Schafer's Self-Defense Corner

Where Does A Martial Artist Get His Power From?

2012-02-18T00:27:00.001-05:00

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2012, All Rights Reserved

Most of the articles that I write stem from conversations that I’ve had with friends or students. The idea to write this one came from a conversation I had with a friend the other day about bodybuilding. The comment came up that people who study martial arts today are better than those that studied in times past because today a lot of martial artists are weight lifters and, according to pictures he’s seen, the old masters were frail old men.

While this certainly wasn’t true, it did give me the idea to write an article on the various sources of power the martial arts use. So here I will discuss the various sources, their uses, and at what stage they’re learned. It should be stated that each style is different and some styles teach the different sources at different times and many only teach the first two.

The Beginner: When someone first begins martial arts they will get all of their power from their muscles. They will try to muscle each and everything they do and this can lead to premature exhaustion as well as injury. Most people use muscle strength as their sole source of power until they get near attaining their black belt.

Pre and Post Black Belt: About the time someone gets ready to test for their black belt they get proficient enough in their techniques that they are able to get most of their power from proper technique and leverage alone. Once someone gains the technical ability to allow their power to come from technique they are able really appreciate the martial arts and see how well thought out they are.

The problem with this stage is that there are a lot of martial arts that stop here and never progress to hirer levels. I’ve seen people that are 7th or 8th degree black belts and they’re still relying on their technique for all their power. If they got injured or were loaded down with packages and were not able to execute prefect technique they would find that their strikes and blocks would suddenly become far less effective.

The Mid-Level Black Belt: While I’ve seen this taught at many different ranks and ability levels, from my experience somewhere in the neighborhood of 3rd to around 5th degree black belt the practitioner is taught one of the great secrets of the martial arts: rotation. When I say rotation I’m not talking about just rotating your hips into your techniques, I’m talking about rotating your entire body left and right and using that to power your movements.
Getting power and leverage from rotating your body has been a well-kept secret in the martial arts and it was revealed as the secret of the Gojo-Ryu Karate system practiced by the Miyagi family in “The Karate Kid: Part II”. Most people I know didn’t catch that in the movie but that is what they were getting at with that toy drum.

The reason that rotation was kept as a secret by many of the masters is because it gives you a lot of advantages they would rather keep to themselves. Here are some of the key benefits from rotation.

1.) It gets you off the line of attack. By simply rotating your body you can move out of the path or a punch, kick, or even a bullet. To be best used one should combine the rotation with a step in the opposite way you’re rotating your body.
2.) You can use it in tight spaces. If you’re going to throw a traditional reverse punch you’re going to need a bit of room, but what happens if your back is against a wall and your aggressor is standing a foot in front of you? You don’t have the room to do a traditional punch, but you can chamber your punch, rotate your body towards your target as hard as you can, and allow your torso to “throw” the punch at the target. By simply rotating your body you can get force and leverage in tight and confined spaces.
3.) It will allow you to throw multiple strikes very quickly. If you turn your hips all the way to the left and then turn your torso all the way to the left as well it will be like a compressed spring, full of energy that can be released when you rotate back the other way. When you rotate your body back all the way to the right you can easily throw a right knife-hand strike, left punch, and either a left roundhouse kick or front kick. I scored all the time with that combination during classroom sparring when I did Taekwondo.
4.) It will allow you to hide your strikes. Most people hold their arms up like a boxer so their aggressor can see their hands in full view, but when you rely on rotation your entire body is moving all at once and it is hard to see an individual strike in time to block or evade it. Another nice thing is that each strike will hide the one behind it. In the example I gave above the rotation will partially hide the knife-hand strike, the knife-hand strike will nearly entirely hide the left punch, and the left punch will nearly entirely hide the left roundhouse kick.
5.) It adds power to your strikes by increasing their acceleration. The faster you can move your fist the more force you can deliver in your punch. By rotating your body first and then throwing your punch about halfway through you can move your fist a far greater distance and greatly increase its acceleration. In karate this is called by many names, I learned it as the “double whip principal”.
6.) It will get you out of a lot of holds and grabs. Almost all grabs and quite a few holds can be escaped from by simply rotating your body one way or the other.

The Upper-Black Belt and/or Master: Very few people today really learn about rotation and even fewer learn about one of the most closely guarded secrets in the martial arts. Did you ever see an old skinny Chinese master give a martial arts demonstration and he seemingly just touches his partner and they lift up in the air or are thrown across the room? The way they do that is not by using the mystical “chi” or anything like that, but by using…their bodyweight! Transferring your bodyweight into someone is one of the most closely guarded secrets because it is the most powerful. Using your bodyweight allows you to make a fairly small movement and get a huge reaction from it. The secret is not really using your bodyweight as much as how to transfer that bodyweight into your target.

Transferring your bodyweight is so powerful because it is deceptive and hard to see and also its fatigue proof. Even if you’re sick and feeling weak and frail and you can’t deliver a decent punch you still weigh the same. Even if your arms are full of groceries you can still use your bodyweight to strike with, and in fact the added weight of the groceries will increase your weight allowing you to strike harder.

Using bodyweight also allows you to conserve your energy because you can defend yourself by making very small movements that get very big results. Your bodyweight is the ultimate source of power and once mastered you can easily end an altercation in one blow.

How To Read Your Attacker or Opponent

2012-02-08T00:31:00.001-05:00

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2011, All Rights Reserved

Several years ago I was showing a martial arts technique to a friend who studied a different style. In the technique I came at him with my left hand followed by my right and concluded with a takedown. This particular friend was a 3rd degree black belt in a Korean martial art and I respected his opinion greatly, but when he saw me demonstrate that technique his response was, "That will never work. If I saw your hand coming at me like that I'd counter with ____." He went on to tell me how flawed the technique was because it started with a large movement and he thought you could easily see it coming. I replied, "Ok, I'll come at you again and let's find out."

I came at him again using the same technique and he showed me the counter he thought he might use, and he went on to very precisely explain what he was doing and how it was the perfect counter. Being a very skilled martial artist and instructor he made some very good points and I enjoyed getting his input. After he was finished we spent about 10 minutes working on his counter and discussing its merits, all in all we probably did this counter 20 times each. Then I said, "That's pretty good. I'll come at you one more time, I want to show you something."

This time, however, instead of coming at him with that same technique I kicked him in the shin, grabbed his wrist, and threw him on to the mat. He jumped up and with big eyes and he said, "What the hell was that?"

"Reality," I replied, "Although you made some great points, if you know what I'm going to do beforehand then you can counter any technique, but in a real violent situation you never know what someone’s going to do."

The simple truth is that if someone is standing there challenging you or attacking you, you never really know what that person is going to do. They could punch with either of their hands, grab, push, kick with either leg, pull a weapon, there are a myriad of possibilities and no way to predict with 100% certainty. However, this is a way we can get a fairly good idea and at least tell which limb they're coming at us with. The way that we do that is by knowing how to use your eyes...and by completely ignoring Mr. Miyagi.

Mr. Miyagi told his pupil Daniel, "Look eye...always look eye!" His advice (although common in many martial arts) is flawed because it lacks an understanding of how your eyes detect movement. You have two basic types of vision, Focus Vision (FV) which is your direct line of sight, and Peripheral Vision (PV) which is along-side of your direct line of sight. Both of these types of vision have their uses, for example FV is used to examine an object and identify what it is but it is not designed to detect and measure movement; PV is used to detect and measure movement but it is not designed to examine and identify objects. So, if we want to look at something that is standing still and determine what it is we should use our FV and look directly at it, but if we want to detect when something is moving and measure its direction and speed we should look next to it and allow our PV to work.

So we know that we want to use our PV but how do we do that? To answer that let's look at how the body moves by examining an attack with a knife. Let's pretend that someone is standing in front of you with a knife if their right hand and they step forwards with their right foot and thrust that knife at your chest. In this scenario most people would look at the knife and that makes sense since it is the knife that is going to impale you. However, that is not ideal, in fact, the Japanese have a saying: “You see the sword that kills you." What this means is that you should never look at an attacker's weapon. The reason for this is that if you look at their weapons then you're using your FV to detect movement and it is not designed for that. Have you ever seen something come at you and for some reason you just stood there and watched it hit you? A lot of people have (myself included) and the reason for this is that when you focus your vision on something that is moving your eyes aren't able to give your brain the necessary information it needs to judge its speed and direction and you often are left standing there almost in a trace while you try to figure it out. So looking at the knife is out, and that also means that you shouldn't look at someone’s hands or feet to see when they are going to punch or kick you.

With the knife being out lets go up the arm to the elbow. If you watch his elbow you will see the thrust seem to slow down a little bit. The reason the thrust seems a little slower is that in most cases the elbow has to move before the hand does so you get a little tip off when the thrust is starting. Add to that that the elbow moves 4 times slower than the hand and it becomes obvious that if you had to get out of the way of that thrust then by watching their elbow you've have a much easier time then by watching their hand or the knife itself.

Let's not stop there though, let's travel up the arm and take the advice of boxers by watching the shoulder. The shoulder generally moves even before the elbow and it moves about 20 times slower than the hand. In boxing you're taught to watch your opponent's shoulders and when you see one raise, drop, or move forward that means that arm is about to throw a punch. This is very sound advice but we can do even better by looking at the center of their chest. Look at the center of their chest and suddenly getting out of the way of that knife thrust is easy.

The reason it is so easy to see that thrust coming towards you by looking at the center of their chest is twofold. First, most all movements the body makes starts with the very center of the body moving and most of the time the very first muscles to move are the ones connected to the spine. So if they are going to thrust at you with their knife the very first thing that will move is the very center of their body which, because it’s connected, will make the right side of their chest move. Next, the entire right side of their body rotates towards you, followed by the shoulder moving, then the elbow, and then the hand. By looking at the center of the body you're actually seeing the attack build up and you can start to move while the attack is just starting. Second, by focusing your vision at the center of their chest you're putting their chest and shoulders in your PV so your eyes can detect as soon as they move.

Now, while all of this is great for dealing with people that might punch, stab, push, grab, or just use their arms to attack you in any way...but it doesn't help you with kicks. The same things that are true with the arm are true with the legs in that the feet move fast, the knees move must slower, and the hips moves even slower still. The hips and the shoulders are the two great fulcrums of the body and pretty much every large movement the body makes can be detected first by watching these areas. If we take everything we've just gone over we can see that the most advantageous place to look is actually right about their solar plexus. The solar plexus area is right in between their hips and shoulders in the center of the body and by watching this area you will have their hips and shoulders all in your PV.

The answer of where you want to look to be able to detect someone’s attack is the solar plexus area, but HOW do you look? This might seem like an odd question but if I focus right on their solar plexus I'm making my FV dominant when my PV should be. Instead of looking AT the solar plexus area you should look THROUGH the solar plexus area to focus your vision about 2 to 3 feet behind them. This will direct your vision at the very center of their body but put the entire thing in your PV. Practice this a little bit and you'll soon be able to see as soon as they move and you'll be able to tell which limb they are coming at you with.

Secrets and The Martial Arts

2011-04-25T00:30:00.001-04:00

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2011, All Rights Reserved

In the martial arts there is an idea that there are no “secrets” out there. The belief is held by many that everything that can be taught is being openly taught, and secret martial arts techniques and principles held only by the by masters simply don’t exist. I’ve also noticed the commonly held idea that the only “secret” out there is plain old hard work and effort.

While hard work and effort are very important, the simple truth is that the reason martial artists think that secrets don’t exist is simply because they don’t their history, the definition of the word “secret”, or they don’t know any of the secrets themselves! If someone is successful at competition fighting or of high rank with 20 or 30+ years of study they naturally assume they know everything. If someone was a 7th or 8th degree black belt then surely they, if anyone, would know the secrets, wouldn’t they?

You can only learn what you’ve been taught. If no one has taught you any of these mystical “secrets”, and you haven’t figured out any on your own, then you don’t know any. I’ve seen many 6th, 7th, and 8th degree black belts give demonstrations, and in some cases I thought that what they were doing didn’t even qualify as martial arts (an explanation of why is below).

By assuming that there are no secrets and that you already know everything you simply stop learning. From what I have personally observed I think that this is happening to most middle level and high ranking martial artists. They think that they know all there is to know so for the rest of their martial arts career they learn more and more about less and less. At the end you ask a 70 year of 9th degree black belt, a “master”, what he knows and basically you find that he knows how to punch and kick in a straight line. Sure he probably knows forms, sparring, board breaking, traditional weapons, self-defense techniques, and some wrist locks and throws; but it basically adds up to most of what he knows is how to punch and kick in a straight line.

Please understand that I’m not knocking martial arts or the masters. What I’m trying to convey is that by thinking that there are no secrets to the martial arts you stop looking for them and then stop learning. There are more to the marital arts than a simple kick, punch, and block. However, the more and more I meet fellow high ranking martial artists the more and more I find that all they know is how to kick, punch, and block.

The martial arts are very old and many masters spent their lives studying and developing them. There are many secrets in the martial arts, but the secrets aren’t necessarily what most American martial artists might expect (more on this below).

The reason why certain things were kept secret is that originally the martial arts world was a very hostile one. The martial arts trace back to China, and in ancient China your ability in martial arts was often a great determining factor of how long you lived. This being the case you tried to keep an “ace in the hole” so to speak.

Towns, villages, and wealthy families all had their own private armies to protect themselves and their holdings. In these military groups you wanted everyone properly trained because you’d be fighting together and your life would greatly depend on the person standing next to you. However, there was also an internal power struggle in most of these groups. Lower ranking members would naturally want more and more status and power within the group and higher ranking members would want to keep the status and power they already had. One way of keeping the status quo was to withhold certain teachings. If the junior members of a family had to be strong well trained martial artists to fight for your family’s interests, the senior members, especially as they got older, needed to have tricks up their sleeves so they could keep their status if challenged by a younger lower ranking member. Thus, the more sophisticated teachings of most styles started being held back in order to maintain a status quo.

In most commercial martial arts schools there were two separate groups of students: inside students (often called “disciples”) and outside students. When a student came to a master and was accepted at the school be became an outside student. Outside students had two classes: senior students and junior students. You’d begin as a junior student and be taught almost exclusively by a senior student. You’d often spend years learning the basics and drilling them day by day having very little contact with the school’s master. Over time you graduate to being a senior student and you’d be given the responsibility of teaching new junior students. One may be an outside student for 5 or 6 years, while others might remain an outside student forever.

While you’d have very little contact with the school’s master he or she would keep a watchful eye on you to monitor your progress and behavior. A junior student would receive a basic martial arts education and a senior student would receive an intermediate martial arts education. However, after years and years of study the master might decide that you were ready to become an inside student and his personal disciple. This decision was often based on your personal skill, character, and the commitment you’d shown to learning the art. After all, even if you were the most skilled student at the school, if you regularly missed classes or didn’t practice on your own the master wouldn’t waste his time giving you more instruction.

As an inside student you’d receive the advanced training of that style. This training was kept secret and you could be kicked out the school and ostracized from the martial arts community for sharing it. During one of these training sessions you’d enter the school and the doors and windows would be locked so no one could spy on you.

The Chinese grew up with a very turbulent history and saw all non-Chinese as potential threats. When martial artists from Korea, Japan, Okinawa, Vietnam, Thailand, the US, and other countries came to China to study almost all did so as outside students. While many martial artists from other countries may have been accepted as inside disciples, most were not simply because they were not Chinese.

What this boils down to is that the basic and intermediate teachings of the martial arts were widely taught, often to anyone who paid the school fees, but the advanced teachings that inside students received was closely guarded and seldom shared. The result of this is that many students would study as an outside student for 10 or more years, think they knew enough, and then they’d leave and begin teaching martial arts. Then they would teach students, then their students would teach students, and suddenly it is several generations later and that outside student is now considered a “master” and his students aren’t even aware of what they don’t know.

An interesting example is that long ago I read an article about an American Kung Fu Master who was the direct disciple of a late well known master who came from China. This American Master was the head of a large organization and had several masters himself. One day he decided to go to China to visit the village that his art, and teacher, were from.

Upon arriving there he found that there really weren’t any formal martial arts schools but that many people did practice various arts including the one his master has brought with him. After finding some people who he deemed to be masters of his style (although they themselves denied this status) he put on a demonstration for them. They reported that his technique didn’t look right and several things were “off”.

What this American Master found out was that his style of Kung Fu was actually built around a certain style of footwork. Once they taught him the footwork he said it was like being hit in the head with a brick. Suddenly everything in the art made sense and he realized he had only been doing the techniques of the art, but not the true art.

When he asked the local masters why they thought that his master never taught him the footwork, they replied that his master probably had never been taught the footwork himself and most likely had left the village before his training was completed.

When he returned to America he had to recall all his masters and teach them the footwork. Now that master visits that village every few years to train with the villagers.

This is just one example of an art being taught without its secrets. Often arts would be developed around certain principles of combat. Then the techniques would be added that supported those concepts. The concepts and principles would be kept as secrets and only be divulged to disciples and masters. Everyone else would have to spend years getting just the techniques down.

Other reasons that secrets weren’t passed down were that the master quit teaching, closed down his school, was killed (numerous times Chinese Masters were hunted down and killed by local warlords and the government to prevent uprisings), or just didn’t like a particular student.

There are teachings that have been kept secret; close door lessons that only a select few in a school were taught. The really interesting thing to most people is that these secrets are generally not techniques. One of the reasons people think there are no secrets is because they consider the martial arts to only be a collections of techniques. However, most of the secrets are actually strategies and scientific principles that make the techniques work.

In the interest of sharing some of the secrets with my fellow martial artists, here are 11 of the secrets that my master has shared with me. I can personally attest that all of these 11 secrets will make all martial arts more effective. The reason why I know they are secrets is firstly because he told me that they were secrets when he taught them to me, and also in my 24 years in the martial arts I rarely if ever see them used, on purpose anyways.

I should state that there are hundreds of secrets in the martial arts. Some are sound scientific principles, others are actual techniques, and others boil down to personal preferences held by a particular master. What are discussed in this article are the 11 that popped into my head while writing this article. I believe these are the 11 that will be of the greatest benefit to the average martial artist.

I’m sure that while reading this certain people may say to themselves, “this isn’t a secret! I’ve knows this for years!” Well then that is great. You know something that the vast majority of martial artist don’t know, or at least don’t practice.

The first four secrets are what I consider to be the four pillars of martial arts. In my opinion what makes a particular movement martial arts is not exactly what you do but rather how you do it. You can throw a punch but if that punch does not contain these four things it is not martial arts, it is simply swinging your arm around. However, if you simply shove someone (not a traditional martial arts technique) but you did it using all four pillars then what you just did was martial arts.
11 Martial Arts Secrets

Secret #1: Proper Breathing. Proper breathing is something that I see a lot of people talk about but almost never practice. Proper breathing is important because it keeps you from getting winded, provides internal tension that gives you structure for your stances and strikes, and by regulating your oxygen flow you can keep yourself calm under pressure. Simply breathe in through the nose and slowly out through the mouth. Whenever you pull into your body breathe in and whenever you push out (strike) breathe out forcefully.

One of the most important things is the internal tension created by tightening your diaphragm and stomach muscles. An easy way to get this tension is to make a sound when you exert yourself. It doesn’t really matter what the sound is or how loud it is, simply making a forceful sound creates that inner tension. When I do techniques I make a sound that is basically a very quiet, but forceful, breathing sound. It is hard to hear and doesn’t draw attention but it does give me more power, structure, and help regulate my breathing.

Another great thing about sounds is that when you make a forceful sound the next thing that your body naturally does is to take a large inhale afterwards. This way you’re forcing air out to give you power and then encouraging your body to take a deep breath afterwards to keep your oxygen intake up during the event.

Secret #2: Grounding. This is another thing that is often talked about but rarely done. I think it is rarely done because it is described in a mystical sense and not understood. In Karate you’re taught to “grow roots” or to “grab the Earth with your toes”. What grounding really is is to simply lower your center of gravity.

If you stand up straight then your center of gravity is very high and your balance is easily disrupted. If you are dancing on your toes like a boxer then you have even less contact with the ground and your balance is disrupted even easier.

The easiest way to learn to ground yourself is to study Tai Chi. In Tai Chi you’re taught to stand up straight and keep your spine long. Push your heels deeply into the ground and then push the crown of your head (the rear portion of the top of your head) towards the sky. Next, with your feet naturally at shoulder width apart, bend your knees to lower your hips slightly towards the floor. With your center of gravity (your hips) lowered closer to the floor you suddenly come more stable and with practice much more fluid in moving.

You can ground yourself in any stance simply by keeping your back straight, keeping your shoulders back, bending your knees, and slightly lowering your pelvis closer to the floor.

The benefits of grounding are many. With a lower center of gravity you have better balance, can better handle being pushed or pulled, can generate more power for punching or kicking, you will move in a smoother more natural manner (which is harder for the human eye to detect), and your body will move as one unit. Simply, if any time you have to exert or take force you want to ground yourself, and if you study the martial arts and are not grounding yourself you are not practicing marital arts.

One complaint I get about grounding is from people who engage in sport fighting. They say they cannot ground because they need to be on their toes. Being on their toes allows them to move quickly in all directions so they can dodge incoming blows and advance to attack. My reply to them is to try it and decide for themselves.

When you ground your entire body will fluidly move as one unit, but you will move one step at a time. That doesn’t mean you won’t move quickly or that you cannot move in any direction, it just means that instead of hopping several feet at a time while on your toes you will take one step at a time (or a series of step) while being securely flat footed.

One great thing about grounding is that you’re forced to take one step at a time. By taking one step at a time you will be able to stay close to your aggressor. Instead of shuffling several feet to the side so you can “get ready”, you will step alongside and be in perfect position to attack or counterattack. In order to do any technique you have to be close and grounding will help you be close or allow you keep distance if you choose to.

Secret #3: Bone Alignment. A simple truth is that when an object moves it will generate force, simply by virtue of it having mass. When that object collides with another object a portion of that force will go into the object it collided with. If two objects collide with each other, whichever’s structure yields first will be where the majority of that force will want to go.

For example, if you punch someone and your wrist is not tight your wrist will want to bend. If your wrist bends your bones are no longer in alignment so instead of that force flowing smoothly down your arm it will be backed up in your wrist and you will most likely injure yourself more than your opponent.

To make sure that the majority of the force goes into your opponent you need your bones to be in alignment starting at the heel of your rear foot (which is ideally pressed into the floor) up your leg to your hips, back straight, shoulder down, elbow down and in, and fist and wrist squeezed as tight as you can. If all of these bones are aligned then the force you are transmitting will flow smoothly through you and into your target and you will not even feel it. If any part of your body is out of alignment that that is where the force will get backed up and lead to your injury and a wasted punch.

What I see is often people leaning to the side with their shoulder up, their elbow suck out, and their wrist bent. Their lower body usually has bent knees and their heels off the floor. This is one reason why boxers and people who practice on heavy bags often end up with problems in their knees, shoulders, elbows, wrists, or neck.

A bonus secret along this same line is that when you strike your opponent should move away from your first and not the other way around. One reason that in every test of punch strength Karate practitioners test as having some of the weakest punches is that they train to retract their punches as soon as they make contact. The reason for this is that don’t want their opponent to grab their striking limb.

However, in the same way that the longer you touch a hot pan the more severely you will be burned, the longer your fist is in contact with your target the more force will be transferred into the target. In order to put the most force possible into your aggressor you need to strike with proper grounding, breathing, and bone alignment and then push all the way through them and let them move away from your first.

Secret #4: Coordinated Body Movement (CMB). CMB simply means that in every movement you make your entire body should start the movement at the same time and finish the movement at the same time. The benefits of this are many; here are only four.

First, you will move more smoothly and will incur less wear and tear on your body.

Second, by moving in a smoother manner you will instantly appear much faster to your aggressor. The way that the eyes and brain pick up offensive movement is by observing all the movements in its field of vision and then focusing on the jerky ones. Fast jerky motions are seen by the brain as offensive but relaxed smooth movements, while clearly seen, are generally not considered offensive. By executing a technique smoothly with CMB their brain generally won’t realize you’re making an offensive moment until it is almost over. The late David Carradine was quite adept at this.

Third, with CMB your entire body has one intention. This means it will move quicker and end up generating and transferring more force.

Fourth, by moving with CMB you will always be stable and able to switch techniques or targets quickly.

Secret #5: Physics Explains Martial Arts. If you want to understand martial arts you should study physics. By studying physics we know we have six simple tools to accomplish “work”. These tools are the wedge, the inclined/declined plain, the lever, the screw, the wheel and axle, and the pulley. Every martial arts technique uses one or more of these principles and by understand them you can understand your techniques and fix the ones you’re having problems with.

The wedge exists when one object intersects another object. Every strike is a wedge. The purpose of a wedge is to insert an object INTO another object forcefully in order to split it. Think about this and then think about punches and kicks.

The purpose of your strikes is not to hit the surface of your aggressor, make him say “oww”, and give him a nasty bruise. You need to focus on penetration. Anytime you strike you should penetrate a minimum of 6 inches into your aggressor. By focusing on driving your strike inside your aggressor, and not just to him, you will accomplish far more “work”.

An inclined and declined plain are used to guide an object in one direction or another. A hard block is often a wedge while a passing block or parry is a plain. If you block with intent of injuring their arm then you’re using a wedge, but if your intention is to guide their arm or stop it by having your arm at a 45 degree angle then you’re using a plain. Plains are also widely used in takedowns, throws, and tripping techniques.

Levers are used to apply force on joints for submission holds or joint breaking. Levers are also widely used in both throws and takedowns.

A screw is used to accomplish “work” by turning something in a circle. Aikido and many internal Chinese styles use the screw concept widely. If you place a screw on a piece of wood and turn it enough in the correct direction the screw will descend into the wood. In the same way if you turn a human in a circle, in the right way, they will be forced to descend into the ground.

To best understand a wheel and axle think about your car. Your car has a wheel that turns around an axle. Essentially it is like using a handle to turn a screw. An example is the Japanese technique Kote Gaeshi. You turn the hand not to put pressure on the hand, but to use the hand to apply pressure to the wrist, and then the elbow, and then the shoulder.

A pulley is a machine that allows us to do half or less of the work of moving an object. How do we allow our aggressor to do half of the “work” (work = injuring him) for us? The easiest way is to pull him into a strike. If you grab your aggressor and pull him towards you as you step in and drive a strike into him then he will be supplying a great deal of the force needed to injure him. In Aikido when someone punches you can step and pivot to the outside and then grab his wrist and use his existing forward force to spin him around and put him where you want him; this is another great example.

If you understand these 6 tools and how they work you can look at your techniques and understand HOW they work. Once you know that you can better use them, tweak them if they if they don’t use the tool effectively, and fix them yourself.

Secret #6: Thrusting, Dropping, and Raising Your Body Weight. When you’re small you are weak; when you a tired or sick you are weak; when you grow old you will become weak. All these things are true and still we focus on muscle for our power.

There are many stories of little old masters in China seemingly touching a person many times his size and making them fly across the room. How did he do that? Was it magic? No it was physics.

The master was simply transferring the potential energy of his bodyweight into kinetic energy and then transferring that kinetic energy into the other person. Since people equate force with ferocious swinging of the limbs and they didn’t see that, they assume the effect was mystical.

Your bodyweight is the greatest source of force you have. If you are small you still weigh something; if you are tired or sick you still weigh the same as you did when you weren’t, and if you’re old you may be heavier or lighter but you still have bodyweight to use.

Anything with mass generates force when it moves. So if you move your body you will generate force and if your body runs into something a portion of that force will transfer into that object. If you weigh more you will have more force; if you move faster you will have more force.

If you want to add bodyweight to your punch then step into your aggressor while you punch. The deeper you step into them the more bodyweight you will add. If you step all the way through him and actually bump into him and knock him back you will send it all into him.

Force = Mass x Acceleration. The average lunging step forward a person takes while they strike is 3.5 miles an hour. So if you hit someone with all four pillars of marital arts (“secrets” 1-4) and you step all the way through your aggressor and actually bump him with your body you can send 3.5 times your bodyweight into him.

So, if you weight 100 you will send 350 lbs. into him. If you weigh 200 you will send 700 lbs. into him. Nearly any injury can be caused with 50 lbs. of force or less.

If you cannot step into him to generate and transfer force you can still move your body up or down. If you squat in a deep horse stance and then explosively straighten your legs while you throw a punch you will put bodyweight into that punch. If you are standing nearly chest to chest with someone and don’t have the room to throw a traditional punch you can bring your fist into body, and then bend your knees to drop your bodyweight while you punch. This can easily supply the force to knock someone back. To add more force use the “4 pillars” and rotate your body into the strike.

Secret #7: Unbalance them to move them or do leverages or throws. In the martial arts we often talk about the importance of keeping your balance while taking your aggressor’s balance. However, rarely if ever do they discuss why. The reason why is simply that if you are off balance then you are vulnerable.

If you want to walk up to someone and try to put them in a wrist lock you will have a hard time because they can easily defend themselves. However, if you walk up to them and knock them off balance they will go into a very brief period where have limited ability to move and are focused not on you but on regaining their balance. So, walk up and hit them with a palm underneath the chin to knock them back and off balance and when they’re busy being off balance you can put him in a wrist lock with little trouble. The same is true with both throws and takedowns.

If you want to throw someone who still has their balance…good luck. Take them off balance and then a little nudge will knock them down.

Secret #9: Targeting. Nearly every time I see a person teach martial arts they will tell their students “high punch, low punch”, “high kick, middle kick, low kick”, or “face punch, body punch”. This general manner of striking is made worse in sparring.

Training to hit general ambiguous places on your aggressor’s body generally leads to just standing there and trading blows with him. Hitting someone in the face does little but hitting someone in the temple does a lot.

As much as I don’t like to use “MMA” (I put it in quotation marks because it is not marital arts and has little to nothing to do with actual martial arts) for an example, a great example of this appeared on the TV show “Ultimate Fighter”. I saw a few minutes of a show that featured Kimbo Slice. In that short clip that I saw fighters warming up for a workout by paring up and taking turns lightly tapping each other with punches. You saw all these guys going back and forth warming up their muscles and then you saw Kimbo Slice doing that warm up drill with his partner. When the partner lightly tapped Kimbo with his gloves he tapped his body a few times and his head a few times; when Kimbo did it he tapped the body a few times and then tapped the tip of his partner’s chin a few times.

The result? In this slow warm up drill Kimbo dominated the other guy. Instead of going back and forth: partner 1, partner 2….partner 1, partner 2, Kimbo and his partner went: Kimbo…..partner 2, Kimbo…..partner 2. The light taps on the chin were enough to create a small effect that the partner had to recover from before he could respond.

If you don’t focus on targeting you’ll just trade blows back and forth with your aggressor. You’ll be fighting his entire body and causing bruises instead of injuries. If you do focus on targets (throat, ear, eye, knee, spleen, etc.) then it won’t be your entire body against his entire body; it will be your entire body against his temple, or your entire body against his groin.

Secret #10: Don’t block, strike. When it comes to defense, aggressiveness overwhelms non-aggressiveness, and action is always faster than reaction. This is why there is an old Chinese saying that anyone can block one punch, not many people can block two punches, only a couple can block three punches, and almost no one can block four punches.

If a training partner puts on gloves and comes at you with one punch most of the time you can block it. If he comes with two quick punches it is a lot harder; with three strong aggressive punches one of them will most likely connect; four will overwhelm almost anyone. Combine them with a combination of punches, kicks, knees, and elbows to varied areas of the body and four or five strike combinations are nearly always successful.

This being true trying to block what your aggressor throws at you is fighting a losing battle. A better strategy is to strike their arm instead of blocking it. If you block it then you’ll stop that particular arm but they can use their other arm, their legs, or retract their punching arm and continue their attack. However, if you strike their arm you can either knock it away and open up their body or knock it down and pull them off balance.

For example, someone comes at you with a right punch. You do a right cross block with your forearm as you step into the block with your left foot and rotate your body to the left. This moves your entire body into the block and you will hit their arm hard enough for it to go numb (most likely) and you will knock it out of the way and cause their body to come off balance and rotate to their right. Now their right arm is numb and they are off balance and temporarily vulnerable to counterattack. If they were planning on unleashing a combination they will be stopped in their tracks.

Another method would be to use that same right cross block with your forearm but when it connects with his arm bring your arm down sharply in a chopping motion to your waist. This will knock his arm down, most likely make it numb, and pull him forwards off balance getting the same basic result as before. A nice thing about this method is that is often quicker because a sharp downward chop can be added to any block to get the same effect and you can often move your arm faster than you can move your body.

Two more nice benefits of the second method are that since it makes them bend forwards sharply you can use that by throwing a quick strike of your own. By doing this they will bend into your strike and add their own weight to it.

Also this tends to create “eye jerk”. The quick drop of their head will often cause their eyes to go in and out of focus resulting in them perceiving that they actually lost that second of time. If you do the block-strike with your right arm and then chop the right side of their neck with your right hand it will have occurred with the rhythm “one-two”, but they will perceive it as happening at the same time.

Secret #11: Focus On Principles, Not Techniques. The final secret is to not put too much emphasis on techniques but rather focus on the principles that make them work. If all you know is the techniques of your art then all you’ll end up knowing is how to punch and kick in a straight line. By knowing the principles behind that techniques you can fix them if you or someone else is doing something wrong.

You will also we better at defending yourself because if all you have is techniques you‘ll have to sort through your bag of techniques to find a technique that matches the situation as it happens and it can take time. However, if you focus on principles you can quickly adapt and adjust to any situation.

Another great benefit is that you can walk into a different martial arts school and you’ll understand what they are doing. For example, when I started martial arts I focused solely on techniques until I got to black belt. Once I earned my black belt my instructors started to make me focus on principles. They stressed that techniques themselves are not power, rather knowing how and why techniques worked, or didn’t work, was power.

With this knowledge I walked into an Aikido school several years ago and found that I understood nearly everything after viewing it a few times. I looked at a joint lock or throw and knew the science behind it that made it work; I just had to see exactly how it was that Aikido applied that science. The result was that I picked up everything quickly and rose through the ranks with ease, despite only being able to attend classes infrequently

These are just a sample of the secrets that the martial arts have to offer. By studying these you can greatly increase your skill and get closer to mastery.

Some Wheels Don’t Need Reinventing

2010-12-10T23:51:00.001-05:00

I define marital arts as “an intelligent use of violence and injury as a tool for survival”.

Today a friend of mine came and saw a few minutes of an advanced martial arts/self-defense class I was teaching. He commented afterward that what he saw wasn’t martial arts; it was just people “stomping each other into the ground.”

I responded by saying, “Damn right!”

The thing is that if you are attacked by someone it will be with real violence, not a Hollywood or Disney version. Real violence isn’t pretty and it sure as hell isn’t fair or nice. Real violence is about stomping people into the ground and being the one that walks away. Maybe that’s not moral or “right” but that simply is the case of the matter, and to tell my clients other than that is to do them a dangerous, and potentially lethal, disservice.

Originally martial arts were not pretty or nice, they were solely about combat and stomping people into the ground so you could win wars and/or survive an attack by both animals and humans. It was in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s when the west influenced and changed the orient’s culture, political structure, and economy to where the martial arts either had to adapt and charge or fade away as a major part of their culture. With a strong government and lots of guns martial arts just weren’t considered necessary by most people anymore. So, they changed them, repackaged them, and sold them differently. They moved from being methods of stomping people into the ground to a method of (first) spirituality and (later) exercise and health.

While the martial arts have changed and added principles of Buddhism, Taoism, and various oriental cultures, violence itself has remained unchanged.

The reason why most people today don’t respect the martial arts, the reason why people smirk when they hear that someone has a black belt, is that the martial arts have gotten away from the idea of stomping people into the ground and therefore they’ve gotten away from the reality of violence. For this the marital arts have suffered and become far less effective.

The martial arts have tried to pretty themselves up a lot over the last 150 years in order to be more socially acceptable in more peaceful times but when someone is actually trying to seriously injure or kill you the only thing that will reliably save your life is to be offensive and stomp them into the ground.

It’s not pretty but martial arts never used to be. Old Chinese Kung Fu masters used to say, “If is pretty, it isn’t real Kung Fu”. I say, “If it isn’t about injuring people and stomping them into the ground then it won’t prepare you to actually defend yourself from someone who is actually trying to kill you.”

How To Hit Someone Before They Can Move

2010-10-27T16:42:00.005-04:00

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2010, All Rights Reserved

I went through several titles for this article before I settled on this one. My original title was “How To Manipulate The Way The Eyes Detect Movement And The Way The Brain Processes That Movement So You Can Appear Incredibly Fast And Take People By Surprise”, but that title, while perfectly descriptive of this article, was too long.

What I’m going to cover in this article is four ways that you can use the body’s processes against it so you can strike or grab someone before they can react or counter you. If you plan on sucker punching someone in the near future, or don’t want to get sucker punched, than this article is right up your alley.

Method Number One: Attack at an upward 45 degree angle. The field of vision your eyes have is actually limited by your cheek bones and nose. If you’re standing next to someone with your hands by your side than all you have to do is bring your strike upwards at a 45 degree angle to the groin, torso, or head and you will actually come up under their field of vision and they will not be able to see your strike.

Granted you could give your strike away by telegraphing it with a sudden change in your glare, facial expression, drop of your chin, or sudden movement of your shoulders.

Method Number Two: Don’t break your silhouette. The main way that your eye detects movement is by picking up a change in the amount of light or the shape of the light surrounding an object. For example, if your arm is hanging by your side and held a little ways from your body than I will be able to see light all the way around your arm. If you move your arm my eyes will immediately detect the change in the amount of light surrounding your arm or the shape of the light surrounding your arm. The more distance between your arm and your body the more light there is between them and the bigger signal I get when either of them move.

However, if you bring your arms into your body where your arms are entirely within the silhouette of your body there is no big backlight around the arm to give away the movement. If you put an arm entirely within the silhouette of your body and then strike straight in so that at no time does the arm come outside of the silhouette it will be extremely hard for my eyes to detect it and relay the message quick enough for me to do anything about. This is also great for disarming guns.

Another reason why this works so well is that it has you striking straight in and not moving your arm in a circular movement towards the target. To be extremely simplistic, the eyes have two main mechanisms: the “Peripheral Vision Mechanism” (PVM) and the “Focus Vision Mechanism” (FVM). The PVM (peripheral vision) is used to detect movement and judge speed while the FVM (where you’re focusing your vision) is used solely to identify objects. The FVM is not meant to detect movement or judge the speed at which an object is traveling and when it is used for this function it results in rapid tiring of the eyes, such as being hypnotized by a person having you follow a swinging watch.

When you throw that punch straight in the person is going to be using the FVM and they will have a hard time detecting the movement and then judging the speed at which your fist is traveling. This is the same reason people get hit by trains. Trains are large and compact (they basically move within their own silhouette) and they move straight towards you so your FVM thinks they are moving far slower than they are.

Method Number Three: Moving in unbroken rhythm. This is one of Bruce Lee’s favorite ways to get over on people. The way it works is that if you are still than any movement you make appears dramatic by the eye and is immediately pick up. However, if you are moving than your current movement can conceal the movement of your attack.

Hear is how it works: pick your target and how you are going to hit it and then innocently move that limb back and forth in a gesturing manner between your body and the target. Do this a few times so that the person gets used to this gesture and sees it as harmless, then when your limb hits the portion of the gesture where it moves towards the target go in and strike with that limb.

For example, let’s say someone is trying to intimidate me and get in my face. I put my hands up with my palms out in a submissive manner and try to calm them down. If I feel that I need to physically defend myself, and the target I choose is the throat, than I can, in a very relaxed and non threatening manner, bring both my hands in towards my body than back towards him in a non-threatening and submissive manner. This should not look like robotic pumping, rather move each hand in a small circle towards them and then towards me as I talk; it is important that this come across as an innocent hand gesture that fits in naturally during the conversation. Finally, when my hands finish their normal gesture towards me and go back towards them I continue the gesture forwards and turn it into a strike that they never saw coming.

Method Number Four: Move in a natural and relaxed manner. You PVM is designed to detect all movement but it is designed to give movements made in a fast jerky manner its attention first. For example, if you’re a hunter and you’re walking through the woods looking for dinner you’re going to see a lot of movement; you’ll see thousands of leaves blowing in the wind in all types of patterns and you’ll see trees moving back and forth in the wind. There will be movement all around you but the movement is all slow, relaxed, and natural. Suddenly, out of the corner of your eye, you see a deer dart out from behind a tree and start running. Amongst all that movement your eyes gave its full attention to the fast jerky movement because it wasn’t natural.

The same is true in a violent situation. If you move in a fast jerky manner your attacker will pick it up right away and act on it. However, if you move in a slow, relaxed, and unexcited manner as if your movement didn’t matter than he’ll have a very hard time acting on that movement.

The late David Carradine was a master of this. Watch anything he did martial arts wise later on in his career. I especially liked both “Kung Fu Killer” and “Kung Fu: The Legend Continues”. The latter was very hokey and often hard to watch but his movement during fight scenes was masterful. When he threw a punch or kick his entire body was relaxed and the movement seemed effortless.

While shooting a fight scene for “Kill Bill”, Michael Jai White commented that fighting with David Carradine was strange because it seemed that he moved so slow but he was always right there with him and sometimes on top of him. It wasn’t that he was slow, rather it was that because he moved in such a relaxed manner than Michael’s eyes saw his movement but didn’t always pick it up as offensive so they paid little attention to it. In a violent situation if you move in a relaxed manner towards your attacker they will often see it but classify it as non-offensive and pay little attention to it.

To get this type of movement down you need to pay attention to the feel. Right now, without any thought…scratch your nose. Now, scratch you head. Now, look at your watch. Pay attention to how these movements felt. They were relaxed, effortless, and perfectly natural. Identity how these simple, often unconscious, movements feel and try to make all your movements feel like them. With much practice people will think that you’re fast as hell, but it won’t necessarily be because you’re faster, it will be because you’re smarter.

Note: to see the fight scene from “Kill Bill” which, after getting a lot of coverage in martial arts magazines, was cut from the movie go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw6vWnW0i5o.

Using Wasp Spray For Personal Defense

2010-10-27T16:41:00.001-04:00

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2010, All Rights Reserved

One of the latest fads to hit the martial arts/personal protection world is using wasp spray instead of pepper spray for personal defense. The reasoning is that wasp spray is cheaper, more easily available, just as effective, and can be sprayed up to 20 ft which allows it to be deployed at a safer distance than pepper spray.

The truth is that wasp spray should only be used as a personal protection weapon as a last resort. Yes, wasp spray is generally cheaper and more easily available to most people than pepper spray but it is not as effective and that fact that it can spray a longer distance is mute because most attacks happen within 5 feet.

Pepper spray inflames the tissues of the face while wasp spray is a poison designed to kill insects. If you get this poison is a person’s mouth or eyes it could prove permanently disabling or even fatal. While pepper spray is a non-lethal self defense weapon, wasp spray, being a poison, could be considered a deadly weapon if you use it against someone or are found carrying it.

Most states have strict laws regulating what a person can carry for their personal protection. In Michigan, where I live, a person can carry pepper spray as long as it contains 2% or less of the active ingredient oleoresin capsicum (OC). Carrying a different spray for self defense would be against the law.

Not only that, most products carry a label that states: "It is a violation of federal law to use this product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling." So carrying it for personal defense could get you charged with a federal crime not to mention using it for self defense. Granted, if you are attacked in your home and the only thing you have in your reach to use as a weapon is wasp spray than you should use it and the law would be out of their mind to prosecute you (unless you live in England where people have little to no right to their own defense).

In short forget about using wasp spray and carry pepper spray which is safe, proven effective (as long as it is actually pepper spray with the active ingredient being “OC” or “red pepper” and NOT mace), and legal.

Michigan Self Defense Law

2010-09-01T01:16:00.003-04:00

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2010, All Rights Reserved

Disclaimer: This paper was written to inform people about Michigan self defense law as it stands at the time of this writing, August 31, 2010. It covers the law that pertains to the State of Michigan and not any other state.

It is for educational purposes and should not constitute legal advice. If you’re in any situation where legal advice becomes necessary you should consult an attorney.

The Current Self Defense Law in Michigan as of August 31, 2010

In July of 2006, Governor Jennifer Granholm signed into law the “Self Defense Act”. This act became state law in October of 2007.

What this law states is that people are allowed to use non-lethal force and/or lethal force against another person if they reasonably believe they face imminent great bodily harm, sexual assault, or death.

This law gives people in the state of Michigan to right to use non-lethal force and/or lethal force both in their homes and anywhere else in the state that they have the legal right to be.

The current law removes a “duty to retreat”. A “duty to retreat” means that if a person faces a violent situation they have a legal duty to retreat and remove themselves from the situation or they could be charged with a crime. With this “duty to retreat” no longer in effect in the State of Michigan, citizens may use force to defend themselves or others instead of being expected to retreat from the threat.

The legislation not only protects people from criminal charges but from civil lawsuits also. For example, if you believe you are facing imminent bodily harm and break the aggressor’s arm, you cannot be charged criminally for your actions and the aggressor, or the aggressor’s family, cannot sue you in civil court for damages.

This also includes bystanders who may have gotten injured in the process. For example, if you face imminent danger and you pull a gun and shoot your attacker and one of those bullets misses and hits an innocent bystander that is walking down the street; that innocent bystander, nor their family, can sue you civilly for damages.

Additionally, if you do use force in defending yourself and it is ruled that you were in compliance with Michigan Self Defense Law and you do get sued in civil court by your attacker, their family, or an innocent bystander who was injured in the incident the court is REQUIRED to award you payment of your attorney and court fees. The rational is that anyone who acts in self defense should not be have to spend time and money to go to court to justify their actions in protecting themselves and others.

The law also creates a "rebuttable presumption" which is a legal advantage that assumes, unless there's strong proof to the otherwise, that people honestly and reasonably believe they face death, rape or great bodily harm. What this means is that if you use force to defend yourself the court has to assume from the start that you had a justifiable and reasonable belief that you faced bodily harm or death. This assumption can be refuted by evidence, but the court is required to start with this assumption.

The Self Defense Act, and the “rebuttable presumption”, will not automatically apply in these instances:

1.) Domestic violence situations. Any time one person uses force against someone they have a prior relationship with (spouse, child, friend, co-worker, neighbor, etc.) they will not automatically get protection under this law until an investigation has been completed. This is to protect one spouse from using force against the other, or someone committing murder, and then trying to pass their crime off as self defense.

2.) Disputes involving the police. If a police officer is engaged in carrying out their lawful duty and you use force against them you cannot automatically get protection under this law. It is assumed that a police officer, as long as they are not outright breaking the law, is upholding the law in whatever interaction they have with you during the incident when you used force against them.

3.) If you are committing a crime. If you are in the middle of robbing a bank and one of the tellers tries to wrestle the gun away from you and you shoot him, you will not be given protection under this law. This law assumes that the incident in which you used force began with you being a law abiding citizen, and if you are not being a law abiding citizen when the force is used then you will most likely give up protection under this law.

Was using force justified?

The litmus test for determining when the use of deadly force is justified is whether a person "honestly and reasonably" believed he was in danger of imminent death or serious bodily harm. Nevertheless, deadly force is not permissible without a showing that the defendant had done "all which is reasonably in his power to avoid the necessity of extreme resistance, by retreating where retreat is safe".
What this means is that you are in a situation where the occurrence of violence was reasonably foreseeable and you had the ability to remove yourself before the violence began and you CHOSE not to then you may not receive protection under this law.

For example, if you are in an argument with someone and it is turning heated and you walk over to them to confront them and then you have to use force to defend yourself, you may not receive protection under this law. If you are in room where a fight breaks out and you CHOSE to stay in that room and you ended up having to use force against someone then you may not receive protection under this law because you having to use force was foreseeable and you chose to stay.

In both above examples I put the word “CHOSE” in capital letters because a chose is assumed. If you can provide evidence that you had no other reasonable alternative but to walk over and confront the person you were arguing with (maybe you were forced to at gunpoint) or that you were not reasonably able to leave the room where the fight was (maybe you tried to but the fight itself was blocking the exit) then you may be able to receive protection under this law.

There are three situations where it is assumed that you cannot remove yourself from the situation before the violence began.

1) If you are suddenly, fiercely, and violently attacked. In other words, if you are minding your own business and someone comes up to you and just attacks you.

2) If you believe the attacker is about to use a deadly weapon.

3) If you are assaulted in your own dwelling (home).

Excerpt from the self defense bill

This is an excerpt from the bill itself so you can clearly see the language.

"Michigan law regarding a person's right to use deadly force in self-defense is not expressed in statute, but is embodied in the common law as interpreted by case law.

According to a 2002 Michigan Supreme Court case (People v Riddle, 467 Mich 116), a person has the right to use deadly force in self-defense if he or she honestly and reasonably believes that using such force is necessary because he or she is in danger of imminent death or great bodily harm. Generally, a person acting in self-defense has a duty to retreat from the attack if he or she can do so safely, but retreat is never required in the person's own home, nor is retreat required in the case of a sudden and fierce violent attack or if the person honestly and reasonably believes that the attacker is about to use a deadly weapon. Some people believe that the right to defend against an attack, and the circumstances under which force is justified in self-defense or the defense of others, should be codified and that a person defending himself, herself, or another should not have to retreat when he or she is anywhere he or she has a legal right to be."

Illegal weapons

In Michigan:

(1) A person shall not manufacture, sell, offer for sale, or possess any of the following:

(a) A machine gun or firearm that shoots or is designed to shoot automatically more than 1 shot without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.

(b) A muffler or silencer.

(c) A bomb or bombshell.

(d) A blackjack, slungshot, billy, metallic knuckles, sand club, sand bag, or bludgeon.

(e) A device, weapon, cartridge, container, or contrivance designed to render a person temporarily or permanently disabled by the ejection, release, or emission of a gas or other substance.

(2) A person who violates subsection (1) is guilty of a felony, punishable by imprisonment for not more than 5 years, or a fine of not more than $2,500.00, or both.

Being held to a higher standard

The question frequently arises that if a person is trained in self-defense techniques or martial arts if they will be held to a higher standard by the court since they are “trained”.

While even some “experts” will say that anyone who has martial arts, military, or law enforcement training will be held to a higher standard than the average citizen if they use force this simply isn’t true.

Firstly, under the Michigan Self Defense Act training isn’t taken into consideration when determining if the level of force used was reasonable, only the circumstances of the incident are.

While it is true that members of the military or law enforcement community are held to a higher standard it is because they have an obligation to use force in the defense of the public instead of retreat. Since they have the duty to use force, their use of force is looked at more closely.

“The ‘higher standard’ [applied to members of the military and law enforcement] is meant to keep that grant of power in check. Civilians are not obligated to use force but the level of force used is guided by what the jury determines is ‘objectively reasonable’. If the District Attorney does not believe your use of force has been reasonable, then a judge or jury will decide whether your response was appropriate for the situation. Further, YOU will have to prove (convince the jury) that your actions were reasonable in light of your honest belief that imminent harm facing you required a violent response.”
-Matthew Suitor, Attorney.

It should be mentioned that while it was stated above that you wouldn’t be held to a higher standard by being trained in self-defense or martial arts, if it is decided that you are brought to trail the judge or a jury could be swayed by that fact. While legally it should not come into play in their decision they are still people.

Again, it should be stated that this article is meant for informational purposes only, and while lawyers were consulted in the writing of this document laws do change over time. In any event where legal advice becomes necessary an attorney should be consulted.

Four Principles For Surviving A Violent Crime

2010-08-04T16:20:00.000-04:00

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2010, All Rights Reserved

Principle Number One: Always Resist Your Attacker

A lot of the so called "experts" tell you to not resist being victimized, to give a criminal everything they want and hope that they take what they want and leave. While it is usually better to give up a purse or wallet then risk serious injury fighting with a criminal, if they want something more than a material possession I advise you to ALWAYS fight back, even if you don't know how. If all you do is to aggressively start hitting them and screaming it could be enough to create a chance for you to escape or convince him to leave.

Don't listen to people who tell you not to fight back, and that if you do then you're just inviting more violence from the attacker. Federal victimization studies show that people who resist an attacker and fight back are not injured any more than those who don't. The fact is that it is just the opposite. Studies have shown that over half of all attackers will actually leave if the person indicates that they will resist. So if they want your purse or wallet it may be better just to give it to them, but if they want more there isn't any benefit to not fighting back.

It may be necessary to comply with your attacker(s) at first if the odds are overwhelmingly against you. For example, if you are accosted by three men with guns you may not be able not be able to resist at that time without getting killed. However, if you comply at first you may find that in a few minutes they let their guard down, each go into different rooms, or put down their weapons and now a situation exists where resisting is possible and practical to create a situation where you can escape.

There may be times when you must give in and comply with their demands initially, but whether it’s a few seconds, minutes, hours, days, or even weeks, sooner or later a situation will present itself where they’ll let their guard down and escape becomes possible.

Principle Number Two: Never Allow Yourself To Get Taken To A Second Location

Statistics show that if you allow yourself to be taken from where you are initially attacked to a secondary location you will have only a 3% chance of survival. Never allow yourself to be taken to a secondary location.

If a person tries to get you into a vehicle or take you from the location of the initial assault then you should hit, kick, bite, scream, and try to run like your life depends on it. You can not be able to overcome your attacker but you might alert someone in the area to what’s happening or create a situation where you can escape.

Principle Number Three: Pain Doesn’t Matter, Only Injury Does

When you are physically defending yourself do not focus on causing your attacker pain because pain is very subjective and not at all reliable. If your attacker has a low pain tolerance or is easily frightened then it may take very little on your part to make him or her stop. However, if they have a high pain tolerance then causing them pain may do little, and if they enjoy pain then causing them pain may encourage them. If your attacker is one of the 63% that commit their crimes while on drugs or alcohol their pain receptor may be numb and you can cause them all the pain you want and see little to no effect.

When I say "injure" I mean that you have to take a part of their body and render it nonfunctional and in need of medical treatment.

If a violent criminal grabs you and you punch them in the face the result would be pain and that pain may only serve to make them mad because the punch didn't actually "do" anything. If, however, you lowered the punch and hit them in the throat you could cause an injury by crushing their windpipe. A crushed windpipe is not subjective nor is it something you can "shake off". If your windpipe is crushed you will not be able to breathe, which will quickly induce panic, and unless a tracheotomy is preformed you will die of asphyxiation. While punching them in the face will probably just make them angry, punching them in the throat and crushing it will cause them to stop their attack, involuntarily grab their throat, make a high pitched noise while trying to inhale, drop to the ground in a panic, and continue to make the noise until they...well...stop.

To give another example, if you tear the connective tissue in someone’s knee it will be structurally unsound and unable to bear the person’s weight. It doesn’t matter in the slightest if that knee being “broken” causes him pain or not, what matters is that leg will be of no use to him. He will not be able to chase you or kick you and that will give you opportunity to injure him further or escape.

The point is that the punch to the face is an example of pain and the punch to the throat is an example of a medically verified injury. A criminal will only stop their attack for two reasons: if they decide to stop, or if you make them stop, and the only way to make them stop is to stop the functioning of a part, or all, of their body.

The way to get to an injury is to target specific parts of their bodies that are most susceptible to impact trauma and them drive as much for as you can all the way THROUGH them.

Principle Number Four: If You Can Think And Move Than You Can Resist, Escape, And Cause Injury

It doesn’t what you’re up against, it doesn’t matter if your outnumbered, trapped, bound, or beaten; if you can think and move you can resist, escape, and cause injury.

Many crimes start with the victim being struck, stabbed, or shot. An attack my seem to come out of nowhere and start with you being injured. No matter what is happening take a second to go through a mental checklist:

Am I still alive? Yes.

Can I still think? Yes

Can I move? Yes

Then I can cause injury, resist, and escape

Fighting Dirty Saves Lives

2010-03-04T20:28:00.002-05:00

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2010, All Rights Reserved

In the search for practical self-defense the topic of rules, formalities, and social conventions must be addressed. Most people are taught from a young age that it is not appropriate to get into a fight and if you did find yourself in a situation where you had to fight there was a “right” way to do it.

To address the first social convention (it is not appropriate to fight) I would have to say that I agree. Getting into a fight is a very poor method of resolving an issue and I certainly do not advocate fighting. However, it must be made clear that violence is not always avoidable. The idea that all you have to do is just walk away from a potential fight and you can avoid violence is purely a social convention. If it was true then how do you explain that in America a woman is sexually assaulted every 90 seconds? To follow the logic, if the woman had just walked away she could have avoided the assault.

“Fighting” consists of two or more people agreeing to engage in a physical altercation which is usually structured. Criminal violence, on the other hand, finds you whether you look for it or not. Self-defense addresses the criminal violence side of physical altercations where you do not have a choice of whether or not you enter into it.

The second social convention I’m addressing is the topic of a “right” and “wrong” way to fight. Most people are taught from a young age the concept of “dirty fighting”. They are taught that if you get into a fight you put your hands up and punch; you NEVER slap, bite, kick, scratch, attack the groin, or hit someone when they’re down.

The reason the rules of fighting came about was because “civilized fighting” was equated with boxing. In order to make fighting more civilized society attached a sport mindset to it. The thinking was that if both parties put their hands up and slugged it out like civilized persons in a structured manner there would be less damage to both parties. The problem with this today is that few people respect the rules.

If you look down upon “fighting dirty” and decide that you’re going to follow the rules in a violent altercation then the issue arises of whether the other person will do the same. If you put your hands up to box and expect the other person to do the same, then you’ll be caught off guard when they kick you in the groin then stomp on your head while you’re on the ground. While rules are a great thing, they only work if everyone follows them.

The main reason why people don’t respect the rules is that all the things that are “dirty” are the things that work the best. Think about a UFC fight or a boxing match; both parties dance around and hit each other repeatedly round after round and often the fight ends up being decided not on who actually wins but who scores the most points. Think of all the trauma that each person absorbs during the fight then think about the things that make the referee jump in and stop the fight. 9 times out of 10 the thing that makes the referee jump in and stop/pause the fight is because something “dirty” happens (usually by accident). Someone gets poked in the eye, hit in the throat, groin, or gets a finger bent back. When these things happen the referee stops it right away because these things generally result in an injury and sport fighters want to beat on each other but don’t actually want to injure each other. That is great in a sporting application but could prove to be a lethal mistake if you are fighting for your life.

You can punch someone in the face repeatedly and cause little reaction, but poke them in the eye once and suddenly they can’t continue the fight. All the things that are “dirty” are “dirty” because they work. It is far more civilized to punch someone in the mouth then it is to punch them in the throat, however, a shot in the mouth may make them say “oww” or piss them off while a punch to the throat can close the airway and may prove lethal.

Following the rules and making them say “oww”, or “fighting dirty” and making them fall to the ground, start coughing, and not being able to breathe…what methodology do you want to follow when you get attacked?

If you plan on surviving a criminal assault it is important that you realize that “dirty fighting” is merely a social convention with its place existing solely in a socialized situation. The minute someone steps outside of socialized behavior and assaults you in a life threatening manner the only appropriate response is to step outside socialized behavior yourself and go for what works as fast as you can.

Socialized responses are only appropriate for socialized problems. When your life is under threat the only way you’ll survive is to leave the rules in the ring and do anything in your power to injure the other person before they injure you.

Keeping Calm Under Pressure

2010-01-27T12:54:00.003-05:00

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2010, All Rights Reserved

When confronted by danger it is important to stay calm so that you can clearly assess the situation and deal with it in a purposeful manner. Therefore, it is imperative that you learn how to stay cool and calm in the face of danger.

The number one way that you can keep yourself calm during danger is to have a plan ahead of time. In terms of dealing with violence, you want to decide in advance (before you ever step foot out of your door) how you will respond to a threat, if you will resist, how much you are willing to give up (money, ego, etc.), and to what lengths you will go through to keep yourself safe (would you deliberately kill someone if you had to). Keeping yourself safe all starts with deciding to take responsibility for your own safety, deciding not to become a victim, educating yourself about your threats, and then coming up with a plan of action to take when it does happen.

After your plan you NEED to train. Your brain is just like a computer in that it is open to any program you feed it, once it has a program installed it blindly runs that program, and when faced with something it does not have a program for it freezes. In your training you need to reenact a violent assault in a slow controlled manner and teach your brain new behaviors to respond with in those situations. If, in your training, you practice haphazardly and get overly stressed out then your brain will be programmed to automatically get stressed out in those situations.

Your brain objectively observes your surroundings and your actions and says, “Ok, so based on what I’ve seen, when you do ‘this’ then I do ‘that’”. If your brain observes that when you see that it is raining outside that you like to look for a rainbow, then, after a few repetitions of your brain noticing this behavior, it records that stimulus and action as a mental program. Before you know it you’ll begin looking for a rainbow automatically and without any conscious thought every time you see rain.

If, during training, your partner comes at you with a rubber knife and you start to get stressed out and overwhelmed then your brain will cause you to get stressed out and overwhelmed when it happens for real. However, if you realize this and focus on being proactive during your training and causing injuries, then your brain will record that as a program. If your partner comes at you with a rubber knife and you forget the rubber knife and focus solely on coming in, hitting targets, and causing injuries; if you look only at the target you want to hit and then don’t take your eyes off of it until after you’ve hit it, then that is exactly what your brain will learn and do during a real violent altercation.

When you train, go slow, go controlled, look at your targets, focus solely on your targets, and then step in and hit them, watch them go away from you, and then pick another target to hit. This is the path to injury and this is what you want to train yourself to do.

During the actual altercation you can’t really calm yourself down too much (most violent assaults occur in less than 10 seconds) but if it is a prolonged altercation such as an abduction or it’s after the altercation is over there are a few things you can do to calm yourself down.

If you are abducted you still want to focus on injuries, but if that is not possible at the moment (such as being bound in a car) you should first focus on your breathing to calm you down, and then try to figure out where you are, and then develop a new plan of action that you can take the second an opportunity arises.

A very basic breathing method used by the US military is called “Combat Breathing”. Basically, when you feel stressed out you simply breathe in through your nose for the count of four, hold it for four seconds, and then breathe out through your mouth for four seconds. This will regulate the flow of oxygen to your brain and have a calming and focusing affect.

If you need to calm yourself down after an assault I would recommend a Chinese technique called “Sun and Moon Breathing”. To do this technique you place your right thumb on your right nostril to gently hold it closed, and then you slowly and deeply breathe out of your left nostril for 30 seconds. The trick is to breathe as slowly and as deeply as you can. This breathing technique is more beneficial because by limiting yourself to just on nostril you further regulate your oxygen flow. “Sun and Moon Breathing” is an outstanding relaxation technique that I personally use every time I get stressed.

Using breathing techniques for relaxation can benefit you even when you are not stressed out. A recent study as shown that deep rhythmic breathing for about 20 minutes a day can produce the same results on brain scans that are seen by veteran meditators. It has been shown that simple rhythmic breathing can actually alter the topography of the brain. In the study it was shown that both rhythmic breathers and mediators had 5% thicker brain tissue in their prefrontal cortex compared to the average person. This thicker brain tissue occurred in the portions of the brain which deal with things like the handling and regulating of emotions, attention, concentration, and working memory, all of which control your reaction stress.

Simply all you'd have to do is spend 20 minutes a day doing the "Combat Breathing" or “Sun and Moon Breathing” technique and you'd start to see results like being calmer and better able to concentrate in a few days to a week or two. You could sit down every night to watch your favorite half hour TV program and practice your combat breathing until is was over and voila, you're done and miles ahead of other people in controlling your panic response and being better able to handle daily stresses.

The Forgotten Art Form

2009-12-03T01:07:00.001-05:00

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

A long time ago the martial arts forgot about something important: violence. Originally, in feudal times, violence was everywhere and you didn’t need to think about using it because it came naturally. However, as time progressed and governments became more stable rampant violence lessened and periods of relative peace emerged. When this happened, martial artists were able to spend less time fighting and more time developing their arts.

It was in these periods of relative peace that martial artists started to systemize their arts and spend lots of time thinking, thinking, and thinking even more. The masters thought so much and progressed their arts to such a degree that the techniques, principles, and ideology of the arts took the forefront and the aspect of violence itself, and its uses, was nearly forgotten. The result of all of this is that today the only ones using violence are the criminals, and nine times out of ten they’re cleaning the floor with seasoned martial artists.

In the martial arts today violence is considered taboo and wrong, and in some styles it is even considered the antithesis of what the martial arts are supposed to be about. Most martial arts take the stand point that violence is bad and you can overcome it with technique. The truth of the matter is that 99% of the time pure uneducated brain-dead violence beats technique. 99% of the time, if pitted against each other in a real fight to the death, a skilled 7th degree black belt would get killed by some untrained street punk. The black belt would be putting his hands up and thinking about what technique to use while the punk would just rush over and violently overwhelm him and try to smash his skull. It happens every day.

Violence isn’t good or bad, it just is. Violence is also the forgotten element that makes martial art techniques work. While 99% of the time violence beats technique hands down, 99% of the time violence AND technique beats violence alone. If you have technique, and you want it to work during a real violent altercation, you need to learn how to add brain-dead violence to it. Don’t just stand there and throw reverse punches like you do during karate class; instead, learn to aggressively charge forward while you are throwing those punches so you run over your attacker, make him back up and put his weight on the back of his heels, overwhelm his defenses, beat his arms down if he tries to block, and then hit him until he is no longer a threat. It doesn’t sound like something a martial artist should do, but it works. It works all day every day and it is why the criminal element, who have little to no training, are so successful.

The techniques of the martial arts are great, but it is the aspect of sheer brain-dead violence and aggression that make them actually work. It’s not pretty, but it works.

The Four Stages of a Fight

2009-11-20T16:00:00.000-05:00

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

A few days ago I was talking to a friend about whether boxing is or is not a sport that translates to real world self-defense. My stance on the subject was: maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, either way it doesn’t really matter. Actually defending yourself from someone who wants to seriously injure or kill you is about one thing and one thing only…causing injuries.

To clarify this point I’m going to go over the four stages of fighting. These are the four stages that a real fight will progress through. Keep in mind right now I’m talking about a fight and not an act of violence like an assault, rape, or murder. Real acts of violence have only two stages and we’ll go through those next.

Stage Number One: The Man-Dance. A real act of violence just starts, but a fight usually begins with insults and posturing. One person, or a group of people, insults another and then they start sticking their chests out and acting tough. Maybe someone puts their hands up and maybe they don’t, but they don’t assume traditional fighting stances, they just get ready to hit each other. No actual “work” is being done here; it’s just ego and posturing.

Stage Number Two: Non-Specific Trauma. After the man-dance is concluded one person will attack the other. Normally both people, or groups of people, will step forward and just start swinging with no real thought behind it. During this stage both people will usually get hit multiple times but the blows are haphazard and not actually aimed at a part of the opponent’s body that is susceptible to trauma. One punch may land on the top of the person’s head where the skull is thick, the next may land on an arm, and the next may land on their hip bone. Both people may be punched, kicked, kneed, stabbed, shot, or bludgeoned several times but because the trauma they received was not specific, delivered all over the place, and not focused on a vital area, nothing changes and the fighting continues.

Stage Number Three: The Initial Injury. Nothing changes until the first injury occurs. Without an injury the stage of non-specific trauma would last until both parties either got bored or tired. When they get tired they’ll usually revert back to the man-dance and then go home.

An injury, as it applies to combat, is when part of a person’s body gets disabled, can no longer function normally, and requires medical attention. An injury could be an eye gouged by a thumb, a testicle crushed by a foot, a metatarsal being broken by a boot heel, or an eardrum being ruptured by a slap. Until something along those lines happens nothing will change.

Normally the injury happens by dumb luck if it happens at all. Typically one of three things happen: 1.) By dumb luck a punch lands on the other person’s jaw which causes a concussion and the person passes out and falls to the ground, 2.) Someone accidentally scratches the other person’s eye which results in the person not being able to see, or 3.) One person gets punched, pushed, or loses their balance and falls to the ground where they break their wrist or arm, or they hit their head and suffer a concussion and perhaps lose consciousness.

Stage Number Four: Follow Up. Once one person gets an injury their body has to react to that injury and for a brief period (perhaps just a few seconds) their autonomic nervous system takes over their body and they are helpless. In addition to their brief helplessness a part of their body doesn’t work anymore so their ability to fight back is reduced and may be non-existent.

In a real altercation, when an injury occurs the injuring party does not stop and step back in a fighting stance, but rather they continue by jumping in with newfound vigor. They keep on punching, kicking, biting, stomping, stabbing, shooting, or whatever until they are confident that the other person is finished. What they do during their follow up usually consists of more non-specific trauma but they may get another injury to two by dumb luck.

In terms of actual violence there are just two stages: 1.) Before an injury, and 2.) After an injury.

Stage Number One: Before the initial injury. In a situation of actual violence anything can happen before the first injury occurs so speculating on it is of little use. The only thing that will change the situation is for an injury to occur.

Maybe someone man-danced, maybe someone put a knife to your throat, or maybe someone has already struck you four times, it really doesn’t matter because an injury hasn’t occurred yet.

Stage Number Two: After the initial injury. After the first injury is caused the situation then changes in your favor (assuming you were the one to cause the injury) so all you need to do is follow up by causing more injuries until the person(s) can no longer pose a threat.

All forms of fighting can be reduced to these simple stages. It doesn’t matter if its boxing, kickboxing, knife fighting, or a real act of violence, the only thing that gets the job done is injury.

Knocking Someone Out With Pressure Points

2009-10-21T11:16:00.005-04:00

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

On my blog (www.schaferselfdefense.blogspot.com) I use a free service that lets me check the number of people coming to my site and lets me see how they got there and what keyword they searched for that took them there. I've been quite surprised as of late because I recently discovered that the vast majority of people who come to my blog get there because they searched for a topic relating to pressure points. My recent article, "Using Pressure Points", is by far my most popular and it does make sense because in the martial arts pressure points are still seen by many as being one of the last mystical teachings left.

When I look at the list of keywords and phrases that people searched for I found that they were all pretty close to the same: "How to knock someone out with pressure points", "Pressure point knockout", "How to touch someone and knock them out with a pressure point", etc. What is very clear is that people are interested in how pressure points can render someone unconscious. So, after careful consideration, I have decided to give people what they want and to write an article explaining how pressure points can knock someone out and how to do it.

At first I was a little leery about writing this article but after some thought I realized that if people don't learn the truth behind pressure points then they'd probably keep searching until they found some really bad information and either hurt someone with it or got hurt by it. I think that putting this information out will most likely do far more good than harm, so why not give the people what they want?

Disclaimer

A few of the searches that brought people to my blog asked how they could knock their friends out with pressure points. Please, DON'T PLAY AROUND WITH THIS STUFF. Most pressure points are just nerves that sit right underneath the skin and by pressing down on them you cause people pain, and if you want to use those on your buddies then you most likely won't do any harm, but making your buddies say "Oww" is the extent of what you can safely play around with.

One of the truths in the martial arts is that you never truly know what will happen when you touch someone, and therefore there is no such thing as "less-than-lethal techniques". If you press down on a buddy's fingernail you're going to cause him great pain and that could be fun, but if you go further and apply pressure to a point that affects an artery then you could potentially kill him.

The solar plexus is considered a "non-lethal" target and may young guys enjoy punching their friends there when they're not looking. Their friend gets winded and everyone laughs, but right behind the solar plexus is the abdominal aorta and if your friend has a heart condition it could send him into cardiac arrest and he could die. What about the groin? I know a lot of young guys that like slapping their friends in the testicles when they're not looking. Fun right? Most people don't know that when you strike the groin you also affect the respiratory system, and if your friend has asthma or another undiagnosed respiratory disorder then that little game of grab ass could potentially end up with a seriously injured or dead friend.

The point I'm trying to make is that there really is no way of knowing exactly how someone will react to even a small amount of trauma. A large number of the population walks around with undiagnosed disorders or diseases and something that wouldn't adversely affect another person would result in serious injury or death to them. Many people have even died from being slapped in the head. It sounds odd but certain people are born predisposed to brain aneurisms and any firm blow to the head will kill them. Thousands die every year from someone pushing, tripping, or punching them and when they fall they hit their head on the ground and that impact either kills them, causes brain damage, or puts them in a coma. Even a simple wrist lock could be fatal if it causes the subject to lose their balance and hit their head on the ground.

Pressure points are not something that should be played around with. They should only be practiced under the watch of a trained instructor and even then a first aid kit and a phone should be kept near in case of injury. No one wants to be responsible for the death of a friend so DON'T play around with what you'll learn here or any other martial art technique.

"Chi" In Perspective

When talking about pressure points you can't really ignore the topic of "chi" (internal energy). Many schools teach that you can use your chi, or disrupt someone else's chi, to render them unconscious. While I am a firm believer in the existence of chi, and have felt it's affects many times during Tai Chi or Chi Gung practice, there are a few problems with the idea of using chi to knock someone out.

Firstly, historically there have been several different definitions of what chi really is. While the term "chi" has been used to mean "internal energy", it has also been used to mean such things as "focus" and "the correct use of body mechanics". Many Chinese historians believe that when masters spoke of hitting someone with "chi" they didn't mean your life-giving internal force, but rather to focus and use proper body mechanics. Case in point, after a few years of studying Tai Chi Chuan I realized that often when my instructor said "chi" he really meant "body weight". Many times I saw him seemingly just touch someone and make them fly backwards, but upon examination you could see that he just bent his knees to drop his bodyweight and then used his arm to transfer that force into his partner.

Personally I think that there are two kinds of chi. There is the universal force which supports life (and may be some type of electro-magnetism) and there is martial arts chi which is really just mental focus and the proper use of body mechanics and the application of bodyweight.

Secondly, the documented success of using chi to knock people out is extremely suspect. There are many people who teach pressure points for martial purposes, such as George Dillman, but when examined they have almost zero success when using their techniques on people who don't study their system and very sketchy success on people who do study their system. If you watch videos from these schools you'll see demonstrations where students strike their partner's pressure points to render them unconscious and then quickly rush over to revive him, however upon closer inspection it can clearly be seen that in the majority of the cases the person isn't unconscious. In most of the demonstrations that I've seen the supposedly unconscious person has their eyes open, is looking around the room, and moving their arms while their fellow students are trying to revive them.

I think that the George Dillman style of "chi" pressure point knockouts that is going around is pure crap. Time and time again it doesn't work when done against journalists and other people from outside their system, and when it does work against people inside their system I think it works the same way as a placebo. I also think that the people who teach this stuff know it doesn't work, but they also know that if they can get a group of people to rush over to the "unconscious" partner as soon as he falls down they can obstruct people's view enough where they won't see that he isn't really unconscious.

Many of the pressure points that legitimate schools use to knock people out actually work but not because of chi. If you closely examine the point you'll see that the point sits on top of a major nerve or artery which is the real cause of the unconsciousness.

Again, I am a big believer in chi but I have never seen a martial use of it that wasn't actually just an intelligent use of body dynamics. Chi is a wonderful thing, but I never seen any credible evidence that shows that it can be used as a weapon.

The Causes of Unconsciousness

Before we get to the actual pressure points we need to have an understanding of how unconsciousness happens. If you understand the causes of unconsciousness you'll be able to understand how the pressure points work and you'll be better able to judge the effectiveness of any technique that you may see in the future.

There are three things that will cause a person to pass out and become unconscious: 1.) A lack of oxygen, 2.) A sudden drop in blood pressure, and 3.) Brain shutdown, cause by either trauma to the brain or the brain gets overloaded with signals. Any time someone passes out the cause is one of these three reasons. So now that we know the reasons let's look at them a little closer and figure out some pressure points.

#1: A lack of oxygen

When your body is deprived of oxygen your brain begins to shut down and unconsciousness usually occurs in around 30 seconds to one minute. How can we attack the body to affect a "respiratory knockout"? The most obvious way is to attack the windpipe, so the windpipe could be considered to be a pressure point.

There are a few ways to use the windpipe as a pressure point. The first is called a "one handed choke hold". To do this you place the webbing between your thumb and index finger on the windpipe and wrap your four fingers around the back on their neck. You then use your thumb to push the windpipe into your hand. The next is a "forearm choke hold" which can be done in several ways but all involve placing your forearm across the windpipe and pressing into it to cut off oxygen flow.

The second pressure point could be the nose and mouth. By using the palm of your hand to create a seal over someone's nose and mouth you can stop their breathing and cause unconsciousness in about 30 seconds to one minute. However, in terms of using the respiratory system to produce unconsciousness, that is about it. A hard blow to the groin, solar plexus, or diaphragm could alter someone's breathing enough to cause them to black out but there's no guarantee this will happen.

#2: A sudden drop in blood pressure

In all the cases where people faint or pass out and become unconscious the cause of the vast majority (probably in the high 90%) is a sudden drop in blood pressure. People who stand up too quickly and become light headed or pass out and people who undergo an emotional shock and pass out are examples of a person suffering from a sudden drop in blood pressure.

A sudden drop in blood pressure can be caused by an event that happens either in the heart or the arteries. An event that happens in the heart that results in a sudden drop in blood pressure could be a heart attack, irregular heartbeat, trauma to the heart which causes it to pause or slow down, or the brain could stop sending the signal for the heart to beat, or the nervous system could stop sending it.

An event in the arteries generally refers to a situation where the person is bleeding and loses so much blood that blood pressure drops significantly. Another arterial event is caused by pinching an artery either with the hand or with a hard strike. If you press down on one of the body's major arteries you can cause the blood pressure to rise significantly. When the brain detects this rise it thinks that the body is in trouble so it acts to lower the blood pressure to bring it back down to normal levels. However, since the rise in blood pressure is caused by you pressing down on an artery and not a real bodily malfunction the blood pressure drops so significantly that the person passes out.

In this context the heart itself could be considered to be a pressure point. Being fairly well protected you'll have to hit the heart very hard and instead of quickly retracting your fist like a traditional reverse punch you'll want to push all the way through and keep the fist in contact with the target for as long as you can. A hard punch or other blow to the heart can definitely cause unconsciousness.

The next pressure point to cause blood pressure to drop suddenly would be the carotid arteries in the neck. These arteries are large and serve as the brain's main blood supplier. The carotid arteries can be found in the front of the neck, on either sides of the windpipe, and right behind the jugular veins. There are a few ways you can apply pressure to the carotid arteries. First, you can grab the front of the throat and use your thumb to press into one artery on one side and the fingers into the other. By pinching down on the carotid arteries you can cause someone to get light headed in 2 or 3 seconds and pass out in 6 to 10. The bad part about this is that this is a very unsecure grip and it will be easy for an opponent to pull out of. It should also be mentioned that again this could be fatal and if you cause one of the arteries to tear, death is nearly certain.

Another method is known as either the "Japanese Stranglehold", the "Marine Stranglehold", or the "Thugee Stranglehold". From behind you wrap your left arm around their neck so that their windpipe sits in the crook of your elbow, and you place your left hand on the inside of your right elbow. You place your right hand on the back of their head and you use it to push their head forwards into your left arm while that arm squeezes in on the sides of the neck. This is a very dangerous technique and should never be applied for more than 10 seconds. The moment the body starts to go limp you should release the hold otherwise you may seriously injure or kill the person.

While the Japanese Stranglehold mainly works by cutting off blood flow to the brain, you can cause unconsciousness by striking into the carotid artery with the side of your hand or your forearm and you'll get that sudden drop in blood pressure that causes a knockout. Again, be very careful while doing this because in striking to this area you can also hit the throat and other nerves.

Another pressure point is the temple. If you place your finger on your temple, just above the outer edge of your eyebrow, you can feel your pulse. In this area your temporal artery carries blood just underneath the skin. By striking the temple you can pinch the artery and render the person unconscious. Striking too hard can easily result in death.

Perhaps considered a more traditional pressure point, the vegas nerve is one of the most vulnerable pressure points on the body. The vegas nerve connects the brain and the heart and a blow to this nerve will quickly render an individual unconscious. The vegas nerve is located on both sides of the neck about an inch below the base of the ear. It is not one little spot you have to hunt for, but rather a long nerve that runs down the length of the neck and pressing down anywhere in that area affects the nerve.

If you press down firmly with your thumb you can cause immediate pain and lightheadedness. If you place your palm or forearm on the side of the neck and bounce a few times you can cause the person to pass out. The often cited "Judo Chop" that knocks people out, shown in many movies such as "Austin Powers", is a chop done with the side of the hand to the vegas nerve. Again, be very careful because if the person has a heart condition, or you hit them too hard, it can be fatal.

When someone gets struck in the vegas nerve they will roll their eyes up in the head, faint, and fall to the ground. They may be out for a few seconds or more than a minute. When they come to they will be lightheaded, have a horrorable headache, be nauseous, and will most likely have poor motor skills for a period of time. After a blow to the vegas nerve the person will feel horrorable and usually won't be able to walk, some have trouble crawling, and they'll usually want to vomit. The last thing that they'll want to do is to fight. These affects usually only last ten to twenty minutes, but the headache and nauseous feeling usually last all day.

#3: Brain Shutdown

Brain shutdown generally comes from two causes. The first is that the brain receives direct trauma, such as being struck and bruised or shot and pierced. Since we are discussing pressure points here we will focus on the former. When the brain is impacted and bruised it is known as a concussion and it is the easiest way to get a knockout from brain shutdown.

The easiest way to cause a concussion is to either strike someone's head against a solid object or to strike them in the jaw. By striking someone in the jaw you'll cause their head to rapidly twist slightly faster than the brain can move and the brain will end up impacting with the interior of the skull, and you'll get your concussion.

Another way of causing unconsciousness is to cause the brain to get overloaded with signals. If the brain receives too many signals as once it will want to shut down and the person will pass out. To do this, called and "electrical knockout", you can either hit multiple spots at once or you can strike certain nerves located close to the brain.

An example of hitting someone multiple times would be to step into your opponent with a double punch (left hand going to the liver and right hand going to the spleen) while also doing a kick or knee to the groin. By striking three areas at the same time you cause the brain to get overloaded and passing out is a near certainty. The catch is that you can't hit someone lightly; you need to step in with your bodyweight and give 100% to all three strikes.

As far as nerves go, there are several nerves that are located in the head and neck and when struck they will fire rapidly causing an "electrical storm" inside the body which will overload the brain and cause the brain to shut down. The first set of nerves is located in what is called the "horse shoe". On both sides of your head you have nerves that run from your temples down the sides of your head, behind your jaw, and down your neck. From temple to temple you have a horse-shoe of nerves that can all produce unconsciousness. These nerves exit your brain at your temples and are another reason striking to the temples can produce a knockout. Then they run behind your jaw where they are especially vulnerable.

There are two reasons that striking someone in the jaw can cause lightheadness and unconsciousness. The first is that it can result in a concussion as discussed above and the second is that the jaw can be slammed back against the skull and pinch that bundle of nerves. You can strike the jaw straight back towards the skull or you can strike the jaw from the side and drive the other side into the nerves. It doesn’t have to be done as hard as you can but it does have to be done firmly to produce a knockout.

The other area where these nerves can be found is the back of the neck. The back of the neck is full of nerves and you need to be very careful because striking this area can be fatal. A firm blow anywhere on the back of the neck will cause lightheadedness and disorientation, a hard blow will cause unconscious, and a full force blow can easily be fatal. If you strike anywhere from the center of the back of the neck to the brainstem you can cause unconsciousness first and death second either by damaging the nerve that tells the diaphragm to contract and causing the person to asphyxiate while they're unconscious or by cutting into the spinal cord and causing the blood pressure to drop so rapidly that they die instantly (called "spinal shock"). If you strike anywhere from the center of the back of the neck to where the neck connects to the torso you can cause consciousness first and then permanent paralysis from the neck down.

As far as knocking people out goes that's basically it. Either you can deprive them of oxygen, get their blood pressure to drop suddenly, cause trauma to their brain, or cause an electrical knockout by overloading their brain with electrical signals. There really isn't any secret spot where you can press down and cause immediate unconsciousness. The closest to that is the carotid artery or the vegas nerve. The whole idea of hitting "gall bladder 3", then "triple warmer 6", and then "prostate 69" and knocking someone out doesn't hold up to science, and to be honest it is ridiculous. Instead of hunting and pecking for three tiny little spots on someone’s body and hitting them in the correct order why don't you just step in and drive your palm into their jaw? It's a lot easier and guaranteed to work (provided you do it right).

One last note about hitting nerves, if you hit any nerve in the body enough times you can send the person into cardiac arrest and potentially kill them. For example, there was an instance at Guantanamo Bay where the US military hung up a prisoner and every time someone walked by him they'd knee him in the side of the leg in the common peroneal nerve causing extreme pain. This was an attempt to "break him" but it soon let to him having a heart attack. Any repeat trauma to the same nerve can be potentially fatal.

I thank you for reading this article and I hope you understand both pressure point and the martial arts better. If you have any questions or comments I'd love to hear them.

”Fear No Punch”: A Review

2009-10-17T18:46:00.002-04:00

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

Being someone who teaches self-defense for a living I try to keep up with new innovations in the industry. This means reading articles, attending seminars, keeping up to date with statistics from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, and viewing self-defense/personal security/defensive shooting videos as they come on the market.

Every year there are many new self-defense videos that come out and most of them are either nothing that hasn’t been around for hundreds of years or something that is new and innovative but quite ridiculous. Out of the hundreds of ads I see every month I only purchase those that really seem like they may be worth viewing, and they are very few and far between, and out of those I return almost all of them because they’re not worth keeping. I’ve yet to actually see a video that gives me the skills to become invincible in just a few hours.

Recently I purchased a program that I saw advertised in Black Belt Magazine called “Fear No Punch”. The only reason this video stood out was that it seemed to deal solely with blocking punches and that is an area where most systems seem to suffer. Also, some of my clients do read martial arts magazines and I could see them asking me about it in the future so I thought I should take a look.

Here is my review, I hope you find it helpful.

Video: “Fear No Punch” aka “Zero Fear Impact Training Series”
Published by: Doesn’t specify
Staring: Coal Akida
Format: One 6 hour long DVD
Price: $149
Delivery Time: It took about two months for the video to arrive at my home.
The Pitch: Never be punched again. Learn 17 revolutionary breakthroughs, 100 new training methods, and 6 new combat technologies. Learn how to “surpass the human limit”…whatever that means.

Production Value: The production value was quite a bit better than I expected. The picture and sound were both clear. It was obvious that they hired a production company to shoot the video as opposed to just going down their basement and having a cousin hold the camcorder.

I thought the main menu could have been a little clearer as I was never quite sure what option I was selecting or what the selection was because the descriptions were very poor.

There is little personal information about the instructor, a man named “Commander” Coal Akida, on the website but from what I can tell he has never been in the military (“Commander” is a nickname) but it appears he’s a fan of the TV show “JAG”. I say this because at the beginning of each new segment the title appears in the form of green letters that come across the screen as if being typed with a beeping sound effect just like in the TV show. It’s the kind of quasi-military thing that screams “I’ve never been in the military but I’m trying to fake it”.

Presentation: Most videos I’ve seen follow the same logical format; first there is an introduction of the instructors, style, and the teaching. Then, the basic principles are taught, then the techniques, and then you’re shown how to apply the techniques in real life. “Fear No Punch” did not follow that format.

As soon as you start the video they just jumped right in and started swinging baseball bats at each other and you were immediately lost. There was no introduction or explaining of the principles, they just started swinging baseball bats around and having their partner block it without an explanation as to why. Not only that, within the first few minutes of watching the video they start throwing these terms around like you’re supposed to know what they mean. They start using quasi-scientific sounding terms like:

Zero Focus Technology
Zero Gravity Technology
No Fear Technology
Fear No Punch Technology
Close To The Pain Technology
Cohesion Absorption Technology

When the instructor corrected his student’s form he didn’t really explain his corrections, instead he started talking about “Zero Gravity Technology”. What the hell is “Zero Gravity Technology”? He never gives a real in depth description or tells you why you need it, he just starts throwing around terms that sound like bull-shit. From what I can figure out, “Zero Gravity Technology” means that you should just let your hand fall freely instead of using muscle to force it down. While that may or may not be a sound principle, it certainly isn’t “zero gravity”. In fact, if you’re letting your hand fall freely it is the opposite of “zero gravity”. He should call it “100% Gravity Technology”.

Everything he did was “this” kind of technology or “that” kind of technology and pretty soon I had to stop the tape and look up the definition of the word “technology” to see if it can correctly be used to describe martial arts principles. It turns out that it can but it just makes everything you say sound like bull-shit. I could have taken this guy a lot more seriously if he hadn’t thrown the word “technology” around every 30 seconds.

The way the video was laid out and the way they presented their material made it very difficult to follow, and it was 6 hours long. If they would have just presented the material in a more logical manner they could have cut it down to an hour.

Overall Review: The entire video takes 6 hours to teach two basic principles. The first principle is that by watching the center of a person’s torso and looking past it instead of focusing your eyes on it, you can detect their strikes far better that you can by looking them in the eye or watching their hands. This is a very commonly taught principle that is very effective. He calls it “Zero Focus Technology”. When I teach a class I just refer to it as “using your eyes to detect movement” but now I think I’ll call it “Peripheral Optics Technology” and start wearing a lab coat when I teach.

The second principle he teaches is that in order to effectively block a full force punch you have to pull your hand back and slap it. I was pleasantly surprised with this because this is an area that most martial arts don’t cover. Most systems have you block a punch by just sticking your arm out in a blocking motion. This works well with low power blows, like in sparring, but a real punch would knock the arm down and continue on to its target. If you just throw your arm up in the path of a real full force punch your arm just doesn’t have the structure to stop it.

If you go back to basics you’ll see that the martial arts actually teach you not to just throw your arm up in the path of the punch but to twist your arm into the punch which will naturally deflect some of the force of the punch and provide you with the structure you need to block it. If you twist your arm into the punch you’ll block it, if you don’t you’ll most likely be hit; this is a teaching that has been all but lost here in America.

Instead of twisting your arm to rotate your ulna bone into the attacking arm, “Fear No Punch” teaches you to bring your hand back to your ear and the rotate towards the punch and then slap it to the side with the palm of your hand. If you don’t bring the hand back to your ear then you won’t have the force needed to deflect most full power punches.

The other basic teaching “Fear No Punch” provides is that you want to block the punch as close as possible to your face and you don’t want to slap the hand too far away, because then you’ll have to chase it in the event you want to trap it. Instead of slapping it you want to keep you hand and wrist loose so they absorb the force rather than knock it away.

That’s basically it, they take 6 hours to teach these two things and then act as though they discovered the holy grail of combat. The only thing this video covers is how to block punches and you need to do more than that to win a fight or defend yourself.

Training Methodologies: The main way of training that “Fear No Punch” uses is to block a baseball bat that is swung at your head. The reasoning is that the bat is going to scare you far more than any punch so by using it you overcome your fear. The aluminum bat also hits harder than a full force punch so by training with it you’ll think a real punch is weak by comparison.

The thing that I found curious about it was that in order to block an aluminum bat with your hand you had to be very precise or you’d get hit in the head or break your wrist or fingers. You had to be so much more precise in order to block the bat than you did a punch that 90% of the training was really focused on blocking the bat in a way where you don’t injure yourself. Blocking a punch is very simple and you don’t need to be very precise to do it, so if they just focused on blocking a punch the video could have been 30 minutes long. Most of the training covered not how to block a punch but how to not get hurt during training. This video could have easily been 30 minutes to an hour but because they wanted to use a bat they had to give a lot more instruction.

In terms of blocking a real punch “Zero Gravity Technology” doesn’t matter, but if you want to use your bare hand to block the end of a bat it does.

He also “reinvented” the jab in just about the most ridiculous way possible. Instead of throwing your hand straight out at a target like a typical jab, his jab was done by keeping the arm almost straight and then swinging it up from your groin to their jaw and striking with the back of your fist. Why this is supposed to be better than a traditional jab was never explained and I haven’t been able to figure it out.

Overall Rating: One out a possible five stars. Save your money, after all by reading this review you pretty much learned all the useful stuff the “Fear No Punch” program covers anyway.

Using Pressure Points

2009-09-25T19:21:00.001-04:00

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

Of all the subjects covered in martial arts schools I'd have to say that, after point sparring, "pressure points" is one of the ones that make me scratch my head the most. The term "pressure point" generally refers to an area of the body where a nerve sits just underneath the skin, and by pressing down on it you can cause sharp and sometimes severe pain. The term is broadened by the western medical community to mean any area of the body where applying direct pressure can result in some type of change within the body. For example, pressing down on an artery to slow bleeding is considered a use of a "pressure point". In Traditional Chinese Medicine the term is broadened even further to include areas where no nerves or arteries exist, but an invisible pathway (called a "meridian") of internal energy (called "chi" in Chinese, "ki" in Japanese, and "bio-energy" in the west) flows throughout the body.

In the west pressure points are pretty much divided into two types, one being points that cause pain and the other being points that cause light headedness or unconsciousness. A martial arts instructor will generally teach forms or sparring and then switch gears by sitting the class down and saying, "if you press here...the guy will scream. But, if you press here...the guy will dance for you", and then that's pretty much it. Most instructors only give instruction in pressure points to that degree, spots on the body that you can press down on and cause people pain.

Some other schools, mainly in the U.S., teach pressure points in a quite elaborate way. They talk about spots like "gallbladder 5" and a "triple warmer" and say that you can simply tap someone "here" and make them pass out, or you can strike them in a certain sequence you can make someone pass out. Unfortunately, if you hit them out of sequence or you're a 1/2 inch off on one of the points then it doesn't work. I know some people are really into this method, but if you think about that it's really a mess.

Thus far I've haven't been to a seminar on that type of pressure point use but I have seen it done on videos and spoken with people who have had first hand training on it, and while I always try to keep an open mind, when I'm confronted with it the only thing I can think of is "how the hell are you going to pull this off when someone is trying to stab you to death?" If someone really does attack you and you're planning on locating and striking 3 tiny pressure points on his body in a certain order to incapacitate him the only thing I can say is, "good luck". When people are actually moving around and being aggressive you're not going to be able to access these tiny spots. You can find a tiny pressure point on someone's arm during class, but how are you going to find it when the guy's wearing a winter coat? And if you need to find and hit 3 or 4 points in a certain order to knock someone out while they're wearing street clothes and trying to seriously injure or kill you...well...if you can do it then you're the luckiest guy on Earth.

In the orient pressure points are taught a little differently then they are here. In China or Japan pressure points really aren't considered a separate part of your education. During your early stages of training an instructor might throw out a few pain inducing pressure points here and there mainly for fun, or as a possible way to make people comply with you. However, while these points, which are also points used in acupuncture, are very useful for medical purposes, their use for martial art purposes are mainly considered "tricks" or novelties. During the higher levels of training an instructor pretty much says, "here are the areas of the body where striking can cause the most damage...now hit them as hard as you can". The idea that you can gently press on pressure points or strike them lightly and make someone pass out or compels them to completely comply with you is for the most part a horrorably misguided western idea.

I saw a video on the internet awhile back where an old Japanese Kenpo Master was giving a demonstration on pressure points to a class of advanced students. He pointed out a point that causes unconsciousness and then told everyone to stand back because he was going to demonstrate it's effects. Now, most people would think that he would gently press on the point or at most gently poke it and the guy would fall to the floor unconscious. I have to admit that is what I was expecting. However, what the old master did was to set his feet, and then he struck the guy so hard I thought he killed him. His partner came off of his feet and flew backward and into the floor. The old master then rushed over to revive him, and sure enough the guy was unconscious. The masters in the orient know very well that this "mamby-pamby" press or strike gently bullshit won't work.

In my classes I do teach pressure points as a separate subject because using pressure points has little use in real self-defense. Most people would say that the temple is a pressure point and the solar plexus is another pressure point but I call them "targets". To me, "targets" are areas of the body that are especially susceptible to impact trauma and I have my students train to hit them as hard as they can. In my class "pressure points" are spots on the body that you can press on and cause people pain. I regard them as sort of parlor tricks. Not really useful in real violence but if you're goofing around with your buddies, or you're in a social situation and you need to send someone a message via pain then they're great.

The idea of being in a violent attack and hunting and pecking for tiny little spots on your attacker's body is ridiculous, but there are some pressure points that are easy to find and do their job quite well. In an effort to simplify the topic of pressure points I'm going to discuss the ones that are most useful, from a purely functional standpoint. I've rated these points from one to eight, with one besting the most useful. The standard I used to rate them was 1.) Overall ease of use, 2.) Amount of pain resulting, 3.) Ease in locating the point, and 4.) Ease of applying pressure and being able to keep there while the other person tries to get away from you.

Pressure Point #1: The Eyes

Most people don't consider the eyes to be pressure points but I think that they're the best one on the body. If your goal is injury then the eyes are one of the easiest places on the body to injure. If your goal is pain compliance then the eyes are still number one. If you want to make someone stop what they're doing and dance for you then slowly press down on their eye. Just make sure that you use your other hand to hold their head because as soon as you'll do they'll fight rather violently to get away.

I understand that most people don't like the idea of using the eyes as pressure points and that is fine, but you still have to admit that functionally they do the job very well. They are large so they are easy to find. There are two of them so if you miss one you can come back and get the other. They are filled with nerves so applying pressure results in a great deal of pain. Also, the body goes to great lengths to protect them so by controlling the eyes you can take control of the entire body.

If I had someone standing in front of me and I wanted to drop them to their knees in pain and control them with a pressure point my first thought would be a thumb to the eye.

Pressure Point #2: The Testicles

Like the eyes, the testicles are usually easy to find and filled with very sensitive nerves. If you're goal is to press on something and force compliance through pain then a testicle is your good buddy. However, I do prefer the eyes over the testicles since the eyes are usually much easier to get at, after all the eyes are at eye level and not covered by denim. Generally if you can't get at the eyes then you can get at the groin, and if you can't get at the groin then you can get at the eyes.

The way to use the testicles as pressure points is to simply push your hand into the other person's groin and make a tight fist. You should be able to feel the testicles in your hand but if you aren't sure that you've got them just check to see if the other person is trying to curl into the fetal position.

You do need to be very careful with the testicles because you can cause them to rupture which would move the situation from pain compliance to actual injury. If you're goal is just pain compliance then grab them and squeeze gently, you only need a little pressure, and gauge the pressure needed on the other person's reaction.

Pressure Point #3: The Ribs

A person's ribs, especially the lower ones, are very vulnerable and there are plenty of nerves. If someone is grabbing you and you want to make them jump back and let go, just dig your fingers into their ribs. The reason that I like the ribs is because they're not something you have to hunt and peck for. They are large areas on the body and very easy to locate and get to, and when you dig your fingers into them people immediately try to get away.

There are four ways I teach people to press on the ribs. First is with the tip of your thumb. You simply make a tight fist and press the pad of your thumb against the side of the index finger, then dig the tip of the thumb in the ribs and try to push it right between two of them in a twisting motion. The second is with a knuckle. To do this you make a tight fist but put the knuckle of your index finger out a little bit and then press on the ribs in the same way. Third is using four knuckles instead of just one. You make a tight fist and use all four knuckles to dig and twist into the ribs.

My favorite way to teach the rib pressure point is to use an eagle claw. I think that this is the quickest and easiest way to apply force to the ribs. You open your hand and spread your fingers (I'm counting the thumb as a finger) apart as much as you can and then you place them on the ribs. Next, you push and dig the tips of your fingers into the ribs as hard as you can while you try to touch the tips of your fingers together in a digging/pinching motion. This is a great way to make someone let you go, and incredibly painful.

Pressure Point #4: The Saphenous Nerve

The saphenous nerve runs down the inside of the leg and is very sensitive. The best way to use it is to reach between their legs, place your hand on their upper thigh, and use an eagle claw to grab as much meat as you can. If you put your hand on your own thigh and then firmly grab a big handful you'll realize how painful this is. This, as well as the groin, is great points to use when someone grabs you from behind.

I've rated this "point" after the ribs simply because the ribs are usually easier to get to then the thighs.

Pressure Point #5: The Jugular Notch

The Jugular Notch is the tender hollow area where your lower windpipe meets your sternum. It is very sensitive and there are two ways to utilize this as a pressure point. First, you can push anyone away from you by simply inserting two fingers there and pushing as hard as you can. This a great move to show young girls because with this a small female can push any size guy off of her.

The second way to use the jugular notch as a pressure point is to insert two fingers into it and then press in and down towards the ground. This variation is more of a controlling maneuver than the first. I like to grab the back of their head with my left hand to make sure they can't go anywhere and use my right to dig down into their jugular notch. It is a great way to make someone sit down.

Pressure Point #6: The Side of the Neck

The side of the neck is very easy to get to and there are a lot of nerves there which makes it very easy to get pain compliance. You simply place your thumb on the side of the neck, either side, a few inches down from the bottom of the ear and press. It can be anywhere in that area, it doesn't have to be that exact spot.

This is a great move for the law enforcement community to use when trying to cuff a resisting suspect. Instead of 4 officers trying to hold the person down, or use other means, they can apply force of the side of the person's neck and they will quickly become compliant. If they don't become compliant because of the pain then they'll soon become lightheaded and loose their strength enabling the officers to cuff them with little problem.

Pressure Point #7: Under the Nose

While some points are more painful for some people than others, this point is horrorable for pretty much everyone. This point is located between the bottom of the nose and top of the upper lip. To use this point you place the side of your index finger underneath their nose and then press in and up. It only takes a few seconds to make the eyes water profusely. Another version for when someone is standing in front of you is to grab the back of their head with your left hand and place the side of your right hand under their nose and use the side of your hand to apply pressure.

Pressure Point #8: The Back of the Arm

On the back of the arm just below the armpit there is a large bundle of nerves that are very sensitive. By grabbing the back of the arm with an eagle claw you can cause a lot of pain. However, it is often not too hard for them to be able to pull their arm away from you and out of your grasp.

While I teach using a lot of different areas of the body for striking, these eight areas are the only ones I teach to be used as pressure points. There are a few other points that are widely taught but I chose not to include them for functionality reasons. While these points, and others, do create a lot of pain when force is applied, they require you to look for them, which can make it almost impossible to find them during a violent altercation, and are quite small. For a pressure point to be really useful during a violent altercation it should be a fairly large area and not some tiny little spot. If the point is some tiny little spot then you won't have sufficient control over that area and someone can jerk away from you and suddenly your finger has moved 1/2 an inch and you've lost the spot. The spots discussed above are bigger areas (the ribs, back of arm, under the nose) instead of tiny spots.

Here are my four "honorable mentions" in no particular order.

Honorable Mention #1: Behind the Ear

This is a very popular pressure point. Right behind the bottom of the ear there is a hollow spot between the jaw and the neck where applying pressure can result in quite a bit of pain. I say "can result" because I know many people who are so receptive to this point that they almost live in fear of it, and I know many people don't find this very painful at all. To best stimulate this point insert the tip of your thumb in the hollow and press down hard while you twist your hand back and forth.

Honorable Mention #2: Under the jaw

If you feel underneath the jaw you'll find that the edges of the jaw are made of bone but everything in between them is soft tissue. To find the pressure point move up the jaw bone about half way between the tip of the jaw and the hinge where it connects to the skull. Put two fingers, or better yet the tip of your thumb, on that spot and then push it up under the bone into the soft tissue of the jaw's underbelly. This point exists on both sides of the jaw and most people find this incredibly painful.

The reason that I put this as an "honorable mention" and did not list it under the points that I teach is because, given it's location, there are just other points that are easier to get to and use. You can generally find this point easily and use it to cause severe pain but if someone jerks away from you, you generally lose the spot.

Honorable Mention #3: Finger nails

The finger nails are another point that are horrorably painful and easy to find, but it is very easy for someone to pull away from you and cause you to lose your pressure point. To use the finger nail, or toe nail, as a pressure point you grab a hold of the finger and press down on the top of the nail with the tip of your thumb. You want to press down on the very bottom of the nail right next to the cuticle for maximum pain.

Honorable Mention #4: Median nerve

The median nerve is a point that causes a lot of pain in pretty much everyone but it can be hard to find, especially on someone who does not have well defined arms. To find the median nerve point look at your arm while holding your palm towards the floor. Bend your arm slightly and look at the crease created in your elbow. Place the thumb of your other hand on the edge of the crease and move your thumb down towards the hand about a 1/2 an inch and the towards you about an 1/8 of an inch. The tip of your thumb should be right on the median nerve. You might have to press down and move it around slightly to find it's exact spot. Again this point is very painful but it can be hard to find (especially if the individual is wearing long sleeves or a thick coat) and they can usually pull away from you rather easily. This is a point used quite a bit in Aikido.

Mindset vs. Action

2009-09-10T06:34:00.004-04:00

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

A lot has been written about the "fighting mindset" or "combat mindset". Pretty much every self-defense course talks at length about how you have to think a certain way to defend yourself and how you need to develop a "killer instinct". To tell you the truth I think this is more of a gimmick than anything else. The "combat mindset" or a "killer instinct" are esoteric ideas that allow a guru to sell books and videos for big bucks. Normally they bring it up in a column they write or spend a few minutes talking about it during a seminar and then let you know that, luckily for you, they sell a course that will tell you exactly how to develop it for just 4 payments of $39.95.

In reality, the whole idea of a "combat mindset" is over-rated. I'm going to let you in on a little secret: it is what you DO that is important. You can think anyway you want, the only thing that is really going to matter when someone is dragging you into the back room of a convenient store at gunpoint is the physical action you take. You can be scared shitless and ready to pass out from the fear, but, regardless of the condition of your mental faculties, if you suddenly grab a telephone off a desk and the turn and strike the attacker in the head as hard as you can and then run like hell, you're alive. You didn't think the telephone into the man's skull, you physically put it there.

Don't get me wrong, a certain state of mind is beneficial but it is not absolutely necessary. The necessary part is physically acting when you have to. Adopting a certain state of mind or way of thinking can definitely increase your chances of being able to act when you have to, but all it really does is prepare you mentally for the occurrence of violence and it is certainly possible to act without preparing. The process of preparing your mind for an occurrence of violence is what we'll cover next.

If you want to mentally prepare yourself for violence and increase the chances that you'll be able to act when you have to then the first thing you have to do is to REALIZE and ACCEPT is the fact that violence CAN happen to you and your family. Not only that, you have to REALIZE and ACCEPT that violence probably WILL happen to you or your family. Until you accept this truth you won't be mentally prepared for a violent altercation. When violence does happen your brain will think, "Wait a minute...this isn't suppose to happen!" and you'll be standing there frozen trying to process the event while it is happening. This is one reason why criminals get away with so many crimes, because their victims think that it will never happen to them they freeze like a deer in the headlights.

Once you realize and accept the fact that violence probably will happen to you or a loved one you need to make the simple decision not to be a victim. This may sound kind of odd but one reason many people don't fight back, even when they're being murdered, is because they don't know if they should fight back or let themselves be victimized. There have been a lot of people that have actually just stood there and let themselves be choked to death because they couldn't make up their mind and decide whether or not to try to resist.

It is as simple as saying to yourself, "I am not going to allow myself to be victimized". Once the reality that violence can and probably will happen to you is accepted, you allow your mind to open up and deal with the possibility of it happening. Then once you decide not to be a victim you give your mind a direction to go in when it does happen.

Next you need to learn exactly what your threats are likely to be, how they are likely to come after you, and then you need to develop a workable plan for when they do come after you. The difference between being a victim and being someone who successfully survives violence is having a workable plan beforehand. The reason criminals are so successful in committing their crimes is because they have a plan and know exactly what they're going to do and their victims don't. The importance of having an actionable plan for what you will do in a violent situation, and for having it before you step foot out your front door, cannot be stressed enough.

The next step is to educate yourself about self-defense and then take proactive steps to avoid crime and be on the lookout for it. You have to know the places where you're at risk and the places where criminals are most likely to attack you and you have to try to avoid those areas, and if you can't you have to consciously be on the lookout of criminals and other attackers. But again, these are actionable steps and not a special "combat mindset".

After that you have to understand that action always beats reaction. Action is offensive and reaction is defensive. Action takes control of the situation, charges forwards, and gets the job done, while reaction waits to see what the other person is going to do, then it decides what it will do based on what the other person did. Reaction is always a step or two behind.

In any potentially dangerous situation you need to take control and the way that you do it is by acting. If someone confronts you, tells you he has a gun, and then he starts to reach for it you should be taking action. Reaction would be waiting to see exactly what they do, letting them pull the gun, and then trying to play catch-up. Action is stepping in and driving your forearm into the guy’s throat the second he reaches for it. In any potentially dangerous situation action is always better then reaction.

This is one of the reasons why you should generally resist an attacker and always resist someone who is trying to abduct you. There are many people who have had someone try to kidnap them and by taking some type of action, often just yelling, biting, hitting, kicking, or turning and running away, they have created a situation where they could get away.

So we know that when something happens we're going to take control of the situation by acting rather than reacting and we have a plan so we know what we'll do when something does happen. As far as the mental preparation part of self-defense goes, that's the majority of it. By realizing, accepting, and deciding you've told your brain, "when this happens, I'm going to fight back", and by being knowledgeable about criminals, aware of your surroundings, and having a plan for when violence does happen it becomes far more likely that you'll act instead of react. Everything else in self-defense has to do with physical actions.

The only other aspects of mental preparation are to practice with both mental rehearsal and physical practice. Of course you should hit the mats and get some training time in but you should also spend 5 or 10 minutes a day mentally rehearsing an assault and seeing yourself, as clearly as you can, be proactive and striking your targets to end the situation. By mentally rehearsing your encounter you are further giving instruction to your brain and telling it what to do when you are faced with violence.

Now what about the actual encounter? Let's say that you've already done everything I've talked about above so you've prepared yourself mentally, and now you have a man standing in front of you trapping you against your car and threatening you with a knife. So now what do you do mentally? The answer is pretty simple, you focus on targets. The only way that you're going to stop this man from hurting you is to physically injure him so he is physically unable to attack you. The way you get this done is by driving as much force as possible into the weakest areas of his body...or in other words: striking targets. Since what you need to do is to access targets, what you should do is focus on them. The only thing that is going to save your life is by accessing his throat, temple, carotid artery, liver, knee, etc., so they are what you should be focusing on.

It doesn't matter what that man plans to do with his knife, his plans won't save you. The only thing that matters is to be proactive and get to his temple with a hammer-fist strike and drive all of your bodyweight all the way through until he hits his head on the ground. That is the only thing that will save you, targets, so that is what you should be focusing on.

There is another benefit of making yourself focus on targets and that is by making your brain focus on targets it isn't free to panic. It is ok if you feel fear because fear is a natural feeling that we have little control over; it is panic that we need to avoid because panic can lead to freezing like a deer in the headlights. Panic happens when your brain has no direction and is free to do whatever it wants. By directing your brain to focus on targets you are giving it a task to do so it won't have the free time to make you freeze with fear.

That's pretty much it, "combat mindset"/"killer instinct" in a nutshell. So save your 4 payments of $39.95 for something you really want...or if you really enjoyed this article you can always send them to me.

Knives, Other Tools, and I Compare Jim Wagner To A Condom

2009-09-03T06:14:00.002-04:00

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

The other day a friend informed me that he had made a decision. For the past six years he has studied the Japanese art of Jujitsu and he is very talented and extremely proud of his black belt. Save except a few instances, for those six years he has diligently attended class twice a week and always leaves drenched in sweat and every now and then he leaves with a small bit of blood on his uniform (usually not his own). However, now he feels that he's getting older (he's 56) and he can't take the punishment of going to class that much so for now on he's only going to attend classes every other week.

He said that the only reason he goes to class so much is that he wants to be prepared to defend himself and his wife should he ever need to, so he has to be able to keep up with the "young guys". After years of being thrown around and having his joints twisted in all sorts of odd shapes he now feels that its time to take it easier and for a few years he has wanted to cut down on is training. The reason that he hasn't until now is that he feels that if he isn't constantly practicing in the dojo if something was to happen he might not be in top form to take care of it.

"So, what's changed?" I asked him, "why are you now deciding to cut down on your training when you weren't comfortable doing that a year or two ago?"

He leaned towards me with a grin that made me just a little uncomfortable and said, "I'm going to cheat".

"Well that's between you and your wife, but what does that have to do with Jujitsu?" I asked

"No," he said with a pissed off grimace, "I'm going to start carrying a knife". He reached in his pocket and pulled out a black folding knife and handed it to me. "I figure if I start carrying a knife and use that as my first line of defense then I can back off on Jujitsu a little. If some teenage bastard tries something with me I'm going to cut him up first, and then if I lose my knife I'll use my Jujistu."

I did my best to try to bite my tounge, that was until I opened the knife. It was black and it looked like something you'd see in a futureistic military movie. Just looking at it you could tell that is was designed for stabbing someone to death, and to top it off on the blade it said in big letters: Jim Wagner Reality Based Blade.

"Saved by the Bell the College Years!" I shouted (I'm trying to stop swearing), "First of all you bought a Jim Wagner product? Really? That guy is a barnackle on the taint of the self-defense/martial arts industry. Learning from Jim Wagner is like getting your rapist to wear a condom, things might turn out a little better than they otherwise might be, but not much! And look at this knife! Do you honestly think that you're going to be able to carry this and not have it either taken away from you by the cops or end up in prison? If you ever have to use it against someone the prosecuter is going to take one look at it and infer your intent based on the kind of knife you're carrying."

I understand his thought process but it really doesn't work that way. Carring a weapon, any weapon, is not an excuse to cut back on your self-defense training. If you decide to carry a gun and you're smart enough to take a course in defensive shooting, your instructor, provided he's worth his salt, will tell you that chances are that you'll have to use your empty hand skills first.
If you can see a situation coming and draw your gun in advance then it's a good day, but chances are you'll end up having an attacker confront you at very close range, within a few feet, and you'll have to use your self-defense techniques to at the very least push your attacker back to give you time and room to get at your gun, pull it out, aquire your target, and effectively operate it. Most defensive shooting instructors will tell you that you're probably going to have to deal with the first attacker bare handed and then, provided you have time, you can deal with any additional attackers with your firearm. The knife is no different.

As far as the exact knife goes, DON'T buy some fancy fighting knife!! If you buy some fancy "Jim Wagner, I'm Going To Kill Somebody" knife then the cops and the district attorney are going to, at the very least, hold you to a higher standard, and, in the extreme, think that you went looking for trouble.

I do carry a knife with me but it is for utility purposes. I carry a simple pocket knife that is sharp, clipped to my pocket, and has a blade within the legal limits. If need be I could use my knife for self-defense, as I could any knife, so I simply don't need to spend a butt-load of money on some fancy "combat" knife that advertises to the world that you have a knife and you're looking for an opportunity to pull it.

Like everybody, I'd rather be judged by twelve than carried by six, but those twelve...they're a bitch.

The Effectiveness of Pepper Spray

2009-05-18T07:08:00.000-04:00

By Matthew Schafer

Recently an article ran in Black Belt Magazine entitled "The Spice of Life" where the author discussed the uses of pepper spray and made the assertion that pepper spray was the "end-all-be-all" self-defense weapon. After that article ran people wrote letters to the editor disputing the author, and then the author wrote back disputing the letters. The basic area of contention was the effectiveness of pepper spray against an attacker and so I'm writing this article to address that matter.

The author stated that when sprayed with pepper spray every single human, or animal, would suffer its effects and stop in their tracks, unable to continue their assault. Those who wrote in stated personal experience where pepper spray was not effective. Many stated that they were either soldiers or police officers who had to be sprayed with pepper spray during their training, or had used pepper spray in a real violent encounter, and that they'd seen many people not be affected by it or even laugh at being sprayed. The statistic put forth is that one in every ten people is not affected by pepper spray.

Personally I think the "1 in 10" statistic is a bunch of crap. For years I've worked with pepper spray and I've never met anyone that was either not effected by it or could fight through its effects. Now, I have seen people who where not 100% incapacitated after being sprayed but they could not negate the effects of the pepper spray through force of will or being "tough". After being sprayed these particular people were still on their feet but they were in a lot of pain, couldn't open their eyes, and were having trouble breathing. They were blind, grunting, coughing, using one hand to rub the pepper spray off their faces, and using the other hand to search for their opponent that they'd never find unless they walked up to them and allowed themselves to be grabbed.

I believe that the reason some people were unable to get the desired effects with pepper spray is mainly due to human error. So here I will discuss the four human error based reasons that I believe have caused the "1 in 10" statistic to come about.

Reason #1: Not actually using pepper spray. "Pepper spray" is a specific term for a specific product but it has come to be used generally to refer to all types of defense sprays. In reality there are chemical sprays (mace and tear gas) and pepper sprays. Chemical sprays are made using either a chemical called "orthoclorobenzalmalonitrile" (called "CS" for short) or a chemical called "alphachloroacetaphenone" (called "CN" for short). "CS" and "CN" are both chemicals that irritate the moist porous linings of the eyes, nose, and throat and cause the body to respond by trying to flush them out by the involuntary watering of the eyes, running of the nose, coughing, and in some cases vomiting. This is very unpleasant and painful and in most individuals it is quite debilitating.

There are several problems with using "CS" and "CN" to stop a violent attacker; in most cases the effects aren't that severe and their stopping power comes down to the attacker's pain tolerance and willingness to endure the discomfort caused by the chemical. Some people actually can fight through the effects of various chemical sprays which is why more and more police departments have stop using them in favor of actual pepper spray. Also, some people's biology renders them partially or even fully immune to the effects of both "CS" and "CN". In most cases where people spray someone with "pepper spray" and the person is unaffected, or only effected in a minor way, it is because they're actually using a chemical spray (mace) with the active ingredient being "CS" or "CN" and not real pepper spray.

Another factor is that many studies have shown that it can take up to 30 seconds for someone to feel the effects of "CS" or "CN". So you can come at me and I can give you a face full of mace and you're still going to have time to stab me to death before you succumb to its effects.

The active ingredient in actual pepper spray is "Oleoresin Capsicum" (called "OC" for short) and instead of being a chemical compound it is concentration of pepper extracts. Instead of irritating the moist porous tissues of the eyes, nose, and throat it inflames them in a way that is quite severe. It's like getting hot sauce in your eyes, only about a thousand times worse. It does not matter how big, strong, determined, or skilled someone is, or if they are under the influence of drugs, if they get "OC" in their face it will become inflamed. Their eyes will water and be forced shut so they cannot see, their nose will run uncontrollably, their throat will become inflamed and their breathing will be affected so they will cough uncontrollably, and throughout their face and throat they will experience a severe and extremely painful burning sensation. Not being able to see and having problems breathing they will want to sit or lay down and wipe the "OC" out of their eyes, however, they'll end up rubbing the "OC" deeper into their eyes and spreading around their face, helping it enter their nose and mouth. The more they try to wipe it away the more they spread it.

Imagine taking a habanero pepper (one of the hottest peppers), cutting it in half, and then rubbing it all over your face and in your eyes. The result would be excruciatingly painful and you wouldn't be able to fight anyone right afterwards, not effectively anyway. The strength/heat of pepper spray is measured in "Scoville Heat Units" (SHU) and the rating of that hadanero pepper is between 200,000 to 300,000 SHU. Most pepper sprays (with "OC" being the active ingredient) rate at about 2,000,000 SHU, so the pepper spray would be about 9 to 10 times hotter and the effects 9 or 10 times more severe.

On several occasions when I've been training with pepper spray I've had the wind blow a small amount back in my face and with only a very small amount coming into contact with my skin I can say that I'd never want to be sprayed with a full dose. Only an extremely small amount came back at me and it felt like my face was on fire; I had a very hard time keeping my eyes open and was coughing uncontrollably. Many people have talked about dogs not being effected by pepper spray but again they used "CS" or "CN" . One day while I was out for a walk a rottweiler charged me and I turned my head and sprayed in its direction and as soon as it entered the cloud of spray it stopped in its tracks and then started rubbing its face in the dirt and wheezing.

The effects of "OC" occur rapidly so there is no waiting 15-30 seconds for your attacker to stop and given a sufficient dose of pepper spray someone can have their vision and breathing be disrupted for 45 minutes or longer. There was a case in Cheyenne, Wyoming a few years ago where a woman sprayed a mugger with "OC" and when the police arrived on the scene 35 minutes later the attacker was still laying on the ground.

Simply put, using "OC" has been proven to be effective while "pepper sprays" that are actually just chemical sprays consisting of "CS" or "CN" have a level of effectiveness that I wouldn't bet my life on.

It should also be noted that some pepper sprays are actually "pepper sprays". There are many pepper sprays on the market that do contain a small amount of "OC" but their active ingredient is really "CS" or "CN". Years back I was talking to a potential client on the phone and when I mentioned pepper spray she became somewhat hostile. She told me a story about how she had used pepper spray on a date rapist and it hadn't worked. She mentioned that she still had the pepper spray and I asked her to bring it in with her when she came in for training and sure enough it was "pepper spray". It was a cheap product she purchased for $10 in the sporting goods department at a grocery store and under "active ingredient" it said:

Alphachloroacetaphenone, Red Pepper. It was primarily "CN" and only a small amount of "OC" and that is why it didn't work.

If you buy pepper spray you want Oleoresin Capsicum (sometimes listed as "OC" or just "Red Pepper") to be the one and only ingredient. I've tested a lot of brands on the market and the only one I carry and provide to my clients is "Sabre Red: Maximum Strength Pepper Spray". I firmly believe that Sabre Red provides the best pepper spray on the market and having spent nearly 23 years in the self-defense industry I wouldn't carry anything else.

I live in Michigan and we have a law that states that you cannot carry pepper spray that has more than a 2% concentration and luckily Sabre Red has a special "Michigan Formulation". So my experiences are with a 2% formulation and I find it to be extremely effective; in other states you can carry sprays of much higher concentration of "OC" and I can't even imagine what it would feel like to sprayed with an 8% or 9% concentration.

Reason #2: Using expired sprays. Pepper spray ("OC") only retains its maximum potency for four years. There are a lot of people out there walking around with expired canisters of pepper spray and they don't know it.

When you buy pepper spray you should only buy it from a reputable dealer, make sure that it has the expiration date printed on it before you buy it, and then check the date as soon as you get it. I know quite a few people who try to save money by buying pepper spray online for around $6 a canister and when they get it they find out that it is either already expired or very close to expiring. If they used those fancy novelty sprays on an attacker I don't believe it would do anything other than make them angry.

Reason #3: Used too small of dose. I saw a video on youtube awhile back that showed army personnel doing a drill where they got sprayed with pepper spray and then had to run an obstacle course. My first problem with that is that I doubt they used "OC" because if they did I don't think the soldier could have seen to negotiate the course. I also know that most law enforcement agencies, military included, use chemical sprays instead of "OC" so chances are that is was just mace.

My second problem is that the soldier was only given about a half second dose. In a dose that small you can't guarantee that it will even get in the eyes, nose, or mouth. In a self-defense situation you spray the person until they grab their face and make strange noises. In my experience, as soon as you spray someone in the face with "OC" they stop their attack, but from the time you spray someone until the time they turn away and start coughing it can be around 3 seconds. 3 seconds worth of "OC" in your face is a lot and the effects will be extreme. I got maybe a quarter of a second worth of blow back in my face and that was enough for me, a direct 3 second spray in the face is enough to disable anyone.

Reason #4: They missed their target. When you spray someone you want to aim for the center of their face so the spray will get into their eyes, nose, and mouth. However, a lot of the times people miss. I've seen a lot of videos on the internet as well as clips from COPS and other TV shows where a police officer sprays in the general direction of the suspects face, and then acts surprised when they don't drop. Often they start shaking the can to make sure it's mixed up before they spray again, as if that makes a difference.

It's just like everything else: you have to hit your target. It doesn't matter if you're using a fist, a knife, a gun, or a defense spray, if you don't hit your target you're not going to put the person down. Most people I know have pepper spray but don't train with it. I always recommend that people buy four canisters: one for your house, one for your car, one to carry, and the other to train with. You have to spray it and you have to practice with it if you expect to be able to use it under duress. You have to be able to look at someone and then spray it right into the center of their face. I always tell people to look at the tip of their attacker's nose because if they can get it on their nose they it will splash both up into the eyes and down to the mouth.

If someone tells me that they sprayed someone in the face with pepper spray and it didn't stop them within a second or two I ask them if "OC" was the active ingredient, and the I ask them how their targeting was. Often people completely miss the face and instead get it in their hair, where it takes 10 or 20 seconds to drip down to their eyes, or maybe they just get it on their clothes and they don't get it into their face until they use their sleeve to rub their face awhile later.

Most people don't think about targeting, they just point and shoot. Point and shoot doesn't work effectively fist or a foot, it sure doesn't work with a firearm, and it doesn't work with pepper spray either.

Color Codes of Mental Awareness

2009-05-09T08:49:00.002-04:00

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

Most of us go through life unaware and unprepared for criminal violence, and the result of this is that it makes us both desirable and easy for the criminal element. By using such tools as the "Color Conditions of Mental Awareness" we can put ourselves in a mode to both recognize and deal with criminals and violent crime when they do enter our lives.

What follows is a description of the four conditions, or states of mind, that you can use to prepare yourself for crime and violent encounters. The reason that they are so effective is because it gives you an objective scale of determining your threat level and then gives you clear steps to follow. The effectiveness of this method is the reason why most every military unit and self-defense expert uses some variation of it.

Condition White: Unaware and Unprepared
Condition White is the condition that most people are in most of the time. In this condition you are moving through life unaware of your surroundings and totally unprepared for the event that something, violent or not, could happen. Being in this condition you’re not only an easy victim for any criminal but you're also a criminal's ideal target. Criminals leave their homes in the morning and spend their time scouring their surroundings for people in Condition White because they are the easiest victims.

If you're caught in Condition White then you're an easy victim regardless of who you are or how much training you have. Even if you're a police officer, a Navy SEAL, or a 7th Degree Black Belt a criminal will have little problem taking you by surprise and overwhelm you before you realize what is going on.

Examples of a person in Condition White: Someone walking down the street with their head in the clouds, completely oblivious to everything going on around him.
A person sitting on a park bench on a beautiful spring day engrossed in a good novel or immersed in the newspaper, completely oblivious to everything going on around him.
A person driving to work- mentally already at work- completely oblivious to everything going on around him.

Condition Yellow: Relaxed and alert.

Condition Yellow is where you want to be in everyday life. In this condition you're not paranoid or stressed out but rather you're just relaxed and aware of your surroundings. You know that something could possibly happen but it also could not.

Just by being in Condition Yellow you're less likely to be picked on by a criminal because they don't want to pick someone who may spot them in advance and run away or resist when they're assaulted. The two things that a criminal doesn't want is to draw attention to themselves and to find themselves going up against someone who will fight back and could hurt them. By being aware of your surroundings they see that they would have a difficult time taking you by surprise and most criminals will just move on to someone else.

Condition Yellow, is where you want to be. It's not difficult. It's not a state of paranoia. You don't think everyone is out to get you. You know that there is a 98% chance that absolutely nothing will happen but you also know that maybe there's a 2% chance that something will, so you're just going to be more alert so you can see it coming if it does.

Condition Orange: You Notice A Potential Threat

Having been in Condition Yellow you've noticed something that could be a potential threat. Maybe it is someone watching you or just loitering around in an area where they don't need to be. Now you move from Condition Yellow, being relaxed and alert, to being in Condition Orange. You've noticed something and you don't know whether it is a real threat, imagined one, or just a harmless situation.

In Condition Orange you need to continue to be aware and alert but you need to do two additional things:

1.) Make some type of an evasive maneuver that forces your opponent to show his hand. Example: I’m walking down the street in Condition Yellow and I see a man loitering around by a building about half a block ahead. I notice that he looks nervous (a possible indicator of a criminal looking for a target) and when I make eye contact with him he quickly looks away. Someone quickly diverting their eyes when you make eye contact (in security often called the “look away”) is a possible sign that you caught him doing something he should be doing, like sizing you up for an assault. If you were in Condition White you would have never notice him and his behavior and continued to walk right up to him, but because you were in Condition Yellow you did notice him and now you can do something about it.

You stop and look 360 degrees around you to look for possible accomplices and you see none, so you look at him and then cross the street to put distance between the two of you. If he's not a criminal then there is no threat and he'll say where he is as you cross the street and walk way, but if he is a criminal then now he has to make a decision. Either he has to let you go and target someone else, or he was to follow you and give himself away.

The basic evasive maneuver is to simply put distance between you and the potiential threat and see if the potential threat closes that distance. Another one is do something unexpected, like suddenly turn around and walk back the other way or duck into a nearby store, and see if the potential threat makes an effort to do it too.

There are other ways to make evasive maneuvers that force possible criminals to show their hands. For example, let's say that you are playing with your child at a public playground and you notice a man sitting on a park bench watching the kids. He isn't dressed like most parents and doesn't seem to be watching any one child in particular and just something about him seems out of place. You think that maybe he could be a threat to the children there. What could you do to make him show his hand? How about going over and talking to him. You could walk over and introduce yourself, using a fake name if you wanted to, and ask which child is his. Either he has a child there or another good reason for being there and his is not a threat, or he was to lie or leave. If he says he has a child there then ask him to point him out and then ask his name. If he says his name is "Timmy" turn to the kid and yell, "HI TIMMY" and see if the kid responds. If he says that he has a child there but right now he is not visible for some reason ask him why and how old the kid is. The point here is just to ask him questions and make him feel uncomfortable and in almost every case he'll leave if he really doesn't have a good reason for being there.

2.) Formulate a plan in the event that the threat is real. In the first example I gave above my plan could be that if the loitering man crossed the street after me I’m going to start running. I would also make sure that I had my pepper spray in my hand and if he gets too close I’d spray him and then run away. If none of that works I’m going to step in and either hit the eyes, throat, or groin depending on what I see first. Or maybe there is a police station nearby that I can get to or a populated area that I can enter because criminals usually won’t strike in places with witnesses.

So, first I’m going to take some type of evasive maneuver that creates a situation where the potential threat has to follow me thus revealing himself to be a threat, or not follow me and reveal that he does not attend to do me harm. You want to do something out of the ordinary that will make it obvious that he’s following you and not just a coincidence. If I’m in a car I can make four right turns in a row to end up right where I began and see if he makes them with me. Maybe I’ll suddenly turn into a parking lot, zig-zag through it, and then drive out and see if he’s still with me. If I’m on foot I can make abrupt starts and stops, then make abrupt turns and walk in different directions and see if he does to. You can also change speeds and see if they try to keep up.

As far as the plan goes, 9 times out of 10 the best plan is just to get out of there and put as much distance as possible between you and the threat. Don’t go home or to another location you frequent because maybe you’ll lead them there, so go to a police station or other crowed area. Try to get away from them. One of the reasons pepper spray is so effective is that you can spray them from a distance and then run away while they are left there with watery eyes trying to stop coughing.

Condition Red: Identified a Real Threat

This condition exists when you have identified a real threat. You started out in Condition Yellow and you spotted the nervous man loitering around so you went into Condition Orange and crossed the street while formulating a plan. Now you see that he is following you. He’s looking straight at you, walking towards you in a hurried manner, and putting his hands in his pockets so there is no doubt that he is a threat.

You already have your plan of action from being in Condition Orange so in Condition Red you have to decide on your "trigger".
A "trigger" is an action that he has to take before you'll respond with what you've planned. It is "line in the sand" so to speak that you will not tolerate being crossed. You might say, "Right now he's crossing the street and it looks like he could be coming after me. Ok...my plan was to start running and get to a crowed area, so when he gets to this side of the street I'm going to cross back to the other side and if he crosses after me that will be my trigger and I'll run like hell." Or, "He's crossing the street and looking right at me, he's definitely coming after me. My plan is to spray him in the face with pepper spray until he grabs his face and starts screaming, and then run away and get someplace safe. I have my pepper spray in my hand and I'm ready to use it...let's see...when he gets to his side of the street and comes towards me I'm going to tell him to 'stop'. After that if he takes another step I'll let him have it." In this instance taking another step after being told to "stop" is the trigger.

Ideally you want to develop a plan of action before you even leave the house that day and you want to decide on basic "triggers", or things that you will not let people get away with. However, during a specific situation you need to come up with situation specific triggers and be ready to back them up.

If you’re in your car and you’ve identified that someone is following you then maybe your plan is to drive to the closest police station. Your “trigger” might be if they bump you with their car, or they get out of their car, or they try to box you in. If they try to do any of these things you might say, “Ok, if they do those then I’m going to step on the gas, drive over a curb if I have to, drive on the sidewalk if I have to, hit the guy in front of me if I have to, I going to do what ever I need to, to get to the police station. If I can’t and they walk up to my car I’m going to use my concealed firearm to shoot them”. You could also have decided to jump out of your car and run away as fast as you can, but the point is that you have a plan and you’ve decided what line they’re going to have to cross in order for you to execute it.

If you don’t go to condition Red, if you stay in condition White, Yellow, or Orange, then you simply won’t be mentally or physically prepared for an actual attack. You may have identified the threat and made a plan but if you don’t go to condition Red and decided on your trigger and response you’ll most likely stand there frozen.

So in Condition Red you are going to get ready to enact your plan and decide on what "trigger", what "line in the sand", will be your cue to do it.

Condition Black: Attack In Progress

In this condition your attacker(s) has tripped your “trigger” and you are taking action. This is the point where you need to be following through on your plan and taking action, whether it is turning and running away, using a personal defense weapon like a firearm or pepper spray, or using your body to cause injuries.

The only way to effectively be able to survive a "black condition" is to train and to practice scenarios. You need to get the education and training to be order to deal with violence and you need to practice with realistic scenarios.

An important point I want to make is that these conditions are laid out in a gradually increasing manner. We started in Condition Yellow, then went to Orange, then to Red, and finally to Black. However, it is very possible, even likely, that in a real violent encounter it will not happen that way. Chances are that your attacker will make every effort to attack you by surprise and they just might pull it off. Being in Condition Yellow will greatly increase your chances of seeing an assault coming even then you might miss a cue or just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

What I'm trying to get at is that you might have to from Condition Yellow straight to Condition Black. You might turn a corner and there he is. You might be getting into your car and suddenly you’re hit from behind. You might be sitting on the couch watching a movie with an acquaintance that has had too much to drink and suddenly they're on top of you tear your clothes.

An ideal situation would have us smoothly go from Yellow to Orange, to Red, and to Black but we have to realize a situation might force us to jump a Condition or too. That is another reason why we have to develop our plan and a few basic "triggers" before we even leave the house in the morning.

The last thing I'll discuss here is one final Condition, we'll call it Condition Bright Red.

Condition Bright Red: Tense and Paranoid

This is Condition you'll see people in every now and then and it really is unfortunate. Some people just live in survival mode and spend all their time tensed up and suspiciously looking at everyone. The problem with this is that you can only spend so long in this kind of condition before you burn yourself out and suffer health problems. Normally people put themselves in this condition and make it there normal state and after awhile they get so tired they end up in Condition White without even noticing it.

If you find yourself in this Condition you need to recognize it and realize that it will do you no good. There is a very short line from being in Condition Bright Red and being in Condition White. If you find yourself here you need to make yourself stop what you’re doing, take a slow deep breath, and consciously put yourself into Condition Yellow. A great way to do this is to force yourself to do something fun. Tensed and paranoid is no way to live, and if you decide to live there you'll probably be living there alone.

A Matter of Responsibility

2009-04-11T09:21:00.000-04:00

By Matthew Schafer

I'm a stanch supporter of the Second Amendment. I believe that it was the intention of our founding fathers that everyone in this country should have access to firearms in order to protect themselves, and that the people should have the ability to form armed militias in order to protect themselves from their government. Our founding fathers saw first hand what happens when the people are left unarmed, defenseless, and at the mercy of corrupt rulers. The people should have the ability to hold the government accountable for their actions and I think that that starts with having the freedom of speech, an open forum for discussion, and the strength and confidence that comes with being armed.

Having access to firearms and the right to privately own them is something that I believe goes hand in hand with being an American. Most people are surprised to learn that in many countries it is actually illegal to own a gun. It is illegal to privately own a gun in Australia, England, and several other European countries. The privilege of access and ownership of firearms by its citizens is something that truly makes American special. In fact, I know several people who came to this country primarily because owning firearms was illegal in their country and they equated private ownership of firearms with freedom.

While I firmly believe that the right to own firearms is essential to freedom and the survival of this country, I think that there are certain people that shouldn't be allowed to own them or have access to them. In my opinion ownership of firearms should be denied to people who committed violent crimes, used a firearm in the commission of a crime, have mental illnesses, physical handicaps that would inhibit the person's ability to effectively use a firearm, and minors. Firearms are great tools but they are also a great responsibility and these people don't have the ability to responsibly and effectively use them.

Guns are greatly demonized in this country and people like to blame them for violence. How stupid and asinine is this? Blaming a death on a gun is like blaming a pencil for spelling errors. Guns are not and never will be the problem. The problem is that 1.) People don't have the training to effectively handle and use guns, and 2.) People are violent by nature.

Back in the 1940's and 1950's gun handling and marksmanship was actually taught in many schools. A lot of schools had shooting clubs and small gun ranges in their basement where students would learn how to fire .22 caliber rifles. I seriously wish that schools would start this again. The number one reason that kids shoot each other with their parent's guns isn't because the guns were evil, it’s because the parent's failed to teach their kids how to treat and handle guns. Parents want to keep guns from children and it's in this ignorance about guns that kids get hurt when they come upon one.

A few months back I was babysitting my 8 year old niece and we ran out of things to do so I spent about an hour teaching her gun safety. We talked about guns, what they do, what they're for, and what she should do if she ever finds one. I got out a couple pistols and showed them to her and answered her questions about them. I told her that if she ever finds a gun she should leave it alone and go find an adult and that she should only touch a gun if she absolutely has to. I recognized that there may be times when she might have to touch a gun, for example, maybe she comes upon a gun in a park and she cannot leave it there with smaller kids running around so she has to hide it someplace while she fetches an adult. Therefore, while unloaded, I let her handle the guns and I showed her how to properly handle them. We went over always keeping them pointed in a safe direction, never touching the trigger, never playing with them, assuming that they're loaded, and places that they can put guns for safe keeping while they fetch an adult. We never fired a gun and her finger never touched the trigger, the hour was spent learning what to do if she ever finds a gun and how to safely handle a gun if she has to.

We also talked quite a bit about distinguishing between toy guns and real guns. A major problem is that toy guns are everywhere to the extent that when a kid finds a gun they often think it's a toy. I watched an episode of 20/20 and they did a report on guns where they put a bunch of unloaded and disabled guns in a room full of children’s toys and let a bunch of preschoolers play in it. Parents where shocked when their children pulled the guns out of the plastic tubs and pretended to shoot each other, but what did they expect? If you put a gun in a brightly colored plastic pale with a bunch of toys then guess what...the kids aren't going to know that it isn't a toy!! Being able to tell the difference between a toy gun and a real gun is one of the first things that kids should learn about guns.

I wish my father had done the same for me when I was young and that other parents would do the same but that is wishful thinking. Actually the next day my sister called me in a rage because my niece told her that I taught her about gun safety. My sister was furious because not only did I talk about guns with her but because I let her touch a gun. While in hindsight perhaps I should have discussed it with her before we did it, but I won't apologize for teaching my niece something her parents should have taught her long ago. I'm thoroughly confident that if my niece came upon a gun she would leave it alone, find an adult, and only touch it if she had to. I'm also thoroughly confident that if I hadn't gone over gun safety with her and she came across a gun in a park or at a friend's house that she might think it was a toy and shoot herself or someone else with it.

We all recognize that a child might have to cross a road so we make sure we teach them how to do is safely; we all recognize that a child might have to confront an angry dog, or be offered a cigarette, or use kitchen knives, or do a thousand other things so we make sure that we teach them how to do those things safety. So, why not realize that our children might come across a gun and might just have to handle that gun and teach them to do is safely so they don't kill themselves?

People don't seem to understand that guns don't jump up and kill people. Guns only fire if they're loaded and someone pulls the trigger. The reason why so many people accidentally get shot with guns is that the people handling them don't know what their doing. Christ, most people that carry guns for a living don't really know how to safety handle them let alone effectively use them.

Next you have the fact that people are inherently violent. People are violent and they like to kill, period. Violence has NOTHING to do with guns. Right now people do their killing with guns because it is easy and they have one, but if you take away their guns then they'll do their killing with knives, bows and arrows, poisons, or explosives; take those away and they'll do their killing with sticks, take their sticks away and they'll do their killing with rocks. Some people think that if you take the guns away then the killings will stop, but that's not only wrong, it’s also not addressing the real problem. If you go to a crime filled city and take away all the guns, the only thing that will really change is that they'll be a dramatic rise in the number of stabbings. Some people just want to kill, and if you take away weapon "A" then they'll just grab weapon "B".

Look at Africa. In Africa you can buy an AK-47 for the equivalent of $2. People over there use those AK-47's to massacre each other all the time. What happens when they run out of ammunition? What happens when for whatever reason those rifles aren't available? Does the killing stop? NO! They grab machetes, they grab knives, they grab rocks and the killing continues without missing a beat.

Violence is human nature and to blame guns is just stupid. The truth is that it’s easy to blame guns for violence but its a lot more difficult to address the real problem. Politicians blame guns because its the easy way out, because to address the actual problems with society will offend certain people and god forbid someone gets offended. In this society to offend someone is the greatest crime you can commit.

I'm a supporter of gun control to a certain extent. Like I stated above I think that there are certain people that shouldn't be allowed to own guns because they lack the ability to responsibly and effectively use them; I also think that you shouldn't be allowed to own a gun until you complete a rigorous training course. You should have to take a course that thoroughly addresses the law, safe handling of guns, shooting, and defensive/combat use of the weapon. You should have to at least 30 hours of actual shooting before you're allowed to own a gun.

The thing that we need in this country isn't necessarily gun control, its education. People need to be taught how to handle, fire, and use guns and if everyone had that training you wouldn't see all these accidental shootings, you probably would even see a severe reduction in gun violence.

The last thing I'll say about this subject is that criminals will have guns, period. There is nothing that we can do to keep criminals from getting guns, just like there was nothing we could do to keep people from drinking alcohol. If we don't allow law abiding citizens to own and carry guns then the only people who will have guns will be criminals.

Foiling Surprise Attacks With Footwork

2009-03-19T09:33:00.001-04:00

By Matthew Schafer

Regardless of where you live or what circles you travel in, most attacks occur by surprise. If someone is going to attack you they're not going to slap you across the face with a glove, state that they demand satisfaction, and then put their hands up and start dancing. What is far more likely to happen is that an attacker jumps you from behind. What I'm going to go over in this article is two simple maneuvers that will allow you to thwart common surprise attacks.

The first common surprise attack is widely used by criminals and is known as "bait and switch" as well as several other names. The way this is done is an attacker will walk up to you from the front and try to distract you by either asking for something or by becoming aggressive. While the first attacker is distracting you another attacker(s) comes up behind you and either attacks you from behind or holds you so the first attacker and repeatedly strike you. This method works very well because few people see it coming.

The best way to counter this is to not stop when the first attacker trys to distract you. When you see him you can simply change directions and walk across the street or start running and push past him. If you cannot do that, when you see someone come up to you from the front you should immediately assume a second individual is present and turn and look for him. It is how you turn and look at them that is important.

When you see the first attacker come up to you, you should first look and see where his hands are to see if he is making fists, cupping his hands (concealing a weapon), has his hand in a pocket, has one of his hands behind his back, or has one arm held stiff while the other one swings naturally. All of these things are signs that he has a weapon and dark intentions. Next you want to make sure that you have some distance between the two of you. Try to keep at least 6 feet between you and him. Don't be afraid to become aggressive if he attempts to encroach upon your space.

After that, scan the area in front of you, at least 180 degrees, for an accomplice. Then take a big step to the left or right (preferably towards a wall) and turn to the side while keeping your eyes on him. For the purposes of this article lets say that you have a building on your right side so you took a big step to your right and then turned 90 degrees counter-clockwise so you're standing with him in front of you and on your rights side. Now just turn your head to the left and scan the area behind you for an accomplice. Done this way you can look around you 360 degrees without ever turning your back on a potential attacker.

If possible try to keep moving. Look around and clear the 180 degrees in front of you, then take your big step to the side, turn counter-clockwise and then keep walking backwards as you scan around you. Or...you can just run like hell.

I'm a big fan of pretending to have a weapon. While I always carry pepper spray and I'm prepared to use it, on many occasions I've looked someone right in the eye while putting my right hand on my hip as if I'm placing my hand on a concealed firearm. There have been a few occasions where someone appeared threatening so I've locked eye contact with them, put my hand on my fake gun, then circled to the other side of him, without breaking eye contact, and slowly backed away. I don't really consider this bluffing because I had pepper spray in my left hand (the one they're not paying attention to) and if they would have so much as took a step towards me or put their hand in their pocket they would have gotten a face full of OC.

The second method of surprise attacks that people commonly use is to tap you on the shoulder then punch you when you turn. This happens quite a bit in bars but it is also prevalent in other areas. To thwart this you never turn around when someone taps you on the shoulder. If you feel someone tap you on your shoulder you should take two steps forewords first and then turn. That way if someone does try to sucker punch you they'll miss. I prefer to raise my arm as I turn just in case they came forwards with me. So if I turned to the right I would rise my right arm and scratch my cheek or cover my mouth or do some other natural movement. To someone watching it would look like I just burped and was covering my mouth to be polite when if actuality I'm getting my arm up so I can put my elbow into an oncoming attack.

If you cannot step forwards when someone taps you then you should always turn with your arm raised as describe above. Or if someone grabs your shoulder and spins you I'd bring my arm up and then step right in to them, preferably with my foot going between their feet and behind them. Anytime someone taps you be prepared for the sucker punch.

A Popular Self-Defense Misconception

2009-03-15T09:51:00.000-04:00

By Matthew Schafer

In teaching self-defense professionally, a lot of people talk to me about various self-defense teachings and try to get my take on them. One that is commonly brought up is whether it is a good idea to use your keys as weapons. This little self-defense technique has penetrated our culture so thoroughly that nearly everyone I talk to has heard of it. Often women tell me that when they walk to their cars they'll put their keys through their fingers just in case someone tried to mug them, and usually when they tell me this I get the feeling that they're looking for some type of "at-a-boy" from me. This issue of using keys as weapons is brought up so much that it is not uncommon for me to talk about it every week.

While punching someone with a fist full of keys is a popular teaching it is not one I advise. Show me someone who thinks that it is a good idea and I'll show you someone who's never punched something hard with keys in their fist. There are 5 reasons why this is not a good idea and they are as follows.

1.) Its just wasted effort. If you are close enough to an attacker to punch them with keys then you're close enough to do something more effective. If you jam keys into someone it will hurt but if it doesn't damage something necessary to the functioning of the body it probably won't stop them. On the other hand, if you tear open their eyes, rupture their eardrum, crush their throat, pinch the nerves in their spinal cord, tear their knee, etc., then you've disrupted the functioning of the body and your attacker is momentarily disabled.

2.) You’re punching someone. Everyone focuses on the part about the keys but they always seem to forget the part where they have to punch their attacker. Unless you're properly trained and have conditioned your body to not only throw a punch but drive your fist through a target then you're probably going to break your hand or wrist. Most of the people who want to use their keys as weapons are "regular people", not trained martial artists and don’t have the ability to punch someone without injuring themselves. They may punch someone with keys and the attacker might yell "Oww" and even bleed a little but they may be on the ground screaming in pain because they've just torn the ligaments in their wrist. Unless you've conditioned your body to punch something hard you should forget about all punching attacks.

3.) The keys are not going to sink into your attacker's body like razor sharp knives. People seem to think that their keys will stab into their attacker but in reality they are going to jam back into your hand, slide around, and might even twist. If the keys jam back into your hand they could cause your wrist to weaken and bend resulting in a sprained wrist. If on impact the keys slide up by your knuckles then now you're punching your keys. Those thin pieces of metal pressing in between your knuckles could hit nerves that cause your hand to weaken and now you'll most likely break your hand or wrist. Finally, if on impact the keys twist then they could rip the skin of your fingers, damage your nerves, or dislocate/break your fingers.

Try this: wrap an old coat around a punching bag and then lightly punch into it with keys in between your fingers. Do that a couple of times and I don’t' think that you'll want to use that technique against an attacker.

4.) You could damage or drop your keys and be unable to escape into your car or house.

5.) If you do use your keys to defend yourself then guess what, all those keys (car key, house key, work key, etc.) are now evidence and are going to sit in an evidence locker for months or even years. If you do decide to use your keys as weapons then you'd better make copies!

Instead of using your keys why not use pepper spray? I carry pepper spray almost everywhere I go, it is reliable (providing you know how to use it), cheap, can be used at a safe distance, can be used on multiple attackers, and is non-lethal. If you punch someone in the face with your keys you could maim, disfigure, or blind them and if you hit them in the throat you could possibly kill them, and either could cause you to wind up in court. Using keys is messy, unreliable, dangerous to you, and legally I wouldn't ever advise it. If you hit someone with a fist full of keys then a case could be made that you intended to kill the other person but with pepper spray that argument can't be made.

Improvised weapons are great but not everything should be used as a weapon. So please, don’t use your keys. Instead spend a few bucks and buy some pepper spray.

Grabbing A Gun

2009-02-27T10:24:00.000-05:00

By Matthew Schafer

Hands down my favorite area of self-defense is handgun disarmament. I enjoy practicing it, I enjoy teaching it, and I've even done it in real life. I'm not exactly sure why that is but for as long as I can remember I wanted to not only know how to take guns away from people but to also understand exactly what goes on during that altercation from both a physical and psychological standpoint. Over the last 22 years I've made a point to go to every firearm disarmament seminar, read every book, and watch every video I could get my hands on...and looking back I have to say that there is some real crap being taught out there.

Over the years I've seen a lot of gun disarming techniques and most of them look pretty good at first glance. However, most of them share a few flaws and the interesting thing is that most of these flaws actually come from the fact that people are just trying to be safe. No one wants to practice with a real loaded gun so we practice with a wooden or rubber one, and if we feel like spending a little money we practice with an airsoft pistol.

The problem with practicing with a non-firing weapon is that after awhile we start to forget about the things that actually occur when the gun goes off. Sure, we all know that when a gun fires a bullet flies out of the muzzle but because we practice with toy guns we forget about things like the movement of the slide, recoil, and muzzle flash. What this all results in is techniques that work when done with either a rubber gun or a real gun that doesn't go off, but if done with a real gun that does go off they fail miserably.

What I'm going to do in this article is talk about what actually occurs when a gun goes off, how that applies to gun disarming techniques, and the four big problems that most techniques have in this context.

Problem #1: Most gun disarming techniques don't have you immediately get behind the muzzle.

Something I've noticed about people, even people who teach gun disarming, is that they know that when a gun fires a bullet flies out but they don't seem to understand that the gun has parts that move and that a controlled explosion is taking place. When the trigger gets pulled it sends the firing pin forewords and that hits the "primer" (the butt of the bullet cartridge) and that primer causes the gunpowder in the cartridge to explode. The explosion on its own isn't all that powerful but in a gun it gets channeled through a small pipe with only one way out and that causes the force of the explosion to become focused. The force of the explosion causes the bullet to shoot out the barrel but then the bullet is followed by the other repercussions of the explosion: muzzle flash, sound, shockwave, hot gas, and unburned gunpowder.

It is very important to remember that the bullet isn't the only thing that comes out of the muzzle. I see a lot of people just slap the gun to the side or even just move it an inch or two one way while they lean their body to the other and this just makes me roll my eyes. If you just move the muzzle to the side then the bullet won't hit you but everything else spraying out of the muzzle will. Chances are that when you clear the gun it will go off and if you're not behind the muzzle then you will most likely get a face full of hot gas and an eyeful of unburned gunpowder. The hot gas being blown into your face isn't going to feel very good but the small grains of gunpowder being blown into your eyes can very well be immediately debilitating. There is a good chance that if your initial move doesn't get you behind the muzzle then when the gun goes off you'll go blind and then you'll be shot.

It should also be mentioned then when startled the natural reaction is to inhale. So if you clear the gun and it goes off you could very well inhale the hot gas and gunpowder into your lungs and find yourself in pain and unable to breathe properly.

Problem #2: The magazine

Just in case anyone reading this doesn't know, the magazine (often incorrectly called the "clip") is the small metal thing that you put the bullets into. Once the magazine is full you stick it in the handle of the gun, then when you pull back on the slide and let it come forewords it picks the top bullet out of the magazine and puts it in the firing chamber. When the gun is fired the explosion forces the slide back and opens the top of the "ejection port" which allows the recently fired bullet cartridge to fly out, then a spring forces the slide back to the front and it then picks up the next bullet in the magazine.

The thing about the magazine that people who train with training guns don't seem to remember is that the magazine falls out very easily and when it does it takes your bullets with it. There is a small button by the trigger called the "magazine release" and when you press it, it allows the magazine to fall out; the problem is that it is very easy to hit that button.

When I teach a class on handgun disarmament and I'm walking around while people practice techniques every few minutes I usually hear a "plop". That "plop" is a magazine hitting the mat. When two people are touching a gun it is very easy for one of them to hit the magazine release and then suddenly you’re either handling a gun with only one bullet in it (in the firing chamber ready to go off) or with zero bullets in it. You could very easily clear the gun, grab it and cause the magazine to fall on the floor, cause the gun to fire, and then take it away and turn an empty gun on your attacker.

It’s kind of funny that during class I've seen some people do just that and then freak out. The cleaver ones quickly push their attacker out of the way, grab the magazine off the ground, and then reload the gun. In any case I'm usually standing there chuckling.

Problem #3: Trying to step back and shoot them with the gun.

Nearly every single gun disarming technique that I've seen has you grab the gun, take it away, and then step back and turn the gun on your attacker thus ending the situation. Personally I fail to see how holding a violent criminal at gunpoint is the end of the situation. Come on people...REALLY?? Do I have to say anything about this? Do you think that you can just take some strange gun away from some criminal and then immediately use it on them? The gun could very easily be unloaded, non-functional, or even be a toy and then you're standing there trying to shoot a violent criminal as he laughs and then attacks you again.

If I was going to rob someone I'd use a toy gun. Chances are that my victim wouldn't know the difference and if I was caught I couldn't be charged with "assault with a deadly weapon". In the legal system there is a big difference between threatening someone with a real gun and threatening them with a toy.

Even if the gun is functional and loaded, if I pick up some strange gun I don't know where all the safeties are or if it has been given additional safety features. I've been in the military and had quite a bit of firearms training but I don't think for a second that I could just pick up some strange gun and use it, especially in just a few seconds while under extreme duress.

Problem #4: Grabbing the gun

For years I thought that I had firearm disarmament figured out. I had some great instructors, paid lots of money to attend seminars, and had police officers write me thank you letters because what I taught them had worked. If you wanted to learn firearm disarmament from me there was a waiting list and it would cost you at least $375. Then awhile back I worked with a combat shooting instructor and came to the realization that everything I had been teaching over the years on the subject was garbage.

The problem is, and what he showed me was, that you can't reliably grab a gun and hold onto it while it goes off. Most every disarming technique consists of redirecting the gun so that you're off the line of fire, then grabbing the gun and using it as a lever to twist it out of your attacker's grip. This works great with toy guns, rubber guns, airsoft guns, other types of training guns, and unloaded guns but if that gun that you're holding onto goes off the chance of you being able to hold onto it is slim to none.

If the gun is a semi-automatic then when it fires the slide will move back and forth and cut your hand. Some people say that you can pin the slide down so the gun won't fire but that is basically b.s. The movement of the slide is powered by a focused explosion and your hand isn't strong enough to resist that. Even if it were, what happens if you're tired, sweaty, the gun was just cleaned and it's oily, it's raining, really cold, or you're wearing gloves? If you're grabbing a gun and it goes off the slide will move in your hand and the sides might cut your hand but the front site definitely will. If you're grabbing their hand around the thumb then the slide will give you a particularly nasty cut when it flies back.

In addition to the movement of the slide, when the ejection port opens hot gas and unburned gunpowder will come shooting out into your brand new cuts. Consider also that when the gun fires the recoil will jerk the gun up and to the right and the result is an extremely small chance that you'll be able to hold onto it. Add to all of this the possibility that the gun might go off multiple times and the likely hood is that when it goes off you'll end up jerking your hand off of it.

It your attacker pulls a revolver on you then you're really screwed if you plan on grabbing the gun. In a semi-automatic the explosion is contained in the barrel but in a revolver the cylinder is open and the explosion is shot out the sides as well. If you grab a revolver that hot gas and unburned gunpowder will be shot directly into your hand, the shockwave has been described as "rattling the bone", and the recoil will nearly give your wrist whiplash. Because a revolver directly exposes your hand to the explosion there is about a 0% chance that you can hold onto a revolver when it goes off. That particular instructor said that in the past he had given a demonstration of this to some police department and when he grabbed a .38 as it went off he said it was "ungodly painful" and when he grabbed a .357 he said it nearly tore his hand off.

Not only can you not hold onto a revolver when it goes off but most criminal attacks in the US that involve guns happen with revolvers. Revolvers are cheaper, easier to maintain, and easier to use than semi-automatics so they are preferred by the criminal element. Chances are that if you are attacked by a gun-wielding criminal in the US they will have a revolver and if you are planning on grabbing a hold of that revolver and using it as a lever to twist it out of their grip you'd better hope it doesn't go off because if it does you'll end up jerking your hand off of it

Now at this point some people say, "Well, if I can't grab it then how am I supposed to take it away?" The answer it simple...you just don't grab it. While the elimination of actually grabbing the gun eliminates a large number of techniques a lot of others can be modified to work fine. All you can't do is wrap your hand around the gun, so just take that part out of your technique.

Wagner Proves That Even A Blind Squirrel Can Find A Nut Now And Then

2009-02-24T12:49:00.001-05:00

By Matthew Schafer

For me reading “Black Belt Magazine” is a guilty pleasure, kind of like how most people feel about reading the “Enquirer” or “Star Magazine”. However, I generally find myself buying it if I see it on the shelves and then once I get home I flip through it once to read any article that interests me, again to look at the ads, and twenty minutes after I open it it either goes in my recycling pile or in a duffle bag to be used during improvised weapons training.

Most things in there are either about “mixed martial arts” or other sporting applications but there is one section that is supposed to be about “reality-based self-defense” and that is the “High Risk” article written by Jim Wagner. Jim Wagner is a former police officer, corrections officer, SWAT team member, soldier, air marshal, mouseketeer, unarmed combat instructor, wrote most of the scripts for “Seinfeld”, was the inspiration for Chuck Norris’s character on “Walker: Texas Ranger”, and I’m pretty sure that he would have had the lead in “Pretty Woman” except he had to go save the world so Julia Roberts stepped in.

My view on Jim Wagner is that he’s basically a little kid who wants everyone to like him. In nearly every article he tells a story that describes what a bad ass he is, what a great instructor he is, or how he is saving America.

He told a story awhile ago about how after September 11^th, 2001 everyone freaked out and some big meeting was held in the Pentagon, or someplace, and the Secretary of Defense, or someone, asked if anyone had any counter terrorism training. Everyone looked around in a panicked manner until good old Jim Wagner standing in the back of the room raised his hand…and thus single handedly saved America.

99% of his articles are ridiculous but every once and awhile he gets something right and that is what happened in his last article “Somebody’s Watching Me” (April 2009). In this article he talks about a widely used situational awareness technique called “deflection”, “the look away”, “hiding eyes”, “the look down”, or a dozen other names. I learned this technique about 6 years ago and I’ve been using and teaching it since then but I thought that I’d cover it here also.

The basic principle of this technique is that it is not appropriate to stare at people and when we’re caught doing so we get embarrassed, quickly look away, and try to pretend that we were never looking at them in the first place. So if we are at a restaurant and there is a lull in the conversation, we’d probably start looking around at other people in the restaurant. We’d see someone at another table, look at them for awhile, perhaps for no particular reason, and suddenly they “feel” our eyes and look back at us. We quickly divert our eyes and try to look innocent because we were caught.

We use this principle in situational awareness. If I’m walking down the street I want to do three things. First, I want to be constantly looking around me and using any windows that I pass to check reflections. I want to look in front of me, to the side, behind me, and across the street. Second, I want to walk in the middle of the sidewalk and go through the middle of any doorway or opening. Contrary to what they show on TV, you don’t want to hug a wall when you walk down a hallway or road; you want to way stay away from walls, cars, and doorways. The reason is that someone could be hiding in a doorway, alley, or behind a parked car and if you are walking next to these then it is very easy for them to just reach out, grab you, and take you by surprise. However, if you walk in the middle of any path or doorway or just keep 5 or 6 feet between you and the wall, door, corner, car, alley etc. then it is harder for someone to just reach out and take you by surprise. If you keep 5 or 6 feet between you and the object of concealment then at least you’ll have time to react if they jump out.

Also, in the movies it shows people going through buildings with guns and they’re hugging the walls and doorways. This is ridiculous. First, it doesn’t really give you any more concealment then walking in the middle of the hallway. Second, if you’re by the wall then you’re in prime position to be hit by a ricocheting bullet that bounces off the wall if someone was to shoot at you. Third, most walls are made of plaster and sheet rock and any bullet will go right through it and when it does it will spray plaster and sheet rock through the air. So if you’re standing by the wall and someone shoots at you, you stand a good chance of getting plaster and sheet rock in your eyes and lungs. Fourth, being so close to an object of concealment makes it very easy for someone to hide around a corner and then jump out and take you by surprise.

The third situational technique that you should use is to casually try to make eye contact with everyone around you. Criminals want to take you by surprise and if you make eye contact with them they usually feel that the element of surprise is lost so they pick someone else. Also, if you look someone in the eye and they quickly look away like they’re acting as if they were never looking at you in the first place then that is a pretty big sign that they’re up to something that involves you.

I don’t do security work very often anymore but when I do this is one of the main things I use, and its something a lot of other professional security personnel do. Look around, try to make eye contact with as many people as possible, and if someone does the “look away” you go talk to them because they’re probably up to something.

If you’re out and about having a good time and you do see someone do the “look away” when you look at them then you should take notice. They might be a criminal who has targeted you.

Modern Karate

2009-02-16T13:15:00.000-05:00

By Matthew Schafer

In some of my writings I have made reference to “modern karate” and some people have inquired as to what I meant. Basically, modern karate is what passes for karate today. Most people don’t realize how karate, which I’m using as a generic term for martial arts, has changed over the years.

Originally all martial arts were simply methods of combat and the number one reason that people studied them was to learn how to seriously injure or kill someone who was trying to do the same thing to you. Karate started out as incredibly brutal and “dirty”. If you go back 150 years and prior you’d see karate being taught and practiced very differently. The focus of everything was to cause injuries to people. You didn’t throw a punch for exercise or recreation, you threw it because you wanted to use your first to drive your bodyweight through someone’s head because they were trying to injure or kill you and you wanted to stop them by injuring or killing them first.

Then, if you go to the late 1800’s to around 1950 or so you’d see karate change quite a bit because of three things: 1.) More efficient social order was imposed in most areas of the orient as well as the US which meant that your skills in karate where a little less important to day-to-day survival, 2.) Firearms became a lot more available so other self-defense methods took a backseat in a large parts of the world, and 3.) Because of the first two reasons those that made a living teaching karate had to start marketing it a little differently. Social order meant that violence was down so people were less concerned with hand-to-hand skills and since guns could be purchased, although at this time only by those with money, people who were really concerned about violence could now carry a pistol. Karate schools had to go from a marketing campaign built on survival to one built on recreation, spiritual development, and in quite a few cases gaining magic powers.

Karate in a survival environment need to be incredibly brutal and lethal but in an environment where most people practice it for recreation suddenly strikes to the eyes and throat become not as acceptable. Because of this, techniques that were more flashy became the focus and the study of anatomy became less important.

Going forwards from 1950 to present you’ll see that karate has become more and more soft, non-lethal, less contact is being made, and to many people it is just an activity to entertain children. You go into a karate school today is like a children’s game of tag. Today the basic techniques of karate are still there but the teachings of how to use them are all but gone.

I recall reading an article years ago about an old karate instructor from Okinawa who came to the US for some karate related reason. In the interview that he did with the magazine (I think it was either “Karate Illustrated” or “Budo”) he said that he yet see any real karate in this country. He said that in Okinawa karate was much more about the principles involved with how you do things but here in the US as long as someone’s arm shoots out in the air we call that a punch. In Okinawa one of the foundational principles of karate is called the “double whip” (as well as a bunch of other names) that when properly used adds a great deal of speed and power to your blows as well as makes them harder to see by your opponent, but he never saw that while in the US and I have still to see it in the over 20 years that I’ve been practicing. In the US we have the “throw your arms and legs in the air” part but because things have become so soft, commercialized, and politically correct we’ve lost the real combative principles that make karate “work”.

Tournaments became such a big deal that most styles of karate pretty much stopped teaching things that didn’t apply to competition. Punches and backfists are taught but how to correctly use a spearhand isn’t. A spearhand is another one of my pet peeves. You cannot take a traditional spearhand strike and make it work unless you spend years devolving your finger tips, hand, and writs to make them impact resistant. If you throw a spearhand to someone’s lower throat you can cause them to choke and you just might take them out of the fight but you can easily jam a finger or bend a finger back and break it.

If you actually want to use a spearhand strike you’d better grab your bucket of rice and start driving your fingers to the bottom 100 times a day, yet, karate schools still teach it…sort of.

In most schools any technique that is not applicable and legal in competition is not covered, at least not in depth, and often those techniques have been abandoned long ago. The study of anatomy in karate is all but gone. In older times karate and medicine when virtuously hand in hand because you needed to know medicine in case you hurt someone with you techniques, and in a large way to learn one it to learn the other. Personally I don’t think any martial art can be learned without a functional knowledge of anatomy.

When I started learning karate I was very fortunate because I was taught what I consider to be traditional karate. All those weird fists and finger strikes that you see in karate textbooks were the largest part of my training. Today they’re not taught because you cannot use them in competition but 150 years ago, or so, they were the primary weapons of the martial arts. My instructor had a human shaped punching bag that he made out of couch cushions, sand bags, and duct tape and I’d have to spend hours standing there hitting it in various targets with finger strikes, tiger claws, eagle claws, leopard fists, one knuckle strikes, four knuckle strikes, and others.

After studying karate for a year or two I was surprised as hell the first time I saw a Taekwondo class. I can remember standing there at about 8 years old and thinking, “What the hell?” I learned karate, not necessarily in the way but in the manner which karate was learned for the vast majority of its existence. For me karate was very “dirty”, brutal, and vicious and it worked like a charm but everyone else seemed to be doing it in a way that looked more like ballet. I considered, and I still do, that karate is digging my thumb into someone eye, not standing 6 feet away from someone and throwing a punch or a kick

So when I talk about “modern karate” that is what I mean. There is nothing necessarily wrong with modern karate but it is not what I choose to study.

Women's Self-Defense

2009-02-16T13:14:00.000-05:00

By Matthew Schafer

Every now and then the subject of teaching a women's self-defense class comes up. People ask me about them, voice their opinions about them, and I do teach them occasionally, although solely for promotional reasons. If I teach a "self-defense class" then I may get mixed results, as far as turnout goes, but if I go after a niche audience like "women's self-defense" then I'll often have a room full of people.

I don't really understand the concept of "women's self-defense". How is defending yourself different for women then it is for men? It takes about 12 lbs of pressure to break a properly set up elbow joint so does it really matter what sex delivers that 12 lbs? The truth is that "women’s' self-defense" is a marketing ploy. Women want special things and for things to be made especially for them so why shouldn't they have their very own self-defense techniques and classes?

A big part of the marketing ploy is that most women can be easily intimidated and they don't want to hurt or embarrass themselves by working out with men or trying to do self-defense techniques with men. If you tell women that the class is for women only and it will be just them in a room full of other women then they feel "safe". This creates a problem in that they only do their techniques against other women and that leads to a false sense of security. A woman can go up to another woman who has little to no training and do all the joint locks they want on them and it will be relatively easy, but if they tried the same technique on a guy who didn't feel like being cooperative then it might not work. It takes very little strength to do most techniques on women but it will take quite a bit more strength to do the same techniques on men. Plus a man being bigger makes it harder to do a lot of techniques. I've seen women that have no problem doing a wrist lock on another woman during a self-defense class but taking the size of hands into account, they'd have a hard time even grabbing a hold of my wrist if they tried to do that technique on me.

The whole premise of a woman's self-defense class is that you're teaching smaller weaker people to protect themselves from larger stronger people...but isn't that just plain old self-defense?? In any self-defense technique you want to assume that your attacker is always bigger than you are, stronger than you are, faster than you are, more skilled than you are, armed, and has friends waiting to jump in at a moments notice.

If a technique "works", not just once or twice but repeatedly, then it doesn't matter who does it. I don't care if you have a penis or a vagina, or if you weigh 200 lbs or 90 lbs, if you punch someone in the throat or jam your fingers into their eyes (not touch or poke but drive your fingers through in an attempt to destroy the eye) then you're going to get a hell of a result out of your attacker. The real issue isn't "men's self-defense" or that men do self-defense "this" way, or "women's self-defense" and that women do self-defense "that" way, it's that women want to feel special, don't feel comfortable doing self-defense techniques on guys, and the techniques taught in 99% of women's self-defense classes suck. Also, in my experience and the experience of other instructors I know, it seems that 99% of self-defense instructors are not qualified and don't know what they’re doing.

I used to live in the Colorado area and there was a woman who taught self-defense there. This woman's heart was in the right place but she had no business teaching people to defend themselves. She had a 2nd degree black belt in some karate style and for some reason she thought that that qualified her to teach self-defense. The problem is that self-defense and martial arts are not the same things. In martial arts you punch, kick, do joint locks, throws, kata, etc., but in a self-defense situation someone tries to seriously injure you, rape you, forcibly rob you, or kill you and you have to stop them. I don't know of any karate school that teaches you situational awareness methods, how to identify criminal behavior, how to counter the criminal method, and all the other dozen things you have to know before you even think about throwing a punch.

This woman was making a pretty good living teaching people “modern karate solutions" (modern karate is a seriously pussified version to what was taught even 50 years ago) to serious violent problems. Some punk walks up to you with a knife behind his back and asks you what time it is, then gets ready to run up and stab you the second you look at your watch...and you're training in point sparring is supposed to protect you? Give me a break. Karate contains some self-defense and self-defense contains some karate but they are not one and the same.

The idea that punching and kicking IS self-defense baffles me. Sure, in my self-defense classes I teach people how to punch and kick but we don’t focus on that because self-defense isn’t about punching and kicking; self-defense is about deciding not to become a victim, educating and preparing yourself to defend yourself and your loved ones, learning how criminals commit their crimes and how to counter it, being aware of who an what is around you and being on the lookout for criminal behavior, knowing de-escalation skills and “verbal boundary” skills, and then only after these do we deal with self-defense techniques and the use of improvised and commercially available weapons. However, when we talk about techniques I tell them to not get caught up in them because there is only one way to hit someone: as hard as you can!

The physical side of self-defense is not about doing this technique or that technique, it is about causing injuries. In my class if I teach a technique and someone has a hard time with it then I tell them to forget about it. This has brought actual gasps from martial artists who think that you should never abandon a technique but rather you should spend years and years practicing it over and over until you perfect it. The problem is that that is focusing on techniques and self-defense is not about techniques. If someone is trying to hurt you then a technique will not save you, causing an injury will. A technique is simply a means to an end but it is not the end.

A few weeks ago I was teaching a simple arm breaking technique but there was a girl in the back of the class who for the life of her just couldn’t get it. I explained the technique again but still she couldn’t do it. I explained exactly how it worked because often an in depth explanation of the physics of a technique can give people an understanding enough for them to be able to do it, but she still couldn’t do it. About 5 minutes or so into it she couldn’t do it so I said, “I’ll tell you what, this technique isn’t important. It’s all about causing injures, it doesn’t matter if it’s this one or anther one, all that matters is that you injure him. See his ankle? The ankle breaks very easily from the inside or the outside so I want you to stomp on it as hard as you can.” After that she was breaking people’s ankles and became a very happy camper.

If someone in my class can’t seem to get certain technique within about 5 minutes or so I tell them to forget about it and I show them another way to cause an injury in the same situation.

The Groin, Does It Work Every Time?

2009-01-29T09:30:00.002-05:00

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

Years ago, I was sitting in the lounge of Delta-01 Missile Alert Facility in the middle of Nebraska and I was talking about martial arts with some other airmen. Some Security Forces members got up and demonstrated some techniques that they were taught during their training and they were more than a little bit ridiculous. I was asked to demonstrate a technique and I did, although rather begrudgingly. About the time that I stood up a couple missileers (the officers who sit down in a subterranean capsule and turn the keys to launch our ICBMs) came into the room and stopped to watch.

I don't remember the exact technique I demonstrated, I believe I made one up on the spot, but I do remember that I had someone throw a punch and I lightly struck him in the biceps then preceded to lightly strike him in about 10 other areas as they became exposed. After the technique I briefly described what I did, why I did it, and how it worked when a voice from the back of the peanut gallery said, "Huh..." In the back of the room stood a female captain (I worked with her regularly but today I don't remember her name) who said, "Why don't you just kick him in the groin? It works every time". This comment I let go because I didn't feel it deserved a response but because I'm not doing anything productive at the moment I'll address it now.

First off, there are three major misconceptions about the groin as a target. The first is that a strike to the groin is ineffective against a female. The truth is that striking the groin will injure both a male and female equally. Though the genitals themselves are different between the sexes, all the nerves are the same. So it doesn’t matter whether you’re striking or man or a woman, if attacked correctly this target will cause an injury and put someone on the ground.

Secondly, although you are striking the groin, the groin itself is not the main target! The REAL target is the pelvic diaphragm. The pelvic diaphragm is a group of muscles in the pelvic floor that contract to give you the stability to stand up straight. If this area is struck with bodyweight it will shock those muscles and cause them to stop contracting; when this happens those muscles which support you and give you the stability to stand up begin to relax, you lose the inner abdominal pressure you need to keep yourself upright, and in 2 seconds or less the person falls and is unable to stand up. It can take several minutes for people to recover and gain the ability to stand and often the will require medical attention.

The testicles themselves can be damaged or even ruptured, and although it will be extremely painful, it does not inhibit a person’s ability to move their body and fight. Testicles are a nice little secondary prize you get along the way to injuring the pelvic diaphragm but it is the pelvic diaphragm itself that, when injured, take away a person’s ability to stand up and makes them vulnerable to further attack.

In addition to not being able to stand attacking the pelvic diaphragm often leads to massive muscle spasms in the “core muscles” (muscles of the abdomen, lower back, hips, and upper legs). This large involuntary muscle spasm can last seconds to minutes and while it is taking place that person is quite helpless.

Thirdly, almost everyone out there is striking the groin by going straight in. Almost every martial arts or self-defense class I've seen has taught that "the" way to strike the groin is with a front snap kick but if you take anatomy and physics into consideration you'll see that that isn't very effective. Now that you know that the real target is the pelvic diaphragm, the best way to get at it is to go upwards in between the legs. To get the greatest effect you should attack the groin from underneath and drive your strike upwards. This will put the maximum amount for force into the genitals and surrounding structure.

Now, as to whether the groin will “work” every time as a target, the idea that any target will "work" every time is ridiculous. Now I'm not saying that the laws of physics will bend and warp at certain times rendering someone super-human, I'm saying in a given situation not every target will be available to us. One of the best places to strike is to the neck; you have the trachea, the carotid plexus, the vagus nerve and the rest of the brachial plexus, as well as cervical vertebrae and all the different nerve centers contained within it. When it comes to putting someone down the neck is one of the best places you can attack, however, that’s not always possible. Maybe someone is standing in a position which precludes an attack to the neck without showing your hand or maybe your attacker is lowering his chin as he raises his shoulders, whatever the case, you can hit the neck but you're going to have to hit something else first to open it up. There are too many variables that can exist in any situation to assume that a certain area of the body will always be open and vulnerable.

As for the groin itself, it's an ok target but it is not the "end-all-be-all" that some think it is. Firstly, you can't always reach the groin. If someone is standing at a slightly sideways angle then you don't really have a clear shot. If your attacker is a large individual then there is a chance their thighs will get in the way of your strike. There are a lot of situations where effectively striking the groin is not an option, but, the bladder is only a few inches above and it is almost always open. The bladder is a very effective target and can produce a very big reaction when properly stuck.

The problem with striking the groin in a straight in manner is that, first off, the target is comparatively too small. You have the pelvis, the legs, and the thighs blocking it...and that’s not taking clothes into consideration. It is far more likely that you'll end up striking the leg or pelvis with a snap kick then the groin. Even if you do get the groin you still have to deal with the spongy little penis. If I punch someone straight into the groin the spongy penis will actually protect the testicles by absorbing a large portion of the impact and actually push the scrotum out of the way. The testicles will actually swing away from the impact and dissipate a large portion of the force. The pelvic diaphragm will be largely unaffected.

Another important consideration is in order to injure the pelvic diaphragm you needs to strike with bodyweight, not just the muscles of your arm or leg. If you aim a few inches below the belly button and you punch or kick that area and follow all the way through with all of your bodyweight you will have sufficient force to injure the pelvic diaphragm even though you did not strike the groin. But to get this force you cannot be dancing around on your toes and then pulling your fist or foot away as soon as you make impact.

If you strike the pelvic diaphragm by going straight in to the front of the pelvis you will require a lot of force and full commitment of your bodyweight, but by attacking upwards and in between the legs you will hit the pelvic diaphragm full on and require less force to get the injury (although you should always strike will full body weight commitment).

The reaction you will get with a hard kick delivered with your shin and full bodyweight commitment will be that they'll jump in the air, go into the fetal position, and then fall to the ground while still in the fetal position. Often when they hit the ground they’ll hit their face on the ground breaking their nose and/or knocking themselves unconscious.

A strike delivered in that manner but without the bodyweight will result in the person grabbing their groin and sticking their hips out, then often they’ll stumble a few steps before their legs give out on them and they fall to the ground in the fetal position.

As a kid I did my share of fighting and I was punched and kicked in the groin on many occasions and other then feeling like someone poked me in the spine with a pin for a second I was fine. Back then I thought that I was special, I thought that I had "balls of steal", only years later did I find out that the reason why I was able to endure all those shots is because I was always attacked at a straight in angle with no bodyweight behind the strike.

Kneeing someone in the groin is often moderately effective. The knee is large and there is more of a chance of hitting the pelvis, legs, and thighs instead of the groin. If you knee straight in then again you probably won't get a big reaction from the groin. If you do get a big reaction then it is most likely from the pelvis. The front of your pelvis is jointed by a small ring of cartilage and it is easily cracked. With a hard knee shot to the groin you can miss the groin completely but instead crack that small piece of cartilage and instantly take away their ability to walk, which is still good from your standpoint.

The effectiveness of a knee strike is dependant upon whether you strike upwards or straight in.

Another interesting fact about striking the groin is that it affects the respiratory system, which is why often people have problems breathing afterwards and also why when struck in the groin people exhibit an involuntary reflex of opening the mouth and sticking their chins out. The reason this is, is to encourage breathing by aligning the windpipe the same that you would if you were giving CPR. Another interesting fact is that if you forcefully strike somebody in the groin twice it will cause them to vomit.

The last little fun fact I’ll say about the groin is that you never ever want to hit someone in the groin while you’re standing directly in front of them. Years ago I attended a self-defense class where we were all repeatedly reminded beforehand to wear a cup, but one person always doesn’t listen or forgets. Anyway, the instructor taught us to stand toe to toe and knee each other in the groin. We practiced for a little while going nice and slow until our instructor told us to go faster. In terms of safety, it’s a great idea to teach people to throw at strike at the most vulnerable places on the human body, and then encourage them to “speed it up” (dumbass). No sooner did he give that command and then tell us to begin again when I saw something out of the corner of my eye accompanied by the sound “Ahhh…Crack…Ahhh…FUCK!” What happened was the partner, who was wearing a cup, kneed his partner, who wasn’t wearing a cup, in the groin causing him to let out an “Ahhh” sound, and then by reflex he quickly bent forwards…slamming his head into his partners face making a “Crack” sound, and then the guys nose broke, blood gushed out, and two of his teeth fell out causing him so say “Ahhh” then yell “FUCK!”.

When struck in the groin two things happen: first, the pelvis is pushed backwards by the blow causing them to bend forwards. Second, the body jerks the testicles away from the blow by further sticking the hips back and causing you to bend forwards more. So…if you hit someone in the groin with any real force their head is coming down and you better be standing off to the side or you’ll eat a nasty head-butt.

The Two Most Dangerous Places For Women

2009-01-01T09:16:00.003-05:00

By Matthew Schafer

For women there are two places that are particularly dangerous because they are where nearly all of crimes against women are committed. These two places are 1.) "Living quarters" or residential settings, and 2.) Parking lots. It is in these areas that women should be the most vigilant because chances are that if they are attacked, robbed, rapped, or murdered it will occur, or at least start, there.

Hands down the most dangerous place for women is in a home or other residential setting. About 55% of attacks on women happen in "living quarters", which include her home, someone else's home, or other place such as a dorm room. In these places the attacker is usually someone the victim knows such as a husband, boyfriend, friend, relative, or general acquaintance. Over half of all violent crimes (which include assaults, forcible robberies, rape, and murder) committed against women happen in residential settings and are committed by people the woman knows; therefore women need to do three things:

1.) Not let your guard down. Many people see their homes as their sanctuary so as soon as they walk into their homes or go into the homes of someone else they think that they're totally safe. It must be realized that, for a woman, homes, apartments, dorm rooms and other residences are the most likely place for them to be attacked.

2.) Watch people for signs of aggression, control, isolation, and/or people trying to get too close to you. Since signs of aggression usually precede an assault you need to watch people for signs that they are becoming aggressive so you can act before an attack happens. Watch for people becoming angry, raising their voice, making fists, making threats, raising their shoulders, lowering their chins, trying to control you, or insulting you. If you notice someone becoming aggressive or controlling with you, even a close friend, then you should immediately remove yourself from the area because an attack my be forthcoming.

What is meant by people trying to get too close to you is both someone trying to get close to you physically as well as someone trying to get close to your life. You want to make sure that you are on the lookout for people standing too close to you or touching you when it is not necessary because often this is someone trying to sike themselves up for someone more, or testing you to see how much you'll let them get away with. If someone is getting too close to you physically you want to make sure that you look them in the eye and firmly and in plain English tell them that it is not appropriate and will not be tolerated. If someone makes a habit of this you should try to distance yourself from them as much as possible because they could become dangerous.

Always take notice if someone is going out of their way to be in your presence or to include themselves in your life. If there is someone who is really trying to be in your life you should definitely take notice. If that person, or another casual acquaintance, suddenly shows up at an opportune moment that should really raise a red flag. An often used tactic by stalkers and serial killers is to pick a "target" (potential victim) and then try to include themselves in their life. They might arrange things in a way that they always ride the elevator with their target or they'll always be in the target's favorite restaurant or hangout during their lunch break. It is being so close to their target without them knowing anything is wrong that is what excites them.

Something else stalkers and serial killers like to do is to create a problem and then conveniently show up to help. A common one is to disable their target's car and then suddenly show up and offer to give them a ride or work on their car. Once the target gets in their car they take them to an isolated area and usually kill them. They might also disable a door at your workplace or the front door to your house and then they show up to save the day. If suddenly an acquaintance shows up at an unexpected or conveniently time it is safer to refuse their help, get someplace safe, and then call someone to come and help you.

"Signs of isolation" means that someone is trying to get you into an isolated area. If you're in your home or in someone else's and there's someone who is trying to get you to go someplace isolated with them, take notice. It could be they're trying to get you to go into the next room, a basement, or out to their car, but if someone is trying to get you to go someplace that is isolated from everyone else it may be because they are planning on assaulting you. The more persistent they are and the more agitated they become if you decline to go with them the more you shouldn't. Read our publication entitled "On Predators" to learn specific strategies that predators use to lure you into vulnerable situations so that they can attack you. Being able to notice when people use these strategies on you could very well save your life.

3.) Practice residential security. If someone is known to you (meaning that they are not a complete stranger) and they are in your home or you're in someone else's, you should watch them for signs of aggression and for signs that they are trying to isolate you, because these usually precede an attack, and you should be able to spot most attacks from people inside your home, but you also have to deal with the criminal element trying to come into your home. To keep your home safe from criminals you should keep all your doors and windows closed and locked even when you're home and install an alarm system and keep it on even when you're home. Criminals know that most people will lock their doors and turn their alarm systems on when they're out but they usually don't when they're home. Criminals know that if they hit your home at 3am they may have locked doors, windows, and an alarm to deal with, but if they break in around dinner time they can usually find on opened or unlocked door or window and the alarm will most likely be off. Also, never open a door for someone unless you know who it is first. It is not a good idea to have a window in your door because people can break it, reach in, and open your door, but you can put in a peep hole. Know who the person is before you open the door; NEVER rely on a little chain to keep you safe because it is easily broken. ALWAYS keep the door shut and locked until you have clearly identified the person(s) on the other side.

For more information on residential security and keeping your home safe from burglars read "Surviving Violence" which can be purchased at www.self-defense-lessons.com.

Although criminals can and do break into homes and assault women, it is far more common for the attacker to be someone that the victim is familiar with. In terms of being attacked by a stranger that is a common criminal, more often then not they'll hunt for and attack their victims in parking lots and parking garages.

Hands down there is one place where more crimes against women are committed than any other, and that place is a parking lot. Criminals commit more attacks against women in parking lots and parking garages than any other single place. The reason for this is simple, parking lots are prime locations for women who are not paying attention to their surroundings.

Parking lots are hunting grounds for criminals and we find time and time again that when a criminal wants money, sex, or just a thrill they go and stake out grocery stores, malls, or their parking lots. They either find a desirable target inside the store or mall and then follow them outside to their car, or they hang around in a parking lot until a desirable target presents themselves. Once they find their target they seemingly come out of nowhere and assault their victim and then run away or push them inside their vehicles and drive away to rob, rape, or murder them elsewhere.

Any time you are about to enter a parking lot you should have a heightened state of awareness. When you drive into a parking lot see if there are any "strange" looking people or groups of people and make sure that you park far away from them. Also try to avoid parking near vans because they will obstruct your view and people could be hiding in them. If you find someone that doesn't look right or if things just feel bad then leave and shop at another store.

When you leave your car to walk into the store first make sure to take a good look around before exiting your car and have pepper spray or another weapon ready. Have any objects like bags or purses in your non-dominate hand and keep your dominate hand free to use your weapon. When you walk towards the store make sure that you don't walk right next to parked cars because people could easily grab you; instead keep about 5 feet between you and any parked car. Keep you head up and constantly be looking around you.. Every 5 to 10 seconds or so scan around 360 degrees to see who is around you. Look to your right, to your left, and behind you. Use the reflection in car and store windows to see around you. Look for shadows of people by cars that you pass. Keep your head up and keep looking around you and not only will you dramatically increase your chances of spotting a criminal, you'll also make yourself a very unattractive target to any criminal that happens to be out looking.

When you're in the store or mall keep an eye on who is around you. Often criminals will stalk their victims before they attack and quite often they do it for an extended period of time. Be on the look out for anyone that appears to be watching you or paying too much attention to you. Also keep the "rule of three" in mind. The "rule of three" simple states that if you see someone once its fine, if you see them again at a different location then you should take notice, but if you see them a third time at another location then chances are that they're following you. Now, it doesn't mean that if you're in line at a store and you turn around three times and see the same person behind you that you have something to worry about. What it means is that if you're in a store and you see someone, then you finish there and drive to another store and see them there, and then you see them again at a third store...chances are that they're following you so you should take notice and be careful.

While residential areas are the number one area for violence against women, and parking lots and parking garages are number two, other "transitional areas" are number three. Transition areas are areas that people have to pass through to get to where they're going; these include parking lots, driveways, hallways, bathrooms, stairwells, alleys, and elevators. Any time you enter any of these you should always stop and look around to see in anyone is watching or following you. Look around and see if anyone is paying too much attention to you and only after to feel that it is "clear" should you enter.

Pay particular attention to public bathrooms, especially in parks and rest areas. Look around carefully while you're still a ways away to see if anyone looks suspicious, then look again just before you go in, and have your pepper spray ready. Criminals are not above hiding in bathrooms and often find it to be a secluded and safe area to assault someone.

Always remain vigilant and make sure that you're constantly looking around you to see who is there. Pay attention to your gut feelings because often they are smarter than you are. When you see someone ask yourself, "Is there something wrong here?", "Does this look suspicious?" and "Do they need to be there or be doing that?" If you pay attention you can usually see someone or something that looks out of place. If you see a man loitering in a parking lot or stairwell, stop and ask yourself those questions and see what answers you get. Often just by paying attention and questioning what's around you, you can see most attacks before they happen.

The Two Most Dangerous Places For Women

2009-01-01T09:16:00.002-05:00

By Matthew Schafer

For more information on residential security and keeping your home safe from burglars read "Surviving Violence" which can be purchased at www.self-defense-lessons.com.

MMA vs. Reality

2008-12-30T18:02:00.001-05:00

By Matthew Schafer

First off, I am absolutely 100% sick and tired of talking and/or writing about MMA. In nearly any conversation I have about martial arts or self-defense with people, and in nearly every single training class I give, someone brings up MMA in some fashion and I’m forced to relate MMA to what we’re doing and visa versa.

Today even Tai Chi instructors have to talk about MMA. I was at a Tai Chi class the other day and some knucklehead brought it up. What the hell does Tai Chi have to do with a competitive sport where people roll around on the ground simulating gay sex? For some asinine reason that I fail to understand, everyone seems to confuse MMA with anything close to reality. I cannot begin to communicate the depths of to which I am sick of talking about MMA.

Having said that…the other day I was getting ready to leave the house to go work out with my senior instructor in a private class, when he called me up and told me that a co-worker of his wanted to come workout with us. His co-worker, we’ll call him Ted, had little to no martial arts training but he was big into MMA, he had 6 amateur fights so far, and we was interested in learning a little bit about what we do. Normally I would have said “no”, after all dealing with another MMA person is not what I need, but I figured it couldn’t hurt, after all we could always use another warm body to throw around.

Ted seemed like a nice guy and he had some skill but it was obvious right off the bat that we were coming from different worlds. We talked a lot about causing various injuries to people and I could tell that made him quite uncomfortable. I wanted to make the class interesting for him so we went over things that pertained to MMA, like how to get out of a rear naked choke and other various holds.

The first thing I noticed is that he had little to no actual martial arts training what-so-ever. Getting out of a rear forearm choke, or a rear naked choke, is something I consider to be a white belt technique but hardly anyone knows how simple it is. We went over quite a few basic things that I think everyone should learn within their first 2 or 3 belts and each and every time he stated that not only did he not know what I was showing him but he’d never seen anyone in the MMA community doing it either. This just goes to show that MMA people are not actually martial artists and they really have little to no actual training.

The second thing I noticed is that in each technique we did he changed the context back to sport fighting and he also changed the end result. To get out of a forearm choke I taught him how to rip his attacker’s shoulder and that freaked him out a little. He said, “Oh, I don’t want to really do that to someone” and he turn the technique into a takedown or choke.

The running theme of the workout was, “Oh, I don’t want to really do that to someone”. Although he really liked what I taught he was very uncomfortable with it as a whole and the discussion of injury made him scrunch up his face a little.

As he left I told him, “If you come back sometime I’ll show you a great technique for when you’re on the ground and you have some guy on top of you. If someone is sitting on you, punching you, you can actually just rip the guy’s knee and flip him off of you in one movement. It’s really easy and very applicable to your sport”. He gave me a half smile, half grimace and walked away.

What I’m really trying to get at here is that MMA and martial arts come from two totally different contexts. In the martial arts, because we don’t go looking for fights, when someone attacks us it generally an act of criminal violence and therefore could easily end up with our serious injury of death. Therefore, our goal when attacked is to cause serious and disabling injuries to our attacker because anything else won’t change the situation in our favor.

However, in MMA the situation is totally different. MMA guys are not martial artists and do not engage in combat. They’re athletes, nothing more. Their goal when they step into the ring is to best their opponent WITHOUT causing injuries to them. MMA people really don’t want to hurt their opponents because they’re all just athletes and they don’t want to screw the guy up and mess with their career. Ted was very interested in learning how to flip someone off of him when he was on the ground, but the second I mentioned ripping the guy’s knee he didn’t want any part of that.

Ripping a guy’s knee is reality, it’s what violence really is, and it’s what defending yourself will really take. MMA is not reality, it’s fighting without injury and fighting without injury is just two guys playing grab-ass.

Shaolin vs. Wudang vs. History

2008-12-24T14:48:00.001-05:00

By Matthew Schafer

I have received a few emails about my article “Philosophy and the Martial Arts” that took issue with my assertion that the martial arts were not invented in the Shaolin Monastery. I’m sorry to burst your bubble but historical evidence clearly shows that they weren’t, although people work hard to prove and assert otherwise because it benefits them and makes the martial arts “special”.

Truth be told, I kind of wish that the old stories were true because it makes the martial arts sound more noble than they are. My main art is Kenpo and years ago I spent months writing a historical paper tracing my branch of the art back to Shaolin Monks and the Shaolin Monastery in Fujian, China. I was quite delighted to make a family tree that traced my art from me, back through my instructors, and then all the way back to Shaolin, and I displayed that document proudly in my school…that is until I heard of the Chinese martial arts historian Tang Hao (1897-1959 A.D.) and the work he did uncovering “the Shaolin Myth” and other martial arts myths.
To really understand the whole Shaolin/Wudang/martial arts thing you need to put it into proper context, so that is what I will attempt to do here.

First we need to talk about some of the dynasties in China. China began as a group of warring kingdoms until the warlord king Qin Shi Huang conquered the other kingdoms and unified them as one; thus he united China, became the first emperor, and started a long tradition of imperial rule. The unification of China is dated 221 BC and marks the beginning of the reign of China’s first emperor and the start of the Qin Dynasty.

China remained a unified kingdom under the rule of a Chinese Emperor until the Yuan Dynasty. In 1217 China was invaded by Mongolia and the Chinese emperor was replaced by a Mongol one. The new Mongol emperor was named Kublai Khan and his dynasty ruled from 1271 to 1368. These nearly 100 years of the Yuan Dynasty were turbulent times in China because the Chinese deeply resented being under foreign rule. Even today many Chinese do not consider the Yuan Dynasty (and the later Qing) to be legitimate dynasties because they were periods of foreign occupation.

During the 100 years of Mongolian rule there were uprisings, civil unrest, plots to overthrow the emperor, and even famine. The Mongolians ended up losing influence in their homeland and then in China, and finally they were ousted by rebellion. A man named Zhu Yuanzhang was one of the key leaders of this rebellion and afterwards he claimed the throne and became Emperor Hongwu and thus Mongolian occupation of China was ended, a Chinese Emperor restored, and the Ming Dynasty began.

The Chinese Ming Dynasty was from 1368 to 1644 and was really considered the golden age of martial arts in China. The Ming Dynasty was also a great source of pride for the Chinese people because it marked the return of their sovereignty. While the Ming Dynasty had its problems, here the country grew strong, the population exploded from 60 million at the start of the dynasty to 150 million by the end, and China was able to successfully fight off every attack by foreign powers.

During this dynasty there was a great sense of nationalism and the need to become strong so China could remain free. Thus martial arts were encouraged and widely practiced and developed. The Ming Dynasty was truly a time of advancement for the combative arts.

While the martial arts spread and flourished the country again saw unrest. This time was marked by widespread political corruption and further attacks from countries such as Manchuria. In the end China could not withstand constant attacks from both without and within and in 1644 China fell to Manchuria and the Qing Dynasty was born (1644-1911).

The first Manchu emperor of this dynasty, Emperor Kangxi, began his rule by sending out a large military campaign to exterminate rebels and supporters of the former Ming government throughout China. This campaign was widespread and anyone known to support the former Ming Dynasty, or seen as a threat to the new dynasty, was hunted and killed.

Secondly, he set up a segregated class system where Manchu’s were above everyone else and held all the high positions in government and the Chinese were only allowed to hold the lowest governmental positions. The Manchu’s and Chinese were even required to dress differently. An example of this was hairstyle you see in period martial arts movies where the front half of the head is shaved and the rear half is pulled back into a ponytail. It is said that this was to make the Chinese people resemble the ass of a horse. The Chinese became second class citizens in their own country and this created massive anger and resulted in the formation of many groups dedicated to the overthrow of the Qing.

The Qing Dynasty existed until both civil unrest and western influence forced a change that occurred in 1911 when the communists took over.

The thing that I want to focus on here is that the Qing Dynasty, which lasted 267 years from 1644 to 1911, was again a time or foreign occupation, resentment from the Chinese, and a time of rebellion. Organizations such as the Tongs and Black Dragon Society dedicated their existence to subverting the Qing’s power and restoring Chinese rule.

While the Chinese populace opposed the foreign rule they had to be very careful about how they did it because if they drew too much attention both themselves and their families could be killed. Therefore, when people talked about opposing the Qing they did so in roundabout ways. A common method of was to talk in terms of Taoism and Buddhism. Religion was widely practiced and often talked about so this manner of discussion was seen as somewhat safe.

How this worked was that Taoism was a religion that was native to China, so when people talked of Taoism often they were talking about loyalty to the Ming Dynasty. Also, the government of the Ming Dynasty had a close association with Taoist priests and used them for prophesy. The Ming Dynasty Emperor Chengzu (1423-1404) spent considerable funds constructing and rebuilding Taoist Monasteries on Wudang Mountain, which was a holy site in the Taoist religion. In many ways Taoism was seen as the official religion of Ming Dynasty emperors.

Buddhism, however, was a foreign religion so when people talked about Buddhism often they were talking about the foreign Qing rule. While the Chinese people accepted the wisdom contained in both religions, often the discussion of one or the other were code.

Books and other texts were written and passed around that spoke of the wisdom of Taoism and the shortfalls of Buddhism, and these manuscripts were really coded and to the trained eye they spoke of rebellion and Chinese nationalism, and tried to bring people into the fold of rebel groups. What this really was, was political defiance through literature.

In retaliation, the Qing Government was very pro-Buddhist and attempted use Buddhism to sway people to a pro-Qing stance.

This extended to the martial arts also. Traditional, or at this period what was considered to be traditional, Chinese martial arts were what we would today consider “soft” or “internal”. Native Chinese martial arts were softer and relied on “chi” or sudden bursts of explosive kinetic energy (kE) for power. As a manner of nationalism people tried to tie the native Chinese arts with Taoism and the Wudang Mountain. Thus if you said something was a Taoist art what you were really saying is that it was an art that was native to China.

Arts that originated, or had strong elements that originated, outside of China was referred to as Buddhist by some rebel groups. One of the best known Buddhist Monasteries in China was called Shaolin Monastery and this monastery was known for its scholarly works. Shaolin Monastery was famous all over China for translating Buddhist manuscripts from Sanskrit to Chinese. If you were reading a Buddhist Sutra chances are that the translation was done at Shaolin. In this period if you said that something was a Buddhist or Shaolin art there was a good chance that what you were really saying is that it was foreign, or at the very least not really Chinese.

It is true that martial arts were practiced at Shaolin but martial arts were not actually practiced by the monks; the monks probably practiced some type of calisthenics or yoga but the combative arts were practiced by the Shaolin Militia. In China every landowner had it’s own army/militia/security force and monasteries were large landowners. The official army could not be counted on to respond to defend the people, so all landowners and villages maintained and trained their own military forces.

Like all monasteries, the Shaolin Monastery had its own army. Even the writings from the Monastery say that there were two kinds of people there: monks and “warrior monks”. What this means is that at Shaolin, and every other monastery, there were Buddhist monks and a military force. The Shaolin Monastery’s military force trained in martial arts, maintained an armory, did perimeter checks, and spent a great deal of time doing military drills like marching and standing in formation. Also, like all private militaries in China they could be called upon to fight along side of the regular army and even to fight in their stead.

In a sense, during the Qing Dynasty practicing “Shaolin styles”, “Buddhist styles”, or “external styles” was a way of supporting the Qing government, and practicing “Wudang styles”, “Taoist styles”, or “internal styles” were a way of thumbing your nose at the Qing government. The "external" school and Shaolin Monastery represented foreign Buddhism, which symbolized the Manchu aggressors, while the "internal" school represented indigenous Taoism, which symbolized the Chinese, who would overcome their oppressors.

It should be noted that this was not so all over China. The whole Buddhist/Taoist, Shaolin/Wudang, internal/external thing was only a known code for the small group of people in the “know”. Only the hardcore supporters of either dynasty even knew that such a distinction existed. To the average person there were just the martial arts, and the thought of an art being tied to either location or religion was ridiculous.

The harder the rebels pushed the Taoist/Wudang symbolism the harder the government pushed the Buddhist/Shaolin symbolism. The Chinese rebels who practice more traditional “internal” arts tried to push their native roots by connecting them with Taoism and Taoist’s holy Wudang Mountain. The Manchu’s who practiced a harder form of martial arts that was more native in style to their homeland in turn tried to tie it to Buddhism and to the Shaolin Monastery (It should be noted that any real mention of the Shaolin Monastery being a significant site in terms of martial arts didn’t appear until around 1900 or so).

It should also be mentioned that the classifications of internal and external martial arts is a fairly new thing. External martial arts tend to generate force from muscle tissue while internal marital arts tend to generate force by using bodyweight to transfer kinetic energy. That really is just about the only difference. “Internal” arts still have punches, kicks, throws, leverages, eye gouges, and everything else that “external” arts have.

This is how the classifications of internal/external, Shaolin/Wudang, Buddhist/Taoist martial arts came about. It all started as rebel symbolism and code in the Qing Dynasty and grew from there. Ever since, martial arts styles have been arbitrarily labeled as being either of the Shaolin or "external" school, or the Wudang or "internal" school. Today many people take it literally but historians are quick to point out that there is no credible evidence whatsoever that martial arts came from the Shaolin or Wudang Monasteries or had any real connection with religion at all prior to around 1915-1920.

Philosophy And The Martial Arts

2008-12-22T10:24:00.002-05:00

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2008, All Rights Reserved

In nearly every single martial art or fighting system some type of philosophy exists. The predominate fighting systems in existence are Asian in origin and therefore they come with an Asian philosophy, and that philosophy is either Buddhist or predominately Buddhist. While it is beyond the scope of this text to go into the history, dogma, and various teachings of Buddhism, I will mention that since Buddhism is a philosophy that teaches non-violence, martial arts that preach this philosophy are also non-violent in nature. Now, I am not saying that these fighting systems can not be violent or used in a violent manner, I'm saying that people that learn them are taught to both practice and use them in a non-violent manner.

There is a huge problem in adopting a philosophy of non-violence in a fighting system and that is that since fighting in its very nature is violent, non-violent violence is a recipe for making nothing happen. The goal of fighting is to cause injures and to cause the necessary injuries in another person it requires a measure of violence; however, if you are taught not to be violent, if you train to not be or use violence then it is very unlikely that you would have the necessary ability to cause the necessary injuries when you are faced with violence. In other words, if causing injuries to another person is necessary and doing so requires a measure of violence and you are trained to be "non-violent" you have a small chance of accomplishing what needs to be done.

Consider also that even though you may have adopted a certain philosophy it doesn't mean that an aggressor has adopted it too. If you have adopted a traditional martial arts philosophy of non-violence and some 19 year old gang-banger shoves a knife against your throat then there is a little bit of a disparity there. The fact that you have chosen to adopt certain rules doesn't mean that the gang-banger has done the same, and if he is trying to take your life then he doesn't share your philosophy and you are at a huge disadvantage. The fact that you have rules doesn't change the world, it just restricts your behavior.

Violence in and of itself is just a thing, it is not good nor bad, it just exists. Violence is kind of like yelling in that there are situations where it is appropriate and situations where it is not appropriate, and using it in situations where it is not appropriate yields undesirable results. While sport fighting is about besting someone with speed, size, strength, and skill, real fighting, which is surviving real acts of violence, is all about causing serious injury to your aggressor. If someone is dead set on seriously injuring or killing you, the only thing that will really change anything is injury. If they injure you then the situation changes in their favor, and if you injure them then the situation changes in your favor.

Bottom line: fighting IS violence and injury. Departing from that simple fact may make us feel better about ourselves but it does nothing other than hurt your effectiveness and chances for survival.

You can adopt all the non-violent philosophies you want but it will not change the facts of violence and injury. In a violent situation the one that survives is the one that is doing the violence. If you don't mentally prepare yourself to use violence then you'll be inhibited and most likely non-effective in a violent situation. If you don't train to use violence in your martial arts training then what you're actually doing is training in non-violence and then your chances of surviving a violent situation are lessoned.

To put things in perspective, while violence is only an appropriate response in an incredibly small percentage of situations, in a truly violent situation where your life is on the line then violence is the only appropriate response. If someone is trying to take your life than the situation IS violent and violence is the only response that will mean anything. Anything other than being violent and causing injuries is something that will not change things in your favor.

Violence is not good or bad, it simply exists. While using violence is rarely appropriate, in the times when you're faced with violence using violence is the only thing that will save your life.

So, how did moral philosophies get in fighting systems in the first place and why are they there?

Most of what people know about martial arts history is actually false, and historical investigation bares this out. There have been many people who have devoted their lives to researching the histories of martial arts and exposing the myths and frauds. One of the most famous was the legendary author Tang Hao (1897-1959 A.D.). Tang Hao was an author, historian, and martial artist who lived in China in the late 1800' and early 1900's. Like any serious martial artist, Tang Hao took the marital arts very seriously and he was distressed to see them become circus acts full of magic tricks and wild claims, so he and others spend years doing serious research, writing books, and trying to expose the truths and realities of the martial arts.

What Tang Hao and others discovered was that originally fighting systems had nothing to do with any philosophies or religions. If you went back in time a couple hundred years and asked a "master" about martial arts philosophy they'd look at you like you were crazy. The idea that using punches, kicks, throws, and leverages to injure someone would have a moral philosophical aspect was ridiculous. The martial arts were considered just a military practice and people looked to them and practiced them solely for combative purposes. Contrary to the story we have been told of wise Buddhist monks inventing martial arts and combining it with religion, the reality is that the wise, scholarly, and moral martial arts master that we fantasized about either didn't exist at all or was incredibly rare.

Without getting too much into history (you can look it up yourselves, read Tang Hao's books if you can find them, or read my article "The Shaolin Temple Myth") what happened is that around the mid 1800's China was invaded more and more by the west resulting in a drastic change in the economy and a change in social order with the wide availability of firearms. By 1880 colt pistols could be commonly found and less and less people were turning to martial arts for self-protection. The martial arts were losing their credibility in the new westernized China and martial arts instructors were losing students, their livelihoods, and their elevated social status.

The only way for the martial arts to survive and for "masters" to get their social status back was to reinvent the martial arts and make them attractive for the wealthy and the significantly more educated westerners. As it so happened there were a lot of extremely popular martial arts books circulating around that were the equivalent of dime store romance novels. These books were really propaganda put out by various rebel groups to sway people to them and their cause. They described warrior scholars, that of course belonged to their group, that were righteous, moral, wise, capable of seemingly impossible feats, and almost undefeatable in combat. These books were extremely popular and people really feel in love with the images they portrayed so the martial arts community decided to "just go with it".
"Masters" reinvented themselves as wise and righteous and began advertising that anyone studying under them could gain powers like those talked about in the books.

They started spouting Buddhism and quasi-Buddhism and trying to make studying martial arts special and magical. Often they used common magic tricks to make people think they had special "chi powers" and really they just put on a huge show. To get upper class students to enroll schools would lie, overstate, and bastardize their arts and instructors would lie about their arts history and lineage to make it more appealing. Most techniques were changed to make them large, flashy, and pretty and thus they lost most of their combat effectiveness. The result...it worked. The rich started practicing marital arts for the novelty, the chance to gain powers, and as a means to enlightenment. Even some westerners picked them up, although primarily for novelty reasons.

By 1900 more people in China practiced the martial arts for recreation than any other purpose. People didn't even practice the martial arts for health reasons until around 1915 when it was made popular through widely published martial art books. Any claim of morality or the developing of a person's character did not come about until the 1920's.

Before 1850 or so the marital arts had nothing to do with any moral philosophy or religion, then between 1850 to around 1920 the martial arts had to change purely for marketing reasons, and around 1920 they emerged as moral, wise, and mystical.
That's how moral philosophies got into martial arts but why are they still there? They're still there for many reasons, including the fact that we don't know any better. Very few people take the time to investigate the history of martial arts and the masses are quite happy to just take everything at face value. However, the two big reasons that they're there is because they give us prestige and allow us a degree of separation.

By claiming that fighting systems are righteous and moral and that by learning them you're learning something more valuable than self-defense elevates the practitioner and gives them status. It's a big deal to be a black belt and a huge deal to be a 4th, 5th, or 6th degree black belt, but if martial arts were just methods of using violence to cause injury then practitioners would be looked at more like soldiers instead of "masters" and potential "masters".

The other reason is that by adding a moral philosophy to the marital arts it allows us a degree of separation from the realities of violence and injury. Humans want to separate themselves from anything that they see as unpleasant and few things are more unpleasant than the thought, or action, of seriously injuring or killing another human being. If we say that we're going to go into a room and train to seriously injure or kill someone then that is incredibly unpleasant and socially unacceptable; but if we say that we're going to go into a room and train in the honorable and righteous martial arts and build our character then that's very pleasant and society gives us a pat on the back.

By giving violence and injury a moral philosophical component we separate and protect ourselves from its realities and that is far easier on our fragile minds, as well as our standing in society.

If you look at martial arts classes and how martial art techniques are done today you probably won't see actual violence anywhere and the intent to cause injury is almost totally absent. Go to a typical karate class and look at the way people throw punches and kicks, the intent to cause injury is generally nowhere to be seen. Talk to people about the realities of what will happen when that punch or kicks lands and you'll see them cringe and then change the subject to something more socially acceptable.

Since we are good upstanding moral people we want that barrier of protection between us and the blood and guts of violence and we work hard to keep it there. However, having it there and separating ourselves from the reality can detract from our ability to function in a violent situation and use violence to cause injury and save our lives.

So where does a moral philosophy appropriately fit into violence and injury?

The simple answer is before and after. You can have any moral philosophy you want to have before the violent situation begins. When the situation begins, and before people start attacking each other, you can try to deal with it in any socially acceptable manner you want, and with any moral philosophy you have. After the situation gets over with you can deal with it in accordance to whatever moral philosophy you have. However, the second physical violence begins you need to take whatever moral philosophy you have and put it on hold. When physical violence starts you need to realize that at that moment the only thing that matters is causing injuries...period.

If you think that a certain moral philosophy or dogma will save your soul than that's fine, but that is beyond the scope of this text and this method of training. What we're dealing with here is saving your ass, and the only way to save you ass is to solely focus on causing injuries now, and then let your morals deal with the feelings that come later.

The Most Overrated Martial Arts Technique

2008-12-08T15:47:00.000-05:00

By Matthew Schafer

When it comes to martial art techniques one stands out as the quintessential martial arts technique, and that is the roundhouse kick. Now, some may say that the quintessential technique is a spin kick or some fancy jump kick (when I was a kid I thought it was flipping someone over your back) but go to any dojo or gym and watch people work out, see any movie, or watch any quasi martial arts competition and you'll see that for every fancy spin or jump kick you'll probably see 5 or 10 roundhouse kicks.

In fact, the roundhouse kick has become nearly mythical in some senses, it seems to be to "go to" martial arts/self-defense for people, women especially. I know several women who learned to throw a roundhouse kick and now they think that they're totally prepared as far as self-defense is concerned. I've seen women working out on the heavy bag in the gym and as soon as they see people watching them or they see someone that they want to impress or intimidate they go right into slapping the bag with a few roundhouse kicks. In competitions from point fighting to the UFC, roundhouse kicks are by far the most commonly used kicking techniques.

Roundhouse kicks are certainly one of the most commonly used kicks, but they are, in my opinion, one of the most overrated. I want to be clear, roundhouse kicks do have their uses and used right can be effective but in the manner in which they are commonly used today makes them pointless and very dangerous to the person doing them. Here I will describe my problems with the roundhouse kicks and some finer points of utilizing martial arts techniques in general.

Problem #1: Lack of penetration

The way that people throw roundhouse kicks today is utterly laughable and truthfully I find it hard to determine what they're trying to accomplish with them. The thing is, in order to understand something you have to put everything into proper context, after all, yes, the sky is blue but only in one context; taking context into consideration they sky can be any color you want it to be.

Why would you throw a punch or kick at someone to begin with? The simple answer is that you're trying to break or destroy something. The martial arts have a very simple context: someone is trying to seriously injure or kill you and you're attempting to protect yourself by seriously injuring or killing them first. For most people the martial arts are a sport but turing the martial arts into a sport is like using a loaded gun to level out a table. When I punch somebody my goal is injure him; to break, rupture, or in some way make non-functional some part of body that will cause him to be unable to pose a threat to me. When I punch someone I'm not punching their skin, or their muscle, or their bone, I'm punching something inside their body, for example, their liver. I'm attempting to put as much force as I can into their liver because I know that a traumatized liver will start to shut down the body and that's what I want; I couldn't care less whether my punch "hurt" or not because causing my attacker pain is not something that will stop him, but a traumatized or ruptured liver will (at least for a period of time that will enable me to flee or cause another injury).

The point I'm driving at is that when we strike an opponent we're not striking at their surface, rather we're attempting to get inside them and cause injury to their internal organs, arteries, air passages, nerves, bones, or the connective tissue in their joints. All the good stuff is deep inside them so if we are not penetrating with our blows we're not really doing much of anything at all. When most people throw a punch or kick they stop their blow at their opponent's surface. If the average martial artist was told to punch an attacker in the liver they would throw a punch and basically just slap them...that is it would hit their skin, push into their muscle, and then stop. Yes, the punch would probably hurt quite a bit but so what. If I punch someone in the liver I want, as a minimum, the knuckles of my fist to touch the back of the liver. Preferably the knuckles of my fist would pass through the liver and come out their back. If I want to cause an injury that will stop someone who is threatening my life I want that much penetration because that will insure that that I've gotten the force where I want it.

Let's talk about force for a second, if I swing my fist towards a target my fist, by virtue of it having mass and accelerating, will generate force and when it collides with another object it will transfer a portion of that force into it. People seem to think that all of the force of a strike goes into a target and that just isn't the case. There's a lot of "micky mouse" science around about the forces that occur while punching or kicking but luckily there is an entire discipline of science, called "impact science”, which studies what happens to force when objects collide and every martial artist should have a fundamental knowledge of this science.

If people want to determine how much force occurs in a punch or kick generally what they do go and get various force gauges and put them on a heavy bag, then they have someone hit them and they watch the readout on the monitor. The problem is that the results have no functional meaning! Let's say that I take the pressure plate and put it on the bag and then hit it and the readout tells me that I hit with 1000 lbs of force; all that means is that 1000 lbs of force existed at that point in space, but again, I don't care about that point in space because I'm not hitting the surface of my target, I want to drive my force into the target! In other words, I only care about what happens deep inside the target, not on it's surface. Now if I put a pressure plate on a punching bag and then I put two or three focus pads on top of it and then hit it, and despite the padding it still reads 1000 lbs of pressure then I'm happy.

One of the basic things that people need to understand about force is that force can be directed in a certain direction but still what it does is radiate out in waves just like dropping a stone in a pond and watching the ripples emerge in all directions from the center. Let's say that I punch someone in the chest and at the point of impact 1000 lbs of force is present, what happens next is that force radiates out in all directions. Some of that force will be transferred into sound, some will be transferred into heat, some will come back towards me, some will go off into the air, and a portion will go into my opponent. Of the force that goes into my opponent, some will be absorbed or dissipated by clothing, some will be absorbed or dissipated by the skin, some will be absorbed or dissipated by fatty tissue and other soft tissue, some will be absorbed or dissipated by muscle tissue, some will be absorbed or dissipated by bone, and what's left MIGHT go into an organ. Out of my 1000 lbs of force that appeared on impact only 5 or 10 lbs of force may reach the interior of my opponent which is where it's important.

At this point the question is how do you get more force into the body and how do you put it where you want it? The answer to this question has three parts: 1.) Force vector, 2.) length of contact during impact, 3.) follow through and penetration to "guide" the force.

Force vector is just a fancy term for the direction that the force is traveling and the exact path it is traveling on. If you want to send force into the liver then you need to make sure that the force vector intersects the liver. You need to make sure that you're actually hitting the liver instead of just a random place on the body; if you punch someone in the center of the chest then a meaningful amount of force simply won't find it's way to the liver. On impact force does radiate out in all directions but it still wants to travel in a straight line. When you throw a punch the force wants to leave your fist and continue straight forwards on the path you set it on, so the straighter the path your first takes from your body to the liver the more force will end up in the liver. If you want to make sure that as much force gets to the liver as possible you want to make sure that your fist travels directly from your body to the liver in the straightest path possible.

Next you have to take into consideration the length of time that your fist is in contact with the target. This is one of the areas where the martial arts really fail, in that martial artists often act on tradition rather than science. In the martial arts people are taught to throw their punch out and then pull it back in a rapid manner, which leaves the fist in contact with the target for a second or less. The reason that they do this is because they want to retract it quickly so they can throw another technique and so that their opponent can't use their arm to deliver a counter attack. In doing this, however, they are drastically taking force away from their strike.

Simply put, the longer your fist is in contact with your target the more force is transferred from your fist to your target. You can see this yourself by slapping your arm. Take the palm of one hand and quickly slap the back of your other forearm and then rapidly pull it off, so that your palm only rests on your arm for a fraction of a second. You'll notice a sting. Next, repeat this but when you slap your forearm leave your palm there. You'll notice that this hurts not just a little bit more but a LOT more. You'll also notice that when you leave your hand there the force radiates through your arm and you may even feel your arm tingle on the opposite side. When your hand moves it generates force and when it collides with your arm it transfers some of that force into your arm; if your palm and arm are only in contact for a fraction of a second then only a small fraction of the force will transfer. Since we want to get as much force as possible to transfer from our fist to the liver we want to make sure that they're in contact for as long as possible. When you drive your fist into the liver don't hit and then jerk it off quickly, rather hit, leave it there, and then let the liver go away from your fist instead of the other way around.

This one little thing will drastically increase the amount of force that you transfer into your target. After all, the only force that matters is the force that you actually transfer into your target. There are a lot of people out there with big muscles that can throw a hell of a punch, but that doesn't impress me. They can generate a lot of force but because their technique sucks (a lot of people have their elbow sticking out during a punch, their shoulders raised, or their heels off the ground) they are only capable of transferring a small amount of force into the target.

Now that you have sent your force in a straight line from your body to the target and you are leaving your fist on the target and letting your target move away from your fist instead of the other way around, you need to add "follow through" to guide your force to where you want it. If all you do it hit and leave your fist there then you will transfer more force into your target but the force will want to still spread out in all directions. If you hit, don't retract your fist, and then push until your arm is nearly fully extended you will direct that force straight forwards.

Most people hit their target and at the time of impact their arm is nearly straight, but if you do this you'll get minimal penetration and you won't have very much say in where the force goes once it leaves your fist. If, however, you step in and get closer and when you hit your target your arm still has 5 or 6 inches left to straighten, then you can push through your target by straightening your arm and rotating your body into the strike. Once you hit your target you want to be able to push through about 6-12 inches. If you can do that you will transfer nearly all of your force into your target and your follow through will direct it to wherever you want it to go.

So you need lots of penetration, lots of follow through, and to keep your fist on your target after you hit it; this is true in any strike including the roundhouse kick. In terms of the roundhouse kick, what determines the amount of penetration and force transfer can be seen in the alignment of the kick. There are four main points in the kick, 1.) the hip, 2.) the knee, 3) the foot, and 4.) the target. To illustrate that let's look at a few illustrations to better describe how to properly use that technique.

In illustration #1 you see how most people use the technique. They throw the kick out and the leg comes to full extension even before their foot hits their target. Usually their kick comes to completion and it's just one of the knuckles of their foot that makes contact. Nearly every single roundhouse kick I've ever seen, including hitting pads during karate classes, point fighting sessions, full-contact karate matches, and mma matches, ends with the leg straightening before the target is reached and only a small part of the foot hitting. Here there is no penetration, extremely brief contact, and no follow through.

In illustration #2 you see an example of "good" roundhouse kicks. When I say "good" I mean that when someone happens to, almost always by accident, throw a roundhouse kick gets a reaction from the target this is what they do. Here their kick comes to full extension as their foot hits the target leading to a greater force transfer. This is better than the kick demonstrated in the first illustration but it is still far from perfect. Basically the result is a very firm "slap" more than anything else.

In illustration #3 you see the kick the way is should be done, with maximum penetration. In illustration #1, the hip, knee, and foot come to a straight line a distance away from the target; in illustration #2 the hip, knee, and foot come to a straight line at the target; but in illustration #3 the hip, knee, and foot come to a straight line on the other side of the target. If I'm going to kick somebody in the left ribs with a right roundhouse kick, when I throw the kick I want to follow all the way through so that my right hip is pointed at the other side of his body. Just like they say that if you want to punch someone in the face you should aim for the back of their head, if you are going to roundhouse kick someone you want to follow through with your hip to the other side of their body. Do this and when you kick someone they won't say "Oww", instead they'll make a "thud" when they hit the ground.

A question always come us about how you follow through like that because a lot of people have difficulty. Almost always the difficulty that they're having is with their base foot. If the toes of your base foot are pointed at your target then your body won't be able to rotate fully through the target and if you try to could injure your ACL or other ligament in your base knee. You want to turn your base foot out around 90 degrees from your target so you can bring your body all the way around.

Another thing that I like to do with a roundhouse kick is to step into it. If I'm going to throw a left roundhouse kick I'll step out with my right foot toward the target in about a 45 degree angle, turning my right foot out about 90 degrees. Then, while I throw the left kick I follow through with my hip and bring my body over my right foot which brings an enormous amount of my bodyweight into the kick. Done this way you have little problem knocking someone out of their shoes.

Problem #2: Hitting with the instep

There are two ways you can hit with the roundhouse kick, with the instep or with the ball of the foot. Nowadays almost no one hits with the ball of the foot because when you hit with the ball of your foot it is kind of hard not to break what you're hitting. Hitting with the ball of your foot concentrates your force and its like hitting with a ball-peen hammer, it's incredibly effective and potentially lethal.

The reason people hit with the instep is because today martial arts are just sports; no one really wants to take the techniques seriously or really even think about the possibility of injuring someone. People today just want to dick around with the martial arts and they are surprised as hell when they hurt someone. Hitting with the instep in "safe" because it's very ineffective and if someone gets hurt 9 times out of 10 its the person that threw the kick.

Firstly, the instep is a broad flat area and when you hit the impact is spread out and the result is more of a slap than anything else. Hitting with the instep is the "safe" way to hit so why would you want to hit that way?

Secondly, the instep is a horrible impact point because the bones of the instep are easily broken. You can drop a can of soup on your foot and break one of those bones so why would you kick with those?

Thirdly, hitting with the instep is asking to sprain or break your ankle. Let's think about this for a minute: the way to break a joint is to first take the joint through it's range of motion until it reaches it pathological limit, and then aggressively force it past to tear the ligaments. If you point your foot in the manner that you do when you throw a roundhouse kick you just put your ankle at it's pathological limit...an now you're going to hit it? I've seen more than one person hit a heavy bag with a roundhouse kick and then wind up with a broken ankle.

One of my instructors told me a story about one of his students who got into a big bar fight one day. It was huge fight and lots of people were going at it, and this guy came at him so he punched him in the face and knocked him back and then he kicked him in the back of his left knee with a right roundhouse kick. He kicked him and followed all the way through so he lifted the guy's leg up and dumped him on the back of his head. Then he saw another guy coming at him so he put his foot down...and then fell on his ass. His ankle was sprained and couldn't take his weight. He had to get on his three good limbs and crawl out of there before he got seriously hurt. I don't know about you but I don't want to risk spraining or breaking my ankle in a situation like that.

Problem #3: People target the leg

Probably the number one thing people do with the roundhouse kick is they kick to the outside of the upper leg. There is a nerve there, the common peroneal nerve, and if you hit that nerve you make the leg go numb. The problem with this is that it is a fairly ineffective technique.

Firstly, again you have to follow through all the way with your hip to get the proper amount of penetration. When you're jumping around in your little fighting stance, which most people do, chances are because of all that movement you won't follow through enough and you'll end up just slapping them.

Secondly, kicking someone in the leg and "killing it" works very well if they're just standing there because their leg is straight and their upper leg muscles are not flexed. When you get in a fighting stance your upper leg muscles are more flexed and in doing so they protect the nerves so you have to hit the leg a little harder. Also, when someone gets into a fighting stance they bend their knees and their femur is at an angle that will deflect your blow.

Think of the high block. You put your arm up above your head to protect from an overhead attack and you don't keep your arm level, you angle your arm so that when someone hits your arm their force will be deflected and their arm will skid off your arm. It is essentially the same thing with kicking someone in the leg while they are in a fighting stance. If their leg is bent then your force will be dissipated and your kick will skid off. If you want to get the ideal reaction of totally killing the leg you have to have your opponent standing naturally and you have to follow through all the way with your hip. If you have someone move around in a fighting stance and you throw roundhouse kicks at their leg I can virtually guarantee you that all you'll do is bruise their leg, expose your balance, and piss them off. Sure, if you kick the same spot 5 or 6 times then they'll start to favor the leg and maybe limp a little, but who the hell cares? Violence is about injuring people, not trying to bruise their leg so you can set them up for something else.

Problem #4: Exposing your balance

The roundhouse kick is not a direct technique, meaning that it comes around your body in an arc instead of moving in a straight line. Since it moves in a large arc it seriously exposes your balance and leaves you very vulnerable.

All you have to do to neutralize a roundhouse kick is to just step in. Just like you watch someone's shoulders to see when they'll throw a punch, you watch someone's hips to see when they'll throw a kick. If you see someone's hips swing around to throw a roundhouse kick all you need to do it to take a big step in and get inside them and you'll knock them on their ass. Even better, take a big step in and throw an open handed strike to their throat.

In my opinion exposing your balance like that is just too risky. The only time I'd consider throwing a big technique like a roundhouse kick would be if my attacker is already injured. If I stepped in and slammed my forearm into the side their neck and knocked them backwards and started the process of them going unconscious, then and only then, with them in that state of helplessness, would I do something that exposes my balance so severely.

Done in the manner in which I have described here the roundhouse kick can be done very effectively and be used to cause serious injury to the human body. Executed in the manner that most people do today the roundhouse kick is just a sporting tool to be used for entertainment purposes and if used in any other manner it will often injure the person that threw it. Done correctly the roundhouse kick can be a very effective tool for engaging in combat, done incorrectly it is greatly overrated and arguably useless.

On Predators

2008-11-12T17:11:00.006-05:00

By Matthew Schafer

Most people think of an attacker as a stranger who jumps out of a dark alley or mugs them while they walk down the street, but most violent crimes (forcible robbery, rape, aggravated assault, and murder) are committed by people known to the victim. It turns out that people's gender comes into play in predicting whether their attacker will most likely be a stranger or acquaintance. According to the US Dept. of Justice, women are attacked more often by acquaintances (In 1994 60% of reported attacks on women were committed by acquaintances, with 26% of all murdered females being killed by husbands or boyfriends) and men are attacked more often by strangers (In 1994 63% of attacks on men were committed by persons unknown to them).

All predators, both human and animal, exhibit the same nature and go after their prey in the same manner. For example, when a shark spots something that it thinks it might like to eat it doesn't go right over and attack. Instead the shark will test it’s prey by circling it a few times to see how it reacts, then it will go up and bump into it to see if it will turn and attack. If it doesn't attack the shark back then the shark will go up and take a small bite and then swim away quickly, the small bite is another way of testing to see if the animal will fight back and to see if it really is something the shark will enjoy. Only after it has done this will it begin to actively consume its prey (When people survive shark attacks it is usually at the "nibble stage" where the shark just takes a quick bite. Since humans are not the sharks normal food they usually just spit it out and swim away).

What you see here is that a shark continually tests its prey to make sure it is safe before it attacks and the same is true with human predators. The last thing that a criminal wants is to get in a fight and perhaps get hurt so, like other predators, criminals go after the sick, injured, and weak. Criminals prefer to attack people who are 1.) Alone, 2.) Distracted, and 3.) Display predictable behavior. Criminals like to attack people that are alone because there is less chance of someone coming to help them, and criminals like attacking people who are distracted because then they're not paying attention to their surroundings and can be easily taken by surprise.

Predictable behavior includes two things: 1.) exhibiting a predictable schedule, and 2.) exhibiting a predictable response. Exhibiting a predictable schedule means you always take the trash out at the same time of day, always leave for work at the same time and drive the same route, always eat lunch at the same place, etc. If a criminal targets you and learns that you have a predictable schedule, then all they have to do is go to where they know you'll be and wait for you. If someone knows that you always take the trash out at 8:15 each night all they have to do is arrive at 8 o'clock, hide behind your trash bin, and then jump out and attack you when you show up. This might sound implausible but there are literally thousands and thousands of cases where someone has run outside to take the trash out, check their mailbox, or do some other quick task and was never heard from again.

Exhibiting a predictable response leads us into the thing that I really want to touch on and that is that criminals will rarely attack people at random. Generally they carefully pick people that display desirable vulnerabilities and then they "test" them to see if they are "right". If a criminal thinks that you might be an easy target and they give you a test and you respond passively, then they test you a second time and you respond passively again, then they know that they can expect you to react passively when they attack you.

Criminals want the highest chances of success when they commit their crimes so they will generally pick a target and then test them to see if they are "right". Criminals test to see if you can be tricked, allow yourself to be put into a vulnerable position, allow yourself to be isolated from others, and above all if you will allow your personal space to be violated. Most criminals will approach you and continually try to push their way into your personal space just to see what you'll do. They may comment on your appearance to see if it flusters you, they might probe for personal information to see if you become defensive, and then they might take a few steps closer to see if you become defensive or aggressive. If they go through a "feeling you out" process and they still feel comfortable with you then they'll feel safe enough to commit their crime.

There are two main types of attacks: random and predictable. Random attacks have no warning signs and you just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Predictable attacks have warning signs that you can pick up on and act on before things reach the stage of violence. Most violent crime is predictable and there are signs that you can pick up if you are paying attention, and the biggest sign is people testing you or the location you're at. If you see someone watching you then it may be a sign that they are testing you. If someone approaches you, how close you'll let them get is a test. If they touch you and you don't object, that's a test. If you do object but they're able to get you to back down then that's also a test. Often criminals observe you for a little while to gather information about you and to see if you spot them. If they start following you and you spot them and make eye contact, then they generally just go target someone else. However, if a criminal can follow you for 5 or 10 minutes without you noticing then that tells them that you're not paying attention and are probably easy prey.

Someone testing a location will stand around where they don't need to be or do something else suspicious to see if anyone says anything to them. They’ll check out security camera placements, security personal, entrances and exits, and may leave bags unattended and then wait and see if anyone does anything. They might talk to some employees and see if they can trick them in some small manner, get them to divulge personal information, or divulge sensitive information about the location. Basically, when someone tests an area they look for vulnerabilities in security and then do things that should draw attention to see if anyone says or does anything. They might hang outside the women’s bathroom and watch girls for an hour to see if anyone says anything, or they might hang around and take notes. The response, or lack thereof, to their suspicious activity tells them how safe the area is for them.

You have to be on the lookout for people testing you, and when you find it you need to become assertive, aggressive if necessary, and get out of there.

There are five things that you should be looking for that are probable indicators that a criminal is testing you. If you notice any of these things you should become assertive and leave the area.

1.) Someone trying to get personal information from you. If someone that you don't know on a personal level tries to find out things like whether you're married or have a boyfriend/girlfriend, your sexual habits, where you live, what kind of car you drive, where you hang out for fun and when you'll be there, info about your children, or other personal information you should become defensive with them. There is a good chance that they are testing you to see how much you'll tell them and trying to get information that they can use later. You might have a conversation with this person on an elevator one day and a week later they show up at your house.

If someone is trying to get this kind of information just look them in the eye and assertively tell them that you don't feel comfortable telling them this kind of information. If they protest or tell you that you're being paranoid or rude just respond by saying, "That's just how I feel, now let's drop it" and then walk away.

2.) Someone trying to isolate you. People want privacy when they commit their crimes so if someone is trying to get you to go with them to an isolated area it should raise a red flag. If you tell them "no" and they persist then it’s probably a test so you should leave the area immediately. There is no honorable reason for someone that you don’t know to want you to be in an isolated area.

If someone wants to get you into an isolated area you should always test them by telling them "no" just to see how they react. If they accept your refusal and don't bring it up again than it may be nothing to worry about. However, if you tell them "no" and they keep persisting, start to get nervous, upset, or angry then that is a huge sign that something is wrong. The harder someone is trying to get you to go someplace isolated with them the more potential danger there is for you.

3.) Someone trying to get you to dismiss your protective instincts. If you're with someone and something doesn't "feel right" and you say something about it and they tell you that you're being paranoid, silly, stupid, or that you just don't know what you're talking about then that should also be a red flag. If someone is trying to get you to dismiss your natural protective instincts then they may have a dark motive for it.

Getting you to dismiss your instincts is another test; if your gut is telling you that something is wrong and you say something and the person you're with is able to say something like, "Oh, you're just being silly" and you accept it despite your feelings then that tells them that they have control over you and can get you to do just about whatever they want. Always trust your gut and if someone actively tries to get you to ignore it then you should get away from them.

4.) Someone you're not close to giving you gifts or doing you favors. If someone that you don't know shows up one day with a present for you...don't take it! NEVER, ever, ever take gifts or accept favors from people that you're not close to unless it's a Christmas party or similar situation. If it’s a situation where EVERYONE is getting gifts from each other or giving gifts to the same person then its fine, but other than that it isn't. Often a predator will give you a gift as a way to get closer to you and to build a sense of entitlement. For example, someone might say that since they gave you that gift last week you're now obligated to go to dinner with them this week. Gifts and favors are a very slippery slope and should be avoided.

5.) Someone is standing or wandering around and they are nervous, sweating, distracted, or fidgety. If you notice someone that seems really nervous, perhaps even sweating, and cannot seem to stand still then there is a good chance that they are a criminal looking for a victim. Often criminals go to populated areas and then hang around and search for just the right person to attack. Deep down criminals know what they're doing is wrong and only the most asocial and sociopathic individuals don't feel nervous or fearful before their crimes and this gives them away.

If you see someone hanging around or walking around and they seem really nervous and fidgety then you should create distance between the two of you and alert the police or security. You can call up security or the police and say that there is an individual who is wandering around, really nervous, and might be on drugs and they should send someone to come and investigate.

6.) Someone trying to invade your space or touch you. Generally crimes can't happen unless someone can touch you, so a criminal will almost always need to get close. The general rule is that unless you're someplace where empty space is an issue, if you don't know someone well they should be greater than arm's length from you. Unless you're good friends or intimate with someone they should be at least 4 feet away from you, and if someone insists on getting closer you should become assertive, aggressive if necessary, because they're probably seeing how close they can get before you stop them.

If someone that you don't know is standing 4 or 5 feet away from you and they take a step closer and you don't say anything they'll think "Ah-hah...an easy target!” At that point they'll often test you a second time by taking another step forwards to see what you'll do. The closer you let them get to you the better and weaker victim you become in their minds. In addition to passiveness, criminals also watch for signs of fear. If you show any fear when they approach you they'll see that as a green light to make their move.

If you're being tested and you become passive, fearful, or just don't object then that communicates that you're going to be an easy target, but if you become assertive, aggressive, or just stand up for yourself then that communicates that you're probably going to be more trouble to the criminal then you're worth. Often if you are assertive they'll test you a little bit more to see if you'll be intimidated and back down, and if you then become aggressive with them then often (around 95% of the time) they will leave and go pick on someone else.

One last thing, remember that just because someone backs off now doesn’t mean that they won’t come back later. If someone exhibits one or more of these testing behaviors and you become assertive or aggressive with them, and then one of you walks away…that doesn’t always mean that it’s over. If someone has their mind set on you as a victim, they may back off at the moment but then wait for you in the parking lot or start stalking you.

Standing up to a predator when they test you and showing them that you can and will become assertive and aggressive will deter nearly all predators, but still, if someone just has their heart set on you for whatever reason then ultimately the only thing that will stop them is force. The ability to look someone in the eye and become assertive or aggressive with them is very important but ultimately it is your ability to physically put your hands on someone and defend yourself that will keep you safe.

The Reactions of Violence

2008-10-28T09:19:00.002-04:00

By Matthew Schafer

In the martial arts there are many myths, legends, exaggerations, and downright lies. Being considered somewhat of an expert in martial arts I get asked a lot of questions about the "death touch", knocking people out with chi from across the room, breaking a razor sharp spear with your throat, and many other things that people have seen in the movies or nowadays on youtube. One myth that never seems to be resolved is that of body reactions.

Years back I attended a two day seminar where a bunch of instructors each came and gave their own presentations. On the evening of the second day there was a Kenpo instructor who taught his seminar entitled "Playing Pool With Your Attacker". It was fairly well attended and quite interesting but nearly ended in a fistfight. The premise of this man's lecture was one I've heard many times before, that you could hit certain areas of the body and your attacker would always respond by moving in certain ways. The general idea is this: an attacker throws a punch so you block it and counter by punching him in the ribs; when punched in the ribs people always respond by turning and bending so when they do you have another strike waiting there for him which makes him do another predictable movement, and then that goes on and on until your attacker in neutralized, thus controlling your attacker like you would balls on a pool table.

The seminar went nearly as I had expected. This man talked about his principles and about half of the people in attendance rolled their eyes; he then gave demonstrations and some people made faces while a few other's left the room; he began explaining the science of this manner of combat and then someone shouted, "That's bullshit! People don't move like that when you hit him because..." A couple people in the audience raised their voice and the instructor calmly explained things again, then some people started to get angry because they lacked the necessary social skills and the seminar ended abruptly and everyone left.
This whole topic is yet another example of the fact that martial artists are over-trained and under-educated. Quick story to illustrate my point: years back I was asked to give a seminar on knife defenses at a local taekwondo school. I taught them a few basic movements and then had them work the knife attacks and defenses into their one-step sparring techniques and everyone was having a good time. At some point someone brought up one of my biggest martial art pet peeves...striking the back of the neck. I stopped everyone and asked them if they knew what happened when they struck someone in the back of the neck and a few hands went up. They gave answers like "cause pain", "make him light headed", and "knock him out". I replied, "NO! If you hit someone in the back of the neck chances are you'll either paralyze them for the rest of their life or you'll kill them". At that the room went silent. Why is it that people get excited about punching and kicking people but they freak out when you talk about the realities of those punches and kicks?

Go up to nearly any martial arts student, or instructor for that matter, and ask them about punching someone in the solar plexus and they'll talk about stances, turning your hip, rotating the fist, finding the target, breathing, and other colored belt level basics but cannot answer further. What follows is a summary of a conversation I've had with nearly a hundred martial artists:

Me: "What happens when you hit someone in the solar plexus?"
Them: "It knocks the wind out of them."

Me: "How does it do that?"
Them: "Uh...."

Me: "When you traumatize the solar plexus what process occurs in the body?"
Them: "Uh..."

Me: "Is the solar plexus an actual body part? I mean is there a solar plexus organ under there or something?"
Them: "Well....you're hitting the lungs aren't you?"

Me: "A lot of people consider hitting the solar plexus to be a safe strike but did you know that it can traumatize the abdominal aorta? Did you know that that can lead to cardiac arrest or an unsafe drop in blood pressure which can potentially be fatal, especially if they have heart problems?"
Them: "Really? What's the abdominal aorta?"

Me: "Did you have any idea that hitting someone in the solar plexus could possibly kill them?"
Them: "No, I had no idea. We're just told to hit someone there and knock the wind out of them."

Me: "You train to hit people in targets like the solar plexus, chin, groin, and neck so don't you think it would be a good idea if you understood exactly what these strikes do to the human body?"
Them: "That makes sense but we never go over that in class."

Me: "What do you go over?"
Them: "Right now we're going over forms and getting ready for our next testing."

It baffles me but martial artist are some of the most over-trained and under-educated people on the planet. They spend years perfecting their jump-spin-hook-kick but ask them what the difference is, in terms of injury, in hitting the high versus the low cervical vertebrae and they have no clue. All the stuff that doesn't really matter is the stuff that martial artists spend their lifetimes perfecting but all the stuff that is incredibly important, like understanding what does and what doesn't kill someone, is rarely given 10 minutes.

Today there are lots of martial artists in jail for killing someone by accident. The story that always comes to mind is one that was published in Black Belt Magazine in the 80's. The article about a Korean guy who was a black belt in Tang Soo Do and one day got in a fight and he defeated his attacker by chopping him in the back of the neck. At first the guy was happy and felt like a total "Barney-Bad-Ass" having knocked his attacker out so easily, however he felt quite different when he was arrested and later convicted of murder. His defense...he had no idea that striking someone in the back of the neck could kill him. Or what about the instance that happened in Texas in the late 70's, where a guy who happened to be a brown belt in Judo got mugged on his way home from work by a "drunk biker". The guy came at him and he blocked the guy's attack and then executed a hip throw which slammed his attacker on the ground and left him unconscious. He served seven years in jail for manslaughter. He had no idea that a hip throw could kill someone.

This is where the myths, legends, and reputation of the marital arts work against us. If someone attacks you and you hit them and they end up dying, good luck trying to explain to the jury that you had no idea that the technique you used was potentially fatal. The people on the jury panel have seen movies and watched "Walker: Texas Ranger" so when they hear that you train in martial arts they will think that you are an expert in destroying the human body. You can't look at a jury and say, "Yes, I'm a black belt in karate...but I did not intend to kill that man when I kicked him in the head. I had no idea that that could be fatal" and have the jury believe it.

Looking at a jury member and saying that you have been studying karate for 10 years and you have a 3rd degree black belt but you had no idea that hitting someone in the chin could cause a broken neck and leave the individual paralyzed or dead, is like a car mechanic saying that they've worked on cars for 10 years but had no idea that putting oil in your gas tank is bad for your car; in either case they'll look at you and say, "bullshit".

I'm not saying that you have to have a medical degree, but being a martial artist without a functional knowledge of anatomy and how trauma affects the body is like being a mechanic and not knowing how an engine works.

Back to reactions, the fact that people don't understand how the body moves in response to trauma is a perfect example of the over-trained and under-educated statement I just made. Let's examine the issue of bodily reactions and shed some light onto it; the idea that if you hit someone "here" they always move this way and if you hit someone "there" they always move that way is about 5% truth and 95% bullshit...in the general context that is. When you hit the body there are two processes that occur and manifest in visible bodily reactions, and they are a "mechanical reaction" and a "reflex reaction".

A mechanical reaction is incredibly simple to understand...it is just an object reacting to having a force applied to it. For example, if you give someone a little push you'll cause them to take a step back, and if you punch them then they should be knocked back further because you're delivering more energy in a more concentrated manner. A mechanical reaction is just one person moving in response to a force being applied to them.

The first important element in understanding a mechanical reaction is understanding that a human being is not a punching bag. If you push a punching bag it will just swing away from you because it has a very limited ability to move. Human beings can step forewords, backwards, and to the side as well as rotate 360 degrees in either direction; human beings can also rotate their bodies in both directions around their spine, curl and bend their backs, and bend at the hips. When you push a punching bag it will just swing away from you in one unit, but when you push a person backwards, or punch them, they will generally move in separate units; they will move away from you and if they can they will rotate, curl, and bend.

This leads to something known as "quartering the body". Since people rotate around their spines, if you push someone on the right side of their centerline they will move back and rotate to the right, and do the opposite if you push them on the left side of their centerline. Since people curl forwards and backwards at their lower back, if you push someone above their lower back (at their sternum) they will move backwards and bend backwards, and if you push someone right on their lower back (between their hips and sternum) they will move back and curl forewords. Since people bend at their hips, if you push them in the sternum or above it will cause then to move backwards and bend slightly backwards, and if you push them below their hips (their pelvis or legs) they will move back and bend forewords. As for anywhere above the shoulders you just move with the force in the direction of the force. These are just the simple mechanics of the body that you can validate for yourself all you want.

Since we've just gone over the above we can tell how people will move depending on where we push them. If I push someone in the solar plexus I know that they will move backwards (since I've applied force to them) and since I'm pushing them in their lower back I know that they will curl forwards. If I push someone on their right peck I know that they'll step backwards and rotate to the right. If I take my foot, place it on someone's left leg, and then push their leg back I know that their leg will go back, they'll rotate to the left (because their left leg is on the left side of their spine), and then they'll bend forwards since their leg is below their hips. If I push someone's head their body will just move in whatever direction I push them.

This isn't really complicated stuff, it's actually very simple: when you push someone you'll make them step back and they'll bend, curl, and rotate if they have the opportunity because that's just how the body is designed to move. It's easy to understand and 100% predictable; I know that if I push someone under the chin that they'll lean backwards and that if push someone in the stomach that they'll curl forwards...not complicated stuff.

The second important element of mechanical reactions is the simple fact that the harder you push someone the more energy you are applying and therefore the further they'll move. If you give someone a little push you might make them lean away from you or take a small step back, but if you take a big step into them and shove them as hard as you can you'll most likely make them stumble back 8-10 feet and then perhaps fall to the ground.

When explained mechanical reactions are pretty easy to understand but people still say, "Well, I've been fighting for years and I've never seen people move in a predictable way". Well...you'll notice that I've talked about pushing people and not about hitting people. When you push someone you shove them backwards with your body, you essentially push force through them. However, when most people punch someone they punch "to" them and not "through" them. If I'm standing 4 feet away from someone and then I swing my arm in and hit him in the solar plexus I'm applying very little force to him and I'm going to get a very small mechanical reaction from him; but if I step into him and use my bodyweight to drive my fist into his solar plexus I'm going to knock him back. Why? Because I'm hitting him harder.

Basically, if you hit someone lightly you'll get a small mechanical reaction (you'll only displace them a little bit) but if you hit someone forcefully and drive through them you’ll get a bigger mechanical reaction (you'll displace them a lot). If you want to get big predictable mechanical reactions out of people you can't be throwing a punch and pulling it back quickly, you have to step in, throw it hard, drive through them, and let them move away from your fist instead of the other way around.

Next you have reflex reactions. If you grab a hot pan you immediately pull your hand back, grab it with your other hand, and then look at it to assess the damage. This is an involuntary reaction that is a product of your autonomic nervous system that is designed to protect your body by making it move involuntarily away from trauma. If you step on a nail you don't say, "Oh crap, I just stepped on a nail. I better pull my foot up", you immediately jerk your foot up and then you realize that you stepped on something sharp.

The important thing to realize is that these reflexes happen involuntarily and without the brain. The signal goes from your foot, in this case, up your spinal cord to a sensor in your spine, to the rest of your body to get it to move, and then to your brain to let you know what happened. The only way that you can get around this reaction is if you know that something is coming and you mentally prepare yourself for it. If you know that a pan is hot you can grab it and hold onto it as long as you're able and if you know that a kick to the groin is coming you can take it, provided that it doesn't exceed your pain tolerance. In a real violent situation, however, you won't know what’s coming and when (which is why the "Iron Shirt" technique or other techniques designed to let you take a strike are fairly useless. If you know that something is coming and you have the ability to prepare yourself for the impact then why not take that time to...I don't know...block it or step in and crush the guy's throat?).

Another important thing is that while you are going through a reflex reaction you are helpless. So if I take my thumb and jam it into an attacker's eyeball he'll first give me a mechanical reaction and then a reflex reaction and he'll be helpless while he is doing so. Therefore, once I have caused an injury to him I'll have a few second window that is open to me where I can injure him again at will.

Reflex reactions are again fairly easy to understand. If part of your body receives a trauma that is sufficient in strength your body will execute an involuntary reaction that will jerk the injured area away, cover it with your hands, and then you'll look at it to assess the damage.

To wrap this up, if you hit or push someone you WILL get a mechanical reaction that is in relation to the amount of force that you put into them. If you stand 4 feet away and swing your arm in you probably won't get much of a reaction, but if you step into him as deeply as possible and drive your body through him you can potentially knock him out of his shoes. I've actually had a partner hold a pad for me and by stepping in and driving my punch through with my bodyweight I've actually picked him up off the ground. The harder you hit the bigger the mechanical reaction you'll cause your attacker to make.

Then, if you hit him and you sufficiently injure or break something you'll cause him to do a reflex reaction which creates a short window of time where they are 100% helpless. Put these things together then yes, you can make someone move in a 100% predictable way when you hit them, but to get it you have to drive through them and hit target, not just a general area of their body.

So the whole issue of being able to predict how someone will move when you hit them is valid, but people don't see the reactions in the "real world" because: 1.) They don't understand the difference between sport martial arts and "surviving a violent encounter" martial arts, 2.) They don't hit with enough power or they don't know how to hit with bodyweight, 3.) They do hit with enough power but they don't understand the difference between generating force and transferring that force into the target, and 4.) They hit general areas of their attacker's body instead of going after specific targets.

The way "reactions" are generally done in the martial art world they're about 95% bullshit, but when you understand what I've written here you should be able to predict the way people will move when you hit them. That being said...all this reaction stuff is overrated. If someone is trying to stab you to death with a knife then your goal isn't to predict this or to predict that, your goal is to severely injure the other guy so he is unable to continue his attack. Self-defense/martial arts/fighting is all about causing injures to your attacker which will cause his body to shut down and to be physically unable to continue his attack and anything else is of lesser importance.

The Proper Steps to Self-Defense

2008-10-04T10:26:00.003-04:00

By Matthew Schafer

When it comes to learning self-defense many people just jump right in without really knowing what they need to learn or even what needs to be accomplished in order for them to be able to defend themselves if need be.

If you’re interested in learning to defend yourself then there are six basic steps you need to take.

1) The first and foremost step you have to take is to make the conscious decision to take responsibility for your own safety. Until you make that decision and accept that commitment you won't be truly mentally prepared. If you don’t make the conscious decision then you won’t be committed to any course of action and when you are attacked you’ll tend to just freeze because you’re brain, not having been given a plan for this situation, doesn’t know what course of action to take.

2) The second step is to educate yourself. You need to learn who is most likely to attack you and how they will do it. You need to learn what makes people attack, how criminals think, how they commit their crimes, how they choose their victims, how to spot them, what to do if you spot them, and how to stop them just to name a few.

3) The third step is to learn awareness techniques that will allow you to spot potential criminals. This can't be stressed enough: if you're not being aware of your surroundings and looking for criminals you most likely won't spot them and then you’ll be taken by surprise and there will be very little anyone can do for you.

4) The fourth step is that you need to learn techniques for de-escalating potentially violent situations like arguments and aggressive confrontations. About 80% of all assaults happen during or just after arguments so if you can de-escalate them you remove about 80% of your threats right there. If you don't know these things you most likely won't have the opportunity to use any self-defense technique let alone a weapon like a gun.

5) The fifth step to take a reliable course in self-defense. To be really rounded out you need to be able to defend yourself from basic grabs, holds, punches, kicks, knives, clubs, firearms, and multiple attackers, but any amount of learning will help you survive. An attacker isn't going to stand back, put their arms up, and fight you like a boxer; instead they will most likely rush you and be on you like an angry pit-bull repeatedly overwhelming you with punches, pushes, and foul language. When this happens you need to have the ability to use your own body and bodyweight to cause severe and debilitating injuries to them.

At a minimum these are the 5 steps you need to take. If you’re really serious about learning to defend yourself you can also take the next steps as well.

6) An additional sixth step that you can take is to learn to use “improvised weapons”. Improvised weapons are ordinary items that can be used to cause injuries; these include books, bags, ink pens, magazines, hairspray, keys, combs, dirt and sand, and pretty much any other item. For the ordinary citizen knowing how to use improvised weapons is far more important than traditional weapons because, as stated in what we refer to as the "rule of thumb", you only use what is already in your hands at the time you attacked to defend yourself, and you are far more likely to have these items in your hands when violence happens to you. Unless you're well trained and prepared you probably won't have pepper spray in your hands, and there is a very small chance that someone will attack you while you're holding a gun, but you just may have an ink pen in your hand.

7) An additional seventh step you can take it to learn to use “personal weapons”. Personal weapons are ready made devices designed and sold for the purpose of self-defense. These items include pepper spray, tactical flashlights, stun guns, retractable batons, personal alarms, knives, and others. I suggest learning to use these before you learn to use guns because there are a lot of places that you can't take guns but you can take pepper spray. You can't take a gun on a plane or into various foreign countries but you can take an ink pen or a tactical flashlight (a tactical flashlight is a small flashlight that shoots a high intensity light that blinds an individual and gives you the opportunity to run away or close distance to them and cause injuries). Most states have laws against various personal weapons so you need to check with your individual state, but simple improvised weapons are legal everywhere.

8) An additional eighth step that you can take is to learn to use firearms. Guns are great tools but they are not the ultimate self-defense tool. Shooting can be a lot of fun and I believe that it is a great experience as well as an effective means of defending yourself. If you are interested in buying a gun please read the article entitled "Can't I Just Buy A Gun?" (http://www.self-defense-lessons.com/cantijustbuyagun.htm) to read more about this topic.

The Five Keys To Situational Awareness

2008-10-04T10:24:00.000-04:00

By Matthew Schafer

When you approach violent or aggressive people that you may come into conflict with you need to keep the following in mind:

1.) Hand Awareness. When people attack they use their hands as weapons so you need to notice where people's hands are. Are their hands behind them or in their pockets? If so they might be hiding a weapon. Are they in fists? If so, they might be ready to throw a punch. If their hands are in fists or out of view make sure that you give them more space so that you have more time to react if they do attack.

Also, if during the conversation they make fists, put their hands into their pocket, or hold their hands behind them you should take notice that they may be preparing to attack. Any time someone's hands come into their body you should be paying attention.

Always be aware if you see someone tapping or touching a certain part of their body every few minutes. If you see this, then chances are that the individual has a weapon and they are continually checking to make sure it is still there.

If possible approach someone from their right side. This is because most people are right handed and will use that arm to attack you or pull a weapon. If you are on their right side you will have the ability to smother their attack and to control their arm faster than if you are standing on another side. This also limits you exposure to him if he attacks; by standing on his side it is very hard for him to attack you.

2.) "4 Foot" Awareness. If people are going to try to sucker punch you they'll do it as soon as you're close enough. When you're walking towards someone, or vise versa, be aware of the point where they come within arms reach because that's when it'll happen.

Imagine a barrier about 4 feet away and when they cross it be prepared for them to attack you, either with a sucker punch or a kick, because that's most likely when it'll happen. To prepare for this you should do two things, first focus your eyes on the center of their chest because this will let you see when they attack (this was covered in Level-1 and Level-3). If they come at you with their hands or legs you'll see them first rotate their bodies and then move their shoulders or hips and you'll be start defending yourself at their initial movement. Bring your arms into your body and if they do punch, grab, or kick you just keep walking forwards, bring your hands up, and rotate your body towards the attacking limb. This movement will deflect their attack and knock them off balance.

3.) Personal Space Awareness. Everyone has their own zone of personal space that gives them comfort. For most people this is 3 or 4 feet out from their bodies, or about arm's length. When you speak to someone that is violent or aggressive you want to make sure you stay out of their personal space so they don't feel crowded and get aggressive. You should try to keep about 5 to 6 feet of space between the two of you.

This will also be to your advantage should they attack you because since they're a ways away from you, you'll have more reaction time to deal with them.

The last part of "personal space awareness" is keeping your weapons, if you have any, from them. If you have a gun, radio, or pepper spray on one hip you should stand with your other side to them so that your left side blocks them from grabbing your weapon.

4.) Peripheral Awareness. When you're dealing with a potentially dangerous situation you need to focus on detecting movement because it is movement that will let you know when an attack is on the way. You have two basic types of vision which are "focus vision" and "peripheral vision". Focus vision is your direct line of sight and it is used to identify items and communicate with others. Your peripheral vision is everything you see outside of your direct line of sight and is designed to pick up movement, focus vision is not.

When you're approaching someone use your focus vision to check and see where their hands are for a couple of seconds and then focus on using your peripheral vision to pick up any movement around them and around you. Make sure to check your right and left sides to look for other people.

When you're talking to somebody every few seconds use your peripheral vision to see their movement as well as scan the surrounding area for the movement of others. If you're interviewing them and writing things down then every few seconds bring your eyes up and use your peripheral vision to scan the area.

When you're entering a room it is very easy to get "tunnel vision". It is usual for a person to look through a doorway and see something in a room and be so focused on it while they enter a room that they never see someone hiding on the other side of the doorway. To combat this tunnel vision while entering rooms, simply look through the doorway and see the spot where the floor meets the wall at the far side of the room and look just a few inches above it. Then bring your focus away from your direct line of sight and focus on your peripheral vision while you enter the room. This way as soon as the person hiding on the other side of the doorway comes into your site you'll notice them and any movement they make.

5.) Strike Awareness. A method often used to sucker punch people when you're both close together is for them to act as if they're disengaging from you to lure you into a state of calm and then to quickly attack with a strike. Typically this is done by the person: 1.) looking away from you as if they've suddenly become disinterested with you and then suddenly throwing a punch at you, 2.) Turning their body to the side and then quickly coming back with a punch, or 3.) turning around completely and then turning back and throwing a punch at you. Therefore, if someone acts like their suddenly backing down or turns away from you be ready for a punch. If you see that you should either bring your hands into your body, focus on their center to see the punch coming, and prepare to either defend from the punch or move in and control them, or just quickly back up so you are out of range.

There are also a few other signs that people are getting ready to attack. These include: making fists, widening their eyes, tightening their facial muscles, reaching into their pockets, lowering their chin, and setting their weight into a stance. If you see any of these either get ready to defend yourself, move in and control them, or back up to get out of range.

The Case For Studying Self-Defense

2008-08-10T12:02:00.000-04:00

By Matthew Schafer

The other day I did some grocery shopping right after teaching a self-defense class, and while I was inspecting some apples I noticed the woman standing next to me make an odd face. I looked up to see a woman in perhaps her late fifties staring at my school logo which was printed at my shirt. With a still scrunched up face she said, "What...do you teach karate or something?" I then explained to her that I taught self-defense classes for a living, and her response was to roll her eyes, sigh, and comment that she didn't know why people wasted their money on "that" kind of thing because we live in a safe town and if there is a problem the police are only a phone call away.

"We live in a county with five different police agencies so it is beyond me why someone would give you one cent", she said. I replied, "You're right, but I'd suppose that you venture out of the county from time to time. Perhaps go on vacations..." "We have cell phones now", she snapped, "If someone needed help you could call from anyplace". I just smiled and replied, "Well, it seems that I'm a practitioner of a useless profession" and I then walked away (which reminds me that I still need to buy apples).

You can't really argue with people who are committed to a fantasy, and the idea that the police will be there whenever we need them is just that. Let's clear something up right now, the police are a great and valuable service provided to us by our government, but the average response time for the police from the time you call 911 is usually around 10 to 15 minutes, but it can even be up to 30 minutes or more. If a police officer happens to be in the area he or she might be able to be there in only 10 minutes but the thing is that most violent crimes are committed in less than a minute with most taking only a few seconds.

It may surprise you to know that today 70% of bank robbers get away. That's right 70%! How? Since police response times are generally around 10-15 minutes from the time the silent alarm is sounded, bank robbers just make sure that they're in and out of the bank in anywhere from 3-6 minutes. They go in, rob the bank, run out, and by the time the police show up the robbers are just another car driving down the road possibly miles away. Getting away with robbing a bank is all about beating the police's response time.

If some low-life who's walking down the street spots you, decides that the money in your wallet is just what he needs to finance his drug habit, and then starts walking over to you, do you honestly think that the police are going to show up in time to protect you from him. Chances are that he will confront you, accost you, and run away before you even realize exactly what's going on, let alone have the time or even the chance to dial 911.

If all you have to do is pick up the phone and dial 911 and the police will show up and save the day, then how do you explain the fact that in America a woman is sexually assaulted every two and a half minutes?

Consider this unfortunate story: On March 16th, 1975, three women were living in a townhouse in Washington DC. It was late at night and they were sound asleep when they were awakened by the sound of their back door being kicked in by three men. Two of the men quickly found one of the women in bed on the second floor and began to beat and violate her. The two other women hid on the third floor, called 911, and then went out the window onto the roof to hide. After a while they saw a police car slowly drive past their house but it never stopped, so the women bravely went back into the house where they again called the police and then went back out onto the roof.

After a half hour the women didn't hear anything from inside the house so they assumed that the police had arrived without them noticing or that the intruders had left so they went back inside to find their friend believing that they were safe. However, the intruders were waiting for them and all three women were viciously beaten and rapped...for 14 horrible hours.

Luckily all three women survived and they sued the Washington DC Police Department. The case lasted for years and the last appeal was ruled on in 1981 when the DC Court of Appeals said: "The duty to provide public services is owed to the public at large and, absent a special relationship between the police and an individual, no specific legal duty exists". In plain english what this means is the police can't be everywhere at once and they have no actual legal duty to help you.

Think about that for a minute, while we have some extremely fine men and women on the police forces in our country, they actually have no legal duty to help you. Even if the police do show up when you need them there is no guarantee that they can protect you. They may show up and tell you that legally there is nothing they can do, or they may end up being victims themselves. There have been numerous cases around the country where police have responded to an emergency and ended up being shot, killed, taken hostage, or had other horrible things happen to them.

Bottom line, you and you alone are responsible for your own safety. It is your job to keep yourself safe and protect yourself and your family from criminals, and it’s the job of the police to show up usually afterwards and arrest the bad guys. Once the criminals are arrested you then hope that they go to jail and stay there because after being arrested most criminals are booked, arraigned, make bail, and are back out on the street just a few hours later.

Crimes happen fast and if you don't know how to protect yourself then there really isn't a whole lot the police can do for you. It is imperative that people learn how to defend themselves because the truth is when a criminal attacks it really is just you and him. If you know how to defend yourself then there is a good chance that you can walk out of the incident safe and unharmed, but if you don't know how to defend yourself then you really have to rely on the hope that the criminal is satisfied with only taking your money.