Tag Archives | self defence

Covers & Grappling (diary entry)

November 10, 2023 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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10.11.2023 The final hour of my client’s Self-Protection course was all hard skills. We went back to the pre-emptive strike but looked at grappling alternatives for a mid-level threat. This took the form of the arm-drag and counter-arm-drag back to fence. We escalated this to a pressure test (unscripted and uncooperative). The arm-drag introduced the importance of gaining the back position. Next we moved onto the main feature of the lesson: when matters go wrong. This type of hard skills […]

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Post-Incident Thoughts (diary entry)

November 9, 2023 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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07.11.2023 My client’s ninth hour of self-protection training brought us back to soft skills work. We looked at the post-fight and covered all topics from the double tap through to the Black Dog. This training was all completed online with discussions on judgement calls regarding first aid and also tangents onto the complexity of humans: good people are capable of doing terrible things and bad people are capable of doing extremely good things. Services

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Instructor Development Online Training 1 (diary entry)

August 30, 2023 | Uncategorized [ssba]
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29.08.2023 Tuesday’s final lesson was teaching my children’s self-protection methods as a means for instructor development to Hostlebro Taekwondo Klub in Denmark. This is preparation for my “When Parents Aren’t Around” seminars that will be taught over there later this year and also ahead of the new “Animal Instincts” children’s self-protection teaching programme. Tonight we went through an overview of self-protection. We covered definitions, separating self-protection from martial arts. I used Iain Abernethy’s Martial Map, Mo Teague/Peter Consterdine’s personal security/self-defence […]

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Symmetrical Ground Fighting in Self-Defence (diary entry)

January 26, 2023 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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24.01.2023 The ninth penultimate self-defence lesson with my bodyguard client brought us on to ground-fighting. Here is was important to drill fighting on the ground with clear objectives to get back up. There are certain circumstances where the fight needs to be finished on the ground but in most instances the defender needs to be aiming to regain his footing as efficiently as possible. This why throughout the course I have regularly drilled him in fast recovery posture transitioning. Here […]

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The Student Protection Triangle (diary entry)

January 23, 2023 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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18.01.2023 My teaching consultancy course for Drum Kempo Ju Jutsu and Fitness focused mainly on better establishing self-protection principles and habits in young students. The Teacher/Parent/Student Triangle is not a revolutionary tool. It’s very commonplace in education and has long been set as the most obvious way a student can get support for his or her learning needs. However, it doesn’t have a long tradition outside of compulsory education. The martial arts world, which is the birthplace for most self-protection […]

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Ground & Weapons (diary entry)

December 21, 2022 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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21.12.2022 Tuesday night’s lesson was hour seven of my client’s specialised course on self-defence. We went to the ground but also discussed handling edged and blunt weapon attacks. Tonight’s material included strategies that covered the following: Transitioning through postures Covering and striking through postures Movement on the back (snaking) Asymmetrical ground defence (single attacker) Asymmetrical ground defence (multiple attackers) Edged weapon defence plans Blunt weapon defence plans Services

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Self-Defence Clinch (diary entry)

November 11, 2022 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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                                                                                10.11.2022 Thursday morning continued my work teaching Hostlebro Taekwondo’s visiting two teachers from Denmark. This morning’s shorter session, which also saw involvement from Athena School of Karate’s Mary Stevens, looked at clinching from a self-defence perspective. We mainly trained all […]

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Anti-Bullying Teacher Programme 5 (diary entry)

November 3, 2022 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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02.11.2022 Today’s teacher consultancy for the Drum Kempo Ju Jutsu and Fitness anti-bullying programme focused entirely on the issue of attitude. This is a far larger and deeper subject in the world of self-protection teaching, especially the specific area we explored today: throwing the switch. Attitude is of foundational importance in self-protection teaching and training. This is something I have repeated ad nauseum on this blog, through my blog, my books and on every single course I have run. “Throwing […]

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Injury Contingency Self-Defence Training (diary entry)

November 2, 2022 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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                  The third hour of my security client’s self-defence course focused on training with his non-dominant hand. In short, he has recently incurred injury outside of my classes to his dominant hand and we have decided to use it as a teaching opportunity. We went through all the previous material focusing on this particular hand including transitioning through postures. Then we looked at situations where he might use his lead hand to […]

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Senior Self-Protection Course at Kingham Hill School (diary entry)

October 18, 2022 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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15.10.2022 My ninth booking for Kingham Hill School was my second morning seminar on self-protection. This particular group took in students aged 15-18, which is a large age range but nevertheless can be accommodated with the right robust principles. We covered the following topics: Purposeful walking Exit identification Escape plans Evasion tactics Fight management strategy Attitude – moral compass, resilience and character Situational awareness – people, places, hazards and changes The fence and pre-emptive striking Covering and recovering The aftermath […]

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Anti-Bullying Teacher Programme 2 (diary entry)

October 6, 2022 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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05.10.2022 The continuation of my Anti-Bullying Teacher Consultation broke down how to present the concept of bullying to 9-14 year olds. However, before we explored this topic with Drum Kempo Ju Jitsu and Fitness, we had another re-examination of our teaching landscape. This is best explained in my “3 Tribes” vlog on the subject, which can be found here. I was impressed by the work DKJF do in intervention and mediation. They actively work not just with victims of bullying but […]

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Reverse-Coaching (diary entry)

June 3, 2022 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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01.06.2022 Hour 15 of my teacher consultancy course/CPD taught to Drum Kenpo Ju Jitsu explored further ideas to put young people in charge of crisis situations. I went back to my running a children’s class where I cultivated a self-critiquing and problem solving atmosphere. Building off the principle-centred training methodology of my previous lesson, we discussed how an entire class can be run in a democratic fashion by young students. The class begins with the more experienced students leading the […]

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Protecting the Frontline 10 (diary entry)

April 13, 2022 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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13.04.2022 The tenth session of my Protecting the Frontline course for a teacher client of Drum Kempo Ju Jitsu brought us on to the post-fight stage. We briefly addressed the checklist of what needs to considered following a violent incident before focusing on the double tap. The double tap in this instance refers to a sudden release of fight/flight hormones following the episode and immediate new threats. We looked at hazards that might impact on the defender, such as dangerous […]

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Kingham Hill Self-Protection Course 7.9 (diary entry)

March 24, 2022 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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23.03.2022 My first group at Kingham Hill covered anti-grappling. My second group revised the fence, moved onto the cover and we discussed what constitutes attitude. The first group began with the hunter exercise in order to reinforce the forward pressure objective even when faced with being posted by an enemy. It also serves as a good training tool for the target holder who will play the role of a grappler. We then moved onto learning a series of basic grappling […]

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Kingham Hill Self-Protection Course 7.7 (diary entry)

March 10, 2022 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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09.03.2022 My lessons at Kingham Hill brought the first group up to removing obstacles from targets and the second group to hunting targets. The first group also got the opportunity to pressure test striking over obstacles using the gang-grip game. The second group discussed setting moral boundaries and principles in their self-protection decisions. Services

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Protecting the Frontline Course for Teachers 5 (diary entry)

March 10, 2022 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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09.03.2022 Wednesday’s first lesson – an online teacher consultation for Drum Kempo Ju Jitsu in Ireland – brought us up to pre-emptive striking. We discussed the tactical reasoning for pre-emptive striking and I described why it is important for students to test the effectiveness of this tactic or rather the ineffectiveness of blocking at conversational range. It is too easy for teachers to find themselves inside an echo chamber that takes the effectivness of this tactic for granted whilst preaching […]

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