By Bradley J. Steiner
Violence, of course, is nothing new. Fighting is as old as man, and predatory members of our species – disgracefully – have always existed. Likely, they always will exist.
What is new in America is the kind of violence we are experiencing. Our major cities are in some ways terrifying places to live, work, and attempt to enjoy free time in. Apparently motiveless crimes of truly hideous violence are reported frequently in the dailies. The worst, most hatefully evil acts of senseless aggression are reported against people who are simply minding their own business.
A frail, elderly Hispanic gentleman, using a cane to assist his walking, is set upon by a large, powerful, much younger individual who proceeds to beat this poor man almost to death. The elderly man did die, with efforts to help him recover from that beating in a hospital proving futile.
“Knockout punching,” shoving helpless people onto subway tracks, simply jumping and beating people for fun, “wilding,” “flash mobbing,” murdering girlfriends or boyfriends, breaking into apartments or houses and savagely mauling the residents who offer no resistance to the atrocious home invasion and robbery, carjacking, random shootings and more specific shootings for “reasons” so trivial that no one would accept them if presented in television cop shows or in novels, and so on, are now part and parcel of the urban American scene.
So why am I pointing this out? How will emphasizing this most unpleasant fact of urban living help TRENDS readers to defend themselves? I’ll tell you how…
Paramount in becoming able to defend oneself is mindset. Mental conditioning for violent combat is a prerequisite to being fully prepared to successfully deal with unprovoked, insane criminal violence.
Yes, you need to know the practical skills of self-defense – with and without weapons – but all of the technical ability in the world will be of no use if you aren’t fully prepared to use it, and to use it with the right spirit and intent! By confronting with full conscious awareness the gravity of the threat that presents itself, proper mindset becomes easier to acquire, and mental conditioning for violent combat assumes a logical and obvious place of necessity in your education, allowing you to embrace it, despite how foreign it might have been to you, given a civilized and decent existence, up to now.
Dear reader: The situation of horrific predatory violence that is now commonplace and that borders on prehistoric, barbaric savagery, underscores the need for YOU to steel yourself when preparing for self-defense emergencies, and to reconcile the fact that – should this violent savagery come to you – you will MEET IT IN KIND!
You must be aware that a new kind of scum now infects urban America. It is the brainless, worthless, predatory beast that, as Robert Lindner, MD (the psychiatrist who wrote Rebel Without A Cause) noted: “It is the psychopath who rises in great numbers within any society when that society is in the stage of collapse and dissolution.”
The only hope for a decent human being prevailing when he is opposed by a single-minded, uncaring, unfeeling, contemptuous-of-life example of living filth lies in that decent person’s acceptance of a code of warfare that knows no rules.
To defeat the dangerous, brainless, malicious savage you must be WORSE than he is, when you are forced to deal with him. Frankly, this is not possible for everyone. I strongly urge, however, that you make it possible for you.
The very second it becomes clear to you that violent criminal activity is about to be directed or is being directed against you, you must shift– shift instantaneously – to a wild animal ferocity, and to what softer, self-made victims would call “unacceptable, inhuman, savage and gutter-like” action. That which the helpless victim cannot bring himself to do, YOU must be able to do on a fraction of a second’s notice: that is, BRUTALIZE ANOTHER PERSON WITH UTTER INDIFFERENCE AND RELENTLESS SAVAGERY!
The predator who attacks you must immediately become the one whom you now attack… and attack even more brutally and mercilessly than he attacks. You can learn how to do this if you truly want to learn; and you definitely should want to learn this needed survival skill for modern city living. I stress this in all personal instruction and in my DVDs.
Your reaction-response must be fast and furious. No minced words here. Go for the attacker’s eyes. Go for his throat. Kick him solidly in the testicles, or stomp his knee or shinbone – and follow up by pounding every vital point on his body you can reach until you are no longer in danger. Bite him. Sink your teeth into his face or neck and rip a sizable piece of his flesh off. Use the open hand-edge to chop at his windpipe, neck, or nose. Box his ears with your cupped hands, then grab his ears and rip them off his head – or slam his head forward and knee him in the face. Use anything at hand to stab, cut, bludgeon, or choke your assailant. Use anything in your hand that you cannot injure him with to throw in his face and distract him – so that you can break his leg or otherwise inflict grievous injury.
To defeat an enemy, it is wise to know that enemy. Understand the threat he poses, and understand what will be required to neutralize him.
The typical violent offender today is more than willing to cripple or kill his victim for no apparent reason. Watch the video segments that appear on the NY Daily News online of these dregs from sewers, and how they kick fallen and unconscious victims in the head. Or stab people randomly. Or shoot people randomly.
Read the stories of garbage that shoves individuals whom it doesn’t even know onto subway tracks. Or rodents who attack, terrorize, beat, and rape women. These scum constitute a new low in urban American street violence. It is now possible to be beaten, tortured, and killed not because you did, said, or went somewhere undesirable and used poor judgment. All you need do is cross the path of a 21st-century urban predator who is in the mood to torment someone. If you look like you wouldn’t give him too difficult a time, then he may well target you.
Until the human species evolves to a higher level and automatically kills off those who demonstrate that they refuse to live amongst the populace peacefully and productively, and thus must go, the problem will remain with us.
When violent, brainless, good-for-nothing heaps of living sewage experience no punishment for their behavior, it should not be difficult to see them conclude that getting away with more and more of this intolerable conduct will be easy. Why should they stop?
The gravity of self-defense escapes many who view the martial arts as arts primarily… and who never learned and never considered that MARTIAL means “of and pertaining to war.”
War – not sport, not physical fitness, not contest-winning, not acrobatics, not game-playing, not esthetically satisfying movement, not beautiful actions, and not secret methods of magic. “War,” as someone once so aptly pointed out, “is hell.” And only a fool fails to avoid conflicts that are avoidable. But when a violent physical conflict is not avoidable, get it through your head that you will either prevail or fail; and the cost of failure here is simply too high. There is no rematch. No days off from training to recover and prepare for the next fight. It’s now or never; do or die!
As violence has taken a severe turn for the worse in our culture, so the study of self-defense must take a decided turn toward savagery and merciless brutality. No, we didn’t ask for this; but you’d better be damn well sure that you’re fully prepared for it, nevertheless.
