self defense

Sporting purposes

/ hsoi

Eugene Volokh discusses the notion of “sporting purposes” when it comes to firearms.

He discusses how the San Francisco, California Police Code explicitly delimits firearms based upon “sporting purposes” and denies hollow-point ammo, mentioning many established brands by name. His main point:

Rather, my point is how the ordinance seems to deliberately marginalize defensive purposes for gun ownership. Sporting purposes are labeled legitimate, and other purposes, including defensive ones, are labeled illegitimate.

This is quite true, and even from within the ranks of gun owners you can find a split along these lines.

Why isn’t self-defense a legitimate purpose? I’m not asking this rhetorically, nor am I asking this to those that consider it to be legitimate. I’m asking this specifically to those that think firearms are only legitimate for sporting purposes, or that think firearms are not legitimate under any circumstances. I honestly want to know what and why you think defensive uses of guns are not legitimate.

Furthermore, working to ban hollow point bullets demonstrates ignorance of the topic. Yes I know, they love to refer to them as “cop-killer” bullets, anything to get an emotional rise. Are hollow point bullets more effective at stopping? Yes they are, when compared to “ball” ammunition. Furthermore, hollow point bullets are safer because they are designed to stop within and not continue through. Look at these numbers. If you must defend yourself against a bad guy, you want to ensure to stop the bad guy, not that the bullet might pass through the bad guy and hit an innocent on the other side. When it comes to stopping an attacker, hollow points bullets are more effective in stopping power and safety; there’s no reason not to use them. Can a bad guy use a hollow point to kill a cop? Sure. But hollow points work quite well in the hands of us good guys against bad guys too. They don’t discriminate. 🙂

While I may enjoy sporting activities with my firearms, my primary purpose for having firearms is defensive. I may study all sorts of empty hand martial arts, even weapon-based martial arts (sticks, swords, etc.). But because I know those things, I also understand their limitations. A gun isn’t a be-all-end-all, but it serves a good purpose towards keeping me and my family safe. It goes back to the Boy Scout motto of “Be Prepared”; better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

But hey, if you don’t think defensive purposes are legitimate, then I’ve got a yard sign for you. Are you willing to post that sign?

Learning from my dream

/ hsoi

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.

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DVD Review – ShivWorks’ Practical Unarmed Combat

/ hsoi / 11 Comments

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:

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The Fence, and other non-aggressive stances

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

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

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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:

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

Math for victory

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

A video from SouthNarc describing the HideAway knife:

The knife itself, useful information. What stood out to me as more useful?

1. Emphasis on the draw.

I’ve heard SouthNarc focuses a lot on drawstrokes, because if you can’t assuredly get your weapon into play, your chances of successfully dealing with a self-defense incident are drastically reduced.

2. Simple math for victory:

Good training + aggression + simple tactics = victory

Updated: Added a link to the knife company, and fixed the video to use an embeddable one (don’t know how that happened). Thanx Linoge.

A “Systems” Approach to Building a Profile

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

All this talk of Jeet Kune Do. Of studying various martial arts. Take what is useful and discard the rest. How do you determine what is useful and what to discard?

Over at ShivWorks there is an article “A ‘Systems’ Approach to Building a Profile” that discusses this.

What exactly is a System? A lexical definition of a system is “an arrangement of units that function together”. Following this line of logic, we would assume that when we call the data in our profile a “system” then all of it would function together. But does it by definition or even in reality?

[…]

For what you do to truly be a system, as per Webster, your “units” have to work together, or more importantly be common. The movements to deploy tools, strike, etc. need to be as close to one another in execution as they can efficiently be.

If you just take a bunch of things and mash them together, is that a system? According to the above, not unless they function together. It reminds me of my discussion of mantis blocks. Sure you could have various ways of blocking a punch or of putting up a fence or drawing your concealed handgun, but looking at the mantis technique it provides a system-like approach in that the movements are close to one another in execution; they are an arrangement of units that function together.

In the systems approach to building our combative profile, all skill sets are as similar as possible. Gun-handling is similar to knife work, knife work is similar to striking, and generally all footwork is the same. A good system should allow for the appropriate skill set to be utilized with essentially zero conscious thought, following a streamlined, learned, decision making process. With the proper system and the proper decision making process, one’s success in battle should be high.

The analogy of the system’s approach is to a well-trained unit versus a collection of individuals. A good unit, which works harmoniously, will always be more successful because everyone contributes their specific role to the overall success of the mission. Good team members in a unit compliment each other. They know their job and how it relates to their buddies’ responsibilities.

Likewise, a good system’s individual skill sets work in conjunction with one another to accomplish the overall objective of survival.

Rangemaster July 2009 Newsletter

/ hsoi

The Rangemaster July 2009 Newsletter has been posted.

Amongst other things, it contains an article about child abductions. If you’re a parent and/or work with children, take the time to read this article. It gives a better perspective about abductions. Teach your children well.

Illusion of safety. Are you a fool or a wise man?

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Previously I had posted a response to Rebecca’s feelings on guns. One thing she wrote:

Do I carry a gun in my house? Never. Do I believe in the right to bear arms? Yes. But I believe there should be stricter regulations. I believe that fear is the worst possible reason to carry a weapon and therefor will never understand why so many feel the need to “protect their families,” especially when housed in gated communities in middle-class suburbs, alarms activated.

John Farnam recounts a story of a couple who lived in an upscale, gated community in the “high-rent” part of town… and their house was broken into while the couple was at home, car stolen and wrecked, property stolen. In fact, they owned a gun but didn’t carry it. The biggest thing? Their illusion of safety was shattered. It’s a shame it took something horrible to get them to wake up. The incident could have been far worse. How does the saying go? Fools learn from their own mistakes, wise men learn from the mistakes of others? Are you a fool, or a wise man?

Photographic Scenario Progressions

/ hsoi

Courtesy of SouthNarc, a set of PSP’s — Photographic Scenario Progressions. From the website:

PSP’s (Photographic Scenario Progressions), authored by SouthNarc, serve the purpose of illustrating overarching concepts and tactics employed in various conditions that approximate “real life” confrontations and problems. They are not merely meant to be used as static “step-by-steps,” but rather exemplify general principles that can be abstracted for a variety of encounters and situations.

You have to scroll down the page a bit to find them (they’re at the bottom). But while you’re on the page you can see where SouthNarc is teaching and what he teaches.

While you’re at it, check out his articles on hardware (knives) and software (your brain).