Protect Ya Back

Sometimes a little change can make you or break you.

We go hard in Krav and ouchies like big bruises and sore muscles are just the cost of doing business if you want to train. As one of my early trainers told me when I was whining about being sore:

***Everybody has aches and pains. You can have the aches and pains of an athlete or the aches and pains of an overweight couch potato. Pick one.***

However, there's a difference between an ouchie and an injury. An injury to the shoulder or knee (I'm icing my knee as I write this) can significantly inhibit your training. A back injury can take you out of the game permanently.

So it's extremely important not only to train smart and know when to attack and when to ease off, but also to protect your spine by strengthening your core. It may not be fun to do core exercises, but you only get one spine. You're never going to get another one.

Does it sound like I'm lecturing you? Yeah, I kinda am.

Here's a video of some core exercises suggested by Stuart McGill, world renowned Professor of Spine Biomechanics at the University of Waterloo in Canada. McGill is the guy professional sports teams, governments, and rich dudes fly from all over the world to be treated by.

You will find that he dislikes crunches, and we do loads of those, don't we? So does every other gym I've ever stepped foot in, so take his advice and make it work for you. (Spoiler alert - here's your little change.) When you do sit ups or crunches, raise up from the chest & maintain a neutral spine and neck. Imagine there's a string attached to the ceiling and to your sternum and it's drawing your sternum straight up. It's hard, which is awesome, and saves your back.

click here for the video

No Spoon Feeding

I was talking to my friend Heather the other day, about teaching and how to do it right. Heather is a behavioral specialist, specializing in Special Education, for a few Central Texas school districts. Did you like how I worked "special" 3 times into one sentence? I do. I worked with her at Austin ISD for several years and after watching her consistently be the smartest and most competent person on the planet, I pretty much take anything she says as gospel.

She taught me that one of the reason students come out of school with no problem-solving skills is that all the necessary pieces of information to solve a problem are handed to them. Consequently, they don't know how to puzzle out for themselves what they really need and don't need to reach a desired conclusion.

So I thought about how that might apply to teaching Krav Maga. We do generally (not always) say "here's how you handle this particular problem. Practice this technique." Which is great - up to a point.

So in today's Women-Only class I decided to make them figure it out for themselves. We sat down & I asked, "What if you know you're in some danger but the fight isn't on? What can you do to head things off before they even begin? And what are the probable consequences of those actions?" They sat and waited for the answer - but nope!. They were giving the answers today. Here are the excellent answers they gave:

*walk/drive to a crowded area (yes, we want witnesses!)

*ask for help from someone who works there (assuming that applies)

*pull out your cell phone (I love this, as you can take a picture of them - an act which has solved some crimes - or you can show you are prepared to take action without escalating the situation.)

*maintain strong eye contact

*run

*use social engagement, or try to talk your way out of it

*maintain distance

*call 911

*loudly order them to leave you alone (if they refuse, you just learned a lot about their intentions)

*make a scene (if in public)

*yell or scream

These last 3 are actually some of the most difficult for many people to perform. The social pressures to NOT yell, make a scene, etc. in a public place are very, very strong. Each of these actions can have different consequences. When you consider which of these options you are most likely to choose, you must consider several things:

*Are you accustomed to drawing boundaries in your normal life? That will influence how strongly you are able to tell them to leave you alone. That will influence their reaction.

*If you yell or make a scene be prepared for people to back away from you. Consider saying things like, "I don't know you, stop touching me, I don't know you, you're scaring me, etc." You will have witnesses that the other person was the aggressor. That may not translate into help in the moment, but if they don't believe its a family or couple's squabble your chances of getting help improve.

*If you prefer to run, are you fast? Will you be hindered by a child, an elderly person, even your shoes? What if they catch you? I'm not saying you shouldn't run (I have run away from a dangerous situation!), just that you need to put some real thought into your choice.

Later we moved to the hallway leading the the garage and worked on drawing boundaries, then palm heels, elbows, and knees. Then defending our friend against another attacker, which was nice.

The last exercise was walking the gauntlet. Each pair of partners had to quickly discuss what they were best at, of the techniques we had worked on in class (drawing boundaries verbally, combatives, running to a pre-determined safety zone). They also had to decide how they would attack the pair who were walking the gauntlet. Would they just taunt them? Would both attack one person of the pair? Two on two? The goal was to make a decision in the moment how you were being attacked about how to defend and escape. Do you defend as a team? Does one defend and one go for help?

Frankly, I also had a secret goal. By having the students decide how to attack different people they are forced to look at the defenders perceived weaknesses. I want them to look at someone and decide how to attack them without getting hurt themselves. I want them to think like predators, just for that moment. If they understand how to be a predator, I hope they understand better how to defend themselves from one.

A final note: During the drill one woman panicked and ran, leaving her partner to defend herself alone. She felt terrible about abandoning her partner, and now I wish I hadn't teased her about it. Of course I didn't realize at the time she was upset. But here's the thing: she got away. She's a survivor. I like survivors. She'd said earlier she thought she'd be likely to run when faced with danger, and she did. Her partner successfully fought her way through, so it was fine. I doubt that young woman would have fled on her own if she'd been with a loved one, but she was with a stranger, so she split. Works for me.

Please know that your first job is to survive. Please know that violence in real life is nothing like it is in the movies. If you panic, your body is going to take over and do what it needs to do to survive. That's its job.

Thanks to Kelli for her general awesomeness in class today, and to everyone who came!

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Woof?

There is a technique called woofing that involves extreme domination of another individual, either verbally or physically or both. I first learned it from Rory Miller when he came to Austin to teach a seminar.

A common example of woofing is to completely immobilize the person & whisper something in their ear like, “The rest of the class thinks this is just an exercise, but I’m about to make you bleed. There’s nothing you can do to stop me, and no one will help you, they’ll just stand there and watch because they don’t know it’s real...”

The goal might be one of a few things. It might be to incite someone to fight at a higher than normal level of intensity because their adrenaline level skyrockets. Or maybe it’s to see how the person will react. Will they struggle, freeze, cry, give up?

It’s a dangerous game, because to work it must be very convincing and frightening - but it’s also the kind of behavior that can destroy relationships.

Twice this month I’ve been called upon to woof students as the first step of a long drill in which we were trying to get untrained female students to overcome their social conditioning and “unleash the beast”. Both were large groups of women I mostly had never met before.

The first time I was too soft on them and was just being generally annoying, like an older sister teasing her younger siblings. I was told to stop being so nice and do it right. To be effective I had to act like a real predator, saying things like, “I’ve been watching you for weeks, and now that I’ve got you tied up I’m going to fuck you in the ass so hard...” So I said that to the next student up, and it worked, but she never looked me in the face again for the rest of the day, which rattled me.

The next time we did the drill was a couple of weeks later, and I took a different approach. I knew a couple of students were from SafePlace, a battered women’s shelter, but I didn’t know who they were. I wasn’t willing to take a chance on re-traumatizing someone who has actually been assaulted, but I had to get their adrenaline levels up fast or we were just wasting their time. So I grabbed each one by the face, like palming a basketball, shoving her back & pinning her hard against the wall by her face & head. With the other hand I pulled out her ponytail or braid & messed her hair up while saying cruel things.

If they were carrying a few extra pounds I called them a fat-ass.

If they were petite I told them they were weak and pathetic.

If I knew they had children I told them the kid was ugly and stupid and would always make bad grades and be a loser.

I told pretty much everyone they sucked.

It was fascinating to watch their behavior. Some tried to immediately fight, others started breathing heavily, but did not try to fight (they were instructed not to fight me). Others endured calmly, calculating, waiting, plotting ...

After about 10 or 15 seconds I’d release them, yelling “GO!!” and giving them a shove toward their first target.

It was also fascinating, to me, to observe my own feelings about what I was doing. Saying cruel things to people was stressing me out so much my stomach was in knots for hours afterward. But physically dominating them was actually kind of fun. Maybe there’s hope for me in sparring, after all.

Some women chose not to participate, and that’s fine, too. I like that they drew a boundary and stuck with it.

The last two women to go through the drill were friends of mine, which changed things considerably for me. It’s one thing to jack up the adrenaline levels of a stranger when I know it will help her in the end. It’s a whole other ballgame to poke at people you personally care about. But it’s also unfair to them to give them a half-assed version of the drill. So, I told one of them I was having an affair with her husband & told the other her son was stupid & I never liked him. When I released that one, she yelled, “Get the fuck out of my way!!”

Incidentally, it’s hard to woof the woofer, so when it was my turn to go, the first time we did the drill, my instructor, Kelly Campbell, was my woofer. I just shook my head & grinned, so she let me go then suddenly attacked me from behind. She is STRONG! I wasn’t grinning then! I struggled, unwilling to strike her. I wormed and wiggled as hard as I could until she let me go so I could complete the drill. Yes, my adrenaline level was UP!

I want to thank everyone who participated in the ladies seminars in April, especially Kelly and Linda Lyra. Woofing is hard to do (the talking part is, anyway) and hard to endure, but it serves a very important function. I hope the females reading this will come to my monthly ladies-only class at Fit and Fearless in Austin. Held the first Saturday of every month at 11:30, it’s free to any female, so come train and I will only say nice things to you.

A Face In The Crowd

You remember the news reports last year when the Wal-Mart employee was crushed to death by the crowd stampeding into the store to get to the sale items first? Last week a student gave me an article from the New Yorker called Crush Point, by John Seabrook, detailing this and other similar incidents.

I've never been particularly comfortable in crowds, and have been known to get panicky & flee when a crowd is all moving, herd-like in a particular direction. Turns out it wasn't such a bad idea. Large crowds, such as those at sporting events and music festivals can turn deadly when the circumstances are right. You can access the article by clicking here: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/07/110207fa_fact_seabrook

or read info from a noted crowd authority here: http://www.crowdsafe.com/

so I won't talk about working your way out of a dangerous crowd in this post, as you'll learn more from those sources.

But I will say this. Your first line of defense in a crowd is the same as it is any where else. Pay attention to what is going on around you. You can feel when a crowd is starting to amp up, to move, to pack together more closely. You don't need to walk around paranoid, but be aware in the general sense of peoples' body language, both the people close to you, and those farther out. If something doesn't "feel right", leave the area. Just leave. The best defense is your absence.

Quick story: Some years ago my husband Jackie & I were shopping at Academy. We'd gone to the different areas of the store where we both wanted to shop, but happened to be within sight of each other. The store's loudspeaker came on and we heard, "Academy shoppers, this is the store manager, we have an emergency and must close the store immediately. Please evacuate the store immediately." Jackie & I took one look at each other, dropped the items we were holding onto the shelves & calmly but very quickly walked toward each other & the hell out of the store. Not a word passed between us. We watched everyone around us, scanning for danger, both as we left the store, and out into the parking lot.

Later, discussing it, we agreed that maybe 10 percent of the shoppers that day reacted as we did. Most people either blew it off entirely or mosied out slowly. One stupid woman (yeah, I said it) sat just outside the store doors with her infant on her lap to see what was going on. Hmm, let's see, Academy sells guns so it could have been a shooter, maybe an environmental hazard, it could have been a freaking suicide bomber. I doubt the store suddenly stopped accepting everyone's money because it was time for their favorite soap opera.

We never did find out the reason, by the way. I don't care. I like knowing that my husband has the instincts of a survivor.

If you sense, or have any reason to believe that something is about to go down, please go away. If this is a subject that interests you, as it does me, those links are a good place to start. To read the whole New Yorker article you have to be a subscriber, but any library will have a copy.

Golden Gloves Tomorrow Night

How often do you & your friend/significant other/mom look at each other & say:

"What do you wanna do?"

"I dunno. What do you wanna do?"

"I dunno."

Tomorrow night is the final night of the 2011 Golden Gloves competition for Travis County. Tickets are only $10!

Everyone says MMA is so brutal blah blah, because once your opponent is down you jump on him & try to pound him into submission or break one of his limbs. The thing is, boxing has always scared me way more. In MMA there are loads of ways to win or lose - choke out, tap out, knock out, or just be outmatched.

In boxing someone is hitting you in the head, hard, over and over and over. I think that's scary.

Needless to say, I'm gonna go watch some boxing tomorrow night. If you'd like to come, too, click here for more information.

http://www.co.travis.tx.us/sheriff/press_releases/golden_gloves_tournament.asp

Boxers are brave and they are incredible athletes, and boxing has been a way out of poverty for young men as long as the sport has existed. Come support these local fighters and do something different this weekend. I guarantee you'll have stories to tell at work next Monday. I hope to see you there!

The Doctor Is Not In The House

Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, so I'm not telling you what to do, I'm telling you what I do. Use your own brain regarding your own body.

My forward fall breaks & side fall breaks are decent. My back fall breaks, not so much. We'll have to do high fall breaks at my next Phase, so at a couple of workouts every week, where I have access to a crash pad, I practice them. The goal is to help me get over the fear of falling backward through the air as much as practicing the technique.

So the other day when I was flinging myself to the ground repeatedly like some sort of confused schoolyard bully trying to steal my own lunch money, I managed to whack the back of my head on the pad quite nicely. Not too bad, no little flash of light, but a couple of hours later my neck stiffened up & didn't want to swivel my head around the way it's supposed to. No real injury, just an inconvenient boo-boo.

That night in GB's class we practiced slow sparring & Matt kept grabbing me by my headgear & slinging me backward & forward to headbutt me. I was gritting my teeth because he's already being so careful not to bust open my gut where I had the surgery, so I figured I should just suck it up. However by the end of the class someone yelled, "Stop slinging me around by my damn head, my neck is killing me!". The voice sounded suspiciously like mine - my mouth betrayed me once again. As I listened to his brief by heartfelt lecture about how it's my responsibility to tell my partner these things (shut up, please) I wiggled my head & shoulders around, & guess what? His cruel massage fixed me. My neck felt totally fine.

We get lots of inconvenient boo-boos in Krav. The question is, when do you train through it & when do you stay home & watch Family Guy? For me, the general rule is if its stiffness and soreness from training, more training will make it go away. Go to class. If it's a limb that's out of commission, I have other limbs. Make accommodations for the the injury by protecting it, not using it, etc. Go to class. If there is a risk of making an injury worse so that it will remove me from training completely for a week or more, or if my doctor says, "wake up!" then I'm watching class only, or watching Family Guy.

It can be difficult sometimes to be objective about our own lives and our own bodies, so the goal is to take one's ego out of it. Training when our situation is less than perfect teaches us to endure and to persevere. We can do much more than we think we can, just be smart and don't make a moderately bad situation worse.

Mateo Says So

My sweet friend Matt is amazing. Seriously.

That's him in the pic with me on the top right corner of your screen. I've often wondered if he knows he makes it all look so easy, and I'm happy to find he does know that. He wrote this blog post recently for Fit and Fearless' website, and he's been gracious enough to let me borrow it for y'all to enjoy. Every word he says is true.

How To Be Amazing

Have you always been athletically gifted? Are you one of those people to whom martial arts flow from your limbs as if you were born to strike? Well if you are NOT one of those people, you are like me. I know that a lot of times when I teach class, especially Combatives Conditioning, I may make things look simple, rather, easy. I know that sometimes if you take class with me, it may seem that I struggle much less than others or perhaps not at all. Trust me, this has not always been so. Everything that I have attained thus far is a product of hard training, commitment, and repetition, repetition, repetition. Did I mention repetition yet? Good.

For the purposes of this blog, for this post, we are going to FOCUS on KRAV MAGA only, although this can be applied to almost any aspect in life.

I work like crazy at the things that I care about and appreciate. If I am not good at something, I will work at it until I am good at it. If there is an exercise I hate - I do it until I love it. I do it until I am good enough at it that only a malicious exercise combination or very ambitious amount of reps will make me weary of it. It becomes some form of obsession. Let me tell you that when I first started Krav Maga around 4 years ago I practiced EVERYWHERE. While I was in the car I would practice where my hands would be in a fighting stance and at the lights I would practice inside defenses dry. I would punch and focus on body rotation and form in the shower (slowly of course). If I ever did any ab workout or was just lying on the ground watching TV I would ALWAYS get up "the Krav Way". I would turn corners in the house with elbows, hammerfists, whatever I could think of! ... What is the point in all of this? The point is this - although I might make it look easy, which sometimes it might be for me now (depending on technique), it has only become so because I put in the work and continue (keyword: CONTINUE) to do so.

We have just concluded the New Years Resolution month - that means, it's time to separate the "Talkers" and the "Doers". Those that talk of big change, of moving forward, and of perfecting a technique or skill-set AND...those that ACTUALLY DO IT. Be the one that DOES it. There doesn't have to be any losers either. If you are reading this post there is no reason you can't be a "Do-er"

So a student comes in, he wants to learn Krav Maga. He starts training and then gets distracted, he does a technique a few times and wants to do something else. He does a gun disarm five, six, times and says, "I got the basic idea." No my friends, this is not the way, this is not the way of the warrior, this is not the way MY instructors trained - this is not the way I train - this willnot be the way you train.

Commit to your training - do whatever is necessary to be the best for yourself, for your family. Use wraps and gloves, take cardio class to gain some endurance, take conditioning classes, get some private lessons, use the Level 1 classes to PERFECT the techniques you "already know" - if you are a level 2+ student please do not get caught in the mental trap of being "too skilled" for Level 1 classes either! Commit to yourself - commit to your training and do whatever is necessary to achieve your goals!

I was focused on what I needed to do, nothing else mattered. It is simply a mindset. You go for it, you don't stop and look to the side of the road; you just keep driving. It all starts in your head.

Do today what others won't and tomorrow you will do things others can't!