Archive for the 'Self-defense' Category

Imagine that you have taken a year of karate lessons from your local dojo and you decided to take a short-cut home from school (through the park) because you are running late and it is getting dark. Oh yeah – you are a 15 year-old girl. You are confident because you hold a blue belt and have actually had some sparring experience – loved it but the other girl – not so much!

Well some other teen boys approach you as dusk falls – asking if you want to party. There are three of them and they are younger than you. You tell them no thanks and as you try to leave – they block the trail in both directions! Still talking they say that have some beers in a cooler nearby and how about having a bit of fun.

Your escape route is seemingly cut off and you don’t want to go with these boys for a “bit of fun” so what do you do?

More on this later but in this post I will examine what fighting spirit is and how it can help one make good self-defense decisions. Also I will talk about the lack of fighting spirit and the ramifications of that. In a nut shell the fight or flight decision in us sometimes has to be made in an instant for us to gain a momentary advantage. If we do not act when we have a tactical advantage – your chances of a good outcome diminish!

Take a look at this video to see what is possible as Dr. Ruthless so aptly demonstrates.

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You are walking along the sidewalk and all of a sudden you hear a swoosh from the street (as well as an expletive) and you find yourself wearing the latest flavor of slurpee! How about you are walking along (are you sensing a theme) and out of the blue (or so it seems) a car squeals and hops the curb in front of you – missing you by inches?

Have you had either of these incidents happen to you? Well I have since I have increased my exercises in the last few years. The first couple of times it happened – I figured it was a fluke. I mean society had not devolved to the state that impoliteness reigns supreme? But as incidents seemed to keep coming every few weeks in my “safe” neighborhood I began to see a need for pedestrian self defense against cars!

In this post I will highlight the issues, what has happened to me and others, as well as suggest the martial arts solutions to many of these events. Here is an opening video for your perusal.

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I remember as a small boy wondering if I could ever fend off masked attackers that jumped me in the dark of the night. Kids have active imaginations and I was no exception. I ran through scenarios in my head and decided that my best chance was to become a superhero (with a costume and all)! At the slightest hint of trouble I would retreat to a phone booth (where no one would witness my secret identity) and presto/chango into my super garb!

Let me just say that did not go well for me and luckily I never did run into any bad guys. But I did believe for some reason that I could do something to improve my chances if I ever had to to fight crazed ninjas! I started to read self defense books and sent away for manuals from obsucre masked Kung Fu masters who would be put to death if the other masters ever discovered their secret identity!

I soon was practicing how to throw kicks and punches and even learned how to yell! I learned some tricks with leverage that my friends did not know, so I was confident and started bragging to my friends. They did not really believe me so as I was walking by the 5th grade class of the current Duke of the school, I slammed my fist into my hand while staring at the Duke! He of course slammed his fist into his hand and the challenge had been made and accepted for that day after school!

More on that challenge match later and my learning exeprence but in this post I will explore does self defense work? Since I’ve been blogging I’ve read a lot of websites that purported to have the answer! Yes everyone is an expert when it comes to doling out advice and telling you what to do incase you are attacked! But is this a realistice view? I mean because one guy/gal running a blog says it is so – does that mean (even if it is so for him/her) that it is so for you?

Here is a quick video I found on self defense scenarios as one example of the stuff out there. Read on to hear my opinions on self defense and does it work or the better question is can it be made to work for you?

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We here at My Self-Defense Blog strive to keep self defense in peoples minds! For girls and women the risk of rape is a real possibility at some point in their lives. There are other dangers like assault, robbery, kidnapping but the real fear I think is rape for many women.

Generally I try to make the point that women should take a martial art ( judo, karate, boxing, wrestling, jiu-jitsu, kung fu, muay thai, aikido…) or even a short term self defense class! I make this point but I know that if it is not in the woman’s interests why would she go to all of the effort and expense to take this on?

In this post I will try to deal with this subject realistically within the realm of possibility and talk about what a good plan should include. To start this topic off, take a look at yet another self defense course going around and then we can talk.

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This is a core issue to this blog as we here at MySelf-DefenseBlog have personally been affected as a youth! What am I speaking about? 

• kids in school
• kids in transit to and from school
• kids outside playing
• kids online
• kids in our communities

As you can see our kids can really be bullied anywhere.  Most people will understand this is a core issue to many kids being bullied. Kids have to give up personal possessions as well as putting up with verbal threats and physical attacks. Is there any one fix for this problem? Can we blame anyone and then stop bullying for good? I would say NO! But there are good solutions depending on the issues facing you or your kids.

In this article I will talk about the problem and issues I have faced. I will speak of teachers, schools and some mitigating stratgies they try. I will address what I see as the parents resonsibility and lastly I will focus on mitigating stratigies that WILL work if you find your kids facing bullying.

To set the stage for this important conversation look at the following video of our president speaking of the issues and some solutions of bullying.

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I am almost ashamed to be writing about this but before you read too much into the title, I want to assure you that most self defense classes are probably good. I even continually endorse kids, women and even men take these courses if they need a quick edge and/or are not willing to learn a fighting art. Researching for this post I found what I thought was a good story on a Los Angles self defense class and then it gave me pause!

I am a life long karate, judo, boxing, wrestling, kung fu, and any other fighting art I could find – enthusiast, so for me to say whoa… something is rotten in Denmark – is quite a a feat. You see like any other endeavor martial arts has its share of fakes and fly by night organizations – just as any other industry does but for the most part – the worst you can be harmed is to learn a mediocre fighting style that does not really work. Many people will start with one school and then end up taking up another and finely “get it!”

So in this post I will talk about one more thing to be aware (or beware) of when you consider signing up for a self defense course. I’ll also speak to what a self defense course should contain and other considerations. Ok if you are ready – please watch this video and see if your alarm bells don’t go off near the end and we will talk. There is a 15 second commercial and if you want – skip through this and get to the last minute to see the punch line.

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I was in Junior High-School when the Navy guy at my friends out imparted some fighting tactics to me. You see he was a black belt in Tang So Do Karate and was trying to impress us kids for some reason (and after ingesting a couple of beers). I was playing the what if game with him.

I asked him what would he do If I tried to punch him. He said, “I would chop your arm – breaking it and then chop your neck!” Wow I thought… Then I asked what about if I tried to kick you? He said, “I would chop your leg – breaking it and then I would punch your ribs – also breaking them.”

I asked him how he could break my arms, legs, or ribs and he simply said he would punch through the target. I had heard of punching through the target from my Okinawan karate instructor as he was teaching the moves. The idea was instead of aiming at the proximal (or close – on top target) one would aim 6 inches deep into whatever you were aiming at.

In this post I am going to discuss what punching through a target really is and why it is not used much today. Lets take a quick look at a video that shows some of the mechanics of how to surface punch a target.

Looking at this video the part they got right was to rotate as one is throwing a reverse or counter punch. Actually they got more wrong than right. First off if you are not worried about getting hit back we can suspend disbelief and not cover as one is throwing the punch. The video guy kind of torqued half way but stopped short and just twisted the upper body some.

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