Really Bad.

Below I link to a horrible video of a person getting stabbed in the face.  If you've seen it you already know it's extremely tough to watch.  However, I'm posting it because of a few things I noticed.  Don't watch it if you don't want to, but if you choose to...watch for these things:

The attacker - clearly he isn't trying to kill her.  If he wanted to do that he easily could have.  I think he's trying to punish her, make her ugly...as in "oh, you're going to leave me?  Well no one will ever want you again!".  I don't know if that's correct, I don't know anything about the situation, I just notice he's not killing her, he's only stabbing her in the face.  Or maybe he's just crazy.

The victim - While she's trying to get her face out of the way by moving her head around & covering with her hands, that's about as far as she's taking her defense.  I'm not trying to criticize her, the poor woman is probably in shock and incapable of doing anything else.  I have to assume under the circumstances that if she could do more she would.  I wonder if she had some training if she'd be able to get her feet up close to her body to maneuver better, use her arms to deflect the weapon, buck, etc.?  

The bystanders - Here's where it actually gets interesting for me.  What fails: There are a couple of young men who make little pathetic useless kicks at the attacker's body, and I've heard lots of people criticize them for not doing more.  Personally, I feel those boys were very brave.  They tried to stop a guy with a knife who clearly has no problem slicing people up.  If he'd sliced out at them as they kicked and opened up an artery on the inside of their thigh, they'd be dead.  How many strangers are you willing to die for?  What I think is that they simply didn't know what to do to help her, so they tried as best they could.  Which of course, was sadly not helpful at all.  
What succeeds:  One guy finally sneaks up & grabs him from behind ...crap, maybe you haven't seen it yet.  

Watch it if you want to, I'm about to spoil the ending.

Don't look below this line unless you want to know what happens!!!

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The man who grabs his hoodie from behind finally succeeds in pulling him off.  Then, kneeling on his neck, pins him.  

Do you notice the woman hops right up like she's merely tripped on the sidewalk?  Then a few moments later she slowly sinks to the ground.  Adrenaline is super powerful, but it doesn't last, and losing that much blood doesn't help, obviously. 

And a truly extraordinary thing, the bystanders, having gotten the attacker away from his victim, protect him from mob justice and don't permit the crowd to beat him, which frankly he has coming, the bastard.  Incredible self-control or ethics or I don't know what.  Very impressive.

It bothered me so much that only one guy on the scene knew what to do that we worked a bloodless version of this in 2 of my classes last week, to practice how and when to jump in in such a situation.  It was really interesting.  Knifing each other seemed to be out of the question so in one class we had the attacker beat the crap out of the victim with pads & lash out at anyone who came to help.  No, the real attacker never did that, but the "bystanders" needed to be somewhat afraid to move in, because they damn sure would be in real life.   In the second class we used a little Halloween party knife I had left over from my Psycho Ex-Girlfriend costume.

Don't you love me anymore?  

It wouldn't actually cut anyone, but it wouldn't feel good if it slammed into you either & I told the attacker to get wild with the knife to make the folks who tried to save the victim think twice before they moved in.  

After the dust settled I asked the class, "what failed?"  

They said, "being timid" "being slow" "hoping someone else would help"  "chasing the hand around to grab the knife, it's going too fast so you get cut"

"What succeeded?"  

"Being sneaky" "Attacking from behind" "Being aggressive" "Totally committing to your attack"  "Having someone else on your side attacking with you"

I'd like to point out these are the same things that fail and succeed in most all self-defense situations. And if you reeeaaally want to take that ball and run with it look at the list of qualities the students gave for a successful defense.  If you're ever attacked you should assume the attacker will strive to do most or all of these things, and defend accordingly.

One thing I like about the women-only classes is that we work on issues not strictly covered in the normal Krav Maga curriculum.  Kelly Campbell talked to me once about boundary setting - that if you can't stick up for yourself in life's small matters you won't stand your ground in the big ones either.  

I think that's very true, up to a point.  My only hesitation on that score is that it's socially acceptable for a person being beaten or robbed to defend themselves if they know how.  It is rarely socially acceptable for a woman to draw a line in the sand when everyone else is wearing the mask of playing nice.  Nor is it something we are taught how to do, which is why people go along when they want to say STOP.  Sometimes the consequences are disastrous, sometimes one is just left stewing about it & thinking, "I should have said..."

One of the most important attributes for a woman to have in American culture is for her to be compliant.  Nobody in class believes me when I say that, but then I tell them "Have you ever tried to set a lunch date with someone you don't know well?  Here's how the conversation goes:

                           Where would you like to go?

                        Oh, I don't care, where would you like to go?

                        Oh, anything.  What kind of food do you like to eat?

                        I like everything, really.  Let's just do whatever you like.

                        No, no, I'm happy with whatever you'd prefer....

This continues until one lady can't take it anymore & gives in and chooses a restaurant.  The one who chooses, loses the game.  Am I lyin'?  You know I'm not!

Since we generally aren't taught how to say what we want in social situations, that's what we practice sometimes in class.  It was awesome last week because a new student was an 18 year old girl about to go away to college, prime time for being taken advantage of for being too "nice".

Here's the exercise:  your partner, preferably someone you aren't friends with (so there will be some social stigma about being rude to them & therefore add tension to the game) crosses a social line with you.  Maybe they just stand uncomfortably close and stare at you.  Maybe they stand behind you and whisper in your ear (it doesn't even have to be inappropriate words.  In case I actually need to say it, people you don't know well shouldn't be creeping up on you and whispering.)  Maybe they don't stand very close, but they look you up and down and say, "That is one fine ass."  Whatever.

None of those actions is appropriate, but they don't necessarily earn 15 palm heel punches in the face either.  The student's job is simply to verbally tell the person their behavior is unwelcome, and to emphasize that with body language and voice.  It's one of the most tense classes we have.  People turn red, they sweat, they giggle, they stammer.  They almost never, in their first several tries, successfully tell their harasser to stop.  Usually they'll freeze, then they'll get upset that they're frozen, then once I insist they keep at it they ask their partner to stop in a small voice, THEN once they've exhausted all other possibilities they insist in no uncertain terms that they be left alone.  Then they're physically exhausted.  

I love this drill because I'm convinced it's so necessary, and we learn things about ourselves we would never have guessed.  Most of us think we're assertive.  Nope.  What's even cooler is the second time someone does the exercise she usually OWNS it.  From the very beginning.  

If you don't have anyone you can practice with (it's easy to tell your friends to get lost when you're "playing"), set yourself a goal.  Next time you want to say no or draw a boundary, do it.  If you find that you can't do it, figure out why.  Are you afraid they won't like you?  Are you afraid they'll hurt you?  Is your self image that of "the nice one"?   Once you figure that out, resolve to try again and then do it.

I'll tell you, I told someone no today and I think I hurt her feelings a little bit.  I feel a little badly about that, but I wanted to continue what I was doing and if I'd stopped for her I would have smiled about it on the outside but resented it on the inside.  I don't want to do that any more, so I said no.  And I don't regret it.  I'll pay extra attention to her later, and she'll get over it or she won't.  I can't control that.  But I do prefer to be in control of how I spend my time, so that's the choice I made.  

What choice will you make?

3 Seconds, 2 Observations

I first saw this video on my friend Jason's Facebook page, and it's come to mind several times since then as a quick illustration of a couple of the things we often refer to in Krav Maga.  Check it out:

The first thing that blew me away (ha ha, get it?) was that without thinking, the intended victim's physical reaction was to jerk his head away from the line of fire and to push the gun away with his hand.  In Krav we refer to the fact that an effective defense should generally be based on the body's instinctive reactions to a threat.  This makes the defense easy to learn, because your body wants to do that stuff anyway.  Once you start doing gun defenses in class you'll find that you'll be striving to immediately get yourself off the line of fire & redirect the gun (+ other stuff after that).  So seeing this guy do it automatically was pretty cool.  

The second thing you'll probably notice is that after he redirects the weapon and it fails to fire, both he & the gunman freeze & stare at each other.  I've heard some folks making fun of them for this, but but the truth is, that's the way these things usually play out.  That freeze is their brains realizing what they thought was going to happen that day is NOT going to happen and something else - something bad - IS happening.  Right now.  Their brains (and your brain, should you find yourself in sudden unexpected danger) needs that split second to figure out what's going on and what to do about it.  

All this life changing stuff is happening in under 3 seconds.  

Next everyone else in the room starts experiencing their own freeze, trying to comprehend what just happened.  Then, of course, mob justice.  Once one person strikes the gunman, it becomes a free for all.  It's hard for me to watch a bunch of people stomping, kicking and hitting a downed individual who is not fighting, in spite of the fact that I just watched him try to murder someone in cold blood (also hard to watch, btw).  I know this guy has it coming.  I can't say I wouldn't be in there with the mob myself, given the same circumstances.  But from the outside looking in it makes my stomach woozy to watch it.

Working It Out

I've been absent from this blog for a while because I've been absent from my life for a while.  Working nights turned out to be my kryptonite - but I'm working days again!  I'm aliiiive!!

So a student wrote me recently & asked for some advice because her husband is becoming unhappy about her new dedication to training in Krav Maga.  This is something my husband & I briefly went through, and it's quite common.  It happens when either gender is a trainee, but it seems to be far more frequent when the trainee is female, because this sort of martial arts training is not "normal" for girls.  

Now that I've got a little distance from the situation as it relates to my own life, here's my take on it.

This is the trainee's point of view:  I can suddenly do things I never dreamed were possible!  I can be strong and fast, and I can fight through fear.  I get to go to a class full of people who like the same things I like, who support me when I want to quit - and let me support them.  I am so much stronger than I thought I was and it's an incredible rush.  I wish everyone could feel this.  I'm noticing how my new confidence is positively affecting every other area of my life and I want more.  

Their mate's point of view is different:  My mate used to act one way and now they are completely different.  They suddenly have a whole new set of friends that I don't know and can't relate to, since I'm not interested in all that "fighting" stuff.  My mate used to wear normal clothes & now they just wear sweaty workout clothes (or as my husband once dryly put it, "oh baby, I love that swishy sound you make when you wear your grandma track pants."  My partner used to talk about lots of different things and now its all about punching and kicking.  They're obsessed & they won't shut up about it!  They tell everyone ad nauseum.  And finally there is the undeniable intimacy of Krav Maga training.  (This, of course, applies to many other styles of training as well.  As my husband snapped at me, "you're rolling around on the ground with a bunch of guys who look like movie stars!"  I tried explaining to him "that guy is trying to punch me in the face.  That's not sexy."  But he wasn't buying it)  

Eventually something has to change or an agreement has to be reached between the partners.  Most people want their mate to come to class with them.  I got my husband to come once, just to see what it was like, and it helped.  But ultimately for us that was not a solution.  He knows how to defend himself and I really wanted this to be just for me.  He races mountain bikes and rides all kinds of bicycles many hours a week.  He doesn't want me around then.  It's just for him.  And I think that's awesome.  We all need a room of our own.

Here are some things I did that fixed our situation:  1 - I learned to shut up about what we did in class that night.  The truth is he was sick of it and didn't want to hear it.  It was hard because I felt like I was keeping a whole part of myself away from him and it hurt my feelings that he didn't want to hear about something that was so important to me.  But facts are facts: he was tired of hearing about it, so I needed to give him a break.  He still had to suck it up while I told every other human on the planet.
2 - He likes me to look nice & found Krav Maga outfits to be de-feminizing and unattractive.  I started taking ballet lessons a few months ago & took the opportunity to buy a bunch of ballet workout outfits.  Of course, any cute clothes would do. He loves it.  I get to wear athletic wear whenever I want & he gets to see me in cute clothes.  Win-win.  
3 - I told my closest guy friends/training partners that he was having a hard time with how we were always plastered onto each other and they understood completely and said they'd probably feel the same.  So because they are awesome they went out of their way to get to know my husband and to make him comfortable that they were good guys who would look out for me and not try to take advantage of me in any way, on the mat or off.  That was a huge help.  
4 - I got him to watch UFC fights with me.  At first he thought it was just about brutality and was repulsed, but since I insisted on continuing to watch he did, too.  As he learned about the incredible skill involved and came to respect the sport he ended up being an even bigger enthusiast than me.
5 - Finally, he came and watched part of my very first belt test.  He saw how hard I was working to overcome fear, frustration, exhaustion, and just the general desire to quit.  Those feelings never go away, by the way.  You just get better at overcoming them.  He saw the training itself had a complete lack of bullshit or baby sitting.  And he was really, really proud of me.  

He gets it now.  He likes my friends and know they have my back.  He likes how much stronger, happier, and more confident I am than I was before.  And I've learned how to take it down a notch and only tell him the stories that really matter the most.  

There are a few people reading this who might be offended.  They might think I should have just told him to zip it because I'm over at Krav class gettin' all empowered and he's holding me back.  But one of the things we learn in Krav Maga is you only fight when you have no other choice.  First try to solve a problem with your brain instead of your fists (or mean words).  If you can create a win-win, then why on earth would you not do that?

KM Smackdown

I love slapping people. 

It's fairly rare that the opportunity

 to do so presents itself.

I have a strict policy of no men being present in the room during the ladies-only class, but Miss Smurf has been after me for some time to put a guy in the fight suit and bring him in to let them practice striking a live human.  So last weekend we finally did it. 

Big J (not the same guy as Big Daddy J) put on the suit and choked our females then took his beating like a champ.  However, one lady didn't feel comfortable striking him, so I offered to let her hit me instead.  The price of admission, however, was that I was gonna slap the crap out of her.  Now it might appear that I was just trying to slap somebody, which was probably not the case.  Once one lady decided she was game, several others followed. 

The truth of the matter is that after a lifetime of being told to play nice, hitting another person, even when being attacked, can be extremely difficult for female students.  Learning how to hit an actual person instead of a pad is an important part of one's self defense education.  It just so happens, however, if you slap a woman in the face & drag her around by her hair she tends to override her hesitation to strike pretty quickly.  We weren't doing hair grabs that day, so I just made them close their eyes, gave them a good hard slap in the face & grabbed them by the throat.  You should have seen them come after me!  I was so proud.  My right shin is all swollen and black and blue because they all kept kicking me there for some reason.  That got old pretty quickly but, let's face it, I was not exactly in a position to complain.

Also, I'm happy to say that on a personal level it was an accomplishment to be the padded attacker.  I ended up taking the role on so suddenly that all I had time to put on was head protection & a mouthpiece (hence the bruises) but I felt great anyway.  I remember the first time I ever saw one of the padded suits in the first self defense seminar I ever attended.  "That guy is crazy!"  I thought.  "I'd never do that!"  Later I'd occasionally see instructors don them during training and even though I never expected to be that guy, I started to envy them a little for being willing to take some battering to help their students learn.  Even through the suit you still get banged up.  This year I decided I wanted to be that guy.  The only rules I gave them were don't punch me in the throat and don't strike me in the back of the skull  at the base (i.e., please don't kill me).  And they didn't! So last weekend made me really happy both for my students and for myself.

2 THINGS I AM NOT LYING ABOUT:

1 - If you have an emotional meltdown in class and start crying, I don't mind.  Neither does anybody else.  I've done it.  Loads of people have done it.  Lizard brains are strong and they do what they want, when they want.  In fact, watching people work through a post traumatic stress episode, come out of it, and then have the courage to come back to class to face the same situation again in an effort to master their fear is one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen.  It makes me proud to work with them and pushes me to work to be a better instructor to be worthy of training with them.

2 - I respect people who refuse to participate in class when they feel unsafe or overwhelmed by what we're doing on the mat.  Think about it: everyone else in the room is doing the technique, rooting each other on, etc.  And one person stands there and says "Nope.  I'm not doing that."  It takes a certain amount of backbone to be the only one who won't go along, and I like people with a backbone. 

Dominate! Yes!

Sometimes teaching is so much fun and the best part is often watching the students figure stuff out as they're doing it.  Remembering the times I've done that myself and looking forward to doing it again - its watching people give themselves over to learning that makes me excited to go to class.

A couple of fun things happened the other night.  First I'll say that we don't get much direct hands-on contact in level 1 against a strongly resisting opponent.  Our focus is more on teaching basic techniques, getting people up to a fitness level that will allow them to perform, and instilling a fighting spirit.  We strike pads & choke each other, but we don't get down & get funky too much. 

So sometimes just for fun I'll very quickly show people some basic ground positions (usually mount, guard, half guard, and side guard if I remember that one).  Then I'll set them up on their knees with their partner & say "GO".  I tell them not to try to finish anyone off, the goal is just to "dominate your opponent". Once you've accomplished that just reset & go again.  The real goal, of course, is to get them used to putting hands on someone who is actively trying to make them submit.  I stole this from Matt, btw. 

So on to the fun things: #1 - Girls always look pissed off when they do this exercise.  Guys can usually keep a pretty passive face or even grin like a monkey the whole time, but girls generally look like they're about to pop.  This is true of myself as well, I can't keep a neutral face & perform well.  So you'd think I'd know this but the other day these 2 girls were wrassling & it was ON.  You'd think they had a vendetta.  I almost stopped them a couple of times because I was so sure they had really become really angry with each other.  Once I finally made them stop they started laughing & hugging & giving each other feedback on how to do better in the next round.

2# - Similar situation with the guys.  I'm walking around monitoring, mostly just making sure nobody kills their partner when I come upon a couple of guys.  One has the other in a fierce headlock on the ground.  He is cranking hard.  I say, "Time!  What are you doing?!"  The  guy looks at me like it's Christmas morning & I'm Santa Claus and says, "I'M DOMINATING!"  His opponent/partner, who can now breathe again laughs and agrees.  Everyone is being such a good sport, it was just awesome.

At the end of class a female who had been unable to perform a technique in spite of several tries pointed out her failure.  The Dominator said (and this is all in caps because he bellowed the whole thing), "THAT'S OKAY!  I FAIL ALL THE TIME!  I FAIL AND I FAIL AND I FAIL AND THEN I WIN!  I FAIL AND THEN I DOMINATE!  YES!"

I guess I'm really writing all this because I'm so grateful in general for my students right now and for this class in particular.  I confess I'm a little stressed out lately.  But every class I get to see people struggle and triumph or resolve to try again.  They face their fears, they help each other, they forgive readily the random accidental smack in the face.  They work hard and with a great attitude. 

So, thanks y'all for showing me for showing me the best of yourselves and making me excited to come back and do it all again.

I take It Back

I didn't think I was full of shit when I made my last post. 

When I said didn't have much feeling one way or the other about the more extreme crimes committed by some of the inmates housed in the facility in which I work, I believed it.

Then the very next night something changed my mind.  A particular inmate was convicted of doing something violent and horrible to a person who was defenseless.  I won't say what he did, because I really don't know what I'm allowed to say outside of work.  This guy was being moved to someplace he didn't want to go and told a lie to postpone it.  First he said it to another officer, then later to me. I told him he was going anyway and he just turned around and sat down, emotionless. 

When he spoke to me I had the sensation of cockroaches crawling on my skin.

I told another, more experienced officer how I'd reacted and she told me, "That's your instinct warning you.  Listen to it."

She made me think of Gavin de Becker's "Gift of Fear".  The people I used to refer to in Krav Maga class as "types" of attackers are real people now with faces and names and voices.