Please take a look at Articles on self-defense/conflict/violence for introductions to the references found in the bibliography page.

Please take a look at my bibliography if you do not see a proper reference to a post.

Please take a look at my Notable Quotes

Hey, Attention on Deck!

Hey, NOTHING here is PERSONAL, get over it - Teach Me and I will Learn!


When you begin to feel like you are a tough guy, a warrior, a master of the martial arts or that you have lived a tough life, just take a moment and get some perspective with the following:


I've stopped knives that were coming to disembowel me

I've clawed for my gun while bullets ripped past me

I've dodged as someone tried to put an ax in my skull

I've fought screaming steel and left rubber on the road to avoid death

I've clawed broken glass out of my body after their opening attack failed

I've spit blood and body parts and broke strangle holds before gouging eyes

I've charged into fires, fought through blizzards and run from tornados

I've survived being hunted by gangs, killers and contract killers

The streets were my home, I hunted in the night and was hunted in turn


Please don't brag to me that you're a survivor because someone hit you. And don't tell me how 'tough' you are because of your training. As much as I've been through I know people who have survived much, much worse. - Marc MacYoung

WARNING, CAVEAT AND NOTE

The postings on this blog are my interpretation of readings, studies and experiences therefore errors and omissions are mine and mine alone. The content surrounding the extracts of books, see bibliography on this blog site, are also mine and mine alone therefore errors and omissions are also mine and mine alone and therefore why I highly recommended one read, study, research and fact find the material for clarity. My effort here is self-clarity toward a fuller understanding of the subject matter. See the bibliography for information on the books. Please make note that this article/post is my personal analysis of the subject and the information used was chosen or picked by me. It is not an analysis piece because it lacks complete and comprehensive research, it was not adequately and completely investigated and it is not balanced, i.e., it is my personal view without the views of others including subject experts, etc. Look at this as “Infotainment rather then expert research.” This is an opinion/editorial article/post meant to persuade the reader to think, decide and accept or reject my premise. It is an attempt to cause change or reinforce attitudes, beliefs and values as they apply to martial arts and/or self-defense. It is merely a commentary on the subject in the particular article presented.


Note: I will endevor to provide a bibliography and italicize any direct quotes from the materials I use for this blog. If there are mistakes, errors, and/or omissions, I take full responsibility for them as they are mine and mine alone. If you find any mistakes, errors, and/or omissions please comment and let me know along with the correct information and/or sources.



“What you are reading right now is a blog. It’s written and posted by me, because I want to. I get no financial remuneration for writing it. I don’t have to meet anyone’s criteria in order to post it. Not only I don’t have an employer or publisher, but I’m not even constrained by having to please an audience. If people won’t like it, they won’t read it, but I won’t lose anything by it. Provided I don’t break any laws (libel, incitement to violence, etc.), I can post whatever I want. This means that I can write openly and honestly, however controversial my opinions may be. It also means that I could write total bullshit; there is no quality control. I could be biased. I could be insane. I could be trolling. … not all sources are equivalent, and all sources have their pros and cons. These needs to be taken into account when evaluating information, and all information should be evaluated. - God’s Bastard, Sourcing Sources (this applies to this and other blogs by me as well; if you follow the idea's, advice or information you are on your own, don't come crying to me, it is all on you do do the work to make sure it works for you!)



“You should prepare yourself to dedicate at least five or six years to your training and practice to understand the philosophy and physiokinetics of martial arts and karate so that you can understand the true spirit of everything and dedicate your mind, body and spirit to the discipline of the art.” - cejames (note: you are on your own, make sure you get expert hands-on guidance in all things martial and self-defense)



“All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.” - Montaigne


I am not a leading authority on any one discipline that I write about and teach, it is my hope and wish that with all the subjects I have studied it provides me an advantage point that I offer in as clear and cohesive writings as possible in introducing the matters in my materials. I hope to serve as one who inspires direction in the practitioner so they can go on to discover greater teachers and professionals that will build on this fundamental foundation. Find the authorities and synthesize a wholehearted and holistic concept, perception and belief that will not drive your practices but rather inspire them to evolve, grow and prosper. My efforts are born of those who are more experienced and knowledgable than I. I hope you find that path! See the bibliography I provide for an initial list of experts, professionals and masters of the subjects.

OODA Self-Defense (Karate/Martial Arts)

Hey, don’t assume this stuff is written in concrete because this is simply me trying to gain perspective and understanding to the Boyd OODA loop, patterns of conflict, so all of the following is my learning curve. Take it for what it is, an attempt at understanding. Everything that follows is simply the first step I take to reach that understanding. Rory Miller started this, because his latest article on the loop simply slapped me upside the head and I realized that my concepts and understanding were linear and mechanical, like my karate and martial arts were in my early years (still trying to break that freeze frame of understanding). 

Take this as an example, when you take up the book I recommend on Colonel Boyd’s life and experiences you will note some very specific characteristics. To start, he spent an exorbitant amount of time and effort studying this stuff. His life experiences actually set the tone and stage that led him to his life long work as a true warrior of the blue skies, a fighter pilot. 

Much like some advocate in karate and martial arts, he spent time studying those who came before as to combat and war and all that entails. He studied Sun Tzu and many others of like mind and like writings on the art of war. Like them he created his patterns of conflict in a way that it is used in all aspect of life’s conflicts be it sport, business, self-defense or war - it transcends one discipline and embraces them all. Similar to the book of five rings used as a tactical tome of the Japanese businessman. 

It is another epiphany of karate and martial arts where the current teachings are also mechanical and linear in nature, not the true intent of those disciplines. We are stuck in a mechanical linear way of teaching, learning and applying it. We say it is for self-defense, we then teach a mechanical form, i.e., your attacker does this, you perform a set or combination of often complex karate-like techniques in response and then when the adversary goes down you continue on to make them fear ever attacking you again. Very mechanical in its implementation from the teachings, very linear in that you follow a specific path to reach a goal. There is no give or room for the chaos of violence and conflict. 

I write about that mechanical linear form or model through the concept and philosophy of things like “Shin-gi-tai and Shu-ha-ri.” The mechanical and linear are the novice level teachings but to achieve real holistic wholehearted understanding and applications you have to go beyond and that apples as well to learning, understanding and applying the Boyd OODA (Patterns of Conflict as he likes to refer to it).

One note of interest when you read his story is that once he created his system he refused to shorten it, make it terse in nature and to simply provide a synopsis of his teachings and I believe it was because he naturally and instinctively understood the length of time, breadth and depth of the material as well as its understanding could only come from his six hour introduction before delving into the meat and bones of his OODA and Patterns of Conflict. 

Many karate and martial arts and self-defense disciplines end up taking shortcuts to appease the masses who pay their fees but in the end the product is not worthy of its distinctive intent and goals as a system of fighting, combatives and self-defense. This is my attempt at understanding and integrating a more complete and comprehensive understanding of OODA as well as karate, martial arts and self-defense. 

The following are my notes and attempts of making sense of a complex system, one that goes way beyond the terse simplistic symbolic reference of OODA or Observe, Orient, Decide and Act. I am looking at it as a terse goku-i of a Boyd nature that warrants a lot of study beyond the surface cover like presentation in just saying and assuming what OODA really means. Here we go: 

UNDERSTAND THIS: This is just the beginning, I expect there will be a whole lot more. It is like my studies of self-defense, like Marc MacYoung and Rory Miller would write, “It is a complex thing.” I have discovered by my studies that it is complex, deep, wide and complex - so is OODA or Patterns of Conflict by Colonel Boyd. 

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

Time-Scale: Achieve a faster tempo than your adversary; Gain a superior position and put the adversary into a inferior position simultaneously; Stay one or two steps ahead of your adversary; Operate inside your adversary’s time-scale; transition quickly from one tactic to another; Rapidly change the environment by engaging quickly, creating adversary disorientation and create adversary uncertainty; Make your rate of change faster/quicker than your adversary’s; Inhibit the adversary’s ability to adapt; Make the adversary over-react; Enter the implicit orientation phase; Know your enemy/adversary/opponent, i.e., know their cultural beliefs, genetic heritage, new information of the adversary, his previous experience and experiences, and analyze/synthesize the process of the person doing the orienting - Integration.

Non-linear Feedback System: The inherent unpredictability of the system is crucial to success with the OODA or patterns of conflict. Achieve a deep intuitive understanding of the chaotic ever-changing environment of conflict and violence. This is how we bypass parts of the OODA. It is the creation of this adaptability that provides the loops awesome power. Compress Time, the time between observing a situation and taking action. Time-compression cause the adversary’s time to be stretched out causing him to fall further behind resulting in a kind of OD trap, i.e., trying to make relevant decisions to unravel the problem. Use temporal discrepancy (fast transience) to select actions (lease-effective to disorient the adversary?). 

Shape the Environment: Use variety, rapidity, harmony, and intuitiveness to shape your environment. 

  • Variety: Use principled based multiple methodologies quickly, aggressively and intuitively.
  • Rapidity: Application of multiple principled based methodologies rapidly. Once you begin, commit, continue to apply actions quickly and relentlessly until the fight ends, it must not slow or hesitate anywhere in the process, ever (It must continue and it must accelerate). 
  • Harmony: To harmonize our efforts proactive and avoid passivity. To harmonize the multiple principled methodologies of our tactics while maintaining a cohesion of our strategies and goals.
  • Intuitiveness: Assuming a high tempo, rhythm and cadence quickly and consistently while rapidly exploiting gifts or those opportunities you create and the adversary presents to take the intuitive and press that hard, fast and with proactive effort. 

Target the adversary’s mind, not his body or his actions. The mind follows the body, the body follows the mind and when disrupted, disoriented and disabled the body freezes and so are the actions of the body. The ultimate goal in this is to so disorient and disrupt the mind-state and mind-set they fail to enter the physical realm of conflict and violence, they quit before they start.

Never let success result in a pause, hesitation or stopping until appropriate to the situation (often driven by social and legal standards in self-defense). No matter the means of the conflict and violence involved be it direct physical conflict to the more electronic predatory acts of on-line adversary’s it always, always, comes down to human involvement. Humans fight and you must get into the minds of your adversary’s!

Boyd Quotation: Shatter cohesion, produce paralysis, and bring about collapse of the adversary by generating confusion, disorder, panic, and chaos. Develop an instinctive and intuitive sense of what is going on and what is needed in ta fight or in any conflict.”

Sun Tzu’s Quotation: “Sun Tzu’s on Conflict: themes as deception, speed, fluidity of action, surprise, strength against weakness, tactics that disorient and confuse, and shaping the adversary’s perception of the world.”

Boyd Quotation: “[Periphrasis] Conflict is a fundamental part of human nature. To prevail, and especially war, we must understand  what takes place in a person’s mind.” - Colonel Boyd - In other words (my words), know your adversary! 

Temporal Discrepancy: To create a situation for your adversary when they are not ready for it. 
Time Compression: Time compression, also known as space-time or time-space compression, refers to the creation of a situation that alters the quality of and relationship between real time and perceived time, i.e., between space and time. To compress time in a conflict is to slow the adversary’s perception of time allowing you to be faster. 

Boyds Quotes: On technology in war, “Machines don’t fight wars, terrain doesn’t fight wars. Humans fight wars. You must get into the minds of humans. That is where battles are won.”


Bibliography (Click the link)



No comments: