On This Page:
Actuality vs. Reality | * Adrenal Stress Response | Alpha/Beta Behavior | Anger and Self-Defense | Assertive vs. Aggressive | Attracting trouble | Blame vs. Responsibility | Body Sacrosanct | Bonding Process (Human mating behavior) | * Boundaries | Dealing with difficult people | De-escalation | Economy & Stress Violence | * Getting Attacked | * High Risk Behavior | * Is It REALLY About Self-Defense? | Fear | * Kinds of Violence | Lizard Brain | Mental Preparation | Monkey Brain | * Negotiation Out At The Sharp End | * Post Traumatic Stress Disorder | PTSD: A Personal Journey | Self-Esteem vs. Self-Respect | Problem Neighbors | Sanity in the MA | Staying Out Of Trouble In A Psych Ward | Survivor's guilt | To Fight or Not | Unintended Consequences | Violence: What is it? | Violence Geeks Blog | Violence NEVER Solved Anything ... | Western Ethics and Self-Defense | Bibliography

Violence is a traumatic, life altering experience. Whether you are the victim, the victor or you just survive it, it changes a person forever. That is an established fact... now how it changes someone depends on the person and the resources that he/she finds. Experience has taught us that the wrong resources can be as damaging as no resources at all(1). If not more so.

The fact that violence has such a strong impact on our psyche means that we need to stop and think about it before we find ourselves in the situation. Like Pandora's box, once it is opened, there is no way to put back the plague of woes it has released into our lives. Unfortunately, many people do not realize how much what we think -- and by extension, what we do -- puts us in danger of violence.

Actuality vs. Reality (personal reality that is)
Have you ever had an emotional reaction to something someone said? Something that you were positive was an insult, only to discover that that's not what the person meant at all? Welcome to the difference between actuality and reality. Or to be more specific, your personal reality, which isn't always actuality.

Adrenal Stress Response
How our minds and bodies function under the Adrenal Stress Response is a major factor whether we freeze or over react in a violent situation.

Anger and Self-Defense
What is the relationship between your anger and defending yourself? And how can your anger get you into more trouble than it gets you out of?

Assertive vs. Aggressive
Assertiveness will prevent an attack. Aggressiveness will provoke one. Before you can understand the difference between the two, you must first understand the nature of personal and shared space. Then being assertive is much easier and more effective.

Attracting trouble
Have you ever wondered why bullies, troublemakers and abusers choose  some people but ignore others? There is an entire complex set of behaviors and signals that are going back and forth. The Bullies page is written for young men who are caught in a cycle of behavior -- usually involving both bullying and being bullied. NOTE: due to straight-talking to a particular audience, the content is raw, vulgar and politically incorrect. Still the information is useful for anyone who is being routinely harassed.

Blame vs. Responsibility
Do you know the difference? Many people think they do -- then they abdicate responsibility and put themselves into dangerous situations. When the results aren't what they expected, they resort to blame for psychological damage control.

Body Sacrosanct
Inherent in the paradigm of certain people (especially within certain cultural and socio-economic levels) is the assumption that their body is sacrosanct. They believe they cannot be touched without their consent, much less attacked. This core belief can -- and does -- have a strong influence on their actions. Actions that often increase their danger. Unfortunately, this unconscious paradigm greatly adds to the trauma of being assaulted.

Bonding Process (Human Mating Behavior)
Although many claim rape isn't about sex, rape is a parasite that hides within a very normal human behavioral pattern. A process that sex is pivotal to. This page explains Dr Desmond Morris's 12 step 'Bonding Process' and how, via this process humans establish intimacy. Once you know this process, you can see how easily rape can occur when the process goes wrong -- especially date rape.

Boundaries: Personal and shared space
Many problems arise from a misunderstanding of the nature of boundaries. Often people believe they are defending their boundaries, but they are in fact, attacking. Our model of personal and shared space is a simple, but effective, explanation of both boundaries and why situations so often escalate out of control. It has also proved itself useful for explaining  interpersonal relationships and giving teenagers a uniform explanation about why making and leaving messes in shared space is unacceptable behavior.

Dealing with difficult people
Dr Joseph Bablonka has graciously granted us permission to reprint an article he wrote on the fundamentals of Dealing with Difficult People at work and in your personal life. This article offers a some good, workable long-term advice about approaching difficult people and important strategies for all of your interpersonal dealings.

De-escalation
Verbal de-escalation comes in many forms and in many degrees. The No Nonsense Self-defense de-escalation program is designed for professionals in high-risk situations. In other words, people whose job it is to confront other violent and dangerous people and tell them "no." It is "front-line" psychology for preventing immediate violence and controlling a situation. As such, it  may not fit the needs of the average reader. For non-professionals, we have a recommended reading list on verbal self-defense on the Bibliography page.

Economy and Stress Violence Whether it is a depression or a recession, crime goes up in economic hard times. but not just how you might think it does. There is a direct link between the economy and stress violence.

Establishing Alpha/Beta Status
Humans are social animals. By this we don't just mean they like to be with one another, humans need each other in order to survive. This requires a social order, usually this organizes itself into a hierarchy. In this section we take a look at not only the nature of this phenomenon, but what roles different people fill in the group. Often trouble arises from people not understanding what alpha behavior really is.

Getting Attacked 101
Unfortunately, in trying to either establish control and dominance over a situation or warn away a potential attacker, there are core mistakes a person can make. These mistakes will escalate the situation to physical violence. Here is a handy set of guidelines on ways not to provoke an attack.

High Risk Behavior
Let us start by stating our definition of High Risk Behavior isn't based in moralizing. The simple fact is that a wild party girl (who knows the rules) can be safer among bikers than a 'good girl' on a date with a 'Prince Charming' (who isn't). We define High Risk Behavior as:Any behavior that puts you into circumstances where violence is probable. It's what you do in those circumstances that will determine whether or not you will be attacked.

Is It REALLY About Self-Defense?
A lot of people get into so-called self-defense training for reasons that have nothing to do with actual self-defense. On the Is It REALLY about SD? page we take a hard look at an elephant in room that people don't want to admit to.

Fear is one of the major issues that hinders personal safety. Believe it or not, this is more a problem of not understanding the nature of fear (and its purpose and benefits) than it is a problem with fear itself. Fear is your ally, not your enemy. You don't want to get rid of it.

Kinds of Violence
Many people don't know what 'self-defense' is because they don't understand there are different kinds of violence. Not only do the different kinds of violence have different goals, but your actions have significant influence on whether or not the situation goes physical. If you blindly react to any threat as though it demands you to unleash your self-defense training you are seriously increasing the chances of the situation escalating into the most dangerous kind of violence -- an event you may not survive.

Lizard Brain
Your brain is a complex, multi-layered machine. One that when certain parts are activated although you may 'think' you are being rational, but your monkey or lizard brain is running the show. Unfortunately, fear, anger and other strong emotions kick you into functioning in the lizard brain.

Mental Preparation
Violence is an extreme. That means you are operating in an arena that you do not normally function. A lot of things that you didn't think about previously will become a matter of life or death. This page introduces you to the factors that WILL be present in a violent encounter. Factors that you need have addressed before you try to function in that environment.

Monkey Brain
We humans have -- as a default setting -- primate behaviors guiding our actions in conflict. While these patterns are not inescapable, if you don't know about how your brain is wired your monkey brain is going to be driving the bus. And monkeys make bad drivers.

Negotiation Out At The Sharp End
Thoughts about how a discussion can become a conflict and how a conflict can turn violent. And how to tell when a situation is floating away from negotiation and into the extremes.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
If you've gone through a traumatic experience, there is a good chance your brain has been physically rewired. This page will give you an introduction to what can happen to you long after the incident has ended.  It's called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

PTSD: A Personal Journey
This article was written to get through to you a young man who was cavalierly discussing the idea of using a knife on another human being, as such the language is somewhat rough -- the message being "Wake up Junior." Although focused on knife use, it is applicable to any lethal force usage.

Problem Neighbors
Having problems with an irrational, hateful and seemingly insane neighbor? In such cases you'll find yourself wondering "WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PERSON? Is he insane?" The answer is no, not really. Odds are what is happening is you've run across someone who 'lives by the feud.'  The problem neighbor page will help you understand what motivates these people, why being 'reasonable' doesn't work and why they won't just go away ... until you handle them correctly.

Sanity in the Martial Arts
Putting it mildly, there are a lot of dysfunctional people who are attempting to self-medicate by taking martial arts/self-defense training. Their behavior can range from neurotic to a full blown cult to sociopathic. Before you buy into what they are saying, make sure they are running on all cylinders.

Note: The preceding pages are more of a warning about what you will run into while seeking training. (For more personal understanding, see: What do you want out of this training?)