What is Reddit's opinion of Meditations on Violence: A Comparison of Martial Arts Training and Real World Violence?

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I suggest to have a firm mental plan, actions and responses for adverse situations.

For example you could set a mental boundary that if an agitated/aggressive person comes close enough you can hit him fight has started and than the training will take over.

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Also, I think it would help you to read a book Meditations on violence. It talks about different motives for the violence, recognizing when it's about to occur, deescalation and lots more. If I remember correctly there is a chapter on fighting the "freeze" as he calls it.

It's a great book, hope it helps!

I think you put it well. I'd go one rung up, as Rory Miller does in his book - violence is rarely one-on-one in a well-lit environment with clear rules. We BJJers know to worry about the bar stools and the AIDS needles and the hidden shanks. Then there's the concealed carry, the entourage, the guy with actual AIDS, the vindictive next of kin, etc.

Your decision-making will go to shit when you're hyper-adrenalized, and if you haven't practiced being in those situations, no amount of written advice will protect you from someone who is used to fighting.

Strong recommendation to read Meditations on Violence for anyone legitimately interested in understanding the pragmatics of fighting.

>Which made me think of lots of people who claim being pacifist but end up being passive instead.

Violence, whether we like it or not is a part of nature. It is a component of life. While we should not ignite it, we should be prepared to face it.

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You would be correct, that's wisdom. It doesn't sound pretty... in fact it's kind of shitty, but at least it's true and it's not hopeless.

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Only the bullshittest of bullshit artists try to spine utter passivity or aggression as some how virtuous.

The mystical notions of "do no harm", aren't logical to... living. You're a walking ball of death and destruction whether you like it or not.

The other side of the coin, Violence for violence sake, well that always ends, in the same way. You don't even have to be a fortune teller to call it.

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I also recommend a book "Meditations on Violence"

While mostly geared towards LEOs, Martial Artists, and Self-Defense types but there's some really salient stuff in there about the very nature of violence, how we deal with it, what to do about it, and it's inevitability in life.

Worth reading his thoughts on it and his perspective as he was a man of violence (Corrections officer/martial artist) and it's funny because in some of his anecdotes he keeps searching for some "Spiritual meaning" to it all and keeps discovering that really, it was just about making it home alive.

It's wise because he never finds some mystical truth or anything. Just a few loose ideas, a few sound arguments, and the philosophy that "violence exists, there for I should know how to deal with it".

You're not going to like hearing it, but the answer is none of the above.

A weapon is going to make the situation more dangerous, not less dangerous. If you have a weapon, that's an escalation, and the other guy is going to escalate further. A crazy guy shoving you and making you feel uncomfortable can very quickly turn into a crazy guy knifing or shooting you, because you did something to escalate the situation.

It's more likely that whatever you choose will be taken from you and used against you than you are likely to protect yourself with it.

This is not to mention all of the legal issues with producing a weapon to be used in self defense.

Your best bet is to be aware of your surroundings, remove yourself from shady situations, and be ready to do a combination of running and yelling for help.

This is not a movie, and you are not a hero. Even when it comes to martial arts, pretty much every martial arts experience for laymen is mostly bullshit-peddling when it comes to self defense for practical use. (Strong suggestion, read Mediations on Violence by Rory Miller to find out why).

If you're looking for a bright side, just remember that the city is exceptionally safe, and the sensationalized situations that you hear about are less than one-in-a-million.

Stay aware. Stay away from threats. Never let your ego provoke you into standing your ground against a crazy. Don't be a hero.

There's a really good book I read called Meditations on Violence. In it, the author describes what he calls the "monkey dance" which is a status-based escalation that some men do to other men that builds into actual violence. The typical "you looking at me?!" sort of thing. The thing with the monkey dance is that it can be escalated or defused.

There is no "monkey dance" for male to female violence. When men attack women, there is no monkey dance, there is no defusing, there is no "throw one good punch and they back off". The men who attack women are doing it typically with the intent to seriously injure, rape, or kill.

Add the large differences in physical strength between men and women and it can be fucking terrifying. I've trained martial arts for years and even then an untrained man with a moderate amount of physical fitness could overpower me.

I've done some extremely adventurous things in my life and while I do think many women live their lives in too much fear, I will say that I still find myself in situations where I'm alone and there's a man being moderately creepy and I start to think "if this man wanted to rape me, there is very little that I could do".

I would strongly recommend you read Meditations on Violence by Rory Miller. It's about ten bucks on amazon. I kept seeing it recommended on martial arts forums and gun forums, and finally bought a copy myself a couple years ago. It changed the way I thought about training for violence.

I'm a big fan of CCW and big fan of full-contact martial arts. It's good to have both under your belt. If you've never had a violent encounter, you need to hear what Miller has to say about the effects of adrenaline on your fine motor skills, and about the different levels of adrenalization. The chemical cocktail released into your system when rock climbing is completely different from that released when some douchebag takes a swing at you but you're still thinking "I got this," and these are both different from the cocktail released when two guys jump out at you with knives and you realize in an instant that you might die. It's pretty much impossible to train for the highest levels of adrenalization, which is one of the main points of the book. So you train around it.

Here's a link: http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Violence-Comparison-Martial-Training/dp/1594391181/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=07E4513832JW79WN8SP4

Another tip regarding mentality:

Read Meditations on Violence.

It's an outstanding book on understanding self defense holistically and the kinds of people you will most likely defend yourself against. It's written by a well-experienced police sergeant who has spent quite some time as a corrections officer. It's where anyone new to self defense should start.

This is a great example of what to do with the confidence you build up with martial arts... sure you can think of killing everyone in the room (I recently started doing this and I thought I was crazy, now I know I'm not the only one!) but that's just worse case scenario.

What brought a great perspective to violence was a book called Meditations on Violence. It's a great read. http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Violence-Comparison-Martial-Training/dp/1594391181

Hi there,

So I saw some of your posts earlier, and as a quick aside to the question, I'm gonna recommend the book Meditations on Violence by Rory Miller. In it the author talks about his experiences working in corrections as the violence team expert, and what he talks about here is the psychological side of violence as well as the biochemical reaction we have when going from a nothing situation to a violent one. I like this book a lot for taiji people as this is the type of scenario where taiji training really shines, such as using touch sensitivity and relaxed vision to orient yourself faster than most people, breaking through that immediate mental freeze where people loop one movement over and over to try and get it to work, having your reactions be instantly available to you without needing to set anything up, non-technique specific movement efficiency to be able to apply movement changes/pivots/reactions from any part of the body you make contact with, etc. Training in this way is what I consider successful taiji training for me.

That said, I also do the more wrestling looking stuff on the side, along with a bit of shuai jiao, and it's def fun. I also watched that chin na video you recommended and I really enjoyed it, cause like chin na is def the kinda stuff you can geek out about :). One thing that was pretty quickly transferable to my wrasslin is William CC Chen's focus on the fingers. Basically he argues to focus a lot of your intent on the fingers themselves, with the middle finger, pointer, and thumb (the "claw") being the yang side and the pinky and ring finger being the yin side. The yang side's job is to press into the opponent on a spiral, like in wu style brush knee, and the yin side's job is to curl in and around, like in wu style gets into hook hands. (This curling is also found in bagua's teacup exercise). That all sounds complex but it's pretty simple actually, just put your mind/focus on your fingers and make small little spirals, switching between the two as needed. I've found this is a quick and effective little focusing tool to worm your arms into good positions, sneak out of bad ones, and catch locks and throws. Try it out!

Might I recommend a really helpful book on writing violence? This one definitely helped me.

https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Violence-Comparison-Martial-Training/dp/1594391181

Check out the series by Rory Miller (Meditations on Violence, Facing Violence, etc.) https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Violence-Comparison-Martial-Training/dp/1594391181

Self defence for whom, against what, how soon do you need it?

https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Violence-Comparison-Martial-Training/dp/1594391181

Well, it seems that your “best” arguments are adorned with words like “bullshit” and the like. So much for logical discussion.

The facts are simple: blocks and punches can be used in different ways (these are just names) and even used interchangeably in karate. It’s an old technique called “meotode”.

http://cdn.karatebyjesse.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/bild8.jpg

http://www.karatebyjesse.com/reviving-meotode-the-ancient-okinawan-karate-concept-of-kicking-ass/

And these and many other techniques are in the katas.

To use an example you can (maybe) understand: Katas are like the alphabet, or the multiplication tables. They teach you the basic letters or multiplication formulas in a fixed order.

However, once students learn these basic components, they are encouraged to put them together, mix them up, and use them in different situations. That’s how you form words, sentences and math formulas. You are not supposed to stick to the pre-arranged order of the alphabet or the multiplication tables.

It’s the same with the techniques in katas. You learn them first in their pre-arranged order, THEN you start improvising and studying them in different situations (like forming words, and sentences).

Sadly this is where your teacher failed you: he taught you only the alphabet, but never taught you how to form words, and much less sentences. You got stuck at the alphabet phase. And this why you believe the “alphabet” is useless.

Yes, the alphabet is useless if you only learn how to repeat it in its pre-arranged order over and over again without moving on to the next phase.

And no, boxers don’t grab their opponent with their “passive” hand and pulling him to waist level, as it is done in karate.

I don’t mean “parrying”. Karate also has “parrying”. What I mean is grabbing and pulling with their "dead" hand.

About the Gracies and eye-gouging: either you didn’t read the link I presented or you didn’t understand it. These were fights way before the Gracies. Believe it or not, the Gracies did not create fighting, there is a long tradition of fighting way before the first Gracie was even born.

Besides, the eye-gouging fights were brutal, eye gouging was not only encouraged, but it was the norm. In comparison, the Gracies and Vale Tudo fights are simple toddlers’ games.

BTW, the Gracies created, named, and marketed their own brand of Jujitsu, focused on ground combat (and on over-padding mats to rig fights, as Kimura confirmed). They even distinguish their BJJ from Judo (Kano’s Jiujitsu) or Japanese Jujitsu. Otherwise, why do they use the Gracie name in books, gyms and pretty much everywhere, instead of simply saying “jujitsu”?

I insist: Oyama and Motobu fought in the ring and defeated their boxing and wrestling opponents. More recently Machida, Kikuno, George St. Pierre, Rutten, Mezger, Lidell, and countless other MMA fighters have a traditional karate background and apply these techniques in their fights.

And they do katas too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NouSD4OMEac

https://youtu.be/1fjNrwTPrSk?t=43s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2U-2plYeX4

I would rather listen to the opinions of the old masters who said that karate is for self-defense only (like Motobu and Oyama) than the opinion of some unknown who bases his opinions saying “bullshit” over and over again.

I don’t plan to beat up anyone, I simply plan to defend myself, and run away. That’s the best self-defense technique.

That drunk guy in the street could kick your ass too, you don’t know it: a real fight is not staged, there are many variables, and you don’t have a 100% guarantee on anything. Even boxers have been killed in the streets.

BTW, I don’t see anything “revolutionary” in the Oyama training: it’s the same old “air-punching” drills and the katas you so much despise. Ashihara kept the katas too and even created more of them.

And you still practice them!

Oyama even believed in Ki, otherwise he would had never practiced a ki-based kata like Tensho in public, much less allowed to be filmed doing so.

>Ashihara's katas are awesome and nothing but practical.

So, now katas are AWESOME? Talk about selective bias. LOL

And I guess the AWESOMESS (do I perceive some Kung-Fu Panda influence here?) of the Ashihara katas is based on their jumps and high-flying kicks, right?

Excellent self-defense! /s Taekwondo also uses them.

>Which is laughable. There isn't even an objectively correct way of interpreting kata.

So, now you’re contradicting yourself: first you say that a technique is simply a technique, that it doesn’t have many interpretations. Now you say the opposite, that there is not a “correct” way of interpreting them???

>You've been sold a nice paradigm about traditional karate. Please don't assume that your knowledge of karate extends to practical schools like kyokushin or ashihara, not mind other MAs.

Well, I think that you have been sold a Kool-Aid paradigm about Kyokushin and Ashihara being “practical schools” and you drank it, but the reality is that both of them are de facto traditional schools, with all their katas, air-punching, and point-based knockdown tournaments with rules, high flying kicks and “forbidden” techniques.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g72wuwTfmMg

https://youtu.be/lVnkhIojunA?t=1m56s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-GTiAVY3co

About learning “dozens of techniques” : Learning doesn’t mean you’ll have to use everything. Learn the most you can, but select whatever works for you, not all. Every person is different (in height, weight, strength, speed, age), and what works for your teacher might not work for you. This is why your teacher does not have the right to hide any technique to you simply because it doesn’t work for him. This is a selfish argument against good pedagogy.

Every movement in kata can be applied in real situation, as Rory Miller said in his book, “Meditations on Violence.”

For example, on pages 114-115, he tells how he used the first movements from the basic kata almost exactly to control and handcuff a violent prison inmate (who happened to be a wrestling champion).

“It was effective. The body mechanics were identical to kata (...) I am not saying that kata is the optimal or even good way to train (AND I CONCUR!). What I am saying is that from my experience, the mechanics of Karate kata are extremely functional in real life. “

“To me, it looks like kata is all about hands, shoulders, and hips working together simultaneously with a drop in center of gravity. This is one of the most potent systems of power generation (...) regardless of wheter the action is interpreted as a stike, a lock, or a throw.”

Rory Miller is not a karateka. He teaches effective self defense for real situations.

http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Violence-Comparison-Martial-Training/dp/1594391181

Google Rory Miller and people like Iain Abernethy and learn.

>Karateka should be training with proven methods, like rugby players and swimmers.

So, now rugby and swimming are “real” fights?

Again: find a GOOD teacher (not a rugby coach!)

Listen- being a troll is one thing, but you’re giving advice that is not just absolutely wrong on its face, it’s dangerous. You don’t understand the difference between competition and self-defense. Citing how a well-trained champion sport fighter survived some conflict in front of a hotel with some people doesn’t prove that competition focused arts are better for self-defense. The OP literally asked about Average Joe. So not only is your advice bad, your actual cognitive ability and literacy is questionable. Everything you are saying is so devoid of a basic common sense and experience that I really am just going to let you get your last word in and then ignore you. Please stop giving people dangerously incorrect advice with no experience behind it.

OP: The image is from this book: https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Violence-Comparison-Martial-Training/dp/1594391181 Meditations on Violence. Excellent read.

Holy shit- you are that troll from before who doesnt understand that self-defense and competition are two different things. Here: https://imgur.com/a/oEaeZt7

This is a shortcut for you.

Also- the only reason the military does BJJ/MMA stuff is because it allows for COMPETITION- which means the units will actually DO it, as opposed to the actual self-defense training crafted over many years and contributors like Applegate and Fairburn, which people weren't practicing anymore. A shot of energy at the price of lethality and they know it too.

I have never argued that being a fit athlete and having some good competition fighting skills can't help you, but that's not what they are for and they are very much inferior to methods developed for actual SELF-DEFENSE.

OP- check out the link- it's a great guide. From the book Meditations on Violence https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Violence-Comparison-Martial-Training/dp/1594391181