I’ve said this before both here:
https://blog.hsoi.com/2009/02/14/a-simple-experiment/
and here:
https://blog.hsoi.com/2014/08/19/unarmed-≠-undangerous/
While the specifics of particular incidents need to be evaluated upon the specifics if that incident, there is a general (mis)perception by the public that an unarmed person is somehow not dangerous, that there isn’t potential for danger or death. The perpetuation of this blanket fallacy needs to be stopped.
Aikido sword cutting demonstration. See, it’s not the tool; it’s the person using it. And if this isn’t the tool you use, because it is about the person using it, you as the tool user can learn much here that can be applied to whatever tool you choose to use.
Aikido/Sword instructor Koichi Kashiwaya Demonstration
by Brent Yamamoto
Notice that none of the techniques are overly complex, they are only simple diagonal, horizontal, and downward cuts. This is not to say that any of them are easy.
Although some of the cuts are from a static position, most involve movement. In most of these sequences, he is moving…either before, after, or even during the cut.
There are many good cutters out there, but most do so only from static positions. This is akin to standing still shooting holes through paper at the range…it is useful practice but it is not fighting. Fighting requires movement, along with the recognition that you must balance hitting while not being hit.
Movement is not wasted, telegraphing is minimized. Muscles are relaxed rather than overly tense. Smooth is fast.
Accuracy. At this distance the focus is on the target. He is not focused on his…
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When you’re dead, you’re dead; until then, keep fighting.
No matter your background, no matter who you are, what circles you run in, whatever it is you do in your life and world, this maxim applies.
You see, when you are dead, and I’m talking heart stops beating, blood stops circulating, lungs stop breathing, brain stops functioning, whatever and however you want to define it, but you are truly dead and there’s no ability for you to undertake (further) action. Well, when THAT point comes, then you are dead and obviously you can’t do any more.
But until that time comes, you aren’t dead. And so you must keep fighting.
Certainly this applies in self-defense contexts, and I’ve said this phrase in numerous classes. Recently Greg Ellifritz posted this story:
A 57-year-old Bronx livery driver chased a robber who had just shot him Wednesday, police sources said.
… Sources said the robber shot the driver in the shoulder and the hand and fled.
The cabbie drove after the fleeing suspect for half a block along Longfellow and struck him with the car, sources said.
Driver was shot, but wasn’t dead. So he kept fighting, chasing his robber and hitting him with his car! There are countless stories like this, where someone is attacked but keeps fighting and as a result are able to win, or at least survive the encounter. But as well, there are many stories of people attacked, maybe shot, but despite their wounds being minor or certainly survivable, they give up and die as a result.
When you’re dead, you’re dead; until then, keep fighting.
A couple workouts in the gym recently were quite difficult. 100 reps of something, if you really work hard, you use a challenging weight, it can be an excruciating experience. Your brain starts to tell you to stop, your body starts to scream in pain. It really becomes a mental game to get 100 reps. Yes you could give in, but the reality is that it’s all in your head; if you really can’t do another rep, then your body will stop moving and truly you won’t be able to do another. But until then, you keep pushing on through the pain. Granted this is just lifting weights, but it’s a good way to learn to accept the pain and keep pressing through it. To not stop until truly you cannot continue, not to give in to other factors that try to hold you back.
When you’re dead, you’re dead; until then, keep fighting.
When you’re in business for yourself, it can be tough. Startups will struggle. You will run out of money. You will wonder how you will pay your bills, both business and maybe personal. If you have dependents (e.g. children), will you be able to keep them from suffering too? Sure you could give up, but why?
When you’re dead, you’re dead; until then, keep fighting.
Really, it doesn’t matter the context, the situation, whatever it may be in life.
When you’re dead, you’re dead; until then, keep fighting.
I think I like model 2.
So after feeling stagnation with my bench pressing on Base Building model 1, I thought I’d try switching to model 2 to see if I make any progress. Again, I grant my stagnation may be diet-induced, but it may not (since other things are progressing). So since I can’t really vary the diet right now but I can vary the training well… let’s try it and see what comes from it.
I will say, I liked this better than model 1. Maybe because it’s back to 5 reps. 😉 Maybe it’s the increased intensity. Maybe the increased volume. I don’t know, but I did like it more.
I opted to keep the rest of the session stable to see how it would fare post-model 2. I do think I can up the assistance work a bit.
I think the only thing I didn’t like was the AMRAP set because I just got bored and stopped because it was like “ok, that’s enough…” 😉 But that said, I think this might also give me a needed mental boost because striving to set a rep PR here should be good for the mental side of things — to more easily see progress.
Anyways, I didn’t lift this session truly as I should have, with CAT and all that. I didn’t know what to expect and so I pulled back a bit, took a bit more rest between sets (e.g. 90 seconds instead of 60). But after seeing how it all went, I’ll push back towards normal next week.
Based upon Paul Carter’s Basebuilding
Reading this, I think about KR Training’s Defensive Pistol Skills 1 class. That class teaches both presentations Claude mentions: challenge, and shoot. In light of the most recent DPS-1 class (the rains forcing us to do more dry fire and discuss dry fire), I think it’s important for people to realize that one’s dry fire practice shouldn’t just be about pistol fundamentals or other such hard-skills. But one’s dry fire practice, if you are practicing for the purpose of self-defense, should practice all such relevant skills, which includes things like yelling those challenges (e.g. “STOP! DON’T! MOVE!”).
Pointing guns at people you have no intention of shooting to force compliance with your demands is poor business.
–Ed Head in his article Pistol Provocation
I agree with this statement and feel it can be even further amplified from the perspective of training people how to Control a Confrontation. The statement can be, and has been, misconstrued by the inexperienced into “I believe that the first time any bad guy should know you are armed is when he sees the muzzle flash.” As a philosophy, reluctance to display a firearm without firing is a mistake. The majority of criminals are looking for a victimization not a fight. The display of a firearm by the intended victim, along with the obvious intent to use it if necessary, is an indicator that the victimization has the potential to turn into a fight. That’s not what economic predators are looking for.
Let’s…
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Once again the suggestion to use wasp spray for self-defense has reared up.
No. No. No.
This is a terrible idea.
You could find yourself in a lot of legal trouble. City, County, State and Federal laws vary, but in general to use wasp spray in this manner is illegal. You’re a law-abiding citizen (right?) – why would you choose to do something illegal, especially when there are legal products – pepper spray – specifically designed to be used as chemical deterrents? Yeah I know, you’re being attacked, all bets are off. But after the attack is over, there will be an aftermath and it will be filled with lawyers and legal issues. Why should you risk complicating matters for yourself? There are acceptable and more effective alternatives (pepper spray), so why would you choose otherwise?
Pyrethrin’s are not designed for this purpose. It’s questionable if they will be effective at stopping an attacker, and they could cause great harm. You might think “great harm to my attacker? that’s what I want!” Well, there’s always risk of failure to properly identify your target, splash and spray back (into you…), and other ways that innocents could be affected. But ignore the “harm” factor because we aren’t out to harm people — the goal is to stop the attacker. If pythreins are of questionable effectiveness, why would you use them?
Can you really carry a can of wasp spray around? You can carry pepper spray. OK sure the small keychain cans can’t spray 25 feet, but you can buy cans that can, such as this model from Fox Labs or this one from SABRE RED. Keychain model on your person, larger spray cans at home.
If one of the touted reasons for using wasp spray in self-defense is because you can hit targets at great distance, have you ever tried to hit a wasp nest that was 25 feet away from you? I don’t know about you, but I never hit them on the first shot because there’s no way to aim, the nozzle isn’t really designed to be highly accuracy, that stream is very thin and small, and let’s not forget about the wind. How effective do you think you will be in deploying this under grave pressure at someone attacking you? Consider then purpose-built, purpose-designed pepper sprays tend to present a “fog” or “cloud” pattern out to such distance, effectively making a wall of pepper spray.
Watch the difference in spray patterns (1:55 into this video)
Bottom line: there is no reason to use wasp spray for anything other than ridding the exterior of your home of wasps and hornets. There are legal, effective, products on the market — pepper spray — that serve the same touted purpose, but do so in a more effective and legal manner.
Please, please, please, stop recommending wasp spray. That means you, Today Show.
Some solid advice and tips for staying safe in parking lots. Very important since parking lots (getting into and out of cars, the store, etc.) are the most common places and times for being mugged.
This post is universally applicable to the person who wants to decrease a criminal’s ability to close space and gain positional dominance via maneuver and avenues of approach, while simultaneously increasing their own ability to maintain reactionary space, preserve positional dominance and set them self up for an uneventful departure after the shopping is done.
The goal is to make predatory movements more obvious. We are looking for odd behaviors from unknown contacts. For instance, someone rapidly changing direction when you do, stopping when you do, or anything else that makes your spider sense tingle. The better we can observe and control our positioning in the public space, the more obvious a predatory movement will appear.
‘Nowhere’ isn’t the name of a bad part of town where all the crooks live, it’s where people come from when we lose our situational awareness and are task fixated by the myriad distractions…
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One thing I love about Claude Werner is he skewers a lot of doctrine, be it just tacti-cool bravado and cliché, or even well-established fact touted by respected trainers. There’s much methodical thought put into what he writes, speaks, and teaches. This examination of The Tueller Principle is case in point — let’s bring some reality into the mix here.
place yourself in the best tactical position.
Positioning
In 1983, Dennis Tueller wrote a groundbreaking article entitled How Close is Too Close? As a result, the terms the “Tueller Drill” and the “21 Foot Rule” have become well known. The Tueller Drill is even incorporated into the NRA Personal Protection In The Home Course.
However, in a 2008 interview, Dennis notes that he doesn’t use those terms, instead referring to it as the Tueller Principle. His original article relates the concept of a ”Danger Zone” and the need to “place yourself in the best tactical position.” The revolutionary, for the time, concept he came up with was to measure Distance/Time Relationships of Armed Encounters. By doing so, he brought about a much greater understanding of the concept that distance is your friend.
The article also emphasized using cover and placing obstacles between yourself and an attacker. The context…
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John Buol makes a good point about perceptions, image, reputation… how they matter, and how improving them helps us all.
The sport acquired a bad image due to its association with bookies and drunks. It became associated with bars and pool halls, the sort of places known to attract illegal gambling and other questionable activity. Moralists and Prohibitionists denounced the coarseness of life of anyone who played.
Several times, in the United States and abroad, this sport was outright banned. For a time, several states made it illegal to maintain any facility or equipment. Congress contemplated a 20 percent tax on the sport.
Despite all the negative media and attitude, within one generation the sport made a complete turn around.
It cleaned up its act, actively promoted events and recruited more participants, moved to better establishments, and attracted women. The sport became attractive because the places were cleaned up, more events were held and publicized, becoming more accessible to more participants, classes were held so people could learn the game…
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The month of May started off with a Basic Pistol 1 class. We’ve seen a slight drop-off in BP1 enrollment given the shift in the market and climate, so originally I was going to teach the class solo to a small group. However, we had last minute sign ups, Tom Hogel joined me, and we had a good class of 8 students, with the majority of the class being women. We had young and old, a range of backgrounds — folks, you just cannot stereotype gun owners and people who are willing to take responsibility for themselves.
Class rolled well. While a key stress of Basic Pistol 1 is about “gun fit”, it was quite prevalent in this particular class. We had numerous people with small hands, and common handguns like a Glock 19 just would not fit. In fact, while we try to get folks to shoot as many guns as possible during the “buffet” section of class, numerous students didn’t need to bother trying a lot of guns because it was evident the gun would not work for them at all. The Smith & Wesson M&P Shield ended up being a fair fit for a lot of folks, but then they saw the trade-off with smaller guns transmitting more felt-recoil. Everything’s a trade-off.
For those in class (or those not, but shopping for a first gun), please give a read to this handgun guide. It talks about the factors that really matter, like proper fit. Because if the gun fits, it becomes easier to shoot, more fun to shoot, which means you’ll shoot more, practice more, get better, and that’s what it’s all about.
All in all, class was good. Thank you all for coming out, and to Mother Nature for the good weather.
As an aside, the class was extra special to me because one of the students was Oldest. He’s always had an interest in guns, but it was casual. He’s recently grown his interest, and while he knew a bunch of the things that we teach in BP1, it was good for him to get the formal class (and certificate). He helped me set up and tear down, and was a great assistant all day. After class was over, he and I went through the buffet together — it was the first time he shot some larger calibers, and shooting a .357 Magnum round out of a small S&W 640 was an eye-opener for him. 🙂 We had a late lunch at the Elm Creek Cafe, then hung out until the sun started to go down. Karl’s been seeing some feral hogs around the ranch, so we hunkered down for a few hours to see if we could do something about that. Alas, no hogs nor coyotes taken, but that’s alright — it was just so nice to spend the day together.
Stuff From Hsoi 
