Me

Me and my Leatherman

/ hsoi / 8 Comments

What can I say. I like tools. I especially like useful tools.

One of my favorite useful tools? My Leatherman Wave.

Sure I had a pocket knife when I was a kid; in fact, I had a bunch of different pocket knives. You’re a young boy. You’re in Scouts. You get your Whittlin’ Chip. You get your Tote N’ Chip. You have knives (and work with other things too like axes and saws). You learn how to be responsible in the use of these tools and how to use them correctly and effectively. It’s just what you do as a kid. 🙂

I’ve also had various other knives, and sure they’re great and fun, but they’re just not always useful and handy. Tools are really most useful when they’re available to you at the point in time you need them. So you need to cut something? If you can’t get at your knife, what good is it?

So when I finally was able to get a good knife, the first thing I looked for was the ability to get the knife into my hand and the blade in a position where I can cut. Even better is if I can do this one-handed, and even better, if I don’t have to look to do it.. There are certainly lots of knives out there that do this (I like Spyderco Delica‘s too). This is one great thing about the Wave. When it was introduced, most Leatherman tools had the blades on the inside, meaning you had to open up the whole tool just to get at the blade, then close everything up to be able to use the blade. This was not handy at all. Leatherman realized this and created the Wave with the blades on the outside of the tool (seen at right). Now you can pull out the Leatherman from your pocket or sheath, and the blades are right there. You can place your thumb in the hole on the blade and with one hand open and lock the blade and off you can use it. One subtle but important thing Leatherman did was understand the importance of the sense of touch. There are 4 blades on the Wave, 2 blades are within easy deployment by a right-handed person. But when the Wave is in your hand and you can’t see what you’re doing, you can feel! There’s a small bumpy ridge on the back of the serrated blade (bumps, serrated, get it?), so you can feel for this with your thumb… if you feel the bumps, you’re in position to deploy the serrated blade; feel smooth, the straight blade. So this was a key reason in my choice of the Wave back when I bought it. These days it seems most of Leatherman’s full-sized multitools offer the blades on the outside, so that’s good to see.

The other reason for choosing this over a traditional pocket knife? More tools! Well, that and locking blades (most traditional pocket knives don’t have locking blades… something you appreciate the first time something slides and a blade closes or nearly closes on your fingers). It’s nice to have tools. There are countless times I have used the pliers, wire cutters, screwdrivers, bottle opener, can opener, ruler, scissors… yes, I’ve used just about all of it. But this is me and what’s right for me. What’s cool is there are many different combinations and variations out there. For instance, check out the Leatherman Crunch and it’s different pliers. The pliers have probably been one of the best things… you don’t realize how much you can actually enjoy having them handy until well… you’ve got a set always handy. Another thing that was novel about the Wave when it was introduced was that when the pliers were in use, the handles were smooth and rounded, which made it very comfortable on your palms, especially if you have to grip hard; Leatherman’s with pliers at that time didn’t have this and it wasn’t enjoyable to use the pliers.

There is only one problem with the Wave. It lacks tweezers. The first Leatherman I actually owned was a Micra. I received it as a Father’s Day present long ago because it was small and had a good pair of scissors. Why scissors? Well, my children were very small at the time, but able to sit up and drink from beverages with straws… which were always too long… which would always cause drinking problems…. so I wished I could just trim the straws down to size for the kids. And lo, I was given the gift of the Micra. I will say, the scissors are better than the Wave’s, but the Wave’s are sufficient for most needs. The real bonus with the Micra, again, is the tweezers. And I still carry my Micra, on my keychain. No reason not to. Splinters happen and need to be removed.

Keep your Leatherman handy. In your pocket, on your belt, in your bag, whatever works for you. Useful tools, on hand when needed. Leatherman ranks high on my must-have list.

Children and shoes

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Oldest’s shoes died a quiet death this past weekend. A little duct tape was used to keep them in play for a bit longer, but there was no question they were gone. Plus he’s growing and his toes were scrunching, so without question he needed new shoes. Darn these kids… they keep growing for some reason. 🙂

Oldest wanted some Dad time, so I took him shopping. Had lunch at Carl’s Jr. (they just opened here in Austin, tho I’ve been to them before when visiting California… it’s a burger, but it’s novel for the kids), then off we went for shoes.

Shoe Carnival? Nothing. Payless? Nothing. Wal-Mart? Nothing. Target? Nothing. JC Penny’s? Nothing. Then we hiked it across town to the Mall. Finish Line? Nope. Sketchers? Nope. Journey’s? No. Vans? Nope. Foot Locker? No. There’s a store or two that I’m forgetting, but they were “no” as well. Why so many failures? Well, some were just lack of selection… I tell my wife that Payless is great for women, and it is, but that’s all. Also Oldest’s feet seem to be at a stage where he’s maybe youth size maybe adult size (size 6), but either way there isn’t always enough available in his size. So when we can find a store that’s even plausable, then there’s nothing he likes.

Me: So what do you think?

Oldest: I don’t know.

Me: Well, did you see anything you liked?

Oldest: I don’t know.

Me: Did you see anything you didn’t like?

Oldest: I don’t know.

Me: *sigh*  Well, you said that pair you maybe liked. So… what did you like about it?

Oldest: I don’t know.

Me: *sigh* The color? The style? The fit?

Oldest: I don’t know.

Me: *sigh*

And so on… the conversation went. Yes… those teenage years are upon me. I suppose this is my penance  for my teenage years, right? Karma’s a bitch, man. 😉

So I explained to Oldest about guiding through decisions. How you gather information. If you liked this, what did you like about it? color, style, fit, etc.. If you didn’t like this, why didn’t you like it? Again, take a catalog of it. Make an explicit bit of work to figure that out. Tally it up. Eventually, if you pay attention to what you’re doing, you’ll figure it out.  I kept working with him to help him figure things out, to help him sort it out, but letting him ultimately make the choices.

And so, eventually we get to Champs. We stood outside. Oldest was obviously tired and frustrated and wanting to give up in all of this. But I just stood there, reminding him that his current shoes were dead and giving up wasn’t going to solve anything… he’d just have to be back out again, so might as well deal with it now instead of prolonging the pain. We go into Champ’s, and the first few he tried he didn’t like. But we talked, he seemed to catch on to the decision making process. I might ask a question, have him compare to a prior shoe he tried. He’d tell me this felt better or worse, he didn’t like the color on this one, or whatever… so there was a breakthrough here, which made me happy. And eventually he found something. And lo, it was comfortable. It wasn’t too gaudy. Could be something casual but he could even wear them to church. They were in his size, good construction and fit. We had a winner.

Finally. 🙂

And Mom seems happy with the choice too. So, Oldest seems happy. Mom is happy. I got to have some time with my son. I got to teach him about a few things, and he seemed to catch on. So, there’s hope!

Breakfast for supper

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

Almost titled this “Breakfast for dinner” but that would be my northerner coming through. 😉

Brigid reminisces about pancakes for dinner. I’m not much of a pancake fan, but I know what she’s talking about. Sometimes we have breakfast for supper. It’s simple, it’s good for you, and yes… the best part is everyone at home, eating together, talking and laughing around the table. Oh, and yes… bacon. How can you go wrong with bacon?

Being at home as much as I am, most of the meals I eat tend to be with the family. I know that’s not a common thing these days, which is a bit sad to hear. All to often it’s scarfing down McDonald’s in the back of the SUV on the way to soccer practice or whatever activity there is tonight. I never was into running around like that. To me, that’s not quality of life. And that’s a nice thing about breakfast for supper: it can be pretty quick to whip up, so if you are tight on time, you can still have a good meal and a good time together.

Try it some time. Try it tonight.

Doing things by feel

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Getting in the car with the children. It’s dark. They struggle to put their seat belts on in the dark. “Dad, wait… I don’t have my seat belt on… I can’t see the thing the buckle goes into!”  My response? “Feel for it.”

I’ve been teaching my kids the importance of doing things by feel. You don’t always need to use your eyes, as you can accomplish many things by just feeling. In fact, sometimes it’s better to use your sense of touch, leaving your sense of sight to perform other duties.

For instance, the reason I opted to write this blog entry is because I was just doing dry-fire practice with my handgun. I was working on malfunction drills and reloads. Everything I did, I was doing by feel. Why? Because I’m practicing on keeping my eyes on the threat. I can’t use any other sense to mind the threat (maybe hearing) so I really want my eyes to be focused on that task. If I have to avert my eyes and focus to the malfunction/reload process for even a second, that takes my eyes off the threat and who knows what they might do the moment my eyes are averted.  Thus I need to use my sense of touch to manage the reloading. Sure, there’s a small bit of peripheral vision being used for the reload, but for the most part, it’s touch. In fact, you can get to a point where you could do a reload with your eyes closed, because our body does like to naturally bring its hand together.

This also raises the importance of index: that something is placed in a manner that naturally aids your ability to find and complete a sequence of actions. and in this case, by sense of touch. For example, my reload magazine is positioned with the tip of the top bullet “facing front” so when my left hand grabs the magazine the tip of my index (!) finger is on the point of the bullet, which ensures the magazine is naturally aligned for the reload (no flipping the magazine around in my hand), and my hands and fingers all naturally come together and go to the magazine well at the bottom of the gun for a fast reload. It may be difficult to see in the picture to the left, but it’s there. You’re able to keep you gun’s muzzle between you and the threat, your eyes are up there on the threat, so the gun is in your peripheral vision, you feel for the magazine release with your right/shooting hand, drop the empty or problematic magazine to the ground, meantime your left/other hand is going for the fresh magazine, magazine grabbed and properly indexed, eyes still on the target, magazine brought up and seated, left/other hand racks the slide (no, you don’t use the slide lock as a slide release), and off you go. A bit of vision involved, but it’s all mostly feel, aided by proper indexing.

Another illustration of indexing is if you wear a folding knife clipped inside your pants pocket. Where do you want the knife to be? You want it as far back, as close to the “end” of the pocket as possible. Why? This is a known, established spot. You can hook your thumb anywhere inside the pocket, slide it towards the back of the pocket, and you’ll find the knife. If the knife was clipped anywhere else in the pocket, you slam your thumb into the pocket and then what? Where is the knife relative to your thumb? Do you know? Can you know? Is the time spent finding the knife time well-spent, or precious time wasted? Again, this is indexing. You can place your thumb in the pocket at any point, slide to the rear, and allow yourself to index to that spot where the knife is and off you go. The need for a knife doesn’t always involve the luxury of seeing where your knife is or even an ability to use two hands. And this isn’t just defensive use of a knife. Just mundane things like cutting open a box can go faster and smoother if you can keep your eyes on the task and let your sense of touch, with indexing, help you acquire your tools.

If you’re not using to using your sense of touch, if you’re not used to indexing, take the time to learn. Yes it’s a little uncomfortable to give up reliance upon your eyes, but if you force yourself to do it and allow yourself to go slow and learn and get better with consistent practice, AND if you allow yourself to trust your other senses, you’ll eventually get quite fluent. Being able to spin off other tasks like this to secondary threads (yeah, got my programmer-speak going here) can be a huge help towards more efficient processing and accomplishment of tasks.

 

Updated: Karl Rehn, wrote me a response to this correcting some stuff. I’m happy to be corrected, and let me share with you what Karl wrote. The words are Karl’s, I just retyped for formatting.

>> Because I’m practicing on keeping my eyes on the threat.

Danger Will Robinson. I have seen more people go down this wrong road with regard to reloads.

Learn to do the reload with the gun held up at nipple level, and look as little as necessary — but nobody that is good at reloading the pistol does it purely by “feel”.

Google “Travis Tomasie reload” and watch the video of his reload, which is the fastest ever recorded. He looks at the gun just enough. 

It’s a risk analysis problem. The risk of blowing the reload (empty gun, mag on the ground, lost time) is very high. The risk of getting shot because you took an extra 0.1 sec to look at the mag being seated is not going to be decreased by not looking. Why? Because you are only reloading for one of two reasons: (1) You believe there is a lull in the fight that provides you sufficient time to replace a partially spent mag with a full one. If this is the case you don’t believe you are about to shoot, thus you have to look. (2) Your gun is not capable of shooting because it’s out of ammo or has malfunctioned. In this case you are defenseless until you get the mag in the gun, and what’s critical to you in that situation is time, not awareness. If the gun isn’t shootable and a threat pops up, there is nothing you can do about it until you get the gun loaded. You should already be using the best cover available so it’s not like you are going to stop loading and duck behind cover, since you should have ducked behind cover first before starting to reload.

Looking back at what I wrote, I did give too much impression of doing things totally by feel and involving the eyes as little as possible. My mistake. I am using my eyes, but I will admit I was trying to use them as little as possible so that my eyes were being focused elsewhere. But Karl is right. Depending on the situation your focus ought to shift to the reload itself so that you can ensure a successful reload, or the problem is big enough (e.g. malfunction) it will be what requires your focus and attention. The shift of focus may be quick (that 0.1 seconds to ensure the mag is seated), but still there’s a shift.

Thank you, Karl.

Domestic archeological expedition

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

My more recent endeavors in life are amassing lots of stuff. What happens when you acquire stuff? You need a place to put that stuff. Thank you George Carlin:

But instead of going and finding a place to put more stuff, I’m just getting rid of some old shit so I can reuse that storage space for my new stuff. So into the closet I go, figuring out what’s there…. boxes that haven’t been unpacked since moving into the house many years ago, things you can’t remember the last time you looked at. It’s a trip down nostalgia lane.

It’s always an interesting education for my wife and especially my kids when things like this happen. It gives them a peek into the past. For instance, I got to show the kids what a cassette tape is. Even found a player and was able to play some of them… you know, the mixed tapes you’d make, recording your favorite songs off the radio, or when you were really cool and had one of those dual cassette stereo/boom-boxes that could allow you to dub your friend’s purchased album onto a blank tape? or better, the dub of the dub of the dub of the dub such that the tape hiss was the dominant sound you actually heard? Yeah, good times.

Found a lot of old pictures. It’s a shame my scanner died years ago. I need to collect them all and take them somewhere and spend an afternoon just scanning them all in, sending them to old friends and having a good laugh at the memories. Y’know, I think that broken scanner is actually buried in the closet… well, something else to toss (yes, this would go to Goodwill’s electronics disposal center, not the landfill).

Other things I found:

  • tons of 3.5″ floppy disks. It’s been years since I had a computer that could even read one of these.
  • tons of CD’s… old CodeWarrior CDs (gazillions of these, from my past life), lots of old Mac software, things that you think for a second might be worth keeping but then you see it requires a 680×0 processor and these new Mac-Intel boxen running Leopard will never grok them
  • a set of KISS McFarlane Series 1 action figures, new in box
  • tons of old cassette tapes, from my earliest heavy metal years. Man, I need a way to convert them to MP3’s… too many good and rare albums here.
  • lots of old computer books
  • a lot of old vinyl and some neat things too:
    • Sepultura “Arise” picture disc
    • Monster Magnet “Superjudge” red vinyl
    • White Zombie “La Sexercisto” in glow-in-the-dark vinyl
    • tons of old and rare Red Decibel 7″ stuff from The Coup de Grace, Drop Hammer, Walt Mink, Libido Boyz, Last Crack
    • The Journey “Raised on Radio” album I won from Power 105 WAVA. I remember waking up, getting ready for my paper route, 5th caller wins, I called in and won not just the album but a key to the “Power Porsche”… a key that could start up a Porsche and if it did it was yours! Sadly, the weekend of the event I had to go on some youth group retreat so I didn’t actually get to try it… I think my Dad and younger sister and cousin went instead. Didn’t win, of course.
    • Autographed copies of albums from Treponem Pal and Malevolent Creation 
    • Lots of other stuff
  • Stuff from my old radio days
  • Promotional materials
  • band promo pictures
  • air checks from all the various stations I worked at
  • carts with my show bumpers on them
  • posters (many autographed)
  • A couple boxes of old things from growing up
    • My 8th grade English class journal
    • All my homework and papers from Drivers Ed class
    • An old model kit of an SR-71 Blackbird, and lots of Testors model paint jars
    • some old t-shirts
    • a couple cool pencil boxes from Korea, which my kids quickly usurped
    • A bunch of old birthday cards and letters, a couple of which included hand-written letters from my paternal grandmother… cards I tossed, the letters I kept.
    • A ton of my old Boy Scouts stuff… from the little advancement/achievement cards for merit badges and rank; certificates of youth leadership training, Patrol Leader, and Senior Patrol Leader; Patrol Leader Handbook; a cool leather “50 mile canoe trip” patch; a bunch of useful handouts and other reading material, good for camping or other outings today (Scouts or otherwise)
    • 8 to 10 (lost count) glasses cases.
    • One pair of old glasses… plastic frames, huge lenses (to go with the onion on my belt). Put them on, the wife and kids had a good laugh.
    • Yearbooks from middle school and high school, and a couple from undergrad
    • band trip pictures
    • autographed picture of me meeting President Ronald Reagan in The Oval Office
    • More things that I can remember
  • A bunch of my old Magic: The Gathering cards. I saw some kid with Magic cards a few weeks ago and I realized that I used to play that game… 15-ish years ago. 
  • And there’s still more stuff to be discovered I’m sure. It’s going to take the rest of today, at least, to get things fully cleaned and reorganized in there.

    • It’s quite a trip down memory lane. A lot of stuff was junk that was no problem to throw away, but there’s no question some stuff your heart just won’t let you toss. And I know if I really had the gumption there’s a fair lot of stuff I could put on eBay and could make some money with.

    So, blogging will be light until this is done.

     

    Updated: added more stuff that I’m uncovering.

    Updated 2: Been working at it all day. Donated a LOT of stuff to Goodwill. Threw out a lot of stuff… had to get over the nostalgia of things because if I haven’t looked at it in this many years, do I really need to care and keep it? Many things cleared out. And while I moved a bunch of new things into the closet, in the end there’s a lot more room in there now. So sum total of it all puts me in the negative which is good! Got rid of far more stuff… things are better organized and located now. Big win for all the work done in the last 24 hours. Got some tax deductions from all the donations. Uncluttered. Things are good.

    Of course now…. I guess Carlin would say it’s time for me to buy more stuff. 😉

    Sword training

    / hsoi

    At the dojang today, all I did was sword training.

    I don’t care for sword.

    I know some people are totally enamoured with swords. There’s a Romantic notion about it. There’s great fantasy in it. But for me? I couldn’t care less. I’m practical. A sword is not practical. Sure it’s better than nothing, but it’s just not a practical weapon for the 21st century urban dweller. In my traditional martial arts training I prefer more practical weapons, such as a staff (especially short staff called “dan bong”); I’m looking forward to studying cane.

    But for today. Sword.

    So I look at it this way: it’s training, it’s discipline. I have a heavy (relatively-speaking) steel sword. Most people don’t like to use my sword because, while a gorgeous and well-balanced sword, it’s long and heavy: arms tire out. That’s why I like it, because it works out my shoulders, my arms, and most of all — my grip. It’s not just strength, it’s endurance.

    And I care about grip for other areas of martial study. 🙂

     

    Updated: I should clarify. I only have so much time and energy in a day to study and practice something. So with limited time and energy, I’d prefer to spend my finite resources on the things I find most productive and useful. Thus why I prefer to study things like staff or cane or firearms. But if I must study sword, and to progress in my martial art yes I must from time to time, then I might as well utilize that time towards productive ends. Maybe I’ll never be a master at wielding a sword, but if it’ll strengthen my grip, well, I found something useful to focus on.

    A little financial lesson I learned

    / hsoi

    Like most people, the past some months in my household have involved a lot of belt tightening and reexamination of financial situation. I’ve done my best to be responsible with the money I earn, currently having no debt other than the home mortgage, which is a reasonable mortgage at that. Live within your means; in fact, try to live well below your means. Still, I kept feeling a crunch. I had spent a bit beyond our means the past some months to stock up on various things, dipping into savings and such. I’m wanting to recover from that but was having a bit of a time digging out. It hit me what was going on and I wanted to try it. It’s only been a couple months so it’s a bit early to tell, but so far the results are promising so I thought I’d share.

    What was going on was that I was paying too much towards credit cards every month. I use credit cards because of purchase protections, extended warranties, rewards, and other such side benefits. I pay them off in full every month. But that was the problem. When it came time for me to pay the bills, I always paid the full amount. For example, the billing cycle ends with a $500 balance, but between the end of the billing cycle and the time I get the bill in the mail then sit down to pay bills, I might have charged a few more things and might have $700 on the card. I always figured that I’ve already used the money, send it now or send it later didn’t matter I still had to send it, so I might as well zero out the card. Thus I’d write a check for $700 and zero out the card. Technically that’s a good thing to do, but it was having a subtle side-effect on me. I would look in Quicken and see that we had a zero balance so I would think to myself “ok, we can spend X amount”, but in reality, I had kinda robbed Peter to pay Paul. I try to shave off a good portion of my paycheck every pay period to put into savings, but to pay that credit card bill down to zero I might have to reduce or eliminate that savings. Thus I’d have a zero card balance, but I didn’t get to save as much as I wanted to. And so, I was treading water, paying bills, but not rebuilding my savings.

    So instead what I decided to do was just pay the required amount. Bill comes for $500, I pay $500. Sure that might mean at the time of the bill paying I leave $200 (going with the above example) on the card, but that’s fine. It does a few things. First, when I look in Quicken I see there’s already some sort of balance on the card, thus I’m reluctant to put more charges on the card thus spending less. Second, when I do my bill paying now I am saving in full or might be able to save a little more. And so far, that has really been paying off. It’s helped me curtail spending and keep my savings on a good pace.

    Yeah, it’s a bit of slight-of-hand, it’s just mentally fooling myself. In the end it’s all about budgeting and such and keeping within your means. But for me, this change helped. I keep bills paid in full, no revolving balances on the cards, but I keep the monthly spending correct for the pay periods and don’t “overspend” because I miscalcuated. My savings is rebuilding at a good click, my spending is reigned in more.

    Man… wish I had realized this years ago. 🙂

    First impressions from the other side

    / hsoi / 4 Comments

    I receive much of my firearms training through KR Training. After obtaining my NRA Instructors Certification, I figured I ought to get some “internship” experience, so on March 7th I volunteered to assist with classes. There were three classes being held: first was Basic Pistol 1, then Defensive Pistol Skills, and finally AT-1A Low Light Shooting. I’ve taken all of these classes as a student, but yesterday was my first time as an instructor. It’s certainly different being on “the other side”, and not just in the obvious “not a student but a teacher” sort of way.

    What I’d like to talk about tho are not just my personal impressions and feeling from during and after the day’s events, but also some tips for folks that take classes (at KR Training or anywhere, and not even just firearms) and how they can get the most out of the classes.

    First, let me state that overall the classes weren’t too bad. The students were of a wide variety: men and women, young and old, racially diverse, various walks of life (I say this for those that believe gun folks are only white male rednecks), and certainly different levels of knowledge, skills, and experience. People came to learn, and I’d like to believe they walked out of there all a little smarter and a little wiser. Hopefully they’ll take whatever they got from the courses they took and practice those skills, work to master them, and then come back for further training. Learning never stops.

    Gear

    Before you come to class, make sure you know what gear you need for the class. If the class description talks about drawing from a holster, it’s reasonable to assume you’ll need a holster. If it’s talking about drawing from concealment, it’s reasonable to assume the holster ought to be one that can be concealed. You also should make sure you have a way to conceal (e.g. large shirt, vest, coat, etc.). If you have a concealed handgun license and are coming to work more within that paradigm, it’s best to come equiped and dressed in the manner in which you carry. If you’re not sure what’s right or if what you have is right or if you need to get something else, ask well before the class starts (maybe when you first sign up). Certainly class time can be used to help you learn about gear and such things, and likely you will learn through your own choices, what the instructor teaches, observing the gear of others and how well it works for them, and so on. But if class time has to be taken to get gear right, that takes time away from the class, which is time away from you learning about other things.

    If you must obtain (new) gear prior to the start of class, ensure you are familiar with it and that it’s set up and working right for you before you come to class. This would include your firearm. Ensure it’s running and working well and you know how to operate it. This of course doesn’t hold for beginner classes, like Basic Pistol 1. But if you’re beyond BP1 then you likely own your own gun and some gear to go with it, thus you’ll be better served if you know how to use it correctly. All firearms and most all gear come with some sort of instruction manual — read it. If it didn’t come with one, contact the manufacturer and ask for one, then read it.

    Class is certainly an appropriate place to learn about gear, and you may even find that your choice of gear isn’t working out. If this is the case, don’t consider it an ego-blow but a learning experience. I mean, if you’re coming to these classes to learn how to use a firearm to defend your life, while yes equipment is last on the priorities of survival, it’s still important. Don’t use crappy gear. Be willing to seek out good gear. If the instructor is opinionated about what gear is good and what isn’t good, realize that there’s a lot of experience and knowledge behind that. For me, just watching the wide variety of guns at the various classes I’ve attended and seeing how many “fancy” guns just don’t run well, jam, malfunction, slow down the class, cause problems, inhibit the operator from learning (well, they learn something just not necessarily the class curriculum)…. realize that the instructor knowledge on gear tends to be informed. 

    Take time to do your homework before class. Ask questions of those who know.

    During Class

    Hopefully you brought lots of magazines and something to carry them in on the line (e.g. magazine holsters). If you’re not on the line, be refilling those magazines. Filling magazines was the single most time-consuming part of class, so the more you use your downtime to keep magazines filled, the less overall downtime there is, the more time for learning useful stuff.

    Take it slow and easy. You’re going to have nerves. I remember how nervous I was when I took these classes, and I saw numerous people that were nervous. Realize it’s natural, you’re not the only one, and if you’re nervous that’s generally a good sign because it likely means that you care about your performance and want to do well. But don’t let your nerves get the best of you. Yes, often the drills need to be run fast, but don’t run so fast that speed is your primary concern. You’re here to learn new things, no one expects you to be mastering those drills right out the gate. Go faster than a snail’s pace, but don’t just go for blazing speed. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Work to be smooth, even if you only go 75% speed. Work to be correct and learn the techniques correctly. Speed will come later.

    There will be information overload. If you want to bring a little notepad and pen to keep in your back pocket to jot brief notes down, feel free to do this if it helps you retain information. Do check with the range officer(s) before you do this, in case there might be any safety policy to mind. Don’t worry if you forget something. You’ll retain more than you think, and if on the drive home you go over it in your head, if you get up the next day and practice and run through it, and work on it all in the days following, that will help with retention. If you forget something or aren’t clear, drop an email to the instructors and ask. And nothing says you can’t take the class again if you think that would help.

    Safety

    For me, this was the biggest thing. I’ve never had a loaded gun pointed at me so many times. It’s an experience. No one did it out of malice, it was usually out of a lack of awareness, a brief lapse, or flat out negligence. Now the total beginners you can’t blame because they don’t know any better — they are beginners, they are learning. But anyone else….

    The only time your gun should be out and/or your hands touching it is because an instructor called you up to the line and told you to do so. Otherwise, the gun should remain in whatever safe manner and location, e.g. a holster. 

    I don’t care what version of gun safety rules you want to follow, such as Jeff Cooper’s:

    1. All guns are always loaded. Even if they are not, treat them as if they are.
    2. Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy. For those that insist this particular gun is unloaded, see Rule 1.
    3. Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on target. This is the Golden Rule. Its violation is directly responsible for about 60% of inadvertent discharges.
    4. Identify your target and what is behind it. Never shoot at anything you have not postively identified.

    Or the NRA’s version:

    1. Always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction.
    2. Always keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot.
    3. Always keep the gun unloaded until ready to use.

    I don’t care which is your mantra, make it your mantra. Anyone can pick up a gun and shoot it, but what separates the skilled gun handler from the rest is what they do when they are not shooting. It’s that “off the line” gun handling skill that will take you further. I mean, all the “tacti-cool” knowledge in the world doesn’t mean squat if you end up shooting someone innocent (including yourself) due to negligent gun handling.

     

    Overall, I enjoyed the day. I’ve come to realize one of my gifts is teaching, so this works well for me. I’ll be back… both as a teacher, and a student.

     

    Updated: A gun safety rant.

    Lack of stuff

    / hsoi

    Hi folks.

    Sorry for the lack of stuff. It’s been a very busy past few days topped off today by the ceiling fan in the master bedroom peeding out (Youngest turned on the light and said sparks came down). A few back and forths to Home Depot, and we’ve got ourselves a nice new and very pretty ceiling fan… goes with the fixtures from the master bathroom renovation we did a little while back. So… I’ve just been away from the keyboard and have much to catch up on.

    More later….

    Mantis blocks

    / hsoi / 8 Comments

    Some time ago in my training I made a point to always keep my hands up. That is, I see all too often when people are doing kicking drills that they focus only on the kicking and their feet/legs… the rest of the body tends to be ignored, and this is most evident to observe in how they hold their hands or more typically how they aren’t holding their hands at all. I resolved to not do this, that even if I was focusing on something else that my hands must remain up in a proper defensive/blocking position: hands more or less guarding the sides of the face, forearms more or less vertical, elbows pulled in close so you’re not leaving your gut unprotected. Of course going with this, doing things like shrugging the shoulders, chin tucked, but that’s not the focus of my discussion today. The point of ensuring I always kept my hands up was to turn that positioning into my habit, that that’s just the place my hands naturally go — and stay. The stay is an important part. I see people might start with their hands up, but eventually the hands migrate somewhere else. Maybe their arms are getting tired (keep them up there, they’ll get stronger). Maybe they just forget (keep doing it, be aware of it, make it habit). Or many times they’re doing something dynamic and their arms leave their center so they can keep their balance. To that I say, you have to fight to keep your hands in. First, if with every kick your hands fly out so you can keep your balance that tells me (fighting/sparring you) that you’re not very balanced and I’ll either take advantage of that aspect or take advantage of the fact you’re not guarding yourself and attack those areas. Second, when you flail your arms you’re creating more movement, which will lead to further balance disruption, not to mention you’re wasting energy working all those muscles that don’t need to be worked. Keep your hands in, force yourself to do this. You’ll find that your balance will come along just fine.

    One thing about keeping your hands up is what to do with your hands themselves. Should you make tight fists? Should you have a fist but just not clenched? Hands in a natural and relaxed but curved but not a full fist looseness? Or maybe have the hands fully straight, fingers extended, palm flat? I have been taking the relaxed approach, a semi-fist, if you will. A few days ago I started to play with keeping my hands flat. I’m going to experiment with this for a while and see where it goes. Here’s my thoughts.

    1. With my hands flat there is now more stuff guarding me. Measure from the tip of my elbow up the forearm to the end of my closed fist, then measure from the elbow to the tip of my extended fingers and you’ll find a few more inches there. That’s a few more inches of protection for myself. Granted it’s fingers, not someting that can absorb a lot of damage (nor do you want them to), plus having the fingers out there leaves them open to finger grabs/locks. Still, I’d like to play with this to see if it really does add any more guarding effectiveness.
    2. It’s good to use natural weapons, parts of our body that are naturally tougher, such as the palm heel. While fists are your traditional “fightin’ man’s” weapon, punching someone in the head with your bare fist is more likely to hurt you than them. Which would you rather do? punch a brick wall with your fist? or punch a brick wall with your palm heel?  I’ll take the palm  heel. The further implication is you’ll be more willing to put more power behind the palm strike because you’re not as worried about getting hurt. Keeping your fingers functioning is important, be you looking to further trap or manipulate your opponent, or perhaps transitioning to say a sidearm. So by keeping my hands open when up in the guard, I’m more apt and open to use palm strikes than closed fist attacks.
    3. One technique in Kuk Sool is the Sa Ma Gui Mak–Gi (사마귀막기) or Praying Mantis Block. This is a trapping and control technique, one that I’ve dabbled with a bit in the past, but I think I’d like to take the time to more seriously study and experiment with practical application. Starting from my hands-up guarding position, with open palms, a block can lead directly into a mantis block and trap. 
    4. I think my desire to explore the mantis block/trap more actually started in earnest about a month ago. I was flipping through my copy of Dr. YANG, Jwing-Ming’s Analysis of Shaolin Chin Na book because he has a lot of exercises for wrist strength and I’ve been looking to improve my wrist/grip strength for other activities. I was reading over his exercises for trapping, twisting, gripping, but especially the coiling training. So it got me thinking about mantis blocking/trapping again.

    As I was preparing to write this blog entry, I Googled around for more information on Chinese praying mantis kung fu. I found a video that was most interesting.

    I admit, I don’t have a lot of direct exposure to any flavor of Chinese Praying Mantis Kung Fu, and most of what I do see is the performance of forms.  But this video is the sort of thing I wanted to see: 2 man fighting techniques/drills, application. Here’s what stood out to me.

    1. Notice the attacker/defender (person performing the techniques) has their hands up, in the guard position. That’s the position they fight from, which is efficient and deceptive.
    2. I like how both arms are always doing something. One arm blocks the other attacks, then they switch roles. Watch the exchange that starts at 0:30 to really see this.
    3. Notice the use of natural weapons: palm heels, elbows, hammer-fists. Big strong meat of the forearms provides the block, the palm and the elbows provide the attack.

    Very cool stuff. Something for me to focus my study on for a while.

     

    Updated: All of yesterday I was involved in helping teach a different sort of combative art. One of the movements done is that you start out with your hands put up in front of you, open palms, palms facing out, hands more or less in front of your face. It’s not hands above your head in an “I surrender” position. It’s not hands pulled back so your arms are fully bent, elbows down by your hipbones and hands up at your shoulders, which isn’t quite “I surrender” but is a very submissive position. It’s not hands pushed out in front of you, arms fully or almost fully extended, as if to push a person in front of you back; this is a very aggressive position. No, it’s more that your hands are just out in front of you, just enough, palms open and facing forward, which is an assertive stance that could say “Hey man, I don’t want any trouble. Just stay cool. This is a very reasonable position to start from, especially in a self-defense situation. If you do some things like avert your eyes just slightly, it provides a little more submissiveness to the position, which can be good towards helping diffuse a situation (but that doesn’t mean you are being submissive, perhaps just manipulative of the situation).

    When you look at this posture, what is it? It’s the same posture I’m describing above. That guarding stance, hands open, arms up.  Look at the non-verbal message it sends to an attacker. It’s not taking an aggressive and obvious fighting stance (clench your fists or even loosely ball them). It’s not putting you in a negative position such hands above your head, or at your side, out of position to attack or defend. It leaves you guarded, defended, but sending a good message to an attacker. You can combine it with verbal commands “STOP, DON’T MOVE!” “BACK OFF NOW!” or perhaps just less assertive spoken words such as “Hey man, I don’t want any trouble.” or whatever is clear and appropriate for the situation. From this posture you can then transition to whatever may be necessary. You’ve got your hands in close, you can shoot your body inside his for takedowns. You can defend against strikes. You can do as I’m exploring above and be able to perform mantis-based traps and locks. You could transition to your sidearm. You could just transition to other non-verbals as needed, e.g. maybe you have to push your hands out further to be more aggressive and sending a stronger message.

    The more I consider this sort of open handed guard position, the more potential I see within it.