Some Thoughts on Victim Blaming & Why Your Rights Don't Matter

I rarely share my political beliefs with anyone but my inner circle, and even then I don’t share much. I practically never get political on this blog. But there are multiple places where political beliefs and personal defense intersect. You must navigate these intersections for yourself. In a real situation you can’t afford to hesitate because of a cognitive dissonance between your belief and the reality of a dangerous scenario.

I’m not writing to change the way you think. I’m writing simply to get you to think.

Please take a moment to read and look at the pictures in the linked article below.

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Social vs. Asocial Violence: A Quick & Dirty Introduction

In response to my post on whether or not to follow the bad guy’s instructions in a potentially violent situation, one of my readers (who’s trained at Magic City Dojo many times) sent me the following message (personal correspondence omitted) :

Hey Mike. Just read the new blog post. Great job! The topic, writing, and even the illustrations were all well-chosen and well done. 🙂

On a similar vein (just thought of this), what would bullying be classified as? Social or asocial? And how do you determine when to defend yourself (ignoring any institutional rules) or just keep walking away?

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Should You Follow the Bad Guy's Instructions?

Some of my earliest memories are from when my parents and I lived in a small duplex apartment in East Gadsden. Our neighbors in the adjoining apartment had a daughter the same age as me. So Jane (name changed to protect the innocent) and I had known each other since we were 3 or 4 years old.

Over the years, we would see each other sporadically due to moving here or there, losing touch, getting back in touch, and so on.

Fast forward to 1996. At this point I had been training in Bujinkan martial arts for 4 years. We were both 19 years old. I was living in Birmingham at the time and Jane was living in Gadsden. I was in Gadsden to attend a funeral for a couple of days and we decided to meet and catch up.

Jane, a few of her friends, and I went to hang out at her house to watch a movie. At one point about 30-45 minutes into the movie, one of her male friends who was standing in the kitchen called out to me, “Hey Michael. Can you come in here for a second?”

I got up and walked into the kitchen and said, “Hey. What’s up?”

The guy said with clear malicious intent, “You’ve got about thirty seconds to get outta here.” In shock and confusion, I asked, “What? What’s the problem?” And to this day, I still don’t what the hell he meant by what he said next: “Look…I’m a drunk and I’ve got a promise to keep.”

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Automatic Holster…Automatic Facepalm

Recently I've seen a video posted a few times on Facebook demonstrating something called the "Automatic Holster." I finally took a moment to watch the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5n2leR7Uso Granted, I'm…

How the Flinch Response can Save Your Ass

“In battle, if you you make your opponent flinch, you have already won.” – Miyamoto Musashi

Perhaps, but not necessarily.

flinch-response-baseball-bat-demonstration — Flinch reactions to a broken baseball bat flying into a crowd of spectators.

I posted the above quote by Musashi on our Facebook fan page and asked for people’s thoughts. It was kind of a trick question for those that had been through some of our Personal Protective Measures courses since we deal quite a bit with the flinch reaction. Some of the thoughts were pretty interesting and I was told that it was my turn to comment, so…I decided to put my thoughts down in this blog post. (more…)