Sweden commits suicide, in the ugliest possible way
Bookworm on May 20 2011 at 4:32 pm | Filed under: Anti-Semitism
A country that happily allows the rape and destruction of its women, and that kills and hunts down its Jews, is a dead country:
Condell calls it the “open theft of an entire country,” but is it really theft if you voluntarily surrender your goods?
Hat tip: Front Page
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One of the ironies here is that Sweden has one of the most powerful militaries in Europe. Why would you arm yourself against extremely unlikely external threats yet totally ignore the enemy within?
I’ve asked in the past why people identify themselves as Jews when they are not religiously observant Jews. A caller to Dennis Prager’s show gave an interesting answer the other day…
He said that before WWII, they considered themselves to be Germans. When the Nazis took power, they discovered that they _weren’t_ “Germans”, they were “Jews”.
suek, the caller’s remarks tell me two things:
1. The Jews who were surprised that they were no longer Germans obviously didn’t think that being Jewish was important anymore.
2. However, non-Jews thought it was.
Moral of the story: Don’t ever forget you’re Jewish because nobody else will.
Z and ABC need to give Pat Condell a good talking to. Condell is very obviously misled, probably because he spends far too much time perusing the Bookworm Room echo chamber. Sweden is a EUtopian state – the World Bank says so and only compromised right-wing think tanks say otherwise!
Meanwhile, at the southern tip of EUtopia, Wretchard (one of the absolutely best political writers out there, in my view) gives us glimpses into some of the few clouds that mar its otherwise perpetually sunny clime. It’s probably those knuckle-dragging American influences again.
Swedish boys calling themselves men don’t need psychological help. They need balls. Even one will do. Half a spine will even do. Anything.
If they can’t even protect their women, then what good are they? They should just join my execution scaffold I put up for the 90% of bureaucrats and Leftists that should be executed.
They’re pathetic. Weak cry babies. 100% of Islamic rapists I would kill without a reason to hesistate. But 95% of bureaucrats and cowardly boys need to be punished as well, to put some spine into their cavities. Islamo terrorists need to be killed because they are rabid animals. But the other people are more despicable and thus in need of re-education. As Sun Tzu demonstrated back in the day, the fastest way to re-educated spoil kiddies in the ways of discipline is to provide them with the benefit of a punishment that consists only and always of death.
Danny, I agree about Wretchard. He is one of the finest correspondents on the Internet.
Ymarsakar, it is ironic that a nation that once was the most feared in Europe now produces nancy boys. It may be our gain though—women, even feminists, don’t like being surrounded by sissies, and we may see a steady stream of blonde Swedish babes heading our way. I’m donning my bib even as we speak.
>>If they can’t even protect their women, then what good are they?>>
But Y…
Their women are _equal_. They don’t _need_ protection.
My husband is very old fashioned. Very duty conscious, very protective. At times it drives me nuts. It has given me reason over the years to consider the difference between the need to protect and the need to possess. We see the difference almost daily in the news, when some unbalanced person goes over the edge and kills his wife (and children sometimes as well) because she wants to leave him. Or they actually have been divorced but she’s formed a relationship with another man. The muslims are one extreme, the Swedes seem to be at the other extreme. Lots of room in between.
Women’s lib hasn’t done 100% wonderful stuff for women – though at least we’re no longer chattel.
Socialism will eventually transition from democratic socialism to Soviet style socialism. Because when conditions get bad enough, people will flee. And they will take their assets, their economic status quo, and their knowledge sets with them. Europe will then impose draconian laws against this, mirroring the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain. Thise will cause them to import even more “foreign workers” into their country, radically increasing the rate of metastasizing growth rates.
Like Obama Minions said, you can’t take your business to some other state with a lower tax rate rate and reasonable unions. You are going to stay right where you are, or else.
See how it works… socialism is great, right. Darou. Deshou.
Ymarsaker observes: Swedish boys calling themselves men don’t need psychological help. They need balls. Even one will do. Half a spine will even do. Anything…If they can’t even protect their women, then what good are they?
The sad fact is that the EUtopian state does not allow its subjects to defend themselves, in the interest of keeping public order. Thus, if one of those Swedish women and/or their menfolk visited violence on the would-be rapists, it is likely that they, the Swedes, would go to jail.
This, of course, is absolutely anathema to me. I taught both of my kids how to defend themselves with extreme prejudice and how to use ordinary belongings (credit cards, keys) as weapons. Just FYI, I wouldn’t say that all the EUros are taking this lying down. I came across articles a few years back about an upsurge in vigilantism. Sadly, that’s what happens when societies deny their citizens their safety and right to self defense. When there is no just “law”, free people make their own law.
If a person is being attacked, and their resistance is futile, that person is in need of protection, objectively speaking.
And if the percentages and statistics say women and human nature says women are more vulnerable, then the reality is that women are less capable of protecting themselves.
There is no such thing as equality between the one violence is being used on and the violence user. The power is 100% with the violence user, and the person violence is used on, has no power. I would think and say the same thing if the statistics were reversed. If Islamic women were raping and hurting Swedish men. That’s because violence plays no favorites.But that’s not how the world usually goes when it comes to male violence and female violence. It’s only humans that play favorites in the end.
I stand astride between two different cultures and times. On the one hand, I believe in the ultimate efficacy of violence and death, in the traditional forms, which also include ritual suicide as being a proper and dignified way to atone for uncorrectable mistakes. On the other hand, I believe in the relatively modern philosophy that life has value and that humans are resources which should not be squandered.
Thus I can believe women need protection more than men, and that men ought to pursue that path to excellence, while on the other hand I also believe women are equally capable (but not equally powerful) of becoming strong defenders or lethal weapons themselves.
These are not contradictions to me at all.
Charles M, have you read Richard Fernandez’ book, “No Way In: Freedom is the Greatest Addiction of All”?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1453892818?ie=UTF8&tag=pajamasmedia-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1453892818
I suspect that much of it, involving the anti-Marcos Philippine underground, was autobiographical.
Thus, if one of those Swedish women and/or their menfolk visited violence on the would-be rapists, it is likely that they, the Swedes, would go to jail.
People eventually have to choose. Whether they will live life on the sweat of their own brow and in the space of their own conscience, or whether they will bow knee and hands to the Master and obey the Master as a slave in all things.
Even in the United States, defectors from the Left have become aware of the horrendous sins of their former compatriots. They made the choice they did, but there was always the alternative of living in sin and glorifying in it.
If their government and laws are unjust, they must choose to fight and overthrow it, or bow their heads in submission. As is right and proper of Islamic thralls.
Once a person submits once to unjust laws, it becomes easier and easier to do it again. After sacrificing their honor and their dignity as well as their women, why not keep it up?
Humans follow the path of least resistance. Unless they force themselves to fight, unless they meet the fear of death in the eye and overcome themselves, they will flow downhill like shit in a medieval town.
Danny, thanks for the tip. I went over to the Amazon site and the book looks like one of those where you know what you’re going to be doing for the next day.
suek’s comments reminded me of something I read, or maybe even saw discussed here awhile ago. It was the need for men to be protective toward women and children. Somebody was describing trying to teach boys to grow up to become something better than gangbangers or perpetual adolescents—the former vicious and uncaring predators, the latter worthless, self-absorbed drones. She related struggling to get her young son to quit teasing and harrassing his younger sister, whom he obviously saw as a rival for affection. Pleas to behave himself and “be nice” were unavailing.
Finally, she realized she was pleading to the wrong part of his psyche, a part that would not bloom until she appealed first to a more powerful part. So she began saying, “You are your sister’s protector. You must keep her from harm because she is smaller and weaker than you. I expect you to do your best to protect her.” The change in his behavior was instantaneous. He became a caring, solicitous older brother because he had been given a role that resonated with his basic male nature. Now, like the border collie who runs across a herd of sheep for the first time, life had meaning and purpose!
Perhaps Swedish men will get their sense of purpose—their manhood—back when they take back the streets of Malmo and send the semi-savages they’ve let infest their country back home to the splendors of Dar al-Islam.
Interesting story, Martel. I would have told the boy that if he kept tormenting people weaker than him, when it comes time to face a mighty foe that can tear his arms off and beat him to death with it, he will need to be very strong and determined to look that foe in the eye and not run off crying like a cowardly roach wasting our air. And if he keeps trying to compete or going up against girls weaker than him, that’s all he will ever amount to: a piss poor crying baby that is going to get beat to death after accomplishing ZIP.
It takes far more strength to protect others than it does to protect yourself. Thus it is a reality test to determine whether your ego lines up with reality. Your ego may claim you are immortal and strong, but let’s see what reality has to say.
To clarify what I mean on women’s ability to defend themselves, I utilize the same concept as the US Constitution. Equality of opportunity, but not equality of talent, skill, or success. Women only have an equal opportunity to excel, in the modern era, as men in the violence arts. Realistically, less women are capable and more men are talented at physical violence. Equal opportunity means little if few women partake of that chance.
Ymar 13: Once a person submits once to unjust laws, it becomes easier and easier to do it again. After sacrificing their honor and their dignity as well as their women, why not keep it up?
You’d have to face a personal psychological crisis the first time a part of your self-respect is taken from you – because you’ve submitted to a threat rather than resisted it. Having been broken once, you lose again more easily the next time, and the next…
The dhimmitude associated with Islamicization causea such a psychological crisis, but it slams the whole population, so because of its breadth it’s a national and cultural crisis, not personal. It seems to me that the signals to defend yourself, your family, your friends, your culture, your history, your nation… all become muted. More and more over time.
In a sense it’s a process of grooming/training. Under dhimmitude, it’s a grooming/training of an entire population.
So what would stop it? As would be said: You suddenly grow a spine (or a pair), stand up straight, and say in your head with a strength that resonates: “No. I will not.” It’s best of course if that’s your instinctive initial reaction – with absolutely zero thought. But that stand-up point could happen at any time, though becoming less and less likely with each subsequent submission.
Sweden desperately needs a “Just Say No!” national movement simmering with outrage. In the process rediscovering a national spine; a will toward cultural survival. Will anything spark one?
Was it just me, or was Mr. Condell far “hotter” than usual – barely contained fury? – in this video than in the past?
As i mentioned before, if boys wish to become men, they need to do some self-training. It doesn’t matter what it is, whether it is military training, H2H combat, getting a master’s, becoming successful business wise, none of it really matters. Except that you set an impossibly hard goal and then you make it happen little by little.
For most Americans, it would be gun training. The physics and techniques required for the 100% list of firearm techniques is broad, spiritual, and good for the body and mind. Some of them I will list here.
1. Shoot and hit moving targets with the left hand, with an increased rate of fire due to perfected muscle memory and stance resistance against recoil.
2. Shoot and hit moving targets with the right hand, with an increased rate of fire due to perfected muscle memory and stance resistance against recoil.
3. Shoot utilizing both hands in a number of stances for more stability and accuracy.
4. Learn to shoot from the hip for close quarters combat, so that you are aiming the gun with your hips, and not so much your hands.
5. Hone your sense of touch by cleaning or reassembling gun components.
6. Shoot using a prone or standing posture for rifles and long guns.
7. Understand how to utilize cover, how to move from cover to cover, and how to prepare cover or concealment in a shoot out.
8. Learn to read the wind and use a scope.
9. Learn breathing techniques that are absolutely required for accuracy in firearms use. This is similar to the internal breathing techniques in martial arts, just as martial arts stances are similar to shooting stances in utility.
10. Learn how to control power to destroy enemies, after defeating your own internal inhibitions and mental instabilities.
Many police officers don’t even have 10 of this, let alone 100% of the gun techniques mastered.
Many of the SWAT and police “mistakes” are mostly due to bad training. Good training is harsher than reality, thus avoiding mistakes and panic attacks in the real world.
Police unions also use funding for political games and intentionally withdraw funding for expert marksmanship training courses. Why train officers to be able to safeguard themselves better when you can pay out a bunch of cash in bribes to the politicians so you can get a fatter mansion and a faster helicopter?
To avoid misunderstandings, I am not a gun instructor nor do I have sufficient time on the range to be called proficient in firearms. These are all knowledge I either picked up myself through other activities or because of my meeting other people who did excel at marksmanship training and shooting.
The training I have taken was comprehensive. That meant it was not dumbed down to only include technical details consisting of 10% of the whole. Thus to defend against firearms, I was required to learn how firearms operate and how a person would use it to kill. That’s pretty simple, but it wasn’t necessary for H2H training to learn how to shoot a firearm accurately as it would have been the case at a certified shooting range.
It’s just really unavoidable. Studying combat, war, and the psychology of killing, I run into firearms knowledge regardless of whether I want to or not. It just pops up because guns are popular you know. Not only are a substantial portion of my friends and almost all my military associates gun nuts, but it was an easy conversation choice to start on for social gatherings here in the culture I live in.
I guess almost a decade of that caught on more or less. Weapons are weapons. They’re not that complicated to figure out once you start mastering one of them.
The list I put up was designed with anti-H2H and anti-disarming procedures in mind, as well as techniques to offset the disadvantage of a severed, maimed, or crippled left/right arm. In war you will often be wounded. In a real shootout, you may not be able to use your dominant hands. Which is why putting in around 50% of the time into training your secondary hand is wise. 2,000 hours of range time on the right hand, 1,000 hours of range time on the left hand. It’s really easy to miss people charging you if you attempt to use the police standardized stance with both arms straight out and in front. Shooting from the hip becomes a necessity when facing knife and melee armed assailants when they are within 5-25 feet. Once they get past 5 feet, into 4 and below, then you must consider utilizing the gun as a melee device or use your H2H attacks. You only get one hip shot shot at 5 feet before they are on you, at best. (This was from the anti-firearms scenario of H2H training)
This is nuts, I know, but it’s what professionals do full time in training how to kill people with firearms. The amount of time required to gain such proficiency is a full time deal. It’s no hobby task. Shooting a gun once and hitting a target is basics, not advanced techniques. High level ability in firearms is a fine motor skill that decays when you don’t practice it every day.
Americans are considered gun nuts for good reason. What is, is.
Something as simple as over adrenaline making you grip the gun too tightly, will throw your aim off by inches at a distance. Little details like that I picked up from other people.
This reminds me that it doesn’t matter whether Obama is right about economic theory or not. So long as you are ruled by tyrants and wannabe totalitarians, does it really matter whether they get the ideas right when the implementation is set in stone?
A through Z argues about policy, but not necessarily about the importance of the type of organization or the type of leadership being selected.
Even if the Left is 100% right on everything, they would still be the wrong choice solely because they always produce “leaders” like Obama. Or in Sweden, socialists. Look how well that worked out for the Swedes.
Ymar 22: A through Z argues about policy, but not necessarily about the importance of the type of organization or the type of leadership being selected.
I think of it as “First Principles”. A leftie commentator called it “jongoism” and “ideology”. The minutae of policy are written in support of a vision. If the vision is wrong, the policies don’t matter.
A slight digression on that point: The U.S. never has been completely a free market system. I would argue that we are mostly successful *only* because of those aspects of the free market system and open competition – and people making their own decisions in pursuit of their own interests. That we are harmed by government interference. Liberals claim the opposite.
The more government interference, the worse a nation seems to do. I seem to see this First Principle proved repeatedly.
You can even see that China is an example proving this: Stuck in a moribund, dead economy, they relax *some* controls, introducing *some* levels of rational self-interest and initiative among their people… and their economy rapidly (astonishingly?) improves. Suddenly showing a life and vitality that hadn’t been seen before. And I haven’t even mentioned the example of Hong Kong.
Would you like to place any bets about what would happen if China’s totalitarian leaders relaxed government controls even more?
This is why an argument based on First Principles and vision is often far more relevant than an argument based on policies. The argument on policies is relevant when debating policy A vs policy B.
To 23: I mistakenly posted my reply over at the “Not going to happen” OP.
Also I thought jingoism was supposed to be about extreme forms of patriotism. It doesn’t apply to normal ideas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ausonius
It’s weird that you mention this, because in Sweden right now we’re having a problem with this racist asshole (the newspapers call him Lasermannen) who’s been killing Muslim/Arabic immigrants.
Well, naturally, the Muslim community was less than thrilled, but a few crazy guys (including a friend of a friend) have decided that, no, it’s not enough for the police to go and hunt this murderer down, this guy has to go hunt down Lasermannen HIMSELF and kill him! It’s completely stupid, has a chance of WORSENING hate crime violence than decreasing it, and makes the Muslim community look bad.
I think that, in a place where you have a working (not perfect, but working) legal system and relatively uncorrupt police, vigilantism is just mob violence. Let the people whose jobs it is to handle crime, deal with crime. Help them, gather evidence, stalk the bad guy if you want to, but don’t go taking matters wholly into your own hands.
tl;dr Vigilantism is never justified in societies with working legal systems, and you’re not Batman.
-Declaro at Escapist Magazine
I discovered the wiki article based upon this comment.
Currently the system I favor is peace officers and distributed network security for the United States of America. That means instead of utilizing centralized police or distributing more police officers to the streets on patrol, I instead would allocate more private citizens to the task. Instead of a small elite force, I would go for numbers and coverage, rather than breath or depth of training. They need have no special qualifications since it isn’t their job to stop criminals. They are simply there and licensed by the state, like a privateer, with handling certain criminals if it becomes necessary. It is sanctioned citizen militias. The individuals provide 100% of the cost for training and materials, as well as time investment and leadership. But the state and the law sanctions their activities. It is not a free pardon for crimes. It is the same due diligence given to police officers in the line of duty.
This isn’t vigilantism but because people of this world are confused and ignorant, they often don’t see the difference between illegal activities and legal activities on the part of non-police/non-military personnel.
The citizen has a moral obligation and duty to defend his society and the people in it. Whether he has the legal sanction to do it depends upon the local laws and leaders. A society that expects the dirty work of handling criminals to only be given out to the “police caste” will soon turn into a society that is less free, less tolerant, and less happy. Look up Sweden and Britain. When a people are taught that they must rely on the police to wipe themselves, that is why they will do. And when the police won’t or can’t help, the people are left defenseless. What will become of their society then? Who will defend it then? Nobody that’s who.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0db_1288489883
I also like this video of Arabic or Islamic immigrants. Behaving like the animals they truly are.
Look and listen carefully. That’s the same kinds of things those Palestinians that liked killing Israeli children were thinking.
We’ll get all of them and their family. Sure enough they did.
Also, to Danny, the police officer says Sweden has a citizen’s arrest sanction law. If true, then it’s obvious not many Swedish men have the stones to use it.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=25a_1233323690
That’s a vigilante mob in Britain, although it’s interesting how their story played out.
If a group wants to catch a known sex offender, here are some tips.
1. Generate an artificial trap utilizing “honey traps” as what they are euphemistically known as. Basically attractive women placing themselves into vulnerable areas hoping they will attract the “right” (meaning wrong) kind of attention. Usually with a kill squad in an unmarked van parked near that they can reach the location in around 30 seconds, utilizing an open mike such as a cellphone or wire tap or panic button alert system.
2. The same setup as the above, except the woman is trained in assassination techniques, and thus will capture the attacker herself.
3. A sniper located such that the sniper line of sight covers all avenues of approach and escape, in order to provide fire support and termination of assailants for the bait.
The gang leader said: ‘We all know one of the girls who was attacked. We didn’t want our wives, sisters and daughters falling prey to this beast, who is still at large, so we decided to go out there as a visible presence to scare him off and hopefully even catch him. We were on the lookout for any burglars or anyone else posing a threat.
‘We think the police are too concerned about catching kids smoking cannabis and drinking when they should be concentrating on the real criminals.
I feel sorry for them and empathize with their difficulties. They lack training, assets, and resources. All they have is the will. Those that have training, assets, or resources either aren’t available to help or they are ordered by the British political class to let certain classes of people suffer, for their own good.
Using a military grade sniper and sniper rifle, killers utilizing H2H attacks, or well versed agents capable of using deception and tradecraft (spycraft) on a known rapist, would be like destroying a planet by making its star go nova. But it would be effective, you know.
The 3 steps above are a “kinetic operation”. Normally to support such an operation you need “intel” from the locals. You can’t patrol the streets in such an obvious manner and hope to acquire usable intel. But that’s all they know how to do, so they do it. Laudable, but less efficient than it could be.
It’s very difficult to protect vulnerable women when they can’t protect themselves. The police are often in the same situation. So is the military. Trying to protect someone with a strength of 10 when you have a strength of 90, doesn’t make your combined strength 100.
The gang has taken the step after the founders of the Kriminellt.com website, four concerned parents, approached them after receiving a series of threats.
“We have families to think about and the threats have recently been getting a little close to home. Call us weak if you will but the family always comes first,” explained the four founders in a statement on the site.
OG leader Denho “Dano” Acar explained that the the gang “wanted to provide a community service” and underlined that taking over the site “has nothing to do with money.”
“Just because we are professional criminals does not mean that we don’t have any morals,” Acar wrote in a statement on the site.
But the move has drawn criticism from some observers concerned that the involvement of the criminal organization might lead to an escalation of violence and an increased incidence of vigilante justice.
Many of the comments on Kriminellt’s user forum are of a threatening nature with specific warnings directed towards some of the convicted rapists, child sex offenders and child pornography offenders listed on the website.
“In a democracy it is of great interest that the state retains a monopoly on the administration of justice and that there is not some form of private punishment,” said retired state prosecutor Sven-Erik Alheim to Crime News.
Many of those writing on the site’s open forum reason that the OG are less likely to succumb to threats and are therefore a suitable and effective means of keeping the site open. A published survey of 89 users showed that 71 percent were “very much in favour” of the new owners.
The site introduces itself by asking a series of questions: Why are convicted criminals protected by the media? Why are no convictions ever published? and Do we not have the right to know if we have a convicted paedophile as a neighbour?
I heard some interesting stories that Pensylvania almost beat to death a person the police noted a “person of interest” in the case of a 11 year old that was raped on her way home. Then there is the Catholic sex offender safehouses in Tennesse which are threatened by local discontent, to the point where sex offenders are in fear of their lives and won’t list their addresses in the registry.
But riddle me this. Why is it then in Sweden and those EU countries, why is it necessary for gangs to take over sex offender registry lists when the community founders are the ones under threat of violence and fear? In America, it’s the criminals that the community seeks not to tolerate. In the EU, the sex offenders are protected, in Sweden, and it is the local community broadcasting registry lists that are threatened and harassed.
Doesn’t that seem weird to you? But they call America nuts and full of gun crime. Perhaps that is true. I far prefer to live in a war zone where everyone is shooting at everyone else, then live in Sweden, however.
Better a free man than a slave of rapists and murderers. YMMV
Anyways, that’s not the original reason why I chose to write another comment. The real reason was because I saw this video.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f71_1224371310
It’s about an interesting vigilante case. (We love us some vigilantism news seemingly)
Judging from personal experience and the experiences of other people, I would say it is murder in the second degree. The instinct to protect your child is often stronger than your instinct for self-preservation, so the lizard brain can definitely take over. In summary, this is basically what happened. The woman in question was already feeling insecure and in a dangerous/stressful situation. This means she lacks confidence and thus bought a gun, as many Americans do, to feel more confident. When she found out the “deal”, she went to confront the person and sought resolution. The person in question made the (fatal) mistake of challenging her, saying “So what are you going to do about it”.
Well, in violence management studies I have taken, they warned us never to challenge someone unless we wanted to escalate the violence cycle from anti-social fighting to lethal confrontations.
So she pulled out her gun and shot him 4 times. She had a S&M manual loader. Her accuracy was poor and thus she did not hit the CNS or any vital organs to induce immediate death. At this point in time, her lizard brain had completely taken over all conscious functions. Love of family, fear of death, respect for social limitations, social inhibitions… they were ALL GONE. Disappeared. Erased from her personality. That’s why she says it was like she couldn’t control herself. That’s because she wasn’t in control. The survival instinct, the IMPERATIVE, was in control. That will to survive and to ensure the survival of one’s offspring will never allow YOU, someone who is weak and incapable of protecting himself, to be in charge. That is just how it works. Those that lack confidence, will allow their lizard consciousness and brain to take over the decision making processes, and in the aftermath will be traumatized for it. Of course it is far better than freezing or being so afraid that they refuse to let the lizard take charge. Then you just die in those circumstances.
She reloaded because the target was still alive, moving, and crawling like a wounded animal. She went right up behind him and shot him 4 more times in the head, ensuring death (8 total shots) That’s how it is done. I can visualize and feel the thoughts she had in such a moment. The rage, the stress, the terror, and the desire to end the threat once and for all, for all of eternity: death. In order to ensure the safety of her offspring, her mind decided then and there under the lizard consciousness, to terminate the target. All social avenues were cut off the moment he challenged her and escalated the conflict. If the target is moving, that equals danger to her child. Thus the target must be terminated with due prejudice. Hence the reload.
The lizard brain when it makes the decision to kill, doesn’t stop half way. It finishes the job one way or another.
Second degree murder, definitely. But ordinary civilians, those without experience in violence, will find it hard to understand what she was thinking and doing at the time. But her behavior holds no mysteries for me given the testimonies in the video.
If I was going to premeditate a murder in coldblood, I would not call out the person in broad day light, talk to him, and then shoot him. I’d do it at night, when nobody is noticing, and I would have an alibi. That is called premeditation by my judgment. I don’t consider a sloppy killing like that one a “premeditated murder”.
People such as her, who have done what she has done, don’t understand it. They are traumatized by the guilt and the fear afterwards. She remembers her actions but it was as if done by someone else entirely. Someone else who didn’t care about society’s “laws” on killing=wrong. Someone who didn’t care whatsoever about future social consequences. Someone who didn’t care at all about hurting or communicating with the target, only terminating the target.
Such a mentality I can understand quite well. But most people would find it alien, strange, and awful. That’s because it can be alien, strange, and awful. The lizard brain literally cares not at all for societal rules. But it is those same rules which you must obey and pay the consequences for violating afterwards. So it’s reasonable for you to worry about your driver’s seat being hijacked by somebody that isn’t you.
However, I believe Mike and Danny when their previous mentions cover how in Europe, this woman would have been locked up for life on murder. That is how the EU functions, but this case was in Tennesse. Rural and Southern still.
In rape, physical wounds heal but the mental ones are trickier. The mother started her actions upon the premise that she could not heal or protect her daughter other than by confronting the perpetrator. I know and have in my possession resources and knowledge that would repair a person’s mental trauma given enough time and effort. In the absence of anything constructive for the mother to pour her energies into, her instinct turned destructive. Naturally. Basically if anyone had told her that her daughter could be fully healed and even made stronger after such ordeals, and the mother truly believed this, it would have lessened her rage and desire to end the threat. But the surprise and the nature of the perpetrator, prevented such.
Well, that’s how it is. Life’s unfair but a bullet is very fair.
Once I put on my violence hat, I fall into the category of “saying too much”. Unavoidable.
I’m reading Jim Wagner’s tips on fighting at the moment. Some interesting things I’d like to share.
Going to court
If you have never had the opportunity to testify in a criminal case before a court, then you’re in for quite an experience – usually a frustrating one.
One would have thought that my 13 years in law enforcement would have instilled in me a degree of confidence in our judicial system. After all, I have sent many individuals through it. Well, it hasn’t, quite the opposite. If anything, the years have actually made me distrust it the system. It’s a sentiment echoed by law enforcement officers across the land. Remember, I have personally trained with over 500 agencies as a defensive tactics and special operations instructor, so I have heard the complaints of many officers on this matter. With that said, I have learned to navigate through the court system’s quirks, and it’s my goal here to help prepare you for this type of battle that you may have never had thought your martial arts skills would have gotten you into.
If you have not actually experienced the court system first hand, you may be under the assumption that you will have the opportunity to tell your side of the story when called up to the stand. After all, all you have to do is just tell everyone in the courtroom what happened from A to Z – just like you had done for the cops – right? Wrong. Nothing could be farther from the truth. You will be manipulated to tell your side of the story in piecemeal. There is no such thing as “telling the whole story.” The old, “Do you swear to tell the truth, the WHOLE truth…” just doesn’t apply in today’s American courts. Sure, you’ll get your chance to speak if you if you choose to, but it won’t be from start to finish like you would expect it to be. Nobody has that luxury. I have been to court many times for various criminal cases, and I have yet had the opportunity to tell my side of a story from start to finish without being interrupted, cut off, or not allowed to give it at all; except maybe in traffic court.
Obviously, anyone who gives a testimony is going to slant it in their favor, which is why there is cross-examination. This is the phase of the trial where the attorneys have the opportunity to question the opponent’s witness. Story telling is as old as mankind itself, and everyone, even kids, know how to tell a story from start to finish. Not so in court. In fact, today’s system reminds me of the refrigerator magnet game where you have a couple dozen words printed on the face of the rectangular magnets and you have to form a sentence with a limited amount of words given. Stray too far from what the attorney questioning you wants to hear come out of your mouth, and you will have to rearrange the order of the magnets on the door, so to speak.
It sounds absurd, but you do not get to tell your whole story in court. You’ll be lucky if you are allowed to tell a fraction of it in most cases. It’s not like the movies or the court T.V. shows that feature civil disputes (torts). If your testimony strays too far into those facts that the attorney does not want revealed, even though they may be the “whole truth,” you’ll be cut off. In fact, you will be interrupted many times – regardless of the truth or lack thereof. Truth is not always goal of the judicial system anymore.
A little history lesson
Why isn’t today’s justice system like is was in the “cowboy days,” where if a person took the stand they had the opportunity to give their side of the story in its entirety? Then, after they were finished the attorneys would cross examine them to determine the truth.
As any law student will tell you, the system became jaded in the 1920s. This was the time period of the Mafia (Chicago mobsters, Al Capone, drive-by shootings with the Thompson machine gun, prohibition, etc.) When many of these gangsters were arrested and brought before the courts, they gave convincing stories of their innocence, or they flat out intimidated the jurors and witnesses who helped set them free. That’s where we get the expression “they had their day in court.” To counter the trend, the government came up with restrictive rules, most of which remain with us to this day, in order to “protect” the public and to get the convictions they sought.
Today money and politics play and important roll in what defines “justice.” Defense attorneys do not want the “whole story” reveled, but only those bits and pieces that will get the case dropped or dismissed. The District Attorney’s Office is also not interested in the whole story, but only enough to get a conviction. Many times legitimate criminal charges are never filed against law breakers if a prosecutor believes that the case is not winnable. After all, their position leads to bigger and better political positions in the future, and losses don’t look good on record. That’s not to say that there are not good attorneys on both sides of the fence who truly seek justice, because there are. It’s just that the system is getting as complex as the tax code, and everyone works it to their advantage.
Court terminology
The person who attacked you is called the defendant. Since it is a criminal case (possibly followed by a civil suit at a future date) it is the State, through the District Attorney’s Office, that files the charges against the defendant (assuming that there was a violation of the State’s Penal Code – such as assault and battery, rape, assault with a deadly weapon, etc.). If federal laws were violated, the process is the same, only it is tried in a federal court.
You will be the witness, and will testify (give statements under oath) against the defendant. In order to have a fair trial, the defendant will have a defense attorney, either hired by the defendant himself or appointed to him if the defendant cannot afford one. When you are called up to the stand to testify the defense attorney will do everything he can to discredit you. He will try to
make it look like you are exaggerating, twisting the truth, or all together confused about the events that took place. The defense attorney may even go out of his way to try to get you angry or upset. Unfortunately, it doesn’t end there. Sometimes the very person you think is “on your side,” the prosecutor, may be just as brutal with you, if not worse, as the defense attorney. You just have to remember one rule – YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS IN THE COURTROOM. Everyone has their own agenda. Therefore, your main objective is to survive as a witness.
Courtroom survival tactics
Here are a few helpful hints that will work in your favor if you are ever called to the stand to testify:
Dress conservatively. Even the worst criminal will wear a suit and groom themselves for court appearances. Don’t be fooled, people do judge you by the way you dress. You are more credible to the jury if you dress conservatively. This means a business suit.
Get a copy of the police report (if available). In most cases you can purchase a copy of the police report. The report will refresh your memory, and it will also give you insight as to what angle the police took. You can see what facts were put in the report, and what ones were left out. A report is nothing more than a synopsis, and need not contain every fact. In court the report is often referred to.
Think before answering. Whenever you are asked a question on the stand, think about it first. If you don’t understand a question, ask for clarification.
Speak properly. Do not use slang or profanity, unless you are quoting someone (such as the words that the suspect spoke).
Be professional. Stay calm and in control, even if you are verbally attacked. Just as you learned how to how to control your mind and body through breathing exercises in your self-defense training, so to must you do the same in this new environment where your “opponent” is trying to corner you.
Make eye contact. When you are asked a question, look that person in the eyes as you listen. When you answer the question you need to also look the jurors in the eyes. This body language will reinforce the fact that you are telling the truth, and have nothing to hide. Looking around at the ceiling or at the floor will make you appear like you are fabricating an answer.
Beware of attorney traps
When you face cross examination (questioning) by the attorney there are two strategies often taken: tactics and tricks. A tactic will be used when the attorney thinks that you are lying and will seek to draw out the truth. A tactic could be asking the same question in different ways. A trick is used when the attorney knows that you are telling the truth, but tries to make it appear that you are lying, or at best, that you are confused. Here are a few tricks that you should be aware of:
Yes and No answers. You may be directed by the attorney to simply answer with a “yes” or a “no.” Yet, in so doing, your answer may mislead the jury. For example, you may be asked, “Were you drunk at the time of the fight, yes or no?” For argument sake, let’s say that you had not been drinking at all. If you answer the question, “No” it makes it appear as if you had been drinking that night, but were stating that you were not “drunk.” Based on just a “no” answer the jury may think that you had indeed been drinking, which makes a juror wonder how close to being drunk, or out of control you were. It’s all ludicrous, because you had not been drinking at all. Thus, if you feel that you cannot answer a question with just a “yes” or a “no” answer, then answer it as quickly and as appropriately as you can before being cut off, “I wasn’t drinking at all that night.” The defense attorney may object and have the judge order you to make a yes or no statement, in which case you have to answer it as directed or you will be found in “contempt of court” (breaking the rules).
Diversion. Another nasty attorney trick is to ask you irrelevant questions that will divert the jury’s attention away from pertinent information that will hurt the defendant’s case. For example: you might be asked what color the attacker’s shoes were. Unless the shoes really stood out in your mind, most people wouldn’t know. The point is that it doesn’t really matter in most cases, but the attorney will grill you on this point, knowing you probably won’t remember, in order to get you frustrated. The attorney might ask you something like, “You can’t remember what color his shoes were? That’s part of a physical description isn’t it? Are you sure that you even saw the attacker at all? What else can’t you remember?” If you can’t remember something, then don’t worry about it, and certainly don’t get frustrated over the question. If you don’t know, just say, “I don’t remember” or “I can’t recall.” The human eye is capable of taking in millions of bits of information every second. In a crisis situation, the mind focuses on key elements (this is known as “tunnel vision”). Nobody can recall every single detail in a crime, so don’t pretend to.
Character assassination. You see it all of the time with alleged police brutality cases. The first thing a defense attorney does when a law enforcement officer is accused of improper use-of-force is to dig into the officer’s background to see if past complaints against the officer had been filed. Even if the officer was justified in using force against his client, the goal of the defense attorney is to make the officer look like a “bad apple.” The same thing often holds true for female victims who have been sexually assaulted. The defense attorney will try to paint a picture of a woman who was actually “inviting” it if in their research they discovered that the victim is sexually active or was wearing sexy clothes. Likewise, if you’re a martial artist the attorney is going to make it look like you are a “lethal weapon” or a “big bully.” Because of your “high level of martial arts training” they will make it appear that you could have controlled the situation, but you didn’t. You were just itching to “test out”
your fighting skills. To prevent character assassination, you have to start now. Yes, now. Be careful of what you say while training. Statements made in front of students or instructors, such as, “Whoever attacks me will be sorry” or “Anyone who rushes the cockpit I’m taking out” can one day be used against you in a court of law. The last thing you want to happen is to see one of your fellow martial artists on the stand testifying against you, saying something like, “He (or she) is always talking about ‘no mercy’ during training.” Just remember, anything negative you say in the dojo can turn around and bite you one day. On the other hand, if you say things like, “I hate violence, I hope I never have to use this” people will remember that as well. I’d rather have a jury hear that I had a reputation of being against violence, than testimony after testimony saying I was “gung ho.” Again, these are just small things that should be part of your current training.
Rapid Fire Questions. To get you frustrated the attorney may ask you a series of rapid fire questions. If this happens to you, slow down and take one question at a time. There’s nothing wrong with saying, “I’m sorry, can you repeat the first question again? I will answer that one first.”
Don’t dig your own grave
Don’t be your own worse enemy while on the stand. Words are important, and every word out of your mouth will be carefully evaluated. Again, you need to think about each question, and carefully give your answer. If asked why you used certain techniques against the attacker, don’t say something like, “Because I was trained that way.” This statement will never be your justification for the use of force. You must be able to explain why you chose certain techniques and not others. You must know the various use-of-force levels (see past issues), and under what circumstances you can use them. This is where good reality-based instructors really earn their pay.
Another pitfall to avoid is stating that you are an “expert” in the martial arts. Only a judge can declare you an expert (vor dire). If you are asked about your martial arts background, give them only a basic outline: styles studied, rank, amount of years.
Here’s another one. If you are ever asked, “Are you trained to kill or injure your opponents?” Your response should be something like, “I have been trained to stop the attacker from continuing his attack.” This is ultimately the true goal of the martial arts; not to inflict casualties. If an attacker is inadvertently injured or killed in the process of you trying to stop him, than that was an unfortunate consequence of his actions. Even police officers are not taught, “Shoot to kill,” but rather, “Shoot to stop.” The fact that the aim point is center mass with multiple rounds is immaterial.
If your attacker is injured as a result of the techniques that you used, you may be asked, “Didn’t you know by hitting my client in the ribs that you would break some bones?” Your response should be on the lines of, “I hit him in the side to stop him from continuing his attack on me.” Even if the attorney keeps pressing you, you might want to respond, “I’m not a doctor. I don’t know how much force it takes to break bones. When we train at the dojo we use padding or hit punching bags.” Believe me, if there are injuries as a result of what you did the defense attorney is going to get a physician, an expert witness, to testify on their behalf to the injures and what may have likely caused them. Likewise, if you received injuries during the conflict, you need to make sure that the attorneys on your side bring this fact up. Make sure you get copies of any medical records that were produced as a result of the fight. Usually at the crime scene the police take photographs of all injuries. But if they don’t, insist on it. A Crime Scene Investigator (CSI) will take photographs and document it for the report.
How to train for “your day in court”
T.V. court shows and dramas are entertaining, but they are not truly representative of what you will be facing in a real use-of-force case. My advice to you is to take a field trip to your local court house and sit in on some actual proceedings. In most cases the public is allowed to attend. You can sit quietly in the back of the courthouse, and leave during a recess.
If you are a martial arts instructor you have a moral obligation to prepare your students for the legal battle that awaits them after they use the very techniques that you taught them. Therefore, you may want to bring in a criminal trial layer or prosecutor into your school as a guest speaker or even set up a 20 minute mock trail like they do for recruits in police academies. You may have to pay for the services, but it would be the best hour or two of training you could ever provide your students in educating them in this phase of post-conflict training.
This is often why police officers jump to the defense of LEOs accused of utilizing unjustified force, lethal or otherwise. There’s two negative aspects here. Leftist policies are creating dangerous incidents for police by preventing the police from obtaining quality training. Leftist policies also create legal hurdles which persecute and not just prosecute police. But get this, Leftist policies and unions are also responsible for protecting corrupt cops and other cops who made mistakes due to bad training, because they cannot say “this police officer did as he was trained and what he was trained to do was murder and terrorize civilians by panicking”. They can’t say that. They can’t imply that. So they’ll cover for the cop, and in that fashion, protect their own CYA forms. So they say “this officer did everything he was trained to do” and he was trained to do things incorrectly which is why he ended up doing retarded and inappropriate things in a conflict resolution incident.
The Left are, essentially, playing the police off against the people and vice a versa. Then again isn’t that what community organizers are paid to do. And people wonder why lawyers have a bad reputation. The normal reason why lawyers have a worse reputation than judges is because there are two lawyers and only one judge in a court trial.
Btw, the whole Mafia thing in Chicago? Chicago politics. Made possible by “Progressive” Prohibition. Gotta love that. Ban alcohol! Government power banzai! Government Power Banzai!
This comment is a request for a recommendation for martial arts/hand-to-hand combat training.
I’ve had no training in this area. Never been in a fight in my life.
I have significant free time available right now.
I have a strong health need for a lot of exercise.
I’m interested in both attack and defense styles.
If you’ve got recommendations, I’m interested.
Ymar #28: Second degree murder, definitely.
I watched the video. I’m intrigued by a legal question.
The evidence itself in the case is extremely limited. To me there were three possible verdicts by law: First degree murder, second degree murder, voluntary manslaughter. Based on the evidence itself, you can envision a scenario for each of the three. If you believe her self-testimony, first degree murder is ruled out.
The legal question I’m wondering about is, given the two or three possible verdicts, and the evidence still allows all two or three, how is jury supposed to proceed? Should you argue for the most punitive of the set, or the least of the set? Do you try to convince each other of the most likely scenario? What should the people on a jury do to determine which of the three is the correct choice?
Hello MikeD:
re. your question in #32!
I have studied multiple martial arts and have an advanced black belt in one.
All martial arts can help you, but understand that it takes time and hard work. The most important thing is to find a school that fits your personality and physical needs. Interview the instructor, watch a class in operation.
Martial arts is about your changing your mindset as well physical prowess. Every martial arts claims to be the “best one”, btw, but IMHO there is no best one, it’s apples and oranges. So, pick one that fits your interests.
If I was to generalize, the most powerful at using feet are the Korean arts. Tae Kwon Do is also an Olympic sport and is taught as such. The advantage of this is that you learn how to spar in the ring, which trains your mind how to react to actual combat situations. Ditto for Muay Thai, which is very heavy on foot techniques, but which is really designed for street fighting.
Kung-fu is the most adept at hand techniques. It’s very fluid.
The Japanese styles (Karate) fall in-between (good hands, good feet). The Okinawan styles (Shotokan, Shingo Jui-Ru) tend to be very simple, brutal and involve a lot of physical hardening. Not much on technique, though. Japanese Jiu-Jitsu is a combination of styles designed for the police. I consider it very basic but effective.
Aikido (Hapkido in Korean) are relatively new “soft” styles that greatly emphasize mind-control and fluidity of motion to “lock-up” or immobilize your opponent – no kicking or punching. I consider them extremely effective.
If you plan on getting knocked down to the ground, both Judo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu are very effective. It’s a lot like wrestling, but Brazilian Jiu-Jitzu is hugely popular at the moment.
Then there are very specialized self-defense styles, like Israeli Krav Maga, which is very basic self-defense. It is gaining in popularity.
Like I said, visit a number of schools and pick one that fits your personal style and needs. Age should not be an object – my school trained a nice, teeny grandmother in her 60s all the way to black belt. She had to break 2-in. boards in order to earn her belt and she did.
There’s also the physical evidence at the scene, the witnesses, and so forth. So long as their stories all jibe, there’s no reason to disbelieve her testimony. That’s the point of the cross examination. Deception is shown first in inconsistency and then in specific detail mutual contradictions. There was none in this case and there couldn’t be, given that it was retrialed and it still didn’t come up.
The standard is reasonable doubt so in most cases the jury will be unanimous in agreement on lesser charges, not the greatest charge. Premeditated first degree murder is rather hard to prove. Because you have to show intent, opportunity, and capability. Because the defendant turned herself in, that is a sign of capability already. There is no doubt she did it because she said so. A confession is one of the strongest evidences in court as to whether someone is guilty or not. So long as it is not coerced or over turned by lying afterwards.
The first jury spent 2 days figuring it out. The second jury only had to decide between murder in the 2nd degree and voluntary manslaughter. They chose voluntary manslaughter because they were sympathetic to her motivations and believed she was not in a “right state of mind” at the time. Meaning there was provocation on both sides, making it manslaughter, a killing, and not murder, unjustified killing.
I conversed with martial arts instructors over at Yahoo Answers and gained a better appreciation of how such things go.
One thing you must be aware of is that martial arts is a booming business in America and as with all businesses, buyer beware. They are selling you a product often times, but you don’t have to buy it just because. There are plenty of other options.
The notable elements of a McDojo, or commercialized martial arts enterprise that its main focus is profit not specifically quality training, is contracts lasting more than a month to a year or two, constant testing fees for belt grading, and a chain mall organization structure. A chain mall organization structure basically means that the local dojo you are in is a franchise of something larger. So if a Master started up a chain, the Master is teaching at his place but the instructor you have at your place is supposed to be his disciple. But that doesn’t mean you get the same level of instruction as you would have gotten from the real Master.
In this light, interviewing and browsing the available local options around you, if you seek to have physical obstacles to overcome, is highly recommended.
Personally, for personal protection or learning to use H2H as the warriors of old did, I would recommend a number of training programs I have seen, analyzed, or taken part in. They would be Target Focus Training by the Tim Larkin group, seminar scenario training by Roy Miller/Marc MacYoung, and Jim Weber’s reality based training systems. For a more basic Self Defense program where you are taught legal codes and range of force options for your personal Rules of Engagement settings, Integrated Self Defense run by a person I’ve corresponded to in Tennessee would be a good starting point.
In fighting or in war, there are ranges. A gun is appropriate for certain ranges and inappropriate for other ranges. Other weapons like melee or knives are appropriate for ranges that the gun would be less optimal for. The human brain, the ultimate weapon, is appropriate for all ranges and situations.
Ultimately, it is the instructor that makes the program, the style, or the art. It doesn’t matter what the system is called if your instructors cannot meet your requirements. Since it is your life on the line, your requirements better be legit and air tight. Being able to fight and being able to teach others how to fight, two different skill sets.
As I’ve mentioned before, the human mind perceives meaning in the words used as 10% of total content. Body language and voice tones comprise 90 or 80% of the total meaning people get. Since I can’t use video, you are only getting a low income of information just by reading this. Humans learn through a variety of methods, and from what I’ve seen in how instructors of various martial arts or H2H systems teach, there are many many different ways to train humans on how to utilize violence. Some good, others not so good.
http://www.isdschattanooga.blogspot.com/
If you wish to learn firearms, Frontsight has the best civilian program to train you to shoot as well as the US Marine Corps, from all I have heard and seen.
All of these are PRIVATE COMPANIES, which are not REGULATED or OWNED by the US government. The US government is about the last place you want to go for training and military training is included in that aspect. The US Marine Corps combatives program has gotten better by some reports or shows I have seen, but I wouldn’t trust Army Combatives with my life. Or anyone else’s. Navy and Air Force… aren’t even on the radar.
In fact there aren’t a lot of regulations, period, on self defense systems other than the usual lawsuit/tort threats. But that applies to everything, including spilling hot coffee on yourself in a cafe and suing the cafe.
Back to the issue of whether I would say First degree or second degree, the issue was the choice I was given. GIven a choice between first and second, I must choose second. The jury couldn’t, probably because of the overzealousness of the stupid prosecution in not having enough evidence to back up their gas out take from their orifices.
When the jury was given a simpler option, such as second degree murder or voluntary manslaughter, it became very clear. See how laws can be made to F people over just because some lawyer wants his day in court to be glorious? Given the complexity of such, it’s amazing the system even works to begin with.
I wasn’t in the trial so I didn’t hear all the evidence. From the evidence I heard, I would have to choose second degree murder, but that is with incomplete information and monday quarterbacking. I’m sure that I would have taken a more nuanced and complex position on a jury if I heard everything and had to make such a decision, solely due to prosecutorial ambition. A prosecutor that gets a case under his belt of “first degree murder” is going high places if he gets the defendant found guilty. Talk about corruption.
DannyL, Ymar, thank you for the advice! I’ll be visiting, and checking out my local options in the coming days. The advice in particular of observing their activities and making sure my choice is a good fit, of taking my time in selecting, is something I needed to hear.
http://www.frontsight.com/
http://chirontraining.com/Site/Home.html
You will want to prioritize a couple of things in SD, Self Defense. Meaning you need solutions for a number of different areas and contexts.
1. Verbal de-escalation skills for social and anti-social problem people.
2. Physical restraint abilities for the non-hostile, non-life and death conflicts such as anti-social bar fights.
3. The ability to understand when force is appropriate and justified and at what point lethal force becomes justified. And at what point lethal force becomes unjustified.
4. Strategies dealing with avoiding danger rather than getting out of it when it is already happening. This is different from tactical solutions on how to escape a threat or defeat a threat.
5. Avoidance and deterrence covers the super majority of incidents you will ever face, with physical altercations composing a minority. Of that, lethal life and death conflicts are only 1% or less.
One of the more obvious questions people ask is, “if violent altercations are a minority and life threatening situations are 1% or less of all total violent conflicts, why do I need to learn H2H killing attacks”.
That’s because there is a chance that whenever something gets physical, a death can result. If you are ignorant of killing attacks and how to do them, then you’ll be just as ignorant on preventing them from ever happening in the first place. So people who go into bar fights that don’t know how to kill people, are rolling the dice hoping that it turns up “safe” 99% of the time. But then sometimes it doesn’t. Those people don’t get a reroll.
Most instructors don’t specialize in all 5 of the list. Martial arts mostly specializes in tactical solutions dealing with anti-social, but not asocial, confrontations. Some few also deal with asocial, but those lack strategic depth for the pre or post conflict context.
The ability to know how to kill people with your bare hands is like packing a nuclear weapon just in case. In almost all circumstances you won’t have to use it. But you must have a clear vision in your mind of when you will use it, thus allowing you to avoid all conflicts that don’t meet the standard. This prevents you from engaging in play fighting or bar fights that, given your new knowledge, are considered unwise and too risky. For the ignorant, they live in true bliss. Up until somebody dies or gets seriously injured. Even something simple as not caring about the effects of a fall into water and the pull of gravity can result in “mistakes made” that can’t be “done over”.
If you have instructors teaching you all 5, then you are pretty solid. Target Focus Training can be said to be like having a concealed weapon on your body that nobody can discover or disarm you of.
Y’know, Y, the information in #29 is terrifying. I don’t intend to make many comments on personal self-defense issues beyond the fact that one must always be responsible in one’s actions.
Understanding that the enemy isn’t necessarily just the perpetrator can be stressful, I know. To be prepared, however, is to be forewarned. The importance of strategy is to provide you the best advantages inherently possible against all foes in existence, rather than winning a particular battle or two like tactics does.
Not many are superior strategists even though they be superior tacticians.
If you don’t want to face the problems of court, then you can avoid it entirely by preventing the criminal or the prosecution from ever attacking you. Such requires great care in planning and almost monster like strength through deterrence. But it’s more than doable for the average individual. It may not be doable for professional criminals or those who live in rough neighborhoods.
The highest quality kung fu comes from asking people in China town, specifically the homeopathic practitioners and the acupuncturists and the bone setters. The Asian community tends to be rather tight knit and Chinese who practice chi healing and other such Chinese medicine, will also know exactly who is teaching kung fu.
Target Focus Training, from my research, comes from an obscure branch of kung fu boxing, in terms of lineage. Modified several times over by American ideas and the research of Chris RB, of course, but originally that was such.
Kung fu has an interesting history in China. Mao, the Great Leap of Retarded Progress, set out to destroy Chinese traditions, including knowledge kept in scrolls about martial arts, kept safe by generations of kung fu families.
The Chinese Era of Warring States was in 500 BC. That’s how long ago it was (Same time period as Sun Tzu). That means Chinese martial artists have had a long time developing and refining H2H combat. You see, they never had gunpowder to interrupt their progress. For the entirety of their martial arts history, the most brutal stages, were fought with muscle bound power. H2H. Spearcraft. Swordcraft. No guns and no cannons.
The most powerful swordsman in the era of the 5 Shaolin Grandmasters was said to have been a woman. It was her techniques on fighting with the sword, the 5 Shaolin Grandmaster’s ideas of H2H combat, as well as the various mercenary techniques passed around in those days, plus the Neigong internal breathing developed by doctors and soldiers, that composed “kung fu” in its ultimate, descended, form.
Here’s the particular section in question. http://www.bgtent.com/naturalcma/CMAarticle17.htm
Around 496 BC, one of ancient China`s best sword fighters was a woman named Yue Nu. She practiced developing her idea and methods for years in her land. Her fighting theories and techniques became another major influence on Wu-Shu theory.
For King Gou Jian of Yue, she wrote her theories:
1) Combining position, breathing, and consciousness;2) Balancing the internal and external states of the body in harmony;3) Simultaneous offense and defense;4) Using both static and moving states.
She also wrote much about: being calm and unassuming in appearance, but fighting as vicious as a tiger; reacting fast enough to reach the opponent first with a strike, even though the opponent started first; uniting spirit, form, and intent. She was acclaimed for her skills all over ancient China and much respected by all.
Learned people and military fighters soon saw that the concept of `Wu-Wei` – doing nothing out of harmony with the flow of things was at the heart of many skills. It was found as an idea in common to many ideas that were then currently developing: Taoism, Yue Nu`s sword fighting, the Five Elements battle strategy of Sun Wu, and the Dao Yin qi-gung practitioners. In their explorations on the ways of or the nature of the universe (`The Tao`), Taoists began uniting all these different expressions of Wu-Wei. The circular movements of sword fighting were seen as putting man in tune with the natural cycles of the universe (stars, seasons, water, birth, death, etc.). The effect was seen as even more pronounced if the actions were combined with qi-gung breathing exercises and the mental exercises of military strategy. Taoists of the war-torn time saw warfare as an element of all life, against mortal and immortal enemies both outside and within the human body. People who were learned in all these concepts were soon in high demand in all the Chinese courts of the various kingdoms, as they were sought as advisors to the kings and nobles (princes, lords, etc.).
Warring States Era
Battle strategy by the end of the Spring and Autumn period was very important because the Zhou dynasty had weakened so much that the empire splintered into 44 feudal kingdoms (by 475 BC). Soon these kingdoms began attacking each other and the stronger swallowed up the weaker, ushering in the Warring States period (475 – 221 BC). During this time, a descendant of Sun Wu (called his grandson, but more likely a great grandson) named Sun Bin (not his real name) also became a great war general and wrote his own book of battle strategy called `Military Methods`. Over time, the kingdoms of Yau, Wei, and Chao were left the strongest. The Yueh kingdom finally took over the Wu and then it fell to the Zhu. Sun Bin advocated rigorous training and discipline, especially in weapons skills and battle formations. Sun Bin was from Qi and served under King Wei of Qi, helping him win over the kingdoms of Wi and Chao. Sun Bin`s ideas were also highly influential to Wu-Shu theory, so much so that a martial art style was later named after him centuries later in shantung province (where the Qi kingdom was located).
A few centuries before armies were small and battles lasted little more than a day. Often the generals or nobles fought against each other in hand to hand combat instead of the troops. Now, huge armies of half a million were not unusual, with long protracted battles and sieges. Farm peasants were now needed as foot soldiers (in the past only those of nobility were deemed sophisticated enough for the military). Many people were needed for the infantry, which replaced the chariots on the battlefields. Enemies were now slain instead of captured. After 300 years of bloody wars, the 44 kingdoms became consolidated in the 7 large states and 3 smaller ones, by 390 BC. The demand for quality diplomats, statesmen, and military advisors greatly increased as the Warring States period progressed. Great people such as Confucius, Mencious, Mo-Tzu, and many other famous philosophers rose to the occasion during this time period and each influenced the thinking of the times among both the learned and the common peoples.
Many people were needed to help protect a king`s, nobleman`s, or merchant`s holdings. Peasants, unemployed artisans and merchants, and former soldiers soon took to studying self defense to get work as body guards and security agents. The kingdom of Qi worked hard to recruit men who were brave and good at fighting. Many people worked to perfect techniques that were more efficient and effective, so as to quickly win a battle. Empty hand fighting techniques began thus to be greatly developed. Zhuang Zi developed a theory of boxing (Shou Bu) that espoused the idea of ingenuity: the fighter with clever techniques initially fights in an ordinary way and then suddenly changes to tricky methods, winning the match. The people of Qi soon became renowned for their development of a boxing style that was called `Chi -Chi` (Ji Ji), or `Skillful Striking`. The Qi developed a form of fighting that was different from battle field fighting that was able to be used as intensely as needed. Battle field fighting methods killed instantly, and methods were needed that could be used to do this or merely incapacitate if needed. Qi fighting allowed one to accelerate the severity as needed, and was used for personal defense as well as sport. People became renowned for their skill and control. Boxing matches were held as popular events in various kingdoms. Also, `Jiao Di` (wrestling play) developed into a spectator sport. Chin-Na (joint locking) techniques also continued to evolve from these activities, as people explored hand to hand fighting as self defense, sport, or war.
As the chaos of the times increased, the countryside became full of groups of criminal gangs, robbers, thieves, and outlaws. Interstate trade was greatly increasing and the need for good bodyguards was great. Being able to fight in close quarters, small scale, combat became a necessity and bodyguards on long journeys with trade caravans occasionally exchanged ideas and techniques with other traveling bodyguards. They looked for the best techniques for attack, attack-defense, countering, controlling, feinting, evading, and more. Hand fighting skills became highly developed and the best fighters were known for their main technique of striking, kicking, joint-locking, throwing, and hitting vital points. People tried to distill what they knew and consolidate the various techniques into one or a few main moves that they could always count on and each great fighter was known for their main technique. People sought to develop their fighting into an art that transcended all that they know into a highly effective small set of moves, if not one main move.
According to Ssu Man Chen`s book `Records of the Great Historian`, a new class of roving people emerged during these times, called the `Knights Errant` (Yu Hsieh). These were professional ex-soldiers that roamed the countryside offering their services as mercenaries. They were skilled in the military arts, especially sword fighting. They had a code of conduct and tried to be honest and fair, helping even ordinary people in distress. The Knights helped to establish the idea of using martial arts for self defense and helping those who were weaker and in need. This idea was also a great influence on Wu-Shu theory and many people embraced the idea of using martial arts for good and only for fighting against wrong doers.
By the end of the Warring States period, all the groundwork had been laid for the theoretical aspects of Wu-Shu. People used self defense to stop a fight, improve their health and physique, and test their skills, rather than just for killing in war. As people combined these ideas and concepts with the most efficient and effective hand to hand combat techniques, Shaui Jiao (grappling and throwing) techniques, and sword fighting techniques, the practical side of Wu-Shu developed as well into an all encompassing way of life. Once these areas became further united with Taoist spirituality and health (Dao Yin/Qi Gung) theories, Wu Shu was turning into a complete martial arts system, covering all aspects of the martial arts that we see today, as early as 3000 – 2500 years ago.
Thus, in order of their appearance, during the entire Zhou dynasty era (covering about 800 years!), these concepts influenced the development of Wu-Shu and were combined to transform Wu-Shu into a self defense and health enhancing art:
Xiang Wu (war dances)Wu Xing (5 Elements) theoryJiao Ti (Shuai Jiao)Sun Wu`s Battle StrategyQuan Pu (hand combat)Yue Nu`s Sword theoryYin/ Yang theorySun Pin`s Battle StrategyBa Qua (8 Diagrams) theoryZhung Zi`s Ingenuity theoryDao Yin (Qi Gung) theoryQi`s Chi Chi BoxingTaoism & Wu Wei theory Knights Errantscode of conduct
If you want to read up more on the history of CMA, that site is a very robust one.
Much of what is translated from Chinese is inaccurate and lacking in much of the ambiguity or context. It’s why Chinese techniques translated sound flowering and vague even in English. The “context” is removed and not added in, for it would take explanations. And explanations requires a person to first understand what the Chinese meant with the name.
Essentially, being able to kill people with the naked body, is actually easier than not killing them would be. Contrary to public perception, right. Well, that’s why it is called the public’s perception.
http://martialtaichi.co.uk/articles/how_taiji_lost_its_quan.php
I first came across videos explaining certain Tai Chi movements, which I assessd as true and as correctly taught.
The instructor also has a website and provides an interesting backdrop on Tai Chi and why such a lineage changed over time.
For those that conduct themselves as students of martial arts, this is worth a look. For those that are practicing Tai Chi Quan itself, it would be even more useful. The author lives in Britain and teaches there. Multiculturalism affects much of life there, including Tai Chi, and she notes many internal contradictions present. Of course it would be so.
Btw, I thought the Rapture was today, but I was informed it was half a week ago, so it seemed I missed out.
Ymar, btw, I have visited and rejected the local Brazilian jiu-jitzu academy. It looks perfectly fine, as far as martial arts training goes, and the self-defense techniques look reasonably effective for many situations. But I have fitness requirements that are high on my list of requirements, and that martial arts form is low impact as far as fitness goes. (A very good thing for most people whose focus is on self-defense alone, but my objectives are different.)
Still checking out and lining up other possibilities.
If you want full body work, Mike, do mixed martial arts. The impact is from the stand-up fighting (punching and kicking). The strength and self-defense are great for jiujitsu. Both are scads of fun.
I believe, fitness wise, it doesn’t quite matter which martial arts you take. Because when you practice fundamentals, it applies to all attacks or defenses in H2H. You just need a training curriculum that lets you hone the muscle movements you will be using on the mat in the real.
For example, boxers and kickboxers and Muay Thai fighters use light and heavy bags to practice on. If you have fun while hitting a bag, you can do this for hours and hours and it will increase your fitness.
Kung fu utilizes base support in the form of increasing endurance in the legs and thighs. Famous foundation training is to have someone put their back to the wall and do a 90 degree squat, and maintain it for like 10-30 minutes. That’s for elite levels. Beginners have issues just lasting 30-60s.
On the matter of fitness, what matters more is which exercise you like to do. I, for example, don’t like running but do like specific leg exercises such as stance training.
Basically, martial arts instructors teach two versions. Soft core stuff that doesn’t require much exercise or work for kids and adults that are “entertaining” themselves. Then there is the inner circle, elite, and hard core training only offered to volunteers and those who are really serious.
You might fit into the latter category.
A basic level of fitness for H2H would be these, in my view.
1. The ability to last for 1-5 minutes at full speed and power. Fighting requires energy and oxygen, lots of it. While technically the encounter should only last a few seconds, that’s the ideal not the worst case scenario. Training is supposed to deal always with worst case scenarios for preparation.
2. The ability to do one a one legged squat. If you can do this, then you have enough leg strength to conduct any full body attack or foot movement evasion.
TFT has taught the blind as well as those bound to wheelchairs. The training methods for such exist, but every instructor doesn’t necessarily have the tools to teach everyone.
Still checking out and lining up other possibilities.
Keep working on it, we’ll be cheering you on from the invisible peanut gallery here.
In response to Book, I often, in certain dreams of despair, get the hint that Book enjoys herself so greatly because she is throwing around, submitting, and crushing the Democrat voters of her community. There’s something there… certainly.
I despair that I can’t be joining her, you see.
MikeD – I think that any martial art will give you a good physical workout. If it is self-defense that you want to learn, make sure you pick a school that actually lets you spar. For that, I would recommend Tae-Kwon-Do, as sparring is an essential part of this martial art and you do it using protective gear and rules of competition that will help prevent you from getting hurt (although, not always…as I can ruefully attest).
The reason you want to have experience with sparring is that the most important part of self-defense involves training the mind. It does no good to learn excellent technique if your mind freezes up in a real-life self-defense situation where fractions of a second matter. You need to a) learn to channel your body’s normal adrenaline surge when suddenly stressed and b) learn to tactically out-think your opponent. All that takes practice.
Sparring is a more “Alive” training methodology. It, however, has issues. Which is to say, the etiquette in bowing or facing off, doesn’t exist in SD encounters. When you train your mind, be aware not to train it to do wrong or unnecessary things. People do as they are trained. If they constantly go into an action expecting there to be some kind of “rules” or “sparring settings”, they’re not preparing themselves for the worst.
Randori or free spar was a training technique developed by Judo’s founder, Jingoro Kano, which increased the skill retention for his students as it allowed them to train their mind not just their body.
To a certain extent, all scenario and sparring training is “systematized” and “controlled”. The issue is not with whether there are safety rules in training, of course there are. The issue is how realistic can you make the training for the reality one is supposed to be training for. I’ve discovered or seen or heard or been told numerous training methods and none of them requires you to be in one martial art or another. Which is to say, my body of knowledge never originated from one style or lineage system, but from the combined training knowledge of as many of them as I could study.
For a relative new student to H2H training, I would start them off slow on the physical contact. Many good instructors won’t introduce total newbies to any kind of sparring, due to accidents or negative experiences. For many people, it takes time to prepare them for physical contact so they don’t get a negative experience from it.
Thus many instructors prepare you by gradually upping the physical contact, until you get to light sparring and then to full contact sparring at 50% power.
Humans, because they’re humans, tend to have ego issues and sometimes you will have big trouble when one person fights another in a spar. That’s up for the school master to deal with using discipline. If a person doesn’t follow the rules for the spar, he’s in violation. If a person makes a mistake by applying too much power, he should apologize and make it clear it wasn’t on purpose.
Any BJJ or tournament based martial arts system will have sparring in due time, unless they’re like full of people who don’t want to feel any pain or discomfort and are all in the “entertainment” section.
And even if the school forbids sparring, that doesn’t really mean anything since you can just ask for a personal 1 on 1 from the instructors themselves. Most of the issues come from students sparring with each other.
TKD from what I have seen from various practitioners, most of them whom I communicated with on Y!Answers, is broken up into WTF and ITF are two primary organizations for TKD. The WTF was formed with training to compete with the Olympics in mind so their training and forms are a bit different than ITF. The ITF is a bit more of a mixed bag.
The training they are undertaking is often with competition in mind. Even if a WTF student transfers to an ITF branch, this kind of inconsistency would make it hard for them to adapt.
Competition and MMA matches are pretty much the opposite spectrum of learning how to win kill or be killed situations.
I would have to make note of many training changes if a person wanted to learn both MMA rule fights and the other stuff.
Danny is absolutely right about the muscle memory that comes with actually hitting someone. Hitting a back is a very different emotional feeling from hitting a person — and that’s true despite the fact that I hit the back full strength, whereas I would never dream of going after a sparring partner full strength. Nevertheless, have a sense of an opposing body in motion is an inextricable part of being a true fighter.
Ymarsakar is right, though, that, if self-defense is your goal, you also need to learn down and dirty fighting, without the ritual. (Although I will say that MMA has less ritual than other martial arts.) I heard a funny story about overtraining with courtesy. It used to be that police officers who trained as weapons disarmament (i.e., grabbing a knife or gun from an opponent’s hand) during training would courteously hand back to the partner the phony that they’d just fought over. Stories starting trickling back, however, of cops who would successfully wrestle a weapon away from a bad guy, only to revert to muscle memory, and hand it right back to him. Training now requires one to hang onto the weapon (shoving it into clothes or backing up), or to throw the weapon away.
I’ve found martial arts extremely rewarding. It’s exercise with a purpose that transcends physical beauty or good health. You get both of those (if physical beauty includes lots of bruises, and good health ignores perpetually sore muscles), but you also get a feeling of purpose. You end up with a sense that you “own” space you occupy, and that you’re not going to cede that space to any old bully that comes along.
Because I’m a very petite woman, I’ve realized that, should a 200 lb man be bound and determined to subdue me, he’d probably be successful. I operate on the gazelle theory, though. The lion isn’t targeting a specific gazelle, he’s targeting the easy gazelle. Thanks to my martial arts training, I am no longer the easy gazelle.
One more thing about self-defense: it doesn’t start with the physical fight. The physical fight is the end of the self-defense procedure. Self-defense starts with preventing a physical attack in the first place. This occurs through body confidence (a walk that is alert and aware, etc.), and often continues through verbal self-defense, which either defuses a volatile situation or makes the predator aware that you’re not the easy gazelle.
Given that Book is using someone’s back as a heavy bag and going full force, I can’t believe that she’d be the easy gazelle.
Hitting a back is a very different emotional feeling from hitting a person — and that’s true despite the fact that I hit the back full strength, whereas I would never dream of going after a sparring partner full strength.
Remember, if you turn your back on her, she’ll go full up on ya! What terrifying power!
Oy. Ymarsakar caught me. I meant, of course, “Hitting back,” not “hitting a back.” Although one of the things one learns in jiujitsu is how to take someone’s back — and then to choke them, of course.
> To a certain extent, all scenario and sparring training is “systematized” and “controlled”. The issue is not with whether there are safety rules in training, of course there are. The issue is how realistic can you make the training for the reality one is supposed to be training for.
This academy certainly did emphasize repetition and drill and muscle memory, etc. And much of the students’ work is in a pair: one-on-one “sparring”. Not stand-up techniques, but on-the-floor techniques of suppressing your opponent. It looked effective. I recommend Brazilian jiu-jitsu, definitely, though I’m not choosing it! It’s just not what I’m looking for.
I’m curious Mike, what would you say you are looking for? Say you had a list of 5 or 10 things and you had to order them from most important to least important. What would you put down?
MikeD – I admire Brazilian jiu-jitsu but, like you, it’s not for me. I began the martial arts with Jude at the tender age of 16. We did a lot of grappling work back then, but the idea of men in sweaty embrace with each other was just not for me. Much more fun to break boards with one’s hands.
Take a look at Aikido, though. I think you might find it fascinating, being a man of intellect an all. There’s a smooth, harmonic beauty to it. Only studied it for a year but learned an amazing amount. May go back to it some day.
but the idea of men in sweaty embrace with each other was just not for me.
Danny, so if you had more women like Jude to practice grappling with back then, would you have continued on?
(tongue in cheek)
The training format TFT utilizes is composed of a few elements.
1. No talking. You are not to see the other target as a person but a bunch of targets to access. This is not socialization. This is ending a human that you no longer wish to socialize with, ever again.
2. Don’t talk to get yourself ready. Don’t warn people you are ready. Begin your attack where you are. Regardless of what posture you are in or whether you are standing up or prone. Do not get up and then attack. Attack from where you are at.
3. 100% accuracy is produced by 100% control with exact physical movements and timings. Fast is slow, and slow is fast. Thus this is one of the safest training mediums around, even though the attacks it teaches are the most dangerous in aggregate across the entire field of H2H potentials. It’s safe because it is dangerous.
P.S. Judo has very useful falling techniques. once you ingrain that knowledge in your body, it can save your life if you should be launched from your car at 60 mph and you broke through your windshield. Strangely enough, that’s exactly what has happened to several (drunk) US military members that knew Judo and were driving (while drinking) really fast. Going at 45 MPH and hitting something won’t kill em, but it would have broken their bones and scrapped their skin off if they had hit at the wrong angle once they got launched outside. And if they had landed on their neck, they’d been paralyzed.
At the start, I’d have listed them as:
1. Self-defense, because you never know when you’re going to need it.
2. Physical fitness via a directed program. Self-initiative hasn’t been working.
3. Confidence (as in the general social confidence via the self-sufficiency gained)
Now, I would list it as:
1. Physical fitness via a directed program. Must involve a lot of physical movement
2. Self defense techniques for the discipline and learning
3. Confidence
4. Self defense itself, just in case I ever need it.
I decided fitness was most important.
I broke out self-defense into two parts because it seems that I’m unlikely to ever need to put self-defense into effect. I’m never in dangerous situations. Where I live/work, the people I know, my lifestyle and interests… It shocked me when I realized I don’t think I’ve even observed an angry person in I don’t know how many years? Five? Seven? I used to run with a dangerous, very unstable crowd twenty years ago, for a few years, and there was quite a bit of trouble and dangerous situations back then… Perhaps trouble draws trouble.
It’s true, I can envision a lot of scenarios where I would need to rely on self-defense techniques, either for myself or to intervene to help someone else, but nothing that appears likely to actually occur. But accidents and terrible things and trouble *can* happen. No one is immune. So it’s good to be prepared.
Preparation is a good attitude to have in my view. Like insurance, except more catastrophic.
Marc MacYoung noted that violent people tended to create violent incidents around them. Which is why criminals often don’t last long in the underworld. They basically eat each other sooner or later.
One of the interesting stories I heard from an acquaintance concerns sparring in JKD. JKD is based off of arnis/escrima combined with some of Bruce Lee’s philosophy. Thus it seeks to combine powerful attacks with external martial arts whether melee armed or not. This tends to mean that they get people from all over. It just so happened that my acquaintance moved around a lot and went to 3 different JKD places to train. At all of them, there was one noticeable sparring incident, with each resulting in an injury requiring medical attention.
Basically these spars aren’t real fights and thus certain targets are off limits and you don’t go full force but moderate your strength. The three were 2 black belts, one in TKD, and another blue belt in BJJ. Both were facing off against my acquaintance in question, who did not have formal credentials or belt ranks. Thus they felt they could easily outmatch my acquaintance. However, he was trained as a fire security enlisted in a submarine, which is to say they received some CQB training from SEAL members. This job is very important on a nuclear sub because you need to be able to physically stop people from getting to the warhead compartment and the reactor compartment when they aren’t authorized to do so. Failure to do so, or attempting to use firearms, can have extremely negative consequences. Submarines don’t like hull breaches when submerged and they sure don’t like outputting sonar pulses while running silent. All things which would tend to happen if people started firing off guns inside. He also had real life experience in violent confrontations, as he lived in a poor area mostly when growing up.
So the black belts and the blue belts, believed they should easily overcome this person without any official status or recognition, in a JKD spar. When that didn’t happen, they became frustrated. Then the peanut gallery (the other JKD students) starter snickering and making light of the ability and skill of the black belts, the 3 in question (at different locations and times) started going all out, for pride and social status. These were in their 20s, btw, mostly.
The result, as you know, became predictable. My acquaintance damaged the solar plexus/diaphram of one guy, body slammed the knees of another and damaged the ligaments there requiring medical surgery, and broke the ribs of the last one with a power shot fist utilizing the fact that the foe was charging in, adding momentum to momentum.
This is why TFT wisely tells students to make sure their mouths are used only for breathing, not talking or laughing. It’s a safety regulation.
The JKD training facility was covered by insurance and those disclosure things you sign about not suing people for damages caused by accidents or what not. Since the JKD trainers saw what happened in the spar, and in 2 out of 3 incidents they were warned to tone it down in sparring, no legal ramifications resulted.
But as you can see, that’s far more trouble than you may usually see, certainly if you are in an environment like Mike’s. This is why training methodology is a skill completely different from actually applying H2H attacks using skill. There are many things which are required for student and instructor safety and many training methods that are better or worse than the alternatives. Figuring them out, is what separates great instructors from mediocre ones.