I've been fortunate to make some good connections with the University of Tacoma YMCA and have led five self-defense seminars there over the past few months.  The plan is to continue offering these to members of their facility, open it up to other student groups, then hopefully open it up to the general public, for those living in and around Tacoma, Washington. I wanted to cover somethings I don't always get around to with training.  For one, getting more training is always better. I am not an end all be all for your training, but I am a good filter for gaining an understanding of th ..read more

Almost a year ago to the day I had my worst injury to date.  Tore my biceps tendon and had to have a surgery to repair it.  I am just now easing back into martial arts and am still very cautious about what I'm doing, who I'm working with, a very clearly asserting boundaries in training.  Pointing blame on why this happened doesn't help anything, but what I can do is help you understand the circumstances that led to it so you can hopefully avoid such an epic fail setback.  The day it happened: There were only two people in jiu jitsu class & we didn't really do a warmu ..read more

Teaching dealing with encroachment from strangers at a self defense seminar for employees of a law firm in DC. A girl that attended one of my self defense classes has an issue with man that lives in the same building as her. He always attempts to interact with her and ask questions almost like he is fishing for information as she comes and goes; she is usually alone when this happens and it makes her uncomfortable.  He’s not exactly a stranger; he is kind of an acquaintance-stranger. The other day when she was on her way back to her apartment he said, “Ah, coming back from class?” So ..read more

Finding what training regimen works best for you: I wanted to give insight on two different lines of thought regarding skill training and conditioning within martial arts schools and classes.  I have experienced both sides of this as well as variations in-between. Schools where conditioning is paramount and strongly incorporated into every single class. Schools that are solely skill-based & sport specific that say you should be doing conditioning in your own time. With this option there is inherently conditioning built into sparring/live drills but no general conditioning. Both hav ..read more

How many awareness/street smart blunders can you find in this photo? Comment & describe them in the comment section. I did a women’s self defense corporate seminar in DC for a proactively-thinking street-smart group.  Several of the ladies shared some of their experiences with how they live day-to-day, head on a swivel, maneuvering to avoid individuals that seem sketchy, and for them it is a lifestyle they have already taken to heart.   I was talking about awareness and I asked them, “how many of you talk on the phone or text regularly when you are commuting?” Very few hands we ..read more

Note the body language as I am approaching the vehicle, leaning into the open window (which is open just to reduce glare for the picture). Preferably, keep the windows up if someone is approaching. Girlfriend: “Hey, what do you do when you’re at a stoplight and someone approaches your car?” Me: (sigh, preparing to enter lecture mode) “What happened?” Girlfriend: “A guy came up and started knocking on my window, pointing at his wrist like he was asking for the time when I was at a stoplight.” Me: “OK… what’d you do?” Girlfriend: “I shrugged my shoulders & shook my head like I didn’t k ..read more

I taught an introductory self-defense session for a group of 120 counselors outside of Seattle earlier today and wanted to identify a situation that a lady brought to my attention after the seminar.  One of the concepts I covered was using deception or otherwise lying to facilitate your escape. For the counselors going into a client’s home, I said that if you feel that anything is off or makes you uncomfortable, find a way to remove yourself.  That could be making an excuse, a hasty escape, deescalating, or even lying and using deception, if doing so will result in you getting out o ..read more

We are excited to announce our partnership with Lions Way Martial Arts for our Seattle launch of our self-defense classes! I have been training with Lion's Way under their head coach Skip Scherer in their adult Sambo program for some time now. Lions Way is a great fit for us; we share many of the same core values with respect to offering high-quality, practical training presented in an intelligent and progressive format.   We will be offering a free women's self-defense seminar on April 21st to kickoff our Tacoma and Seattle offerings.  This is the only free session we wi ..read more

This situation has come up several times over the years, and it’s a delicate one.  Something terrible and tragic happens to your significant other, kid, or family member, and it has a devastating emotional effect on the person, in an attempt to be helpful a family member intervenes and suggests getting self-defense training. Should this person jump directly into self-defense training? What I want to urge caution about is when I see a supportive person encouraging and pushing someone in an affected emotional state to get self-defense training shortly after something tragic happens withou ..read more

Yet another gray area that you have to feel out with respect to a stranger attempting to engage you is whether it is better to ignore them or verbally address them.  Both strategies have merit and situations where they will work and be ineffective.   Important factors in my opinion are: What type of attempt is this? How persistent is the person being? Closing distance or being static? ​ I’ll breakdown a recent attempt that was more politely persistent than usual to the point that I almost stopped what I was doing an got drawn in.   Walking back to my car right after a ma ..read more