Archive for February, 2009

You are walking to your car from a downtown club late at night, after downing a couple of brewskis (hopefully not too many beers as you are about to drive)… and all of a sudden you notice a guy coming at you with knife!!! What can you do?

First off if you are a trained fighter – you are lucky. You have noticed the guy before he is on you! If you are not a fighter I guess it is time for lets make a deal! Ok all kidding aside, you are in one tough predicament even if everything goes right.

In this post I will go though your options in this scenario and what your options are if the guy is already on you. I’d like you to also review this excellent post by Mathew over at ikigaiway.com in his post entitled, “Knife Self Defense – It ain’t gonna be pretty.” Here is a quick video I found on youtube that seems reasonable to me.

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I ran into this old 80′s TV series on YouTube the other day and thought I’d share it you. David Rasche played in Sledge Hammer! Quoting Wikipedia, Sledge Hammer TV series is about:

Inspector Sledge Hammer of the Los Angeles Police Department is a violent, sadistic, insensitive, yet oddly likable detective. His best friend is a .44 Magnum with a customized grip featuring a drawing of a sledgehammer. Hammer sleeps and showers with his gun, and even talks to it. Hammer believes in shooting first and asking questions never. In the pilot episode, he deals with a sniper on a roof by blowing up the entire building with a rocket launcher, then turns to the uniformed cops on scene and says “I thinkI got ‘em”; he also mentions that his favorite charity is “Toy Guns for Tots”. Hammers father was Jack Hammer, a legendary carnival trick shooter whose repetory of shooting tricks included catching a bullet in his teeth, which saved his son’s life in one episode. His mothers name was Armin Hammer.

His partner, Detective Dori Doreau (played by Anne-Marie Martin) has some karate skills evidenced by the perfectly executed chicken kick the the best of Sledge Hammer part 1. Inspector Hammer does what normal cops might like to do sometimes but cannot. He is kind of a funny Dirty Harry. Here is a clip I found. Afterwards I’ll examine police work a bit as it relates to self-defense and why cops use more non-lethal weapons today. 

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I was first a fighter and then a geek growing up and I started playing video games with Nintendo Tank and Pong. I thought these video games were really advanced back then but in the early 90′s I downloaded DOOM and was amazed! This DOS personal computing game was great. I enjoyed shooting the monsters and figuring out how to survive as long as I could. Now that I have ‘grown up’ I do not play video games anymore but still see how a person could find this very enjoyable. I heard a statistic recently that over 25% of adults play video games.

I was introduced to the concept of women fighting in video games when my boys bought Mortal Kombat. It was a fast moving game and each character seem to have a special way of killing their opponent. Well fast forward to today and I have discovered a video game that has apparently spawned from Bikini Karate Babes, called Warriors of Elysia or Bikini Karate Babes 2 that has a new twist. Watch this interview and then we will explore how this video game is different and some merits of this new genre of video games.

I just saw a preview of this Japanese move entitled, “High Kick Girl” on youtube. It seems to be a story like the karate kid where a girl this time has to over come some adversity. Anyway here is a preview of this as Rina Takeda seems to have some good karate skills.

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This is just a quick notice to let former students and instructors of the El Cajon Tracy’s Karate/American Kenpo Karate School that I may have missed know that there will be a reunion party at my home on March 7th, 2009. If you are a former student or instructor, please email me for details at john.zimmer@myselfdefenseblog.com.

Liam Neeson’s movie, “Taken” is a story about his daughter being abducted in France for the prostitution underworld and how he attempts to get her back. Here is the summary from IMDb:

 The seventeen year-old Kim is the pride and joy of her father, the retired agent Bryan Mills that left the secret service to stay near Kim in California. Kim lives with her mother Lenore and her wealthy stepfather Stuart; she convinces the reluctant Bryan to sign an authorization to travel to Paris with her friend Amanda. When they arrive, they share a cab with the stranger Peter and Amanda tells to him that they are alone in Paris. When Bryan succeeds in contacting his daughter, she tells that criminals have just break in the spot and they are kidnapped by an Albanese gang of human trafficking. Bryan promises in the phone to kill the kidnapper of his daughter and immediately travels to Paris to find Kim and chase the criminals. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

While this movie is not par for my usual commentary (there are fight scenes) but being a step-father of an 18 year-old-girl, I see the same patterns of reckless behaivor as the girl in this movie. Girls today (as well as boys) think they are invincible and nothing bad will ever happen to them! Well in most cases they are right but as a parent I do worry about the times they are wrong. I will examine the plot of this movie and examine common dangerous behaviours as well as ways to mitigate risks. And yes I will review some of the fighting. Here is a trailer of the move. 

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A parents worst nightmare is if their child gets kidnapped. When I was a kid I remember having the run of the neighborhood during daylight hours. Why I could explore the nearby woods so long as I was back by dark. That was another time but there was crime even back then. I did save a couple of girls from my school in the woods on day as they were surrounded by four guys. More on this later but first I would like to draw attention to stories in the new about some girls escaping kidnapping attempts!

Hereis a link to the Modesto Bee story about girls walking home from school and in one case a car pulls over and the guys said her mother asked him to pick her (the girl) up. The girl ran to her grandmothers house! This girl was not so easily fooled by the would be kidnapper. The girl did exactly the right thing here. When my oldest son was about eight years old a similar thing happened. A truck pulled up and tried to cut my son off. Some ladies noticed the weird behaviour and yelled at me son to run! He did and my son was safe! I will look at the second kidnapping attempt and speak about how children can be safe. I will tell you how the girls from my school made out but first here is an example of what a girl can do if a guy tries to attack.

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