Warrior Martial Arts & Self Defense of Birmingham
This post is a follow up to my last post about Facebook Myths and Intelligence Gathering. This post examines how the consequences of not fact checking something you saw on the internet or Facebook before sharing can be detrimental.
Here are a few specific examples:
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When I first heard and read about the Bujinkan martial arts back in the late 80′s and when I started training in the early 90′s, you could always hear someone talking about or writing about “intelligence gathering.”
This was a reference to the ancient ninjutsu aspects of espionage. The essence of which is gathering intelligence in order to create an effective strategy to accomplish whatever your army’s goal happened to be.
It seems that “intelligence gathering” is becoming a dying art among the Bujinkan practitioners in America in more ways than one.
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Budo is a huge part of my life. In a philosophical sense, it influences nearly everything I do. I engage in physical practice a lot! At one point I was practicing 2 hours a night, 4 nights a week. Then the occasional Saturday workshop or weekend seminar on top of those other 8 hours. It’s my passion.
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Listening is an invaluable skill in everyday life. A good listener is able to truly tune in to what his friends are saying, what’s going on around him, and what needs to be done. Listening is the skill of taking in and processing information so that, when the person/situation is done talking, the listener can make an appropriate response. [Read more...]
The bad tooth is to the far right. Ouch!
Regardless of how advanced in self defense or martial arts you are, you deal with fear. All of us deal with fear. Period.
How well you deal with your fear is what separates the survivors from the cannon fodder.
Those that train with me or at Magic City Dojo know that I am a fan of Tony Blauer and his research on the psychology of combat and self defense.
One of the main principles that he writes and teaches is fear management. How to understand, manage, and work through your fear.
Fear can have a debilitating effect on your performance in any situation. Not just a threat to your physical being. You can fear a mugging, failing a college exam, blowing a job interview, moving to a new city, ending a bad relationship, or having a wisdom tooth extracted.
That last one was my situation this past Thanksgiving weekend.
I started with a mild toothache on Monday. It didn’t really get any better or worse on Tuesday. Wednesday started out the same and gradually got worse through the night. Wednesday night I barely got any sleep. Thanksgiving day I woke up from the pain. It was bad enough to give me a tension headache and even made me nauseated. It sucked!
As a kid, I hated going to the dentist…with a passion! Mind you, this was probably 15 years ago at best. It was always an awful experience. Dental medicine has certainly progressed in that time, so I was told. I had not experienced it myself directly. The F.E.A.R. was still there. But, the direct experience of the pain outweighed my F.E.A.R. I had to see the dentist and take care of the problem.
The Self Defense Connection
Tony Blauer has a couple of acronyms to explain F.E.A.R.
F.E.A.R. = False Expectations Appearing Real
F.E.A.R. = False Evidence Appearing Real
From what I have viewed from Coach Blauer, the most succinct way of expressing this in terms of self defense is as follows:
Ask yourself honestly…are you afraid of a knife? Think about that for a moment.
Do you own a knife? If you have a kitchen, you probably own at least one steak knife if not several types of cooking knives. So, you don’t really fear knives. You fear a knife fighter…right?
Say your martial arts teacher, someone you trust with your life, is holding a live blade. He is an experienced knife fighter; he has the means and opportunity to seriously hurt you, but you implicitly trust him. So you don’t really fear a knife fighter. You actually fear getting cut.
Have you ever cut yourself with a knife by mistake? I certainly have. Sure it hurt, but it wasn’t that bad. You actually fear getting cut in a life threatening way.
How many of you said yes to the first question, “…are you afraid of a knife?” If so, the issue is with understanding what your fear really is.
Say you’re facing a buff, athletic guy that is pissed at you for whatever reason. He says he going to kick your ass into next week. Are you afraid? No? Maybe? Probably? Yes?
What actual evidence proves that he can do what he says he can do? Maybe he hurt someone else. But that was someone else. What is the proof that he can hurt you? What is the scientific evidence? Has he hurt you before? If the answer is no, then what is your F.E.A.R. based on? If the answer is yes, what is the evidence that he is capable of doing it again?
The fact is that there is no evidence or proof until it actually, physically happens. So, in reality, your F.E.A.R is your own ego projections of what you think will happen to you. Before the incident, there is no proof!
In the Dentist’s Chair
I finally got an appointment the Friday morning after Thanksgiving. Sitting there in the dentist chair, the thought’s raced through my head:
“This is going to hurt for days on end. The actual tooth extraction is going to be so painful. This is going to suck so bad (the false expectations/evidence), but I have to do something. I can’t deal with the evident pain I was actually experiencing from the toothache (the proof).”
My F.E.A.R. wasn’t anywhere near the phobic level, but it was there.
Then I remembered the F.E.A.R. acronyms. I controlled my breathing and got calm and focused. I gave myself positive self talk. There is no proof that this is going to be unbearable. I told myself that the experience would be a piece of cake. Positive motivation. In Coach Blauer’s terminology, I had gone from the victim mindset to the victor mindset. Rather than feeling threatened, I chose to feel challenged. I was going to conquer this experience!
The Evidence
In the end, it was in fact a piece of cake! No real pain at all. A little minor soreness that Friday night. I didn’t even need the pain meds that they prescribed.
The hardest part was the post extraction maintenance. Don’t spit. Don’t drink through a straw. Swish gently with warm salt water X amount of times a day for the next 7 days, etc. More of an inconvenience than anything.
Conclusion
The next time you are experiencing F.E.A.R., take a breath and ask yourself, “What am I really afraid of? What is the evident proof?” Are you psyching yourself out, or are you psyching yourself up?
What have been your experiences? Leave your story in the comments.
For more info on Tony Blauer, F.E.A.R. Management, PDR (Personal Defense Readiness), and S.P.E.A.R., please visit www.tonyblauer.com
This is a guest post from a couple of our students, Kaitlin Cordova and Rebecca Morrow, on how to make training metsubushi.
Kaitlin-san after metsubushi practice.
I’d suggest doing all this over a sink, maybe outside. Last time I did this, I saved the egg innards in tupperware and made a bunch of scrambled eggs for me and my friends.
1. Buy one or two dozen eggs. (2 dozen pretty much guarantees you’ll be able to practice each technique a couple times, and probably have some left over to share with those who don’t have enough or to have some fun after it’s all done.)
2. Take a pin or an unbent paper clip and put a small hole on one end of the egg.
3. Make another hole on the other end of the egg, but make this one a little bigger.
4. Over a sink, blow through the small hole to push the yolk out the bigger hole. If you’re going red in the face and nothing’s happening, make both holes a tad bigger – you may not be getting enough air in or the bottom hole may be too small for the yolk.
5. Rinse out the inside of the egg so none of the egg residue sticks to the powder.
6. Set the hollowed, rinsed-out egg back in the egg carton to dry.
6b. On drying: Allow at least a night for the eggs to dry, preferably more. Better to give it more time than necessary than have wet baby powder that doesn’t work well. That being said, I’d suggest letting them sit for a few hours and then flipping them over. If anyone else has tips on drying methods, please leave a comment.
7. Once you’ve got all your eggs emptied and dry, it’s time to fill them up with baby powder! Standard baby powder works fine; you can use scented powder if you want. Puts lots of nice smells in the air, haha. 
8. First, put some tape over the small hole. It’ll get messy very quickly if you don’t.
9. This is Rebecca Morrow’s clever method for getting the baby powder in:
Get a 3×5 notecard and make your little funnel.
10. Pour the baby powder inside the funnel and, using a bo shuriken, pencil, or other thin item, stir the baby powder around so it actually goes down into the egg.
Using a notecard funnel and chopstick to help fill the eggshell with powder.
11. When it looks full, shake the egg a little to get the powder to settle; if there’s still room, add more powder.
12. When you can’t get anymore powder inside, set it back in the egg carton and tape up the top hole.
13. Repeat until they’re all done. You’re ready to go!
Finished metsubushi with convenient carrying case.
Editor’s note: Please be sure to wear eye protection and a dust mask for safety in training!
If anyone has additions, alternatives, or corrections, please post them in the comments section. 
I didn’t originally plan to post anything about the ten year anniversary of 9/11.
Better men than me have already written about it.
But this morning, I saw the image below in an email that came yesterday, but I didn’t see it until today. So, I decided to share…
Image created by Brian Niemann.
This past weekend, I flew up to Baltimore, MD for a very rare seminar with Shihan Mark Lithgow teaching. The theme of the seminar was “Koppo no Ken.”
The Japanese Sword
Of course there was the excellent training we participated in. But there were also fun stories shared, new friends and connections made, and an inspiring show of support from the people in the Bujinkan. [Read more...]
For the guys…
There you are…having a drink at your favorite pub, minding your own business. You turn to look around the room to see which TV is showing the big game. And your elbow accidentally bumps some guy’s beer and spills it all over his girlfriend.
The guy is 6’4” and solid muscle. It’s obvious that he’s in great shape. He’s covered in tribal tattoos and wearing his favorite TapOut shirt. Oh boy. He probably trains in some kind of fighting system. And…he’s really pissed!
You immediately apologize and offer to pay their bar tabs. But that’s not good enough. This guy wants to teach you a lesson you’ll never forget.
Can you survive a fight with this guy? [Read more...]
