Women's Self Defence - Fighting With Facts

Based on my blogs concerning Women's Self Defence (WSD), I recieved an email asking my advice on a particular WSD issue. Firstly, thank you considering myself as having something to contribute to your efforts. Secondly, kudos on seeking out more information before attempting to advise women on their own safety. This attitude is relatively rare within the martial arts and those activities associated with preparing a person to survive a violent encounter. Opinions abound; facts are often not considered.

I've chosen a WSD course website at random and do not intend to name it. It is fairly typical of the rhetoric associated with WSD courses.

Unfortunately violence is on the increase in our society. Is it? Is it really? Based on what facts? Some would argue that our reporting of violence has increased; or that the media reporting of violence has increased thereby increasing our appreciation of the level of violence in our society. I once saw a report that Australia was the third highest most violent country in the world, more so than Spain. The reason Australia is the third hightest most violent country in the world is because we report violent crimes. When we report violent crimes, they get reported in the media. Viola, violence is on the increase and we have a violent society.

Has violence increased in our society compared to times gone by when Australian 'aboriginals' or 'native Americans' were systematically hunted down and killed? Was it more or less violent in our society in the 1600s or now, when weapons were the norm in civilian society rather than when they are regulated today? If you are going to suggest violence is on the increase, at least specify a base. Maybe the 1960s when we could leave our doors unlocked when we went out or went to sleep. Some argue that until recent events the 1960's had been our most violent decade of the century.

These courses, and often martial arts, are marketed on fear. We have four times as many negative emotions as positive ones because negative emotions are designed to ensure our survival and positive ones are designed to take advantage of an opportunity. Evolution gave us four times more negative emotions because if we don't survive, we don't reproduce. If we don't take advantage of an opportunity, we still survive and another opportunity will always come along, and we still get to reproduce. So, to protect us, evolution over compensated on the negative emotions, including fear. Fear and ignorance: the fodder of the media; the fodder of politics; and the fodder of self defence courses.

I have a friend who has gone through some pretty rough times. She purchased a pair of Wonder Woman undies which have become a bit of a symbol for her strength and independence. She suggested she was going to develop a women's fitness course and call it Wonder Women Fitness. Wow, I thought. What would I call a WSD course. 'Vulnerable people', 'You're weak but we'll try and fix that', 'Defend yourself cos you are the weakest of the herd' course. I've seen 'Fight Like a Girl' - ~. While that name is intended to be taken a number of different ways, it still originates in weakness. What about Wonder Woman something. Something positive, not based on fear but on strength. Something that says we are building on your inherent strengths, and not trying to fix your inherent weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Of course part of that course would be knowledge. Real knowledge based on supportable facts - knowledge is power.

It is not a martial arts course, it’s an educational program. I can guarantee you that not a lot of 'real' research went into the development of most WSD courses. A lot of opinion has gone into developing them, but very little real, unbaised research. All you have to do is look at the absence of 'intimate assault' strategies.

created the xxx method to specifically address the most common sexual assault scenarios women of all ages are likely to face. If so, this would be the first WSD course that focuses on sexual assault from intimates, people the assaultee knows. Statistically, the biggest threat to females is posed by people they know. The strategies to deal with someone you love and trust who now want to assault you are very different to the strategies aimed at dealing with a stranger assault. We need to cater for both.

Every criminal has two fears. Criminals fear being caught and they fear being hurt. The course provides ample opportunities for the attacker to face both of those fears. What bollocks. If criminals feared being caught then harsher punishments would act as a deterient. It has been shown time and time again that this is not the case. Harsher penalities only make those imposing them feel like their doing something, rather than actually doing something that might deal with the problem. People do not do a cost-benefit analysis when deciding to commit a crime. I recently watched a National Geographic documentary on Casuarina, Western Australia's maximum security prison. A recidivist prisoner explained that he wasn't thinking about any punishment whatsoever whenever he committed any crime.

Did the bikie that threw the young New Zealander out of the first floor window of a Perth pub killing him fear being hurt? Did the serial rapist in New Zealand who when asked by one of his vicitms what she had done to deserve this replied that she had done nothing, that he was just a bastard, fear being hurt?

Does the husband that beats his wife fear being hurt? Does the date that rapes his date fear being hurt? Does the drunken idiot that won't take no for an answer fear being hurt?

What nonsense.

Studies show that half of all attackers will break off their attack if the woman simply indicates she is willing to resist. Finally. An indication that some research might have gone into the development of a course that is supposedly intended to inform and assist a woman to survive a violent encounter.

Studies show that women who resist are not injured any more than women who don’t resist. Yes they do. Kudos for doing some research.

The program teaches women elements of awareness, avoidance and self-defence. Awareness and avoidance - before an attack. Self defence - during an attack. What about after an attack? William Haddon, the father of injury science, analyed injury events using temporal phases. Before, during, and after an injury event. The idea is to prevent an injury, and if you can't to reduce the severity or longevity of the injury. What do WSD courses do to reduce the sequelae of an attack? Is only demonstrating that women who resist an attack reduce their risks of being successfully attacked revictimising those who do not resist, for whatever reason? What is being done to help those people understand and cope with the effects of an attack?

The original email was in regards to the use of keys as a weapon of self defence. It is commonly taught to hold your keys between your fingers to strike or scratch with. Have you tried it? The car key I have with the bulky handle for electronically opening and closing the car door provides a great support for the key to use as a weapon. My stand-alone house key is tough to hold between the fingers when striking with it. Scratching? I tried that. Keys are by design, blunt. It is very tough to scratch a person with a key held between the fingers with no support like the base of the aforementioned key. I've got red marks on my arm, however, no penetration of the skin was achieved.

I'd go back to the non-controversial weapon of a heel-palm or hammerfist strike to the nose. It is tough to teach a person to punch with a fist, let alone kick. Check out Applegate's Kill or Get Killed and Fairburn's Get Tough. They teach the military and law enforcement NOT to punch, but to use a heel-palm strike, hammerfist, or shuto (knife hand). Nancy Wake used the latter to kill a Nazi sentary during WWII as reported in my blog dedicated to the story of Jan de Jong. Using the heel-palm strike does not run the risk of breaking a bone in the hand or wrist. It doesn't run the risk of being ineffective due to a misaligned wrist. It is relatively easy to use and is effective when directed to the nose or the jaw. Why go for the keys between the fingers which is questionable and difficult when you have this weapon at hand (pun intended).

You Are Not Defenceless

I'll aim these comments at females, but they are equally applicable to males.

The first thing I would do if conducting a women's self defence course would be to ask the participants, who among them felt they are defenceless. Many may as they have enrolled in a self defence class to gain defensive capabilities. The first thing I would tell the participants is that they are not defenceless. If they were, they would never have been born.

Nature provides humans with a pretty effective defence system. It's pretty effective because we are here. Those that possessed this evolved defence system survived and reproduced passing those traits down to successive generations. Those that did not possess this evolved defence system were defenceless and died, thereby not being afforded the opportunity of passing their defenceless traits down to successive generations.

If you want to see how effective our evolved defensive mechanism is, just read the following newspaper article of a woman's fight for survival. I'll provide certain comments that arise from my work on Beyond Fight or Flight, and it can be seen that the previous blog informs this article.

Perth mother struggled through tears today describing her desperate fight for survival as her estranged husband repeatedly stabbed her and the moment her three-year-old son witnessed the attack.

Lisa Ann Petrelis, 38, is giving evidence at the Supreme Court trial of her husband and father of her two sons, Alexander Nicholas Petrelis, who is fighting an attempted murder charge.

Mr Petrelis, 38, pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm but the prosecution rejected that offer.

Why GBH and not attempted manslaughter? Is there such a thing as attempted manslaughter in WA? I'm always amused at the reduced sentence for attempted homicide. Even though a person had the intention of killing another person, they are rewarded with a lesser sentence because they were incompetent and did not achieve their objective. To my mind, if a person intends to kill another person, and trys to kill that person, it's one and the same if they succeed or fail. You can see the same oddity in many other crimes. Attempted sexual assault - a person gets a lesser sentence because they were rubbish at sexual assault.

Mrs Petrelis said her husband had tapped on her bedroom window at her Karrinyup home at around 11pm on December 5, 2010. She said when she let him in he was talking in a stressed tone, was breathing heavily and told her he had cancer and felt sick.

Mrs Petrelis said her husband eventually asked to be let out and when she walked towards him he suddenly lunged at her, started hitting her and backed her into a corner.

She said she was screaming at him to stop and telling him he would wake their two sons, but it took her a while to realise she was being stabbed as well with her own carving knife that she left on the kitchen sink after making herself a chicken sandwich earlier in the night.

Mrs Petrelis estimated she was hit or stabbed 50 to 60 times during the initial attack.

"I ended up screaming I’m being stabbed, I’m being stabbed ... but being stabbed didn’t hurt, I guess the adrenalin was going through. Somewhere in there I knew I had been stabbed," she told the jury.

Here we see the effects of the evolved physiological response associated with fear - hormones being released which result in increased pain tolerance. This evolved response is designed so that injury does not interfere with our efforts to flee or fight. Serious injuries did not interfere with Mrs Petrelis' fight for survival.

Mrs Petrelis said after slipping on her own blood, she ran to get her mobile phone but her husband chased her into her bedroom where he continued the attack. She said after hitting her in the head while on top of her on the bed, they ended up on the floor where he put her in a headlock and his arm was constricting her windpipe.

As will be seen below, there was considerable amount of blood letting. The evolved physiological response associated with fear is to shunt blood away from the periphery to the muscles that need it to flee. This reported experience has intrigued me to look further into the effects on blood flow when our defensive mechanism has been activated.

"My son (Nicholas) was watching, he turned the light on," she said.

"I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t do anything. I was about to pass out.

"Nicholas was screaming mummy, mummy, mummy, stop daddy stop. Amongst it all, Alex turned around and told Nicholas go back to your room in the most calmest, monotone voice and then continued to belt me."

Recall the division of aggression into emotional aggression and instrumental aggression. The calm, monotone voice suggests instrumental aggression. This may have legal implications and physiological implications for Mr Petrelis.

This incident reminds me of the advice provided in the women's self defence course developed by Debbie Clarke. The women were advised to instruct their children to not come to mummy's aid if they heard her screaming, but instead to run next door for help. You don't want your defenceless children - and they are defenceless which is the reason they remain with their parents far longer than offspring of any other species - to come running into the middle of a violent situation. Debbie had an ingenious and multi-use method of instilling this behaviour in the children without scaring the bejesus out of them. She advised that fire drills be taught at home (isn't it interesting that we conduct fire drills at work, but not with the ones we are suppose to love) and that the children be taught to get out of the house and go for help. Many children die in household fires attempting to find their parents. A screaming mummy is the same as a fire; don't come to mummy's aid, get out of the house and get help.

Mrs Petrelis said in a desperate final attempt to free herself she put her hand down her husband’s pants and pulled hard on his genitals and bit his finger hard.

An evolved defensive behavioural response. Nature was fighting hard to help Mrs Petrelis survive.

She said after he released her he came at her again and she pulled him over her shoulder as they fell into the bathroom where he hit his head against a wall.

Mrs Petrelis said this was her only chance to escape and she knew her husband wouldn’t hurt her son, so she left him in the house and ran for her life outside screaming out into the street. She said she saw her husband run away in the other direction.

If the husband was engaged in instrumental violence, no emotions would have been activated. No emotions activated, no hormones released which increase pain tolerance. Would the husband have felt the pain associated with the pulling on his genitals and biting of his finger if he was in a rage?

The striking, biting, and genital pulling did not provide Mrs Petrelis with an opportunity to flee, but the husband hitting his head when he fell did. Is this suggestive of an increased focus on takedown techniques being taught as women's self defence techniques?

The jury has been told that Mrs Petrelis was stabbed up to 25 times, including two potentially fatal wounds which punctured a lung and perforated her bowel.

Yesterday at the start of her evidence, Mrs Petrelis told the jury how her five-year marriage had disintegrated to the point where she took out a violence restraining order against her husband in November 2010.

But she said she allowed him to breach the order by making contact with her and visiting the house because she was scared he would become aggressive if she refused.

Mrs Petrelis said her husband had made verbal threats against her in the months before the stabbing attack, including telling her "you better sleep with your eyes open tonight" and "you better not use a pillow because I’ll smother you with it."

Don't judge. Domestic abuse is a complicated issue. Maybe the electronic tagging of VRO recipients being considered (see previous blog) may have given Mrs Petrelis the confidence to refuse the husband's request to visit the house. We have to remember, while we talk about the protection afforded by the law, and enforced by law enforcement, these women more often than not have to deal with these issues alone. The law can apprehend and punish, it struggles with prevention.

Mr Petrelis is arguing he never intended to kill his wife.

His lawyer Tom Percy said his client admitted being responsible for his wife’s life-threatening injuries, but was high on amphetamines at the time.

Mr Percy described his client’s actions as a "savage and frenzied attack" which was "born out of anger, frustration and disappointment".

I won't even go near the diminished capacity defence due to being under the influence of drugs as I'm aware it is a controversial issue. The last statement is interesting in terms of emotive violence vs instrumental violence. Was Mr Petrelis experiencing an emotion (anger) at the time of the attack, or was it emotionless? It may have been 'born' of anger, but was that emotion being experienced during the attack. An emotion fueled act lends itself to manslaughter as the law recognises that our emotions are designed to not be easily overridden by cognition.

Photographs taken inside the Karrinyup home shown to the jury reveal blood splatters on several walls and a big pool of blood on Mrs Petrelis’ bed.

Mrs Petrelis said she was in hospital for nearly two weeks, some of her bruising took close to three months to subside and she wore an arm brace after stab wounds, one of which went straight through her upper arm, severed tendons to three fingers.

You'll notice there is no mention of the word 'victim' to describe Mrs Petrelis. She is no victim; she is a survivor; she is a fighter. Kudos Mrs Petrelis. Kudos Mother Nature.

Do you think Mrs Petrelis' experience acts as a source of support, or even inspiration? We can fight. We can survive. Even against great odds.

Aside from her physical wounds, Mrs Petrelis and her son will need to be aware of the potential for post traumatic stress. Our evolved defensive mechanism kicking in after the danger has pasted. Good luck Mrs Petrelis.

Domestic Violence

I read an editorial in the newspaper yesterday. It was either written by the author of Violence In Our Homes: Protecting The Vulnerable or about that paper. The paper is a WA Labor Discussion Paper concerning domestic violence in Western Australia.

http://www.loop.wa.gov.au/Documents/Violence%20in%20Our%20Homes%20-%20Protecting%20the%20Vulnerable.pdf

The paper states that Labor is committed to a raft of things associated with reducing domestic violence. Labor, as is any political party or politician, is committed to being elected. They see this as an issue they can use to get elected. If the community does not actively support the issue via votes, then it'll be dropped without hesitation in favour of the next issue that the political party or politician is 'passionately committed' to. This is an important issue, and it's up to us to inform ourselves on it, and often to deal with ourselves. Even if we are fortunate enough not to experience domestic violence personally, I can guarantee you that some of your friends, relatives, work colleagues, or someone you know will be. It would help if we could help them in a meaningful way, and that can only come about through understanding and education. Thankfully that is one of the recommendations of the paper.

My interest in domestic violence (from an academic perspective) has increased after my involvement with a women who has recently emerged from a long-term abusive relationship. I found the knowledge gained in researching Beyond Fight-or-Flight enabled me to understand, and at times explain, what was going on. I was astounded how well theory fit with experience; how theory informed experience; and how theory could help experience.

I thought I'd just share a few thoughts raised by the paper.

Historically, violence against women was explained and excused as a manifestation of traditional male authority. Consequently, domestic and family violence came to be regarded as a private matter that was unsuitable for outside interference. Although 98% of people today agree that domestic violence is a crime, a culture of silence pervades the issue. Both perpetrators and victims hide domestic and family violence and often the community turns a blind eye. While steps have been taken to increase public awareness through legislative reform, educational campaigns and media advertisements, women may remain reticent to report or pursue prosecutions of violence.

The editorial made a comment that isn't fully explored in the paper. It referred to how we label this experience/crime, 'domestic' violence. It suggested that the very label changed the perception of the violence. It was domestic, in-house, private, a family matter.

Words matter. Labels matter. They shape our perception, and therefore our behaviour. The Canadian military (if memory serves) no longer refer to PTSD as a mental disorder or condition because soldiers did not tend to seek treatment for a mental disorder or condition. To experience a mental disorder or condition is to be weak for a soldier. So, PTSD is now referred to as a 'combat injury', which it is. Soldiers have no problem seeking help for an injury. They understand an injury. There is no stigma attached to an injury.

The first thing I'd advise the authors of the proposed report is to change the name. 'Protecting the Vulnerable' - the self esteem of those who suffer abuse is already at a very low ebb, now they are being labelled as 'vulnerable'. Weak. It's similar to the use of 'victim' to refer to those who have survived sexual assault. They are no longer 'victims' but 'survivors'. Both terms may be accurate descriptions, but we as human beings invest emotional meaning into terms. A victim implies being helpless, a survivor implies strength. My friend is not a victim of abuse, she survived abuse.

Children who are exposed to domestic and family violence learn abuse from a young age and are more likely to continue patterns of violence.

Here we have our first contentious issue - the heated debate over physically punishing our children. Physical punishment is violence. The violent behaviour has a different motivation (hopefully), but the behaviour is still violence. Violence being used to punish and to change behaviour for the better. This violence is sanctioned by law as long as it is confined to family members. It's not too much of a leap to then extend the idea from your children to female partners.

I recall playing pool in a pub in the 1990s. A challenge was accepted from a male and female couple. I got talking to the women, who explained that her boyfriend hit her on the odd occasion, but that it was OK because she deserved it. I did not agree; possibly a little too loudly, and possibly a little too sarcastically. I might have referred to her boyfriend as Maynard G. Krebs, the hippie character from the TV series, The Many Loves of Dobbie Gillis (who incidentally was fashioned on the hippie character, Shaggy, from Scooby Doo). The boyfriend had a little beard on his chin like Krebs. Long story short, Maynard, and his four friends, took exception to my conversation, characterisation, and comments - so a pool cue was introduced to my face, and then the four friends introduced themselves to me. Suffice it to say, I now know the 'eagle-claw' technique to the throat is really very effective.

My point is that the right to physically punishment in a relationship is a cultural issue as much as it is a legal issue. Violence is violence, and violence can be violence. If it's sanctioned in certain situations, then why not in those that are only slightly different.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, one in three Australian women have experienced physical violence since the age of 15, and almost one in five have experienced sexual violence. ... In 2006-2007, 53% of female homicide victims in Australia had an intimate relationship with the offender.

Truly horrendous statistics. I have three adopted nieces, and these statistics are a call to action for me. Not only in discussing these issues with them to better prepare them, but also in my views on violence generally in society. For instance, in the case of the abovementioned Krebs incident, why were not the police involved. It was an assault, and we shouldn't tolerate assaults. We should not accept violence as a normal way of dealing with situations in our society.

Those who teach womens self defence courses; do you also teach your female students to actively teach their sons respect for women. Every male abuser is the son of some women. It's long been understood that mother's can have a significant influence on their sons. Surely we can extend the concept of womens self defence courses to much more than simply looking after ourselves. Maybe this might have the effect of further empowering the women undertaking the course.

The paper identifies 'vulnerable groups': indigenous women and girls, women living in remote communities, women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, women 45 years and older, women with a physical or intellectual disability, and gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and intersex communities. Bollocks!

Any women can find themselves in an abusive relationship. My friend has told me of a lot of women who have approached her after she publicly admitted she was in an abusive relationship and that she got out of it. The women who have approached her are in an abusive relationship - none of them fit into the aforementioned vulnerable groups. And its scary how many there are.

There was an article in The Age about a 'successful professional businesswomen,' Pamela, who now shares her experiences of being in an abusive relationship.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/embarrassed-victim-kept-silent-for-13-years-20120303-1ua2t.html

Not being considered 'vulnerable' can in itself create additional pressures.

'I couldn't tell anyone, I was so ashamed and embarrassed that I was this smart, sophisticated professional woman who was putting up with this bullshit at home,'' she says.

This was the exact same comment I heard from my friend. One of the frustrating things I've found is that the abusive experiences and effects are so common place and written about over and over again, they become cliches. But for those who prefer to become informed rather than rely on their own biased, often self serving albeit well intentioned, opinion, there is a lot of information available that can truly help.

The paper refers to women not reporting domestic violence or seeking help as a result of fear. It is a FAR more complex issue than just fear. Domestic violence involves a person with whom the abused has an intimate relationship with. He is the father of their children. They promised to love each other through the good times and the bad - this is just one of the bad times.

Danny Blay, head of No To Violence, an agency that co-ordinates programs for men who are violent to their families, says Pamela's experience is familiar. 'I wish we had a buck for every time a woman called our service and said, 'I don't want the relationship to end, I just want the violence to stop,''' he says.

There are a million reasons not to leave an abusive relationship - and all need to be treated as valid. To question them simply revictimises the abused.

'Why didn't you leave?' The most insidious of questions. One of the recommendations in the paper is:

Enhance current training programmes and develop new comprehensive training programmes for Western Australian police, prosecutors, judges and health care providers to develop sensitised understandings of domestic and family violence.

Agreed. Lesson number one - do NOT ask the abused why they did not leave. It was interesting, and frightening, that this was exactly the question my friend was asked by the police when she first reported her abuse to the police. In 2012, with all the information available and all the training that is done, and still one of the first questions asked reinforces in the abused that they are useless.

There are a number of objective reasons proposed for a woman not leaving an abusive relationship. The kids, financial dependence, isolation, etc. One that is only now starting to be considered, and which I've touched on before in previous blogs is the natural behavioural response of 'learned helplessness.' A person cannot see there is anything they can do to change their position; even though we on the outside see 'obvious' solutions, and don't mind telling the abused so.

'I didn't even know I was in an abusive relationship' my friend told me, 'How stupid am I'. Most abusive relationships don't start out with full-on violent assaults. Abuse is an insidious process, creeping up on you. I used the boiling frog analogy (to great effect). A frog put in a pot of boiling water will immediately jump out. Put a frog in a pot of cool water and then slowly increase the heat, and the frog will remain and boil to death.

Within six months he had moved into the home she was paying off. Their first few months were happy, and while he appeared to have 'slight anger problems, I didn't think anything of it'. Within a year the violence had started.

The paper includes are recommendations school education and awareness through various campaigns. Are you going to rely on the government to deal with this issue that may, and the chances are high, affect your daughters, granddaughters, nieces, sisters, female friends, etc? This issue needs to brought out into the light. It needs to be discussed, objectively, and with informed opinion. We have to develop a culture where those who have experienced abuse do not feel embarrassed or ashamed. We also have to develop a culture where those men who are, or have the potential, of abusing their partner, or children, recognise it as abuse and have the opportunity of seeking help to remedy the problem. Demonising them does nothing except make us feel superior and prevent them from seeking help.

Throwing Techniques and Takedown Techniques

I've decided to write an article for submission to the semi-academic journal, Journal of Asian Martial Arts (JAMA). This is not your usual martial arts magazine, but a periodical for serious academic articles on various aspects of the martial arts.

The article I'm writing concerns the distinction between throwing techniques and takedown techniques. It's in two parts due to the scope of the material. Part 1 presents 'the problem.' There is no definitive distinction between the two types of techniques. There is a lot of opinion, most often not in the martail arts literature which tends to ignore the issue, but there is NO definitive distinction - until now. Part 2 of my series presents the definitive distinction.

Part 1 also addresses the important issue of why bother classifying:

One response that Q did not receive, and one which I continually received when discussing this issue with senior instructors and students of the Jan de Jong Self Defence School was: 'Who cares?'; 'It doesn’t matter'; 'What’s the point in classifying these or any other techniques?'; 'Students are only interested in how to do the technique, they are not interested in how it's classified'; and my personal favourite: 'It's just intellectual masturbation.' This scepticism is common within the martial arts community, and it is not unreasonable. Before we even attempt to address the issue of the distinction between throwing techniques and takedown techniques, we need to address the issue of the usefulness of classification itself.

I'd like to thank the person who provided the 'intellectual masturbation' quote as it is gold.

I present a case, a strongly supported case, that the question more rightly becomes, why not classify:

'Why classify martial arts techniques?': when this question is raised, it is most often raised with the question raiser being unaware of the centrality of this activity to our intellectual processes. Apart from the issue of intellectual laziness, I would also suggest this question is often raised because the questioner may not be able to see the similarities and differences between the different techniques. Hofstadter believes that 'gist extraction, the ability to see to the core of the matter, is the key to analogy making — indeed, to all intelligence' (1995: 75). 'Gist' refers to the essential part of something. Maybe those who question the value of classification of martial arts techniques cannot see the gist or essence of their techniques.

I review a raft of martial arts to see how, or indeed if, they distinguish between throwing techniques. I can count the number of distinctions I have found in the literature on one hand. All of them flawed.

I review books dedicated to the 'throwing and takedown techniques' of this or that martial art which are 'cashing in' on the popularity of these types of techniques generated by the mixed martial arts competitions - fruitlessly. For instance, Thompson's The Throws & Take-downs of Judo does not contain a distinction between the two types of techniques. In fact, all of the techniques described in the book are referred to as throws. Where are the takedowns of judo which Thompson suggests the book covers? Or, is Thompson and others who refer to 'throwing and takedown techniques' creating a new term to refer to all techniques that cause a person to fall to the ground - 'throwing and takedown techniques'? This new term replaces 'throwing techniques' and 'takedown techniques' which are often used interchangeably anyway. This is not a facetious question/suggestion. But this begs the question, why are there these two terms? They must suggest there are two different types of techniques. If so, what is the difference, or technically, the basis of classification? The characteristic that groups the similar and distinguishes the different between throwing techniques and takedown techniques.

Does judo teach takedown techniques? Kano developed a classification of judo techniques. There is no separate class of takedown techniques. This does not mean judo does not teach takedown techniques, it could mean they just do not distinguish them from other techniques. This then raises the questions, in which class of the classification are takedown techniques included? Why are they not a class of their own? The answer to the latter question could be because they do not understand the characteristics that set them apart from other techniques. They do not understand the essence of this class of technique.

Kirby, in Jujitsu: Basic Techniques of The Gentle Art, is one of the very few to attempt to distinguish between the two types of techniques:

Takedown: A technique, hold, lock, etc., designed to bring the attacker down without throwing him; the lock, hold, etc., is maintained throughout the technique and after the attacker is down.
Throw: A technique or hold designed to unbalance an attacker and physically lift him off the ground until he is down.

However, a review of the techniques included in his book reveals techniques that are referred to as throws that are not designed to physically lift the opponent off the ground.

Kirby is nearly there, but not quite. A takedown is defined by exception. A takedown is designed to cause a person to fall to the ground but is not a throw. A throw is designed 'to unbalance an attacker' - so a takedown is not designed to unbalance an attacker? Can you physically lift an opponent off the ground without unbalancing them? I would suggest that Kirby is referring to kuzushi, unbalancing methods that facilitate not only the execution of throwing techniques, but all techniques. You do not need to use kuzushi to execute a throwing (or takedown) technique, but it helps.

A takedown is defined as being maintained throughout the technique and after the attacker is down. Where does this place ushiro kata otoshi (rear shoulder drop) in which an opponent is pulled/pushed (a distinction for another day) to the ground onto their back by their shoulders from behind? The same technique is seen in aikido where it is sometimes refered to as a variation of irimi nage (entering throw). The technique causes the person to fall to the ground. They are not physically lifted off the ground. The technique is not maintained after the opponent is down.

I'm only singling out Kirby because he one of the very few to at least attempt to provide definitions for the two types of techniques. Most simply avoid the issue and use the terms interchangeably and inconsistently.

The picture at the beginning of this blog is of a book dedicated to the throws and takedowns of sambo, judo, jujitsu and submission grappling. Scott, the author, provides a distinction, commonly espoused, based on function. Throws are designed to end the fight while takedowns are techniques used to take the fight to the ground.

This conceptualisation of the difference between the two types of techniques, a not uncommon one at that, is that throws are an end in themselves whereas takedowns are a means to an end. This is a classification, and it is neither right nor wrong. However as Mills suggested, the merit of a classification is dependent upon the purposes it serves. Does this classification facilitate teaching and learning? Does it help in identifying specific takedown techniques and specific throwing techniques? The answer may be reflected in the fact that all of the chapters and all of the techniques included in Scott’s book dedicated to 'throws and takedowns' refer only to throws. Are any of Scott's throws takedowns? Why refer to takedowns if specific techniques are not identified as takedowns? The use of both terms suggests there is a difference, but what is that difference?

To end this blog, I am in the editing stage of this series of articles to be submitted to JAMA. Secondly, I'd appreciate it if any reader could refer me to any literature that makes a distinction between these two types of techniques.

Women's Self Defence/Self Defence/Combat and Injury Science

I received the following comments via email based on a blog on women's self defence (WSD) I posted.

'What a treasure to stumble into your blog!' Thank you. I had to share that comment as it's a lonely task writing, with little encouragement or support.

How can WSD help AFTER the attack? Ideally, of course, she would have been prepared before it happened, but that is not always the case. Obviously there has to be therapy, but I am wondering if it would not be beneficial for anyone to have some sort of 'anger training' afterwards? I wonder what that would look like?

Good question un-named commentor. I said I would answer via a dedicated blog based on that insightful question - here it is.

Followers of my blog would have seen me refer to a relatively new science which studies injuries. Despite the detractors that suggest 'there is nothing new under the sun', I'd counter that with, 'there is always a first time for everything.' It is a relatively new science, albeit applying 'old' science in a new way to understand a particular phenomena - injury.

William Haddon is usually referred to as the father of injury science. He provides a matrix to analyse injury, and thereby a means to avoid or reduce injury.

Neo: What is the Matrix?
Trinity: The answer is out there, Neo, and it’s looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to.

Haddon recognised that injuries have multiple causes and conceptualised the multiple factors involved in injury using the elements of the epidemiological triad: host, agent, and environment. These elements interact to cause injury. The host is the person injured, the agent is necessary to cause the injury, and the environment is the environment in which the host and agent find themselves.

I've discussed in previous posts the phenomena of 'one punch deaths'. The host is the person who is hit (and dies), the agent is the person punching the victim, and the environment is the surface which the victim's head strikes resulting in the death. These three factors interacted to cause this unfortunate tragedy.

James Gibson and Haddon independently identified the agent of injury in the epidemiological model as being physical energy. For our purposes, that means kinetic energy (KE). All those who refer to the concept of momentum to explain martial arts techniques now need to reconcile the concept of momentum with KE. Otherwise, you are simply referring to theoretical concepts that have no practical application. And yes, I am deliberately being provocative.

I am sick to death of the books, articles, blogs, and posts that analyse martial arts techniques in biomechancial terms. So what? If it does not facilitate our understanding and study of those techniques, to paraphrase Attilio Sacripanti, then it is, to quote a black belt from the Jan de Jong Self Defence School, 'intellectual masturbation.' You have to reconcile these theoretical concepts with practical purpose, otherwise, it is intellectual masturbation.

This is where I found myself when attempting to use biomechanics to understand and explain martial arts striking techniques. I couldn't do it with the available explanations and literature. It was all 'wank'. So, I approached the issue from another direction. I asked myself, 'what causes an injury?' Viola, I found injury science. No more theory that didn't apply to practice. Rather, theory explained practice. If facilitated the understanding and study of techniques.

Haddon also introduced the idea of 'negative agents' of injury to account for situations where injuries occur due to the deprivation of necessary elements needed for normal health( e.g. lack of oxygen). He also added 'vehicle' or 'vector' elements to the epidemiological model which are the carriers of the injurious energy.

Haddon took the epidemiological method of studying injury a step further. He divided the injury event into phases and separated the injury from the events leading to and following from the injury event itself. These phases are often referred to as pre-event, event, and post-event, or, pre-injury, injury, and post-injury.

The pre-event phase refers to the period prior to the interaction between host and the agent of injury; the event phase refers to the period when the host and agent of injury interact; and the post-event phase refers to the period after the host and agent of injury have interacted. The epidemiological factors and the temporal phases were cross-tabulated to form a 3 x 3 matrix which is known as the 'Haddon Matrix'.



This is a subject worthy of a book in and of itself; surprisingly enough which I'm writing. Normally, the injury science theory and concepts are used to understand the causes of injury in order to prevent injury. However, uniquely to the activities associated with preparing a person to survive a violent encounter, these same theories and concepts can be used to understand why and how injuries are inflicted by the techniques taught within those injuries. Injury science is the study of both sides of those activities: avoidance and infliction.

Returning to our un-named commentor's question. Self defence courses, and all instruction associated with preparing a person to survive a violent encounter, should consider the three temporal time frames (and the three members of the epidemiological triad). Before, during, and after the injurious event. Most WSD courses consider the before and during, what about the after? What advice do they provide in terms of limiting the extent of the injury (physical and/or psychological) when the injurious event was unable to be avoided?

This systematic way of thinking about injury is very, very useful. Instructors, how do you demonstrate that you were not negligent if one of your students are injured? By showing that you considered Haddon's Matrix.

Instructors, how do you demonstrate that you were not negligent if one of your students are attacked and injured? By showing that you considered Haddon's Matrix.

Before, during, and after, the injurious event.

As a postscript, Nakayama, in his karate classic Dynamic Karate, analyses stances in terms of these temporal phases. Pre and post execution of a technique, stances should emphasise mobility; during the execution of a technique, stances should emphasise stability.

The Gift of Anger

This post was inspired by correspondence with a friend who has emerged from a long term abusive relationship. It is inspired by my application of the knowledge I've gained from researching Beyond Fight-or-Flight to an unrelated real-world experience. This is not to be unexpected because it is often suggested that the lessons learned in studying the martial arts help us live our daily lives in a more functional manner.

Gavin De Becker wrote, The Gift of Fear. It is a '#1 National Bestseller' and the front cover suggests that 'this book can save your life'. 'The Gift of Fear' is followed by: 'And Other Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence.'

What does martial arts training, stress training, stress inoculation training, stress exposure training, combat fear inoculation training, aim to do? To either reduce the intensity of the experience of fear when involved in a violent encounter, or to change that emotion to another emotion conducive to surviving a violent encounter while engaging in that violent encounter. The 'gift of fear' is not considered so much a 'gift' by those involved in preparing a person to survive a violent encounter. In fact, Bruce Siddle's Sharpening the Warrior's Edge, whose theories are so often espoused by those ostensibly interested in preparing a person to survive a violent encounter, is all about the negative effects of fear on cognition and combat performance.

As per previous posts, women's self defence (WSD) courses often teach turning fear into anger. Why? Because the action tendency of anger is 'fight'. The subjective feeling of anger has a distinctive physiological reaction that prepares the body for the behavioural response of 'fighting'.

I refer back to previous posts and a paper written by James Gilligan titled 'Shame, Guilt, and Violence.' He suggests that, based on his 20+ years experience with inmates in prison and prison hospitals, that shame is at the heart of most violent behaviour. I'd suggest his insights are biased based on his experience, just as Geoff Thompson's insights on self defence are biased based on his door security experience. However, Gilligan's insight that shame is a painful emotion that is emotionally coped with by eliciting the emotion of anger which is then expressed, or coped with, by violence, is indeed insightful.

Shame -> anger -> violence. Recall that I wrote about my analysis of a violent episode of a 7yo girl. Jealousy -> anger -> violence. These are all instinctive reactions. While fight is often associated with fear, I'm more and more of the opinion that fear, when flight is restricted, turns to anger and is expressed as fight: fear -> flight restricted -> anger -> fight. WSD teaches to manipulate our emotions in order to elicit the physiologically charged fight response: fear -> manipulation -> anger -> fight.

Nature does it. WSD does it. The military does it. The 'enemy' are 'bad' and should be 'punished', hurt, and/or destroyed. Dave Grossman writes about how to overcome the instinctive inhibition to kill another human being. One way is to get angry.

DO NOT JUDGE anger, as you should not judge any emotion. Emotions, despite the highjacking of the idea and anger by the religious who suggest it is a 'gift from God', it is an evolved trait that is designed to increase our chances of survival and reproduction. It is designed to be functional, and it obviously has been successful based on our existence here today. But, it can also be dysfunctional given the circumstances in which it is experienced and how it is expressed.

Aristotle, who is often quoted as stating that 'anger is a gift', is quoted as saying:

Anyone can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person at the right time, and for the right purpose and in the right way - that is not within everyone's power and that is not easy.

Functional anger - get angry at that f**ker that is trying to rape you. Get angry at that f**ker that is trying to hurt of kill you. Get angry at the enemy that is trying to kill you, and your comrades. Overcome your fear by getting angry. Engage your evolved 'fight response' which includes a physiological response that is designed to prepare your body to fight by getting angry. This is a strategy that utilises evolution's survival mechanism.

Now, lets extend that combat-related training to daily life. Anger is not inherently bad, despite societies characterisation.

Anger can ... power long-range, constructive striving, as in the attempt to show a critical parent that you are competent and diligent rather than incompetent and lazy. And the mounting of plans for long-term revenge may motivate the acquisition of useful skills and generate impressive accomplishments that survive longer than the anger.

That quote is taken from Lazarus and Lazarus', Passion and Reason: Making Sense of Our Emotions, a book written for laymen and which should be essential reading for all those involved in preparing a person to survive a violent encounter.

I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power that can move the world. Mahatma Gandhi

When we are anxious or scared - get angry. Get angry at being anxious or scared. Get angry at the circumstances that made us angry or scared. Let the anger motivate us to move forward rather than away from things. That is one way emotions have been categorised, as approach or avoidance. Anger is approach; fear and anxiety are avoidance. BUT, you have to be careful. What can make you angry can also make you scared. A WSD course that teaches turning fear into anger suggests thinking about the worst thing this b**tard will do to the women participants and their children. It is designed to elicit the emotion of anger, but, it could also elicit fear, if not extreme fear: 'Oh my God, this guy is going to do this and that to my children.' While Aristotle suggests it is easy to become angry, it may not be that easy. We need to understand anger, but we don't understand it from a functional viewpoint because the focus on anger is on the negative/dysfunctional aspects of anger.

Check out the faces of the tennis players when they are 'geeing' themselves up. Isn't there at least a large degree of anger expressed in their face and body motions. Plutchik talks about blends of primary emotions producing other emotions. For instance, anger and anticipation produces aggression. Major Mawkes, formerly of the Australian Special Air Service Regiment wrote that they train their SAS troopers to have controlled aggression. It could be argued they are manipulating anger to produce elite warriors.

By understanding our emotions, which includes an appraisal, subjective feeling, distinctive physiological reaction, action tendency, and possible behavioural response, we may be able to better prepare a person to survive a violent encounter by utilising rather than fighting against our evolved survival mechanism. By understanding our emotions from a non-judgemental perspective, we might gain a more complete and useful understanding that better prepares us to survive a violent encounter.

Beserker Warrior Tradition

From previous posts, we have aggression and violence categorised as affective/emotional and instrumental aggression and violence (hereafter referred to as 'AaV'). Affective/emotional AaV are motivated by emotions, and instrumental AaV uses AaV instrumentally for non AaV goals which are not motivated by emotions.

'Fight' is the evolved action tendency of our evolved survival anger emotion. Some suggest that fear can motivate the fight behaviour when its action tendency of 'flight' is frustrated. I'm looking into that, but a biologically based evolutionary argument would suggest that fear turns to anger when we need our body mobilised to fight when we need it most.

The martial arts, law enforcement, and the military tend to strive to instill in their practitioners the capacity for instrumental, emotionless violence. Women's self defence (WSD) often teaches female instructees to change fear into anger if attacked in order to decrease the inhibition to be violent, to elicit the behavioural response of fight, and, unbeknown to them, to avoid the evolved fear-based survival behaviours of tonic immobility and fainting.

Using anger to get people to fight is not restricted to WSD. The American politicians and media encourage anger with respect to whoever they are fighting at the time. The Yugoslavian breakup and its 'ethnic cleansing', the Hutu radio and television broadcasts that preceded the Tutsi genocide, the anger that characterises both sides of the seemingly never-ending Palestinian-Israeli conflict, are all examples of anger being used to get people to fight.

Anger is used to inspire regular troops, but not elite troops. Elite troops are trained for instrumental violence. So, in this way, the fast solution to get people to fight is to use Mother Nature and generate anger. With more time, and training, instrumental violence is the preferred mode of violence for 'warriors'.

However, there is an elite warrior tradition that used, not anger, but 'rage', to devastating effect. They would deliberately inflame their emotions to become 'mad warriors':

Berserks — blustering, mad warriors scorning wounds and death — embody the spirit of reckless attack. ... the berserk warrior tradition spans some three thousand years. (1)

Spediel (1) describes 'berserk warriordom' as a long-lived, cross-cultural phenomenon:

By 1500 B.C., Indo-European speakers held sway from Northern India to Western Europe: east, north, and west of Assyria. Before their dispersal, their ancestors had shared a language, a religion, a heroic poetry, and, what is less well known, some striking warrior styles. Their wolf-warriors, for example, fought with wolf hoods over their head and howled like wolves, while their horse-slashers dove beneath attacking horsemen to stab the steeds. Berserk was one of their characteristic fighting styles, hence one may indeed ask whether Tukulti-Ninurta's mad warriors were not Indo-European berserks.(1)

Spediel refers to the beserker warrior tradition existing from 1300 B.C. to 1300 A.D. He refers to Celtic and Germanic beserks who, 'in the grip of fury ... contorted their faces and bodies in frightening ways.' He refers to the Aztec quachi warriors: 'They were called quaquachictin, which is the name for deranged albeit valiant men in war.' (1) He refers to the 'no-retreat societies of North American Plains Indians' and the Malabar amoks. He also refers to the beserkers of Scandinavia:

Icelandic sagas often tell of berserks as wild, howling fighters, sometimes as high-born champions of kings, sometimes as lowly drifters. One of the last-known berserks, however, was a woman in North America. One day in the eleventh century, the Greenlanders who under Karlsefni had come to settle in Vinland saw a huge host of Skraelings (Indians) bearing down on them. As the Skraelings flung rocks at them from slings, the Greenlanders retreated between boulders to make their stand. The woman Freydis had first stayed indoors, but then went outside to follow the men. When the Skraelings made for her, she snatched the sword of a dead Greenlander, 'pulled out her breasts from under her clothes and slapped the naked sword on them, at which the Skraelings took fright, ran off to their boats and rowed away. Karlsefni's men came up to her, praising her courage.' Insofar as Freydis fought bare-breasted and frightened her foes with unwonted courage, she was a berserk.(1)

WSD - turn fear into anger. Freydis beserker WSD - turn fear into rage, by acting in the Freydis beserker tradition vis-a-vis exposing body parts and the beating thereof. Now that would be a different WSD class.

The beserk tradition is alive and well in modern combat. Shay, in Achilles in Vietnam, writes:

A soldier who routes the enemy single-handedly is often in the grip of a special state of mind, body, and social disconnection at the time of his memorable deeds. Such men, often regarded by their commander's as 'the best', have been honoured as heroes. ... I believe the word beserk is the most precise term available to describe the behaviour that I call to the reader's mind' (3)

Going 'beserk' involves eliciting, inflaming, fury or rage:

To do deeds of berserk daring, one had to be raging mad. Homeric warriors fought best in a powerful rage, and Gaulish warriors could not help falling into the grip of battle madness. Shouting and singing were ways to rouse such rage. Early Greek and Roman warriors screeched like flocks of raucous birds—a mark of manhood. With a song of thunder and wind, the young Marut warriors of the Rig Veda awakened Indra's prowess. Husky Thracian, Celtic, and Germanic war songs, like crashing waves, heartened warriors.(1)

Beserkers would dance: 'Dance would enbolden more' (1). They would snort like animals, beat their chest, bite their shields, discard their armour, contort their faces, shout and sing, brandish their weapons. The Maori haka has been described as initiating a beserker state of mind and body.

Recall from previous posts, emotion is more than just subjective feeling. It involves cognition via appraisal, and a physiological reaction as well, all designed to increase our chances of survival. Spediel describes the physiological effects of fighting with fury:

The psychological and physiological state of fighting frenzy with its rise of adrenaline levels could foster such a belief, for adrenaline 'dilates the airways to improve breathing and narrows blood vessels in the skin and intestine so that an increased flow of blood reaches the muscles, allowing them to cope with the demands of the exercise. ... During surgery, it is injected into tissues to reduce bleeding.' Buoyed by this 'adrenaline rush,' frenzied fighters may well have thought themselves stronger and less vulnerable than others.(1)

Beck sums up the emotion associated with the beserk warrior tradition:

When the murderous rage is brought on, one becomes immune to pain or fear and strength and speed become greatly enhanced. Once this transformation occurs, the beserker lusts only for combat and will fight until either the beserker or his enemy is dead. (2)

1. Speidel, M.P. 2002. Beserks: A history of Indo-European 'Mad Warriors'. Journal of World History, 13:2, 253-290.

2. Beck, A.A. 2008. Blood or mead. Xlibris.

3. Shay, J. 1994. Achilles in Vietnam: Combat trauma and the undoing of character. New York: Scribner.