Modern Self Defense

[Baldomero Prado]

MSDCis now the exclusive home of IKMF Krav Maga in the northeast USA. Originally developed for the military sector, Krav Maga is a self-defense system designed to be learned quickly, performed effectively under high stress, and retained long after training.

With its emphasis on crisis prevention and building upon natural responses and reflexes, Krav Maga will have you avoiding crises wherever possible, and ending them in a minimum of time when they do emerge.

Is the pandemic preventing you from training in-person? Or maybe just geographic distance? Not to worry! Private lessons can now be held remotely with a live instructor via High definition video or even via Virtual Reality! Modern Self-Defense Center is the ONLY source offering live, instructor-led virtual reality lessons. Click below to learn more!

Modern Self-Defense Center offers hands-on, effective self-defense training methods for people of all shapes, sizes, and experience levels. Visit us in central Connecticut, or learn self-defense online with our remote lessons and streaming courses for any device, including virtual reality.

A year ago I wrote about my selection of home defense gear. My goal was to avoid the boring formula of showing off gear and listing parts with flashy images to get attention. Instead, I sought to marry gear selection with a coherent and intelligently formed home defense strategy. One that utilized principles of defense in depth and focused on dominating the situation with your mind before engaging with your weapon. I want to expand on that and break down some of the more nuanced concepts behind my strategy.

And so he did with layer after layer of tank pits and mine fields, canalized terrain, interlocking fields of fire for his anti-tank guns, and primary, alternate, contingency, and emergency (PACE) positions. When the Germans advanced in a pincer movement from the North and South around Kursk, the attack was blunted by the fierce resistance and intelligent strategy of the Russians. When the Germans broke through the first lines, they were met with fire from multiple directions by the second line. As the second line was reached, the Russians could safely retreat to even more deadly interlocking fields of fire at the third line. By the time the Germans reached the third line, they were committed, and the Russians had time to route reinforcements and counterattacks that ultimately turned back the invaders.

The OODA loop is an iterative decision making process designed to help pilots deal with uncertainty. It stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. You begin by observing your surroundings and the situation. Then you orient yourself to your observations and understand how you fit into the situation. Based on your observation and orientation, you make a decision on how to act, and then take action. The results of your actions inform your next observation and the loop begins again.

Any home defense pistol should have a light on it, but just as critical is an off body light source. We can use this light to create fields of fire or render avenues of approach less appealing to an attacker. In a hypothetical situation, a persistent intruder comes crashing through your door. In your wisdom and preparedness, you use a 1000 lumen 5.11 Station flashlight to simultaneously establish a field of fire and obscure your actual position. 1000 lumens is powerful, and actually quite painful when viewed directly. Any attempt by an intruder to advance upon this retina searing sun beam would place him across your prepared field of fire and nullify yet another barrier to escalation of force.

We strongly believe that martial arts can be for everyone, regardless of age, gender or experience levels. Throughout all of our programs, students will not only learn the necessary skill sets to protect themselves, we stand behind our realistic and practical approach, confident it will enable every member to achieve greatness and live their best life.

The self-defense skills you will master can truly be life-saving!

However, the other benefits of striving for black belt, like perseverance, never giving up, commitment and self-discipline lead to life-long success.

Be sure to bring a water bottle to your martial arts classes. You will find Revolution Modern Martial Arts in Clayton has martial arts classes for kids and adults that are a great workout and lots of fun! Most students are grinning from ear to ear by the end of the class. We are sure you will be too!

According to the FBI, the number of homicides in the United States in 2019 was 16,425. However, data from the CDC shows that the amount of people who died just from heart disease in 2019 was 659,041. In other words, 40 times as many people in the United States died from Heart disease than from homicide in 2019. (This does not account for other health issues such as complications from diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, etc.)

Take this perspective for what you will, but I would encourage anyone to approach their own health with the seriousness that they would approach ring-fight or a self-defense situation. In doing so, you are truly defending yourself against the biggest threats to your life.

So perhaps what best distinguishes traditional from modern martial arts is rather the relationship that they have with their pasts. Traditional martial arts look to the past as a way of validating their methods, whereas modern martial arts largely ignore their histories and simply look for functional validity in the 21st Century context.

Primarily, modern martial arts have two purposes: combat sports and self-defense. These are not mutually exclusive, but they are distinct pursuits. Certain strategies, such as pulling guard, might be valid for submission grappling, but are not recommended for a street fight.

In France, there are several terminologies to speak of the same thing : self-defense, auto-dfense and dfense personnelle. These 3 terms designate one and the same thing. A definition given in Protegor [1] indicates that it is about the whole of the principles of combat aiming at allowing the physical defense of someone in situation of aggression.

The term self-defense is widely used in the world of martial arts. In French, a possible self-defense translation can be auto-dfense. French people also talk about dfense personnelle (personal defense). Self-defense, auto-dfense and dfense personnelle are therefore synonymous. For my part, I will use in this blog, the term auto-dfense for posts in French and the term self-defense for posts in English.

Self-defense is a concept that was born in our modern societies. By this I mean, societies living in peace where the legislation in force does not allowed violence between citizens by duels or other reckoning. Societies where the carrying of weapons is prohibited or regulated and where the police force is in charge of protecting citizens. Societies where all citizens are equal, where there are no more social castes giving certain categories of people rights over others. The concept of self-defense only makes sense with the laws that go with it (see section Right of self-defense below).

Most of these experts have the same background as Barton-Wright; they practice several European methods such as cane handling, fencing, boxing, savate (French boxing) and wrestling (Greco-Roman style).

Jean-Joseph Renaud himself a follower of jiu-jitsu, wants to be more nuanced than these contemporaries on Japanese martial art. He wrote several posts in the sports magazine La Vie au grand air from 1905 to 1912, then a substantial work in 1913, La Dfense dans la Rue. Like Barton-Wright, Renaud recommends training specific techniques to defend himself over 4 combat distances. He admits that each martial method has its strengths and weaknesses, and that only a coherent mixture can effectively defend oneself in the street ; cane for long range, savate for medium range, boxing for short range and wrestling / jiu-jitsu for close combat and ground fighting. The way dates from the beginning of 1900 and is however similar to Jeet Kune Do of Bruce Lee in the 1960s, or more recently to MMA!

But whether one is an expert in the marital arts, in self-defense or a simple ordinary citizen, the use of violence against an individual to defend oneself is regulated by law. The Right of self-defense, specific to our modern societies, very often makes it possible to legitimize the ancestral warlike practices which mostly come from the battlefield.

The goal of any political association is the conservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, safety and resistance against oppression.

Declaration the Right of Man and of the Citizen, Art. 2, 1789

It seems so natural that an endangered animal will instinctively do everything it can to stay alive. Fleeing or fighting are the natural responses that any animal will use to ensure its defense and therefore its survival.

The concept of self-defense has evolved from the birth of our primitive human societies to our modern societies. Certainly implicit in the first civilizations, today self-defense is a legal concept. It is a supporting fact which will discharge from criminal responsibility the person in self-defense, during a defense committed in his interest or that of others. The notion appeared in French law as early as 1810 in the penal code of Napoleon 1st. Today in France, self-defense is regulated by article 122-5 of the French penal (criminal) code. It allows the use of violence under special conditions to defend oneself or someone else. In summary :

Through the readings of self-defense magazines and manuals from the beginning of the 20th century, one can see the richness of these methods, which are over a century old. Objectives of self-defense methods have hardly changed over time : efficiency, pragmatism, diversity of techniques and global combat are at the center of modern practices like those of the past, to respond to the complex issues of aggression of street.

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