Wednesday, June 17, 2026
Lee Morrison Urban Combatives - EDC Water Bottle In A Sling Bag
BTW: The woman at the 11:00 time marker is Morrisons Daughter. He keeps it in the family.
Sunday, June 14, 2026
Sunday With Blackthorn - More On Social vs Asocial Violence by Tim Larkin
This is a long one people, so get comfortable, and settle in.
Social Aggression vs. Asocial Violence:
Why Knowing the Difference Can Save Your Life
Editor’s note: The following article was adapted from When Violence Is the Answer: Learning How to Do What It Takes When Your Life Is at Stake by Tim Larkin.
Dulce bellum inexpertis. (War is sweet to those who have never experienced it.) —Pindar
You don’t have to look very hard on YouTube to find videos of long-suffering kids reaching their breaking point with bullies and finally fighting back. The scenes vary in geography, gender, and the size and age difference of the kids involved, but each scene generally goes down the same way.
The video picks up mid-conflict. The bully is in full aggressor mode: stalking after the victim, cutting them off, pushing them, taunting them, and getting in their envelope of personal space, sometimes looming over them like a beast. The bullying victim is folded over, trying to make themselves smaller. Or they’re turned to the side, as if subconsciously hoping the teasing will just go away. Sometimes they’re backed against a wall, as if they are hoping to melt into it.
Then, suddenly, there is a shift. The victim stops, stiffens, and bows up. There is going to be a fight. The bully is almost always caught off-guard when this happens. Bullies typically pick their victims based on the likelihood that they won’t fight back. The fight might happen right then and there, it might have to wait until after school. It doesn’t really matter, though, because once the bully’s victim has had enough and finally decides to defend himself, the decision ripples through the playground or the schoolyard like a shockwave. The other kids start getting super excited. If the fight is going down after school, it’s all anyone can talk about. They can’t wait. If it happens right there in the moment, the kids immediately encircle the pair chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” In the lead-up to the actual physical confrontation, the bully will often start talking trash in an attempt to humiliate or intimidate and regain the upper hand in his relationship to the victim. If the victim responds, it’s to show that the bully’s taunts aren’t going to work this time. They’re going to have it out once and for all.
Fights likes these are instances of what I call “social aggression.” They are quasi-violent scenarios that stem from conflict and jockeying within the social hierarchy. I call them quasi-violent not because I don’t take them seriously, but rather because they don’t always involve violence as we understand it — sometimes it’s just talking or threatening
— and they’re less about physically destroying the other person than they are about asserting social dominance, gaining some advantage, or elevating social status. That’s why people instinctively want to gather around and watch these types of conflicts, because they want to see what happens.
Kids get so excited about these playground fights because there is valuable social information to be gleaned from them. Both fighters’ positions in the school’s social hierarchy are in flux. The bully occupies a position of power, and when his target finally fights back, that means his position is being challenged. When it’s all over, will there be a change in social standing? Will the bully get his comeuppance and be reduced to a pariah and a laughingstock? Will his victim be elevated to the position of nerd hero or defender of the meek and helpless? Or will the bully get the upper hand and the social status remain the same? This kind of aggression isn’t exactly tolerated — it’s the kind teachers usually break up and punish, after all — but it doesn’t destroy the social order in the school, either. Afterward, the kids will be talking about it excitedly in the lunchroom for the rest of the week.
And then there is the other way these playground fights and bully takedowns can go. These are the kinds of incidents that do not show up on YouTube. The victim has had enough, but he has only stiffened and bowed up in his mind. He — and it’s almost always a he — has no interest in fighting back at the center of a ring of classmates. Instead, he opens his backpack, pulls out a revolver and shoots his bully in the head at point blank range. Do you want to guess what happens next? There is no excited chanting for a fight. No one is hoisting the bully’s victim on their shoulders and marching him triumphantly around the schoolyard. There is only complete and total pandemonium. Everybody runs and no one looks back. There is no social information to be gathered here.
That is the rough outline of any number of the school and workplace shootings that have dominated our news over the last fifteen years, and become (along with ISIS-style terrorism) the scariest, most urgent form of violence we face today. I call violence of this nature “asocial.” Asocial violence is violence that has nothing to do with communication or reshuffling the pecking order. Asocial violence is nothing like that: it doesn’t try to change the order, it tries to wreck the order. It’s the kind of violent interaction we instinctively run from — the kind in which there is only mayhem, death, misery, and horror. (The knockout game is asocial violence.) At the end of the day, all violence has the potential to be a matter of life or death. The difference with asocial violence is that death and destruction are not its by-products; they are its purpose.
It is essential we understand this distinction between social aggression and asocial violence right now. Social aggression is about competition; asocial violence is about
destruction. Competition has rules; destruction has none. Social aggression is about communication — implicitly with status indicators but explicitly with lots of taunting and posturing. There is no talking with asocial violence. Open your mouth and you are likely to eat a lightning-fast punch or a jacketed bullet traveling at 2,500 feet per second.
How to Tell the Difference Between Social Aggression and Asocial Violence
If there is one reliable way to distinguish between the two kinds of violent encounter, it is the presence or absence of communication. If a man comes upon you from behind as you’re walking home from dinner and he puts a gun to your head and says, “Give me your wallet or I’ll blow your brains out,” that is fundamentally an act of social aggression. It may feel asocial, because you feel powerless when you’re taken by surprise, but how you feel has nothing to do with whether a situation is social or asocial. What matters is the intent and the action of the attacker. In this scenario, his primary motive is not to destroy, it’s to dominate. He’s using the threat of violence to make it easier to get what he wants. If the situation were asocial, if what he wanted to do was destroy you, you would not hear any words. You probably wouldn’t even hear the hammer cock before the trigger got pulled and the bullet left the chamber.
Social aggression doesn’t wear off after adolescence; fast-forward twelve years to a bar fight between rival fraternity members and the outline is the same. It’s still two guys exhibiting their inner-male aggression, thrashing, ranting, raving. It’s the silverback gorilla banging his chest. It’s the butting of rams’ heads. It’s the clashing of male grizzly bears. These are all bids for a kind of social status, and they’re all meant to be witnessed.
The schoolyard brawl and the bar fight aren’t usually life-or-death situations. Rather, they’re a form of primitive communication. It’s a social display that communicates, “I’m really agitated. I’m mad. I want to run this other guy off my territory.” And the other guy is responding, “I’m not willing to be run off my territory. I’m going to stand my ground.” The intent is not to inflict grievous bodily harm. It’s only to exert social dominance.
In these situations of quasi-violence, people rarely punch their opponent’s throat or kick them in the testicles or gouge out their eyes. They rarely try to inflict permanent damage. If you were to look at such a confrontation simply from the perspective of causing bodily harm, you’d call it wildly inefficient. I have studied video of countless epic bar brawls that have gone on for ten or fifteen minutes that left the combatants bloody and bruised, but also conscious, uninjured, and able to walk away. I’ve also seen guys beat each other senseless and then hang out afterward — like it was something they just needed to get out of their systems.
Many of us know how to act like jerks and add fuel to the fire, how to turn an argument into a shouting match that turns into a fistfight. It can be scary. It can be wrong. It can be extremely intimidating. But the aggressor is not deliberately trying to maim, cripple, or kill. He’s not trying to break down the social order, to sow terror and mistrust. The goal is to dominate, not to destroy. This is social aggression.
Asocial violence, on the other hand, is brutally streamlined. It’s quiet. It happens suddenly and unmistakably. It’s one person beating another person with a tire iron until he stops moving. It’s stabbing somebody thirty-seven times. It’s pulling a gun and firing round after round until he goes down, and then stepping close to make sure he has two to the brain, just to be sure. If you’re a sane, socialized person, thoughts like those can make you physically ill. That’s because you recognize them for what they are: the breakdown of everything we, as humans, hold sacred. Indeed, they are often a breakdown of the perpetrator of the violence themselves. They are no longer in control, they are no longer thinking rationally, they are no longer thinking at all. These acts represent the destruction of the social fabric. They’re devoid of honor. They’re acts without rules, where anything goes. That is asocial violence.
How to Respond to Social Aggression and Asocial Violence
So why am I harping on the difference? Because our responses to social aggression and asocial violence ought to be fundamentally different.
Social aggression is avoidable — and you should avoid it. You can choose not to participate. You can employ social skills to remove yourself from the situation, or to de-escalate it. It comes with big, flashing warning signs — loud, dramatic, and recognizable social posturing. You can see it coming a mile away. These sorts of problems can usually be handled with social tools that we all know how to use. We’ve all talked our way out of a bad situation. We all know how to calm another person down. We all know how to back down ourselves. If we didn’t, none of us would have made it this far in life. Similarly, threats of violence with a clear purpose — like a robbery — can be terrifying. But they remain social interactions, with generally clear demands and big, flashing warning signs of their own; the lines of communication remain open. When he says, “Give me your wallet or I’ll blow your brains out,” give him your wallet and live to see another day.
You can rarely, if ever, talk yourself out of asocial violence. You have no idea whether the movie theater you chose is the one where a shooter with a full arsenal will show up looking like The Joker and acting like Bane. You have no idea if your child’s school is the one where a deranged mind will decide to make his mark. Asocial violence doesn’t care about your social skills.
Negotiating with a serial killer is like arguing with a bullet. If it’s coming your way, words won’t deflect it. If somebody has decided to stab you to death, capitulation doesn’t appease them. It only makes their work easier. When it comes to asocial violence, if you have not been able to foresee and escape it, you must render your attacker one of three ways to survive: incapacitated, unconscious, or dead. Understanding and accepting that reality, then training to deal with these unlikely scenarios, will give you the confidence you need to quickly and calmly identify the difference between social aggression and asocial violence, while setting your mind at ease that you’ll be able to handle whichever comes your way — de-escalating where it’s possible to de-escalate, and fighting to save your life where it is not.
When the Rules Don’t Apply
Though these kinds of conflict — social aggression and asocial violence — look and sound quite different from each other, our instinct is to apply the same set of rules to both, because our socialized minds don’t want to accept the possibility that the rare and unthinkable has found us, by no fault of our own. If we don’t have rules governing how we deal with the rare and unthinkable, then the rare and unthinkable can’t happen, right? Alternatively, we try to shove this unseemly business out of our minds by dismissing the distinction altogether: Why are we talking about this? Violence is violence; it’s all bad. We get ourselves into deep trouble when we take either one of these approaches, because you can’t play by rules that your attacker refuses to recognize even exist.
Rules, as a social construct, only work in a conflict when both sides honor them. Major League Baseball has a broad set of rules that generalize across the American and National Leagues. But when teams from each league play against each other during interleague play or in the World Series, they have to agree on which league’s rules govern or else the whole thing collapses. The idea that rules of any kind go away the second the other guy ignores them is generally unsettling and downright terrifying in the case of violence. But when you think about asocial violence through that prism, you start to realize that it’s a horrible mistake to use the same social contract that governs social aggression, to understand and navigate true asocial violence. During true violence, our usual social categories—good guy/bad guy, right/wrong, attacker/defender — cease to apply. These dichotomies are useful, but only before and after a violent confrontation has occurred. During the actual fight, they are utterly irrelevant, if not misleading and dangerous.
It is an issue of practicality in the most literal sense. In the midst of a violent encounter, to think merely of “defending” yourself — rather than incapacitating your opponent — is essentially to curl up in a ball and hope for the best. Waiting for your attacker to give up — or worse, expecting him to follow the rules — is, putting it bluntly, to risk
participating in your own murder. Your only reliable course of action to save your life is to do what your attacker is trying to do to you, but do it more effectively and efficiently, and to do it first. To use the very same tool of violence.
And yet, as sane, socialized beings, we continue to drag our rules into these places where they don’t belong. We want to somehow keep everything fair, on a level playing field. This is why most confrontations involving real violence go terribly wrong for the good guy. We’re constrained by a litany of social rules while the asocial predator is bound only by the laws of physics. All he cares about is how best and most quickly he can do you grievous bodily harm and end the situation. He’ll stab you when you’re not looking. He’ll kick you in the throat when you’re down. If things don’t look hot for him, he’ll capitulate to get you to let go, then pull his gun and shoot you. He’ll use your socialization against you — he’ll turn the social rules that normally protect you from harm into his most powerful weapon. But all his weapons are tools that you can use in turn.
When you’re staring down the barrel of a gun (literally and figuratively) with a violent asocial predator on the other end of it, you must remember that this is not a movie or a video game or a hero fantasy. This is not high noon at the O.K. Corral. There is no Good, Bad, and Ugly — there is just ugly.
Social Aggression Can Quickly Turn Into Asocial Violence
In 2006, a young British lawyer named Thomas Pryce exited the tube station by his home. It was early January, about 11:30 at night. It was cold. Tom had just left a work function in London and he was hustling back to the flat he shared with his fiancée on a quiet street in an up-and-coming suburb of London.
On this night, he was followed by two young men in hooded sweatshirts who had robbed someone else earlier in the evening and saw Tom as another opportunity. They circled around in front of him and drew their knives, demanding his valuables. He quickly complied, handing over everything. If the incident had ended there, we might say that Tom used his social skills to escape an instance of social aggression. He saw assailants who, however intimidating and dangerous, were still offering a recognizable, if coercive, exchange — his possessions for his life, straight up — and he accepted the exchange. He kept quiet, offered no resistance, and gave up his property exactly how the authorities tell you to do it in a robbery situation like that.
Thomas was shaken up, but he kept walking home. Then the young men came back. This time, their knives were already drawn, their heads were down, and they weren’t saying anything. Thomas broke into a sprint, but they quickly overtook him and began stabbing
him repeatedly, in the chest, the hip, the face, the hands, and the lower torso. He yelled frantically, “Why, why, why? You’ve got everything!” But they didn’t have everything. They didn’t have the one thing they needed once they realized he had seen their faces. They didn’t have his silence.
“He could identify us,” they said to themselves, according to the Metropolitan police who interrogated the men upon their capture, “we need to kill him.” That quick realization was all it took for those two young men to go from opportunistic robbers to cold-blooded murderers. Social aggression to asocial violence in the blink of an eye.
The lesson I take from Tom’s murder is how essential it is to understand the difference between the two types of physical confrontation. You need to be able to identify them in the moment, and you need to recognize that one can turn into the other very quickly when circumstances change. The kind of encounter that Tom endured initially — no matter how frightening it must have been — still presumed a kind of communication. He was in the kind of conflict that we can escape with our social skills: after all, giving up your belongings in exchange for your life is a kind of negotiation, even if it happens under extreme duress. If you can comply with demands, it means there’s still communication happening, which means there’s still a chance of getting out of there in one piece.
Unfortunately, the situation turned asocial very quickly, for reasons Tom could not have foreseen. The rules that he believed were governing his initial encounter ceased to apply when the two men returned. His attempts to communicate, to negotiate, to make sense of what was happening, all of it fell on deaf ears and was met only with more violence. His only hope lay in recognizing, quickly, what kind of situation he was in, and acting accordingly. In a phrase: using violence. By the time he realized the shift from social aggression to asocial violence — if he ever realized it — it was too late.
When escape was off the table, the only thing that could have helped him was a fuller understanding of the tool of violence and greater preparedness to take immediate action. Instead of turning to flee, he needed to turn and fight. Because when an aggressor doesn’t care about your reasons or your rules, and isn’t interested in having a negotiation, no other strategy tends to work. Especially when you’re outnumbered. Tom’s only hope was to inflict injury first. But before his survival depended on that, it depended on recognizing, as soon as possible, that he was not in a situation of coercion and communication, but in a situation of life-or-death violence.
Social Aggression and Asocial Violence: Know the Difference, and Be Prepared to Act Accordingly
Remember: all of what I’ve been explaining goes both ways. Just as there’s no way to de-escalate a situation of true, asocial violence, there’s no reason to escalate a situation of social aggression. We learn the difference between the two not only to prepare ourselves to fight for our lives when we absolutely have to, but also to prepare ourselves to wisely back down when there’s no need for a fight.
Saturday, June 13, 2026
Thursday, June 11, 2026
A Very Brief Demonstration On The Use Of A Flat Sap From Scott Babb of Libre Martial Arts
Note: Don't run out and try to buy a Sap or Blackjack. They're illegal pretty much everywhere. This video is for informational purposes only.
Sunday, June 7, 2026
Sunday With Blacktorn - Lever Action Pistol Caliber Carbines For Personal Defense
Ok, let's get this part out of the way, right up front. Semi-Auto PCC's have been hot for the last 5 years or more.
So, why buy a Lever Action?
Put simply, 2 reasons.
Firstly, a lot people are living in areas where semi-auto's are either banned outright, or severely restricted. Whereas a Lever Action is legal pretty much anywhere and everywhere.
Secondly, if you live in an Urban (possibly even a Suburban) environment, using a carbine or rifle that fires full sized rifle loads can be problematic in terms of physical injury to u involved persons, or damage to to other peoples property. Either way the you could potentially wind up becoming even more involved with your local legal system over and above any serious charges you might be facing.
Accordingly, the video below should provide you with some useful information on the subject of Lever Actions with no bombastic, over the top emotional content. Just some straightforward facts that might get you to consider the Lever Action as a viable self defense tool.
Friday, June 5, 2026
The Four Basic Truths of A Violent Assault
Rory Miller is a Corrections Officer in Oregon. He has written several books on the subject Violence, both Social and Asocial. His occupation as a C.O. has given him an up close and personal insight to both. If you're interested in reading any more of his material, all his books are available on Amazon ( and no, I don't get a cut from Amazon). The two books I would recommend are "Conflict Communication" and "Facing Violence".
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The Four Basic Truths of Violent Assault
By Rory A. Miller
As a corrections officer, I am often thrust into sudden violent situations. On one
particular occasion, I responded to an incident between two inmates.
One was brushing his teeth. The other came up behind him and struck him on the
right side of his head. The tooth brusher tried to turn but was pressed into a corner,
punched again and again with hard rights until he curled into a fetal ball. Blood
splashed (not smeared) onto the wall at shoulder height.
Do you train for this? Do you respect the power of a sudden attack and a constant
barrage?
The attacker broke several bones in his hand and did not know it. He didn’t break
just the metacarpals of a boxer's fracture, but also one of his fingers was deformed.
He did not know it and just kept hitting. He started complaining of the pain several
hours later.
Do you ever teach that pain alone will stop a committed attacker, that if you break a
bone, it's over?
I told the attacker that he was lucky. If the other guy had fallen or hit his head on
the wall and suffered more serious injury, he could be looking at some heavier
charges. He said, "Nah, I held his head with my other hand so it wouldn't hit the
wall. I know how you guys trump up charges and if I'd let him hit the wall you'd try
to get me for attempted murder."
Do you and your students realize how rational, how planned, a sudden assault can
be? It's only sudden for the defender. Far too often “sudden” is part of his plan. Do
you understand that there is a sub-group of human beings who can savagely beat
another human being while coolly thinking of their eventual court case?
The Four Basic Truths
Assaults happen closer, faster, more suddenly and with more power than most
people can understand.
Closer: Most self-defense drills are practiced at an optimum distance where the
attacker must take at least a half step to contact. This gives techniques like blocks
enough time to have an effect. You rarely have this time or this distance in a real
assault. Give some thought to how your technique will work if there is no room to
turn or step. Remember that the attacker always chooses the range and the location,
and will pick a place and position that hampers your movements.
Faster: When your martial arts students are sparring, use a stop watch and time how
many blows are thrown in a minute. Even in professional boxing, the number is not
that impressive. Then time how many times you can hit a heavy bag in a second. Six
to eight times a second is reasonable for a decent martial artist. An assault is more
like that. Because the attacker has chosen a time when the victim is off-guard, he
can attack all-out with no thought of defense. A competent martial artist who is used
to the more cautious timing of sparring is completely unprepared for this kind of
speed. You can strike ten times a second. You can’t block ten times a second.
More suddenly: An assault is based on the attacker’s assessment of his chances. If
he can’t get surprise, he often won’t attack. Some experts will say that there is
always some intuitive warning. Possibly, but if the warning was noted and heeded,
the attack would have been prevented. When the attack happens, it is always a
surprise.
More power: There is a built-in problem with all training. You want to recycle your
partners. If you or your students hit as hard as they can every time they hit, you will
quickly run out of students. The average criminal does not hit as hard as a good
boxer or karateka can, but they do hit harder than the average boxer or karateka
usually does because of gloves and dojo etiquette. More often than not, the first
strike in an ambush will find its target. Fighting with a concussion is much different
than sparring.
Responses to the Four Basic Truths
There are specific ways to train to deal with these truths about assault. You must get
used to working from a position of disadvantage. Put yourself and your students in
the worst positions you can (face down, under a bench, blindfolded to simulate blood
in the eyes and with an arm tied in their belt) and start the training from there. No
do-overs. Work from the position you find yourself in. There is no “right” move
anyway, just moves that worked or didn’t that one time.
Contact-response training. Condition (as in operant conditioning) for a quick,
effective response to any unexpected aggressive touch. Trained properly, the
counter-attack will kick in before the chemical cocktail of stress hormones. This will
give you one technique at 100%, and possibly the initiative, to the expected victim.
Remember, when you are pumped full of adrenaline, you will loose much of your fine
motor coordination, peripheral vision, etc. So you need to have your 100% technique
trained to be automatic.
Train to “flip the switch”. Make your students practice going from friendly, distracted,
or any other emotion to full on in an instant. Make them play music, converse, fold
clothes, write or pour tea as an armored assailant attacks. The key is that the
distraction must be natural and relaxed, not the jerky half-preparation of someone
who expects an attack.
In slow motion training, use realistic time-framing. Do not let them pretend that
“Monkey plucks jade lotus and presents to golden Buddha” is one move; do not let
them pretend that a spinning kick is just as fast as a jab.
Get used to being hit, and get used to being touched, especially on the face. For
various reasons, face contact between adults is loaded with connotations. Accidental
face contact almost always results in both students freezing and can cause an
outpouring of emotional sludge. Criminals use this by starting with an open-hand
attack to the face (called a “***** slap”) that has paralyzing psychological effects.
Teach common sensitivity. They must respond to what is happening, not to their
expectations or fears. If there are weapons mounted on the walls of your dojo and
you are practicing self-defense someone should be reaching for the weapons or
running for the door.
Forbid giving up. Winning is a habit. Fighting is a habit. Put them in positions where
they are completely immobilized and helpless and set the expectation to keep
fighting.
The Flaw in the Drill
In the end, a martial artist is training to injure, cripple or kill another human being.
However, in the dojo we cannot go about breaking our students So in any drill where
students are not regularly hospitalized there is a DELIBERATE flaw, a deliberate
break from the needs of reality introduced in the name of safety. In every drill you
teach, you must consciously know what the flaw is and make your students aware of
it.
Sunday, May 31, 2026
Sunday With Blackthorn - No Self Defense Today Guys...
...Just a trip down Memory Lane for the older guys!!
Wednesday, May 27, 2026
If AI Is The Future, Then I think We're Going To Have A Problem
After clicking on the link below and reading the article, make sure you watch the video at the bottom of the article. Even the the guy doing the experiment just shook his head and walked away. Note: You only get one chance to watch the video and read the full video. After that you have to sign up to the website.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ai-ignore-evidence-trust-science
Sunday, May 24, 2026
Sunday With Blackthorn - How To Use A Palm Heel Strike
Don't be put off by the title of this video. I thought it was going to be another knock on open handed strikes. The point of the video is how to use a Pam Heel strike for the best effect and how to do it without injuring your fingers or your wrist.
Friday, May 22, 2026
Minnesota Fraudster Runs Away From Authorities
Actually, It's more like HOPS away. The guy jumps out of a 4th Floor window, with no apparent issue, then trips, falls and injures himself when one of his flip-flops trips him while going over a low wall and it falls off his foot!
The fun starts at the 00:46 second mark.
Sunday, May 17, 2026
Wednesday With Blackthorn - Interested In A Strength And Conditioning Workout?
From Randy Couture of UFC fame, this circuit workout might interest you. Give it a try.
Now, just in case you're not already at least at some reasonable level of fitness, the S&C coach in the video below will show you how to progress from first getting the movements down, and then advancing to just using standard barbell before you start doing this routine.
Saturday, May 16, 2026
Friday, May 15, 2026
Wednesday, May 13, 2026
You Need To Know The Difference Between Self Defense And Overkill
Otherwise you may wind up broke from defending yourself in Court, or else locked up for a long time.
Tuesday, May 12, 2026
Monday, May 11, 2026
Sunday, May 10, 2026
Friday, May 8, 2026
Sunday, May 3, 2026
NEW MILESTONE FOR THE BLOG!
At 5:25 PM, The Blackthorn Blog Officially hit 500,000 Page Views!!
Thank you Guys!
Saturday, May 2, 2026
Friday, May 1, 2026
From Matt Numrich, More Self Defense Tips For Seniors
Actually even healthy, fit, younger people can use these, not just Senior citizens. Take a look and decide for yourself.
Tuesday, April 28, 2026
From Mark Hatmakers Indigenous Ability Blog
Who’s Tougher: You or the Bad Hombre?
by Mark Hatmaker
Let’s talk “Scarface” Al Capone, Gangs of New York, dirty tactics, boxing and wrestling, and the focused “training of the bad element” that is, people who have a vested interest in training harder than much of the dabbling some of us allow to pass for mock hardness.
First, a bit of info passed along to me by more than one friend in the law enforcement profession. [Names of officers and contemporary gangs will be excised from this tale. But, all 100% Bonafide true stories.]
Beginning, oh, a decade or two ago friends on this side of right have related to me that upon raiding various and sundry biker hang-outs, gangbanger residences and like abodes that in addition to what is considered contraband they often find fight training material. [At a Boot Camp sometime, ask me about a couple of curious encounters I had with certain elements who wanted to schedule something a little less…just ask me, but do it in person.]
I was told these stories by Law Enforcement Pros because some of my DVD titles were there. I always inquired who else, and the laundry list of squared away cadre always included a stable of straight-talking sorts with an eye on reality.
What was not included: Anything sportive, traditional, flashy, showy or that reeked of choreography.
Now myself, and these other gents whose titles found their way to these dens/clubhouses/Halls of “Learning,” we offer our ministrations in aid of self-defense on the right side of the line, self-edification, and, in my case, a bit of historical recreational fun.
I mention all this not to say, “Yay! Biker Endorsement!” But for what philosopher Nassim Taleb would call “The Graveyard of Invisible Evidence.”
I asked what other titles were included not for ego props but to see what the enemy has an eye on.
It is never in-depth kata material, internal kung fu, systema, and seldom is it sport oriented beyond an MMA title or two.
Almost invariably the consumption is rough-around-the-edges street-ready material.
This telling bit of Intel lets us know that those in the trenches of perpetrating mayhem have little to no use for theory and or bounded domains [sport applications.]
If [If] we proclaim ourselves street/reality focused, we would be well advised to take heed of our enemies’ tastes.
I now draw your attention to the fact that this phenomenon is nothing new.
Gangs, gangsters, motorcycle clubs on the fringes, and all of the other pockets of borderline behavioral association value hardmen, able scufflers, or as one Scottish lawman told me, “They value bonny fechters.” [Good fighters.]
Possession or Use
Now mere possession of a training implement does not make one adept. We all know that.
We all have YouTube tutorials available on every possible subject in our pockets and yet I see no corresponding rise in actual ability. Mere possession of information is nada.
Let’s look to the waters we law-abiding training ones swim in. There are faaaaaaaar more consumers of the aforementioned YouTube fight tutorials than folks who ever swing a fist at a bag.
There are copious members/commentors of the “Squared Away, Fight All the Way!” league tapping away at keys on social media forums for more seated rounds than ever pound bags, hit the mat, or swing a cudgel.
How many of these do you think put ass on mat? Hand in glove? If any time at all, how often? How long is that training session?
You get my drift, and if you’ve been alive and awake in these waters you are cognizant that on the right side of the justice line there are more in the theory-laden and sportive end of the pool than in the deep waters of “OK, this is real” and even fewer who test that reality off of high-dive platforms.
Use and Utility Over Mere Exposure or Possession of Information
The key info to know when eyeing an enemy is what armament do they possess?
In today’s lesson we are discussing the unarmed armament.
Question #2…
How adept are they at using that armament?
With adept we must never forget the fact that often mere use of said armament, any use at all, is often way more than the defender has ever had.
Gun shy, trigger-wincing, “How will this go in the mix?” never goes away, but it is diminished by exposure.
With that said, who do you think has been in tougher spots more often, the law-abiding reality-combat student, or the on-the fringe-biker gang member?
Who do you think has experienced more confrontations, the person who has read numerous essays on the OODA Loop or the ambitious kid from South Central?
To Know Wicked Tactics, Look to the Wicked
I have discussed the remarkable overlap between kosher tacticians and outlaw players of the seemingly same game but with violently different adjustments many times. In mob parlance, some of the able adjusters were called Street Dentists.
Men who were able boxers, able wrestlers, able scufflers, but something a bit more than that.
From the early days of rough and tumble to now, boxing+, all-in scuffling, boombattle, etc. are valued knowledge, valued skills.
Concerted Deliberate Practice
We would be on somewhat level playing fields if our gangbangers who possessed instructional material approached it in the same manner than many fight GIF swappers approach their own training but…
My selfsame law enforcement insiders tell me that the possession of the material is not the end. It is utilized. It is honed.
To keep current names out of the game, let us look at a few historical examples of outlaws honing illegal tactics in a most decidedly organized manner as one would expect from organized crime.
Let’s talk Al “Scarface” Capone.
The short version of the story is Capone came up brawling in the Five Points Gangs of New York. He was noted for slinging hands, busting heads and his “boxer’s feet.”
This abridged version of the tale leads us to believe that natural ability and simply engaging in street-scufflin’ is all one needs for improving a skill-set.
Let’s dig a little deeper.
Capone did indeed engage in numerous street scuffles as a member of the early rough and rowdy gangs of New York.
His actual gang was a smaller outfit called the James Street Gang. This gang was headed by a young Johnny Torrio, also of later mob notoriety.
If you’ve seen Martin Scorsese’s film Gangs of New York you are likely familiar with the largely Irish gangs—the Dead Rabbits, the Plug Uglies, and the Whyos.
Another large and powerful gang was the Five Pointers which was predominantly Italian.
It was headed by one dapper individual named Paul Kelly.
Not exactly an Italian name there. Kelly’s actual name was Paolo Antonini Vaccarelli.
Kelly/Vaccarelli was an experienced and successful bantamweight prizefighter. He used his winnings to bootstrap and bolster his criminal enterprises.
Kelly was also idolized by many young hoods, Johnny Torrio and Capone among them.
Kelly offered tips and tactics of the legitimate fight game in which he was well skilled—a Bridgeport Herald newspaper article of 1897 refers to him as one of the "fastest and cleanest little boxers in the business."
He could fight clean but…
Kelly also made additions that made the game street-ready for the “thrash in the street” that was commonplace to the gig of being in a gang. The Five-Pointers were noted for their eye-gouging in the clinch tactics.
[Keep in mind, the story I am telling is not isolated. The history of boxers, wrestlers, rough ‘n’ tumblers evolving and expanding the game in methodical ways to aid and abet the less than savory are numerous. We are telling merely one tale in timeline today.]
Capone was part of this eager-to-learn cadre of young hoods, he avidly participated in these lessons.
Capone would go on to perfect his game working as a doorman, bouncer, security enforcer and labor slugger. [There are many tales to tell here but…another day.]
Flash forward to Capone becoming the biggest gangster in Chicago. Capone no longer had a need to get his hands dirty, but he still did on occasion—the infamous Indian club incident comes to mind. [The story has been altered to say Capone wielded a baseball bat, as we see in the film The Untouchables. Those in the know say, “Nah, it was an Indian club.”
A piece of exercise gear. Why was that on hand?
Capone, like his idol Paul Kelly, well, according to crime journalist Fred Pasley, at Capone’s headquarters at the Metropole Hotel in Chicago, there were two rooms equipped with punching bags, horizontal bars, trapezes, rowing machines and other such devices that his staff was expected to get a regular work out within.
“They followed a schedule of training as methodical as that of college football athletes...”
He goes on to say…
“Experience had taught him [Capone] that their professional value, based on that quality commonly described as nerve, was in direct ratio to their physical fitness. It might be only the imperceptible tremor of a trigger-finger, or the slightest moment in any of a score of unforeseen emergencies; yet the cost of the lapse would have to be reckoned in lives and money.” Al Capone: The Biography of a Self-Made Man [1930]
There is a contingent within the less than savory side of life that takes mayhem seriously. Both the training and the education of this mayhem.
To confuse this version of boxing, wrestling, and scuffling with the version we law-abiding squares often mistake for “fighting dirty” is a grave error indeed.
Friday, April 24, 2026
Steve Maxwell On Isometric Exercise
This article is geared towards older people. There's no way around it, as you age your body changes, and you have to learn to adapt your fitness practices or wind up dealing with more injuries that take longer to heal. No amount of willpower is going to stop the aging process.
Once your mobility goes, it's all over.
Why I Like Isometrics
Steve Maxwell — April 24, 2026
In my lifetime, it seems like I’ve tried every kind of exercise there is, and from many systems, I’ve gotten good results, but after decades of physical wear and tear, I’ve found myself drawn to no-movement exercise systems.
Without using any movement you can— very effectively— increase strength, muscle size, and stamina; this is isometric exercise.
As a youth, in the 1960s, I regularly used isometric exercises, along with barbell training.
For my twelfth birthday, my dad bought me a York Barbell portable isometric apparatus, and my high school wrestling coach—who was also my PE teacher—had a York Barbell power rack, which was originally created for isometrics.
I got very good results, and was known as one of the strongest kids in the school.
In those days, arm wrestling was a very popular activity amongst us young guys; no one could beat me in arm wrestling, although one guy gave me a really hard time—and I still remember his name.
Oh, it was very common for a large crowd to gather ‘round to watch two young bucks lock arms—with half the school looking on—and the winner to take the opponent’s lunchtime dessert!
Later, in college, for some reason or other, I dropped isometrics and got involved in other types of training.
Fast forward four decades—and several injuries from martial arts later —and more, general wear and tear from being too willing in demonstrating my strength, I’ve returned to my roots and found isometrics to be a good place.
There are many athletes who have found isometrics to be a very useful tool and their primary source of strength training. For example, Shaolin monks use isometrics in their Kung Fu training; modern gymnasts and acrobats also rely on isometrics. One famous martial artist, Bruce Lee, highly favored isometric training.
Isometrics are one of the safest ways you can possibly train.
Anyone who wants to get really explosive, will find that isometrics really develop this attribute.
I find many elderly people —who are otherwise immobile, due to joint pain— can well-tolerate isometrics.
One of my clients, a woman in her mid-eighties, when we first started, could not arise from a chair without assistance; but after a mere two weeks of static squat holds/wall sits, she gets up and out of a chair quite well on her own.
Types of isometrics
There are two types of isometrics:
Yielding and Overcoming
An example of a yielding isomer is the aforementioned wall sit hold. Another version would be the horse stance used in martial arts. Many classic yoga positions are examples of yielding isometrics, like the crescent lunge, and crocodile pose.
The flexed-arm hang is a yielding isometric that serves as a standardized fitness test, wherein you hold your chin over the bar, for time.
The other type of isometric is the overcoming isometric. This is where you push or pull against an inanimate object, such as a cord or strap. There are actual cords, straps and devices specifically made for this purpose, and they are adjustable. The only drawback to overcoming isometrics is that— other than deep level muscular fatigue—you can’t quantify what you did.
I’ve never found this to be a problem, because if you give it a really hard, honest effort, you’ll produce a very good training effect, which is the objective.
There is a high-tech isometric system, where you use a force gauge to give a readout, and there also exists very sophisticated computer feedback statics, where you push or pull against a machine-lever, and watch a graph from a computer show how much force you’re producing.
Back in the early days, the isometrics protocols were short holds of 6-10 seconds, usually in three positions. Early research indicated that strength only increased at 15-degrees on either side of the joint angle. For example, if I did a 6-10 second contraction at the bottom range of a bicep curl, I would only strengthen that specific range of motion. To insure full-range strength, a second contraction would be held around mid-range, then a third near end-range, which is the fully-contracted position.
Later on, it was discovered that a single, prolonged contraction—at the mid-range, which is halfway—increased strength in all ranges of motion of that joint. What is a prolonged contraction?
70-90 seconds.
This technique is known as SuperStatics.
Let’s go back to the example of the bicep curl:
to perform a bicep curl as a SuperStatic, assume the isometric position at mid-range, arm bent 90-degrees. For a human being, the halfway point of any given exercise is the weakest point of motion. By strengthening that weakest range, for a prolonged length of time (70 to 90-seconds) the entire range is thereby strengthened.
Technique fundamental:
Because you’re contracting the muscles very hard, you will ease into the contraction, using only fifty percent of your strength. So, each exercise has a built-in sub-maximal warm up.
Then, for the next 30-seconds, you slowly increase effort to 75%
The final thirty seconds is an all-out effort, or, at least, as hard as you dare—backing off if there are any sharp or “strange” pains in the joints.
The goal of this exercise is to produce deep-level fatigue in the involved muscle structure.
Your body, in its wisdom, will directly send valuable resources and nutrients to the affected muscle structures, because the fatigue is perceived as a threat. In this way, you’re consciously tapping into the body’s survival mechanism.
The beauty of the isometric system—particularly timed static contraction (TSC) is that you can work out even when injured, the system requires minimal equipment, an is ideal for people with arthritis or other joint issues.
Isometrics are extremely time-efficient, with some workouts taking less than thirty minutes!
Additional benefits are improved bone density, elevated metabolism, and hypertrophy.
Another attribute —often overlooked—is improved mind-body connection.
Believe it or don’t, isometrics can give you a legitimate cardio workout; I find myself breathing quite hard.
Isometrics are also effective for lowering high blood pressure; I especially like isometrics for jiujitsu and grappling because the you will learn how to breathe while under tension.
With yielding isometrics, it’s easy to measure what you’re doing, because you have a measurable weight and measurable time.
I like to mix both kinds of isometrics in my workout.
Isometric training also develops mental toughness and concentration; you learn to push yourself physically, using the power of the mind.
I see isometrics as a real boon to people of all ages, but particularly those who have some wear and tear from hard living. I recommend that you check out my video set, Isometric 3-Ways, if you want a tutorial on how to do this thing.
I also have a great table-and-chair workout for elders wishing to regain strength. I am available for personal training for those who want to be supervised, which increases the intensity beyond what a trainee will achieve on their own.
Thank you for reading!
Best,
Steve
Tuesday, April 21, 2026
Using A Metal Water Bottle As An Improvised Weapon Urban Combatives Style
Lee Morrison showing how to use a metal water bottle as a flexible impact tool by carrying it in a shoulder bag, small pack, or other type of bag.
Sunday, April 19, 2026
Sunday With Blackthorn - Handling Panhandlers and Street Scammers
This article is from a guy named Phil Elmore. And to get right to the point, Phil is not and never was everybody's cup of tea. Over the years (okay, decades), I have on the one hand liked some of his material, but on the other hand some of the rest of his stuff, well not so much. The article below is an extremely condensed version of an eBook he put out quite a few years back.
Give it a look, because it's actually well worth reading.
Article from the Substack website:
https://philelmore.substack.com/p/panhandling-ploys-and-street-cons
Panhandling Ploys and Street Cons
This Substack is free to everyone on Fridays. If you upgrade to a paid subscription, however, you’ll get columns Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. These include the Damage Report, “What’s Happening” in current events, the mid-week “This Week in Stupid” feature, and self-defense tips on Thursdays. Upgrade today and never miss an article!
Ever been approached with an “Excuse me, sir? Excuse me, sir?” If you’ve spent any time at all in urban and even suburban environments, you know that LOTS of people approach you with “Excuse me, sir,” and then proceed to give you a song and dance that is almost always a con.
Most of the time, the people conning you just want to beg some money from you. They’re beggars or panhandlers, the typical street people or homeless types. But once in a while, the con game is part of “interviewing you” so they can distract you in order to mug you... which means getting you involved in their lengthy story is a way of distracting you so they can sucker-punch or stab you.
I’ve compiled here, therefore, a few different very common con games that happen on public streets. There are others, but you would be shocked at just how common these are. If you’d like to learn more, I urge you to pick up a copy of Street People Strategies, my book on this topic.
It goes without saying that if you can keep moving when someone approaches you, you should. Either ignore the request for money or state flatly that you have no money (even if this isn’t true). Keep walking away as you do so. Make brief eye contact to show that you are aware of the threat, then focus your attention onward as if you have someplace important to be.
Most of the hard-luck stories beggars tell you are confidence games and nothing more. How can you tell? Most beggars commit the classic error of offering too much information. The more elaborate the song and dance, the more complicated the backstory justifying the begging, the greater the probability that the whole thing is bogus.
Beggar ploys and street-people cons have one thing in common: they are all completely made up. Sure, there are people out there whose hard luck stories are actually true, but they’re much fewer and farther between than many people think.
Too Much Information
This is the big one, the ploy indicator most frequently encountered. Liars and beggars almost always fail to keep things simple. They launch into incredibly involved stories on the theory that the more detail they include, the more plausible the ruse will seem. This is not the case. A good liar keeps things simple because this leaves fewer traps to remember and avoid. A good con artist lets you fill in the details.
A young white man wearing gold chains over a muscle shirt once gave me an elaborate song and dance about needing money to make a phone call because he needed a ride to some outpatient cancer treatment center, an appointment he’d missed previously due to a number of factors (which he supplied). The whole pile of nonsense was obviously an excuse to separate me from my money.
Gas Money
Apparently we are in the grip of a nationwide epidemic of stranded motorists, all of whom just need two or maybe five dollars worth of gas to get them on their ways again. The only cure for this epidemic is the kindness of strangers, it would seem, for this army of stranded motorists is even now wandering the streets, asking passers-by for help. Almost every time you encounter this request, it’s bogus.
Alternatively, you will see this request framed as the desperate need for bus fare. Often the beggar will tell you he is from out of town, and just needs a specific dollar amount in order to get back home again. I once saw a young man offering this story to people on the street. I was told, by someone who works downtown and who sees the young man often, that he is a local who uses this lie to beg. He’s not a stranded out-of-towner at all. He’s been trying to get on that bus for years.
Lunch Money
I recall a study some time back — it might have been in USA Today or some other major media outlet — that speared a popular myth. Most of the “homeless” polled who were carrying signs saying “Will work for food” actually wouldn’t when offered the chance.
Take a good look at the next beggar who asks for money because, he tells you, he’s hungry. He doesn’t look like he’s starving, does he? He looks dirty and unkempt, sure, but is he emaciated? People who are really starving look the part.
A beggar once accosted me citing a specific sum of money and muttering about the specific breakfast he hoped to purchase at the exact establishment he sought to patronize. Ploys are like that — they sometimes come wrapped in each other. This was “Too Much Information” within “Lunch Money.”
Speak Up
I was waiting outside an urban coffee shop that is plagued by aggressive panhandlers (who, when they aren’t begging, sexually harass and intimidate the female college students who frequent the shop) when I last encountered this ploy. A disheveled white male of perhaps middle age wandered up, muttering something I could not hear. I glared at him and he gave me a wide berth as he continued to work the area, accosting everyone entering the shop. Those who did not ignore him stopped and said something like, “What?” or “Pardon?” because he muttered so quietly.
This is a deliberate, calculated decision on such a beggar’s part. Mumbling panhandlers hope to catch you off guard, counting on the cultural reflex that prompts you to ask for clarification when you do not hear what someone says. I’ve fallen for this myself without thinking.
The appropriate response to anyone who accosts you and mumbles is no response at all, though you may choose to observe silently to see if the speaker repeats his or her plea.
Help a Vet
Most of the homeless “veterans” one encounters are veterans of long begging careers and nothing more. Those holding signs proclaiming their veteran status are hoping to cash in on your gratitude to those who fight and die for our country. Some will go so far as to dress themselves in soldier costumes, wearing fatigues or boonie hats as if they’ve just gotten off the first boat from Over There — only to find themselves destitute among spitting hippie ingrates.
Despite the fact that veterans are represented among the homeless population at the same rate they appear in the population at large, the majority of “veteran” beggars are liars who have never served in the U.S. military. Your heart is in the right place, but don’t fall for this one.
The Grace of God
Ours is basically a religious society. Many people will try to invoke religion as a means of gaining trust or allaying fear. Some subtle con artists will wear crosses (which are large enough to be obvious to those whom they accost). Others will work references to God or church into their ploys.
One early morning, while walking from my car to my office, a couple in a battered and fanbelt-squealing Cadillac stopped and gave me an elaborate song and dance about losing or running out of money. They were supposedly desperate to get gas money to get home but, shrewdly, did not directly ask me for funds. Instead they wanted to know where the nearest church could be found (which was their ostensible purpose for stopping me).
The implication was, of course, that they were good Christians who only sought the support of their network of fellow believers. One supposes that, lulled by their evident religious credentials, I as the mark would be inclined simply to give them money to help them on their way.
I didn’t fall for it and neither should you. God doesn’t care if you’ve got gas in your car. That’s your responsibility. Anyone invoking God while implying a need for cash is simply using religion to mask a ploy.
Got the Time?
If you’re obviously wearing a watch, you have two choices when asked for the time. You can be rude and refuse to give it, or you can comply with the request. The problem is that when approached on the street by a stranger or a street person, there is a chance — not a great one, but a real one nonetheless — that someone who asks you for the time is trying to distract you in order to assault you. Think about it. When you look at your watch, you typically look down at your arm, making you an easy target.
If someone you don’t know comes up to you and asks you for the time, you can easily minimize your risk. Step back casually, away from the stranger, preferably blading your body as you do so. Raise your arm rather than lowering your head, keeping that arm well away from your body and between you and the other person. In this way you can read the time while keeping your guard up.
Practice doing this so it looks casual rather than confrontational. There’s no need to drop into your Daniel-san crane stance and fire off a flurry of snap kicks just to tell someone they’re late for an appointment.
Got A Light?
The answer to this question is, no, you don’t have a light. You do not, in fact, smoke, even if you do, if someone you don’t know wanders up to you on the street and asks you this question. (Now, if you’ve got a cigarette dangling from your mouth, it’s going to be harder to deny that you smoke. This scenario assumes that a stranger has approached you and you have given no public indication that you have a source of flame on your person.)
There’s simply no way to light another person’s cigarette for them on the street without incurring an unacceptable level of risk, unless you’re willing to toss someone a lighter or a book of matches. (For you smokers, that’s one option. Pick up a handful of those free books of matches people still give away here and there, or buy a box at the store. Carry a couple in your pocket in addition to your lighter. When someone asks you for a light, you can toss them a book of matches (from a safe, casual distance) and even look generous by adding, “Keep it.”
Picture standing in front of someone, holding your lighter to that person’s cigarette. At least one of your hands — possibly two, if you’re cupping one palm against the wind — is occupied. You’re also giving that stranger a burning cylinder of tobacco with which he can put out your eye, if he’s so inclined. (That’s why cops will tell you to put out your cigarette when they speak with you during a stop or arrest.)
Misplaced Compassion… or Prudent Caution?
I don’t say any of this to disparage street people, although I think a lot of the time we tend to misplace our compassion and refuse to see people as a threat because we don’t want to seem heartless or rude. The fact is, most people who approach you on the street wanting something from you want what they are asking for. They want money, or the time, or a light for their cigarette. The problem is that you don’t get to know when that’s not the case.
Even if only one in a hundred people who approach you on the street means you harm, you need to be on your guard all hundred times, because you don’t get to know ahead of time who the one in one hundred happens to be. The best example was when, in the 1980s, a couple of thugs came up to Dan Rather and said, “Kenneth, what’s the frequency?” While Rather was trying to figure out what on Earth they were talking about, they sucker-punched him to mug him. (That became a famous line in an R.E.M. song, “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?”)
You can see the pattern. People try to distract you, get your brain engaged, or get you to feel sorry for them, and that gives them an opening to take from you. Don’t let them take advantage of you. Take these lessons to heart and recognize the patterns they share. The ploy you hear on the street might be different or might be strangely similar, but it will FEEL like these, and that’s what matters.
Saturday, April 18, 2026
David James With Another Edition Of "PAY ATTENTION"
Certain parts of this demonstration are familiar to me from training with my old instructors, Carl, Ralph, and Clint back in what I will fondly refer to as The New Jersey/New York Close Combat Association. (NJ/NYCCA)
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