The week between Christmas and New Year’s often seems like a gap in time, a moment when the world collectively holds its breath and takes a break. Many businesses are closed, or people out on vacation. If you are working, you’re often having to deal with more people than usual not working. Everything seems like
In our travels over the holidays and as weather continues to worsen, it’s likely that many of us will see at least one severe car accident. When we come across one, we may feel any combination of sadness and empathy for the folks involved, relief that it’s not us, annoyance at the delay, and an
In my morning BJJ class this week, my instructor made a comment about judging progress by seeing how well students are able to escape from under someone else’s control or threat of submission. It struck me as especially significant because it gets at the heart of what your goals need to be when you train
A year ago, I had no idea how to ride a motorcycle. In fact, I couldn’t honestly say that I even remembered how to ride a bicycle. Nine months ago, I thought it’d take me all of the warm weather the year would have to offer for me to learn enough riding skills to be
It’s a lot of work to prepare yourself against all of the various threats that you can face; you have to consider your home, your bank account, your emotional safety, your physical security, and more. The world is a scary place, and there are so many ways life can go wrong. It can seem like
Throwback today to a post from almost exactly one year ago, when I wrote about finding the experts you can trust with your life. I’m thinking today about identifying experts. When learning about any new topic, it’s important to source your information from reliable sources. Even (maybe especially) if you want to develop new theories
Random street crime seems to be on the rise, at least if you read the news. Whether it’s yet another shooting in Philadelphia, the stabbings in New York City, or the “follow home” robberies in Los Angeles, it seems like there’s always something popping up multiple times a day. Leaving the house can be a
Time is our most precious resource. It’s the only thing we can’t make more of. Once it’s gone, it’s gone, and we can’t go backwards to recover it, or go forward and make more of it. The best we can do is cut down how much time we spend on something, or trade off the
Many physical self-defense strategies fall victim to what I describe as the “if this, then that” fallacy. They assume an attack looks a certain way, can be met by a very specific counter, and then a one or a small handful of outcomes will occur after which the attack will have ended. Many of the
There’s a safety tip that’s gone viral in the last few days. You might have seen it, the suggestion that if you get lost and have low to no cell phone signal or battery, you should change your outgoing voicemail message to the time and date, your location, and the troublesome situation you’re in. The
