Education

Applying what you know to what you don’t know

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

So after having made a cane and immersing myself in cane videos, I got to thinking about further ways to study the cane.

You see, in Kuk Sool’s cane curriculum, there’s only a limited bit of cane taught. This is understandable, and really no one system or style can teach it all — they’re all limited in some manner or other. Thus to really get the most out of something you need to freely explore it on your own. Still, sometimes it’s tough to freely explore something without at least some degree of direction to get started in. I’ve found something that works for this and I’d like to share it with you.

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Is Hand Placement Important?

/ hsoi

Just finished a workout (Kuk Sool-based) in the front yard. I want to cool down before I hit the shower, so that gives me some time to write up something I observed during the workout.

Hand placement. Does it matter? 

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Distract and Diffuse

/ hsoi

Another good article from the Force Science News about distractions and aggressive subjects.

While the article is aimed towards law enforcement, what it discusses is useful to anyone that might find themselves in a self-defense situation (read: everyone). Sure those of us that take self-defense seriously spend a lot of time on skills such as marksmanship and empty-hand fighting, but those tend to only come into play when you hit condition red (or black). You should spend your life in code yellow, but when you find yourself in condition orange or red, you need to take other actions.

Most of the actions you should take towards the aggressor should be ones intended to distract and/or diffuse the situation. You want to deescalate things. Increasing the level of force is undesirable, so you must do everything within your power to bring things down. Note that one of the requirements to obtain a Concealed Handgun License in the state of Texas is taking at least 10 hours of classroom study, which includes discussions of nonviolent dispute resolution techniques. InSights Training Center’s Street & Vehicle Tactics course in large part is all about psychology and avoiding potential problems in the first place, or if you get into them how to deescalate.

The FSN article contains some good suggestions on how to distract and diffuse a situation. Worth a read. There is also a follow-up article that contains a lot of reader-submitted techniques.

Force Myths

/ hsoi

An article about myths in the use of force.

I must admit, back in my earlier days I believed the myths. I mean, the media keeps feeding this stuff to us and the media never lies or distorts or furthers an agenda, right? They always present well-researched, correct, unbiased, and factual information, right?

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Memorization, Precision, Smoothness

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I’ve heard Master Harmon say this before, but he brought it up again in yesterday’s seminar, and it struck me deeper than it has in the past. I figure this is because there’s a growing harmony in the various aspects of my life, and it’s great when things flow and harmonize this way. Let me explain.

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Play date!

/ hsoi / 7 Comments

I actually dislike the term “play date”, but figure it’s amusing for a title.

TXGunGeek organized a play day. It was him, some of his friends, commenter Chimera was there, doc was there (it was a pleasure to meet you!), Barbie no-showed on us. But to me, the coolest part was TXGunGeek said it was cool if I brought my kids so Daughter came out with me.

Everyone got unpacked and there was just a smorgasbord of guns on the table. Everyone checking everyone else’s gear out, “Hey can I try that?” “Only if I can try that!”. It was quite cool. But, allow me to focus on My Little Girl for a bit, since that was the highlight of my day. 🙂

The main thing she was looking forward to was shooting the Buck Mark. A few days ago at house we did a little dry fire. She’s never fired a handgun before so we went over things like grip and stance, how the Buck Mark operates, etc..  She already knows about things like sight picture and trigger control, but we touched on those again as well. So once we got to the range and we could go hot, we shot steel. At the range there’s a nice set of steel targets, from 6″ and 8″ circles to larger rectangles and pepper poppers. Daughter had a blast. She liked shooting the Buck Mark. She liked the sound of lead hitting steel. She was doing really well. She would shoot a magazine then rest, since the gun would be heavy held out at arms length. As we went along I refined her trigger control so she would ride the trigger and properly reset it. Then working on regaining sight picture and shooting again as soon as she regained the sight picture. I think she really enjoyed that, being able to shoot a bit faster that she was before. I can’t disagree… there’s something satisfying about shooting fast and hearing all that “ping” on the steel.

Daughter also got to shoot a few other things. Chimera had a Henry lever-action .22, which Daughter really got a kick out of. I think she liked the lever-action. TXGunGeek had a .22 conversion kit for his AR and while the rifle was very heavy (you can see my right hand supporting the front), Daughter liked to shoot it.

Daughter was nothing but big smiles all morning long. She was shooting well, got to try some new (to her) and different guns. I’m a proud Daddy. 🙂

As for me, again I gotta say how much I like that Buck Mark. It is so much fun to shoot. 

The big thing of the day was a course TXGunGeek set up. Started off with a long gun (whatever you wanted to shoot, Chimera even tried it with his Henry lever-action), engage cardboard, shoot some clay pigeons, more cardboard, move, transition to side-arm, steel, cardboard, move, more cardboard, various distances, precise shooting. A fun little course.

Here I am, engaging the clays and missing because I was figuring out exactly how much holdover I needed:

And here I am after the transition to the XD.

We wrapped up just as it started to rain on us. Good timing. The weather was very nice: partly cloudy, a cool breeze, moderate temps. Just a great day for shooting.

I asked Daughter what she enjoyed: the Buck Mark. 🙂  I asked her what she learned: how to shoot a handgun, and a bit more about things like sight picture and trigger control.

I asked myself what I learned: it reinforced my need to make an effort to back off on speed and jack up accuracy. Not so slow that it’s akin to bullseye shooting, but well…. after I got home I was thinking that next time I’m shooting the Buck Mark on the steel range the thing to have in my head is “all hits”, that all 10 rounds in the magazine must go “ping”. That will require slowing down a bit, being 100% sure of sight picture before firing, keeping my eyes glued to that front sight.  I also learned I need to spend more time with my AR (and that I want an Aimpoint). What did I enjoy? Having a great time with my Daugther, bonding, teaching her things, creating fond memories. That was my highlight. 🙂

I want to thank TXGunGeek for setting this up and inviting me out to it, and for allowing my daughter to come along as well. Thanx to Chimera for letting us shoot his Henry (man, I want one of those now!). Doc, it was great to meet you! Everyone else, it was good to meet you too and I’m sure we’ll see each other again.

A good day. Now, off to clean some guns.

Updated: Gotta brag on my little girl a bit more. In the classroom at the range there’s a subtle but intentional thing done. I don’t want to say what it is because it’s better when students discover it on their own. It took me a few visits before I noticed it, then it was explained to me. This was daugther’s first time in the classroom and she noticed it immediately. I was tickled. 🙂

Updated 2: TXGunGeek has his write-up on the day.

Updated 3: Docbot finally wrote up!

Slacking, sorta

/ hsoi

The past couple weeks have been… full? distracting? having other things taking priority? been what they’ve been is all I can say. Some of it documented here, some not. As a result tho, I haven’t been at the dojang as much as I’ve wanted to be. So to my Kuk Sool folk reading this, sorry I haven’t been there… but it’s not from lack of want. 🙂  I did sign up for seminar tho. Dan bong! Looking forward to it.

Thing is, a while ago I made a commitment to practice martial arts every day. Doesn’t matter what it is, just as long as it’s something and done every day. It could be going to the dojang. It could be going to the garage and working on the heavy bag. It could be going on the yard and doing forms. It could be dry fire. It could be just draw practice. It might just be working out some techniques in my head, thinking through self-defense scenarios. Mentally going through all my Kuk Sool curriculum. Freeform development of mixed concepts (e.g. empty hand transition to handguns). Whatever. Doesn’t always have to be intensely physical, could be mental, could be just meditating on some concepts. So long as every day I do something. Going to the dojang is actually a fair part of that, but not going is really bugging me…. such is just life right now. Ebb and flow.

Stop. Don’t touch. Leave the area. Tell an adult.

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

I became an Eddie Eagle volunteer and gave my first presentation last night. Went over fairly well, for a first time. I think it’s a great program that strives to be fun but teach a serious message. Afterwards I heard from various parents that agreed: even if you are anti-gun, it makes sense to teach your children to “Stop. Don’t touch. Leave the area. Tell an adult.” At the barest of minimums that helps you keep your child safe if they ever encounter a gun. We teach our children so many other things about being safe but this one tends to be avoided for whatever reason. With a program like Eddie Eagle, there’s no reason not to provide it and teach that simple mantra/message to your children:

As for the program itself, I used the “assembly format” which I think works fairly well. It aims to be fun, keeps the kids interested, but it doesn’t bog down with anything or even let the fun and silliness get in the way of the serious message of “Stop. Don’t touch. Leave the area. Tell an adult.”  and additional messages of respect (for always following all safety rules) and responsibility (for yourself). It uses various things to help imprint the message: rhymes, repetition, some physical movements (watch the video, you’ll see the “Eddie Shuffle”), repetition, a few scenarios to play out, repeating the 4 steps numerous times, “Stop. Don’t touch. Leave the area. Tell an adult.” You get the idea. 🙂  It’s very well developed, from an educator standpoint.

You can hate guns to your dying day. But if you love your children, be they your own kids or just kids in your care, please take the time to teach them about Eddie Eagle. Thirty minutes of discussion could save you from a life of heartache.

Convey to the person what you want them to do

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I previously wrote an article on how “mindset is everything” and in there discuss the importance of conveying to the person what you want them to do. If you haven’t read that article, you should read it before continuing with this article. It’s brief, go read it. I’ll be here when you’re done and return. 🙂

An interesting report from Force Science News. The relevance here is to the issuance of commands, as I mention in my “mindset is everything” article, to convey to the person what you want them to do. The article discusses a study of how police give commands under stress and how the type of command affects compliance. It mentions two sorts of commands: alpha, and beta. 

“Alpha commands,” Lewinski explains, “are simple, direct and explicit, so that even someone in a chemically or emotionally induced fog is likely to understand them.” Examples: “Take your hands out of your pocket,” “Stop talking,” “Quit resisting,” “Don’t leave your vehicle.”

… “[Beta commands] are indirect or imprecise orders that require interpretation by the suspect, based on his or her inference of what the officer intends,” Lewinski says. Examples: “Move,” “Give it up,” “Don’t be stupid,” “Stop screwing around,” “Knock it off,” “Don’t make me kill you.”

In other words, officers in day-to-day interactions generally gave very clear commands about what they wanted, and for the most part they gained compliance. But when they felt themselves threatened, this direct precision tended to be abandoned quickly. While they may have started out issuing alpha commands, in the face of resistance and personal danger they overwhelmingly transitioned to vaguer, less direct beta commands and, in general, gained markedly less compliance.

…

Based on his work with autistic children and others who show resistance in classrooms, he knows that “beta commands are very ineffective and inefficient. They leave people guessing.” When teachers switch from beta to alpha commands, they experience greater compliance even from mentally and emotionally disabled students, Houlihan says. “With the change, you almost immediately see better teachers and better kids.”

He cites an incident from the law enforcement studies in which an officer was in a stand-off with a suspect who was gripping a knife. “The officer told him 5 times, ‘Don’t make me kill you’ before he finally did shoot the suspect. A terrible command! He might have thought he was conveying an order to put down the knife, but that’s not what he said. It was left up to the suspect to interpret what the officer meant and what action was expected. In effect, the suspect was put in the position of having to control the officer’s behavior.

It doesn’t matter the context: police work, self-defense, dealing with your kids, ordering food at a restaurant, talking with your boss or subordinates, whatever. If you wish to increase the level of success regarding compliance with your requests, clearly convey to the person what you want them to do.

Citizen preparedness

/ hsoi

I’ve seen this before and in light of my postings here and here, I thought it would be worthwhile to post. There are certainly a great many things one can take from this video, but the one I wish to stress is training. Lance Thomas feels he was able to handle his situations because of training, and he flat out says that just having a gun isn’t enough… you have to train.