Sport vs Self Defence

The single most important lession of self defence is: There is sports and there is self defence. Learn and feel the difference.

Sports is: Boxing, Karate, Judo, Jujitsu, Taek Won Do, Aikido, MMA.
Self Defence is: Being able to act successfully under extreme pressure with no rules.


Don't get me wrong: Everything from boxing to Aikido or your favorite Fighting Sports is great. It's great fun to box and it is great to watch MMA. But there is a difference between sports and reality: In sports there are rules. These sports are designed in a way that nobody gets hurt.

Reality is quite different: There are no rules. A predator assaulting you will not play by your rules. She will do things you cannot even imagine. There will be pressure you did not even feel lightly in a real fight. And no predator will openly engage in a fist fight. The predator wants to win, so expect mean things like getting hit from the back.

Therefore: Sports is great, but don't think that you know anything about Self Defence when you are good at boxing. Self defence is everything related to that "extreme pressure - no rules" space.

[1] http://chirontraining.blogspot.com/2011/06/fighters-all-way-down.html

Tony Blauer SPEAR PDR seminar in Berlin

There is no right or wrong. Just somthing that is more desireable and less desirable.

In march 2011 I had the opportunity to train Tony Blauer's SPEAR PDR [1]. Tony's man in Danmark, Christian Hvidberg, held a two day seminar in Berlin [2].

A quick summary and the main aspects to me:
1. The starting point of everything seems to be the flinching position. Everybody flinches when something happens. PDR accepts it and acts accordingly.
2. The most probable attack on the street is a hook. PDR trains a lot of defenses against it (as far as I can tell). If a hook attack occurs you'll flinch. And that's what you train in 1).
3. SPEAR PDR tries to incorporate a lot of real world stress. It's really difficult to incorporate real surprise, stress and a higher pulse ratest into a training scenario. PDR tries it anyhow by encouraging people to emulate pre-fight indicators, wide-open eyes, loud screaming and such when attacking. It also has a lot of drills, where the defender does not know what happens, so that the training becomes more "real".
4. Saying that PDR also tries to overcome the freeze that occurs after you are attacked. Do something. Think. Even under stress. Not many systems train for the freeze. Or tell people that a freeze is something supernormal. Nice.

It's really difficult to judge PDR from only 2 days of practising. But PDR definitely makes sense. It also gave me a lot of input for my own training.

Would I want to be a PDR trainer? Not really. PDR is imho a money making machine and PDR affiliates have to spend a lot of money keeping their degrees and such. I mean it's okay. But I don't like it that much.

All in all it was a really nice two day course led by Christian. Christian btw, also follows his own path. He calls it street sence. Worth checking out [3].


[1] http://www.blauertacticalusa.com/
[2] http://www.pdr-denmark.com/
[3] http://www.street-sence.dk/

Quote Faster forward than Backward

I can run faster forward than you can run backward (10th commandment).
- David James

Maybe one of the reasons why many self defense systems go straight into the attacker. And it makes sense.

Tony Blauer's 10 commandments of street survival

http://blauersblog.blauertacticalusa.com/2009/12/ten-commandments-of-street-survival.html

Video based real life training for civilians

I really would like to have a video system where violent situations can be trained by civilians. Something like an interactive video shooting simulator but - for civilians.

Would be really nice to train a violent encounter in such a real way. How to react. What to do. What to do not. Hear the sound, See the confusion. Trying to put the student into a "real" situation as much as possible should be an aim.

Does something like that exist? Don't know.

Rory also writes about something like that: http://chirontraining.blogspot.com/2011/04/coolness.html

Moshe about business models and self defense

Moshe recently wrote a nice post about business concepts and self defence. 

There are always two sides of the story. Telling a student everything at the first day makes no sense. I am pretty sure that it makes sense to gradually improve techniques. 

But - introducing a belt system in something that's called "self defense" makes no sense to me. Unless you can get a black belt in 3 months. That's my opinion: If your "self defense system" does not prepare you for basic street reality in 3 months - forget it.

On the other hand, belts make a lot of sense in business terms. Getting money for each exam, binding people to one organization because - of course - belts are only accredited by "the one and only krav maga association". Makes sense if your want to earn money. But I dislike that.

 I always compare Google and Microsoft. Both hardcore business machines. But the Google is way friendlier than Microsoft. Good comparison? If you every have to choose your krav maga club (and at some point you will have to) - be sure that the trainers are great and that they are more running a Google like business.

Check out Moshe's blog. And - yes. Moshe leads IKI Krav Maga and thus has a running business, too. But it seems to be a nice one (I don't know Moshe personally):

http://www.your-krav-maga-expert.com/krav-maga-virtues-values.html