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Knowing the Stakes and Acting Accordingly…

July 2, 2024/0 Comments/in Social-Asocial/by Chris Ranck-Buhr

…is a ton of crap.

Let me rewind a little bit.

The concept of the universality of violence is a key idea that we come back to time and time again, that is, treating all violence as equivalent, with no such thing as “dash”-fighting, e.g., ground-fighting, knife-fighting, stick-fighting, etc. The reason we have to keep coming back to it is because a lot of the time you don’t treat it as equivalent; add a firearm, for example, and you think the stakes are different, and you suddenly want your performance to reflect “how serious” you believe the situation has become. Sometimes you think it’s just social status at stake, or mere wounding. But when the knife or the gun comes out, then it’s different, right? Now you’re playing for keeps, and so you have to get serious. Now you know the stakes and want to act accordingly.

I call bullshit.

Let me put it this way: you really don’t want to know the stakes. You never want to find out if it was life or death, because you know how you’ll know? When they’re killing you, that’s how. That’s a stupid, behind-the-curve way to find out. It’ll be the last thing you ever know. At that point the information will do you no good.

If your mat time is focusing on the idea that your workout partner is “empty-handed” and so the stakes are a mere beating, you’re probably being sloppy with distance and penetration—letting them have too much of the former and not doing enough of the latter. Then, when you add a firearm into the mix, now it’s on, right? Everything changes, you have to tighten up, “get serious”, etc. You know what you’re really doing? You’re training to get yourself killed.

Every time you go physical it’s for keeps. Every time you yank out the fail-safes and go off on someone it’s serious. Every. Single. Time. You need to take every turn you get in training as the “real deal.” Treat your partner as if they were armed with a firearm, or a knife—because they just might be armed with something worse. They might be carrying what I carry:

A bear trap and a pack of wolves.

I never leave home without them. In fact, they’re with me constantly. Now, you might think I’m being funny or losing my mind and to that I would ask that you review any video you have of instructors free practicing. Notice that once it starts, there is no escape. The reaction partner doesn’t get the opportunity to do much of anything other than react, fall, and get torn apart.

This is what I think of when someone asks me if I’m a sheep, a wolf, or a sheepdog. (Actually, the first thing I think of is that I’m Homo sapiens, a human being, something much, much worse than any of the above. But then, we’re all human and probably far too close to it to see just how incredibly powerful an animal we are. Hands-down the apex predator of the entire planet. But I digress.)

So, if I have to pick a different animal, I’ll pick the way it feels when I free practice—like a bear trap and a pack of wolves. The trap set, powerful springs straining beneath a hasty cover of leaves and forest detritus, and a pack of lean, tawny wolves circling in the shadows. Once the trap is sprung, there is no escape—after the steel jaws of the initial strike splinter bone and sunder flesh, the wolves are free to tear the crippled person to pieces.

Why does instructor free practice look like this? Because the instructor knows the stakes ahead of time. It’s all or nothing, every time. And once that trap is sprung, there is no escape. Starting right now, here are three things you can do to get there:

– Throw out the idea that the stakes are variable.

Treat every turn on the mats as if your partner has a knife, or a firearm, or, worst-case-scenario, a bear trap and a pack of wolves.

– Be the bear trap and the pack of wolves.

Once you start, it’s all about you. They get to do nothing but react, fall, and get torn to pieces. They don’t get to stagger back. They don’t get to roll away. Get inside and stay there, right on top of them—the maximum distance between the two of you should never be greater than one step/strike. Ideally, you’ll be pretty much torso-to-torso the entire time. Make “there is no escape” your personal violence motto—and then make it a reality.

– Work on making universality a reality for you.

Violence is not a bunch of disparate things all duct-taped together into an unwieldy Frankenmass. It’s a singularity. It’s just one thing. It has a single use. You can’t dial it up and down, “go easy” or be nice. You do not inflict it upon the “unarmed” man any differently than you would an armed one. (Think about how dangerous you are, naked, with nothing but your bare hands and intent. As dangerous as a steel bear trap and a pack of hungry wolves, perhaps?)

You need to walk into every mat session with these three things in mind because you need to act identically in every violent situation—spring the trap and maul at will. Every free practice should feel the same—guns, knives, batons or not. If it feels different with the gun, if it feels stressful or “more real”, you’re missing the point when it’s not there—it means you’re not taking any of the rest of it as seriously as you should. The obvious, projected intent of the firearm is taking you where you should be all the time in your free practice. Buckle down, focus, and free practice to make the tool in the hand truly immaterial—get the job done so that it really doesn’t matter what they have, even if it’s a bear trap and a pack of wolves.

— Chris Ranck-Buhr (from 2007)

It’s Not About Naughty or Nice

June 25, 2024/0 Comments/in Social-Asocial/by Chris Ranck-Buhr

It’s about what works & survival. Period.

I was recently reading an article on “self-defense” in which the author was speaking of violence as if you could pick and choose the level of seriousness of the interaction, e.g., if they just want to “kick your ass” you kick their ass back, not really hurting them, but teaching them a lesson. If they’re a little more serious, then so are you—and if they want to kill you, well, that’s the only time you’re going to use certain serious techniques and targets like eyes, throat, and so on.

This idea illustrates a fantasy disconnect between fighting and violence, one that deserves a fantasy name: I like to refer to it as “dialing in your Spidey-power.” (With apologies to Stan Lee & Steve Ditko.) It’s the idea that you can choose to hit someone with, say, 60% of what you’ve got—and that you’ll only ever hit someone with 100% when your life depends on it. It’s being able to look at an impending “fight” and say, “Well, they’re not really serious, so I’ll dial my Spidey-power down to 50%,” and then sock them hard, but not too hard, because, after all, you don’t want to kill them, right?

Here’s the problem: holding back can get you killed. There are many ways to hold back:

1) You can wait and see to try and suss out what their intentions are,

2) You can make certain targets off limits because wrecking them is awful (you’ll never hear me say otherwise)—like the eyes or breaking a knee, both permanent, crippling disabilities, and/or

3) You can “go easy” on them by not striking as hard as you can.

Any one of these leads directly to reduced effectiveness, poor results, and in the worst case, can get you killed.

The idea that you can suss out their intentions is a fantastical delusion. If you don’t have psychic powers (and my guess is… wait for it… you don’t) or know the evil that lurks in the hearts of men like the Shadow does, then you’re screwed. You’ll know they want to kill you because, well, they’re busy doing it. That is not the time to find out. In fact, it’s never a good time to find out, right?

Making targets off limits ahead of time (“I’ll never go after the eyes,”) will give you a hesitating hiccup if your next—and only—opportunity is that target. You will stop. And try to get restarted. If you’re lucky, it means nothing. If you’re unlucky, the opportunity is gone and you just got stabbed/shot/whatever (perhaps again) and you just better hope they got it wrong, too.

You always want to strike as hard as you can. Always—as hard as you can. “Holding back” reduces the chance of injury. Now we’re into the realm of slapping each other around, pissing people off, and delivering nonspecific, superficial trauma that is neither a persistent disability nor spinal reflex-inducing. It’s wasted motion that lets them know it’s on.

The author did believe, however, that in a real worst-case scenario a magical transformation would occur—that even though you’d been neutering and watering down your training by waiting, making targets off limits and slapping at them, you could suddenly rise to the occasion of your impending murder by crushing the throat or tearing out an eye with full force and effort.

That’s a neat idea, but it flies in the face of “you do what you train.”

So, to that point, how does the way we train serve you? It would seem, on the surface, that we onlytrain for the worst-case scenario, that to use what you know in any other situation would be like using dynamite to open your car door.

Let’s put it this way: the “worst-case scenario” encompasses and includes all other possible scenarios; going in purely to cause serious injury, put the person down and then pile it on (e.g., start kicking a “helpless” person on the ground) covers, handles, and takes care of anything and everything they may have wanted to do to you.

But the real beauty is that you can stop at any time. You’ll typically do this the moment you recognize that they’re nonfunctional. Let’s say you start out by breaking their jaw at the TMJ. You get the minimum expected reaction—they turn slightly, somehow keeping their feet. You come back with a shot to the groin and get a HUGE reaction, they go down face-first and try to curl up into a fetal position. You break their ribs and then strike to the side of their neck, knocking them unconscious. At this point you recognize that they are nonfunctional (to your satisfaction) and stop.

(Notice that I didn’t mention any techniques or tools—that’s because they don’t matter. Results matter.)

This sequence could have been different at each node of injury—you break their jaw and they spin around three times and lie down, out cold; you stop when they go fetal after the groin strike; you stop after breaking the ribs because as far as you’re concerned, your read on them is “done.” You also know how to carry it to a more final conclusion with a stomp to the neck or throat. But always as an informed choice—not out of desperation, and not after having been trained that it is “wrong” or morally less-than.

You also know how to start right off with the eyes, throat, or a broken neck—but again, as a conscious choice. If killing is what will see you through, you will kill them. If killing is not appropriate, you can still operate because you know where the line is. This is because you are trained in the totality of violence, understanding it for what it is—a single-use tool that does not have an intensity dial on it. You can’t make guns shoot “nice.” And what a bullet does is the purest expression of everything we’re ever talking about. All violence is the same.

So, what does this mean for you?

First and foremost, it means you understand that violence is not a plaything—you won’t goof off with it any more than you would with a loaded firearm. This is healthy. It means you won’t get sucked into stupid (antisocial) shenanigans thinking you can use what you know without any negative repercussions. It means you’re going to be smarter about when to pull it out and use it. This is going to save you tons of wear and tear, not to mention legal troubles.

It means that when you do use it, you’re going to use it the only way you can be sure it works—with no artificial social governors restricting what you can and can’t do. You’ll strike them as hard as you can to cause injury. And you’ll take full advantage of that injury, replicating it into nonfunctionality.

If we view this through a social lens it is savage, brutal, dirty, unfair, and very probably illegal somewhere. This was the essential thesis of the self-defense author. But the question you have to ask yourself is are you going to bet your life the other person is playing by the rules? If they are, well, then you’re a jerk, aren’t you? If they aren’t, you’re dead.

The moral of the story? Screw around with hand-to-hand violence the same way you’d screw around with a firearm—don’t.

— Chris Ranck-Buhr (from 2006)

The Final Word in Context: Murder

June 18, 2024/0 Comments/in Social-Asocial/by Chris Ranck-Buhr

There is a baseline level of confusion about what exactly it is we do; confusion that I am, quite frankly, tired of hashing and rehashing. There are deep-seated biological, psychological, and societal reasons for this confusion—and so it is perfectly natural for it to persist—but as an instructor it frustrates me because treading back and forth across this well-worn rut doesn’t make you any better at doing violence.

The only thing that makes you better is getting the mechanics down pat—where and how to cause injury, and how to best take advantage of the results. Everything else is just mental masturbation that feels important because it tastes like philosophy with a little bit of work mixed in. You think you’re working—while avoiding doing any of the real work that will make you better at violence, namely getting a reaction partner and hitting the mats regularly.

And so I am going to flog a dead horse again today, but my goal is to flay it to the bone (or finally sell it off if you take the original meaning); I want to take it to its absurd, logical conclusion beyond which there is no more jaw-flapping:

What we teach is violence, which is what you need to do when someone wants to murder you.

So where’s the confusion? That seems pretty clear-cut. And that’s what I think, too. But then the questions start:

Why would I ever need to know how to kill someone?

Won’t I get in trouble if I use this in a bar fight?

But what if he’s got X and/or Y and he’s coming at me like so?

How do I do it to someone who knows what you know?

What if he does it first?

Or one of the other infinite facets of the question that tells me you don’t really believe that bigger-faster-stronger doesn’t matter. You want to believe, but you don’t.

Where does all this confusion come from? It arises because you think you know what you’re seeing, but you’re looking at it through the wrong mental porthole. When fists and feet are flying, you see monkey politics. You see competition. It’s all great apes working out dominance and submission. Don’t feel bad—you’re hardwired to recognize and respond to this. It’s only natural. Which is why I want to start the violence conversation off with one person shooting another person to death.

Watching one person kill another with a firearm won’t ping your monkey brain. It’ll go far deeper, down into the lizard-level, the primeval predator level. You’ll see it for what it is: killing. If we look at the underlying mechanics, we have:

kinetic energy delivered through anatomy, wrecking it

And now we have the perfect model to work backwards from. Keep the killing context, keep the wrecked anatomy in mind, and now look at other ways of causing that outcome. A fist, a boot, a pipe, a shin, etc., etc.—it doesn’t matter what as long as it’s doing the work that a bullet does, if only in a generic sense. So now if we line up a series of killings and look at them side-by-side—a shooting, a stabbing, a bludgeoning, getting hit by a car—we should be able to see the clear, underlying principles that govern all of these equally and immutably. Learning how to wield these principles is “getting the mechanics down pat” I mentioned earlier.

All clear, right? No—back to the confusion: you get the gun and the car, but you feel iffy about the pipe and the knife, and downright scoff at the fist, boot, or shin.

Why?

Because you read it with your monkey politics filter and think there’s something you can do about it. “I can’t dodge bullets, but I can block a punch.” This is the ultimate in hubris and sends you down a negative feedback spiral: If you can “handle” a punch, then of course they can “handle” it when you’re trying to do it to them. You’re pissing in your confidence reservoir and your training will look hesitant and spotty. And that’s exactly where your skill will go. You’re thinking that you’re fighting when we really want you doing something completely else.

We are trying to teach you how to kill murderers. Everything that fits that narrow model benefits you. Anything that sounds out of place or silly in that context is useless.

That’s why “murder” is the final word in context. Almost no one knows what to do when that’s what’s up. “Fighting” and “defense” are worthless in that arena—remember that defense wounds are found on corpses and tell the coroner that the person “fought for their life.” You’re not going to fight anyone for your life. You’re going to kill a murderer.

Armed with this new context, let’s look at the common questions:

Why would I ever need to know how to kill someone?

If that someone is a murderer, then ipso facto. It’s like asking, “If drowning can kill me, why train to swim in water?”

Won’t I get in trouble if I use this in a bar fight?

Yes. Yes, you will.

But what if he’s got X and/or Y and he’s coming at me like so?

Would you ask the same question with a gun or a steering wheel in your hand? Of course you laugh, but a crushed throat and a gouged eye don’t care if it was bullets, hood ornaments, or boots that did it. So why should you?

How do I do it to someone who knows what you know?

Injured is injured, dead is dead, regardless of talent or training.

What if he does it first?

Then you have nothing to worry about.

Bigger-faster-stronger?

The murderer doesn’t care—in fact, that’s one reason why he’s successful. And that should inform your thinking on the subject.

Here’s the bottom line: check yourself and stick with what matters. Is your question, your doubt, your worry rooted in the mechanics of injury or is it stuck in monkey politics, in “fighting”? Be honest with yourself. If it’s the mechanics, we can work on that, show you what to do and how to do it. After that it’s on you to hit the mats with a partner and take ownership of it. If it’s competition, monkey politics, or has anything to do with communication or changing behavior, then it’s immaterial and meaningless in the context of killing a murderer.

Because you don’t talk to, try to best, or even fight with murderers. You kill them.

— Chris Ranck-Buhr (from 2006)

Dead Men Tell No Tales

June 11, 2024/0 Comments/in Mindset/by Chris Ranck-Buhr

You can’t learn anything of value from the dead guy.

When we see an act of violence, we feel it in our guts. Our eyes turn to the hapless victim, desperately trying to defend themselves, and a part of us is there, suffering with them. This is what sane, socialized people experience when they see violence—empathy. We can imagine the pain and we empathize with the plight of the victim. This is normal and natural and good. It’s what makes society tick along and keeps us from tearing out each other’s throats at the drop of a hat.

If you spend any time at all worrying about things like violence, that knee-jerk empathy morphs into questions: What could the victim have done differently? How can I keep that from happening to me? The fantasy is that if only you could learn from their mistakes, then what happened to them can’t happen to you.

A neat idea, but much like the dead guy, full of holes.

The only piece of (almost) useful information we can learn from the dead guy is to not be there. I say “almost useful” because it’s stupid-obvious. It works okay when you’re presented with a clear-cut choice—do I escalate or disengage? But it’s stupid when you think about scenarios like workplace shootings. “I’m not coming in today—I feel a shooting coming on.”

Anything you think you could learn from the dead guy’s performance—if he’d just gone for the eye or not stepped back—is pointless because it’s all pretend. It’s make-believe.

It didn’t happen that way.

Someone else in the picture was doing something. Something that worked. Something that got the job done. Something that made the dead guy dead. The winner is the one you’re going to want to look at if you want to learn what works in violence.

Is this a nice, comfortable idea? Hell no. The vast majority of violent video footage also happens to be criminal. And you, not being a criminal, will find it naturally difficult to empathize with the person doing the violence. But that’s the only place where there is anything useful to be learned.

Why? Because it is a record of what works in violence. It’s not pretend, it’s not coulda-woulda-shoulda—it is. When we shift focus from the dead guy to the winner, we leave the world of conjecture and land squarely in the realm of fact. If you’re going to bet your life on something, I don’t recommend you bet on a bunch of opinions or armchair quarterbacking—bet on the facts.

The person doing the violence is using the facts to their advantage. Pay attention to what they’re up to.

The only thing the dead guy can show you is the end result of those facts. And that’s information you already had going in.

— Chris Ranck-Buhr (from 2007)

Training to Wait & See

June 4, 2024/0 Comments/in Violence in the Wild/by Chris Ranck-Buhr

A frequent question we get is, “Okay, I get this whole violence thing, but what if—” and then it’s usually followed by something the other person is thinking of doing, trying to do, or just plain in the middle of doing. This is code for “I don’t want to get hurt.” Well, nobody does. If not getting hurt were something that you could reliably choose, it would be a central part of our training. But it isn’t.

The truth about violence is that you’re going to get punched, kicked, stabbed, whacked, and shot—whether you’re the “winner” or not. Any other outcome, e.g., you walked through it and put your person (or people) down and kept them there without getting a scratch on you, is pure luck. What you can realistically expect as the survivor is to limp out of there alive.

Accepting the reality of the situation ahead of time will save your life. It’ll keep you from quitting right at the point where things are at their worst. Let’s say you are trained in “knife defense”. And then you get stabbed. Your first thought will be omigod I screwed up which will lead to the result of screwing up—death. You’ll be thinking about the result of your mistake—I’m going to die!—instead of what you need to be thinking to survive, primarily take the eye.

Look at the difference there. We have an abstraction versus a concrete action. Which one do you want coming out of you when your life depends on it? It’s also important to note that the people who are best at violence completely ignore the “What’s he up to?” side of the equation; they simply put all their efforts into making violence one-sided, and keep it that way. They wade in and get it done, to the exclusion of all else. And so should you.

Success is our benchmark. We are going to do our best to model the efforts and behaviors of those who are successful at violence—in short, we’re going to act like the survivors. We are obviously not going to act like the dead (that goes without saying), nor are we going to model behaviors and action that we wish were present. Rather than accessing violence the way we wish it worked, we’ll look to reality for our training cues. This is a huge leap into uncomfortable spaces.

It would be really nice if we could impose our collective will upon violent conflict—if waving your hands a certain way meant you couldn’t be stabbed or shot. In a lot of ways, this is the definition of magic, and in many places such training is elevated to the status of superstitious tradition. You’d be best served to never forget that the intersection of magic and reality is often tragedy.

Instead of training the way we wish it were, we’re going to train the way it is. We’re going to start at the point of injury, and let the other person worry about waiting and seeing. They can wait and see what you’re up to while you do it to them.

Reality is a smog-belching bulldozer with the elves and fairy folk of nice ideas all broken and snarled in its iron treads. If you have a choice—and you do—then put yourself in the driver’s seat, and the other person beneath the blade.

— Chris Ranck-Buhr (from 2006)

Roadblocks, Plateaus, & Epiphanies

May 28, 2024/0 Comments/in Training/by Chris Ranck-Buhr

In thinking about how it felt to learn and process the tool of violence for my own use, I realized there were five distinct phases in the evolution of my thinking and, by extension, my training focus. As my understanding grew, the way I trained changed. Or, I should say, as my understanding became more simplified and streamlined, so did the way I trained.

Phase 1: Approaching the material from a fantasy angle

I originally came from a martial arts background, and so approached the new material as merely a “super-rugged” martial art. Or all martial arts crammed into one. We all bring our own appetite to the table; an all-in-one approach is what I was seeking on my martial arts vision quest because that is what I’d been led to believe was required when someone wants to kill you.

I was also well “informed” by the mass media. I was sure that the real deal would go down like the climax of a Schwarzenegger film. I was looking to square off and trade blows until I could pull out a really cool technique and impale my foe on a protruding fuel rod from a nuclear reactor. And then coolly declaim a pithy one-liner. Really.

I wanted to train for a duel, and was acutely interested in countering whatever it was he had in store for me while being able to get inside. What exactly would happen in there I had no real idea. But I did have the fantasies.

My mat time reflected my thinking; I wanted to look cool with all kinds of whippy-spinny crap. I went fast and slapped my reaction partners around. I probably wasn’t a lot of fun to work with. (Sorry, Joe!)

Phase 2: A more realistic angle, but not quite

I realized that movies and comic books were crap when it comes to useful instruction in violence—they require violence to be dramatic and climactic for effect. Real violence, in contrast, was often ugly, brutish, and short.

All that realization did for me was to make me aware of my own insufficiencies; it made me overly troubled by what the other person was up to. I sought to prepare for all contingencies. I worked over scenario after scenario in my head, trying vainly to cover every possible “what if”.

I sought ultimate, unassailable superiority as a palliative for my anxiety. I worked hard on “advanced” techniques, e.g., ever fancier joint breaks and throws.

Phase 3: Realizing he’s not my problem, I’m his problem

It’s great to say it—it’s another thing entirely to live it. I knew it was true, but I still wasn’t comfortable owning that ideal. I had a better grip on what was up, but I was still plagued by nagging concerns over what he might be up to. It was a lot of “Okay, I got that, but what if—”

This was the first time in my training where I began to concentrate on injuring him as a priority above and beyond what he was doing or what I thought would look cool. My mat time started to get ugly in the good way. (Sorry, Joe! But not really.)

Phase 4: Arriving at the singularity of violence

This is where it all came together. This is where I realized that all the seemingly disparate elements of violence were really just aspects of the same thing—every strike, joint break, and throw, with and without tools, were all one thing: injuring the person. This is where I made the shift from “fighting” into “injuring”. And it only took me 11 years!

This change came, to a large degree, from nine years of teaching. But it also came from anxiety fatigue. I was tired of worrying. I was tired of getting all tied up in knots over every little thing that might go wrong. The possibilities for fatal screwups were infinite; in the end it was just easier to let all of that go and focus on breaking the person. I realized I was my own worst enemy and decided to chuck it all and become the thing I feared most:

A person so narrowly dedicated to destruction that only death could stop me.

While dispatching the “bad guy” with flair and uncounterable aplomb is a nice idea, it’s nowhere near as good as beating the #%&! out of him. A solid, pedestrian game-ender to the groin is worth 10,000 of the fanciest techniques.

I began to own and live the truth that all targets are equal, as are all injuries; my workouts slowed and became inexorable. I simply took what I wanted. I laughed with unrestrained pleasure when people tried to grapple me, I taunted them openly as they tried to pin me, “Are you sure you got me?” Then I grabbed them by something unexpectedly fragile and dragged them screaming into my serial injury cave. Eyes and mouth wide, fingernails splintering on the stones as they vanished into darkness.

It was all about me all the time, and I was never sorry again.

Phase 5: Approaching the material from a sociopathic angle

The moral of the story? It’s not about what the #%&! he’s got or what the #%&! he wants to do—it’s about getting over there and beating the living #%&! out of him.

So what’s this mean for you?

It took me 11 years because there was no one there to tell me any different. We tell you how it goes down right now, we give you the tools to make it work and we show you how to swing those tools. You get the benefit of every last second we spent on the mats, every last second we spent thinking about it. Instead of making you relive every second we spent, we give you the end result. We’re here to tell you different.

So instead of reinventing the wheel, all you have to do is grab a body and hit the mats.

— Chris Ranck-Buhr (from 2006)

*I’m not sure why I chose to use grawlix instead of “fuck”—I’ve never shied away from expletives, especially such a venerable, storied, and versatile one. Maybe I just woke up soft that day.

The Hardest Lesson

May 21, 2024/0 Comments/in Violence in the Wild/by Chris Ranck-Buhr

There is an issue in violence that everything we do in training points to, but very few people, if anyone, ever gets. We have paid lip service to it, talked around it, and indirectly hinted at it. Today is the day it gets dragged out into the open.

You’ve heard us say that the one doing the violence prevails, and you’ve probably seen this adage in action (hopefully only on video). You buy the logic of it, see the truth of it stitched across the entire swath of human history. But have you ever really thought about what that means for you?

In poker they say that if you sit down at the table and don’t know who the sucker is, it’s you. If you find yourself there, as the sucker, it’s best to get out before the first card hits the table. In violence, if you’re not the most dangerous person in the room, you’re the victim.

So really, the end-goal of all training, all the time on the mats, every last millisecond of leg dynamics—even reading this post—is to become the most dangerous person in the room. Period. Wherever you go, no matter who you’re surrounded by, you need to be the most dangerous person there. The One person who, if you were to be caught on video doing violence, would stand out for directness, ferocity, and brutality. The One obvious person in the frame who is in control, making everyone else want to get away from them—and breaking people at will. The One who would make even a casual observer blanch and crap their pants. You want to be the center of the storm.

Right now you’re nodding in agreement. You got it, this is nothing new. That’s you to a T. It’s where you live, it’s how you roll, because you’re dedicated to living an embarrassingly long life and dying in bed surrounded by your geriatric great-grandchildren with your third baboon heart beating in your chest.

Here comes the hard part, the hardest lesson, because violence has nothing to do with being dedicated to living—it has everything to do with being dedicated to hurting, crippling, and killing people. With being The One person there who wants to do those things more than anyone else in the room.

Who do we know of who pulled off this trick recently? That’s right—the most recent mass shooter.* His use of the tool of violence was stunning in its base utility—it was textbook. So much so it is now your required reading. He was everything I laid out above, the one you were nodding enthusiastically to just a moment ago. Feels different now, doesn’t it?

If you really got it, if you really understood what we’re up to and up against here, it wouldn’t feel different at all. You would nod, just not enthusiastically. You’d do it with a grim determination. See, it’s kind of cool to whisper to yourself, “I’m the most dangerous person in the room.” It puffs you up, makes you feel like the protagonist in a spy thriller.

The reality of that statement ain’t so nice—or socially acceptable. Because what you’re really saying is “I’m like the most recent mass shooter.” The center of the storm, with unflinching intent, making everyone want to get away from you rather than go after you, delivering multiple injuries per person, dropping them and then making sure they don’t get up. If you had read the preceding sentence before I mentioned mass shootings, you’d think it was pretty cool. You’d think, “That’s me.” But not now. Now you’re wrestling with it. Sickened by the idea. That’s why it’s the hardest lesson.

It’s not only hard to learn—most people don’t want to learn it. If you’re having trouble with it, then that’s your biggest problem with training for violence—not how good or bad your cross step is, or where exactly the spleen is or not knowing enough base leverages. Because if you walk into the room and you don’t know who’s the most dangerous person, it sure as hell isn’t you.

— Chris Ranck-Buhr (from 2007)

*Virginia Tech shooting, April 16, 2007—32 dead, 17 wounded, with nothing but two pistols.

Access the Meat

May 14, 2024/1 Comment/in Competition/by Chris Ranck-Buhr

Choosing the level of interaction in violent conflict.

One of the key features of the sociopath is that they see everyone as essentially the same—a piece of meat to be butchered. Sociopaths look at everyone this way, regardless of personality, skill, or ability: a big strong guy with a black belt looks the same as a sleeping child. The sociopath understands that both their skulls open the same way, their eyes yield to equal pressure, and they both die when their throats are cut.

The sociopath disregards the things that set them apart, and won’t waste time interfacing with their personalities, or the big strong guy’s black belt skill, or his massive muscles. They will only concentrate on the things that both victims are susceptible to. In order to use violence successfully, in order to have an equal chance of survival, so must you. Don’t get caught in the sucker’s game of interfacing at higher levels, of showing respect for the person, their skills, or physical power. Go straight for the meat.

The Four Levels of Interaction

As a person – social

This is trying to change behavior, mood, or motivation. This is where most people would like to keep the situation.

As a skill set – antisocial

This is trying to out-wrestle him, or out-technique him in a 90-mile-an-hour chess game. This is a duel in which the most skilled practitioner will typically win. It is “civilized violence” and seen as “fighting fair”.

As an animal (via strength, speed, stamina) – antisocial

This is pitting your strength against his, trying to out-maneuver or out-last him, going blow for blow—this typically looks pretty brutal and ugly. A lot of struggle where the best specimen prevails. This is seen as brutish, desperate, and decidedly “uncivilized”.

As a piece of meat – asocial

This is regarding him as a physical object beholden to the natural laws of the universe. Paying no heed to the person, the skill, or the ability. This is seen as almost universally “bad”—people who do this naturally are classified as “evil” in a social setting. This is interfacing with him as a thing that can be broken down and rendered nonfunctional.

It’s interesting to note that these four levels correspond to different ranges and comfort zones.

Interfacing with the person can be done from across the street, a distance from trouble where most people feel safe (they can always take off running if it gets out of hand).

Interfacing with his skill set is almost always done at a pace away, with the contestants circling to get a feel for their opponent’s skill level, feinting and parrying and otherwise dancing around. It’s all about giving yourself enough room to see what he’s doing and try to counter it.

Interfacing with his physical abilities is done skin-to-skin, but that’s as deep as it goes.

Interfacing with the frailties of the flesh is done beneath the skin—true injury is about disregarding the sanctity of the body and simply destroying it.

What-ifs, Buts and Maybes

The kinds of questions people ask during training can tell you a lot about where their head is at and at which level they’re stuck on. The important thing to note is that none of their worries have any impact on injury whatsoever.

The “Socialist”

The person who is uncomfortable with the whole idea of conflict will ask questions that dance around the issue from across the street, like, “How can I tell if he wants to hurt me?” and such.

The Duelist

People trained in martial arts usually get hung up on interfacing with his skill. They’ll ask the most what-ifs, like, “What if he throws a spinning back kick?”, “What if he counters my joint lock?” and “What if he’s holding the knife like this?” They are also overly concerned about defensive reactions like blocking and counters—both in doing it and worrying about having it done to them.

The Animal

Untrained people who can come to terms with the idea of conflict usually end up fixated on physical attributes. For smaller, less athletic people it manifests as worry about how they’ll fare against bigger, stronger, faster adversaries; big, strong folks have the opposite problem—they typically believe they cannot be defeated by “lesser” beings.

Sociopaths & Butchers

Almost no one shows up comfortable with injury as a starting point.

Another interesting thing to note is that progressing through the levels is not linear. Socialists don’t usually walk through the others to arrive at injury. They go one of two ways—either they dig in their heels and cram their heads into the sand and will never, ever cross the street, or they go straight from where they are to injury (though sometimes with a short stopover at the animal level).

Duelists are another thing entirely. It is often very difficult to wean them off of the idea that they need to respect and/or thwart his skill before they can be effective. If they do move on, it’s usually with a long stopover at the animal level. His skill bothered them before; now they’ve transferred that worry to his physical abilities. Those who have taken the long walk from skill to animal to injury are typically the most evangelical about the whole process. (As opposed to those who went straight from social to injury. They usually don’t see the whole experience as that big of a deal.)

Animals are easier to nudge into interfacing directly with the meat of the matter. They’re pretty close, conceptually, and they just need to be shown how to direct their efforts away from strong points and into the weak ones. (Instead of going strength-to-strength, go strength-to-eyeball.)

If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume that you don’t have a problem with violence in a general sense, that you’re not hung up on the social aspects from across the street. So where are your hang-ups? What are you stuck on? Are you worried about what he’ll do if he’s skilled? Or bigger-stronger-faster? Be honest with yourself. You’re letting yourself down if you lie—you’re not going to get any more effective that way.

If the idea of going after a trained Goliath makes you sweat (more than the usual, healthy amount, I mean) then you need to buckle down and study up on injury. Seek out photos of sports injuries (for broken joints and twisted, nonfunctioning limbs). Autopsy reports from non-firearm killings—especially where the victim was beaten to death—are illuminating. Troll the internet for videos of prison fights and violent muggings. Essentially, look for anything where the survivor is interacting with the other person as a piece of meat.

You’ll be repulsed and comforted simultaneously.

– Chris Ranck-Buhr (from 2006)

Kill It Simple, Stupid

May 7, 2024/0 Comments/in Violence in the Wild/by Chris Ranck-Buhr

Violence is simple.

How simple is it? We can answer that with two more questions:

1) How is it that untrained people prevail? and

2) How is it that untrained people prevail over trained people?

Because for all their blissful naïveté, the victorious untrained have a firm grip on the tool of violence. This fact stands because violence is much simpler than people would have you believe; it’s much simpler than you want to believe. The idea that violence is difficult and requires years of training—and that years of training will protect you from the untrained—are comfortable, comforting thoughts. I read somewhere once that the little lies we tell ourselves on a daily basis, the small untruths that shape our subjective realities, are what keep us happy. That the people who see the world and themselves as it “really is” are the clinically depressed. Accepting the simplicity of violence is an unpalatable dose of hard reality. To learn that you are never immune and that someone who is completely and conspicuously untrained can murder you is acutely unsettling. Even depressing.

If, that is, you’re a blood-bucket-is-half-empty kind of person.

I like to look at it from the other side—the blood bucket is half full, and I’m going to use him to fill it the rest of the way up. If violence is so simple that even the untrained can use it and prevail, then even a little bit of training is going to make you really, really good at it. And if you’re reading this, you’ve already had a lotta bit of training. You’re way better than you think, if only you’d let yourself be. (To wit: You know far more about wrecking people than a serial killer does. The only thing that could possibly hold you back is a lack of intent; what the serial killer lacks in technique he more than makes up for with a monomaniacal will to get the job done at all costs. But you already knew that.)

Violence is much simpler, even, than we present it to be. We have spent a lot of time teasing out the common elements and finding ways to communicate them to you. It comes across as a ton of material that people mistakenly believe they must master before they can be effective. For all that, we’re only ever really talking about the rock to the head… and what is the rock to the head but a big hunk of kinetic energy driven through a vulnerable target?

Everything else is just detail work, an exploration of all possible combinations and configurations for using your body as a human wrecking machine, with and without snap-on tools. Violence seems complicated if you think this detail work is required to be effective, if you think you need a black belt before you can seriously injure someone.

Forget everything you think you know about how it should go down: violence is you injuring people. It’s throwing yourself at them to break things inside of them—you are the bull in their anatomical china shop. Violence is you violating every tenet of polite society and destroying the only thing that any of us ever really own.

It’s simpler than you think because it has nothing to do with thinking.

Violence is all in the doing.

— Chris Ranck-Buhr (from 2006)

Cry Foul and Let Slip the Dogs of War

April 30, 2024/0 Comments/in Injury/by Chris Ranck-Buhr

Using UFC fouls as the basis for operational success in violence.

Contrary to popular belief, combat sports are not about injury. In fact, they go to great lengths to make the contest as “safe” as possible so that competitors can have lucrative careers that generate profits for a good chunk of time. A rotating stable of fighters makes more money than having people get functionally retired every time they lose a 10-second match. The 27 fouls in the UFC are specifically designed to make debilitating injury the least likely outcome—for our purposes, this makes the list a pretty good roadmap for what to do first in violence. It turns out that not all the fouls are useful guideposts; some are definite yesses, fewer are iffy, and two are flat-out wrong. Here they are, with commentary:

DEFINITE YESSES

2. Eye gouging of any kind.
9. Fingers outstretched toward an opponent’s face/eyes.
The eyes are one of the three targets that don’t require body weight for serious injury. A pinky nail across the cornea is all that’s needed to blind someone. And to quote Master Derrick, “Violence is the race for the eye.”

5. Hair pulling.
See 19, below.

6. Spiking an opponent to the canvas on his head or neck.
Your doctor would tell you to never, ever do this. Especially if by “canvas” you mean “parking lot”.

7. Strikes to the spine or the back of the head.
‘Nuff said.

8. Throat strikes of any kind, and/or grabbing the trachea.
The trachea is the second of three that do not require body weight for injury; grip strength gets it done.

10. Downward-pointing elbow strike (12 o’clock to 6 o’clock strike).
This is contraindicated due to “accidental” body weight transfer. Downward means gravity-assisted, which means falling body weight; using the elbow rather than the lower arm or hand means the removal of strength as a factor. This changes it from a punch to a strike (as we define it). The point of the elbow is the smallest, hardest striking surface. Add it all up and you have people “accidentally” doing an ideal strike. Line it up with a target (oh, like the spine or neck of a grounded person) and you have a guaranteed fight-ender.

11. Groin attacks of any kind.
The groin is the last of the “Anti-Wrasslin’ Trifecta”—no body weight required to cause serious injury. Get a fistful of soft tissue and haul yourself into your next target. Better phrased as “Groin attacks of every kind.”

12. Kneeing and/or kicking the head of a grounded opponent.
13. Stomping a grounded opponent.
Again, the “accidental” inclusion of body weight, driven home by leg strength and front-ended by a part of your body that’s meant for rough business (your foot). All that effort is back-ended by the planet—the body has no way of moving to dissipate the force—meaning all the work comes out inside anatomy. Could result in actual, fight-ending injury.

14. Holding opponent’s gloves or shorts.
Falls under the aegis of 5, above, and 19, below. Useless in isolation, brilliant in conjunction with a throw.

15. Holding or grabbing the fence or ropes with fingers or toes.
Typically employed when stomping or kicking a downed person. Adds leverage and improves follow-through.

16. Small joint “manipulation”.
(Quotes mine.) As long as this is really code for “breaking fingers”, I’m all for it. Personally, if I were going to use code, I’d say something like “forcible removal of all future piano concertos.”

17. Throwing an opponent out of the ring/fighting area.
Okay, bear with me on this one. I take it to mean “throwing into a not-nice place” like a fire hydrant. Or a plate glass window. Or traffic.

19. Clawing, pinching or twisting the flesh.
By itself, this doesn’t make the cut, as it’s simply painful. As an adjunct to something vicious (like a throw or joint break) it’s wonderful. To the trained operator the human body is like a jumpsuit with handles all over it. Except that the handles are all sewn into the bones…

22. Flagrant disregarding of the referee’s instructions.
Violence is the time to jettison those pesky social mores. You are free to do as you will, beholden only to the physical laws of the universe.

23. Unsportsmanlike conduct that causes injury to an opponent.
Goes without saying.

24. Attacking an opponent after the bell has sounded the end of the period of unarmed combat.
25. Attacking an opponent on or during the break.
26. Attacking an opponent who is under the care of the referee.
AKA “attacking unexpectedly”. But isn’t that the best time?

27. Interference from a mixed martial artist’s corner or seconds.
Yes, your mates are free to pitch in. Many hands make light work, and all that.

IFFY

1. Butting with the head.
Goes without saying. Can it work? Sure. Ask a Scotsman… from a distance. Is it a good idea? Hardly.

3. Biting or spitting at an opponent.
Three little words: BLOOD-BORNE PATHOGENS. Can it work? Sure. As an omega option. I bet you ten bucks you can figure out something better to do first.

4. Fish hooking.
I actually know a guy who was in a headlock and went for the eyes and missed and ended up fish-hooking the guy instead. It did make the guy let go. This is anecdotal and your mileage may vary. The danger of getting your fingers chewed should dissuade you.

18. Intentionally placing a finger into any orifice or any cut or laceration of an opponent.
Again, this is just discomfort. But if we take it to mean “rolling ‘em over with a broken arm” then I’m all for it.

20. Timidity, including, without limitation, avoiding contact with an opponent, intentionally or consistently dropping the mouthpiece or faking an injury.
This one’s iffy. I take it to mean “social manipulation to gain advantage” (see 24-26, above). But that would only really apply in antisocial situations, wouldn’t it?

FLAT-OUT NO EFFIN’ WAY

21. Using abusive language in the fighting area.
Once you break the social plane and cross over into violence, there is no communication.

AND THE ONE THAT’S NO LONGER A FOUL FOR SOME REASON

X. Throwing in the towel during “competition”.
(Quotes mine.) In violence if you quit, you die. End of story.

— Chris Ranck-Buhr (from 2006, revised 2021)

Tag Archive for: Making the Case for Violence book

Dead Men Tell No Tales

Training to Wait & See

Roadblocks, Plateaus, & Epiphanies

The Hardest Lesson

Kill It Simple, Stupid

Cry Foul and Let Slip the Dogs of War

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