The video above is of Maija (Sword and Circle) and her teacher Sonny Umpad, the founder of Visayan Eskrima. I’ve seen Maija’s posts on forums and blogs, but didn’t realize she had a blog of her own until a few days ago. Her blog is excellent, and I’d highly recommend subscribing. Although all of the posts are great, two are particularly interesting to me at the moment: Forms and Ego, Death and Progress.

In the post on forms, Maija starts out by asking if forms are valuable for people who don’t know what fighting feels like and/or don’t know how to visualize an opponent. She brings up Sonny’s feelings that forms are “inherently glitchy” and that the patterns within them can override reactions, and then comes to her own conclusions that there are benefits, especially if “you have felt the problem they were created to solve or the skill they were meant to refine”.

For the last few years I haven’t been teaching, and have only been training with my partners/students a couple of months each year due to travels. I’ve been attending classes at other schools, but the techniques and training methods are usually very different from what I’d prefer to be doing. So I find myself doing more solo training than I’ve ever done before, and I find myself creating prearranged forms as a convenient way to drill certain techniques and strategies. I’m also thinking these new forms would be great for former students who seem to have trouble practicing on their own, as they can be a guide to techniques and strategies. But Maija makes a great point that without knowing what a fight feels like and without being able to visualize the opponent, they’re probably of very limited value (so possibly not so great for beginners or those who don’t have some experience fighting).

I’ve also had an experience recently with Sonny’s point about patterns overriding reactions. At a new school I’ve recently been going to, when learning a stick vs. stick drill I repeatedly found myself reverting to counters I had done most often in drills I used to teach. To some extent, my ingrained responses slowed my ability to learn the new drill I had never done. But is that really a bad thing? I imagine it can go both ways. I’m a big believer in having a few solid “default responses” you can rely on, and ingraining them through repetition. There are two sides to that coin. On one hand prearranged partner drills (and possibly solo drills to a lesser extent) do ingrain reactions. If they didn’t, I wouldn’t have had such trouble not reverting to them automatically.  On the other hand, might it be better to simply “flow”?

This brings me to Maija’s next post, Ego, Death and Progress. I love this post for many reasons, and I love the “flow training” in Visayan Eskrima, which is something I’ve done very little of. In my upcoming trip back home I’ll certainly incorporate it into my training. The progression she details in the above post is great because it seems it may counteract the disadvantages of prearranged form training through a free flow as in the video at the top of this post, with structure to help practitioners win without dying (in the case of sword training at least).

The idea that forms training does ingrain responses to such an extent that those responses could be harmful is an interesting one. I like prearranged solo and partner drills because they’re a great way to work on perfecting body mechanics, training with full speed and power with little chance of injury and no gear, AND they ingrain responses like ramdon flow training cannot, in my opinion. I’m not sure yet exactly what I think of the downsides of ingraining those responses, or the possibility of using flow training to counteract those downsides, but I’m interested in exploring it.

Facing Violence

I came across an outstanding self defense blog today, Chiron, which led me to the author’s website and to purchase two of his books: Meditations on Violence: A Comparison of Martial Arts Training & Real World Violence and Facing Violence: Preparing for the Unexpected. Rory’s blog and website have such great information on them that I wanted to share them here. (I don’t know the guy and have never communicated with him.) Anyway, check out his stuff. It looks great. I’ll post more on his books after I read them.

UPDATE: I’ve finished both books and they’re excellent.  Anyone who practices martial arts, especially if you’re at all interested in self defense, should read both books.  They cover the different types of attacks you might face, from an idiot in a bar to a real predator, rapist, etc., how to recognize which type you’re dealing with, how to avoid trouble or deescalate when you can’t, and what you should realistically expect.  They portray violence as it really is, and explain in detail why most martial arts and self defense training will fail in the face of a committed, brutal, and chaotic attack.  The books are also a fascinating study on human nature.  In terms of violence and social interactions, we’re not all that different from the animals we evolved from.  Fortunately, understanding these interactions that Rory breaks down so well, can seriously increase your odds of avoiding or coming out of a conflict in one piece.

I was very happy to see Rory explaining why matching specific defenses to specific attacks is generally a recipe for failure.  In a real violent assault you won’t know if your opponent is stepping forward with his left foot and throwing a straight right or stepping forward with his right foot and throwing a sloppy hook.  You’ll most likely be facing a barrage of chaos, and complex, fancy techniques will not work.  In “Facing Violence” he covers a few of his preferred default responses.  While I prefer those in our Fundamental Five, his responses, the techniques he demonstrates, and the principles that support them are solid.  I very highly recommend both of his books.

A guy named Nassim Taleb wrote a book a few years back called The Black Swan, using the term to describe improbable events that greatly alter the course of history.  His argument is that these rare events are the primary drivers of history, and because they’re unpredictable, the future is also unpredictable.  Having lived in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit, I can relate to this.  Although hurricanes are somewhat predictable, the affects that Katrina had on the Gulf Coast, the city of New Orleans, and all of the residents in this region was not.  Many people lost everything and became far worse off, some people became much better off through unexpected changes in their lives, others moved to cities they never thought they’d be living in today, etc.

One thing we do know is that we all will be affected by more Black Swans.  We’ll have more economic booms and busts, there may be terrorist attacks that alter the course of your life, wars, etc.  So what are you doing to make sure your savings and income is protected?  How are you practicing self defense related to that aspect of your life?

In searching for info about Black Swans I came across this article on what turned out to be a great finance site, FinancialCalculator.org.  The entire site has great information, but I particularly like the points to follow to be best prepared for catastrophic events…having no debt, maintaining good insurance coverage, creating multiple sources of income, diversifying your savings, and having a flexible mindset.  These should be part of every self defense course, as they’re going to be more important to most people for “self defense” than physical defense against physical attacks.  Expanding your concept of self defense to include other aspects of your life is an excellent idea.

I took Aikido for a couple of years in college, and for the most part found it to be useless for self defense the way it was taught to me. But I’ve always liked the theory behind it and figured at least some of the techniques could work if trained properly.

Woman Being Attacked

I captured the images above several years ago, of a woman being attacked in front of my old house.  I had installed a security camera that was activated by motion, was going through the video footage to see who stole my newspaper one morning, and came across the horrific attack above.  A woman was walking on the sidewalk when a man in a truck stopped, ran out toward the woman, grabbed her in a bear hug and threw her onto my steps, then choked her while slamming her head into the concrete steps.  He then dragged her into his truck and drove away.  The entire time he was yelling and cursing at the woman.  I called the police as soon as I saw the footage and they came to my house to see it, but said there was nothing they could do since they couldn’t identify the truck or the individuals, and had no other reports.

It could have been a “domestic violence” situation.  Maybe the woman knew the man.  There was also a “brothel” about two blocks from my house, so it’s also possible this was an unhappy customer.  It could have been a woman who was attacked by a complete stranger.  I’ll never know, and it doesn’t much matter what the situation was.  The man was a psychopath and should be locked up or worse.

So why am I posting this now?

I’m working on a self defense e-book at the moment that I’ll eventually put on this site.  In the process of researching the demand for them I’ve looked at a few, seen plenty of advertisements for them, and also watched numerous internet videos on self defense.  The majority of what passes for self defense on the web, in e-books, and in real books for that matter is garbage. Let’s take a look at an image from the best ranking self defense e-book on the web, 7most.com:

Horribly Unrealistic Defense

I didn’t buy this book, but the image above depicts an extraordinarily unrealistic defense against a bear hug.  Compare the images above, where a man stands still holding a woman in a rear bear hug, with the images of the real attack I posted above.  In the fake attack, the attacker just stands there waiting to be foot stomped!  In the real attack, the attacker runs in and uses a bear hug to slam the woman onto concrete steps.  That’s the first problem.  The second problem is that foot stomping a serious attacker isn’t going to do anything but piss him off!  It’s DEFINITELY NOT going to give you the space to raise your arm out of the hold and elbow the attacker in the jaw!  Let’s take a look at one more image from the same site:

Another Stupid Defense

This is another horrific “defense” against a choke from the mount.  It will never work. All the man would have to do is lean back and the woman wouldn’t be able to reach his eyes.  He could also simply smack her hands off of him and punch her in the face, then go back to choking her.  If you want to learn to defend yourself on the ground, you need to take classes in Brazilian jiu jitsu, judo, or some other form of wrestling.

There’s no magic in self defense, and if you want to learn to defend yourself it’s going to take a real commitment of time, effective techniques, some hard training, and a sound strategy.  “Tips and tricks” are going to get you nowhere but hurt. So if you’re looking for self defense on the web and happen to come across this post, remember what a real attack will be like.  There will be dynamic motion.  No one is going to put you in a bear hug and just stand there waiting for you to counter.  No attacker that was serious enough to sit on top of you and choke you is going to stop when you attempt to put your thumbs in his eyes.  Other than awareness and prevention, if you’re looking for a quick self defense fix, forget about it.  Any book, video, or instructor who promises you otherwise is full of it!

If you’re aware of your surroundings, take simple precautionary measures (lighted areas, locked doors, alarm, etc.), and keep your distance from potential threats, you’re highly unlikely to be attacked.  By adding “good boundaries”…not being afraid to say no, exiting situations you feel have the potential to turn nasty, and fighting when necessary…the chances of you being successfully assaulted are so low it’s ridiculous.  And if you do happen to know a few solid self defense techniques and training methods, well, you’re covered.