Fear is the mind killer. Well, it certainly can be, if you don’t know how to control it. Many people worry about how they would react if they suddenly had to use their martial arts skills in a real life situation. Even if you train regularly, there is a huge difference between practicing in the safety of a dojo with a partner, and dealing with the wildly unpredictable … [Read more...]
How to Spot a Knife Attack Before It Happens
Some dude gets in your face. You're bigger, stronger, and (probably) better trained than your opponent. No problem, you think to yourself. I can take this guy. You parry his first strike, close the distance, and move in ready to drop him. He lands a couple of blows to your ribs, but they aren’t terribly hard. You knee him and he drops, which is when you notice the blood … [Read more...]
How Understanding ‘Woofing’ Kept Me Out of A Mexican Prison
There's a concept about human confrontation that I learned many years ago from a book by Marc 'Animal' McYoung. He talked about something called 'woofing', and understanding this has kept me out of quite a few fights (including one that I'll tell you about later in this email). The idea of woofing goes like this... If two dogs are having a dispute then they don't … [Read more...]
Face Your Fears
My mom grew up in the German speaking part of Switzerland in the 1950s, and occasionally she would reminisce about her high school and college teachers. I was always intrigued by her stories about the old teachers - the regal "Herr Professor Doktors" - who proudly sported big scars on their faces, tokens of a time when they themselves had engaged in a strange custom known as … [Read more...]
A Killer Car and a Horrifying Lack of Awareness
Here's a real-life situation that I came across in my newsfeed recently. A Porshe and a BMW collide on the street, and the male driver of the Porshe storms out of his car. He circles the BMW while yelling at the female driver... He bangs on her hood with his hands... Then he tries to force open her doors open... Threatening behaviours all round. Next he goes to check … [Read more...]
Awareness – the Single Most Important Factor in Self Defense
There are many different aspects of self defense, including everything from weapons, to striking, to clinching, to wrestling on the ground. But there's one particular aspect to protecting yourself that's hands down more important than all the rest combined... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yR2iVwkCfM It's not your striking. You might have a killer … [Read more...]
The Constant Vigilance Mindset
The most dangerous attack is the one you don’t see coming. If you can’t see it coming, you are caught unprepared and your odds of injury increase dramatically. When people think of self defense situations, they think about bar brawls, or possibly muggings. Fair enough. All the focus is then on physical maneuvers to protect yourself and inflict damage on your attacker. In … [Read more...]