Truku / Atayal Knife

I  recently spent a few weeks on vacation in Taiwan, and with some difficulty managed to find a large knife or small sword made by the Truku aboriginal tribe, formerly classified as part of the Atayal people.  Aside from it being a unique weapon, I thought I’d post directions to the blacksmith shop for anyone who may be in Taiwan and searching for it, since it was relatively difficult to find.

If you’re like I was, you primarily associate Taiwan with the Chinese, the country where Chiang Kai-shek fled to escape the communists.  I was interested in visiting China without the Cultural Revolution, to see traditional Chinese culture that hadn’t been wiped out by both the Cultural Revolution and the extreme modernization where “to be rich is glorious”.  And in that sense, Taiwan didn’t disappoint.  The National Palace Museum in Taipei contains the largest collection of ancient Chinese artifacts in the world, for example, as when the nationalists fled mainland China, they brought many treasures with them.  Traditional Chinese culture seemed to be alive and well in Taiwan, and talking with locals, they voiced the same idea regarding having a better preserved traditional culture than what you’ll find in much of the mainland.

But anyway, Taiwan is much more than the Chinese who fled there.  There is a large population of native inhabitants, or Taiwanese aboriginal tribes.  Driving along the east coast, in the Rift Valley, or in the mountainous areas of the country, the smaller towns are more aboriginal than Chinese.  The scenery is spectacular, particularly in and around the the Taroko and Yushan National Parks.  There are countless hikes on well maintained trails, including very long and high suspension bridges:

Walami Trail

In the aboriginal areas, most towns have statues like these at the entrance on the main streets:

Taiwanese Aboriginal Statue

Every one of the statues we saw included the traditional knife/sword:

Aboriginal Statue

Before I left for Taiwan, I did a search on Netflix for Taiwanese movies, and came across a movie called Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale.  The movie is about the Wushe Rebellion, an uprising against the Japanese by the Seediq tribe in 1930.  Here’s the trailer:

The movie may not be entirely accurate, but I highly recommend it if you like action movies.  It was filmed in Taiwan, and the scenery is exactly what you see there, particularly in the aboriginal areas and national parks.

After seeing the movie and the unique blades of the Seediq, I figured I’d have to find one for myself.  The Seediq tribe are from the Hualien area of Taiwan, and were previously grouped together with the Truku tribe as Atayal people.  The weapons of the Atayal, Seediq, and Truku are indistinguishable, at least from what I can tell.  So I searched and searched, found a few pictures of the traditional knives being sold in Taiwan, but was unable to locate them where they had been previously seen.

At our hotel in the Taroko National Park, I met an Atayal man and asked him if the knives were still being made and where I could find them.  He gave me directions to what may be the last aboriginal blacksmith in the country who is still making these weapons.

Tonglan Blacksmith Shop

Here is an article I found in English about the shop.  The only way to get there is with your own transportation.  My wife and I had rented a car, but even with directions it was difficult to find.  Hopefully the following images will make it easier.  The shop is located on Huadong Rd. in a village called Tongmen.  Here it is on a map:

Tonglan Blacksmith Shop Map

And here is a closer satellite view of the town:

Atayal, Seediq, Truku Knife Shop

If you’re coming from Hualien and taking Highway 9, you’ll see the big lake, and should be able to find the shop from there.  The problem for anyone, such as myself, who cannot read Chinese characters, is that even with a GPS you will not be able to enter in the location.

The shop was empty when I arrived.  I got out of the car and walked around a bit, saw a girl walking down the street, and gestured toward the shop.  She slid the door right open and sold me the knife pictured at the top of this post.  Here’s another image:

Atayal / Truku Knife

I had actually hoped to purchase a full sized sword, as they’re made with the same design in a variety of sizes.  A Google Image search for “atayal sword” will pull up several examples, such as this one from a site displaying Atayal cultural items:

Atayal Sword

Unfortunately though, it seems like the swords are no longer made.  However, the knife I was able to purchase (for about $100), is fairly large at 22 inches.

From what I’ve read, the unique open sheath design is used to keep moisture from collecting inside the sheath.  Taiwan is extremely humid, and it rains often.  So this makes sense.

It’s sad when quality elements and arts of traditional cultures die out, so I’m posting the information above in hopes that anyone else looking for a Taiwanese aboriginal knife or sword will be able to find the shop and keep them in business…keeping the art alive!

Sparring is essential if you’d like to be able to apply your techniques on another human being.  Anyone who trains sport based systems knows this.  Unfortunately, there are still a great many people practicing traditional martial arts and even “reality based self defense”, who either don’t spar at all, or do so very poorly.

I recently received an email from one of my site subscribers (you can subscribe to get free tips and info here) asking for help with a problem.  When he’d try to fight, he couldn’t use any of the techniques he was training and he couldn’t stay calm.  I recommended he do more sparring, in order to learn to apply his techniques and get accustomed to dealing with a resisting opponent.  He wrote back and told me he was training wing chun, and that at the school he goes to they cannot hit above the chest in training.  Of course, if you can’t practice hitting someone in the head, and defending against someone who is trying to hit you in the head, you’re not going to be able to do it in reality either.

Sparring shouldn’t be difficult or scary.  The video on my boxing page demonstrates a very easy sparring progression, starting with simple, basic techniques, and adding on as a practitioner feels comfortable.  You can begin with a single attack and a single defense, and only add additional techniques and defenses when you feel you’ve got the first one down.  As you get more comfortable, increase the intensity.  Go a bit faster, and a bit harder.  In no time at all, you’ll be sparring at a high level of intensity, using your techniques, and staying mentally calm and relaxed.  Without sparring, you won’t have a chance.

Sparring for Sport vs. Self Defense

Most combat sports, from boxing and wrestling to MMA, have rounds with time limits.  Usually, the time limits are fairly long compared to the time a real assault takes place in.  And, the way these systems train and fight has been influenced by these time limits more than many people might imagine.

When I first started boxing, I asked my boxing coach about using a boxing blast, a continuous, high pressure assault that doesn’t stop until your opponent is on the ground.  Such a blast doesn’t work all that well in the sport of boxing, as boxers will simply clinch in response, for example, preventing additional techniques from being thrown.  In self defense, the clinch wouldn’t stop the blast.  It would continue in the form of knees, elbows, throws, locks, chokes, etc.  But one thing my boxing coach said stuck with me.  He said that the techniques and sport of boxing is based on 3 minute rounds.  If a round lasted 5 seconds, boxing would look very different.  Boxing would look more like two people using a blast.

The 5 Second Round

Sport based sparring tends to have a back-and-forth quality to it.  For example, one person attacks, the other evades and then counter attacks.  The counter attack gets blocked or misses, nothing lands, and they break.  People move in and out, and rarely attack with 100% intensity.  They need to last 3 minutes, 1 minute, or even just 30 seconds.  But in a real assault, the outcome of the assault is often decided in the first second or two.  Five seconds is a long time in an assault.

While sparring for longer durations is definitely beneficial, as you have more time to learn in a low to moderate intensity environment, for self defense, you should also train very short rounds that are more likely to mirror a real assault.  Next time you spar, after warming up with a regular round, try a few 5 second rounds.  What do you need to do differently?  Can you apply the lessons you learn to your regular sparring?

Granted, neither you nor your opponent may “win” in five seconds.  But sometimes you will.  You’ll learn valuable lessons.  And your training will be closer to what you’re likely to face in the unfortunate event of a real assault.

I’ve just uploaded the video above, which includes a bit of light environmental self defense training.

The vast majority of self defense and martial arts training takes place in well lit, clean rooms with very few objects to trip over, slip on, get slammed into, or slam your opponent into.  Natural environments are very different to say the least.  The average room in a house or place of business is full of furniture that can both hurt or help your self defense efforts.  You can run or slam your opponent into the corner of a table or desk, slam his head into the corner of a building, into a tree, or shove him into a parked car, badly breaking his balance if not worse.  Of course, your opponent can also use the environment against you.

To be able to use your techniques in a natural environment, you must practice in them.  The above video demonstrates a drill using natural objects as evasive barriers, light boxing style sparring, and a stick fighting drill.  There are many more drills you can do in such environments, and in the future I’ll add more videos on the subject.

If you’re practicing self defense or martial arts, make sure you’re training in natural environments!

Maija Soderholm recently posted here, questioning the value of prearranged training sequences.  There’s a good bit of discussion in the comments, and then in her follow up post, here.  I responded with a few comments in those posts, but figured the topic would also be good for another post on this blog.

There were references in the comments of Maija’s first post to Matt Thornton’s concept of “aliveness”.  In the early 90′s, prior to MMA becoming popular, Matt railed against common traditional martial arts practice, which was (and still is very often) dominated by prearranged solo and partner drills, with very little sparring.  Matt’s point was and still is that fighting is alive.  There is real motion, timing, and resistance.  Your opponent will be uncooperative.  Prearranged pattern training on the other hand is dead.  Matt started calling prearranged patterns “dead patterns”, and the name stuck for many people.

I agree with Maija and Matt’s thoughts on the negative aspects of dead patterns.  Real fighting is random, not at all prearranged, and your opponent will be completely uncooperative.  In prearranged training, most of that is missing entirely.  Maija also made a great point that prearranged training prearranges success, which must be fought for in reality.

Back when Matt was all over martial arts forums arguing for aliveness and against dead patterns, I was on the other side on the dead pattern issue.  I agreed with him on aliveness, but disagreed that dead patterns were useless.  Some of that disagreement was due to my misunderstanding of what he was talking about.  Because prearranged patterns are “dead”, lots of fantasy techniques and unrealistic training ends up being spawned from them.  Sombrada (a common prearranged stick pattern) is a good example.  The idea to put a series of realistic attacks and counter attacks into a pattern, to drill for repetitions, doesn’t sound so bad on the surface.  I didn’t think it was.  But I wasn’t aware how most people were doing that pattern, as this was before YouTube, and no one in my area was doing it.  I learned sombrada at a seminar in 1993, very quickly, and unknowingly ended up doing it in a way that most people didn’t.  I made a video around 2000 to send to a couple of other instructors.  I posted it to YouTube in 2008:

I no longer train or teach sombrada.  But the above video still demonstrates the difference between using functional techniques inside of a dead pattern vs. non-functional techniques.  There is a very important and significant difference.

But if you can get the same benefits from random training and sparring as you can from prearranged, dead patterns, then why train such patterns at all?

Every Training Method Has Weaknesses

At least for training that involves striking, every training method has weaknesses.  Grappling/wrestling is a bit different.  You can train the majority of grappling techniques safely, and stop locks or chokes just before they cause damage.  Some people do argue that stopping an arm bar, for example, before you break your partner’s arm, or letting go of a choke when your partner taps out, will cause you not to finish the technique in reality.  My view is that that argument is BS, but that’s beyond the scope of this particular post.  In grappling, prearranged patterns offer nothing that you can’t get from random, alive training.

In sparring that focuses on or includes striking however, you can’t train with full intensity without being injured.  So you limit the techniques that can be used, you limit the speed and power, you limit the follow through, and/or you wear protective training gear.  Each of those components that are one degree removed from real fighting, creates a weak link in the chain.  So you use other training methods to compensate.  You train full power striking on a heavy bag or on focus mitts, to compensate for the lack of power development in sparring, for example.  In stick fighting, you may strike a tire as fast and hard as you can.

But what about being on the receiving end of full speed and power techniques, without safety gear, and without the need to limit techniques or “pull punches”?  You don’t get that from sparring, and you don’t get it from striking a bag or tire.

Prearranged training does have serious weaknesses, but it also has at least one serious strength.  It allows you and your partner to practice at 100% intensity, at 100% speed and power, with very little chance of injury.  Such training can take place for any duration.  You can train a single boxing jab against an evasion, catch, or cover, over and over again.  You can train a single stick attack against a single block or evasion, over and over again.  And you can do it at 100% intensity.  You can also string attacks and counter attacks together in a repeating pattern.  But they must be realistic techniques done at a realistic range.

The Downsides of Random, Low Intensity Training

As bad as the downsides of prearranged training are, random, alive training can be equally bad.  At low levels of speed and power, a great many techniques can work that would absolutely fail in reality.  There is a major difference between 50% or even 70% intensity and 100% intensity.  At lower levels of intensity, practitioners aren’t required to move the way they must at higher levels.  Strikes don’t knock people down or back.  Combinations that wouldn’t be possible due to the dynamic movement that occurs under real, full pressure, become possible.  Fantasy recoveries and counter attacks become possible.  And practitioners don’t realize these techniques would fail under pressure.

At lower levels of speed and power, balance is also different.  You can strike from positions you couldn’t have otherwise.  You have unrealistic amounts of time to attack, evade, and counterattack.

But none of that means random training at less than 100% is automatically bad.  It does have weaknesses.  And those weaknesses can spawn fantasy techniques and ideas, just as they can in prearranged training.

The Power of Prearranged, Full Intensity Training

Prearranged training allows you to safely train at 100% intensity, at 100% speed and power.  And the benefit of experiencing your partner coming at you with all the speed and power he can muster is extreme.  The benefit of doing that type of training on a regular basis is even greater.  It gets you accustomed to a full speed and power attack, as most real attacks will be.  In fact, if you and your partners train at 100% intensity regularly, your speed and power will be so much greater than that of the average attacker, that an average attack will feel weak and much easier to deal with.

Maija mentioned a drill she’s done that allows the use of full speed and power + random attacks, where once practitioners are good enough, person 1 attacks person 2 with full power, single, random machete angles.  Person 2 only blocks.  This kind of partially prearranged training would likely provide much of the benefit of entirely prearranged training.  And you can add on to such drills.  In the random flow video below for example (I got the idea from Maija), we’re adding certain types of counters to somewhat random attacks, where the attacker and defender’s motions are partially prearranged.  We’re not going at 100% in the video, but there’s no reason we couldn’t.

So there is a way to train at full intensity with random elements.  However, I see additional benefits to doing prearranged drills of longer duration, if they’re composed of realistic, functional techniques.  Stringing together a series of attacks and counter attacks increases the time at which you’ll be continuously training at 100% intensity.  And in my experience, the increased duration makes a big difference.  It develops the ability to attack at 100% for an extended period, and to defend against full intensity attacks for an extended period.  When there are random elements, there are artificial breaks in the action, and the duration is short.

In addition to increases in the use of and defense against full intensity techniques, training such prearranged drills ingrains/conditions techniques like no other training method I’ve used.  I’m not exactly sure why, but I suspect it has to do with the fact that to do such drills with full intensity you cannot think about the techniques you’re doing.  That’s also true for random flowing and sparring, and for short durations in high intensity training with random elements.  But training as hard and fast as you can without thought, for an extended duration, seems to produce even stronger conditioned responses in myself and those I’ve taught.

For about my first 10 years of practice, I trained and taught full intensity, prearranged drills.  For the next 5 years or so, I abandoned them for the most part.  I quit doing them in my own private training, and only did them with a few older students who wanted to keep them up.  The reason I abandoned them, was because I felt they were too unrealistic due to their prearranged nature, and I saw no short term benefit in teaching them.  Students who spent time doing random drills and sparring quickly outpaced students who spent more time on prearranged drills.

But after years of giving these drills up, I noticed that both myself and my students were missing something.  We were missing the higher level skills and reactions that come from regular full intensity training.  (It may also be possible to get this type of intensity from fighting competitively.  However, most of my students were not interested in doing so, and neither was I.  And, you can do full intensity training much more frequently than real fighting without the corresponding injuries.)  When I added this training method back to my practice, I very quickly noticed my skills increasing.

Diversity Is Best

If a practitioner could only either choose all random training or all prearranged training, I’d choose random training easily.  Fights are random.  Attacks are not prearranged.  Random, alive training with progressive resistance and uncooperative partners is the key to developing functional skills.  But no one is limited to a single training method.  Because every training method has weaknesses, it’s ideal to use a diversity of methods to compensate for the shortcomings of each one individually.  All training should be functional.  All training should have an understood purpose.  Prearranged, dead pattern training fits well in the mix, as a way to supercharge your speed and power, and get you accustomed to dealing with full intensity attacks, regularly.

Shield – Papua New Guinea

I’ve been disappointed with a couple of people recently.  Sometimes, for moments, I find it hard to understand how someone can seem so right in one regard but so wrong in another.  I figure it’s a common case of cognitive dissonance.

Years ago, I came up with a saying that I think is very important to keep in mind: The only thing I know is that I don’t truly know anything, and I don’t even know that.

When you think you know something, you close your mind to alternative possibilities.  When new information comes to light, you’re unable to see it.  It’s essential to realize that you don’t truly know anything.  Doing that allows you to maintain an open mind.

And a mind that is open is necessarily in a constant state of change.  There is no such thing as “changing your mind” when it’s open.

But there’s more to it than that.

Doxology

When I use the term doxology, I’m referring to the old use of the word doxa (common beliefs), and not the new use (praise or glory).

The Kunsthistorisches Museum (Ethnology Museum) in Vienna, Austria is one of my favorite museums.  In the catalog for an exhibit called Fetish Modernity, Mats Rosengrens wrote an essay titled Doxology: For a Contemporary Protagoreanism.  That essay does an outstanding job of pointing to the problem not only with common knowledge, but especially with what is so ordinary to us…so ordinary that we don’t even think to question it.

About knowledge in general, he writes:

…our knowledge is always formulated and/or preserved in some language, institution or ritual; practiced and upheld by one or many individuals; in one historical moment or other and within the admittedly diffuse framework of an ever changing but still specific social situation.  All these factors codetermine our knowledge, make it a part of a fluctuating, always changing doxic situation.  So we have no reason to believe that our alleged universal human nature would be privileged and exempt from these aporias pertaining to all knowledge.  Each claim to universal knowledge is in fact always dependent on specific historical, social, and epistemic conditions.

And regarding why this is so rarely even considered, he writes:

Doxa is that which is never questioned, simply because nobody in the group ever thinks about questioning it.  Every group or domain that is more or less delimited has it’s own doxa – scholars as well as businessmen, politicians as well as artists.

Another PNG Shield

We may know there are certain things we don’t know, but there are many other things we don’t know that we don’t know.  The only way to get around this conundrum, is to admit that we don’t truly know anything.  Otherwise, we let the social conditions around us (society at large, family, friends, groups we belong to, etc.) dictate what we believe to be true, and how we see ourselves.

Practical Knowledge vs. Real Knowledge

Of course, we have to use our current understanding of the way things work in order to get along.  For practical purposes, we do have to assume many things are practically true.  We assume that the sun will shine again tomorrow, that 2 + 2 = 4, and so on.  Based on our experience, we can make assumptions.  And these assumptions may be generally correct.  At least, correct enough for our current, practical purposes.

But that is different from real, absolute knowledge.  When you make the distinction, understanding that all knowledge is situationally limited, you maintain your open mind and your ability to learn…your flexibility to change around you.

Question Everything and Everyone

Hold no one above you.  Question everything.  Question everyone.  Continuously.

This is where my disappointment arises.

In the first system I taught, although I would have done so by nature anyway, my instructor told me to question everything.  He was ok with that, as long as I wasn’t questioning what he was doing.  When it was his doxa, it wasn’t my place to question.  It was disappointing.  He knew better, and I needed to follow along.  So I quit.

I took two other instructors along with me.  And although they both realized there were problems with believing what we had been teaching was functional, the pull of doxa was too much for one of them.  Un-knowledge wasn’t nearly as attractive as believing, or somehow pretending he did.

It’s unfortunate, but I’ve had very few long term teachers.  I’ve had a couple more that also said one should ask questions.  But once those questions came up against their doxa, things became rather sour.

Sifu, Sensei, & Master Titles and Implications

This applies not only to martial arts/self defense:  You’ve got trouble when your teacher has you call him sifu, sensei, or master.  Or, when you call him Mr. Smith and he calls you Bobby.  He likely holds himself above you, and he wants you to do the same.  He wants you to believe him, not to question him.  When you do that, you’re on the path to martial arts group-think.

But the wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing can be even more insidious.  Some instructors will tell you to call them by their first name, pretending to be open to questions and questioning.  However, they’ll be sure to let you know that they know something you do not.  They’ll try to reinforce their desired position regularly.  They’ll try to assert dominance in ways you may not realize.  They’ll be your master, and you won’t even know it.

In either case, if you don’t fall for it, if you question their doxa, things will quickly sour.

The Qualifications Trap

It shouldn’t surprise me, but it still does.  When I see that a person has certain qualifications, often many of them, especially when those qualifications include “real life” applications, I have some expectation that their ability will match their qualifications.  But it very often does not.  Or, the qualifications were meaningless to begin with.  It’s surprising how often that is the case.  Qualifications are meaningless.

The Importance of Doxology

According to Mats Rosengrens, doxology is a model for understanding that all knowledge is situational.  It may be practical, but it’s also relative.  It is not absolute.  Remember that.  Question it.  And most definitely, question me, too.

I’ve recently added the video above to my knife page, covering common knife vs. knife techniques and training drills, why many of them won’t work in reality, and functional unarmed defense against knife attacks.  In addition to the specific techniques and training methods shown in the video, it demonstrates a number of important concepts that can and should be taken into account in all self defense training.

Why Most Knife Training Doesn’t Work

Common knife training isn’t unique in that it doesn’t apply well in reality.  Most martial arts don’t work in self defense.  So it shouldn’t be surprising that styles that focus on or include weapons training are any different.  In fact, the inclusion of weapons often makes systems worse, since it’s even harder to train realistically with deadly weapons.  When you can’t slash or stab your partner with a real knife, for example, it’s easy to make something up that may sound good, but turn out to be inaccurate.  The inability to train with live weapons also causes people to do things they’d never actually do if the weapons were real.  Those issues combined with the usual ineffective training due to low levels of resistance, cooperative training partners, and martial arts group-think, are particularly problematic.

Instant Kills

Many people are taught and/or assume that getting slashed or stabbed with a knife will stop an opponent immediately.  It rarely will.  I’ve known a few people who were stabbed, and read about many more, who didn’t even realize they were stabbed until after the encounter was over.  I was with a guy once who was shot next to me.  We ran a couple of blocks and then stopped for a moment, before he realize there was a hole blown straight through his hand.

Lots of knife training drills, from long range sparring to “defang the snake” patterns, are based on the opponent being immediately disabled with a single unattached technique.  Aside from this unlikely possibility, what if you miss?  What if your opponent is wearing thick clothing?  If you’re going knife vs. knife and you either miss or your opponent isn’t instantly disabled, what position will you be in?  Will your failed action be an opportunity for your opponent?  In many common knife drills, it will.  Underestimating the extreme chaos and pressure of a real knife attack can be a serious, deadly mistake.

Fantasy Techniques and Knife Disarms

When your training partner is cooperating with you, even if he is resisting (there is an important difference between resisting and being uncooperative), anything can work.  Because most training isn’t taken to an uncooperative level, countless fantasy techniques and disarms have arisen.  I’ve watched highly regarded instructors do completely unrealistic disarms one after another, as their cooperative partner pulls 10+ knives off his belt and gets repeatedly and instantly disarmed with each attack.

On my self defense training page, I mention the I Method for realistic training.  After a practitioner is introduced to a technique, which should only take a few minutes, he should then move to the isolation phase, where the technique is drilled with progressive resistance.  Eventually, in the integration phase, the technique should be trained against an uncooperative partner.  In armed and unarmed training, it’s extremely important that the practitioner progresses to the level where he tells his partner, “don’t let me do this”.

All of the fantasy knife techniques and crazy disarms would cease to exist if the attacker was told and honestly followed that one simple phrase: Don’t let me do this.

How to Get Control

Knife Defense Control Position

In knife defense, the primary goal is not to get cut.  The only way to avoid getting cut is to control your opponent.  You can control your opponent via striking/slashing/stabbing/blocking…through unattached methods.  But if you haven’t taken your opponent out, it will be a continuous battle in chaos, and the longer it goes on, the more likely it becomes that you’ll get cut.  One of the quickest and simplest ways to get full control of your opponent’s knife bearing limb, is to grab his arm with two hands (as demonstrated in the video at the top of this post).  Once you’ve got control of the knife, there are a great variety of ways to take out and/or disarm the attacker, that work under full, uncooperative resistance.

It’s counterintuitive that unarmed knife defense can be safer than using a knife of your own, but putting something in your hand can limit the use of your hand as much as it can help, and when you need as much control as you can get, the limitations can outweigh the benefits.

Give your partner a fake knife, tell him not to let you make your defense work, to slash and stab you like his life depends on it.  Try getting the two-handed control, and I’m fairly certain you’ll find it works better than the vast majority of close range alternatives.

Unaware & Distracted

Now more than ever, we are bombarded with disruptions that keep us unaware.  If continuous mental chatter isn’t enough, we’ve got tweets, text messages, emails, phone calls, and urges to check this or that on our internet-connected devices.  The pace for many people is fast and continuous.

Humans are wired to pay attention to disruptions.  For most of our existence as a species, these disruptions were extremely important.  They were usually created by something living, and very often potentially one of two things: food or danger.  It makes sense that we paid attention to them.  But today, more often than not these disruptions are addictive, trivial, and rob us of awareness, skill, and maximum enjoyment.

One At A Time

Thinking is linear, and we can’t think about more than one thing in any given moment.  Although many people think they can multi-task well, they cannot.  In study after study, attempts at completing A, B, and C are degraded by mixing them…in everyone.  Both the time it takes to complete the tasks and the quality of the work is decreased when the tasks are mixed.  The best way to complete A, B, and C, is to do them one after another, with no disruptions.

In addition to humans being unable to do two things at once, at least things that require concentration or focus, it also takes our brains time to switch to being fully involved in one task to being fully involved in another.  Even if you only stop what you’re doing to glance at a tweet, text message, or email, you’ve just degraded your concentration.

How To Cultivate Awareness

Real awareness requires effort.  Try for just a moment to focus only on your breath.  Right now:  Breath in, and feel it without thought.  Breath out, and feel it without thought.  Do that 4 or 5 times in a row.  If you’re aware of what’s going on inside your head, you’ll quickly realize how difficult it is to silence your thoughts.  Your mind will continuously bombard you with this and that, often unnecessarily.

The next time you’re eating, don’t watch TV, read the paper, work on a computer, talk on the phone, send text messages, or surf the web on your smart phone.  Just eat.  Empty your mind, and really taste the food you’re eating.  If you’re eating good food, you’ll enjoy it many times more.  If you’re eating bad food, you’ll realize it.  Without being mindful and aware of what you’re doing in any given moment, you’ll miss out on the good and be unaware of the bad.

These days, it’s common for people in the middle of a real conversation to pull out their phone to read and send text messages or answer a call.  It distracts both participants of the conversation, and degrades our ability to be fully considerate, active, and present.

Whatever you’re doing, be mindful of it.  Eliminate disruptions.  You’ll notice how much richer your experiences become, and those you live and interact with will also benefit.

In the Zone: Active Non-focused Awareness

Eliminating technological disruptions, by giving yourself time to specifically return your messages for example (but not while you’re doing anything else!), would be easy if we weren’t addicted to these disruptions.  But many of us are.  However, eliminating them is worth the effort.  You’ll find yourself able to better focus on whatever you’re doing…to be present in the moment and maximize your experiences.

Eliminating mental disruptions, your own thoughts, is a lot harder.  It takes practice.  Find a quiet place to sit comfortably, feel your breathing, and quiet your mind.  Sit in awareness of the present, with nothing else.  With practice, you’ll be able to do it.  And you’ll start to notice things.  You’ll notice sounds and smells you didn’t notice before.  You’ll see things in a new light.  Quieting your mind is the key to being fully present.

The longer you practice this active, non-focused awareness, the more it will spill out into your everyday life.  Instead of walking to your car while checking your text messages, unaware of what’s around you, you’ll notice both the good and the bad (if it’s present).  The world will open up to you.

I used the phrase “non-focused awareness”.  It takes focus to achieve it, and that’s what initially makes it hard for everyone.  First, you’ll have to focus on quieting your mind, and you’ll have to maintain that focus to keep it quiet.  With that focus in place, you’ll have achieved a non-focused awareness.  It may be more accurate to call it a “focused, non-focus”, or a focused non-attachment.

Becoming More Skilled

Highly skilled practitioners, of anything, are fully aware and hard to distract.  Cultivating an active, non-focused awareness is the key to noticing what’s going on within and around you, and acting/responding efficiently and effectively.  With awareness, you’ll be better able to notice and correct your own mistakes, and to counter your opponents actions.  It’s no surprise that many martial arts place emphasis on meditation, and most high level athletes have some form of mental training, even if that’s done through the practice of their sport.

Start Today

Stop.  Regularly take time to sit in the present.  Eliminate distractions both internal and external.  You’ll become more aware, better at everything you do, and more skilled in your art.  You’ll also be able to fully enjoy the good in your life, and see and eliminate the bad.

Self Defense in 30 Seconds

I recently read a book that came out toward the end of last year, Self Defense in 30 Seconds, and highly recommend it.  It’s less than $4, so based on the price alone you really can’t lose.

When I saw the title I was a bit skeptical, as you obviously can’t learn to defend yourself in 30 seconds.  However, the title is in reference to something Rob Redenbach mentions on the first page: “In a real self-defense situation, once conflict becomes physical, you have, at best, thirty seconds to save yourself.”  And 30 seconds may be stretching it.

He goes through the anatomy of an attack, what fear means and how you should respond to it, confidence, self defense assumptions, your options in an attack, and concepts for unarmed, armed, and multiple attacker scenarios.  It’s a short book, and it’s all about concepts rather than techniques.  At points I found myself wishing the author would have written more.  But the concepts were both important and solid.  And, they were described with unique terminology and valuable points of view.

Probably my favorite chapter in the book was titled, “Your Options”.  Rob explains that even in an assault, you always have options.  I won’t list the way he breaks these options down (into six choices), as you should read the book yourself.  But I will say that one of them is to comply with what the attacker wants, in the event of a threat or request for something you have.  While this may sound obvious, realizing that you have a choice, and that compliance is one of them, keeps you in control.  If you determine that compliance is your safest choice, it’s a strategic choice in line with smart self defense.  Of course in some situations compliance is not an option, and Rob explains that as well.

I also appreciate that there’s a chapter titled “Fighting Fit”, where Rob begins: “Physical violence is, of course, violently physical.  Astonishingly, some people seem oblivious to this fact.”  I’ve seen plenty self defense and martial arts practitioners, both instructors and students, who are extremely out of shape, but put all their emphasis on “deadly” techniques or weapons.  The more physically fit you are, the less likely you’ll be successfully attacked.  It’s great that Rob makes that point as very few self defense instructors do, and he breaks it down into aerobic, anaerobic, balance, coordination, strength, etc.  Good stuff.

You can purchase the book at your preferred source on this page.  And FYI, I do not know Rob, and am not making any money if you buy his book.

New Pictures

It’s been more than a month since my last post.  I’ve been really busy with work, traveling, and getting pictures taken for two FSD books (more than 2,500 pictures done so far).  I’m hoping the first book is finished in 3-4 months, but these things generally tend to take longer than planned.

FSD Books

The first book is going to be on functional, unarmed self defense…from awareness and prevention to techniques, training, and strategy.  It’s going to be a very comprehensive book, with everything a person needs to learn unarmed self defense, and I’m excited about finishing it.

The second book is going to be on functional, armed self defense.  It’s going to cover using and defending against weapons…sticks, knives, machetes, palm sticks, everyday objects, projectiles, gun threats, and more.

If you’d like to know when the books are available, you can subscribe to my blog by clicking here, and/or leave your name and email address here to get free self defense material and updates.

Eventually I’d like to make instructional videos available too, but I haven’t decided if I’m going to do more books first or videos first that go with the two books above.  If you’ve got a preference, feel free to let me know either in the comments or via email.  The books are going to be available in physical form.  Would you also like them to be downloadable as an e-book?

A Bit On Awareness

Recently there have been a couple of attacks where people have told me there was nothing that could have been done to stop them…that the victims were assaulted all of a sudden, out of nowhere.  This never happens.  No attack happens all of a sudden, out of nowhere.  There are always causes, lead ups, pre-attack indicators, and/or signs of trouble.  Some attacks seem to happen out of nowhere, only to those who didn’t notice the lead up.  In the vast majority of cases (aside from crazy people committing mass attacks or similar), the lead up is visible to the victim(s) before the physical assault.  The key to seeing it is understanding violence and being aware enough to notice it.

I’ve stressed how important awareness and prevention are, a lot.  99% of the time that will be enough to stop a physical assault.  Next time you hear someone say an attack was unpreventable, or that it came out of nowhere, think about the causes, lead ups, and pre-attack indicators.  How did the attacker get close enough to the victim to make it seem like it came out of nowhere?  How could the lead up have been stopped?  What would have happened if the victim noticed the lead up and prevented it?

More Coming Soon

I should be back to posting more frequently now, so stay tuned for a lot more.  I’ve got 3 new items I’d like to post reviews on, a new camera to capture great footage for more free self defense videos, and a number of topics I plan on posting on.

Royal St.

I’m back in New Orleans for a couple of months, and have been staying in the French Quarter for the last 2 weeks. There are more hustlers and gangsters roaming the streets than I ever remember. And I’ve spent a lot of time in the Quarter. My parents moved here when I was in high school, and after college my wife and I rented apartments in the Quarter for a couple of years.

Last week I stopped a guy from robbing me, noticing he was going to try to sneak up on me in my driveway, cutting him off as he entered, and ending it verbally. And last night I stopped a street hustler after practicing the identical scenario in the morning and talking to my wife about it shortly before. It’s a great example of using awareness, distance, position, and verbal tactics to stop an attack before it happens, so I figured it would make a good post.

Where Is Bourbon Street?

I met my parents for dinner last night. My wife had our keys, and I called her to come open the door to the store below our apartment, after I walked back from dinner. As I was waiting for her to come down, a very large black man who was decently dressed and seemed like a local, walked up to me and asked, “You know where Bourbon St. is?”.

I mention the man was black for a couple of reasons. First, very few black people live in the Quarter. Having lived here, I know they tend to be tourists, locals who work in the Quarter, locals visiting bars, or locals attempting to hustle/rob people. This guy was alone, as few tourists and locals visiting bars are, he wasn’t dressed like someone who works in the Quarter, and he seemed local based on his accent. I knew it was highly likely that he was looking to hustle or rob someone, and that he knew where Bourbon street was. Second…I’ll get to in a moment.

I circle stepped a bit so he couldn’t pin me against the door, made a little distance, and said “one block over”. The guy tried to get closer, and asked the same question again, “You know where Bourbon St. is?”.  I kept my distance and said “one block over, keep it moving”.  He asked a third time, to which I said “get out of here”, and then “get the f#$@ out of here” as I took my knife off of my pocket. He backed off a bit.

Discounting No

In The Gift of Fear, Gavin de Becker covers 7 ways you know someone means you harm. One of those is “discounting no”. Although I didn’t exactly say “no”, telling the guy to “keep moving” and “get out of here” was a form of “no”. He discounted it. He ignored it. I knew the guy meant trouble. I didn’t want to leave as my wife was standing at the door (unwilling to open it so the guy couldn’t get in the store) and I wouldn’t have wanted to leave this guy knowing my wife was there in a closed shop. I pulled my knife primarily as a deterrent, leaving it closed, but ready to open and use it if necessary.

Typecasting

Another of the 7 ways you know you’ve got trouble is when an attacker attempts to “typecast” you. As the guy moved back he said “Why you judging me man?”.  I said again, “Get the f#$@ out of here”. He said, “Is it because I’m not white?”. His goal was to get me to apologize, to explain to him that I wasn’t a racist, so when he’d ask me again where Bourbon St. was he could ask me to show him and I’d feel I need to prove to him that I’m not a racist. Then as we’d turn the corner on a side street, he’d try to rob me. A cop I used to teach told me this is a common tactic used on tourists in the Quarter. (Another version of this scam was in the news two days ago, where the hustlers lured a guy onto a side street to sell him weed, and then ambushed him.)

So I’m not a racist. But I don’t care what this guy thinks. Besides, he knew exactly what he was doing by “discounting no”. He was trying to take control. And he knew exactly what he was doing implying I was a racist, typecasting to get me where he wanted me. But it didn’t work, precisely because I recognized the signs.

I grabbed the guy by his upper arm and led him 20 feet or so away, and he kept walking away from me when I let him go. Rather than allowing him to take control and get in a position where he could attack me by surprise, I maintained distance, position, control of the conversation, and physical control of him at the end. By understanding violence and prevention, I was able to stop a physical attack before it happened. That, should be where self defense ends.