This is a great way to learn more about Tony Blauer’s system.

Those in the Manchester, England area can check out PDR Manchester

In Denmark we have Terje Søgaard Theiss and PDR-Denmark

In Rochester, NY area Ryan Fredericks has Close Quarters Combat New York

Also in the New England area we have Active Defense Personal Training ran by Jake Steinmann

And one last one is NOVA Self Defense located in Arlington, VA.

And of course there is me and Combating Violence, located in Moses Lake, WA

These are just a few of the PDR coaches out there. As mentioned, check the PDR Team web site for a complete list

If your answer is “no” then Tony Blauer has a video that can help you out. Actually Tony has a lot of good videos but the one on this subject is “Be a Good Bad Guy, Secrets to Great Role-Playing“. Now this isn’t your D&D type of role-playing, but rather tips on how an attacker should behave in order to help people learn self-defense tactics.

This is a short DVD at only 35 minutes, but Tony gives enough information to get you started. He points out the importance of how good role-playing helps the defender learn to spot pre-contact cues, learn to spot openings, and know how an attacker will respond to your tactics, just to name a few things. Tony and his instructor show both good and bad role-playing to give you an idea of not only what you should do, but what you shouldn’t do. The DVD moves along at a pretty good pace and as such it is one you should watch a couple of times to absorb.

Is the DVD for everyone? I would suggest it if you teach self-defense courses, and to those that are just interested in the subject on role-playing a bad guy. If you often help out in teaching self-defense and serve as an attacker then it is something you might want to check out too.

Look, the Bible can be very complicated at times, especially when dealing with the Old Testament and various translations from the Greek and Hebrew languages. It is very easy to go into the Bible, pull out a couple of lines and say “Look how foolish this is! They believe in unicorns! They say the wife of a deceased husband should have sex with all of his brothers (it really doesn’t say, that last part is taken out of context from the laws of Levirate marriage).!”

If one is going to make any of those claims, or others, as examples as to what Christians or other religious groups belief, please do your homework. You should research the word “re’em” or how “sa‘ir” was translated into satyr in the King’s James version of the bible (sa‘ir is referring to wild goats, not a half-man/half-beast creature).

Once you do your research you can actually start to make an argument based on reason and logic. Just remember reason and logic cannot prove or disprove God as you are talking about faith. Lastly, don’t tell me you know all this stuff because your parents were “born-again Christians”. That is a logical fallacy of an argument if I ever heard one. My mom taught Sunday school but I won’t use that as a basis for defending my arguments.

Okay, enough for the sarcasm. Netflix raised their rates so I went streaming only and will get DVD’s/Blu-Ray discs as needed from Redbox. At the old rates I might have saved a little bit of money by doing this earlier. With the new rates it is a no brainer on saving some cash.

So thanks for helping me save some money and give a little extra cash to one of your competitors.

To address this situation Rory Miller has released a book called “Facing Violence”. To begin to have complete training in self-defense Rory states that seven elements have to be addressed, which he does in seven chapters

1. Legal and Ethical
2. Violence Dynamics
3. Avoidance
4. Counter-Ambush
5. The Freeze
6. The Fight
7. After

You should notice that “The Fight”, what the majority of people train for in self-defense, doesn’t take place to chapter 6. Have you ever discussed legal and ethical issues in your training? Have you ever discussed or trained in any of the areas other then “the fight”? If not, stop and think about your training for a few minutes.

I won’t go into a breakdown on each chapter. If you are looking for then read Jake Steinmann’s review over on An Honest Philosophy. Instead I’ve speak on a couple of chapters that really stuck out for me.

First the chapter on avoidance, which is highly neglected area in most self-defense training. From talking about absence (i.e. not being there to start), escape and evasion, to de-escalation, Rory covers a lot of material. One of the best parts was on how to scan a room upon entering. This is actually the one chapter that makes me suggest the book to everyone, even those that don’t study or have an interest in self-defense, just a lot of good information.

The last chapter on After deals with the subject just as it sounds, what happens after the fight? What should you do? What could happen to you? What could be running through your mind? This chapter made me stop and go “Hmm” more then any other. Again this is one of those areas that rarely gets talked about in self-defense training but should. Heaven forbid you ever act in self-defense and end up serious hurting or killing someone, you should have an idea of what could happen to you legally and emotionally.

Overall I really enjoyed this book, much like I did his first one “Meditations on Violence” (a must read book). Rory has a writing style that I find enjoyable to read, offers tons of good information, and I find it ties in nicely with the training I’ve received from Tony Blauer and my karate instructor Rich Pelletier. If your training involves anywhere around self-defense, either as an instructor or student, then this book should be on your required reading list. You can purchase Facing Violence from one of these locations:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

YMAA

Knife Attack

Husband attacks wife with a knife

Bouncer Stabbing

Another stabbing

Tony put in time, effort, and money to develop High Gear, and it gets great reviews from those that have used the gear. As often happens once something become successful, imitators will move into the market. One such imitator is Spartan. Before going into the history behind Spartan, lets look  at some pictures. First one is from Close Quarters Combat New York:

Yes you should notice some similar things. Some minor cosmetic differences in the helmet but other then that it is very easy to think they are from the same person.

Tony Blauer also offered a picture showing what the other side of the two look like side by side:

Again, some minor cosmetics changes but that is it.

The Spartan product was developed by Marc Joseph. Marc worked for Tony for several years and is his brother-in-law. Marc contracted with a company in Canada the was the original manufacturer of High Gear for Tony before he switched to a company in Virginia, and had them manufacture the Spartan Gear. No wonder the two look so much like each other.

Tony wrote a blog post on the Police One website that is worth reading. There are two threads on Facebook with lots of comments worth reading which can be found here and here.