Krav Maga Blog - May 2017

There are a lot of things to learn from the recent terror attack in Manchester at the Ariana Grande show, and I would like to use this blog article to draw attention to some of them, so that we can all better understand the nature of this type of threat. There are few actual lone wolves. Terrorist organizations such as ISIS, can inspire, enable and even directly orchestrate and engage in acts of terror. They can provide the motivation and encouragement to commit terrorist acts, and help enable them, such as providing an “inspired” individual, with access to a bomb maker,...

I was recently writing a piece on narcissism and paranoia, and how these two disorders can play a part in abusive relationships e.g. narcissists are control freaks, and individuals suffering from paranoia, see the world as being very black and white with no grey areas, meaning they will try to interpret – and connect - other people’s actions and behaviors in a very black and white way, etc. As I went through the symptoms and signs of these personality types (it’s a good few years since I studied them to any depths), I...

When I was a kid, there was a bully at my school. There were actually quite a few, but this kid was the loner, who all the other bullies looked up to, feared, and respected. Unlike most of the other bullies, he didn’t seem to have an agenda or any specific kids he picked on. He targeted anybody and everybody. Nobody was safe from Jamie - I forget his last name; something that isn’t that relevant when you’re 6 or 7 years old. I do remember a group of us, meeting to discuss tactics, strategies, and techniques for taking him...

I grew up on the mats, practicing Judo. The school I initially trained with placed a great deal of emphasis on Ne-waza/Ground techniques; this was back in the day when competitive Judo allowed you much more time on the clock when a fight went to the ground – now judges are much more eager to get people back to the feet if it looks like a submission or pin isn’t going to be found. When I found out about BJJ (Brazilian Ju-Jitsu), I started training in that. In short, I’ve grown up with, fighting on the ground and love this type...

Emotional intelligence encompasses many things. It involves the ability to recognize your own emotional state, along with those of others e.g. to be able to verbalize to yourself, your's and other people’s emotion – using the vocabulary of “feelings” is one way that we do this. It also involves using this information to guide our thinking, our actions, and our behaviors e.g. “I am feeling scared, so I should look for whatever or whoever it is in the environment that has triggered my fear system.” Part of our self-protection training should involve educating our emotional systems, and improving our emotional intelligence. This will both...