Pushes: How To Defend Against Them & How To Use Them

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 29th Jan 2018

When it comes to looking at the most common attacks we are likely to face, there really are no reliable statistics to go on. A small UK police force, once collected this data over a short period of time, and presented a list of the top 10 most common “street” attacks, however this was a fairly crude piece of analysis and left many unanswered questions e.g. were the attacks evenly split, or did the top three (for example), account for 90% of the attacks? Was there a regional bias? What about unreported attacks and assaults – would these have skewed...Click To Read More

Slow In Fast Out

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 22nd Jan 2018

On Friday, I gave a training session to one of our corporate clients on transport security e.g. how to safely navigate subways, bus terminals, parking lots, and similar. One of the subject areas I covered was pickpockets, and as part of my presentation included CCTV footage of some at “work”, as they committed their crimes. Whenever I show this type of footage, people are amazed at the speed and audacity of these criminals, and often ask for me to rewind and show the footage again; because even though they knew, who and what they were looking at, the actual moment...Click To Read More

Fear As Context

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 15th Jan 2018

Fear is an emotion (not a feeling), and it provides us with the context for understanding what is happening in our environment. Recognizing this is key to understanding how Situational Awareness works in real-life situations. Awareness isn’t by default a conscious process; it can’t be. Consciously, we can only focus on one thing at a time – our brain in this mode can’t multi-task - and this is the very opposite of “awareness”, which requires us to be able to keep track of the many different things that may be happening in our environment. Our subconscious processes work faster than...Click To Read More

Finding Your Way

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 8th Jan 2018

I’ve been practicing martial arts since I was 8 years old, and for as long as I can remember I have been interested and fascinated by them. My philosophy, even as a reality-based self-defense practitioner and instructor, remains a largely “martial arts” one: that we each have our own individual journey and way, and that nobody has the right to dictate to you that their way, has to be yours e.g. if you want to cross-train your Krav Maga with Karate, BJJ, Muay Thai, Judo, etc. that is your way, and nobody can tell you that you are wrong to...Click To Read More

Roles and Relationships in Multiple Assailant Scenarios

Gershon Ben Keren

Tue 2nd Jan 2018

Often when we look at the issues, problems, and complexities of multiple assailant scenarios, we look at such incidents from our own perspective, rather than from that of the group that we are facing. This is both natural, and understandable. However, if we can understand the dynamics of the group, the relationships between its members, and the different roles they may play/adopt, we may be able to enhance and improve our tactical responses to such scenarios. Whilst our physical tactics, might tell us to operate in one way, our “social tactics” may suggest a better and more effective way. It...Click To Read More