Joining The Dots - Spoiling Weapon Draws

Gershon Ben Keren

Sun 29th Dec 2013

A fight can have many dimensions to it e.g. a standup fist fight can go to ground, or in the middle of a clinch or grappling phase a knife can get pulled etc. Whilst there is a purpose to teaching ground fighting/survival as being something that starts and remains on the ground, just as there are good reasons to teach standup fighting without grappling and groundwork, at some point the transitions between these dimensions need to be taught. One of the most important transitions to train in reality based self-defense is when a weapon is introduced to the fight; as...Click To Read More

Training With Heroes

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 23rd Dec 2013

Over the years of teaching, I’ve had students tell me of their real-life altercations, and how they used what they learnt in class to survive an assault; some are made up (or so it would seem), some are exaggerated and others are the real deal. I normally discount accounts that contain too many details e.g. I threw a left elbow, then a right knee, and I noticed that his weight was on the left leg, so I swept it etc. as recalling exactly what happened, to the minutest detail is an extraordinary feat, after having been involved in such and...Click To Read More

Secrets

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 16th Dec 2013

The Importance of “Secrets” On Saturday I taught Module 1 of the SEPS Women’s Self Defense Program, which focused on rape and sexual assaults. Although it wasn’t my intention to talk about the ways that Sexual Predators, keep their victims from telling people what has happened to them, the discussion section of the module resulted in me explaining some of the methods that they use. I used the example of a victim being raped by the best friend of their partner/boyfriend in their own home – statistically, women are most likely to be assaulted by people they know, in their own...Click To Read More

Disrupt, Damage, Destroy, Disengage

Gershon Ben Keren

Sun 8th Dec 2013

Physical violence never just happens. However for many people the early stages of a conflict, when it is still in its verbal – Pre-Conflict – stage, are taken up with trying to assess the situation: trying to understand the reasons why the conflict occurred in the first place, trying to overcome denial (that this is really happening to us) and often wondering why nobody witnessing the incident is intervening on our behalf etc. These are all things worth considering but not in this exact instance. In the first stages of a potentially violent altercation there are practical things to do,...Click To Read More

Warning Signs

Gershon Ben Keren

Sun 1st Dec 2013

Most physically violent encounters are preceded by an aggressor posturing. Most of us have seen, or encountered this, where the person juts their chin forward, shouts obscenities, makes threats, and spreads their arms wide. Posturing is a clear indication that someone is considering physically harming us, however in and of itself it doesn’t indicate that a person is ready to make an assault. Posturing serves two basic purposes: one, to intimidate the target, and cause them to either back away or become too scared to be able to respond to any physical attack (literally freezing the person into inaction), and...Click To Read More