We are excited to be hosting several visitors to our women’s self-defense class this Thursday at CrossFit South Arlington. 

Five Jamaican visitors from various sectors related to gender-based violence in their communities: a civil servant, police commander, social work educator, non-profit training officer, and university student services manager, will be traveling to the US under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs for a 21-day study project where they will be exposed to important initiatives and organizations that support the eradication of gender-based violence for women, youth, and the LGBT community. They will participate and/or observe my women’s self-defense class this Thursday. 



The focus of Thursday’s course will be an introduction to the problem:

• What types of violence are women likely to encounter?
  
• We will demo and discuss some scenarios with respect to utilizing your voice as a manner of assertion for sexual harassment and other unwanted-attention type of situations
• Give a short introduction on mindset
• Learn some simple, physical self-defense skills

This intro session will be a short introduction to some new training concepts that we will be integrating into our 3-hour women’s self-defense seminar which will be held on Saturday September 27th.

If you would like to attend please email me at [email protected] to reserve your place, $20 cash. Event details can be found here: http://www.novaselfdefense.com/upcoming-training.html

Caution: violent video.  This is a video of escalating violence that evolves into a multiple-attacker situation.  I want you to watch this from the attackers' perspective, rather than that of the victim.  Watch it twice if necessary.  There is a lot of content in this video in understanding violent behavior and how people initiate assaults. 

In bullet-point format you see all of these things:

• Verbal anti-social aggression with threats of violence
• An attempt of verbal de-escalation, though it failed
• Encroachment of space, presumably ego-based violence
• Two person-encroachment with secondary man initiating the ambush
• A one-sided multiple attacker beat-down

First watch the escalation phase, verbal altercation back and forth with a guy who had his shirt off (Attacker 1) or took it off in a posturing attempt.  Then watch how the two guys positioned on him.  Victim pushes attacker 1's face, at this point Attacker 2 initiates the physical assault, off-angle, straight punches while the victim is distracted, as soon as he pushes Attacker 1 away.  

What follows at this point is in line with what Lee Morrison mentioned at his seminar with respect to multiple attackers, an asymmetrical display of violence against the victim, where a third man jumps in as well, with all participants kicking and stomping him in the head when he is down. 

This is an important video to analyze because it shows a serious situation anybody could get caught in.  Close proximity with an escalating situation.  Letting your ego get the best of you and saying the wrong thing early in a confrontation lead to an escalation of violence in a close-proximity location could lead to a much bigger problem. Even if you do everything right, you still might have to fight for your life.  If you do, hit as hard as you possibly can with intent.

Stay safe & hit like you mean it,

Evan D
NOVA Self Defense
Owner/Lead Coach

Below is an excerpt of a write-up from Brian Leiberman of Krav Maga Institute NYC

“In his book The Gift of Fear, Gavin De Becker writes, “Of course, if it is in their heads now, so was it then. What they mean is that they only now accept the significance. This has taught me that
the intuitive process works, though often not as well as its principal competitor, the denial process.” De Becker is referring to people he interviewed, who were a witness to or victim of a violent
encounter. In retrospect, they realized that their intuition had correctly warned them of an impending danger in the minutes prior to that very event, but they had ignored their brain’s warning
system. He concludes that our gut instincts are not acts of chance, but instead our brain and our body’s subconscious reaction to a collection of abnormal stimuli in our environment. He goes on to
explore the experience of those who, unlike the others, did follow their “sixth sense.” One person narrowly avoided a robbery at a convenience store, deciding to suddenly exit the shop just minutes
prior to the attack. While our body senses danger afoot, often times we tend to dismiss these feelings as paranoia because the threat is not staring us in the face. Regardless of what we read in
the news or hear from others, we often accept the reality that bad things happen to others and reject the possibility that it can happen to us.

Krav Maga is, in every way, the exact opposite of denial; it is the embrace of the innate intuition that De Becker describes. What is quite amazing about Krav Maga’s philosophy is that the self-
defense process does not begin with the physical counter to an attack. Instead, it begins with the recognition of a potential attack. The training very much conditions one’s body to proactively
respond to a dangerous situation. Thus, the most ideal situation is a confrontation that can be avoided entirely. By its very nature, the training forces us to accept the possibility that we are in
danger and to thereafter begin planning, or in some cases executing, a response. In the case that we fail to recognize the threat early on, we must react immediately to an attack already upon us.”

By Brian Lieberman


My thoughts:

Gavin DeBecker’s book,The Gift of Fear, is the first book I advocate clients read when they want a greater understanding of the pre-cursors to violent behavior and how to address and understand your intuition.  What I like about this write-up is that they are taking the pre-cursors to violence into consideration in their training and decision making; acknowledging and recognizing a potential encounter before it happens means you are thinking quicker and responding quicker. I agree and also advocate that training should always be more than just a physical response.  It's extremely important to add threat recognition and emotional content into your training to make it feel more realistic and to add context to the what and why of what you are instilling in your students. 

I recently traveled to Chicago to attend a seminar on Urban Combatives put on by Lee Morrison. Morrison is one of the most highly regarded names in the industry and for good reason, he takes what works, and drops what doesn't, and continuously evolves what and how he teaches.  He didn't re-invent the combative wheel; he cites works from the best names in the industry and what he has learned through personal experience.  I learned an incredible amount of information and have not even worked through 1/4 of my audio recordings from the seminar.  I also had the opportunity to do a private lesson with Lee teaching my girlfriend, to enhance her training and also get insight as to how he teaches women's classes, and what he would place emphasis on for a short training session. Much to follow with blog posts on ideas in the near future!




Upcoming training:

• Women's self defense 1 hour intro: Aug 21st, open to public
  
• Men's combatives Thursday Aug 28th is open to public

• 3-hour in depth women's self defense class, September 27th
  

Train smart & stay safe!

Evan D. 
NOVA Self Defense
Owner/Lead Coach