SD: Aging, Disparity of Force

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(SD: Self-Fense - Self-Offense/Defense)

In self-defense, using this term because it is the legal term used in such cases and situations, a person must know beforehand what it is and how they will articulate it if or when they are forced by circumstances to use self-defense, as a legal defense. It should be noted that I am not an attorney nor one who specialized in SD, find one and put them on retainer or at least on speed dial. 

One aspect of SD is disparity of force. It is stated by one as, “A standard for self-defense that allows one to use force proportional to that being used by the attacker.” Simplistic and warrants a lot more investigation, study and understanding but for the purposes of this article it is a good general concept to know. 

As we age we naturally may become targets for some make their analysis as to targets, who is the weakest and easiest. This is a set of excerpts from an article that spoke on disparity of force for the elderly.

• We lose more flexibility as we age.
• Joints are less limber; we lose muscle mass; we have decreased responsibleness in our heart and lungs.
• Adrenaline, the go to chemical dump for flight or fight survival responses and reflexes, reactions go way down. 
• At 60 vs. a 30 year old attacker:
• This is even without a heart conditions or lung condition or preexisting medical problem.
• Physiologically the older has disadvantages in relation to that of a thirty year old attacker. 
• Physiologic changes of the aging in aggregate produce a greater risk of grave bodily harm, injury. 
• Psychological components also drive disparity issues. 
• Vision and especially peripheral vision are further hindered in effectiveness before that of the adrenaline chemical dump effects of tunnel vision, etc.
• Reactions are much slower.
• Natural body defenses are effected by strength reduction, muscle ability to stabilize, and fast twitch capabilities are greatly reduced in comparison. 
• Mentally our actions, reactions and reflexes are significantly slowed, i.e., our ability to process the situation through the OODA loop is slowed as well.
• Due to reduced physical health, fitness and other reactive traits the older person is more likely to suffer crippling or lethal outcomes when a predator applies blunt force in even a physical attack using only the hands and feet, etc.
• Many legally questionable deaths are a result of blunt force trauma to one’s head due to being hit with a closed fist. As we age, the state of fitness and health such as the head is more likely to occur simply because the head, bones, and other parts are more sensitive to trauma allowing a greater probability of grave bodily harm with death as a result. 
• As we age, our brains tend to shrink while the skull remains the same so the brain and associated stuff move so when hit the skull moves while the brain movement has to catch up so the bone of the skull hits the brain add in secondary acceleration and the brain moves away and now strikes the other side of the skull causing brain injuries. 
• The window of survival in the aged is also reduced greatly in relation to the injuries because older people are more fragile, the actual repercussions of such an attack reduce the time between injury and treatment considerably, i.e., the brain without oxygen for instance means you can have about twenty-seconds before debilitating damage is done or even brain death. 
• As we age we develop conditions that make the body weaker and more vulnerable  and those conditions also feed us information we can present that further justifies our use of greater force because, even if the attacker doesn’t know while you are very aware, that knowledge articulated further supports your legal increased levels of force to protect and survive. 
• Physically: Older folks lose flexibility in bones and in our chest walls; cartilage becomes calcified, ribs more rigid, things break easily, and the sternum loses some of its flexibility at its joints (a proper blow to the sternum can shatter it and lacerate the heart). 
• Aging reduces reaction time and perceptions especially as they apply to the proper application of defenses at appropriate levels of force meaning that what one may have understood and controlled in their prime suffers greatly from changes due to the aging processes where such expertise and application of methodologies becomes less exacting. 

Dr. Margulies states, “A blow produces an acceleration force and so if you’re struck–let’s just pick a spot–in the forehead, the skull begins to move backwards while the brain lags. It sits there and first, the forehead bone actually strikes the brain, then, in many cases, there is the secondary acceleration and the brain moves away and now strikes the back of the skull and there’s additional injury at the other end. The technical term is contra-coup. It is the secondary injury due to the brain’s movement within the skull.”

“If that initial blow to the forehead drives the head back into a wall or the head restraint of the car seat, the skull stops and the brain continues now to bang into the back of the skull, we have two points of injury.”

“If you fall and you have the gravity effect in addition to the impact effect, and the head now hits a hard surface–and by the way, that could be a grassy field–that secondary impact brings the skull to a sudden stop. There’s been the additional time and energy developed by the movement of the skull and brain between the initial impact and now when it hits the ground, the concrete, the post or the fence, that exacerbates the secondary injury.”

Because of our age and those physical and mental changes we older folks tend to need greater force just to achieve some semblance of survivability while more often the attacker succeeds while the older person suffers grave harm and even more likely - death. 

We as a society conditioned by social media and especially that of the entertainment media tend to perceive and believe that one can take a huge amount of hits from empty hands and bare feet so that when presented with a disparity of force issue the prosecutor is using to convict a party for using a firearm to stop an attacker who is not armed, using their empty hands and feet, as an inappropriate and illegal use of force when in reality better understanding how deadly the assailant’s fists, feet, knees and elbows actually are would prove using a firearm against empty handed attacks is actually justified. 

Blunt Force Trauma Injuries from fists, feet, knees and elbows, etc.:

• Blow to the nose: produces tearing; disables the sense of sight; can’t see what is coming.
• Blow to the temple area can cause a fracture tearing an underlying artery. 
• Blow to the back of the neck: dislocate spin casing paralysis or death, 
• Blow to head and face: bleeding and swelling can block the airways, bleeding in mouth can cause vomiting if swallowed and can lead to a chance of aspiration, sucking it down into the lungs. 
• Blow to the ribs: can injure the liver or spleen. We don’t survive well without a liver and the spleen can result in grave repercussions when injured. 

Dr. Margulies, in the referenced article, stated, “Most people are mis-educated by what we see in the movies and on television. Just as a bullet from a handgun does not pick people up and throw them against the wall, in the real world, one does not sustain a blow to the head, the kick to the chest, and then stand up and produce his magic fight-ender. That’s fantasy! That’s not the real world. It doesn’t happen that way. You get hit in the head, you go to the ground, and you are badly hurt.”

When you are hit, the hit itself may not be the danger but when you lose balance and structure inevitably you end up succumbing to, ‘gravity’ that will often result in death because the head strikes with force some hard object on the ground like a cement curb. This fact tends to become muddy in court because they perceive the hands as less force while gravity is not there concern as to the end result, your actions taken make it your responsibility, etc.

All of this and more lead to the understanding is that such blows tend to, “Render an individual disabled in terms of mounting a reasonable defense.” This is exacerbated in older folks because of the changes like brain shrinkage as we age. More room for physics in a fight to bounce the brain all around disrupting signals in the brain and interpretation of signals coming into the brain from our senses. 

Add in the good Doctor feels, “The point that has been all too long ignored in the justice and legal system is the unprovoked attack puts one in a very dangerous situation. In a dark alleyway, or a subway station after the train has pulled out and very few people are there, that initial impact can produce injuries that without immediate care can be fatal.” 

Add in the physical and mental changes of aging and that chance of grave harm toward possible fatality increase proportionally to the age of the victim starting as early as age forty years. When one passes into the winter years, i.e., sixty or older, the disparities of physical and mental abilities assuming all other factors equal are against the older person allowing one to take measures greater than would be reasonable if both were equals. Add in that more often it is reported that seldom do criminals target anyone of equal perceived status and ability, they always, always, seek out the weaker and the vulnerable and the easiest targets to put the favor on their side for success. 

In short, in an attack where both parties are about the same in age range, “The bare hand or the foot or a knee or an elbow, can produce that disability that leads to an inability to defend yourself. And it only takes one blow!” 

If body language and the situation indicates that a real danger of attack is on then we have to strike first because waiting for them to hit you first could result, especially as an elder person, in grave harm resulting in the inability to defend or death. Even an open hand attack is dangerous, often more dangerous then the fist. There are a plethora of strikes from the fingertips to open hand to edged hand to forearm, to elbow, to shoulder, to knees to feet that are extremely dangerous and deadly. 

Now, with all that, there is a conundrum for even the older guys and gals, if you trained, studied and practiced karate and martial arts for self-fense those very traits used to justify the levels of force may also work against you. Yes, that type of knowledge and understanding help support and solidify your reasons for the levels of force used but they also can lead to excessive levels of force accusations because if you are that kind of professional then why didn’t you use those skills, etc. vs. what application and force level you did use such as a gun vs. empty hands? 

If the courts, the law and the legal system actually accept the facts that blunt force of the empty hands are now lethal deadly force levels that changes the whole dynamic of perceived levels of force. The whole point of this article and exercise is to achieve a balanced understanding of how one will articulate and justify one’s use of force regardless. There are always two sides to any story and it may end up that, “The rest of the story,” could result in conviction instead of freedom. 

Add in civil actions and how much easier it is for one to get a conviction or judgement vs. conviction in criminal court is astounding and surprising so do the work, do the studies, ask professionals, have a professional available in case of trouble and understand all the aspects. Aging provides us more leeway to achieve legally acceptable defenses and force levels but that two edged sword does cut both ways. 

Bibliography (Click the link)

Hayes, Gila. “Understanding Blunt Force Trauma Lethality” by Dr. Robert Margulies. Armed Citizens Legal Defense Network, inc. An Interview with Dr. Robert Margulies dtd 2016

Free Will in Self-Fense

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This is about your free will, the fact that you don’t rely on others and other actions to act. You make the choices you make as if you were prescient by the ‘tells/signs’ you discover through sight, sound and especially touch. By the fact that you learned to read the signs, as if hunting in the deep woods watching for signs on the trail, in the bushes and by the environmental signals such as sudden and complete silence and so on. Your free will is that permission you give yourself to act when the tells or signs appear be it to turn around and go elsewhere, to run away or to work communications of deescalation. 

Free will is also about bypassing the O&D of the OODA loop by observing the signs of impending violence and making the first move and remaining in movement as if a gyroscope. If you are taking a stance or observing in order to determine a means of self-fense then you are not acting with free will, you are being controlled by the others actions of free will - you are reacting to his actions and if you have studied the professionals they all tend to say, “Reactions are slower that actions and harder to overcome toward actions.” Something like that or similar but once you react and they move freely and act freely you will remain in a reactive mode unable to stop the threat except in rare exceptional cases when you shift from reactions to actions, taking the initiative. Best case scenario.

Listen, it has been said and proven that in most attacks you are already in a bad state where your OODA is frozen, you are taking damage and you have to move in a way that takes back the initiative. Wouldn’t it be better to act first through free will, the will to either walk away, to run or to fold the cards and hope you can deescalate things? 

Fee will starts by taking the initiative in your training and practices toward a more proactive active stance where your entire repertoire consists of tells, signs, knowledge, understanding, and experience that allows you to use your free will to do what is smart and beneficial, take the first step by moving first, continue to move and provide a way out to your attacker and yourself. 

Free will starts by giving yourself permission to question everything, to find answers, to condition your primal responses accordingly and to allow for the first move much like the old karate credo to attack first. Attacking first does not mean hitting, kicking, dumping, disturbing structure and doing damage, it means taking the initiative to act and move first in a variety of ways and a variety of methodologies. 

Speaking of methodologies, i.e., “Multiple Methodologies [actual tactics and attack methodologies of impacts, drives (pushes), pulls, twists, takedowns/throws and compression, are best for stopping a threat]” When I talk about methodologies as stated in the last I mean those but there are other methodologies of which I write here such as initiative, free will, action over reaction, avoidance and deescalation and so on, those methods that will achieve your goal of going home alive and in good heath. With these additional methodologies you can still stop a threat, stop the damage and achieve success in your self-fense. Utilizing every single tool begins by using your free will to make a decision and give yourself permissions to do “EVERYTHING” humanly possible to avoid conflicts and violence. 

Bibliography (Click the link)

Falling Seniors

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Listen, as martial artists many of us learn some basic falls simply because in an attack we will in all probability end up on the ground either by the attacker taking us down or as a secondary to the attack, we fall down. Falling can be that one thing that ends up with us receiving grave bodily harm and in a lot of cases falling ends up how one dies in an attack or fight. That ain’t cool.

Now, as a karate-ka, I was taught the striking arts and falling except in rare partner-drills was never taught as to how a recipient of a take down should actually fall. Since it was on mats, most of the time even falling wrong we didn’t get hurt or the hurt was minor. If you are taken down or fall in the street those mats are not there and the ground is pretty darn hard and gravity is a mean mother when your overall mass loses stability and balance. If the attacker is controlling the fall you have to deal with his exacerbating and enhancing gravity to your detriment but if they all you a free-fall then gravity, your overall mass/weight and the make up of that ground from relatively soft grass or sand to that hard as cement curb matter - a lot.

(Not an exact quote): UKEMI is the art of falling without getting hurt. It is a critical skill. Learn break-falls and a side note is if you condition it into primal response then as you age and if you fall then, you will better survive the fall by falling right. Most, even karate-ka (a strike system) will have to deal with falling or being taken down or being thrown. Think rolling falls, dive rolls and flat/break falls. 

Now, in recent times many of those same striking arts, karate in particular, are finding out just how valuable UKEMI is and have or are incorporating that into their teaching programs. I have a goal here to relate how that falling without getting hurt into our aging process because you have to allow yourself to know, understand and accept the fact of nature that when we age our abilities and stabilities suffer the aging process, i.e., we can and do fall from time to time especially in advanced ages. Sorry folks, but true regardless so my intent here is if you have not trained to fall then you need to take it up if for no other reason then when, not if but when, you fall you trigger a conditioned response and you fall correctly.

It is easy, if you have a local judo or jujitsu dojo take time and join up as I am sure the Sensei will have a more senior class where you can take the full monty or you can request to learn how to fall without injury. Hopefully you do this long before you age to a point where that becomes difficult or medically prohibitive. Even if not recommended medically if you have already conditioned your primal response system you will still benefit from it if you fall. 

As the author of the book on drills, Mr. Rory Miller, states, it is a critical skill for fighting and self-fense but I add in that it is even more critical to you as you age because there is going to come a time that you will fall. It may be you don’t lift one foot high enough and catch it on a rug or curb but when it does, you fall correctly and you will find that the most you suffer is bruising, bumps and maybe sprains - all survivable and easily recover from. 

For you younger guys in systems or styles for self-fense who have not been formally instructed in how to fall properly, ask your sensei or seek out judo or jujitsu to supplement your efforts so when an attack ends up with gravity taking you for a quick, hard and dangerous ride to the ground you can break that fall safely and move to a proper fense position, etc. 

Bibliography (Click the link)

It’s NOT Personal

Blog Article/Post Caveat (Read First Please: Click the Link)

I write, a lot, and I am honored to have people view, read and comment on what I write. I find topics in a variety of ways such as other blog articles where some part triggers something in my mind and I write about it. Sometimes, folks will perceive this as being critical of the source material but I want to ensure everyone who reads this blog, “It is NOT Personal!”

As a fledgling author I write and I love to write. My goals in writing is to learn, build knowledge and create ever greater understanding of those things to which I write about. In Boyd’s OODA it is understood, by me, that a process of analysis and synthesis is an ongoing process that helps to meet goals such as mine. I try to do that a lot but being human, I sometimes mistakenly write in a way that seems and may be perceived as “Personal” to the reader. 

One thing I have tried to add at the end of each article is to express, at a minimum, a form of acknowledgement to the person, blog and/or article that inspired the one I write, wrote and posted. It may seem that because I ‘tip my hat or ritsu-rei’ to that person, etc., that the article must be a critique of the other source and author - sometimes it is true, but mostly it “IS NOT PERSONAL!”

I am saying this here and now because, similar to Colonel Boyd when addressing seniors at his lectures, I want to ensure that the person on the receiving end understands that it is not personal and that everything I write is about “ME” and my learning process along with allowing others to be exposed because one of the most critical aspects of learning, studying and coming to an understanding is through the exchange of communications with others who have something positive to contribute. This occurs, if done properly, on the dojo floor, in the classroom, at seminars and thorugh exchanges in blogs, video’s, books and other media (through comments and reviews, etc.). You cannot achieve understanding in just your own mind because it just doesn’t work. 

Humans have survived and become the animal at the top of the food chain, so to speak, because over the centuries a few have used such strategies and tactics in learning thus building our societies and species into what it is today. If not for this we all would still be hunting with rocks and sticks, running from predators and gathering food on the Serengeti plains of a thousand years ago or so. 

If I got something wrong, if you feel it needs correction or if you just think I am full of shit, comment constructively because it is how I learn, change and grow - change is critical but only change that involves many, not a few and especially not just the ‘one’. 

Thanks!

Bibliography (Click the link)

“In order for any life to matter, we all have to matter.” - Marcus Luttrell, Navy Seal (ret)

Conserve to Preserve

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How often have you heard the meme, “Use it or lose it?” How often have you heard the meme, “Conserve it to preserve it?” This second meme only came to my attention in a recent study of mine regarding our bodies as to strength and durability and endurance but in a sense of longevity, i.e., what happens as we age and how that effects our practice and application of martial arts especially for self-defense.

It also came up regarding certain maladies one may have had over the years that now, as we age, have certain repercussions that long ago were not addressed or even given any thought or concern - the durability of a young mind. 

Sometimes how you use it in order to not lose it determines actually whether you truly lose it vs. actually conserving it for longevity. In our youth we in martial arts, at least from a Western perspective and perception, relied heavily on our physical muscular strength to carry the day with a smattering of actual principled based methodologies to get-r-done. Little did I and I suspect others in those younger years even considered that a more balanced way of martial arts and life would provide us the means to get-r-done as well as conserve to preserve those very same things that would provide us longevity and ability to continue our efforts in a martial way.

Fatigue, loss of strength, pain and our endurance all start to decline as our bodies age. How we temper that decline makes a huge difference. What I have discovered is that from a Western perspective we tend to exert maximum effort, strength and spirit in order to get-r-done but now find that a more cerebral view would have made that easier, more appropriate and smarter in applying learned skills in what even application we need or use. 

I have only just recently discovered that many of the ways I did things in fense as well as martial arts was not as efficient as it could be and relied heavily on my size, strength and mind-set to carry the day. I did things, as many did and still do, the “HARD WAY.” It seems, for me anyway, as a means to an end and only as I age and hopefully become wise realize that smart is so much better than hard. 

I also find this apropos because now I have encountered, as the aging process takes firm hole in my winter years, certain obstacles that actually force me to take a more conservative view of my way to make sure things last for the duration of my life. If I had continued to work the hard way I would deplete certain energies and strengths that would in the later winter years exposed me to vulnerabilities that would actually effect the quality of life let alone expose me to the dangers in life. 

Take a look and so some analysis on the subject of “Conserve to Preserve” especially if your reaching those winter years because taking action now and adjusting how you do things, especially in the dojo, will make for a long lasting ability to remain active in the dojo and to show those young-uns just how we old guys get-r-done but smartly. 

Bibliography (Click the link)

It’s Not Personal

Listen, it truly is not personal. I can’t tell you how many folks read my stuff, especially for the first time, and take immediate offense as if I attacked them and their belief systems in a personal way. In my mind, that is impossible especially if you have the confidence and understanding of what it is you do in martial arts, karate especially since that is my main squeeze martial art practice and study.

My sole goal on my blogs and wherever I find myself writing or talking about my personal understanding of my personal training, practice and applications of karate-martial arts. I often find other articles and extract things that trigger my mind into its meandering and wandering way of learning using Colonel Boyd’s “Analysis and Synthesis” model of study. I have exctracted from many authors and even if my writings and talks stray away from the original intent of that author doesn’t mean I am taking aim at the person themselves or even their intent in the original article. 

I often find things said and then deliberately take them out of the original article and the author’s intent in that article because when the quote or meme or other derived information is extracted like that it is NO LONGER a PART of the original. What I do tho is give credit to that author and their article not to make it personal but to make it known that the inspiration of the article I write comes from that extraction.

After all, analysis often, as you can find in Col. Boyd’s explanation, is taking individualized parts of a whole to study separately and then work toward rebuilding into something else that most often has nothing to do with the origins of the used extracted data. 

If you end up taking anything I write and way personally then that is ALL ON YOU, not me. If you find you become uncomfortable with anything then simply write me or a comment expressing your concerns and beliefs - you may be able to change my mind about what I wrote and guess what, many have done just that over the last decade or so - Whopee, I learnt somethin!

JUST REMEMBER DUDES AND DUDETTE’s, It ain’t personal, was not meant to be personal and ain’t about you, none of you. Your inspired me to write something that may or may not be relevant to what you wrote or said or it might be but IT IS MY PERSONAL idea’s, theories, and understanding of what the subject matter is about - loosley. 

You can’t learn shit by remaining steadfast with what you know because it is what you don’t know or what you don’t know you don’t know you don’t know about that will cause you to not know something. Yes, all that came from someone else who said something about knowing, not knowing something and not knowing what you don’t know you don’t know thingy. Yes, I kinda borrowed it because, I liked it and you can see that in my writing too like recent studies of Colonel Boyd and the OODA, its a learning process for me and … wait for it … It is NOT personal!

Aging Muscles

Blog Article/Post Caveat (Read First Please: Click the Link)

As karate-ka and martial artists age they have to deal with some interesting things of which one is our aging muscles. We can’t get past it by working out harder or lifting heavier and heavier weights. There are no vitimins or special drinks that will stay the natural effects of aging so it is best to understand, at least fundamentally, what we are in for as we age. Here is the short meme on aging muscles.

“As we age we lose muscle fibers. Remaining fibers atrophy, get smaller in size. Aging muscles are not as pliable or as able to contract quickly as is younger muscle. These changes cause a loss of muscle size and strength, reduce muscle contraction speed, and decrease muscle endurance.”

I was asked by a much younger karate-ka, what can you do then? My answer is to practice and train “Smart.” By smart I mean embrace the full spectrum of karate and martial arts practice, learn the principles and then learn the methodologies and techniques so you can apply them smarter than your adversary. Remember, most don’t know this stuff or they assume they don’t need it cause they are strong but even the strongest of men succumbs to the aging process, so learn now and make the adjustments so you can continue to dominate even those young whipper snappers out there dependent on their strength, size and testerone driven egoistic monkey brain status seeking woman impressing antics :-)

Bibliography (Click the link)