Mindset
- Awareness for self defenseAll of the experts and novices alike espouse something like "be aware of your surroundings" but that isn't a lot of help. That level of advice will allow you to recognize a problem once you are already involved in it.
- Get a gun and... hope.This is precisely what I was talking about. Being afraid and having a gun is better than being afraid and not having one, but it's not that much better.
- Get a gun... andThe common response to some crime incident or self-defense item of news is that somebody should get a gun. I am all in favor of guns, the 2nd Amendment, concealed carry, and the like but it is not "THE" solution.
- Mental Conditioning for Self DefenseThe term 'Mindset' gets thrown around a lot in the self-defense and training community, and a lot of people don't really understand it or articulate it well. Many of the "Survivor Mindset" and "Warrior Mindset" proponents talk about mental attributes as if they were bolt-on parts and once fully kitted out you will be ready. I would argue that it is a little more complicated than that.
- Pain and InjuryIt is important to discriminate between pain and injury. From the standpoint of self defense this is pretty simple: injury reduces the physical ability to fight or pursue. Inflicting injury can cause pain as well (though not always immediately), but pain by itself does not take away an assailants actual ability to fight.
- ParanoiaThe people who do not recognize an urgency for self-defense preparation like to throw around the word, without really knowing what it means:
Suspicion and mistrust of people or their actions without evidence or justification.
Truthfully, everyone accepts that a certain level of preparation is relevant and necessary, but people disagree on where the line is to be drawn.
- Real Self Defense for WomenI have been reading quite a bit lately about women's self defense. For some reason this quickly turns into a gender politics debate and some kind of vehicle for feminist ideology. I thought that any discussion of self defense would revolve around protecting oneself and the people that one cared about.
- Stupidity vs. Gun Rights
- The Mugger's WalletI don't know that the "fake wallet" strategy is really all the new or innovative, but I do find the comments interesting. It seems that most of the people are operating on some internally generated fantasy of what a mugging might look like.
- The Totality of the SituationI use this phrase so frequently that I am sure my students are sick of hearing it. I repeat it so often because it is so important. Most self-defense training consists of drills or techniques and it easy to forget because of the constant repetition that there is not necessarily a stimulus-response relationship between a technique and a situation.
- Three BattlesIt is important for students of self defense to recognize that there are three battles that need to be won in order to be successful, and in fact loosing any one the battles is loosing the "war."
- Training Realism
- Training, Practice, and TestingA comparison between training, practicing, and testing.
- Use of ForceThe use of force chart is useful for private citizens to understand how the police (and the courts) tend to view a particular tool or technique. I make a lot of references to the use of force and forgot I hadn't posted this graphic.
- Your martial art probably isn't.The "martial" portion of the term should indicate that the "art" is directly related to military warfare. While many traditional arts can credit their development to how warfare was conducted prior to the widespread use of gun powder, a lot has changed a lot since then.
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