| TIDBIT | Caught!
During the kids' class, between things to do, deciding where to go next, the instructor went "hmm..." and looked around a bit. "I know what you're going to do next!" said the six-year-old young lady. "You do? What?" said the instructor. Said the girl: "You're going to do the parts of the mat!". (The names for the different sides of the mat are called out, the students run to whichever one was called, do whatever the instructor says (e.g. jumping jacks) when they get there, and have to remember it the next time they go to that side.) Instructor: ("shocked") Yes, I was - you're a mind reader! Student: You look like that every time you do it! |
| TIDBIT | One of the things we train is against someone sticking you up (at the window) while you're in your car. From time to time, we'll also go out to somebody's vehicle, to see where the roof, doorsill, B pillar etc. are in relation to the driver. After seeing this for the first time, one student said he'd practiced it at every stop light on the way home. Another student, after we'd been out to his car and he discovered he couldn't move very well because he drove with the seat somewhat reclined, later said he'd changed that. |
| TIP | It is better to avoid than to run; better to run than to de-escalate; better to de-escalate than to fight; better to fight than to die. The very essence of self-defense is a thin list of things that might get you out alive when you are already screwed. - Rory Miller, "Meditations on Violence" |
| TIP | Your brain is your single biggest weapon. |
| TIDBIT | Happiness is when the six-year-old who's been training for about two months and who has been taught the concept of "levels of response" tells you a schoolmate grabbed her wrists on the playground, she did a release move she learned here - and ran. |
