snopes.com: Shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

A must read for those who use social media as news and information source, bad idea.
snopes.com: Shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

"The Myth of Proportional Armament" af Southnark

Usually when one takes training or instruction what they are receiving is an instructor’s vision of a confrontation and the means to prevent or manage such. A lot can be gleaned about someone’s reference points to the realities of self defense, by examining the methods they espouse. This is important from the standpoint of insuring that you are indeed training in a system that matches the realities of the way life or death struggle flows. One of the biggest areas that I see instructors lacking is in their belief that two individuals in a confrontation will be equally armed. They may acknowledge that disparate force confrontations are common, but does their instruction reflect this? An example: Many proponents of knife work teach a system that is predicated on maintaining range and cutting an appendage as it comes into one’s protective circle. The next thing that follows is usually a statement such as “If you can maintain range, you should since you don’t want close with his blade”. Now let’s stop right there and think about that for a moment. What this implies is that he has a knife and you have a knife, and both of you have been able to get said knives in hand and are at range. How often does it really happen this way folks? In my experience, not very often. So let’s address some things, point by point. Real bad guys aren’t stupid. Most will not make the decision to attack unless the odds are in their favor. They will usually have weapon and a friend or two. They will not approach someone whom they perceive as a hardened target, for the most part. This is where not looking like food comes into

play. Your job is to be alert and be able to see a threat before it gets within your protective sphere. If they do make the decision to attack they have to get close to do so. There may be a ruse involved and some deliberate misdirection. They are certainly not going to let you see a weapon in their hand and give you the time to run. So if it’s probable that the bad guy is not going to let you see his weapon at range, then why do we always see systems and methods that are teaching ranged combatives where the good guy and bad guy are equally armed? Would both allow the other to do so? So at this point what can we do to accelerate the curve of advantage? If you see a threat and acknowledge it as such, it’s probably a good idea to at least covertly establish the grip on your tool of choice, be that a firearm, a knife, or OC. We want to do this because establishing grip on the tool is the most tenuous part of any drawstroke to bring any tool into play. This is due to the fact that the majority of our tools in this day and age have to be kept concealed on our body, and ripping through various layers of garments is the slowest part of the stroke. When we establish the grip on our tool, an acknowledgment of the bad guy and aggressive body kinesics should be utilized. What do I mean here? Picture seeing a guy rapidly approach you. He’s disheveled and his right hand is in his coat pocket. You step back with your strong foot, and sweep your jacket, establishing the grip on your handgun. At the same time, you bring your off-hand up palm out in the universal “Stop” sign, a one-handed fence if you will. Now we ask the guy, in a serious tone, “What do you want?”, and maintain eye contact. What we’ve done at this point, is get through the slowest part of accessing a tool, assumed a protective posture, and challenged the guy non-confrontationally. We’ve also sent him some messages. First that we see him, and second that we are potentially armed. Bad guys carry their tools in the same place that good guys do, so when he sees your hand disappear in your waistline or into a pocket he’ll very likely assume that you are armed. What we haven’t done is said anything provoking or brandished a weapon. We may very well have read it wrong. This process allows you some margin for error in your assessment. Even if he’s not a bad guy, most will still react to aggressive body language. Remember that the majority of our communication is non-verbal. That being said, sometimes we don’t pick up the threat and they are on us before we can preemptively get a grip, on our tool. Remember when I said before that bad guys aren’t stupid. You can be rest assured that his weapon, and there will probably be one, will be in hand, and out where he can use it. He will keep it hidden but in hand, close the gap, and only let you see it when he’s right upon you. Doesn’t matter whether it’s a gun or a knife. So where’s the range now? Is this a place in the confrontation where forward grip has a significant advantage over reverse grip? What about cutting the limb instead of the body to see if that will stop him before we “escalate” to pumping his torso with steel? Do any of these atypical system arguments that we’ve all seen even apply? I don’t think so. At this point, the only thing we can really do is deal with the weapon hands on. At some point while doing this, a window may open for you to be able to access a tool in-fight. This skill sub-set must be practiced and incorporated into your combatives training. Additionally, if your tools are not set up optimally for this type of scenario, you may very well not be able to get them into play. Do you really think you can get that folder out and thumb it open after dealing with an adversary who has just had a knife to your throat during a robbery? And here’s a real key issue: If you have successfully negated an opponent’s weapon, then there is a strong possibility that he’s out of the fight which probably nullifies any legal justification that you may have for drawing a weapon of your own. Think about it. So what are the parameters? Pretty simple. The bad guy is not going to be at range and brandish a weapon, giving you time and the cue to equally arm yourself. If he chooses to go after you, then it’s probably because your awareness has lapsed. Even so, he’s not going to close on you unarmed, and if he does then it’s usually because he has a buddy who more than likely is. So the idea that confrontations begin with both participants equally and proportionally armed is a myth. You will either see the threat and make preparations for a potentially armed encounter, or you will be in one before you know that it’s an armed encounter and have to deal with it hands on or access a tool in fight. Either way it’s usually disparate. Knife on knife at range, or gun on gun at range very rarely happens in the realm of citizen self defense scenarios. Once these parameters are understood, then we can make some educated decisions about hardware and software. I encourage everyone to use the reality of disparate force encounters as the litmus test for a system’s street efficacy.

A must-read blog post from Coach Tony Torres of Functional Edge MMA.

"Myth-Directions and the Middle Path

Once again I will be sharing and expressing some views on Self Protection, Martial Art, and Combat Sport and on subjects related to the same that have recently surfaced on the "interweb" and caught my attention. In my usual fashion I will list what I see as potential problems then offer some alternatives and solutions.

Conceptualizing Concepts

Many systems, coaches, instructors and arts boast that they don't teach techniques but rather they teach "concepts". Their reasoning is usually that techniques are rigid and dogmatic or unrealistic while concepts are flexible and can be applied more easily under stress. There is one major problem with this; the definition of the word concept: Something conceived in the mind, and abstract or generic idea.

Basically a concept only exists in the mind and, unless you know some Jedi stuff I'm not aware of, a concept will not stop a knife from puncturing your heart or a rapist from taking what he wants.
Teaching concepts to folks who need Self Protection is like you showing up to a mechanic for car trouble and him just pontificating about the modern combustion engine and sending you on your way.

I know that Coaches and Instructors that use what they call a "Concept(s) Based Approach" are not maliciously misleading the public. They may simply be misinformed or misunderstand the meaning of the word. However there are shady characters out there that use the word concept as a gimmick in marketing to a culture less prone to participate in conventional training for self defense.

Principle-ly Speaking

Another term being misrepresented in our community is principles. As in "I teach principles of combat/defense/self-preservation/etc". A principle is a fundamental law or assumption, facts of nature. Self Protection is of such chaotic nature that the only laws we can be certain of in combat are the laws of physics which affect our entire universe. Anything beyond that is mere speculation.

So here is what the innocently misinformed coaches probably mean when they are talking about concepts, and what all conscientious instructors should be actually teaching and talking about instead of concepts...

Strategically Speaking About Directive Doctrine

What most people that advocate "concepts and principles",which we have shown to be quite vague and virtually useless, are really advocating or should be advocating is a self -protection or combat Doctrine, Directive and / or Strategy. Let's break these down.

Doctrine and Directive are closely related and are the basis of Strategy. Doctrine are a set of beliefs, for example, belief in your right to thrive in a healthy and happy environment and to use physical force if necessary to protect that right. This is a Doctrine. I am by no means saying this should be your Doctrine as only an individual can determine that, this is just an example of one.

A Directive starts giving substance to that Doctrine by specifically guiding your thoughts and actions towards a goal. Directives are affected by personal and professional commitments. For example, a person who when, by himself, as a citizen, may be able to reasonably justify running away from certain kinds of danger, may have a different directive when he becomes a police officer and even a different one still if they become a soldier. A Directive is a set of "instructions" and "permissions" that you give yourself about how much and how far you are willing to go to achieve specific self protection outcomes.You can only reach directives after careful introspection. Also in order to determine Doctrine and Directives we must "Know our enemy". We must figure out with which type of violence our personal and / or professional lives will put us in contact. This violence could be social, asocial, domestic, applied professional, received professional, or military, some or all of the above. In any case we must determine a hierarchy of what we are likely to face and create directives accordingly. Most people have not spent the time determining a personal and or professional directive and this may cause hesitation under stress.

A Strategy is a set of broad brush plans in place to deal with the violence we may encounter. For example we may have in place a Strategy of Alertness, Prevention and Avoidance in order to thwart harm that has not yet reached us and a strategy of Survival, Reversal, Engagement and Escape in cases where the contact phase of an assault has already started.

What is really interesting about Doctrine, Directive, and Strategy is that they all occur in our mind. We can discuss them and help our students formulate them but they are still internal.

Tactful About Tactics

And now we get to the meat of the matter, Tactics. About fifteen years ago I remember finding a definition for tactics in a dictionary that I have not been able to find since. What is interesting is that the definition came to lesser use because most of the time people using the word where referring to military, fighting or combat "tactics".
To this day I prefer the neutral definition I found so long ago: Tactics- the Efficient use of movement, a procedure or method of working using expert movement.

Tactics, when trained and executed properly, are the physical manifestation of our Doctrine, Directives, and Strategy. If we have a doctrine that advocates escape but training that emphasizes tactics that keep us engaged with an opponent to continually deliver damage, we should clearly see that our tactics and strategy or directives are in conflict. Time to introspect and see which needs modifying.

In conclusion to this section. Talk to your students less about "Concepts and Principles" and more about developing Doctrine, Directive, Strategy and Tactics. Also when you do this make sure that you are helping the student explore and develop his own, not just imposing yours. Because you and your student will have different Attributes, a subject that I will address in a future blog :-)

War on Warriors

There is entirely too much use of the word Warrior. Lately people have been identifying themselves or others with this word automatically imbuing it, and themselves, with all kinds of positive traits. Read the following definitions carefully and you will see that the term warrior can only be used to truly describe a very small percentage of people and that description does NOT automatically mean that said person is inherently good, noble or honorable. I have interlaced the definitions with all the relevant and critical meanings so that the reader may do some mental subtraction as the meaning of the word becomes narrower.

Warrior: one engaged {involved in activity} or experienced {made skillful or wise through participation} in warfare {military [relating to soldiers or war] operations between enemies}.

Nothing in the definitions above indicates tenaciousness, kindliness, virtue, or any of the numerous other positive traits that are being associated with the term. Those positive traits belong to such humans that choose to develop them and are just qualities of being a good human being not qualities of a warrior.

You can be a good warrior or a terrible one. You can be a noble warrior or an evil one. Stop using the term as a badge of honor, specially if you didnt earn it.

Trademarking Truth About Mucho Macho

Some instructors and coaches, some famous, some not so much, include in their teaching engagements or interactions with students or potential clients, a session at the beginning or end of training that goes something like this: (Standby for cartoonish depiction in 3, 2, 1...)

Statement 1 Out loud or to self- "I can kick anybody's ass here!" 

Statement 2 usually out loud- "Who wants to try to kick my ass?"

Incident 1 Instructor Soundly Kicks ASS of Student who plunked down hard earned cash to learn from him using techniques that he has mastered through years of repetition against half-hearted attacks initiated by said psychologically off-balance student.

Result 1 student who has his ass handed to him, and most of audience, are appropriately impressed and will forever be followers of that "guru".

Result 2 Intelligent people will question validity of social experiment they just witnessed.

Result 3 Student in audience that is daughter, mother, sister is scarred for life knowing that they cant ever hope to defend themselves from a guy like that.

Result 4 Cop in audience scratches his head thinking "What a dick!"

Result 5 Ambulance is called for student injury...or instructor.

The sad part is that I have seen this scenario unveil in various forms. Folks have told me of private lessons that went like that with some World renowned teachers. I have witnessed famous trainers challenge students questions by basically challenging them to a fight or putting them in dangerous but unrealistic scenarios in which said instructors had the cards stacked in their favor.
I have seen instructors sell their system by lining up students and defeating them under rules and circumstances that said students would never find themselves in.

The simple truth is this, your ability to "kick someone's ass" only proves one thing, you kicked that person's ass. It does not mean that your system is the best or that the person should train like you to achieve the same results. 
Love your martial art, combat sport, or self protection method enough so that you continue to practice, develop and evolve but not so much that you are blinded to other avenues and answers that, although they may not be the best for you, they may be useful to those you are trying to help.

If you truly are confident that the skills you have to share will work for yourself and your students, then putting them in a scenario that may cause potential injury and really has no educational value is, at best ignorant and unprofessional, at worst a silly display of macho ego, potentially dangerous and well...unprofessional. 

Be responsible to your students by challenging myths, especially your own, the truth almost always lies somewhere in the middle of extremes. So endeth this rant :-)"

Tony Torres

We are drinking too much water

Our bodies need about two litres of fluids per day, not two litres of water specifically.

In an Editorial in the June issue of Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health,Spero Tsindos from La Trobe University, examined why we consume so much water.

Read both links to get the complete info

http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/PressRelease/pressReleaseId-103617.html


http://www.humankinetics.com/products/all-products/Waterlogged?associate=7089