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30/06/2007 by richie.
You know whats wrong with society in the UK today?
People are soft.
People are whiny.
People suffer delusions of grandeur.
Weakness is indulged instead of being snuffed out at the source as it should be, like the dimly flickering, scented aromatherapeutic candle of whimsical wooly thinking floppiness that it is.
Back in the day, in the rugged hood of Greece when people liked a good old bit of battle, if your private army was struggling you could apply to the Spartans for aid.
The Spartans would typically send, not a small army in support as we might expect, but one man… a General.
It is not the resources we have a vailable to us that count but how we use them. Give up all excuses and self pitying whining, it will get you nowhere and the cold indiffernet stars will spin in their heavens whether you make it happen or not. Whether your “self esteem” is low or not.
Self esteem is an interesting subject. Why do people expect to have self esteem? It is a symptom of a life well lived. Why would you expect self esteem rotting away in a job you hate, with a partner you cant stand living to other peoples expectations and demands.
Expectation. Thats the other thing. We have leanrt to expect things. Support. Mercy. Help. Respect. Respect???!!!
How can anyone just expect respect. It is earned.
Typically the Spartan General would arrive to find an Army in dissaray. Not bad men, just men who gotten used to easy lifestyles and self centered material gain. They have lost all sense of “common good”, pride, discipline.
Sound familiar?
The Spartan Gneral would remedy this primarily by setting untis and regiments one against the other in competition. Nothing like a common enemy to draw people together in the attainment of a group goal. Nothing like competition to make people PUSH THEMSELVES to greater achievment.
Yes, push themselves. If you can motivate people to do that you are a leader. If all you can do is organise you at best a mangaer, at worst a bureaucrat.
There is no discipline but self discipline.
I can take away everything from you, punish you, imprison you even torture you but if you refuse to do a thing, it remains undone… if you are determined enough eventualy I will kill you with my coerscion.
See Ghandi, the gap toothed, ghetto nappy wearing gangster understood this priniple and he was a leader. He made people push themselves.
Back to our Spartan General. Isnt it dangerous having units of men at each others throats competitively? A little. So what? Back in the day, bar room brawls, insults and pranks were encouraged between regiments. Spartan children were taught to sing specific songs written to mock lazy/ weak men.
Shame is a great motivator.
People dont seem to feel it that much nowadays. Jerry Springer, Trisha and all the rest of that televisual excretia prove that. People will parade their addictions, infidelities and weaknesses with a kind of twisted pride in front of millions. Theses are the same benefit claiming, compenesation grabbing, emotional handicaps who weaken us from within.
Are they bad people? No. Do they lack the resources? No.
They just dont know any better.
Back to the Spartans… would this inter regiment rivalry lead to men being more likely to protect their fellow regiments on the battlefield or less?
Think about it.
People need a strong sense of who they are. This can only be developed through adversity.
Adversity. When a whining x factor wannabe stands in front of the judges and gets mown down by the high panted mr.cowell but mooed over by the motherly sharon… who is being cruellest?
Should we let people carry on with their ridiculous self delusions. Is that kindness?
What have you learnt most from? The good times or the bad times?
You ever recieved a good dressing down/ telling off/ moment of shock/panic and emotional turmoil that afterwards made you think… “I will never let that happen again.”
We can give people the adversity they are lacking in their lives.
In Russian Martial Arts they take pride in training with very little equipment and doing their work on hard wooden floors or concrete. They say that matts are a “bad friend” as they will cushion the blows for you. The floor is a “good friend” as the floor will let you know where you are going wrong.
Zen stories are full of masters violently/shockingly attacking students… what is the intent? to bully them? to break them? or to build them and make them?
The truth is the truth is the truth. Sometimes it hurts, but at least its real.
I found a great thing about human behaviour when I used to deliver seminars in schools. Mainly to “troubled” 16 year olds. I would get fantastic results from students who were branded “naughty”, “useless” or “stupid”. Why? Or more importantly, HOW?
People will react in the way you treat them. They will always resond to your expectations.
If I treat my students like young adults, guess how they try to respond? Like young adults! Its not hard is it?
If I baby you and assume you cant hack the truth and need molly coddling, guess how you react?
See the downward spiral?
My auntie. Lovely lady, heart of gold, Terrified of her own shadow. She hates driving and the experience frightens her. I used to be a professional driver as I owned my own little chauffeuring biz (one of my many manifestations) and I love to drive. I am a confident driver. I foolishly offered to give her a lift.
After just 5minutes of expert NLP hypnosis from my Auntie (she does this quite naturally and unconsciously) in the car with me I was a bag of nerves and actually started to repsond to HER expectations and HER projected standards. After 10 minutes I actually had the experience of feeling nervous pulling out of a junction.
I’ve lived in the centre of London. Terrifying other drivers by nipping out in front of them at a junction is just a little bit of fun to give yourself an adrenaline spike. Its cheaper than redbull.
You will act in the way in which I treat you. I expect the best from my Martial Art students and that is what I get. It is a given. Of course you can do it. Of course you can learn this straight away. Of course you are ready to move on to the next thing. Its easy and you are brilliant. How could it possibly be a problem?
This isnt idle pontification by the way. Educational psychologists have proven time and again that you can affect a students I.Q. score by altering their beliefs about themselves and the way the teachers treat them.
We should be tough. With ourselves. With each other. Like a pack of wild dogs, constantly fighting and rough with one another, then when an outsider tries it on your attitude will be… “hahahaaha! is that all you’ve got? come to me precious and I will introduce to whole new vistas of suffering and terror”
Im kidding obviously. But Im sure you take my point. Dont namby pamby people. Its not fair. On them!
Crush the delusions. Disillusion them. They may not thank you for it. They may hate you. So what?
Are you addicted to being liked?
Do you think people liked the Spartan Gneral who came over and started telling them the way things were going to be? Like? Popularity? I say a pox on popularity , I spit on the weakness and people pleasing it fosters.
Im sure the Spartan General would return every night to his tent, his cloak wet with tears that nobody wanted to invite him round for tea. His “self esteem” in tatters.
If he didnt get results, people would die, families would be killed or sold into slavery.
“Oh my job is so high pressure, I think Im suffering from stress, let me see my reiki therapist quick!”
You deserve: NOTHING
Nobody owes you anything
If you want it, Take it
Why are you asking permission?
Its down to you, to make it happen
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29/06/2007 by richie.
Unfortunately…
there are many unpleasant things one thinks of when one thinks of RBSD and its practitioners. I mean look at the guy who coined the term “RBSD” in all its blatant redundancy (Reality Based Self Defence? what else should self defence be based in? what does this “reality” distinction really mean in reality anyway???)
This man shall reamin nameless as I bear him no ill will personally BUT
scarcely is he seen out of military fatigues… the last video clip on self defence I saw him introduce he stepped proudly onto screen in a flak jacket, helmet, webbing and was sporing a H+K MP5 submachine gun- this for a video not on shooting, but unarmed combat. Necessary? Not really.
Some practitioners and instructors also fall into this rather unsightly “urban ninja” category. Unphysical, comic- book collector types, seminar junkies who squirrel away tactical kit and weapons in preparation for… something.
When taking the piss out of RBSD people it is customary to mock their combat pants, mal coordinated gangliness, “kill everyone and piss on their corpse” sentiment sprawled across the tshirt they picked up at the last seminar and the shouting and “faux” forced pseudo aggression that goes with a primary technique banged repetively loundly and usually quite ineefectually into a pad, simply called:
“The chin jab”
I dont know what the history of this technique is and frankly I dont really give a fuck who made it and where. There is an apalling snobbery in the world of RBSD around certain sacrosanct subjects and sacred cows: one of them is WW2 combatives.
Apparently this technique was “created” by those who developed the silent killing commando course of blah blah blah
Do you care? Does heaping historical fact upon a concept lend it validity?… well ahem… apparently, yes, it clearly does … but it shouldnt dammit!
Now, I am what is known in NLP terms a “polarity responder”, or in common popular British diction: an “Arse”.
This means that if something/someone is popular and everyone tells me I must be into it (whether its a film or music or anything) I respond with stubborn hatred for it. I assume that if its popular it must be shit. Childish I know, but there you go.
Therefore I only really enjoy films when they come out on DVD, especially if I feel they are targeted at me (29 year old white public schoolboy).
Ergo I hated all of Guy Ritchies films (the more targeted I feel the greater proportional response in resistance I give) with their matey, pub anecdote, plazzy gangsta, middle class voyeurism, criminal tourist, mockney, FHM reader appeal. Blurgh! That is until they came out on DVD 3years after their release… (except of course for “revolver” which really is a load of shite, but because everyone said it was shite, I tried to like it. I tried REALLY hard. But in the end it was still fucking shite.)
The Chin Jab is a fine example of this… because the RBSD crowd crow on and on about it and the WW2 Combatives “validation- ohh- goodness- it- was developed- in - a- real- war- and everything” THING… I have been simply forced, nay compelled to hate/deride it and write it off as one more peice of posturing nerdism from the DVD/book/smeinar/tshirt collection brigade
Fast forward to now…
Ive been giving lots of private classes recently. Have to say there is nothing for curing the maliase brought on by immersing yourself in the RBSD cesspit of nerdism/narrow mindedness/circular logic/forum warrior ship like giving private lessons again.
It reminded me of one salient fact: I love to teach… its a buzz… and I’m really good at it which makes my ego feel all warm and gooey inside
One of the things Ive found teaching palm strikes is that their range of usage is far greater than nomrally thought of if you just take it easy, get a bit creative and think about what you are doing.
A female student last week insisted on delivering palm strikes to my chin and jaw rather than to the forehaed as I had shown her, because “it felt more natural to her” (in her words)…so I went a long with it, presupposing that if that is the more natural method for her, who am I to change her- If I let her do it “her way” it means she will enjoy the training more and is presumably more likely to remember and apply it under duress if she is ever attacked.
So as Im recieving these palm strikes to chin and jaw Im noticing that:
1. they turn your head more than a straight palm to the forehead
2.you can pretty much control which direction you want the head to go in if you strike, stick then push (the student made this up herself- when I asked her why she did it she said “isnt it obvious?”- I was so proud)
3. if delivered with more speed and power I think the effects would of been devastating
Note: I said “think”, as in I presume… Ive never used it for real but I think my thoughts are fairly well qualified on the subject to give an opinion of reasonable validity. Because this is my job and has been for several years.
Why?
The chin jab is a pushing palm strike that drives the head straight up and back, the direction of force is straight up. Why have I been converted to it? Well now that i’ve recieved a few (done at low speed with control -this is the “shot placement on the body” drill) Ive realised:
1. the shot comes in under your peripheral vision making it harder to prepare or “brace” for
2. it slams the jaw shut: I talk as I teach, many people talk before/during an assault…talking requires the jaw be open and the tongue be slipping in and out of the teeth in order to make sounds… when the jaw is slammed shut the injuries would be extensive (possibly): broken teeth, bitten off tongue, dislocated jaw. (this is apart form other injuries coming from pure impact like concussion and whiplash and spinal damage. I wonder what injuries people get if they get in a car crash and bounce their jaw off the steering wheel? Anyway, I certianly felt very vulnerable.
3. The head is moved right “offline”- all the way offline! is the head taken if the practitioner “follows through” with the shot. (”Online” would be where the head wants to be- over the spine, over the c.o.g. over the feet- in a straight line- a natural posture “shizen no kamae”). As we know: where the head goes the body will follow. Its far more disorientating to have your head moved/twisted rather than just being simply hit (unless it K.O.’s you of course!)
4. It feels quite natural to deliver and can be done with no “wind up” or cocking motion- try this on a real live person NOT a pad (pads are for striking, this movment is a bit more subtle than that- somewhere in the vague “grappling/striking” borderlands where most effective technique comes from):
TRY: from a natural “line up” (hands up, non confrontational but ready, conversational position) raise your hand up under the persons chin, let it rest in the heel of your palm and focus on pushing the head straight up so the person is looking at the ceiling, then move a bit further until the person can see the top of the wall behind them and the spine is arched… what you do with your feet? Move them naturally to make this happen. You will work it out. Do this reaaaaally slowly five times and just fell it out. Now do it once with full mean intention, but real slow. Now do the initial move fast and hard, but DONT contact- stop short. NOW you can take it to the thai pad and give the intial strike portion of the move full whack. (Remeber your hitting a human chin so glance of the upper/top bit of the pad, have the pad person hold it horzontally and chin height-obviously!)
After this short experiment, you may well be convinced that this is a technique worth developing.
After the training session, myslef and the student ween to the pub with her boyfriend. As ever there was a large gang of lads in there who were pissed. Me being the paranoid, schizoid sociopath that I am (see typical psychological profile of combative instructor) immediately began to plan for what to do in case it “went off”:
you know: where are the Exits, what people will I have to shove out the way or use as weapons- typical urban ninja stuff really. It occurred to me that I might use this new found toy called the “chin jab”. I had a vision of my self and my student going through the gang like a pair of chiropractitioners from hell, leaving a heavy multiple whiplash claim in our fearsome wake. Of course nothing happened. The lads left a few minutes later, probably freaked out by the way I was staring at their chins greedily and smiling maniacally to myself.
Anyway, tempis fugit and all that… more tomorrow… in the meantime go and chin jab test your boss- he will love it.
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28/06/2007 by richie.
Well,
here we go, into the world of blogging… I dont really know what it means… Im making lots of updates to the site and trying to navigate my way areound the 1 and 1 interface to make the site look and feel a bit more professional and like there are real live human beings behind it.
(Not literally behind the screen, like little oompa loompas beavering away, handling dvd orders and such- that would be plain wrong)
So… you will be subject to all my thoughts as well as updates on courses, DVDs and the like.
The forum goes live this afternoon, please join and feel free to post.
Oh and join my newsletter to if you want all the latest DVD offers.
Cheers
Richie
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