Insights and Reflections

The Ice Bath Cometh! (Insights & Reflections)

May 23, 2022 | Insights and Reflections [ssba]
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Please accept no pretensions of an article, let alone an essay here. These are just some miscellaneous thoughts on cold water therapy inspired by this Marie Claire article. As the article points out, the idea of there being therepeutic benefits to immersing one’s exposed body in low temperatures has a very long history going back to antiquity. However, as the comedian Billy Connolly quipped in his scathing of aromatherapy, so does slavery but we don’t see many people wanting to […]

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Will the Chimera Sleep Tonight? (Reflection)

May 10, 2022 | Insights and Reflections [ssba]
sleeping chimera

I have never really been a great sleeper. As a child, my brain was forever active and life was extremely busy. We were always moving and, to top it all, I had an extremely active imagination. My mother would often remark how I would often fall asleep through utter exhaustion and that this was demonstrated by the many awkward lying down poses I would end up in after finally surrendering. Over time I devised different methods that helped calm my […]

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Bystander Effect in the Mainstream (insights and reflections)

May 9, 2022 | Insights and Reflections [ssba]
how to defeat bystander effect

   Please note the below post has been updated. Please read to the end.  Back in 2013 Hinnerup Karate in Denmark invited me to teach my full “When Parents Aren’t Around” (young person’s self-protection) course (10 hours) in addition to some “Vagabond Warriors” work. Whilst teaching the children’s self-protection, I addressed the bystander effect as a single topic. This was an area in self-protection that just wasn’t being recognised let alone taught much. We had touched upon it when teaching […]

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Empty Shotgun – Fury/Wilder III

October 12, 2021 | Insights and Reflections [ssba]
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The sight of an exhausted Deontay Wilder taking punishment in the latter rounds of his third match with Tyson Fury for the WBC/Ring/Lineal World Heavyweight Championship confirmed to many Fury fans what they had been saying for a while. Tyson Fury was the superior fighter who had been robbed of the title by a draw when the two had first met, proven his worth by stopping Wilder in the seventh round to take the titles and now cleanly knocked the […]

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Boxing Styles, History of the Weight Division & Dempsey’s Era (diary entry)

May 24, 2021 | Diary / Training Notes, Insights and Reflections [ssba]
harry greb

18.05.21 My teacher consultancy lesson on fight history and analysis covered a number of topics that will continue into next week’s lesson. We looked over the boxing era that Jack Dempsey often eclipsed with one call back to the previous era to a man Dempsey publically admitted to fearing, an overview of the basic boxing styles and the history of the weight divisions. Styles of Boxing – Three, Four, Five, More? The 1920s saw Boxing enter a new golden era […]

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“Alison” – ABC Survival

March 10, 2021 | Insights and Reflections [ssba]
i have life

A major factor in self-protection teaching and education includes the research of personal survival. Besides simple survival skills in everyday life, we come back down to the psychological drivers that have allowed victims of crimes or crime-stoppers to survive the trauma of interpersonal violence. This is why I made Ben Sherwood’s “The Survivor’s Club” a recommended read in my self-protection foundation course. I regularly collect astounding stories of individuals who have survived violent crimes often to recognise preveiling tactics. However, […]

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Convince a Little Man: Peer Pressure in Film Drama (archive article)

January 21, 2020 | Insights and Reflections [ssba]
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Recently I have had an idea for a podcast concerning social circles of bad influence. A good part of personal security is an awareness of people. In fact, it is a vital component of situational awareness. Just as different people will change the dynamic of any situation, friends and associates can help determine an individual’s future. We are often judged by the company we keep. Coming from a circus background I know this fact only too well. Certain groups of […]

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C.S.I. The Three Missing Fundamentals of Combative Training

February 21, 2018 | Insights and Reflections [ssba]
keyboard warriors5

Introduction – The Cross Trainer and the Information Age   The Information Age aptly describes the era of the modern mainstream martial arts cross-trainer. Unfortunately The Confusion Age is an equally fitting title. The meteoric rise of the internet has provided most in the developed world with more instant access to knowledge and data than ever before in the history of civilization. Similarly, training in multiple combative disciplines is no longer the practice of the hard-core martial arts enthusiast or […]

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Sparring in the Shadows

December 22, 2017 | Insights and Reflections [ssba]
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Strange Behaviour? There are many elements to martial arts practice that look strange to the outside world. Despite its widespread and time-honoured use, shadowboxing is one of these elements. Most individuals can understand sparring with an opponent. Most individuals can see the benefit of hitting focus mitts, strike-shields and other hand-held pads. And just about anyone who has felt a massive urge to “let off some steam” can relate to hitting a heavy bag. By comparison, the act of performing […]

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Hitler’s Martial Arts?

November 23, 2017 | Insights and Reflections [ssba]
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“Ideology is the opposite of philosophy. Philosophy is the curiosity which guides its inquiry according to universal principles. Ideology is a prior prejudice that seeks out an echo-chamber of reaffirming information.” ― Stefan Molyneux   There is an unofficial school of thought that argues a strong belief can override a number of flaws in a violent situation. The regular reader of my material will note how much importance I place on attitude and one might argue that a strong sense […]

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Reality Training for Children

November 16, 2017 | Insights and Reflections [ssba]
francis gilbert

Back in 2006 I produced a four-part series on training children in self-protection. I had started my own club the previous year and it struck me that a huge area was missing in the so-called reality-based world. Adults had been woken up to the big problems in martial arts training, which had seemingly been addressed by a new tribe of martial arts going under the banner “Reality-Based Self-Defence”. However, children, who made up the majority of martial arts classes to […]

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How Bad is your Bullshitsu Infection?

June 7, 2017 | Insights and Reflections [ssba]
JackNicholson

“The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.” ― Christopher Hitchens   I am currently in the process of editing, researching, writing and re-writing a multi-volume book entitled “Bullshitsu and the Fight to Make Martial Arts Work”. It is a project that I started around 2005 as an examination of the legacy of the R.B.S.D. (Reality-Based Self-Defence) movement, but has since evolved into a critical overview of martial arts subculture in […]

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The Martial “Art” Returns

January 10, 2017 | Insights and Reflections [ssba]
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“Really weird to see someone talk about not discriminating then basically discriminate against an entire group of skilled, hard working ppl.” – Megan Olivi On 8 January 2017 Meryl Streep deservedly received the Golden Globes Lifetime Achievement Award. The occasion caused quite a stir that is still being discussed now, as the actress used her speech to launch a political attack on the president-elect, Donald Trump. Her argument with Trump and his subsequent backlash on social media is of no […]

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Survivor Knowledge

October 1, 2015 | Insights and Reflections [ssba]
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One of the saddest realities of criminal history is that notorious killers often claim the identities of their victims. These unfortunate human beings became immortalized only as part of the supporting cast for their killer’s infamous biography. Lisa Noland (nee McVey) is an exception to this rule. She was the last victim of the serial killer, Bobbie Joe Long. A woman of remarkable, courage, intelligence and tenacity, Nolan had endured a life of abuse long before she was abducted. In […]

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Evil, Beasts and Monsters

June 19, 2015 | Insights and Reflections [ssba]
lon chaney

Following up from yesterday’s post regarding the revelation of a steep increase of reports on child abuse in the year ending April 2014, I would like to further elaborate on the problems with the “Stranger, Danger” gimmick. What seems evident since Operation Yew Tew and the exposure of various paedophile rings is that a conspiracy of silence has stopped victims coming forward.  Let’s put a lot of this in perspective. This isn’t a conspiracy theory where a careful shadow operation […]

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