Krav Maga and Self Defense Topics #1

Thanks,

Slashing versus Stabbing
Interesting comparison of knife attacks. My summary of the article is sometimes stabbing is better and sometimes slashing is better, and most of us thankfully will never have to actually find out first hand.

Sticks and How to Attack with Them
My instructors always remind us to be good attackers as that's the only way that your partner will learn. I'm guilty of occasionally pulling my punches on my partners in the interest of not injuring them, but I'm trying to be more aggressive while still demonstrating good control. Plus, in the world of self-defense fighting, training in how to be a bad guy is as helpful as the training to be a good guy. This article about how to attack with a stick is good stuff if you're trying to learn how to defend well against it. Hopefully you don't run into someone who knows how to do this, but the mechanics are very helpful to understand. Plus there's a cool video of pistons in there too.

What's Your Easy to Exploit Weakness?
Your hair, footwear, jewelry or your man-bag? This piece is helpful in thinking it through.

Verbal Skills in Your Toolkit
"In personal and home-defense situations, verbal skills can be important. But don’t assume yelling forceful commands is always the answer. Sometimes it’s better to speak softly or not at all. It’s up to you to gauge the situation and respond appropriately. You’ve got to think before you speak."

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Starting Over

Reboot of the Blog I'm winding down my Facebook use. That whole destruction of democracy thing weighs on my soul. I know that it's probably impossible to give it up completely. Social media is like oxygen in our disconnected society as well as the general precarity of our jobs. But I am committed to using it less and less and definitely not getting my politics and news from it. So, I'm going to bring this blog back and start using it to corral some of the things that I am reading and share them out. I'll probably set up an email list too for anyone who's interested. I'm sorry that we're having to go back to walled gardens, but between foreign disinformation, surveillance capitalism and generally more challenges to social media use, it's going to have to happen. Even this blog content itself is product that someone is monetizing. I'm going to start using some of this extra time I'm now blessed with to explore alternatives to "free" ...

Since I spend about 75% of my work time either in or thinking about New Orleans but live in Austin, I am often asked to compare the two places. I spent the last five years of my life as a highly visible, highly vocal booster of New Orleans, so many people I meet are surprised when they hear that we have settled, at least for the near term, in Austin. For Cassie and me, the decision to stay in Austin was pretty easy. We didn't have any assets to protect in New Orleans. Our house was pretty thoroughly destroyed so there was no hurry to come back. We also wanted to find some degree of stability for our son; New Orleans is a dynamic place right now and since he had already spent about a fourth of his life in evacuation/gypsy mode, we decided we would try to give him a rest. So we arbitrarily chose Austin off the map. It was a reasonably short drive away from New Orleans. It was the only really progressive city in Texas. Much like New Orleans, it's a blue island in a sea of...

Managing Through Plateaus and Disappointment

This is the hardest thing I struggle with. And I struggle with many things. I'm constantly amazed at how feedback (or the lack of it) drastically impacts me. I'm very motivated by positive feedback in general and very demotivated by a lack of feedback. I’m actually slightly less demotivated by feedback poorly given. So, I take this as a challenge to me. Of course, I can complain about the delivery or quality of the feedback, but it seems more constructive to inoculate myself to it, especially when it comes from those with whom I disagree with or don’t share their perspective. The best feedback comes from those who a) have actually viewed what I've done over time and don't rely on one sample, b) give me meaningful points to build on and finally c) have struggled to build skills themselves versus having some degree of natural aptitude or demonstrating that they indeed need to practice. But the problem is being too driven by feedback, good or bad. That means you are ...

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