I found a some stories about kid abduction attempts and how they got away. The common thread (as I suspected) was the girls and boys did not calmly go along with the abductors! They ran, fought back and escaped with their wits! I have long been an advocate for teaching children the basics on how to avoid bad situations and what to do if they have to fight back.  

I will start out with a video from Erin Weed of GirlsFightBack.org. Erin became an advocate for women after her friend was killed. I think this will set the right tone for this serious topic. I will then talk about the news story’s I found and comment on each. I will follow up with some good tips for children in similar situations so you can hopefully give your children some tips! Here is an Fox News interview with Erin Weed.

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Many of you have heard me talk about self defense and some strategies you can use. But what would you do if armed robbers broke in while you were taking a shower? Well one Bronx boy reasoned he could not fight them and dove out the window to go for help here!

Often times when bad stuff happens, you don’t really have a chance to think things out so doing whatever it takes to have the best result is important! In this case there were armed men doing a home invasion robbery (where the crooks take over a family to get whatever they want). If you have multiple family members around, you generally cannot fight armed men easily without someone (maybe your family) getting hurt. In a situation like this – going for help is the smarter thing to do!

I am going to discuss what to do when robbers attempt to invade your home and give a couple of real life stories that happened to my wife! Here is a Las Vegas police force video on some precautionary measures you can take to minimize your risk.

Click here to Watch the Las Vegas Police Home Invasion Video (sorry they are not allowing embedding videos for some reason).

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Every parents worst nightmare happened to me a couple of months back – My oldest son called me to tell me my youngest son had just been mugged! He did not have many details other than my son was walking for exercise (as he often does) and these three guys jumped him! I was also told he was bruised but ok.

Let me tell you I had so many emotions running through my head but I was also trying to use my experience to tell my oldest son that the police should handle the matter. I felt like hunting for some street toughs but that could rapidly digress into something I would end up regretting. I’m happy to say I opted for finding some more information. More on my son’s situation in a minute but while searching robbery youtube videos, I found this of some courageous beauty school women that took matters into their own hands to deal some hurt to a robber.

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When I was knee high to a grasshopper, I remember my mom telling me that, “sticks and stones will break your bones but names will never hurt you!” That was in an attempt to lessen the impact of the mean kids on my block that used to make fun of me (for what I don’t remember). The idea that was, and is, still valid today, is that sticks and stones are readily available weapons! Bruce Lee once said in one of his movies (paraphrasing), anything can be used as a weapon.  The sticks and stones you find on the ground are legal weapons if the intent is to use them for self defense when you need them. Did you catch that nuance?

My mom made a sheath for a club I had whittled when I was about 12 years old. I used to travel through the woods (imagining I was an explorer) with the club strapped to my belt and almost had to defend a couple of damsels in distress. I happened on a bunch of guys surrounding a couple of girls I knew from school. I said hi and the girls who looked really worried, saw me and were elated! One of the girls said I was her brother and I played along. The guys looked at me and my club and soon took off. That was my first experience of my Teddy Roosevelt defense, you know… talk softly and carry a big stick! Here is a 1912 story of a girl fighting off muggers with a night stick and saving her fiance here!

Lets examine legal fighting methods with sticks and stones. We will also look at some good usages and why you might want to use weapons. I have always been fond of stick fighting. Here is a video of some Portuguese stick fighting called Jogo Do Pau.

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People have become more civilized in the last thousand years but we really should learn some lessons from the past. The reason I say this is people should still be at the top of the food chain! We (speaking for all humanity here) are smarter than any animal but in today’s society – using our native smarts have not been cultivated in cities.

I reviewed this video about two women that were attacked by a Pitt Bull dog and were taking on lots of bites. I would first like to say that an animal owner should not own a dog he or she cannot control and I would also like to point out that these women were scared and they probably had never had to fight for their lives. Review this video and then I will talk about strategy.

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Aloha! One of my first karate exposures was from Hal Edwards Lima Lama and the NAS Miramar base in San Diego. When I was a teenager we (fellow military brats) would go to the base karate program and learn Lima Lama. Hal was a black belt from Saul Esquivel. I met Saul Esquivel at the base karate club once and later met the founder of Lima Lama, Tino Tuiolosega at a seminar in Escondido, CA as I recall.

One of the things I heard about Lima Lama was it was composed of old island martial arts that the head hunters used to practice (Lua) and many of the moves were part of the traditional island dances called hula. Hal was big on pointing out the benefits of using short circular wrist moves to block and fingers or back knuckles as a quick counter. I looked for some hula on youtube.com but found modern dances for the tourists but here is one hula that seemed to be telling a story (I am not an expert in hula).

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For many of you that have taken karate lessons and learned how to do all of the basics, you may still be wondering; Will it really work? And, How can I make karate work for me? I have read a wikipedia article (one should not rely on wikipedia as authoritative as it can be edited by anyone) on Model Mugging where a gentleman decided to focus on self-defense instead of traditional karate because it did not work for many women (in his judgement).

Karate lessons will give you all of the tools you need to fight back but it will not fight back for you… meaning you will have to get over the feeling of, “Is this really happening to me” and come up with a quick plan. Part of a karate education is supposed to be exposure to fighting and getting some self-confidence to find some moves that work for YOU! If you are just focused on getting the pretty belt or the recognition that comes with a black-belt… you are probably wasting your money.

I will try to relate some of the moves that give me confidence in almost any situation…. moves that I cannot use in sport karate or full-contact karate for the most part. I will try and relate what it is like to be in a real fight for your life as I have been in plenty (all fights after high-school are really (and should be) fights of last resort), and I will try and put it all together for you. And yes – I think anyone can be trained to fight in a self-defense situation. My most favorite move is the counter-punch or lunge punch. Here is a quick video demonstrating this very simplisticly (there is a lot more to it if you want to be successful).

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I just read a story about Elle Macpherson using Tai Chi to get her handbag back from a robber here. I was kind of amazed that a supermodel would be walking about unaccompanied but even more amazed that she, after getting robbed, would get her purse back! After reading the story - all I can say is Elle probably did get some confidence from Tai Chi. Here is a picture of Elle McPherson with a surfboard. She looks like she stays in good shape.

Another Supermodel that can fight is Michelle Waterson. She works at Hooters by day and is starting to fight MMA. Michelle was in Oxygen networks, "Fight Girls." It is really cool to see someone living their dream. Michelle states in her videos that karate is her way of life. She is a black belt in Karate and learning Muay Tai and Wushu. Here is a picture of Michelle doing a front-snap-kick.

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