When I woke up this morning, it also woke up my wife. She asked me why I was breathing short and fast. I shrugged it off because I was dealing with my dream. I’d like to share it with you because there’s something I learned (at least reinforced) and maybe you can learn from it too.
Author: hsoi
DVD Review – ShivWorks’ Practical Unarmed Combat
I picked up the 4 ShivWorks DVD’s. This is a review of one of them: Practical Unarmed Combat.
Note that I have no connection with ShivWorks or SouthNarc. I paid for these DVD’s out of my own pocket money. I’m just some guy that happened to be a customer, bought the DVD, watched it, and wanted to blog about what I saw.
Here’s the official trailer for the DVD:
The Fence, and other non-aggressive stances
Geoff Thompson coined a term, “the fence”.
The fence is a self-defense technique. It’s so simple, but it’s not easy. Basically, the fence is putting your hands up and out in front of you. Poor description, but watch the first video and at about 0:46 you’ll see the fence. Watch the whole video to catch all the subtleties.
The fence aims to control a person: attacker, offensive person, someone in front of you. You’re working to maintain distance, so they cannot get in on you. The thing about the fence is that it’s not necessarily obvious nor aggressive. You have your hands up, you have your hands out. If you’re a person that speaks with your hands, this may not feel too awkward to you but you’ll just have to adapt how you move your hands so they don’t drop below your waist. The fence creates just that — a fence between you and the other person. From there you can control distance, you can use verbal skills to deescalate the situation. If however the situation escalates into violence, the fence puts your hands in a place for immediate action. You can block, trap, strike, parry all from a fence position.
Related to this, consider mantis blocks.
Another such stance some term the “chin-and-elbow cup”. Let’s assume you are right-handed. You will have your right hand cupping your left elbow, and the webbing between the thumb and index finger of your left hand will cradle your chin. This gives you an appearance of being in thought about whatever the dude is talking to you about. Some will say that you should also blade your strong side away. What does this do? It provides your body with coverage: right arm is protecting your mid and lower body, left arm is covering your upper body including having your arm in front of your throat. There are many possibilities and variations on this theme that you can do. Explore.
I have a Renzo Gracie book, Mastering Jujitsu, which discusses a stance called the “prayer stance”. Basically it appears as if you are standing with your hands in a prayer-like state, submissive. But of course it’s a deceptive stance in that it allows you to block, strike, drive in, whatever may be necessary.
There’s Tony Blauer’s “flinch” response:
There’s a lot out there that aims to look at self-defense from a non-agressive yet defensively advantageous position. Fences, flinch-response, and other such stances can be a vital part of your self-defense system, useful to help you avoid the problem in the first place or to help you survive and win if things get ugly.
ShivWorks
I believe I first heard of “SouthNarc” and ShivWorks through KR Training. SouthNarc runs a lot of seminars on his own, but my angle in was via “full-spectrum” courses offered in conjunction with Tom Givens’ Rangemaster. Specifically, in September 2009 I’ll be taking a “combined skills” course with Givens and SouthNarc via KR Training. I’m looking forward to it, as both Tom Givens and SouthNarc are well regarded trainers. It should be a humbling but educational experience.
I’ve also become interested in checking out all I can from SouthNarc because he has a background in Filipino martial arts, which I’ve just started studying. As I tend to do when I get involved in new things, I like to devour all the knowledge I can on the topic, so I’ll seek out books, videos, websites, people, forums and obtain all the information I can. I’ve read numerous things online from and about SouthNarc, and watched some videos on YouTube. So the next step? ShivWorks has produced 4 DVD’s:
- Reverse Edge Methods, Volume 1
- Reverse Edge Methods, Volume 2
- Fighting Handgun, Volume 1
- Practical Unarmed Combat, Volume 1 (my review)
I purchased them through MD Tactical, who were very quick with order turnaround. I just received them in the mail and have started watching. I’m sure I’ll post some reviews as I complete each DVD.
Updated: added link to my review of PUC v1
More buyer’s remorse
Yesterday I mentioned Colin Powell having buyer’s remose over Obama.
Now Ted Rall expresses his. (h/t RobertaX)
He [Bush] was the worst president the U.S. had ever had. Until this one.
On major issues and a lot of minor ones, Obama is the same as or worse than Bush. But Bush had an opposition to contend with. Obama has a compliant Democratic Congress. Lulled to somnolent apathy by Obama’s charming manners, mastery of English (and yes, the color of his skin), leftist activists and journalists have been reduced to quiet disappointment, mild grumbling and unaccountable patience.
I don’t care about window dressing. Sure, it’s nice that Obama is intelligent. But policies matter–not charm. And Obama’s policies are at least as bad as Bush’s.
Some numbers:
Bush was the biggest spender in history, running up a $1.8 trillion deficit with wasteful wars and tax cuts. But next to Obama, Bush was a tightwad. Glamour Prez hasn’t been around six months, yet the Congressional Budget Office reports that he already has quadrupled the deficit by an extra $8.1 trillion. “The total debt held by the public [will] rise from 57 percent of GDP in 2009 to 82 percent (!) of GDP in 2019,” reports U.S. News & World Report.
Obama is sinking us into financial oblivion 72 times faster than Bush.
Where’d the money go? Mostly to insurance companies. Banks. Brokerage firms. Who used it to redecorate their offices and give themselves raises.
Against logic and history Obama claimed his bailout package would create jobs. Instead, unemployment has risen by 1.3 million. Has Obama’s plan saved a single homeowner from foreclosure? Reporters can’t find any.
Some snark:
I liked Bush better. He wasted our money when the economy wasn’t quite as sucky. And he didn’t insult us by pretending to care. Come on, Barack, smirk! Truth in advertising!
Some admission:
Obama has done more damage than Bush. And no one’s stopping him. Which makes him worse.
Sorry, Mr. Bush. If I’d known what was coming, I would’ve been nicer.
The sad thing is, if during the election folks just looked at Obama’s track record (you know, his actions while he was in the US and Illinois Senates, not all of his charismatic election-time talk), you would have been able to see this coming.
Singer “Midnight” passes
I just read on BW&BK that former Crimson Glory singer “Midnight” has passed away.
I remember discovering Crimson Glory and thinking they were pretty cool, especially the vocals… the guy could sing. Powerful, operatic.
Here’s the video for their song “Lonely”, which really showcases his vocal abilities… and their huge hair (dang!).
Weird guns
James Rummel has a cool posting on 5 weird guns.
I like the Machinegun HDH. That just looks cool.
Buyer’s remorse?
Colin Powell expresses his concern over the current adminstration:
“I’m concerned at the number of programs that are being presented, the bills associated with these programs and the additional government that will be needed to execute them,” Mr. Powell said in an excerpt of an interview with CNN’s John King, released by the network Friday morning.
[…]
But, he said, “one of the cautions that has to be given to the president — and I’ve talked to some of his people about this — is that you can’t have so many things on the table that you can’t absorb it all.”
“And we can’t pay for it all,” said Mr. Powell….
Remember that segment in Eddie Murphy’s Raw where he talked about crackers? Back before November 2008, Obama was a Ritz cracker. Now people are discovering he’s just a Saltine. 🙂
Joe knows this guy from East Germany…
A few choice quotes:
He hates the communists. “Communism makes people lazy. Yah!”
And this is most telling:
“Joe”, he said, “People complain about how unequal things are with the rich executives in a capitalist society. But it’s just the same under communism–it’s the politically connected that have the money and the people that aren’t connected don’t have anything. I know. I lived it. Communism, it’s very bad.”
Tools don’t matter. Actions with them do.
Oleg Volk discusses the ethics of weapon use. (h/t to Robb Allen)
For those that may not want to click on this figuring it’s just some pro-gun justification rah-rah article, give it a read. Oleg has a rather well-thought out line of reasoning.
