How should

Meditations on violence, by Sgt. Rory Miller

A comparison of Martial Arts Training & Real World Violence

From Amazon reviews:

I’d always had a nagging feeling about my martial arts training; though there was no question it was good for my health, I was never too sure it was really relevant to self defense. The scenarios we practiced had nothing in common with the (few) *actual* violent encounters I had witnessed, which were short, brutish, and entirely unfair. (And for some reason didn’t involve “Needle to Sea Bottom” or a Gracie-esque arm bar.) Since I live a pretty staid life, my training never gets tested.

Which is unlike the author of this book — a jail guard involved in physical confrontations on a near daily basis. In this book Rory Miller pretty much devastates the notion that what goes on in most martial arts classes has anything in common with the fights and strategies he’s observed in his work. He details types of confrontations, the people likely to be involved in them, and strategies they’re using, and the often critical flaws in the way students are “prepared” for them by movies or the dojo.

As such, this is pretty much required reading for anyone taking or teaching martial arts for self-defense.

He doesn’t offer a specific training program as a solution — which is kind of the point. He’s asking the reader to chew on the facts, not the fantasies. Fights aren’t likely to be fair, or resemble sparring sessions. But they do have predictable participants, patterns and dynamics — from the “Group Monkey Dance” to the “permission” that people give themselves to go on or give up.

By Chowderhead (Oregon, USA)

My bits

Great book, another 5/5 .

Notes from the book

[ SORRY I had to delete this, after I read the copyright law...]

Impro, by Keith Johnstone

From Amazon reviews:
Keith Johnstone is a maverick educator and theatrical innovator. This book, first published in 1979, remains the most important book on improvisation written in English. Johnstone divides the world of improvising into four categories:Spontenaity, Narrative, Status and Masks. The stories about his own loss of creativity through the demands of public education set the frame for his illuminating description of what it takes to return us all to our creative selves. This book is a must read for anyone involved in the creative process, for all teachers of the arts and anyone who has ever wondered where his creativity has gone.
Patricia Ryan, Head of Acting Stanford University

My bits

This was a very enjoyable read for me and I’m rating it 5/5.

[ SORRY I had to delete this, after I read the copyright law...]

Because we have to have a theme.

For 3 years now my favorite song. It must be good.

Into the distance, a ribbon of black
Stretched to the point of no turning back
A flight of fancy on a windswept field
Standing alone my senses reeled
A fatal attraction is holding me fast
How can I escape this irresistible grasp?

Can’t keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earthbound misfit, I

Ice is forming on the tips of my wings
Unheeded warnings, I thought I thought of everything
No navigator to find my way home
Unladen, empty and turned to stone

A soul intention, that’s learning to fly
Condition grounded but determined to try
Can’t keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earthbound misfit, I

Above the planet on a wing and a prayer,
My brother Haley, a vapour trail in the empty air
Across the clouds I see my shadow fly
Out of the corner of my watering eye
A dream unthreatened by the morning light
Could blow this soul right through the roof of the night

There’s no sensation to compare with this
Suspended animation, a state of bliss
Can’t keep my mind from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earthbound misfit, I