Category: Uncategorized

Tammy Yard McCracken: Bow To Being Badass Or Don’t Bow

Tammy Yard McCracken of Kore Krav Maga:

When you bow in to a martial arts class, who or what are you bowing to?

If you are teaching, who are your students bowing to? Do you think they are bowing to you? If you do – that’s a problem. Bowing is a ritual and with it come a series of artifacts. And yes, as an instructor, you have put in hours, days, years of training to reach this place in life. Teaching other people is not a right of your training; however, it is a responsibility.With all the different things you are teaching your students, the most important one is to teach them they can – and maybe should – be training to become better than you…

Continue reading at Beautifully Dangerous

Anna Valdiserri: Gatekeeping

Here’s a must-read from Anna Valdiserri:

One of the most common entry price people fail to pay is that of “experience”. You do not have enough experience to be entitled to an opinion on the subject. Your opinion is inherently invalid because of your lack of experience. Just shut the hell up and listen to us, the Experienced People!

… except that I thought the entire point in self-defence teaching and training was to prevent people from going through certain experiences. I appreciate that some things cannot be fully grokked unless you have gone through them; however, I thought it was our job as teachers/trainers/bloggers/wafflers to bring people as up-to-speed as possible without them having to go through shit. I thought it was why we taught the subject in the first place. And I thought reducing the discrepancy between our students’ understanding and the reality of the situation was one of the ways in which we could measure the quality of our teaching…

Continue reading at Swimming In Deep Water

Monoculture

Drive past rows of corn
All alike. No difference here.
Monoculture field.

Cloned plants together,
Sharing all weakness and strength,
Die when trouble hits.

In the training world,
There’s only one type of best.
No room for weirdos.

Cry “DERP!!” Loose the hounds!
Drive out fools and infidels.
Monoculture rules.

Is this good? Say “no.”
Throw stupid out, that’s good. But —
Is all difference derp?

One is none, two one.
One thought is no thought at all.
Embrace difference.

Joshua Gideon: The Future of Self Defense Training

Joshua Gideon of No Soft Targets:

Although there may be exceptions to this in certain parts of the country (especially when it comes to mandatory CCW classes), I think the bulk of our potential students are frustrated with us. Complaints range from the location of classes to how long the classes are and that the cost of the class is more than they want to spend for that particular topic. Although some people may make excuses for not training because they let their ego get in the way, I suspect a lot more really do have limitations that keep them from taking a class they truly want to take.

If you think about it, we’re already seeing this. How many new training facilities at the level of Gunsite Academy or Rogers Shooting School have popped up recently? Yeah, I hear the crickets too. A few have even shut their doors in recent years. Now before you get too upset, stay with me…

Read article at Personal Defense Network

Greg Ellifritz: Good Instructors Have More Than Just Shooting Skills

Greg Ellifritz of Active Response Training:

Consider this logical inconsistency. You train regularly with your weapons to become more self sufficient but then you have “call 911” as your only contingency medical plan? That’s the equivalent of having “I’ll just call the police” as your only plan for defending against criminal violence…

Read post at Active Response Training

On the Fragility of Skilled Performance: What Governs Choking Under Pressure?

Abstract of a research paper by Sein L. Beilock and Thomas H. Carr:

Experiments 1-2 examined generic knowledge and episodic memories of putting in novice and expert golfers. Impoverished episodic recollection of specific putts among experts indicated that skilled putting is encoded in a procedural form that supports performance without the need for step-by-step attentional control. According to explicit monitoring theories of choking, such proceduralization makes putting vulnerable to decrements under pressure. Experiments 3-4 examined choking and the ability of training conditions to ameliorate it in putting and a nonproceduralized alphabet arithmetic skill analogous to mental arithmetic. Choking occurred in putting but not alphabet arithmetic. In putting, choking was unchanged by dual-task training but eliminated by self-consciousness training. These findings support explicit monitoring theories of choking and the popular but infrequently tested belief that attending to proceduralized skills hurts performance.

Download paper (PDF)

h/t Phil Wong

Dann Sternsher: Looking for a few good instructors…

IDJ member Dann Sternsher of G4 Personal Safety:

I’m a GREAT instructor! (tongue firmly planted in cheek)… I am now in my third decade of teaching and training folks and kids with firearms… pistols, rifles, shotguns. I’m highly recommended by former students, my post-course evaluations are always excellent, women in particular find my instruction on-target for them and regularly recommend me, I have books full of certifications from the NRA, 4H Shooting Sports, firearm training entities, and from my days in law enforcement… I’m even an NRA appointed Training Counselor who can train other instructors. So I wouldn’t recommend me…

Continue reading…

Handgun World Podcast #373: So, You Want To Be A Firearms Instructor?

Bob Mayne of the Handgun World Podcast:

There seems to be a lot of people who want to be instructors, but not enough who want to take classes. So, if you want to be a firearms instructor I think you will like this episode…

Listen to episode at Handgun World

Instructy stuff starts around 19:30 and covers what we should know in order to teach different levels of students as well as business & marketing.

Matthew Schafer: Why You Need Permission to Defend Yourself

Matthew Schafer of Schafer’s Self-Defense Corner:

When I work with a class that has women in it, or a class of kids, I take the time to give this speech:

“I want everyone to realize that it is very important to follow the rules that society has set down for us. They keep us safe and make sure that people don’t harm us or take things from us. However, there are certain times when it is ok to break the rules. Any time someone is trying to hurt you or take you someone by force it is ok to break AS MANY RULES AS YOU NEED TO in order to stop them. If that happens, you have permission to break the rules. You have permission to yell as loud as you can, swear, bite, punch, kick, and hit as much as you want. You have permission to hit them in the groin, poke them in the eye, and hit them in the throat…

Continue reading at Schafer’s Self-Defense Corner…

h/t Phil Wong of Gator Farm Tactical