Bad Guys 101: White Belt Dreams, Suburban Nightmares

Preface

It was story time. The Edgelord ™ self-protection trainer told grim tales of blood and bones, his acolytes ready to worship his badassery. I wasn’t sure what we were learning but the stories were interesting. Daydreaming, I reflected on the standard range of bad guy analysis: anemic nonsense to worthless fan service. 

Too often Bad Guys are either the Keystone Kops or Gods of War. The former exhibits comical idiocy, falling instantly before the tool, tactic, or technique du jour. The latter is unstoppable, inescapable, (literally) incredible. Rare is the complex human. 

As the Edgelord ™ completed his treatise, I pondered functional models for understanding bad guydom, minus useless value judgments and assorted nonsense. The “Bad Guys 101” series was born. 

For clarity: “Bad Guy” equals “violent criminal.” Rory likes “threat” but I prefer this tone. Because, ultimately, he’s just. a. guy. I also agree with morality therein: Good and Evil exist.  Many aren’t Evil but I’ve never met a Good, currently active, BG. That said, they often have understandable reasons for their behavior and if not for the grace of God there go I. Literally. 

What follow are thought experiments, primarily. I make no excuses and pass no judgment; I merely examine the culture(s.) There are many themes worth understanding.

White Belt Dreams

“I ain’t buying his survivor bullshit…he’ll drop from a skull shot like any other man”

-Way of the Gun

At some point I recall debating with a martial artist online about whether SD/MA teachers held back teaching students their “secrets” due to fear. I perceived it as misplaced, though prevalent, concern: no matter what you teach/know, you can die. Skill and strength don’t make you invincible. My debate partner believed it wasn’t fear; it was a focus on survival. His instructor assumed a rogue student could use his secrets against him. I silently wondered which 70's Kung Fu movie I'd wandered into and whether someone had discovered effective parries for AK rounds.

The survivors I know didn't prevail primarily because of classified skillsets. Violence at their levels wasn’t a secret, nor overly technical. When guys with pistols snuck into your love nest or poisoned your cocaine, your patented pak sao didn’t mean much and outside knowledge of secret techniques accounted for precisely shit.

Make the wrong people mad enough and you'll need a lot more than good handspeed or a set of expensive toys. Preparing for violence is shaving dice; SD/MA folks furiously apply nail files while belt sanders sit dormant.

Priorities

One of my superpowers is that I’m assailable. I have black belts in exactly zero martial arts. I could list on one hand the number of “martial” certifications I currently hold. There are (more than likely) students who could make me look like an ass in a training environment. And it all matters…but none of it does. 

None of the murderers I know have black belts. I can only think of one acquaintance putting hot metal through lukewarm flesh with anything on paper validating it. And they're more likely than most grandmasters to be willing to put some copper coated candy in your son’s brainpan as he leaves lacrosse practice. Because very few martial art obsessions matter in the real world. 

Everybody Dies

That’s the thing about assailability: it applies to all of us. Your favorite designated badass is a meat bag with a computer attached whose off switch works the same as the rest of them. So don’t let your martial proficiency go to your head. If your instructor presumes invincibility, remember that the strongest and slickest fall off eventually. They all go soft. Assuming they ever *weren’t*. We will too.

That’s why I emphasize the "boring" stuff: creating allies; recognizing problems hours, days, months, or years beforehand; collecting intelligence; and presenting as somewhere between significant threat and food. Because a .00003 second draw won't matter when you’re unlocking the door with hands full of groceries and the last thing you hear is a pop. Even skillful teenagers don't fight; they hunt.

I'm not railing against physical skills. They’re fun to practice and, in a limited way, extremely useful. Cars with brakes and steering wheels still need airbags. And when it’s airbag time, accept no substitutes. Just be thoughtful about priorities and understand how violence occurs in the real world. Because the hitman your wife hires to kill you for insurance money probably doesn’t want to spar.

Violence isn’t all that complicated. Avoidance, if you're not born into it, isn’t either. It’s the dream worlds where we can live for 90 years as careless, comfortable badasses that create problems. 

Everything costs. 

-M

Castles and Cornerstones: The Process

True self-protection is a castle with layered battlements and buildings. The castle’s individual structures represent unique and essential subject matter areas, contributing individually while reinforcing the whole. A cornerstone is the first set stone around and upon which the rest of a building’s foundation forms and, for our purposes, Cornerstones are central concepts or themes upon which areas of self-protection rest. 

Four central areas form the most important structures in our self-protection castle, each with its own cornerstone. These areas are Bad Guys 101, Becoming, Level Up, and Beyond Power. 

This Cornerstone is central to the internal growth toward that produces our strongest selves: Becoming.

Preface

While physical training can certainly build up skill sets and even reinforce mental and emotional strength, overt focus of becoming more integral versions of ourselves will make us harder to kill. A possible side effect is having more awesome lives. What follow are thoughts and ideas about becoming our strongest selves internally because that's where the fight that life can be is routinely won and lost. Strong minds survive better.

Toxicity in Our City

Too much of self-defense and martial arts (SD/MA) instruction rests on toxic, rotting foundations. Anxiety should not dominate students lives nor should they spend thousands of dollars and hours in fear's service. Thus, a new proposal for driving us all toward strength I call "The Process": a series of realizations that prompt requisite actions, forming the core of any serious consideration of self-protection.

The Realities

1.       No one makes it out alive

Death is promised. The strong and skilled die like the rest. Thus, self-protection is primarily a means to live, and ultimately die, on the best terms possible. Living and dying well are worthwhile goals in and of themselves.

2.       Life can be cool

Life, while filled with obstacles and dangers, can be pretty awesome, especially when I embrace the gifts of challenge, growth, and purpose. My niece’s laughter, my fiancée’s love, and my triumphant moment are all evidence of how cool life can be.

3.       You are worth defending

My potentially awesome life, despite its inevitable end, is worth defending for myself, others, and Justice. Completely independently, my life can be worthwhile; even more so when I incorporate my positive influence on the world around me. Beyond that, Justice is worth defending. Self-protection rests on the foundational premise that someone should stand up for the decent. Those “someones” are me, you, us.

The Actions

Several actions follow naturally from the aforementioned realities.

1.       If you stay ready…

If my time is finite, I should live well and serve what’s most important, focusing my limited resources on the True and Lasting and Good.

2.       Build the life

If life can be awesome, I should build one worth defending. All human life is worthy, a fact easily overlooked when mine *feels* miserable, making defending it from difficult and dangerous threats a harder sell. Building an awesome existence filled with contributions to myself, my loved ones, and the world is a healthy and effective motivation for self-protection.

3.       Fortify the structure

Once I've built a life worth defending, I must protect it; developing martial skills can be helpful in that effort. Other awesome lives may also benefit from my skills and being able to intervene when needed is a cool bonus.

These truths and actions may seem obvious but they are conspicuously absent in most SD/MA media. A student going through such a process would obviously be more motivated to defend themselves and would become (or continue to be) an extremely solid person which, while beyond the scope of what most would consider “self-protection”, is an end unto itself.

Think about it.

-M

Castles and Cornerstones: Bad Guys 101

True self-protection is a castle with layered battlements and buildings. The castle’s individual structures represent unique and essential subject matter areas, contributing individually while reinforcing the whole. A cornerstone is the first set stone around and upon which the rest of a building’s foundation forms and, for our purposes, Cornerstones are central concepts or themes upon which areas of self-protection rest. 

Four central areas form the most important structures in our self-protection castle, each with its own cornerstone. These areas are Bad Guys 101, Becoming, Level Up, and Beyond Power. 

This Cornerstone is central to understanding the “problem” theoretically solved by most self-protection methods: Bad Guys. 

Preface

It was story time. The Edgelord ™ self-protection trainer told grim tales of blood and bones, his acolytes ready to worship his badassery. I wasn’t sure what we were learning but the stories were interesting. Daydreaming, I reflected on the standard range of bad guy analysis: anemic nonsense to worthless fan service. 

Too often Bad Guys are either the Keystone Kops or Gods of War. The former exhibits comical idiocy, falling instantly before the tool, tactic, or technique du jour. The latter is unstoppable, inescapable, (literally) incredible. Rare is the complex human. 

As the Edgelord ™ completed his treatise, I pondered functional models for understanding bad guydom, minus useless value judgments and assorted nonsense. The “Bad Guys 101” series was born. 

For clarity: “Bad Guy” equals “violent criminal.” Rory likes “threat” but I prefer this tone. Because, ultimately, he’s just. a. guy. I also agree with morality therein: Good and Evil exist.  Many aren’t Evil but I’ve never met a Good, currently active, BG. That said, they often have understandable reasons for their behavior and if not for the grace of God there go I. Literally. 

What follow are thought experiments, primarily. I make no excuses and pass no judgment; I merely examine the culture(s.) There are many themes worth understanding.

Lost Boys

Urban education is weird. You meet students with behavior patterns comparable to violent criminals. Partly because, often, violent criminals share ideological frameworks with errant children. Take others’ things? Check. Respect power, almost exclusively? Check. Manipulate to avoid consequences? Check. It’s almost like this stuff was human natu…I digress. That said, understanding BG behaviors and philosophical underpinnings can be useful for seeing the distinction between mischief and criminality and addressing the problems BG’s pose.

At-risk kids are children who may become BG’s. The line between the groups is blurry: there are adolescent diehard murderers. I know kids with multiple felony-level offenses that I don’t yet consider full BG’s, though they’re technically violent criminals. I distinguish based on their affordances. Diehards see school as a collection of victims, associates, and enemies. ARK’s ape the attitudes but haven’t fully committed and may want (formal) education. ARK’s also crave structure; they don’t yet love the chaos. Take these definitions for what they’re worth; the map is not the territory.

Do Or Die 

BG rules are different. School is analogous, featuring two rulesets: peer and institutional. School rules, established by bureaucrats…er…responsible adults, promote institutional safety and continuity. Peer rules (arguably) exist for individual safety, differentiating victims, noncombatants, and predators. Society’s statutes and street law work similarly and street law often dictates peer rules. BG’s and ARK’s common assumption is their peer groups watch, always, responses to boundary violations, meting out respect levels, regardless of institutional expectations.

BG’s and ARK’s constantly “interview,” reconnoitering potential victims for their boundary breach reactions and weighing cost-benefit analyses. Meek responses greenlight manipulation or attacks; the target is marked as “sweet,” denoting that he or she is a good victim. My father, a former gang member himself, reminded me, constantly: “the appearance of weakness invites aggression.” Violent responses to boundary breaches build respect, diminishing necessity for future enforcement. Since enforcements often risk freedom or safety, respect is paramount. It’s why helping ARK’s is tough. A kid approaches a line; is he playing or probing for weakness? Usually, it’s both; finding and exploiting weakness are second nature.

Respect can separate life and death. Society, represented by teachers and cops, visits communities where street law lives. The street often dominates: society won't rape a sister to send a message. Thus, BG’s and ARK’s employ violence, flouting legal consequences, as peer group communication: “violate my boundaries and no one can protect you. Leave my boundaries alone.” Because they know the truth: society can’t, in most cases, truly protect you. ARK’s spend 8 hours in school; the hood owns the other 16. 

Equal Opportunity 

Bad guys are twistedly egalitarian; it’s about what you will do. If A wants B’s stuff, he must weigh B’s resources against risk of resistance and retaliation. If B is willful, connected, and reckless, he’s a bad “vic”, likely to turn robbery to murder. B’s resources may not be worth killing or dying for, especially with retaliation by B’s associates and legal consequences factored in. For BG’s, appearing (or being) willing to stay the course in the face of grave consequences is the one true qualification. For victims, the interview is the process by which BG's and ARK's assess said willingness to do. Failing the interview balances on small breaches of, and responses to, BG and ARK models of respect; elements often completely ignored or misunderstood by those outside of street contexts and cultures. BG victimization is also equal opportunity to a degree; the idea that BG's won't victimize particular profiles is often proven false. BG's and ARK's rob each other; chances are they're more visibly threatening than the average soccer dad in a Krav Maga class. Being big or male or "scary" looking doesn't make you exempt; in the words of Joel Ortiz: "anybody can get it."

With all of that said, there are various dynamics, victim profiles, and predatory purposes out there in BG land; exploring your target profile can be extremely valuable to understand what you're actually at risk for.

Nothing to Believe In

BG’s and ARK’s perceive a world of unending self-interest and corruption, validating their behaviors. It’s similar to what educators see: kids “getting over” on those would impose order upon them. The social manipulation attempts, the tantrums when demands aren’t met, the self-justifying nonsense are all par for the course. The core element is entitlement: “mine!” is the motto, “gimme!” the battle cry.

BG’s are the ultimate individuals. They form alliances and feel affection for others but actual loyalty is rare in their world. The lack of fidelity stems from a combination of factors. First, they have far fewer illusions about human life, generally. Many of us have notions of what we’d do under pressures we’ll never encounter. Many BG’s and ARK’s don’t have to fantasize and, often, seeing individuals and structures fail produces understandable cynicism.

Many BG’s started out as victims, pressed into lifestyles they’d rather have avoided by family ties or other circumstances. Most were abandoned, trapped between powerful institutions like society and the street. Plenty come from extremely poor parenting, learning early that trust is stupid and power is everything.

Possibly unnecessary sidebar: when I say “raised poorly,” I mean “raised to fail in modern American society.” Bad guys and at-risk kids are socialized pretty well to survive their circumstances but extremely poorly to escape them. 

So, parents (assuming they’re in the picture) discipline their progeny when angry, demonstrating to the children that structured consequences are fiction: people act primarily out of emotional self-interest. “There is no justice; it’s just us.”

Just. A. Guy. 

None of this changes the cost of tea in China. When you’re staring down the barrel, you won’t (and shouldn’t) give a flying fuck through a rolling donut…or should you? Stuff gets sticky here. You may not recognize the fearful adolescent behind the trigger but noticing could facilitate talking him down. Will you fix his inner child’s problems? Nope. But fighting the mind is strong strategy, especially when overmatched. Most humans are better talkers than fighters.

The other benefit of “getting” bad guys is the reminder: they’re people. Skilled at violence? Sometimes. But they bleed, shit, and die like the rest of us. They’re. Not. Special. And understanding their world makes seeing their motives and maneuvers easier.

-M

Castles and Cornerstones: Laying the Foundation

True self-protection is a castle with layered battlements and buildings. The castle’s individual structures represent unique and essential subject matter areas, contributing individually while reinforcing the whole. A cornerstone is the first set stone around and upon which the rest of a building’s foundation forms and, for our purposes, Cornerstones are central concepts or themes upon which areas of self-protection rest.  

Four central areas form the most important buildings in our self-protection castle, each with its own cornerstone. These areas are Bad Guys 101, Becoming, Level Up, and Beyond Power. The fifth area, Teaching, focuses specifically on instruction issues and ideas. 

Bad Guys 101

Bad Guys are the perfect place to start any Self-Protection efforts because they’re the “problem” many SD/MA methods “solve.” If you don’t look at problems in context, solutions become useless or even harmful. Understanding how and why BG’s hunt and live provides a variety of advantages and insights. 

Becoming

Bad Guys prey on more than physical weakness; they look for those easily influenced or manipulated. Thus, worthwhile self-protection training is, primarily, emotional engineering toward greater strength. Stripped of pretense, that emotional engineering changes *who* the student is by challenging them to grow. Becoming is about the internal process of becoming stronger, alone and together.

Level Up

Mentally and emotionally strong people may need to apply their internal strengths to the physical world. Moreover, good training processes simultaneously build physical skill and mental/emotional power. Leveling up is developing skills and training methods to build stronger humans to help solve the Bad Guy problem. Planning, Moving, Fighting, and Communicating are the central pieces.

Beyond Power

Self-Protection against serious threats really only enhances degrees of choice in when and how we die; death’s inevitability remains. The power to prolong life; devoid of purpose, responsibility, or direction; is meaningless in a world where mortality claims us all. Thus ‘Beyond Power’ examines the “why’s” of self-protection and the power it cultivates. 

Teaching

Though all of the previous areas of self-protection apply to instructors as well, there are issues specific to those who would teach. Teaching is about ensuring student growth while maintaining the various balances between ethics, efficacy, efficiency, sustainability, and the like.

Each of these “structures” could serve as an entire field of study and often do. Our responsibility to examine them and how they fit into, protect, and enhance our lives. -M

Castles and Cornerstones: Level Up

True self-protection is a castle with layered battlements and buildings. The castle’s individual structures represent unique and essential subject matter areas, contributing individually while reinforcing the whole. A cornerstone is the first set stone around and upon which the rest of a building’s foundation forms and, for our purposes, Cornerstones are central concepts or themes upon which areas of self-protection rest. 

Four central areas form the most important structures in our self-protection castle, each with its own cornerstone. These areas are Bad Guys 101, Becoming, Level Up, and Beyond Power.
This Cornerstone is central to understanding physical approaches to solving the Bad Guy problem: Level Up.

Preface

The crowd murmured in anticipation as the instructor positioned his students for the next demo. Suddenly, he exploded into motion, striking his prey with blinding speed. His hapless victims regained their composure as the instructor stared intensely at the crowd around him, basking in their adulation.

Rolling my eyes any harder would have flung them out of my head.

The instructor’s demo ingrained two things: ineffective striking and standing, unresponsive, when attacked suddenly. Seems dumb, right? But self-defense and martial arts (SD/MA) are rife with these suboptimal practices. "Level Up" is about building the best physical training for developing stronger individuals rather than serfs or zombies.

Roll Your Own

“In the real world, these are just people with ideas. They’re just like me and you when smoke and cameras disappear.”

-Dead Prez

I've learned early to be an active, skeptical, agentic participant in my learning. My eminently quotable father had it right: "you don't buy these; you have to roll your own.” Functional growth requires individual engineering; nothing worthwhile comes ready-made. SD/MA training is no different.

All training should focus on building students’ power. Instructors should be physically, mentally, and emotionally engineering growth in their charges while students must actively, intentionally participate in strengthening themselves. Unfortunately, many instructors hoard power, pushing students to be passengers in their own journeys. I’ve walked away from such toxic environments; the epistemologies made my teeth itch. Even among solid instructors, there are limitations to playing practically, ethically, or safely and students must be active participants if they're to overcome the limitations. 

My varied experience and search for cool ideas has adjusted my training to keep me in the driver’s seat, even under suboptimal conditions. When I became an instructor, I invited my students to find their own ways.

The “Level Up” series examines said adjustments, both those I’ve practiced for years and ones I’m still pondering. I’ve borrowed from friends, training partners, and teachers. Use it all or none of it. Students and instructors growing, on their own terms, is all that matters.

It’s your life.

-M

Level Up: Flaws and Scars

Preface

The crowd murmured in anticipation as the instructor positioned his partners for the next demo. Suddenly, he exploded into motion, striking his prey with blinding speed. His hapless victims regained their composure as the instructor stared intensely at the crowd around him, basking in their adulation.

Rolling my eyes any harder would have flung them out of my head.

The instructor’s demo ingrained two things: ineffective striking and standing, unresponsive, when attacked suddenly. Seems dumb, right? But self-defense and martial arts (SD/MA) are rife with these suboptimal practices. "Level Up" is about building the best physical training for developing stronger individuals rather than serfs or zombies.

Scars and Flaws

Physical self-defense is practicing for a worst-case scenario: being forced to protect yourself by breaking other people. Effective training requires partners, posing at least two problems. First, broken people can’t train which means we either purposefully injure training partners or train not to hurt people. Second, half the time we’re practicing losing while partners take their turns defending. These realities are the results of training flaws and training scars. Training flaws are purposeful adjustments in methodology designed to maintain safety. However, when an instructor is unaware of the training flaws in an exercise, they become training scars: unintentionally ingrained bad habits. Both training flaws and scars ingrain as deeply as the skills the training’s designed to develop.

For example: your training partner puts you in a headlock; you drive his chin back, “attack” his groin, and drop him. Great job! But why’d you let him grab you? You spent just as many reps allowing yourself to get grabbed as you did “defending.” Moreover, if you’d counterattacked with commitment he’d be curled up on the floor; what did your partner get out of that rep, acting practice? Training ingrains habits into all participants. If the “bad guy” practices attacking weakly and then passively taking a beating, aside from giving you a bad stimulus to which to tie a response, he’s ingraining his ineffectual actions just as deeply as you’re ingraining yours. The solutions lie in making conscious adjustments to make training both safe and effective.

-Go Slow- Improve efficacy and safety by changing your speed. Slowing down is a great safety flaw that promotes perfect mechanics, precise targeting, and full follow through without injury. Moving slowly also limits training scars: predators don’t kill slowly so, when partners attack, you’re not training yourself to ignore a serious threat. In the headlock defense example: practice the initial attack unthreateningly slowly and, once you both feel comfortable with how headlocks work, start defending them. Still slowly, have your partner try to headlock and, as soon as you detect a threatening motion, do something about it. Gradually, let your partner apply the headlock more and more so you train counters at every stage of the attack.

-Use Equipment- Equipment like pads and armor allows for striking with power and intent without doing serious harm to your partner. This avoids frequently seen training scars like pulled punches or purposeful inaccuracy. When practicing headlock counters with your partner, have them position a pad or focus mitt near their groin so you train to strike with power and follow through.  

-Train from Surprise- Practicing from surprise involves restricting visual or audio cues. With this you can counter at every stage of an attack without the training scar of ignoring assault indicators. Coming back to headlock counters, have your partner set up close to you with a pad arranged to protect his groin. Close your eyes and have your partner randomly head lock at full speed. React immediately to the aggressive touch and counterattack the pad. Ideally, the level of speed, combined with the surprise, should force you to react at varying stages of the attack.

-Use Safety Officers- During many drills; especially as intention, energy, and skill increase; it becomes difficult to participate and be conscious of safety simultaneously. Many adjust for this by unconsciously employing bad habits but safety officers can help maintain safety protocols without training scars.

-Involve Resistance- Attackers shouldn’t be practicing losing while defenders practice winning; you should be retaliating or, at least, fending. Coming back to the headlock example: when you’re the attacker applying the headlock, push your hips back to avoid the groin attack and cover up to fend off follow up strikes. Even injured attackers will respond in some way to a defender’s counteroffensive onslaught, do the same in practice.

-Move with Intent- This isn’t so much an adjustment as a principle. Whatever moves you’re doing should do damage if not for your chosen safety flaw. You should strike with full intent to do damage which is only limited by a pad, partner’s reaction, or another intentional element. Training with intent enhances realism and helps find potential holes in safety protocols. So, when you’re counterattacking after the headlock, avoid a training scar; use full intent so your partner has to rely on pads or armor, or even defend themselves.

Notice that these safety flaws counterbalance each other, creating a robust training method without major holes and avoidant of training scars. Conscious adjustments and safety flaws should always exist but creativity can blend them to your advantage.

Be dangerous, train safely

-M  

The Mission

I don’t think I even saw the gun. 

The memory of that afternoon has long since blurred and blended with several others. I distinctly recall curiosity at their awkwardly coordinated movements as we walked down the empty train platform toward the stairs. It was late afternoon on a weekday and, as their adjusted pace met mine, one of them reached for his waistband. I vaguely remember the glimmer of something metal arcing toward my face and alarm bells going off in my head. I stepped back, forcing him to reorient around his companion, and ran for the exit. The train station happened to be next to a school where I’d tutored; I made some excuse to get past security and hid in the bathroom. After what felt like an hour, I walked out of the school and saw them headed in another direction. I’d had minor run ins on the train before, particularly with people from that area, and wondered if this was related. I wasn’t even sure what had just happened but the clearest memory of that day was the feeling, expressed out loud as I turned to talk home.

“Not me. Not today.”

Though that day’s experience cemented, in my teenage mind, my orientation toward victimhood, it was just one piece in a tapestry of influences. I’d grown up weird: living in a neighborhood where my parents did gang intervention and going to school with kids who lived so far from the tracks that they didn’t know there was an “other” side. My parents’ combination of ivory tower backgrounds and community outreach programs meant that my mentors were a mix of ex-cons and valedictorians. I spent my formative years on both sides of a fence, trying to reconcile what I saw in the neighborhood with what I learned in the outside world. I began to code switch; my school persona was night and day different from the neighborhood version. Navigating both gave me invaluable perspective but I spent most of my time as a man without a country. Eventually, I concluded that my neighborhood friends mattered much more than my classmates and began to focus on understanding the politics of that environment.

Most of the kids in my age group, civilians or combatants, didn’t consciously understand what we were seeing or experiencing, conceptually. I thought that being scared all the time in a neighborhood where friends and acquaintances were killing and dying meant that I was a coward. I learned to approach small conflicts with irrational apprehension, assigning the weight of "hood politics" to dissimilar contexts. The street guys I grew up with were learning by trial and error, only to realize the foolishness of their youth well past the point when it could have helped. We were all flying blind; led by rumor, conjecture, and others’ brutal examples. I managed to make it through, more or less unscathed, through a combination of divine providence, protective allies, occasional bouts of strategic efficacy, and dumb luck. My father’s pull in the neighborhood played the biggest role in keeping me safe but even he couldn’t fully protect me from an environment where young men proved themselves through violent acts and other forms of creative dysfunction.

As I transitioned into young adulthood, I began working in urban education and saw, routinely, that many young people were learning hard lessons in similar ways to those of my contemporaries. I realized that, even in contexts rife with violence, many children were also flying blind and gained new perspective on how much this reality contributed to unnecessary suffering throughout their communities. A large part of my personal mission crystalized. 

My goal in this field is to do what was done for me. I want to put conflict and violence into perspective, primarily to help others avoid learning the hard way as so many in my orbit did, but also to use the material to build better lives. SD/MA (self defense and martial arts) showed me how much power I could wield in my own life, coming from circumstances where I felt powerless and afraid. I want to help other people find, claim, and use that power and create a better world.

-M