The Perils Of Blindly Following Top Ten Safety Tips

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 24th Feb 2020

You may have seen a post on social media, which starts with the line, “WRITTEN BY A COP: Everyone should take 5 minutes to read this…”, that contains a list of some ten safety tips/pieces of advice, which apparently have the potential to, “save your life”. This list (and others like it) have been doing the rounds for several years, and every now and again will appear in my news feed, often with comments thanking whoever shared it for doing so. Unfortunately, the points made, paint a misleading picture of what violence looks like, and presents some pretty disastrous solutions...Click To Read More

The Art of Persuasion – Recognizing When You Are Being Played

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 17th Feb 2020

There’s a huge difference between being sold a car and buying one – that’s not to say that those who work in car dealerships are inherently crooked or dishonest - but rather that there are those individuals who are very good at convincing people that the car they don’t really need, is the one that they desperately want; and/or upselling them on features and upgrades that may be nice but don’t really add much to the driving experience. It’s possible to walk away with a genuinely great “deal” and still have it not be the deal you were actually looking...Click To Read More

Groupthink

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 10th Feb 2020

The term “groupthink”, is a term taken by Irving Janis (1972) from George Orwell’s “1984”, that refers to a psychological phenomenon, whereby individuals start to think in the same way for reasons of conformity and harmony, rather than because they have individually come to the consensus decision. When this happens, alternative solutions to problems and issues aren’t considered, because the “ingroup” has already decided what the “correct” solution is and have convinced themselves that everything else is wrong. For much of my early life in the martial arts, the “groupthink” attitude was that striking arts were superior to grappling arts;...Click To Read More

Realistic Depictions: Women's Self Defense

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 3rd Feb 2020

Women’s self-defense isn’t glamorous, isn’t sexy, and it’s certainly not stylish – no real-life violent confrontation or fight ever is. However, if you look at how the martial arts/health and fitness industries present the topic, you might be fooled into thinking that a size 2, 110-pound women, dressed in spandex, without breaking into a sweat - and with every hair in place - can be taught to throw a devastating, knockout punch (against a stereotypical looking criminal) in a 60-minute seminar. Presenting the subject in this way, is both unrealistic and does a complete disservice to the subject area; as...Click To Read More