# Great article concerning self defense!



## SensibleManiac (Nov 10, 2011)

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-truth-about-violence/

Very insightful article.


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## WC_lun (Nov 10, 2011)

Most self defense articles I see are a lot of nonsense, but this one is actually pretty good.


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## seasoned (Nov 10, 2011)

Agreed, very insightful article.


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## Buka (Nov 10, 2011)

Great list of books to read, and list of those to listen to. Spot on, IMO.

Not trying to nitpick here, but I found a bit of a negative tone, a "doom and gloom make the reader afraid" style to the writing. And while I agree with a lot of what he was trying to say (again, IMO) I feel if you're going to point out the difference between "techniques" and "principles", you should do exactly that. I don't think he did. "Escape" which is important as anything discussed, isn't a principle, it's a strategy. But there are principles involved in escaping.


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## tshadowchaser (Nov 10, 2011)

I liked the artical.  Some good points are made in it


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## Bill Mattocks (Nov 10, 2011)

I enjoyed that, thank you.


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## oftheherd1 (Nov 10, 2011)

Interesting read.


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## Master Dan (Nov 10, 2011)

Good article with good stats which I have tried to point out in related prevention that no one hour or 10 hour class is going to make any amature and even most quazie professionals?? not choke or do badly in a random violence situation that looking at your environment as rings of prevention that you can reduce your risk factor with out actual physical effort in defending your self is far better and should be considered the same as using a safety belt at least when it comes to risk assesment and reduction of injury or death. 

However in the last class I was conducting there eyes are closing and going to sleep when going over the explanation and written material of prevention and the whole class lites up when its time to do hands on close in training which is the worst senario to late your in trouble. I can gaurantee a 300% increase of survival and reduction of risk of atack by prevention compared to last resort training but thats what everyone wants. I have changed to include much more gross motor skills and low tech methods to respond to the initial choke zone, adrenalin drop or black zone any other thing you want to call it as a pre defense.

thanks for the article its a nice piece to my library of what I do now but the majority of atacks are on the people who will not take the time to read it or practice it and the preditors have a way of knowing that even selecting those less likely to be prepared. Even worse the mental conditioning factor from media is that people don't believe its real becasue they watch it on TV every day so it can't be happening to them creates the deer in the headlites sindrome


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## rlobrecht (Nov 12, 2011)

Very good article.  Thank you.


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## Zero (Nov 14, 2011)

Thanks SM, good read.


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## chinto (Nov 14, 2011)

better then most article about SD..


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## shesulsa (Nov 14, 2011)

I read this entire article when boning up for the recent talks and classes I've had.


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## Cyriacus (Nov 15, 2011)

I cant say I Agree with all of it.

The Conclusions are well enough in a fair few ways, but the Basis theyre founded upon is a bit questionable, I think.


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## kingsubscriber (Nov 15, 2011)

cool


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## thegatekeeper (Dec 27, 2011)

"If you have principles 1 and 2 firmly installed in your brain, any  violence that finds you is, by definition, unavoidable. There is a  tremendous power in knowing this: When you find yourself without other  options, you are free to respond with full commitment."

Everyone should read this... very insightful.


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## Josh Oakley (Jan 25, 2012)

I am a big fan of Sam Harris's books. I had no idea, though, that he had trained in martial arts. Like usual, I think he is spot on.

I had to laugh though:

"No doubt receiving occasional death threats and other strange communications has been a factor. "

Given his antagonistic take on religion in general his participation in the "New Atheist" "movement", and his derision of Islam as a hostile, dangerous religion... Yeah I would be surprised if he DIDN'T have a death threat or two.

Harris rocks my socks.

Sent from my ADR6350 using Tapatalk


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## WingChunIan (Jan 25, 2012)

really good article and whilst its impossible to cover everything in a single piece my observations would be that two areas are underplayed. Firstly the area of awareness and environmental radar (lots of avoid the wrong areas, if a man makes you feel uncomfortable etc depend upon the person being able to make the distinction.) and secondly the psychological foundation for simply exploding after a line has been crossed. If losing your temper is not a natural behavioural trait then psychological training is required to effect this kind of repsonse otherwise the line simply keeps being redrawn.


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## ludde (Jan 25, 2012)

I'd walk a thousand miles around Rory Millers book though.

http://coreconcepts.forumotion.co.u...ence-chiron-blog-author?highlight=rory+miller


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