one or more attributes (aggressiveness, ferocity, strength, speed) to give one an edge.  I dunno. There are very few attributes you can increase that the threat can't increase as well.  

Traditional martial arts *over-reaching generalization alert still in effect*  tends to focus on precision and technique, which I've found are pretty unreliable in your first few encounters until you get used to what is going on.  But sometimes it works.  The cool thing is that you can work on efficiency for a long time, but there are genetic limits to most attributes. But... there is nothing in here inherently that says the threat hasn't spent more time on his technique than you have... and he damn sure has more experience with good guys than you have with bad guys.

My focus tends to be on changing the game.  Not because a crook can't be better at it than I am.  Aside from prevention, I find the big gains in in messing with minds, because far more people have practiced or trained with their bodies and weapons than have even considered playing with their own minds.

It's maybe only a few points, but it doesn't cost anything and fewer threats are prepared for it.

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

I'm tired, and very soon I will be tired of doing serious posts and having the posts (or parts of them) taken seriously. There was a rule I used to teach rookies: You can take yourself seriously or the job seriously, but never both at the same time.

Life is cool and complex. If you aren't laughing at something, you're probably missing the point. Plus being serious all the time isn't good for you. Ulcers and such.

Before Math

I want to do a post on math and odds and factors. It's one of those things that is very true and consistent, but isn't necessarily real. Like math. 1+1=2. As long as you are talking about rocks, anyway. Talking about rabbits and given a little time, not so much. The thing is that numbers by themselves are not real. They are just a way to count things that are real.

You can have two rocks or two rabbits, but you can't simply have a two. That's why we distinguish numbers from numerals. Same with odds. A coin will flip with equal possibility of heads or tails. The odds are 50:50, but the actual flip is either heads or tails. Odds are 50:50, reality is either heads or tails. 100 or 0. No fifties.

So before a future post about math and odds, let's look at the rocks.

Thomas, a young German cop, asked me last night about some of the things I'd mentioned here, fighting the mind and my high percentage options and such, and we were able to play with them.

Knives are not mathematical fictions. They are real things that cut and maim and kill. In training, they can be introduced for artificial reasons: "Let's see what works against a knife." Then you give a student a knife and have them fight. Just like sparring but with a knife. It adds a level of difficulty, but it is artificial.

In the real world, knives are used for concrete reasons.

1) A knife can be used to kill people. One of my adages is "Knives are not used to win fights, knives are used to kill people." This goal dictates how it is used. Stealth. Sentry removal tactics. Close range. Weapon out of sight. Control the victim's arm or body or head. Training comes into this. People who learned to kill in jail or prison will do it differently than those who trained in the military. But not that differently. The reason for the kill matters as well. If it is just about money, that changes a few factors. Different than if it is about revenge, or establishing a reputation or a hit...and whether the hit is about removing a problem or sending a message changes things as well.

But in any case, hard, fast, brutal, surprise. Maximum effect and shock, minimum reaction time for the victim. (Survived this once, so luck or not, I know it can be done)

Knives aren't always used to kill.

2) Intimidation. If someone stabs you and you die, the crime, in most places, will be investigated thoroughly. If a threat shows you a knife and you hand over your wallet and no one is hurt, that will not be investigated nearly as thoroughly. Criminals know this. They also know that showing a weapon is more likely to intimidate than being polite.

So knives are used as intimidation displays. The only reason to let you see a knife is if the threat intends NOT to use it. This can go bad, but usually only if you are stupid. Challenge the threat's manhood, try to save face, dare him to use the knife and he just might. This is also the only scenario where a knife defense might look like it does in many classes: a half-hearted knife thrust from well out of range. The regular class stuff might work here, as well... but you have to be stupid to escalate it to here. (Survived this once)

3) The live knife. A trained knife fighter deciding to slice and dice on an unarmed man. This is the training artifact mentioned earlier. It's a challenging tactical problem, but does it happen? I know lots of people who train and play at it, but I don't know any experienced knife thug who would even consider it. The assassination route is safer if you are willing to go there.

4) Rage or fear. You absolutely should practice against certain 'stupid' attacks. Enraged people do sometimes grab the nearest knife or pair of scissors and charge screaming in an icepick grip. Or in fear, pick something up and slash wildly.  Some of the old-school stuff, like the figure four armlock, works here.  But the same tactics are sometimes rejected because they fail so miserably at category 3.  So if "The live knife" as described above is your bench mark, you might not appreciate some things that work in the far more common fourth category, rage and fear.  (Survived this once.  Overhand scissors to be specific. That 'once' keeps coming up.)

5) Monkey Dance gone wrong.  Sometimes the threats escalate and an insecure person draws a knife.  It is almost always a dominance display, display being the operative word.  Particularly common if the person perceives himself to be out numbered, sees it possibly escalating to a Group Monkey Dance.  Thomas described a situation where a friend reassuring the threat that it wasn't a group thing and just a friendly fight talked the threat into throwing the knife away and voluntarily engaging in fisticuffs.  Sometimes people amaze me.  

Big ego or honest fear of death can also trigger someone to pull a knife when losing a dominance fight.

There may be more, but I think these cover the scenarios I've seen, at least in broad strokes.  So, next post when I talk about knife math and knife odds, keep this in mind.  Knives are used for purposes and it happens in the real world.  Any talk about abstractions, including math, can be a distraction from the world.  Be careful.

"Who Will Guide Us...?"

In a comment on the last post, AF1 made a comment that gets to the core of what I see as a major problem. AF1, this isn't aimed at you, but aimed at an attitude that I see throughout the martial arts world.

AF1 wrote:

The Straight Blast Gym guys use the S.T.A.B system of knife defense which focuses on controlling the weapon arm.

That gym is famous for banging it out. In fact if I'm not mistaken it was them who first coined the phrase "alive training."

So if they say it really works, and you say it doesn't work, who are we to believe? Is it possible that there is more than one way to skin a cat?

The point is not whether to believe me or to believe them. Either way, it is an "argument from authority," one of the classical logical fallacies. (Especially annoying, if I am the authority in question.) All it means, whichever you decide, is who you have chosen to do your thinking for you. It has nothing to do with being right.

That's getting really close to the essence of one of the things that has been bothering me. Martial arts, self-defense, whatever label you put on this endeavor is supposed to make you better. Stronger, fitter, and, in my mind at least, smarter and tougher and more independent as well.

That means thinking for yourself. Observing for yourself. And sometimes challenging ideas from people you respect.

So if you want someone to do your thinking for you, go with the other guy. You've already missed the point of everything I have to say. There are lots of people out there actively looking for acolytes and yes-men who will welcome you with open arms.

And, to be glib, when we are talking about knife defense, it's more accurate to say that there is more than one way to fail to skin a cat.

Science, Knives and Rambling

My heart is warmed.

Jake Steinmann over on his blog has a cadre of volunteers to go bang my contention that "controlling the weapon arm" as a first defense priority is... well, he'll see and then he'll pass on the data. I hope everyone understands how critical it is that people go see, and then pass on the data.

Most of the science of self-defense is crap. Someone comes up with a contention or a marketing strategy and then medical and psychological journals are combed looking for something that might support it. But there are problems with that. Most of the people combing the literature aren't scientists, they're martial artists. And sometimes I'm convinced that they never read past the abstracts... and so we have cardiac stress tests (treadmill running) used to substantiate the effects of hormonal stress. Stuff like that.

Dr. Bill Lewinski over at Force Science News seems to have the best grasp of experimental methodology... but most of the rest of the stuff in the field is crap. From voluntary questionnaires aimed at mass murderers, (Oh, he may haver killed six people without any motive but he doesn't have a reason to lie... sigh) To people getting in a pissing match because research and marketing may not match

Or people who quote in little circles: Dr. A says, "Mr. B contends that X+X=Z" and then Mr. B says, "In a paper published last year, Dr. A said X+X=Z" which is technically true, but still a form of intellectual incest.

I'm an INTJ. I pretty much only give a crap about whether something works. That outweighs whether it was handed down in a pure form for 200 years or if elite commandos train it. I'm also not super-interested in whether it works in class. If you explain to a group of people that hitting three points on the lung meridian in succession will knock them out, it will work on a surprising number of people... but if you go randomly smacking three points on strangers without the explanation, none pass out and they tend to get mad. Hmmmm.

So when someone tells everyone in a class how to defend against a knife and it works in class, that's not enough for me.

The live knife thing. We banged it. Mac came up with the best answer (though he has since said it was my idea, he is old and his memory is incorrect)... but just think it through: if there was something that worked reliably against a knife, people would quit carrying knives.

I'm rambling now (hotel after about twenty hours driving). The late Carl Cestari wrote something interesting about knives and knife users. His widow gave me permission to use it in "Violence: A Writer's Guide"... but not here.

I think Jake is on the right track. Question. Test to destruction. Report. That is the Scholar's courage, and it completely trumps the Warrior's.

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

I have been remiss in keeping you up to date.

Seminar in Lakewood, CO Saturday

Bunch of stuff in New England in August (I'm not running any of it, but if someone wants to get together on the off times, let me know.)

A two-part interview with Kris Wilder and Lawrence Kane (I seem incapable of sticking to a time limit):

http://www.martial-secrets.com/2011/05/31/martial-secrets-12-part-1-of-2/

http://www.martial-secrets.com/2011/06/06/martial-secrets-12-–-part-2-of-2/

I think that's about it.

"Getting the Stupid Out"

Andrew Middleton teaches Systema in Montral.  He has a cool way of describing certain drills that I will shamelessly steal.  He called it "Getting the stupid out."

The VPPG does a similar thing, we call it 'banging' as in, "Let's go bang it" which translates to "Let's see if that works."  Similar, but not the same.  In the VPPG, it is an experiment.  We present a problem (e.g. what do you do for face-down weapon retention?) then we come up with some ideas and then we test them to failure.

Getting the stupid out is an experience.  He presents a standard self-defense platitude, like "In a knife fight, control the weapon arm*" and lets the students try it.  But not against a compliant partner, against someone using a knife the way the knife was meant to be used.  The fail is spectacular and memorable. It gets the stupid out.

One of the things to watch for, in our training and when we teach, is where the stupid has crept in.  When we train against unrealistic attacks, or count on artifacts of the dueling or sport paradigms (equivalent weapons and size and numbers; advance notice; uncluttered environment...) we have let some stupid in.

So bang it out.  It will never be perfect, and keep an ear out for anyone who has been in the field who  finds a flaw... but if it fails in live training it has little hope to work when you are scared and surprised.

And especially if you have students who cling to myths, bang it.  Let them get the stupid out.

*This is one of the classics and one of the big issues in training.  "Control the weapon arm just makes so much sense...  The issues is that I have never seen anyone actually make it work, not in real life or even in free training, not for more than a second or two.  The fact that it makes sense doesn't, somehow, prevent it from being a messy and suicidal tactic.  I may get flack on this, which is fine... but before you tell me how wrong I am, go out and bang it, with someone given absolute freedom to play 'live' and tell me how it works.

Thanks, Paul

Paul Kirchner is the author of "Bowie Knife Fights, Fighters and Fighting Techniques" and "Jim Cirillo's Tales of the Stakeout Squad" and some other books that will probably creep onto my "to read" stack. He sent an e-mail after reading "Meditations on Violence" and "Facing Violence." He wondered why Col. Jeff Cooper wasn't in the bibliography.

The short answer was that I've never read his stuff.

I read. A lot. But there is a huge amount of information out there. There are experts I haven't read. Many of them. People I've never studied with. Months ago, I did a post on possibly working up a course for extreme CQ gun, specifically deploying under attack... and a lot of people gave me leads on work already going on. That was a relief. The late Jim Cirrillo or Southnarc or Mercop are the people who have had to do it and someone in the middle of the problem will tend to understand it far better than someone who has only brushed at the edges.

The list is long, and I make it longer by reading sometimes skeptically. If an author intrigues me, I tend to dig into his bibliography, and sometimes an author's sources do not say what he claims. I like reading on the edge of the field. I know what it feels like to be in certain kinds of problems, have developed a comfort level. I actually learn less from people with similar experiences than I do from researchers or sometimes reporters. If you know human pack behavior, sometimes books about dogs or apes will give a new piece of the puzzle.

Anyway, Paul very graciously sent a copy of "Principles of Personal Defense." It was a short book, I read it while waiting for the coffee to brew. But it was concise, accurate and wonderful. The reading list grows.

Re-Cap and Thoughts

I feel obligated to recap the last three weeks and I'm not sure I can. Partially because parts are a blur, partially because I don't think I could write about all the great people equally and I don't want to hurt feelings to no purpose.

We did do both Plastic Mind and Scenarios in Halifax. Much of that was because Jim Maloney's crew had most of the physical skills down cold. Those guys were solid, physically and combatively. It was nice.

There were some oddities in the scenarios, a phenomenon that I'd read about in Amanda Ripley's "The Unthinkable" that I'd never seen in a scenario before. Can't describe it here because I don't want to give scenarios away- but it was interesting and disconcerting both. Saw some good tactics and hesitancy to commit and all the usual things, which is good. Most people who have trained are to some degree in denial. Scenarios help them get a taste of how much they will change when there is stress and things are moving fast. Just a taste.

Over the last three weeks I've played with at least sixty people and the most ferocious were the ones from the most traditional of the systems, and that got me thinking. It's not about system. I'm not even sure it's really about the individual. If the teacher is a real fighter, like Jimmy, someone who has thoroughly gathered perspective both in competition and countless real encounters, he gets the core.

Traditional or non-traditional, whatever we studied came from somewhere and was adapted for something by someone. If they sucked at what they were designed for, they quietly disappeared. (Now, what they were designed for my not be related in any way to their marketing or what their students or even their senior leadership believes they were designed for.) They all fill a need. Maybe the need is only cameraderie or testing yourself safely. And that's cool.

And a lot of the needs have changed over time. 350 years ago almost anyplace was violent beyond what most modern Americans can really grasp. Might did make right and there was no recourse or justice beyond what your tribe or family would and could provide (until a guy named Sam Colt made it possible for the small and weak and poor to make predation dangerous... my opinion, of course).

So 350 or even just 100 years ago when some of the traditions arose, people trying to kill you and take your stuff were baselines of the environment. As that need faded and the traditions continued, other things became important: hierarchies and ritual. precision becomes more important than effectiveness. All that stuff.

When a real fighter comes up in that system (or comes to the system or someone gets exposed to violence later after learning in a system) they see it entirely differently. If they have the courage to start teaching it for effect (as opposed to not rocking the boat and just making the hierarchy happy) it becomes an entirely different thing. The bones come alive and sometimes the bones are very strong.

Just some thoughts, sitting in the Halifax airport.

Last Leg

I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

It will be a different crowd, and that's always a test.

There will be a few people with no training, some martial artists... but the core will be the students of Jim Maloney. Jim is a fighter and he makes fighters and it will be a blast and a challenge to present the material so that his crew get the maximum out of it without leaving anyone else behind.

OTOH, some of the stuff I usually need to emphasize will be familiar to the students of this Old Dragon.