Category: Media Review (Book, DVD, etc.)

Book Review: Drive to Survive!

During my yearly training audit, I reminded myself that I needed to get some more education on defensive driving and vehicle tactics. As a result, I purchased several book related to this topic on Amazon.

This is a brief review of Drive To Survive!

I started reading this book as soon as I got home from hearing Dr. Sherman House’s lecture on Becoming The Civilian Defender at the Hebrew Hogger Fundraiser last weekend. He and I were on the same page regarding critical skills to practice. His lecture reminded me that I need to get after my lagging skill-sets. Performance and defensive driving is something I don’t have official training in. I’ve started with this book.

The book’s author is Curt Rich, who was a Vietnam War vet and student of Jeff Cooper and Masaad Ayoob. So Rich wrote this book for the average person trying to drive in the real world, with discussion about avoiding everyday crazy drivers, everyday combat driving techniques, evading criminal activity on the road, high performance maneuvers to evade capture, positioning your vehicle in the real world, anti-kidnapping and carjacking techniques, and avoiding “Murphy” on the road.

Some of the topics I found interesting:

  • Setting up your mirrors to have no blind-spot, and proper seat adjustment
  • Hand placement on steering wheel. 9 and 3 with thumbs up, not wrapped
  • The two-second follow rule, and two-second green light rule
  • Maximizing ABS brakes. “Threshold Braking” with ABS brakes and how stop much shorter than fully depressing your brake in an emergency stop. He also includes some exercises you can do to practice.
  • How to be ‘smooth’ while you drive. (Smooth is fast, after all)
  • Dealing with tailgaters, erratic drivers, and someone following you (3 right turns)
  • Rules if you’re being chased. Evasive maneuvers and running through road blocks.
  • The section on car-jacking and kidnapping is very useful. Lots of tips that are easy to integrate into daily life.

This book was written in 1998, so several of the technological advancements he mentions on luxury cars are now standard in nearly all vehicles. The tactics are still completely applicable.

This book is DEFINITELY worth your time. It’s a short read at 125 pages or so. Considering copies are $0.01 plus shipping, you’re silly not to have a copy on your shelf.

If you’ll excuse me, I have some bootlegger’s turns to practice…

Mark

If you find value in my ramblings, please subscribe, share, and shop through our amazon affiliate link.

 

Book Review: A Guide To The Good Life (Practical Stoic Philosophy)

This is a book review of A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy.

Let me start by saying that I am a blank slate when it comes to philosophy. When I was a younger man in my twenties studying engineering, philosophy always seemed like a strange thing to pursue as a hobby or education path. Philosophy was the joke major for people who couldn’t do physics and math. As I’ve added another decade of life and experienced times of helplessness, rage, sadness, joy, and ‘life’ in general, I’ve changed my thoughts on philosophy’s utility.

The need for a frame-work of living, interpreting, and perceiving the world was something that I had always simply invented as needed. I often fell short. I am analytical, so faith-based systems have been a hard sell. Based on recommendations from friends and inspired by the cool quotes I read from famous Stoics, I purchased this book shortly after my disease recurrence in 2014.

If you don’t want to read further, my conclusion is that this book is worth your time and is easy to digest. It is an introduction to Stoicism, and contains practical guidelines to applying it to modern life.

The first few chapters simply give an overview of the history of Stoicism, the major cultures and players involved in its development, as well as its philosophical lineage. That’s all well and good, but I like actionable information. So instead of running down the book’s contents, I’ll list several passages that resonated strongly with me. If they make sense to you as well, then you might enjoy this book.

Excerpts

“we should periodically pause to reflect on the fact that we will not live forever and therefore that this day could be our last…[which will] make us appreciate how wonderful it is that we are alive and have the opportunity to fill this day with activity”

This is called ‘negative visualization’ and revolves around contemplating, but not dwelling on, bad things or the loss of things we hold dear. This serves to weaken the blows of bad news when we get it, and allows us to cherish the things we already have by stepping back to consider how it would feel if we suddenly lost them. It’s a way to keep from taking things for granted.

“Trichotomy of control:

  • Things over which we have complete control (such as goals we set for ourselves)
  • Things over which we have NO CONTROL AT ALL
  • Things over which we have SOME but not complete control”

The next concept of use is the Dichotomy of Control (Which the author breaks into a trichotomy). It’s simply the understanding and acceptance that some things are simply outside of our control. As someone dealing with a major illness, you can imagine why this one is important for me to learn and embrace. Worrying about things that we have no control over is futile and a waste of energy.

“be very careful about the goals he sets for himself. In particular, he will be careful to set internal rather than external goals…his goal in playing…will not be to win a match…but to play to the best of his ability”

It is about the process and self-improvement, NOT about winning the game.

“We refuse to compare our situation with alternative, preferable situations in which we might have found or might now find ourselves. By doing this, the Stoics think, we will make our current situation, whatever it may be, more tolerable”

Fatalism. Things that have happened or are happening are beyond our control, as it was fate. Accept that. You can’t be anywhere but where you are right now.

“We should periodically cause ourselves to experience discomfort that would could easily have avoided…We harden ourselves against misfortunes that might befall us in the future.”

Self Denial. Anyone who has ever studied Jiu Jitsu or any other combat sports understands the value in this idea. Same goes with intense exercise, or even not turning your A/C on for a week in the height of summer. Putting yourself willingly into a crucible to be tested, though it’s not required of you. Shut down facebook for a month. Go a few days without eating. Sleep in your car. Doing something uncomfortable makes the comfortable thing special again.

“What ailment of yours have you cured today? What failing have you resisted? Where can you show improvement?”

Meditation. Reflect on your successes and failures in your personal philosophy regularly and adjust course as needed.

In Summary

Those are the basic ideas behind Stoicism as outlined in the book. I feel that the author simplifies them and explains them in a way that makes sense to a modern person. He also addresses the counterpoints and holes in the philosophy. I appreciate that. The remaining half of the book contains advice on social relations, grief, anger, personal values, becoming a modern stoic, and a good bit more.

I realize this isn’t a standard ‘gun blog’ post. But ultimately we are all humans on the same ball of dirt and will have similar struggles and questions. If you’ve ever felt lost for a way to navigate this life, and if you want a place to start looking, this is a good book. I don’t expect that I can implement all of the Stoic beliefs, but I know I can work on some of them.

Mark

If you find value in my ramblings, please subscribe, share, and shop through our amazon affiliate link.

Review: Defensive Applications of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu DVD

Today I received a package from Cecil Burch of Immediate Action Combatives. Cecil sent me both of his PDN produced DVDs. I’ll briefly talk about Cecil’s training pedigree, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) as a superior combative system on the ground, then about the material contained in the DVD.

pdn_dvd_cover

Cecil has been training in BJJ since 1994 under Megaton Dias. He is a black belt and has extensive competition experience and success. You can read his full bio on his website. I only mention it to let you know he is a subject matter expert when it comes to grappling. He also is one of the major innovators when it comes to the integration of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu into a weapons based environment. BJJ is tremendous for self defense against a single unarmed opponent. More importantly, as Cecil and his colleagues teach and demonstrate, it is probably the best delivery system for denying your opponent access (and enabling your access) to weapons while grounded. It just takes a critical eye, some adaptations, and pressure testing techniques to see what works.

cecil-burch-hip-escape-header2

The DVD has the usual excellent production value you’d expect from PDN, with the DVD broken down into chapters with summary notes at the end of each. If you get this DVD, have a buddy (or understanding spouse) with whom you can practice. You’ll NEVER own the material unless you get down on the ground and do the work. Most gun people are resistant to the idea and “carry this gun so I don’t have to wrestle”. The reality is rarely that tidy. You might end up rolling around in the mud, piss, and broken beer bottles in an alley over a knife. Having at least a modicum of ground skill is crucial for all gun owners (everyone really). Even better would be joining a local BJJ school and putting in the work. I digress… the DVD…

Topics Include:

  1. Hierarchy of Intent
  2. Conceptual Escape Formula
  3. Survival Posture Unarmed (and against a weapon)
  4. Hip Bridge
  5. Hip Escape
  6. Complete the Escape
  7. Guard Fundamentals
  8. Getting to the feet
  9. VS a standing attacker, when grounded

What makes Cecil a great teacher is his ability to distill two decades of knowledge into an easily digestible ‘essentials’ list that he can fit into a weekend seminar for NON-GRAPPLERS! This video is even more condensed at only about an hour. The Hierarchy of Intent and Escape Formula give a bird’s eye view of ‘the fight’ on the ground. It’s about as old school Jiu Jitsu as you can get, but it’s totally applicable to a weapons based environment.

Cecil has told me that he approaches his teaching to start from a worst case. The reason being that if you can dig yourself out of the deepest hole, everything else is easy. So the instruction starts from the assumption that you have been knocked to the ground, possibly by a sucker punch, and goes from there. The Survival Posture denies even a relatively skilled grappler immediate access to submissions against you, and therefor works well against an untrained person.

Once you’ve survived the initial assault, you need to be able to move while there’s someone on top of you to make enough room to put more of your body between yourself and them. Enter the Hip Bridge and Hip Escape. This gives you a vertical and horizontal escape route to reorient and gain a more favorable position. Once you’ve done this, you can finalize your escape from the bottom and escape or fight as needed.

Cecil then goes over Guard basics. Both closed guard and long range open guard. He then covers getting up.

That’s a lot of stuff to go over in an hour. However, I really think that even an unskilled grappler using this material, and practicing with a partner regularly, can get a functional understanding of these positions and will have a better chance.

I would recommend this DVD to any ‘gun guy/gal’ who recognizes the need for basic ground fighting survival skills.

Next Up: I’ll review his “Surviving the Knockout Game” DVD.

Mark

 

 

 

 

Mental Workout: App Assisted Awareness Exercises

One of the most challenging things I’ve faced in the last year is a slow degradation in physical capacity due to chemotherapy and resulting side effects. It has taken me away from the gym, the grappling mats, and recently, it has slowed my ability to hit the range and compete. For the record, I’m on the mend and the doctors expect the symptoms to resolve over the next year or so. Since I couldn’t make it to the Rangemaster Conference this year, I decided to be useful and write this post. I digress…

I, not being content to roll over and quit, have been looking for ways to be a better ‘me’ today than I was yesterday. I have narrowed down the best bang for the buck to be mental training. When I go to the range, I do decisional and thinking shooting exercises like I mentioned in this article and this one. The requirements for success in these drills (and extrapolating to actual defensive situations) boils down to rapid processing of new information as it becomes available, rapid visual processing and decision making, and the ability to memorize lists of information or details that might help later when recalling the situation to teammates or authorities. It’s not news that research shows that the brain will atrophy with age, and that it can be ‘strengthened’ with use.

On a lark, I downloaded Einstein Brain Trainer HD and started messing around with it. For me, it has been well worth $3. There’s a free version that will give you an idea of what it’s about.

What I like about it:

  • Some of the games are directly applicable to awareness and memorizing details

This game will let you look at 2, 3 or 4 people with names, then it will ask which person had which face, article of clothing, or  item in their hand. For whatever reason, this is hard game for me, especially when it’s more than two people. I see direct benefit to self defense because sometimes the best course of action is to be a good witness. If you can recall clothing details, facial features, or license plates, it is helpful to police for catching the bad guys. There are also games about remembering directions, sequence of events, and numbers. I’m sure you can think of plenty of ways this could be useful.Screenshot_2015-02-14-12-13-17

  • There are logic games that force you to work on  patterns and processing several layers of instructions within a given time limit.

This game is almost exactly like working a decision shooting drill. It adds movement of the shapes as well as colors and shapes. It ties my mind in a knot pretty quickly.  There’s another 5 logic games in addition to this.Screenshot_2015-02-14-12-09-30

  • It works visual speed and processing, as well as perspective and spacial relations.

This game asks you to choose from which location the top image is being viewed from. This is useful in visualizing cover, room layout, depth, hiding spots, as well as shooting problems. I find that I’m quite good at the visual games. I think I’m wired to do well at these, it might be part of why I chose engineering as a career.

Screenshot_2015-02-21-13-36-13_resized

  • It rates you and gets progressively harder. You can see what areas you excel at, and then work on the weak areas. Well-rounded is the goal.

Screenshot_2015-02-21-13-08-55_resized

  • It gives you a reminder to do a daily workout. It takes no more than 5 minutes to run through the games. As Cecil pointed out in his article one small thing a day, and the premise behind Claude’s 1,000 days of dryfire, daily disciplined practice is the true way to mastery. Why should mental training be different? Do your daily workout on the John in the morning. Done and done. You’re re-wiring your brain. You’re becoming a better protector for your family. You’re going to be able to make change at the grocery store faster. There’s no downside.

Get your mental plasticity on! Make yourself a little better today than you were yesterday, even if your body is broken. Do Work.

Protect the Brood,

DD

PS: Here’s some other mental trainers I found on Amazon that might also be useful. I have no experience with them. You might also find most of them on Google Play or ITunes.
Brain Trainer Special Pro

Mind Games Pro

Fit Brains Trainer