Self-defence (and why)

[GD]

Richard Douthwaite's excellent (and free!) online book "Short Circuit" shows how as the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW - graph 1.4) has moved in the reverse direction for the last 30 years, and joblessness has increased over the same period (Douthwaite discusses some of the leading causes, such as EU membership, floating dollar, trade liberalisation, automation...). The effect has been increased crime levels and declining social commitment (Ch1 p1).

As we well know things are going to get worse before they get better (to echo some of the sentiments from Orlov's Post Soviet lessons) we will be in for some increasing crime (even if a crash doesn't occur, IMO) such as muggings and burglaries, as well as wider social disintigration.

So some self-defence skills could well be something that put you in good stead for the coming years.

I'd like to share a few tips:

1) I highly reccommend Gavin de Becker's book "The Gift of Fear - survival signals that protect us from violence". It is about learning to listen to your intuition and use it to avoid becoming a victim. Therefore it is good for martial artists and non-martial artists alike. It's also good for assessing any worries you might have, and helping to alleiviate them. (He points out the fact that the words "anxiety" and "worry" stem from a root that means "to choke". If enough people are interested I'll pen, sorry, type a review.)

So if you are savvy and fortunate enough, you (like Orlov) could well come through unscathed.

2) If, however you cannot avoid such an encounter, a few self-protection skills might (I emphasise the word might) see you through. A book highly recommended for practising martial artists is Geoff Thompson's "Dead or Alive: The choice is yours".
Geoff is widely recognised in the martial arts world as a leading proponent in the "Reality self-defence" area. This book is a fantastic accompliment to training, and gives great tips on how to handle sticky situations, watch for the tell tale signs of an attack, and how to keep your training real.

3) do not limit yourself to any particular style or club. For example, Bigjim, I believe is planning to start Judo. I say: "Fantastic!" Also bear in mind that, as good as that style is, it is limited to throws, chokes, locks and pins. It has also been "sportified" to the point that some of the original more effective techniques have been banned for being too dangerous.

(This, however comes from my limited knowledge of Judo, so please correct me where wrong). I would advocate also studying a style that also makes use of strikes, so as to be more "rounded" (I recall a friend of a friend, who is a Tae-Kwon-Do practitioner, made light work of a knife-wielding mugger one night when I was a student in Liverpool!) The flip side is styles like Tae-Kwon-Do / kung-fu / kick-boxing are pretty useless (alone) if a decent grappler gets hold of you!

Also learning from different teachers from the same style is good as you benefit from the varying perspectives.

One thing that comes from training in different martial arts is that you notice that they really are all "the same thing done differently" (footie enthusiasts note how we play different to continentals, and south Americans are different still - the martial arts are no different). Geoff Thompson says "all martial arts appear the same when placed under intense pressure".

4) If you are interested in starting out in martial arts (of course, you don't have to be a beginner), check out www.systemauk.com (I am not an affiliate, I have only had limited experience of this - been to a few seminars). It is one of the "rounded" styles that does everything. It is also designed to be picked up as quickly as possile, so that students become effective within a few months to a year. (Contrast this to what I do - Aikido - where it takes at least 10 years to master the basics!).
Also, as other (leading) martial arts people have pointed out, thier knife defence is light-years ahead of anyone else's. The only downside is the lack of instructors, it is a "new" martial art, that has only left Russia after the Soviet crash. The truth is that it stems from ages old traditions in Russia, and was held as a state secret during the Soviet era, the only practitioners being top level secret service (and these are the main teachers now!).
If there is a club near you, go! (If there was one near me, I would.)

5) There are many other beneficial spin-off effects, such as health and fitness. Learning to keep your cool during stressful times is a good one. The inner growth is rewarding, and especially so when material growth is not possible. I can attest this from my personal experience entering telecomms as a graduate, just after the end of the boom.

[Caveat - you might be wondering who I am exactly to talk like this, so here's my experience:
Ju-Jitsu for 4 years whilst in Uni, Aikido for 4 years since then. I have aslo dabbled in Karate, Iaido (sword kata) and Systema. I am planning to begin teaching Aikido with a friend soon.

So, by all means, take into account my limitations also GD

Edit: By the way, I won't be around to discuss for the next week or so, as I'll be in S. Wales on the Aikido summer camp! ]

[isenhand]

I sent my daughter of when she was 9 to learn Ju-Jitsu. She is doing well at it and has used it a bit to protect her self. Personally I thought that that was a good all-round style and the style taught in Sweden ensure you stay within the law as well.

However, if things get really bad you may need to learn how to shoot!

[snow hope]

A very serious subject and one that I haven't given any real thought to until now. I just wonder (apart from keeping fit - which I am not) are there 2 aspects to this topic.

Firstly, self-defense when out and about. Requirements maybe not that much different than today - GD has lots of good suggestions. But it is hard to defend against somebody who produces a gun - just give them what you have and hope they don't shoot!

Secondly, defense of your property, land and possessions from thieves and marauders. This is a more difficult area and I think will become quite different from today. I suspect a gun will be required as well as good hedges / fences / gates etc. If things get as bad as some folks think then marauders will become a major problem either trying to get food from your garden or indeed take over your house for their own benefit.

My attitude is, over my dead body!

Maybe an air rifle would be sufficient for defensive purposes, but I can also see it being necessary having 3 or 4 arms and the amunition and people to be able to use them. Maybe a supply of stones and rocks would be useful and a crossbow. Pepper spray up close and a stun gun may be useful.

I do not like these ideas, but I like less the idea of people taking from me what is mine and what I have prepared and can survive from if things got really bad.

It is all so sad. But you have to have the attitude - get over it and get on with it.

[Karl]

I have a 30-06 rifle from Finland, a trusty mauser type of rifle, so far i have got 350 rounds of full metal jacket and 40 hunting rounds. Those hunting rounds expand on impact and increases in size creating a impressive wound channel, one of those in in a vital area like the lungs, heart, spinal cord, brain, etc ought to nearly instantly kill all kinds of human or humanoid targets, the hunting bullets i use are for moose and they penetrate good as well, meaning you can shot through things before making a kill.

I will get more ammunition of course and I will get a shotgun, and more rifles and I will get my first handgun this fall, 22 lr to start with, but I'm aiming at a revolver, for the superior stopping power.

firearms is a very good preparation because you can hunt with them, you can defend and attack (as a defensive measure) with them, here's why you should have a couple of scoped rifles so you can take out targets from 200 m at least and 100m moving targets. And it can be traded with in later times, I will not trade my precious guns, but perhaps some of the ammunition, I'm planning to get 10 000 high quality hunting rounds in 30-06 (bullet diameter 7.62 mm and chase length 63 mm)

I suggest that you get firearms it has many benefits, see them as a tool, that you are to do good with. This anitweapon hysteria is nothing but inferior thinking because there have always been weapons around so you better instead excel at it, we are predators and we are genetically coded to warring and killing as well as we are coded for "healing" your job is to make sure the right ones are healed and the right ones are killed. In fact you're a evil person if you fail to do this, cowards saying they are pacifists are no bettter than murderers. You will be brave and you will be a killer. Not a murderer or a coward. There's NO nobility in loving ones enemy, it's only cowardice, to be good you must be prepared to kill. I know you say that it's not popular today, the christian code of strange ethics is, BUT you are not good because you FEEL GOOD or because people says so you are good if you heal where healing is due and kill where killing is due. You are good if you serve the interests of your tribe. Not by thearatically pardon a dangerous enemy and tell everyone how mercifull you are and how noble you are, you are just a trendy jackass without morals.

What I say now will fall in place in the future, because it's rather obvious and simple. We are what we are if our trends in society says that we ought not to be as we are, you must protest against it, there's no room for second hand ethics if you want to survive, here it takes a brave clear view on reality so you can handle it in the best way possible.

People who are to weak to and dependent on trends in society will not be as prepared for peakoil as the one who are not.

IN fact many people will die solely because they decided to be trendy at all costs. Hardly worth it guys!

I understand that it can be hard to convince say a partner getting guns, in this anti-weapon society, but if you can conqueror yourself you can conqueror her. First of all they will say it's unsafe, then you tell them that you are getting a vault that are unlocked by decoding it rather than with a key that can be found by curious children, that one tipp, the arguments you will use are the Grimm situation as such, you need guns for protection and food, tell her that it's imperative that the family is safe from attacks, and that a much higher risk than firearm misuse etc, could be granted to achieve that, tell her that it where the opinion of numerous pioneers etc in history, and tell them that millions of hunters feel it's alright to have guns at home. Now.. some will protest anyway, then it's time for your plan B, you store the guns at another place.. and when the times will get harder simultaneously with that the dogmatic view on weapons will fade away,, you can introduce them into her life. and she probably just look them as another male tool.

You can for example trade also, you can say to her that you all stop drinking alcohol which will considerably lower the already neglible risk. I don't drink and one of the reasons for quitting is that I have got firearms. It's probably pretty pointless for that reasons, the risks are that low, but I'm a safety minded guy. Always have tied my father good and well when we have sailed in windy weather. It's simply unsafe to not have guns.
Hope this helps, remember the gods will not care whatever it where socially hard to be armed in the future, they will just smirk at you and tell you that you failed and where a fool.

[GD]

Remember also that guns are not everything. Police in the USA are trained to maintain a minimum distance of 21 feet away from anyone brandishing a blade, purely because they can still get you first!

Source
The first half of the tape is devoted to the "Tueller Drill." The "Tueller drill" is named for Sgt. Dennis Tueller, Salt Lake City Police, who also appears in this video. In 1983, he published the article "How Close Is Too Close" in SWAT magazine (Survival Weapons and Tactics). In this article, he discussed the results of a series of tests he had run. His tests showed that, with people of various ages, weights, and heights, they could on average close a distance of 21 feet in about 1.5 seconds. That time -- 1.5 seconds -- happened to be the "drill time" taught by Jeff Cooper at GunSite for drawing a handgun and firing two aimed shots. Knowing that people who have been shot do not always -- or perhaps even often -- fall down instantly, or otherwise stop dead in their tracks, Tueller concluded that a person armed with a knife or club at the so called "intermediate range" of 21 feet was a potentially lethal threat. The "Tueller drill" is now a standard part of all of Ayoob's LFI classes.

(I've pulled that from a google search. I originally learned of it in Geoff Thompson's book "Dead or Alive...").

Also, there are times when lethal force is not appropriate (esp. pre-crash or no crash).

Finally, guns do not give you number 5 on my above list.

Post a crash, if things get really desperate, then guns could prove their value, but working in a community on your security would still be the best insurance.

[isenhand]

Probably the best form of self defense is not to get in a hostile situation in the first place! On long those sort of lines you could do think like plant prickly plants around you land (like holy or blackberry bushes).

[rs]

Probably the best form of self defense is not to get in a hostile situation in the first place

I second that! The best course of action in any physically hostile situation is to try to defuse it or run. Physical combat should be the last resort.

No point being a hero if you are wounded or worse, dead. Especially in a post-PO world where medical care may not be what it is now.

I spent many years in my 20's learning a form of Ju-Jitsu, Aikido and kick-boxing. Much of the training was how to avoid confrontation and how to fall correctly. Not much of it was offensive. We also spent a lot time practising certain scenarios which you might encounter in the real world.

For example, being in a crowded bar and being attacked by someone with a glass bottle, on a train late at night and attacked by drunken yobs, walking to your car in a car park late at night and being jumped from behind, walking down an alley way and someone jumping out at you.

All this jumping in the air flying kicks is for the movies. Try doing that in a pub if you accidentally knock some guys drink over and he trys to smack you over the head with it.

Another thing to remember is nearly all fights end up in grapples. So if you want to learn a style, something the caters for close-quarter fighting and restraint would be good.

But I still think the best thing to do is avoid it if you can!

[Karl]

Probably the best form of self defense is not to get in a hostile situation in the first place! On long those sort of lines you could do think like plant prickly plants around you land (like holy or blackberry bushes).

Of course and that's one of the reasons I will relocate, living in one of the cities is REALLY unsafe. I will even relocate to j?mtland, the overal best place I have figured. Considering acid rains, immigrants, crime, pray, price of land and plagues. It will be more pleasant there , then after the souths die-off I will return if the soil is no to sour.

I want action aswell, but on my terms, ?stersund is a mayor city in j?mtland I plan to make raids there doing something usefull and exciting on the same time.

[fishertrop]

In respect of basic self defence and the options for learning different styles and forms, I'm strongly of the view that choice of style matters very little indeed.

In the original post GD says:

The flip side is styles like Tae-Kwon-Do / kung-fu / kick-boxing are pretty useless (alone) if a decent grappler gets hold of you!

Whereas I would say that if you have the right mentality and know Tae-Kwon-Do / kung-fu / kick-boxing you will, on average, fair pretty well but if you lack the right mentality then NO style, method, art, fighting system or indeed most weapons, will help you at all.

Obviously your first line of defence is not to have got into the situation in the first place - think smart - the second line is simply to run away, but if you get to the crunch and conflict is inevitable it will be your mental approach FAR MORE than any martial art you have have learned or book you have read, that will influence the outcome in your favour.

If you supplement the correct mental approach to conflict with a fighting system - any system - then you will likely benifit from it.

If you start with a system and lack the mentality then all the years of training - in any system - will help you little.

As I understand it, the real things that "street fighters" like GeoffT teach is attitude and mentality FIRST and nifty moves a distant second.

Debate of which style is better than which in situations X, Y or Z is meaningless until you get to the esoteric levels of competition fighting.

[GD]

As I understand it, the real things that "street fighters" like GeoffT teach is attitude and mentality FIRST and nifty moves a distant second.

Excerpts from "Dead or Alive" by Geoff Thompson.

"Ch1 - Avoidance and awareness":

"A fire prevention video teaches you how to prevent fires with the use of deterrents and alarms, and how to escape a fire with a minimum of fuss. What it doesn't try to do is make you into a fireman. So it is with this book. I do not want to teach you how to be a professional street figter, rather how to avoid being face to face with someone who will enjoy smashing your bones to dust."

...


"One young lady said to me after completing a six-week self-defence course (and I quote)

'I baby sit for a friend twice a week. In the evening, afterwards, I take the short cut home and walk across the local park. It always scares me. Now that I have done a self-defence course I feel a lot safer when I take the shortcut across the park.'

If she had been taught properly she would no longer be taking the short cut through the park."

Steve Lynch - one of my Ju Jitsu instructors at Liverpool Uni (going back about 6 yrs):

"Think of it like insurance. Hopefully you'll never need to use it. But it's good to know you have it" .

Also, reading about how some people avoided and escaped certain death situations using pure intuition, from Gavin de becker's book, is simply stunning. It's a fantastic resource for developing it.

Also, during the Aikido training week I went to, we had a small session dedicated purely on Judo (there's quite a few cross-practitioners) and it was superb! So much so that I'm thinking of going along to add another string to my bow! (So don't mind what I said about it being "sportified" it's still effective, despite what's been removed. And the bit's that have been removed are covered in Aikido anyway!).

[RevdTess]

I studied wing chun for a couple of years (due to its reputation as a good martial art for women) before circumstances took me away from the school I'd been training at. Wing Chun's probably not much use after only a couple of years but what I did learn was that it's very hard to learn to fight without any actual experience of being in a real down & dirty fight. I gained a certain confidence in my ability to hurt others (due to practice palm-strikes that connected when they shouldn't have) but little confidence in my ability to avoid rabbit-in-headlights paralysis if attacked. Mostly I came to realise that you have to be by nature a fighter and have the right attitude in order for martial arts skills to be useful. I did not have the right attitude. I am a perfectionist and couldn't get emotionally involved in the training, so I spent all my time worrying that my moves were a millimetre wrong and so on, thus missing the point entirely. Only after I quit did I realise my mistakes (though admittedly the teaching could have been wiser).

[GD]

Hi Tess, here?s some of my musings on what you had to say?

Seizure:
There?s always the worry that, despite what you?ve learned, would you fail to apply it if and when you might need it. I have been through much of the same myself.
There?s ways to learn about coping with Adrenal Dump (without having to become a bouncer!) such as Red Man / Animal day workshops. The first stage is simply understanding the limitations of your body and the natural mechanisms that respond to a survival instinct. Then you can learn to work with it and spring into action ? the Systema people incorporate this (it?s failing to do this that causes ?Rabbit in headlights? seizure, as I understand it).

Accuracy:
Many teachers / styles try to teach only the basics, and let you add your own specifics. (Many of the ?realists? abandon traditional forms altogether). Styles like Aikido and Systema focus on principles not techniques as such, so you can improvise and adapt to any situation. (Bruce Lee?s Jeet Kune Do is also like this, I believe).

?Don't think, feel!
It is like a finger pointing away to the moon.
Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.?
Bruce Lee.

Eventually, you learn to ?let go? with your brain, and trust your body to do the thinking it needs. I recall the first time this happened to me after a couple of years doing Ju Jitsu, a weird experience.

The way I tend to think of different martial arts is that they are all parts of the same ?object?, and that individual teachers are like laser beams, pointing to the object from their own particular angle (individuals can only impart a fraction of their knowledge). The more teachers you study under, and the more styles you do, the more of the object you can see. Which is probably true of any endeavour you pursue, really.

As for needing a certain mind set to be able to fight, I would simply say that, we all have the ability ? at least at our most primitive level (or bottom of the Maslow hierarchy is a way to think of it).

[RevdTess]

Styles like Aikido and Systema focus on principles not techniques as such, so you can improvise and adapt to any situation. (Bruce Lee?s Jeet Kune Do is also like this, I believe).

Quite so, and Jeet Kune Do was Bruce Lee's adaptation of his earlier (incomplete) wing chun training plus things he learned from his own experience.

Yes, like aikido and others, wing chun is all about principles not techniques, and yet the principles are taught as a series of very basic motions that the practitioner can extend and adapt to themselves as they become more proficient. For me though I got caught up in trying to get the basic motions absolutely correct, rather than seeing the intention behind the motion. It wasn't that I didn't understand the *principle*, but that I didn't know how far I could deviate from the principle before I was 'wrong'. In retrospect I would have done better being more committed to my body's motions and less accurate, rather than having my mind constantly trying to pull my body back into line (to avoid the criticism of the teacher, who was quite unpleasant and made me fearful of his disapproval).

After I quit (due to the bad teacher), I trained a little my boyfriend at the time, who had been studying for 7 years, and freed from the compulsion to 'get it right' and any intellectual involvement, I was suddenly able to *feel* what worked and what didn't. Alas I broke up with that boyfriend and eventually got focussed on other things, and the breakthrough was wasted.

I totally recommend it though.

[GD]

WATCH SYSTEMA IN ACTION TONIGHT CH4 9PM & E4 10PM

I couldn't believe my eyes last night (while simultaneously despairing for the future), Russian martial art instructor Valeri Riazanov (of Systema London) appeared on "Space Cadets" as part of the scam.

(For those who may not know, space cadets is a show where the contestants believe they are "the first British space tourists". They believe that they have won a competition and have been flown to an ex-military base in Russia to train for a space flight. They've really cruised the north sea for a while and are actually in an ex military base near Ipswitch

I keep having to remind myself that these guys are carefully hand-picked "idiots that think they're great" and are not typical or representative of most people. (There's also the possibility that they are ALL actors, and it's the whole thing that's a hoax. Surely no-one can say "Space, it's like Chessington world of adventure times ten thousand" can they? Really? ). )

Anyway, Val will be making his "big entrance" on the show starting at 9, and giving a live demonstration after on E4 at 10. Have a look, this martial art is fantastic!

I've had this guy demonstrate a "takedown" on me at a seminar in London last year. He said "I'm only doing it lightly, just to show [you get the idea]"... I was thinking (as I peeled myself from the ground) "Man, I'd hate to see you when you're angry!")

[skeptik]

"Space, it's like Chessington world of adventure times ten thousand" can they? Really?

Yes. Never forget - " Nobody ever went bust by underestimating the stupidity or bad taste of the public."

It's a bell curve. Just as there is a minority of very clever people, there is also a sizeable minority of incredibly stupid and gullible people out there.

For the purpose of TV all you have to do is find them. They know next to nothing, and have no ability for abstract thought. Their minds cannot do logic except of the most simplistic concrete type in relation to something directly in front of their eyes.

Only people who have been into space really know what it's like. Stupid ignorant people will believe whatever you tell them if you make an apparently sincere convincing effort of it. They won't spot the inconsistencies. If you tell them the space capsule has artificial gravity they will unquaetioningly believe you as they know no better.